Nuclear Fears and Thoughts
AltJapan article that has helped quell my fears :)
I've been really overworked since there was a big event this past weekend at work. I think that's part of why I'm so on edge and despondent (yet emotional) with the situation in Japan. I feel like there's no one locally I can talk to right now in person or who I can watch the news with. I don't have a TV but just want to find somewhere I can sit glued in front of one to see how the nuclear situation develops. I'm so worried about everyone; I'm on the verge of tears each time the situation worsens. Even if not just for the tragic loss of human life, for the sheer ecological destruction. I offered a place to stay for my best friends in Tokyo if they wanted to flee the country for a while.
I was talking to ------ about whether or not she should come back. They've been given warnings in Tokyo to not eat fish and to not go out in the rain, among other directives. What would I do if I were there, knowing that if I stayed, I could continue fulfilling my dream of being self-supported and working legally in a country I enjoy so dearly, with so many of my friends around? Or if I left, that I would have no job to come back to, but would escape some of the agonies I have seen. TUG and Johnny are definitely staying, and they feel the news is sensationalizing what's going on.
But I feel like news media underestimates the possible effects of radiation exposure. However, this is based on anecdotal evidence and on my readings of Hiroshima, which is more immediate to me personally, but obviously not necessarily representative.
Anecdotal Evidence
1. A really dear friend of mine is in her late 70s and very healthy. There was a hill separating her from the bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima, so when the bomb dropped, she saw the top plumes of it, but avoided the bulk of the fallout. She has children and grandchildren, and they were all healthy and fine. However, there were obviously many others who came to a much worse fate, but the significant difference was whether or not you were in that valley. The radiation is bad, but the slow-killer are ingested and inhaled alpha and beta particles, lodging into your lymph nodes and other glands, decaying in your body for years.
2. A friend of mine from a gallery I used to work at grew up in the area around Chernobyl. All of her family members die of cancer, and young. Granted, the radiation is much more contained in this situation than it was then.
3. A firefighter friend/old coworker of my father's was in the army when they were testing atomic bombs in the US desert (Arizona?). He had to run in right after they blew up bombs and photographed them and grab the cameras and run back. The equipment was still hot to the touch with radiation when they had to get them. They were a mile away when bombs were detonated. The government, of course, denies any responsibility of cancer risk incurred from these tests. He had to get a colostomy in his sixties because his intestines were totally shot with cancer -- very typical of this kind of radiation exposure (whether or not the government acknowledges it). He's fine and in his seventies, but, well, he poops in a bag now. There is always the risk that cancer will come back. A side note about his case is that he was a fireman, and like many firemen, was exposed to a lot of burning plastics (a huge percentage of firemen die of cancer).
What all this means, I just don't know. There are word jumbles and images floating above me right now and out of reach.
恐れな日々が早く終わせることを心よりお祈りしております。
I've been really overworked since there was a big event this past weekend at work. I think that's part of why I'm so on edge and despondent (yet emotional) with the situation in Japan. I feel like there's no one locally I can talk to right now in person or who I can watch the news with. I don't have a TV but just want to find somewhere I can sit glued in front of one to see how the nuclear situation develops. I'm so worried about everyone; I'm on the verge of tears each time the situation worsens. Even if not just for the tragic loss of human life, for the sheer ecological destruction. I offered a place to stay for my best friends in Tokyo if they wanted to flee the country for a while.
I was talking to ------ about whether or not she should come back. They've been given warnings in Tokyo to not eat fish and to not go out in the rain, among other directives. What would I do if I were there, knowing that if I stayed, I could continue fulfilling my dream of being self-supported and working legally in a country I enjoy so dearly, with so many of my friends around? Or if I left, that I would have no job to come back to, but would escape some of the agonies I have seen. TUG and Johnny are definitely staying, and they feel the news is sensationalizing what's going on.
But I feel like news media underestimates the possible effects of radiation exposure. However, this is based on anecdotal evidence and on my readings of Hiroshima, which is more immediate to me personally, but obviously not necessarily representative.
Anecdotal Evidence
1. A really dear friend of mine is in her late 70s and very healthy. There was a hill separating her from the bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima, so when the bomb dropped, she saw the top plumes of it, but avoided the bulk of the fallout. She has children and grandchildren, and they were all healthy and fine. However, there were obviously many others who came to a much worse fate, but the significant difference was whether or not you were in that valley. The radiation is bad, but the slow-killer are ingested and inhaled alpha and beta particles, lodging into your lymph nodes and other glands, decaying in your body for years.
2. A friend of mine from a gallery I used to work at grew up in the area around Chernobyl. All of her family members die of cancer, and young. Granted, the radiation is much more contained in this situation than it was then.
3. A firefighter friend/old coworker of my father's was in the army when they were testing atomic bombs in the US desert (Arizona?). He had to run in right after they blew up bombs and photographed them and grab the cameras and run back. The equipment was still hot to the touch with radiation when they had to get them. They were a mile away when bombs were detonated. The government, of course, denies any responsibility of cancer risk incurred from these tests. He had to get a colostomy in his sixties because his intestines were totally shot with cancer -- very typical of this kind of radiation exposure (whether or not the government acknowledges it). He's fine and in his seventies, but, well, he poops in a bag now. There is always the risk that cancer will come back. A side note about his case is that he was a fireman, and like many firemen, was exposed to a lot of burning plastics (a huge percentage of firemen die of cancer).
What all this means, I just don't know. There are word jumbles and images floating above me right now and out of reach.
恐れな日々が早く終わせることを心よりお祈りしております。