Tokyo Crisis Update: Nuclear Meltdowns, Drama Queens, TV News and Coca Cola

It has now been reported even in the Japanese media that the foreigners have all freaked out and ran away from Japan. I'm still here reporting to you live from my home in Tokyo on events on the ground here a 150 miles away from the crisis area.

WILLIE WILLIAMS - ARMAGIDEON TIME

First off, let me state unequivocally that the mass media are involved in blatant sensationalism and grotesque scare mongering. Jerks. The crisis area is in Miyagi prefecture. That's 200 kilometers north of Tokyo. In Tokyo, our biggest problems are the store shelves are empty and rumors abound.


If one were to watch the news, it would seem that the entire country is underwater.

"I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!"

I suppose if you understand the beast that is television, then it is understandable why TV broadcasts the wildest scenes possible; that's how they get ratings. It is how they make their living.


For a good rule of thumb about television, always remember this: 90% of everything you see on TV is bullshit. The other 10% are commercials. 


As of this very moment, the real crisis for TV news is how they are desperately trying to hold on to their now rapidly declining viewership as video images of things such as plumes of smoke coming out of a building - shot from a mile away - are not nearly as riveting to their audience as explosions at nuclear power plants. Nor can smoke coming from a building glue an audience to the TV set like towering buildings crumbling into the streets, close ups of massive tsunamis washing rubble, cars, trucks, and buildings across vast lands and destroying hundreds of millions of dollars of infrastructure in their wake. 


Nope. Smoking buildings from afar and people in food lines do not make for exciting TV. 

As with all disasters in the past, the people in the west and Japan - those outside the affected areas - will soon lose interest and then it will be back to whatever Charlie Sheen - or the next Hollywood star like him - is up to this week. 


Japan has their share of scandalous gossip too... But not nearly as bad as the USA.


Call me cold, but that's the way it is in a consumer society.


Do not take my comments as being callous towards the poor unfortunate people whose lives have been forever altered by these tragic events, take these comments as a frontal assault on the sensationalist reporting by the mass media. Because of this sensationalism in the media, People are getting the impression that all of Japan is destroyed. It's just not true. The media are not responsible. They are propagating fear. . 


Once again, do not take my comments wrongly. I am speaking of events in Tokyo now. If someone in, say, Europe wrote to me - while I was living in California - sending their condolences and worries about Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans I would say the same. 

The nuclear accident is happening in Fukushima just south of Sendai

If you want to hear what other Tokyo people have said, here's a good example from Tokyo Trends. You'll be surprised that people are going to the park and still eating out. The Tokyo elementary schools are still in session and life goes on.

Of course I feel sorry for those people whose lives have been forever altered. I apologize in advance if some take my comments as callous. I cannot comment on the situation for the people near the accident site. I can only comment on Tokyo.  

I, like most Tokyo people, have merely been inconvenienced by this incredible chain of events. I do not think, though, that I should adopt a "victim complex" like many people do when these sorts of things occur. I think doing so is dishonest. I believe that taking a "victim complex" identity like many people do only cheapens the experience of those who have truly suffered.

One need only remember the group victim complex shown by Americans after 9/11 for an example of that. As for me, I'm doing my best to suppress my inner "Drama Queen." 

"It is important for all of us to be able to recognize the difference between '

fear' and 'danger'" - Marc Abela

Folks in Tokyo have not suffered. We have been greatly inconvenienced. That's all. That's not to say that many people haven't over reacted and panicked. They have. 

To get a better feel of what the locals think, this morning, I went out and interviewed three Tokyo people about the situation on the ground here.

My next door neighbor told me that she was a bit concerned because she didn't have any food or water stored up and became frightened because of a near panic at the grocery store and because the shelves there were bare. She said she was having her family send water and canned food from Kyushu. She also mentioned that she thinks the Japanese government completely messed up the handling of this situation and contributed to the panic by changing their story every few hours. She thinks that current prime minister Naoto Kan "has to go."

Interestingly, she also told me that her husband worked for Coca-Cola Japan and all the foreign upper-management have gone on unspecified "business trips" (with their families) and have left no return date to their staff. I could tell from the way she said it and her attitude  that she and her husband were disgusted at these people. What dedicated and responsible management, eh? What a great way to build respect for management.

I will, here, take this chance to strongly criticize the foreign management of Coca-Cola Japan for showing such a compete lack of responsibility to their employees and to the Japanese people. So much for Corporate Social Responsibility, eh Coca-Cola? Also, so much for dedication to your work and company. Leaving on a "business trip"? Disgusting. Don't you clowns have the guts to even say that you are running away? Saying that it is a "business trip" allows you to get paid from your company at the same time you skirt your responsibilities all the while you expect that your staff and workers continue on like everyday? If I were your boss, we'd definitely have more than a few words about this. I'd probably fire you.

I can understand you sending your family away... But you running away too? And then expecting to get paid and your employees to carry on in your absence at the same time!? 


Scandalous.

So much for the days of the captain being the last to leave a sinking ship. And, in this case, the ship is not even close to sinking. Coca-Cola wussies. I'll never drink that stuff again.

Chicken Little is currently working in 

upper-management at Coca-Cola Japan

But I digress... Continuing with my neighborhood interviews, I again asked the construction workers a few houses over what they thought about events and they, once again, just shrugged their shoulders. One guy (the same guy I spoke to yesterday) said that he saw on Japanese TV news that the foreigners all left Japan and he thought it was a quite curious happening. He smiled.

But the coup de grace of interviews this morning was that I caught a Tokyo taxi driver in front of my house. If you want to know what the man on the street thinks about in Tokyo, then a Tokyo taxi driver is the guy to ask.

"Business is very bad"

Just like the gangster and police TV shows and movies of old, there's no one who knows better about what's going on on the street than a New York shoeshine boy. We have our version in Japan and those are the Tokyo taxi drivers. These guys have all the scuttlebutt. Here is the short conversation I had with that taxi driver:

Me: What do you think about the events of the last few days?   

Taxi: It's no good at all.

Me: Specifically, what is no good?

Taxi: Business is very bad. There are no customers.

Me: How about the danger to Tokyo? Aren't you worried?

Taxi: Not really. We're okay. The problems are up north. I'm originally from Aomori (Aomori is north of Miyagi). I spoke to my family there and everything is fine. 

Me: What do you think about how the Japanese government has handled this situation?

Taxi: As best they could considering how things kept changing everyday.

Me: Aren't you worried about radiation coming to Tokyo? Why haven't you escaped?

Taxi: Where am I going to escape to? I'm not really worried at all about radiation. We're up wind so we don't really have a problem. What I am worried about is my job as I have no customers.

With that, I said "Bye" as he was working and I didn't want to take up too much of his precious time.

Come to think of it; why should this guy be worried? Most of these Tokyo taxi drivers smoke cigarettes like bandits. They have a much bigger risk of dying from lung cancer than from nuclear radiation. No wonder he seemed so calm; he risks his life two packs a day - everyday! Talk about a real-life Marlboro Man! 

So, ultimately, I guess what I want to say in this blog post is that, as my friend Marc Abela says, "It is important for all of us to be able to recognize the difference between 'fear' and 'danger'." In spite of how much people want to be a part of the collective 'victim complex', if you are not "there" and you are here in Tokyo, then you only add to the fear and do nothing positive for yourself and everyone else. Unfounded fear does nothing except satisfy your Drama Queen desires.

Please try to suppress them. First step that I would recommend is to turn off the TV. Second is to stop drinking the Kool-Aid, or, in this case, stop drinking the Coca-Cola.

UPDATE: FYI... CNN fellow (Sanjay Gupta) relocated up to Akita, around 250km north of Fukushima, and put on a personal radiation monitor … Which said nothing unusual over the past 48 hours, and nothing meaningfully above normal background radiation levels. 


POST UPDATE:  Those who got on a jet plane and escaped from Japan can rest assured in the knowledge that they got 10 times the dosage of radiation when they went through airport security - and another 10 times that while flying in the plane to their destinations - than we've had in Tokyo.