printPartial meltdown, full meltdown, core meltdown: The operative word for the malfunctioning media is “meltdown.” Nuclear meltdown. There is no grand conspiracy, as suggested by Glenn Beck, in mainstream media’s coverage of the earthquake in Japan, only unadorned stupidity. Most media members have not been schooled in the craft of old-fashioned journalism, but in activism. To them, every news story becomes, reflexively, a cause; a reason to promote “awareness,” rather than tell the whole story without zeroing-in on appealing aspects of it. That so many of these outlets settled on the identical front-page lede is indicative of the unanimity in their thinking, of group-think. But, if you suggested to CNN’s Alpha Female Anderson Cooper that an exclusive focus on an angle in a story is itself evidence of bias, you’d just confuse this saccharine simpleton.
To be fair to the next newspapers, they show more fidelity to the truth by referring to “blasts” and “explosions,” rather than end-of-days scenarios:
USAToday: “Explosion rocks Japan nuclear plant”
BBC: “New blast at Japan nuclear plant”
The Washington Times: “Radiation leaks are feared following third a third explosion rocked one of Japan’s three crippled nuclear reactors.”
The following, however, is standard fare:
PBS: “Post-Quake Japan Faces Nuclear Threat”
NYT: “Japan Faces Potential Nuclear Disaster as Radiation Levels Rise”
Spiegel Online: “Fukushima Marks the End of the Nuclear Era”
Buried inside one NYT report was a less overheated tidbit: “To date, even during the four-day crisis in Japan that amounts to the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl, workers had managed to avoid a breach of a containment vessel and had limited releases of radioactive steam to relatively low levels.”
As a consequence, we have not seen nearly enough footage of how impressively the Japanese people are coping; how stoical and courageous they appear in interviews. When CNN’s international correspondent alluded to “scenes of hardship,” the camera cut to a shelter. The images were heartbreaking, to be sure. But, unlike those taken during Katrina, they gave hope. One saw rows of neatly laid-out mats. The elderly were lying down and were snugly tucked in clean blankets. Kids, faces covered with masks, were sweeping the floors industriously.
In other footage, rows of people snaked around the neighborhood as they waited to purchase food and water. No looting and no stealing had been reported. Interviewed, the queuing individuals were grief-struck, but they held it together. To me, this is remarkable. Nobody was screaming for government aid, either.
I’d like to know more about how well the Japanese rescuers are doing. Or how supplies are holding up. But, I guess we are, to an extent, at the mercies of the one-track minded media collective.
Oh yes, I’ve seen quite a few interviews with American experts on the ground … in the USA. “It’s way past Three Mile Island already,’ said physicist Frank von Hippel. ‘The biggest risk now is that the core really melts down and you have a steam explosion.'”
Where exactly was Professor von Hippel situated? At Princeton, New Jersey.
Far fewer have been the interviews with Japanese men and women at ground zero.
UPDATE I (March 15): Some sanity (via Steve Horwitz on Facebook).
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UPDATE II (March 16): “Japan Does Not Face Another Chernobyl.” Apparently “the sales of Geiger counters and potassium iodide supplements that can block some radiation have surged nationwide since Friday, fueled by concerns among some Americans that radiation released from Japanese nuclear plants could spread to the United States.” (Seattle Time)
I’m speechless. Doesn’t happen often. I consider myself on the ball when it comes to health hazards. Come six months, and the dentist and I have our perennial quibble. He wants to X-ray me, I say, “Unless you find something untoward during the exam, your full, refundable, set of X-rays is an event that comes around only every five years.
I wash fruit and veg, down to the berry and the grape, with soapy water; have done so for decades, in order to reduce the ingestion of pesticides. I’m the Howard Hughes of hygiene; I don’t go anywhere without my wet ones. But what I hear from the media and the masses about radiation wafting over from Japan is pure insanity. I don’t heed a word. It’s a shame that America’s journalists get to award themselves for heroism and journalism. These people are stupid sickos. I read at Larry Auster’s that liberals are crazy because they are slaves to tolerance. No; their state of apoplexy comes from their irrationality.
UPDATE III (March 16): Ann Coulter issues a “glowing report on radiation”: “Although it is hardly a settled scientific fact that excess radiation is a health benefit, there’s certainly evidence that it decreases the risk of some cancers – and there are plenty of scientists willing to say so. But Jenny McCarthy’s vaccine theories get more press than Harvard physics professors’ studies on the potential benefits of radiation. (And they say conservatives are anti-science!)”
I remember Three Mile Island where the Boston Globe had the headline “100,000 Pennsylvanians can only hope and pray” and the more ACCURATE National Enquirer had the headline “Nuclear Holocaust A Hoax”. But the Chicken Little media is not to be denied….
Then of course, there was also the “Genocide” in Jenin where a total of 23 Palestinians (and a dozen Jews who, of course, do not count) were killed in street to street fighting.
So far, I am not certain that the nuclear disaster is much more than the radioactive version of a bathroom toilet overflow – e.g. clean up the mess (which is mostly contained).
It sounds like it may be time for a sequel to The China Syndrome just in time for the holidays. Coming soon from Hollywood “The China Syndrome II”. Only this time a team of gay, African orphan adopting, anti-nuclear activists, led by Lady Gaga, will save the day! Don’t be surprised.
I am reminded of the aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing. A network type, Connie Chung I think, was incredulous in asking the police chief or fire chief or whoever why there was no looting. You could tell that the fellow wanted to shout into the microphone that they were in the Oklahoma, not New York. In Japan even the biker gangs and homeless hobos are neat and polite. These American media types would run whimpering with joy to their keyboards if rioting and looting broke out or, even better, if one of those reactors actually did explode. Of course the damage would be blamed on global warming and right wing talk radio.
Is there any other people who can compare to the japanese for their indominatable spirit?
As I listed in the previous article, there is no nuclear problem in Japan. There is a severe food, clothing, shelter problem. The Salvation Army has a relief effort started. I would recommend that we give the money we would spend on news service to someone that can do some good.
Those who criticize our lamestream media are always asking the same questions and making the same statements, over and over: “Don’t they realize that…”, “These idiots haven’t a clue!”, “When will they wake up and…”, “They’re just plain stupid…” and my favorite: “They’re scared to death of…”
Obama and his 40 czars and the lamestream media DO realize what they’re doing, they DO have a clue, they ARE wide awake, they’re NOT stupid (most of them, anyway… Anita Dunn comes to mind) and they’re NOT scared to death of the consequences of their actions.
They’re following a plan to take down the economy of the United States by putting our nation ever deeper into such a fantastic debt that we will never be able to recover. Everywhere we look, every time we turn around, our socialist leaders are handing out more millions of dollars to their loyal followers. And as if this isn’t enough damage, they’re even giving away our tax dollars in multiple plans that all do the same thing and sending our money to non-existent districts around the nation, then ignoring anyone who asks them what in the HELL is going on!
Every day they add the yoke of yet another multi-million or multi-billion dollar expense around our nation’s neck. We’re weighted down with cement-like debt, and it’s about to take us all right to the bottom. And what do we do about it? We keep asking silly, obvious questions and making dumb statements. Anyone with a brain could see what’s going on if they’d just open their eyes and ears, but we need leaders who will step up and put their money where their mouth is, not just ask the same questions and make the same old statements. Somehow, I don’t think that’s ever going to happen. Welcome to the end of the world, all.
It might be good to remind ourselves that from 1945 to 1980 there were 521 atmospheric nuclear tests (plus 2 actual uses in Japan) with an estimated total nuclear yield of 480 Megatonnes. Somehow, though, we managed to survive. I suspect that, in the unlikely event of a complete meltdown at the Japanese nuclear power plant, the result will be nowhere near as dire as the media would have us believe.
I recall that Michael Crichton once wanted to write a novel on a planetary disaster, and thought that the Chernobyl accident would make a good basis for the novel. Upon investigating, he learned that the total number of deaths (immediate and long-term) was estimated to be less than 4,000. Compare this number to CNNs initial estimate of the number of long-term deaths: 3.5 million!
On a different topic, I completely agree with Fred Mueller [above]: Obama and his minions are, in my view, deliberately sabotaging the U.S. economy. They very much want to ruin the country, and financial ruin is apparently easy to do, as there are many willing accomplices in the U. S. Congress.
I am not too sure that the msm do know what they are doing.
Lenin’s description of liberals as useful idiots does however come to mind.
About a decade ago I was the “English editor” for the Polish Academy of Science. Meaning I looked over scientific manuscripts before publication in the academy’s English-langauge journals and made such minor corrections as necessary.
(Not much was actually. Polish scientists generally write very good, English with the occasional awkward turn of phrase. These days my wife, a native Polish speaker, sometimes performs the same service for Americans writing in their own language…)
One of the most interesting papers I edited concerned “radiation phobia,” which the author likened to the witchcraft hysteria of previous ages.
He cited statistics that show the rates of certain kinds of cancers in the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are significantly less than other locations with lower background radiation.
His conclusion was the immune system needs a certain amount of stimulation to stay effective, via exposure to toxins, pathogens, and yes radiation. Total lack of exposure might be as bad as too much.
My son’s English godmother cited a more traditional formulation, “Every child must eat a peck of dirt growing up.”
So Ilana, perhaps you might relax about your fruits and veggies a little.
“Every child must eat a peck of dirt growing up.” Is good advice. I think that washing the pesticides off the fruit and manmade fertilizer off the veggies is helpful; however, a homeopathic doctor whose name escapes me advises that honest soil and everyday contamination is good for children in order to grow up with a healthy immune system. I would agree with that, which comes back to the point of this article. The poor education of American Citizens and the sensationalism of the media is astounding. As numerous reader/writers on this blog have pointed out, we have gone through worse nuclear problems than this, there is nothing serious to worry about. Not that we or the Japanese people should not be concerned, but worry is unnecessary. Japan has proved in the last week that it has very capable people in charge of every phase of this disaster. We should be supporting them and not criticizing.
What concerns me the most about this incident is the simple fact that as of this moment, nuclear power is much safer & far more environmentally friendly source of energy then coal, oil or natural gas. Green tech has a lot of potential but even there you run into problems–solar arrays, for instance, are fairly inefficient & dependent on ming of rare earth minerals. Frankly, we need more, not less nuclear power. Safety & waste disposal will always be problematic but modern nuke reactors are pretty safe compared to other major power sources. Don’t build nuclear plants on fault lines, beneath volcanos & don’t hire Homer Simpson & you’re pretty much okay.
The two healthiest places to live in the US are New England, Ct. and Aspen, Co. Both are heavy rock, higher than average radiation. I refused to move to either. Who wants to live longer in Liberal territory?