QUAKE UPDATES Day 11 +++

Had the trio stay over Sunday-Monday, on Sunday took them for lunch to Hot Station, where we ate outside in a field of nanohana with (nanohana in our bento!) beneath the snowy mountains, then went to get some spring water - which the girls love to do - then back home to our very own mountains of private snow that have arisen from the multiple shovelings of the deck over the ages of this winter, so the ladyettes could make snow men and in Kaya's case (quite the little artist) a snow rabbit. In mid-task she asked if we had some red berries, we had none; I thought a minute and gave her a small dried red pepper from a bunch hanging on the wall and her face lit up; I went out later to see what she had made and it was a wee snow rabbit with its wee snowfriend. Fun till bed, when they made a nest for themselves in an upstairs room, settled in under the big blankets, yawned and were asleep.

I did the same. Woke to laughter of Echo and the girls downstairs at breakfast... how quickly the young recover... giggles are a major gift of nature, good for every ill... and what bright energy the girls are now, for these moment untroubled and happy, with fun to be had... Kasumi was better by Monday and came to join us for the day, which was when we took the photo.

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Started to order some stuff from the US via the internet the other day and at checkout was told: "Shipments to Japan will be delayed indefinitely." Apparently, all cargo transport is being commandeered for aid etc. for an indeterminate time, which is fully ok with me, but it was something of a shock to discover that sources abroad are cut off 'indefinitely.' Saw no news about that in the media; or when private shipments will be restored...

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"Now I just feel hatred towards TEPCO," he says. "It is very difficult for me to say this since I have worked for them for 18 years. But I just think they should come clean with all the information they have."

Company's Handling Of Nuclear Crisis Sparks Anger

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One positive aspect to these catastrophic events, and historically perhaps the most remarkable, judging from what I've experienced here and in these past few days, is that because of the media revolution the world has just had its first genuine experience of The Global Community, its first real full-spectrum sense of how we are all in this together.

Japan's harrowing disaster, in all its horrible reality, was borne at the speed of light directly to the eyes and hearts of different cultures all around the world, whose people could right now see and be with and among the victims of quake, tsunami, radiation accidents; they could share the plight of countless of their fellow humans as never before in history-- oceans different from seeing in the morning paper over coffee a photo of some buildings fallen yesterday somewhere else in the world with another Thousands Die headline, then heading off to work...

In this new instant, the world became Japan and Japan the world. For the first time in history, we all felt it: we are all in this together. This was not politics, this was not spin, this was life - our life - all of us, here on this small blue spaceship. I believe that this will go down in history as a major turning point in the hopeful advance of civilization... If we can maintain our native integrity, keep our minds clear and learn to learn what we are being taught...

 

QUAKE UPDATES Day 4 ++

I have been asked a number of times where folks can donate to help alleviate and overcome this disaster. So much is needed, of so many things. This link is to the best list I've seen of reputable organizations through and to which one can donate.        (big thanks to Kimberlye...)

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No endless "talents" on tv! No ads! No sports! It's real tv, telling real words, with real emotion, about real events! Folks in Tokyo stocking up on radiation masks and bottled water, real food! Gasoline!

A beautiful girl about 12 years old, camera-lit in the dark of the crowded gym, forlorn and tearless, says: "I have no family... I have no home... I have no food... now I know how really happy I used to be..."

Kasumi and family are hanging in there through the aftershocks in their chaotic apartment, thinking the future over... electricity on and off but no water yet, the girls are making the best of it, fortunately K and they went camping last summer for the first time so they knew together what to take fast when the time came in the dark of the shaking apartment: light, water, warm clothing, dense foods... and Kasumi learned from her parents (that's us) to have a good backstock of food in the house... the shops that still exist ration sales in the dark, and are all emptied fast... a friend from a nearby town called Kasumi, desperate for gasoline, asked if there were any open gas stations near her house, but he finally gave up... one station with a line for miles... the owner was tiredly pumping out by hand what gasoline was left... no deliveries coming anytime soon... Tatsuya and so many others called by their companies, told not to come to work until notified... Toyota, Sony, Honda, Nissan, Panasonic also closing down for who knows how long due to absence of infrastructure-- no utilities, ports, roads, rails.. injured/missing/homeless employees... and who will rebuild there? A third reactor has exploded, rolling blackouts everywhere in the north, including Tokyo...

Some foreign journos are puzzled over the protracted absence of looting in Japan following the long quake, like they see everywhere else in the world in the wake of natural devastation-- Chile Haiti etc.... Where are all the looters in Japan they wonder, it’s been three days, where are they... fact is, those poor folks have never lived anywhere as deeply civilized as this country... yes, this level of civility can be achieved, but it may take a few millennia...

They just can't figure it out, though; there must be some reason-- they must want to loot, they must be like us, they'd loot if they could... No, it's because they have respect for one another right from the start, earthquake or no. And as to gangs? One of the most helpful groups at the local level in the ‘95 Kobe quake was the yakuza.

This morning on the way to work I passed several groups of young folks out on the streets with boxes for donations to help the earthquake needy... they were shouting "help the victims" and so forth, the open-topped boxed in their hands were filled to overflowing with bills and coins, and I am certain that not one yen of all that money will be filched, misdirected, or snatched by sly passersby-- it will all go where it is intended to go. That’s why there was so much in those boxes, why folks were so willing to give on the street to strangers: because they trust one another. Anything else would be unthinkable. That characteristic of the Japanese is their biggest asset in overcoming any difficulty, even devastation like this, the images of which at times remind me of the aftermath of Hiroshima. Look what these folks accomplished after that.

Millions homeless, cold night, snow falling up north...

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“Please do not go outside. Please stay indoors. Please close windows and make your homes airtight. Don't turn on ventilators. Please hang your laundry indoors,"

Better go cover my lettuce...

A bit of prelude...