Posted on 03/18/2011 3:14:49 PM PDT by NoLibZone
Most victims have endured their privations with stoicism, but anger is rising over lack of basic services. For many, the slow response is reminiscent of that to the quake in Kobe in 1995.
There may be radioactive particles wafting out of the sky, but Masahiro Hamaguchi has a more pedestrian concern about the air around him: the dribble of cold, wet snow.
A week after the deadly earthquake and even deadlier tsunami that have devastated Japan, newly homeless huddle hungry and cold in emergency shelters. And people are wondering where, exactly, their government is.
"I need something, anything, to warm my body," said Hamaguchi, 58, a burly man trying to stay warm under a thin red raincoat. "I have no winter clothing. It was all destroyed."
The only clothes Hamaguchi found in his home overlooking battered Kesennuma Bay were some wet underwear. He stuffed them into a plastic bag that he strapped to his back with a red-and-navy striped necktie, a reminder of his job as a municipal bureaucrat, held until his world imploded a week ago. In his arms, he carried a framed drawing of Kannon, the Buddhist goddess of compassion, a gift from his calligraphy teacher.
"I can't worry about a cloud of radiation 120 miles away because the destruction is so big here," he said, noting the lack of food, clothing, electricity, heat and telephone service.
Most victims have endured their privations with stoicism, but anger is rising over the lack of basic services. For Hamaguchi and others, this is looking familiar. After a major quake in Kobe in 1995, organized crime groups were handing out blankets and food within hours; the government dithered for days. Afterwards, officials pledged to speed up decision-making and marshaling of resources to stricken areas in times of crisis.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
They should come to the US. They’ll see it everywhere.
Send em to Utah with all the illegals. A Republican dominated state of mormoms - passing amnesty for illegal. Evil all over america.
Maybe Kan hates yellow people? Hey, it worked for Spike Lee!!
And I’m sitting here with a pile of old winter coats. Wish I could drop them off at the shelter.
Bush’s fault.
Yes, this is Jimmy Carter's Moral Equivalent of War with big teeth. I read the entire article carefully. It really isn't very long and doesn't say a lot other than some Japanese and an American of Japanese descent who did manage to get to the quake zone to apparently flog his company's services, are complaining about a lack of responsiveness. The article correctly states that the Japanese civil authorities stood around asking each other what to do after the Kobe quake and were relentlessly resistant to asking the Self Defense Forces (the military) to commence operations. (Japan has more than its share of stupid weak hysterical liberals who really hate the armed forces and wish they could be abolished. Plenty of these types are found in the civil government. Now that is a surprise (sacasm off).
However, I am deeply suspicious of anything the state run media comes up with. Today on Fox (about 10 AM CDT) while the talking heads were yammering “radiation’ ‘menace’ ‘oh the humanity’ there were run a number of short segments of the Japanese Maritime and Ground SDF apparently arriving in force in the quake zone and unloading substantial amounts of materiel and rolling stock. No discussion of these pictures of course so I can't tell you where this was or even if it was just some stock footage intermixed with a little new film. The coverage of the recovery operations has been below abysmal by the lame stream media. This sets anew low for displays of journalistic competence and professionalism. I hate these people.
LOL.
Or it’s racisit!
That's all you have to know about the bias of this article.........Obviously only the government can help the survivors.
No mention of all the relief agencies, totally separate from government funding and far more pro-active and effective, who are currently on site................
The LA Times obviously sees the stark contrasts between Japan and New Orleans and it makes them uneasy.
my impression is that the MSM is trying to bury the story as much as they can ala Blue Sky.
If they show survivors, then people are also reminded that we have had 4 pots of boiling radiocativity on the stove for 5 days now and people might start asking more penetrating questions.
Questions like why isn’t it news that rads were detected in Sacramento (where it’s raining) and higher in Seattle. This reading is from what was leaked 5 days ago, i.e., the day of the earthquake, after going over the ocean a few thousand miles and being supposedly ‘massively diluted’.
Or why nobody knows or is telling what the rad level in Japan is right now.
or why xenon is present and what other nasties does the presence of xenon indicate are also present? : “Xenon-133 is a gas produced in nuclear fission “that poses no concern at the detected level.”
http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-03-minuscule-radioactivity-japan.html
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704608504576208840531837916.html
Please tell us again a mechanism that could transport fallout from Japan to California in real-time.
I smell fear-mongering.
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