Dealing With Mass Hysteria

The biggest stress and challenge of this crisis for me has been dealing with the fact that the event of a large earthquake aftershock off the coast of Tokyo is quite probable this week and the ongoing crisis at the nuclear reactors in Fukushima.

The second biggest challenge is dealing with the mass hysteria surrounding the situation that has people hording food and supplies (see the photo above of the eggs section at the local supermarket and the water section below), making ignorant and uninformed statements that lead to fear mongering, and the fact there has been a great exodus of people out of the country or out of the Kanto area. This is mostly due to the prospects of radiation clouds being blown into the area from the nuclear reactors. Radiation poisoning is something that really sends people in a panic since it's something they don't understand.  A friend who is in the medical profession had to talk someone out of iodine pills for radiation poisoning in Seattle, Washington yesterday.

There is great distrust with the Japanese government on informing people of what is going on at the reactors-which can not be helped since they cannot get close enough to inspect them yet and are doing their best. The French government has suggested that French citizens evacuate Kanto just in case and western expats are making a huge exodus out of the city. I must know of a dozen. My contact at the US Embassy is following the Japanese line on the crisis-so I can't believe that they are going to put millions of people at risk for fear of setting off a stampede with evacuation-it is 120 miles away and is being somewhat contained-remember people survived Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I think Japanese are easily the most pussyfooted nation in the world and they are largely staying put in this crisis and THAT tells you something. I am not evacuating until I am TOLD to do so.

So how am I passing my time in this crisis?

• Spending much too much time monitoring the fear mongering from emails, social media, and mainstream media.
• Finishing up a correspondence course that will allow me to renew my teacher certification in Washington state (just in case-you never know what the future will bring). It's fairly involved, History 137 "Reconstruction to Present." 12 2-4 page essay assignments (which includes a significant amount of reading), a midterm, a final, and a 8-12 page research paper with 3 book length sources. I already completed the first, HIST 136: "Columbus to Reconstruction," and another course HUM 105: "Interpersonal Communication." However, I enjoy studying history so it's been interesting doing so from an adult and informed perspective. So far I've completed 8 assignments and have started planning for my research paper.
• Recently I have been reading a book on Kindle via my iPhone application and sometimes using the actual Kindle machine, in addition to reading a "physical" paperback book. My current Kindle book is Hitch 22 a memoir by Christopher Hitchens and my current paperback book is I'm Staying With My Boys: The Heroic Life of Sgt. John Basilone, USMC by Jim Proser that was one of the sources used in the HBO miniseries The Pacific.
• I am also re-watching The Pacific on DVD (I had hoped there would be lots of extras in the box set and sadly there are precious few).
• Studying Japanese-I'm using a workbook that is called "Idioms: Basic/Intermediate Level."
• Making my way through Sergio Leone's "Dollars Trilogy." I've already watched A Fistful of Dollars and For A Few Dollars More. Today I plan to watch The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

Comments

[Kraig]

Thanks for the update bro. Glad you are proactively planning for a possible move back to the States at some point. I am sure thatthe school systems here could use another good teacher. Stay safe and let me know if you need anything (except water - can't help you there).

[Udo]

I like your approach. Although the chaos further afield is cause for concern and pity. Udo

[MC]

Thanks guys, I think we'll have to presevere until it is all over.

Udo, we need to catch up over drinks soon-perhaps at Mario's.

[lou]

I watched Pale Rider a few nights ago. Not great, but not bad either. Clint had a young hottie hounding him for some lovin' but he turned her down like a true western gentleman. Chris Penn kinda always rules.

Nice photos of the vacant shelves, LeCoy. If you hear of anyone selling their 70's toy collection during this panic you should pick it up for me, provided you haven't melted into a radioactive slag heap.

I think Godzilla should stomp his way into the nuclear plant creating a channel for the sea water to flow in and cool down those hot hot rods.

[MC]

OK Lou, I'll keep my eyes out for any nuclear toy sales going on.

I finished the Dollars series, perhaps "High Plains Drifter" next.

[seamus]

Sergio Leone saw Akira Kurosawa's "Yojimbo", went home and wrote "Fistful of Dollars". It wasn't an authorized remake, but a ripoff of the film, scene for scene. And I think it lost a lot of the depth in the main character.
http://www.mardecortesbaja.com/blog/_archives/2011/1/8/4703727.html

[seamus]

Leone undertook his cultural remaking of Yojimbo with the express understanding that his Italian production company would purchase the necessary permissions from Toho (Kurosawa’s distributor) to make it an authorised copy – a credited remake. But a ‘nerve-racking moment’ came three-quarters of the way through filming when one of the film’s financiers advised that Leone, and everyone else associated with the film, ‘should refrain under any circumstances from mentioning the word Yojimbo’ For reasons that remain unclear, the rights were never secured, and upon seeing the film Kurosawa wrote to Leone saying: ‘I have just had the chance to see your film. It is a very fine film, but it is my film. Since Japan is a signatory of the Berne Convention on international copyright, you must pay me’.
www.libertiesmedia.com/uploads/2/8/7/2/2872602/film_remakes.pdf

[MC]

Seamus, I have read about this interchange, and I enjoyed both films.