Two things in one day have started my fist a-shaking.
First, I read in the wee hours of the morning before sleep but after a lot of wine that Japan's nuclear disaster continues to rage without any moment for rest and respite. Oh, right, because it's powered by nuclear rods which didn't come equipped with an on/off switch. When I read this article from the Radio New Zealand site that reported "radiation levels 10 million times higher than it should be for water inside the reactor," I immediately slurred an epithet directed toward the owners of the Tokyo Electric Power Company and then I took an aspirin because me and the vino are fair-weather friends.
Then, after a short sleep fueled by fitful dreams of teenagers-- always a nightmarish addition to sleep vision-- camping on my deck and practicing embarrassing hip hop moves, I awoke to this BBC article and video which describes the frightening spike-- an order of magnitude above appropriate radiation levels-- as a mistake. Okay. I guess. But, really? Do we just keep accepting this disjointed and anorexic information at face value? Or maybe it's time to do some fist-shaking?
After admitting its mistake and offering an apology (which, really, has to be as welcome as the pimply cousin who has to play bad piano at Christmas), Tepco revised the levels measured to 100,000 times normal. In their revision, I can't help but think that there's too much soothing apology and too little straightforward explanation of the continued danger presented by this dire situation. I'm certainly happy that the radiation levels were incorrectly read last night, but the levels now reported-- 100,000 times higher than what would be tolerated normally-- still demand a serious gut check. A worker spending an hour face-to-face with that kind of radioactivity would be exposed to four times the acceptable level of radiation for an entire year. Meanwhile, incomprehensible explanations are being offered for those elevated levels: yes, it's fuel rods; yes, they've temporarily melted down; no, there are no leaks. Maybe it was the big wave that washed the water out from around the rods into these now ominous puddles. Maybe. Maybe it was a radioactive supervillain who took a piss into the reactor. Maybe!
I feel immensely sorry for the Japanese people who are so altruistic, even in the face of tragedy, and yet somehow not provided the full story they deserve in their recovery. No matter how patient or pragmatic a population may be, it still deserves correct information and it deserves a game plan. What happens next? Is Tepco attempting to recover functionality in the hope that the plant can be used again? Is Tepco the appropriate actor to police its own disaster? Will Tepco try to save the land for its future use? Will it be contaminated for decades?
This ProPublica article helpfully suggests that the effects of the nuclear disaster will not spread beyond a local reach. Granted, the article is now 10 days old and relies heavily on experts based in the U.S. But a positive point that deserves repetition is that the cores are cooler now, lacking the same energy they would have had when operational. So, while contamination remains possible, the effects of even a worst-case scenario meltdown would be manageable with prompt evacuation of additional areas.
So, maybe that's good. But, wouldn't it feel a whole lot better if this kind of analysis came from Japan? Because, as much as I like to think that the overseas experts' assessments are correct, I can't help but suspect that what the experts call "manageable" might be mismanaged by Tepco at this point. And because of that, I'm shaking my fist at them.
And finally, while still muttering epithets though not influenced by copious amounts of wine, I'm also shaking my fist at anyone who thinks that private enterprise can be expected to properly take care of our social welfare. Because, frankly, that's not in their interest. Even when their society is the most altruistic among us.
Monday, March 28, 2011
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
We can't replace what's lost but we can help restore It (hopefully).
I'm so relieved to learn that both Sachi and Masa are happy and healthy and raising families far from the destruction unleashed by the March 11 quake and tsunami. And I'm happy the distance that time wedged between us collapsed as quickly a moment. And maybe it was only just a moment after all.
Although my friends are okay, the friends of many others are not. The families of others are not. Please take a moment to donate anything you can to the recovery efforts. There are still 500,000 people without homes. That means half a million people without the clothes in their closets, the food in their cupboards, the keepsakes from happier times and mementos of loved ones who've passed, the bundles of letters, the albums of photos, the stacks of read books and walls of painted memories. For all these people, the anchors we drop to secure our pasts have been cut. They'll be fine, thankfully. But life, for them, has been interrupted.
And then there are those who remain missing or have died. Almost 10,000 are confirmed dead and another 12,000 are missing. When I was a little girl, maybe 7 years old, I read about 250 marines killed in Beirut and tried to understand exactly what that meant. I imagined all the kids in my classroom lining up on the field. And I added the fourth-graders in the class next door. Then I added the kindergartners. That only got me 70 but it was too many already. I stopped lining up kids in my head because I couldn't bear to imagine 250 of us wiped away from that day, from recess, and dinner with our moms at night, and bike rides back to school in the morning.
I thought about trying to line up groups of people to fathom the loss of 10,000 people in a single, devastating event but I couldn't even start. Instead, I made a donation, in the hope that the recovery and reconstruction in Japan will be quick, and that people will rise from the suffering, and that they will begin to find new mementos and keepsakes to remind them of their hopes for the future.
From the U.S., you can make easy donations of $10 to several organizations by text as follows:
- American Red Cross: text REDCROSS to 90999
- Save the Children: text JAPAN to 20222
- Mercy Corps: text MERCY to 25383
The mobile giving campaign of American Red Cross is organized by the mGive Foundation. The campaigns for Save the Children and Mercy Corps is organized by Mobile Giving.
From New Zealand, the NZ Red Cross has started a campaign to collect donations to benefit the Japanese Red Cross. You may consider donating to both the Japan relief efforts as well as the continuing work of the NZ Red Cross in Christchurch.
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Ages ago... in Japan
I lived in Japan. And I loved it. I loved the cobblestones that predated me and my bloodlines by centuries. I loved the smoky flavor of humid summer air outside of temples and the crackle of fireworks along cool riverbanks. I loved the polite way old people ignored me because they couldn't understand my horrible Japanese when I first arrived. I loved the way they would refer me to someone younger who would have the patience to tolerate my persistent slaughter of their language or interrupt me with much more tolerable English. I admit I tired of the stubborn stares on trains, where I towered over everyone, male and female, but I love the memory now.
I remember bicycles, "borrowed" occasionally when the trains had stopped running and the night was too nice to abandon for a love hotel. I remember the cops, too, advising me and my friend that we should never "borrow" bicycles again. I love that they let us go, at dawn, after serving us tea.
I lived in Japan over two long summers, the first in 95, the second in 97. Between the two visits, I studied Japanese and found an internship that would provide me with housing in exchange for my work. The first time, I lived in Hachioji, a suburb near Tokyo, with a dear friend and her family who never treated me as anything but one of their own and who I dearly miss. The second time, I wanted to give back a little, although my family in Hachioji might have questioned my reasons. In any case, the second time, I lived in Kyoto, at a home for children either abandoned by or removed from their families. I was the kids' oneesan, or big sister. I helped with laundry, homework, dinners, bath time and gossip. I was best at the gossip. The older girls loved to tell me about the boys they loved. I loved to ask crucial questions about their heartthrobs' good looks and future prospects, which made them laugh and laugh and laugh, initially with hands held shyly in front of their smiles and, later, like beams of sunlight that wouldn't be contained by their discreet hands.
I haven't been back to Japan since 1997 and over time, I've lost touch with my best friends who inspired me to visit their homes in the first place. They never joined facebook and we communicated through texts until my number changed or their numbers changed and neither of them spent time on email. Sachi, Masa: I miss you and think of you and love you still, and your families (and your funny, little children who I imagine as small versions of the girls I knew in high school, with all the same silly humor and irreverence) often.
I'm pretty sure you're both okay, based on dreams I keep having of us three, walking with arms linked, through New York's Central Park, and also based on everything I know of you both. Sachi, you should be in Tokyo or maybe somewhere greener where you'll carve wood with looping curliques. Masa, on some small island near Okinawa. Your families, from what I remember, shouldn't be anywhere north of Tokyo. Your husbands' families, they should be near you, or in the West, but not in the North. I'm relying on faulty memory, but it comports with the dreams, in which Sachi is willful and Masa is falling down in front of approaching cabs but never hurt because her laugh draws everyone around to protect and save her. Like honey, that laugh. (I've checked the people finder and neither of you are on it, as you should not be. Because you're only missing from my life, a sadness that I know will be relieved someday and it will be a day full of belly-aching laughter when it comes.)
In the meantime, I send all my prayers to the people of Japan, that they will find peace amid the devastation and will not suffer long even in those insufferable conditions. I pray for everyone who has been lost and everyone who has lost someone and I pray for everyone who has lost a home that they find shelter and warmth and I pray for everyone who needs food and water that they will be comforted. And I pray silently too for all the things that I can't voice but that all of us, I think, are feeling around the world as we see the brave but distraught faces of people who have lost everything.
If you can, please give money to an NGO already established and prepared to assist with the relief efforts in Japan. Save the Children is one.
I remember bicycles, "borrowed" occasionally when the trains had stopped running and the night was too nice to abandon for a love hotel. I remember the cops, too, advising me and my friend that we should never "borrow" bicycles again. I love that they let us go, at dawn, after serving us tea.
I lived in Japan over two long summers, the first in 95, the second in 97. Between the two visits, I studied Japanese and found an internship that would provide me with housing in exchange for my work. The first time, I lived in Hachioji, a suburb near Tokyo, with a dear friend and her family who never treated me as anything but one of their own and who I dearly miss. The second time, I wanted to give back a little, although my family in Hachioji might have questioned my reasons. In any case, the second time, I lived in Kyoto, at a home for children either abandoned by or removed from their families. I was the kids' oneesan, or big sister. I helped with laundry, homework, dinners, bath time and gossip. I was best at the gossip. The older girls loved to tell me about the boys they loved. I loved to ask crucial questions about their heartthrobs' good looks and future prospects, which made them laugh and laugh and laugh, initially with hands held shyly in front of their smiles and, later, like beams of sunlight that wouldn't be contained by their discreet hands.
I haven't been back to Japan since 1997 and over time, I've lost touch with my best friends who inspired me to visit their homes in the first place. They never joined facebook and we communicated through texts until my number changed or their numbers changed and neither of them spent time on email. Sachi, Masa: I miss you and think of you and love you still, and your families (and your funny, little children who I imagine as small versions of the girls I knew in high school, with all the same silly humor and irreverence) often.
I'm pretty sure you're both okay, based on dreams I keep having of us three, walking with arms linked, through New York's Central Park, and also based on everything I know of you both. Sachi, you should be in Tokyo or maybe somewhere greener where you'll carve wood with looping curliques. Masa, on some small island near Okinawa. Your families, from what I remember, shouldn't be anywhere north of Tokyo. Your husbands' families, they should be near you, or in the West, but not in the North. I'm relying on faulty memory, but it comports with the dreams, in which Sachi is willful and Masa is falling down in front of approaching cabs but never hurt because her laugh draws everyone around to protect and save her. Like honey, that laugh. (I've checked the people finder and neither of you are on it, as you should not be. Because you're only missing from my life, a sadness that I know will be relieved someday and it will be a day full of belly-aching laughter when it comes.)
In the meantime, I send all my prayers to the people of Japan, that they will find peace amid the devastation and will not suffer long even in those insufferable conditions. I pray for everyone who has been lost and everyone who has lost someone and I pray for everyone who has lost a home that they find shelter and warmth and I pray for everyone who needs food and water that they will be comforted. And I pray silently too for all the things that I can't voice but that all of us, I think, are feeling around the world as we see the brave but distraught faces of people who have lost everything.
If you can, please give money to an NGO already established and prepared to assist with the relief efforts in Japan. Save the Children is one.
Friday, March 11, 2011
Blessed by Nyquil
For days now-- forever, I'm telling you-- I've been sick. I'm not going to be melodramatic, but I've been singed, I swear, in whichever of Dante's infernal circles includes crusty, cruddy head colds. The fifth? I'll admit, I'm sullen now. Or maybe the ninth, because there can be no doubt that my body has committed treason against me. After the first long 24 hours of sleepless breathlessness--or was it breathless sleeplessness?-- I decided to fight back.
I'm usually a sucker for the holistic approaches. You'd know that about me by now, right? I may not enthuse over other people's kidlets, but I like compassion. I hate politics, but I love to think we might be better than our elected reps believe. Certainly, we're better than our elected reps. I digress. You'll understand why in a moment, unless you are so canny to have already guessed. In general, I favor that hippiest of non-ornamental ceramics: the neti pot. (Note: I don't use a single-malt in my neti pot.) I also like breathing in eucalyptus and camphor to clear my nose. But, my friend, what was I to do when neither of these worked well enough to promise an adequate oxygen supply to my vital organs? That's right. I ingested heaps of cold medicine.
If you haven't figured it out already, I'm still suffering (seizing from?) their effects.
For the last two and a half days, I've been sucking down a cocktail of nyquil, dayquil, mucinex (so onomatopoeic, these half-hearted remedies), alka seltzer cold and panadol. In the past, only one of these would have sufficed and I would have slept loudly through a night and day, or, if it was dayquil, ground my teeth energetically until work was done and then slept loudly through an evening, exactly as my 10 bucks hoped they would do. But, apparently, these medicines won't work independently in the antipodes. And I am left to suffer and seize.
Fortunately, I've discovered that, in collaboration, they will at least make my cold more fun. I feel a little like I headed out to a rave without troubling myself to leave the couch, pop a light stick, or apply sparkly eyeshadow. For the last two nights, high on everything in the medicine chest, expired or not, that promised to clear my head, I've woken up at hourly intervals singing Lady Gaga. I kinda sorta wanted to dance, but it would have been so tricky to find the right floor in my whirling room. (You wondered why dance floor have lights?) Luckily, I managed to see the urge for what it was: a pathetic attempt by subversive, restless legs and twitching fingers to channel their frantic pizazz. I will now start to walk it out.
Ah, well. Good times down here. I'm going to go see if I can't clear up that giant black cobweb creeping over the window. Or... wait. Nevermind.
I'm usually a sucker for the holistic approaches. You'd know that about me by now, right? I may not enthuse over other people's kidlets, but I like compassion. I hate politics, but I love to think we might be better than our elected reps believe. Certainly, we're better than our elected reps. I digress. You'll understand why in a moment, unless you are so canny to have already guessed. In general, I favor that hippiest of non-ornamental ceramics: the neti pot. (Note: I don't use a single-malt in my neti pot.) I also like breathing in eucalyptus and camphor to clear my nose. But, my friend, what was I to do when neither of these worked well enough to promise an adequate oxygen supply to my vital organs? That's right. I ingested heaps of cold medicine.
If you haven't figured it out already, I'm still suffering (seizing from?) their effects.
For the last two and a half days, I've been sucking down a cocktail of nyquil, dayquil, mucinex (so onomatopoeic, these half-hearted remedies), alka seltzer cold and panadol. In the past, only one of these would have sufficed and I would have slept loudly through a night and day, or, if it was dayquil, ground my teeth energetically until work was done and then slept loudly through an evening, exactly as my 10 bucks hoped they would do. But, apparently, these medicines won't work independently in the antipodes. And I am left to suffer and seize.
Fortunately, I've discovered that, in collaboration, they will at least make my cold more fun. I feel a little like I headed out to a rave without troubling myself to leave the couch, pop a light stick, or apply sparkly eyeshadow. For the last two nights, high on everything in the medicine chest, expired or not, that promised to clear my head, I've woken up at hourly intervals singing Lady Gaga. I kinda sorta wanted to dance, but it would have been so tricky to find the right floor in my whirling room. (You wondered why dance floor have lights?) Luckily, I managed to see the urge for what it was: a pathetic attempt by subversive, restless legs and twitching fingers to channel their frantic pizazz. I will now start to walk it out.
Ah, well. Good times down here. I'm going to go see if I can't clear up that giant black cobweb creeping over the window. Or... wait. Nevermind.
Friday, March 4, 2011
I hate hate speech.
And I'm protected in my right to say it. I'm also protected should I choose to spend a somber afternoon protesting a soldier's funeral with signs that read, "Thank God for Dead Soldiers," "God Hates You," "Not Blessed Just Cursed," "Fag Troops," "You're Going to Hell," and "Thank God for 9/11." I can hold the signs wherever I want, in fact, barring some municipal or state restriction on the proximity of protesters in certain areas or during certain events. Yay! This is great. I'm going to finish this post and paint some pep rally posters telling the world to fuck off. I'll send it to friends in the States since I'm not sure of my footing down here.
In a completely unsurprising decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Snyder v. Phelps that the Westboro Baptist Church (not actually a Baptist church but an unaffiliated congregation composed mostly of Phelps large and legally astute extended family) may display its provocative signs on public land because they "reflect the fact that the church finds much to condemn in modern society." Yes, well. Wouldn't it be great if they could be a bit more articulate in their woeful expression?
And once again, we get to consider the First Amendment in its naked, occasionally warty, often with a seething rash, definitely unshaved glory. Following the shooting in Congresswoman Giffords in Tuscon, I wrote on this blog about that robust freedom of expression and the civic responsibility that we all should be proud to model in our utilization of it. That's right, I said it: responsibility. We actually have a responsibility toward people we don't even know. We don't pull our pants down in front of them and we don't curse at them. In other words, we shouldn't act like slobbering drunk douchebags when we express our political, religious or otherwise ideological passions. It's a good responsibility, I promise. It comes back around to your benefit, like karma and dinner party invitations.
I'm enough of a people-lover to hope that the Court's ruling in this case will challenge even the most headstrong free speech proponents among us, and I count myself in that group, to stop for a moment to consider the speech that we get to make and the effect it will have on those to whom we make it. I'm enough of a misanthrope to think that whatever thought is given to the issue will probably disappear in the vacuum of political, financial, emotional, existential strife that is so much nicer to selfishly hold. Have you noticed how befriending a neighbor is so suspect these days? Senseless acts like that befuddle the strife. Anyhoo.
If you can bother to neglect your personal strife for a moment, the Westboro decision ought to challenge you to reconcile your notions of decency with the clearly offensive, potentially defamatory, and plausibly assaultive language the Church shouts from its bright placards. And as you confront that challenge, be mindful of the minefield obstructing your path. Wherever you step, our modern chatter threatens bone-crunching abuse, embarrassing accusations against whatever we believe, and hateful target practice should we disagree. Oh, and when those mines explode, we hear the big boom over and over in the echo chamber of our media until we've normalized the trauma.
I confess: I'm heartened by Alito's lone dissent (oh my, really?) and his comment that "our profound national commitment to free and open debate is not a license for the vicious verbal assault that occurred in this case." Sometimes, those dissents, even by justices that I don't want to like, are worthwhile for the little snack of consideration they provide. I don't agree that the First Amendment should be further abridged, but I'm grateful that Alito scowled on the record. Oh oh, you see how I did that? I just gave a compliment to a man with whom I disagree on a ton of issues.
As anyone who's ever loved another will know, communication can be painful. In society, as in relationships, we owe it to ourselves to consider our words before we speak, to balance their heft against the consequence of their fall, to soften the edges so we can be heard and enjoy the pleasure of a shared bed or city square. Otherwise, we become this:
And really, I think we can all agree, the protesters and elected officials in that video are no better than a bunch of slobbering douchebags with way too many flags to wave.
In a completely unsurprising decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Snyder v. Phelps that the Westboro Baptist Church (not actually a Baptist church but an unaffiliated congregation composed mostly of Phelps large and legally astute extended family) may display its provocative signs on public land because they "reflect the fact that the church finds much to condemn in modern society." Yes, well. Wouldn't it be great if they could be a bit more articulate in their woeful expression?
And once again, we get to consider the First Amendment in its naked, occasionally warty, often with a seething rash, definitely unshaved glory. Following the shooting in Congresswoman Giffords in Tuscon, I wrote on this blog about that robust freedom of expression and the civic responsibility that we all should be proud to model in our utilization of it. That's right, I said it: responsibility. We actually have a responsibility toward people we don't even know. We don't pull our pants down in front of them and we don't curse at them. In other words, we shouldn't act like slobbering drunk douchebags when we express our political, religious or otherwise ideological passions. It's a good responsibility, I promise. It comes back around to your benefit, like karma and dinner party invitations.
I'm enough of a people-lover to hope that the Court's ruling in this case will challenge even the most headstrong free speech proponents among us, and I count myself in that group, to stop for a moment to consider the speech that we get to make and the effect it will have on those to whom we make it. I'm enough of a misanthrope to think that whatever thought is given to the issue will probably disappear in the vacuum of political, financial, emotional, existential strife that is so much nicer to selfishly hold. Have you noticed how befriending a neighbor is so suspect these days? Senseless acts like that befuddle the strife. Anyhoo.
If you can bother to neglect your personal strife for a moment, the Westboro decision ought to challenge you to reconcile your notions of decency with the clearly offensive, potentially defamatory, and plausibly assaultive language the Church shouts from its bright placards. And as you confront that challenge, be mindful of the minefield obstructing your path. Wherever you step, our modern chatter threatens bone-crunching abuse, embarrassing accusations against whatever we believe, and hateful target practice should we disagree. Oh, and when those mines explode, we hear the big boom over and over in the echo chamber of our media until we've normalized the trauma.
I confess: I'm heartened by Alito's lone dissent (oh my, really?) and his comment that "our profound national commitment to free and open debate is not a license for the vicious verbal assault that occurred in this case." Sometimes, those dissents, even by justices that I don't want to like, are worthwhile for the little snack of consideration they provide. I don't agree that the First Amendment should be further abridged, but I'm grateful that Alito scowled on the record. Oh oh, you see how I did that? I just gave a compliment to a man with whom I disagree on a ton of issues.
As anyone who's ever loved another will know, communication can be painful. In society, as in relationships, we owe it to ourselves to consider our words before we speak, to balance their heft against the consequence of their fall, to soften the edges so we can be heard and enjoy the pleasure of a shared bed or city square. Otherwise, we become this:
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)