JAPAN: People there and people here...

We all have been watching the earthquake / tsunami disaster in Japan and now the developing potential for a nuclear disaster.

I am very impressed by how the Japanese people are conducting themselves in the face of such unprecedented tragedy. People wait in line peacefully for hours waiting their turn for food and water, they help one another at every turn, they improvise and they share meager resources and THERE IS NO LOOTING which is unbelievable to me.

I have also been watching the reactions here in the States to what is happening there.

Diane Sawyer, ABC News anchor and her entire crew are in Japan acting like childish idiots, going into damaged homes to discover bodies? - Or interrupting rescue efforts by asking moronic questions just to get their ratings up? That is not news to me, it is exploitation. I switched to NBC and Brian Williams who remains an anchor here in the States and directs his correspondents in Japan. His voice is calm, serious and sober…he is reporting the news as it should be reported, giving us facts and not an emotional circus show.

Glen Beck said God had something in mind for Japan, what? Is he pulling a Pat Robertson?

The nuclear reactor problems in Japan have got people getting a little bit crazy over here; Senator Lieberman calling for a freeze on new nuclear reactors in the U.S…why? People in California are buying out all available supplies of Potassium iodide just in case the radiation in Japan will drift across the Pacific into California.

At least most of the media outlets have specialists reporting that even in the worst case scenarios, we will not face radioactive fallout but people will be people and even people that should know better are behaving like little children…please stop already.

Japan is the most prepared nation when it comes to earthquakes; they get them quite often. They suffered a 9.0 quake which is the largest in their history. They also suffered a tsunami right after the quake, of unprecedented proportion. Their nuclear reactors were prepared for all sorts of events with many back-up systems in place but Mother Nature gave them something that even their computers did not predict or plan for (a lesson for the future?).

Congressmen are getting media time by questioning the sanity of nuclear reactors in this country in light of the Japanese debacle (shut them all down?) They know Obama is for nuclear power so maybe it’s a political move?

But people, we must stop and think about how safe our systems have been for over 40 years and how we are not positioned geographically like Japan is…except for California kind of.

They say that in the greatest calamities, people find opportunities. Who said that…we will see how this plays out?

Related articles

• Japan Tries To Cool Damaged Nuclear Reactors (npr.org)
• Helicopters Unable to Drop Water Over Japan's Nuclear Reactor. (planenews.com)
• Nuclear Reactor Emergency Explained (cenblog.org)
• Google Earth & GeoEye give an image of overheating nuclear reactors in Japan: Radiation still a major worry (devicemag.com)
• Indonesia still plans nuclear reactors near fault (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Nuclear Snow on Tap for Japan? (blippitt.com)