If 100 mSv per year is safe, could a radiological weapon be harmless?

This is a good question to put out to the world before anyone has to seriously confront it for real, and I hope no one ever does. It would be interesting to know how the IAEA and various national nuclear regulators would answer it. Since the UN concluded its Chernobyl studies, and more so since the Fukushima catastrophe, these agencies that govern “nuclear safety” have been trying to get the world to calm down and accept the notion that people have nothing to fear from living in places that are up to 20 times above normal background levels of radiation.*

The public is told from time to time that another nuclear accident, dirty bomb terror attack, or nuclear bombing (accidental or intentional) could occur at some time in the future, and that it’s going to be important to stay calm and understand that we will be alright even in areas of elevated radiation. But here’s the problem. What are governments going to tell their people if a terrorist’s device spreads radioactive substances around a populated area? The attack will immediately be defined as an act of cowardly aggression that requires swift retribution, but if the device didn’t hurt anyone, and contamination levels are equal to or less than what the citizens of Fukushima City are being told to accept by global authorities on "nuclear safety," the attack would amount to no more than an annoying prank – by the standards of the United Nations. How could governments claim that they had been attacked by evil-doers when the contamination level was the same as what they excuse in a nuclear power plant accident?

*This may sound outrageous, but it is actually what is claimed by many "health physicists." The remarks quoted below come from the article Japan's Cut-Price Nuclear Cleanup:

“These workers may show a tiny increased risk of cancer over their lifetimes,” says Gerry Thomas, professor of molecular pathology at Imperial College, London University.

“100 millisieverts [about 20X above normal background radiation in Japan] is the dose we use as a cut-off to say we can see a significant effect on cancer rate in very large epidemiology studies. The numbers have to be large because the individual increase is minuscule. But, she added: “I would be far more worried about these workers smoking or feeling under stress due to the fear of what radiation might do to them. That is much more likely to have an effect on any one person's health.”

But Ian Fairlie, a London-based independent consultant on radioactivity in the environment is among those who have challenged the view of 100 mSv as a reliable threshold. Citing studies of tens of thousands of Japanese A-Bomb survivors, Fairlie concluded in a blog post last year that “very good evidence exists showing radiation effects well below 100 mSv”.

Justin McCurry and David McNeill. "Japan's Cut-Price Nuclear Cleanup." Truth-out.org. October 28, 2013.

Wrecks, Lies and Isotopes

   For the past few months, international attention has been on the waterworks of the Fukushima Daiichi ruins. The situation has been spiraling out of control, with TEPCO flailing like the hapless sorcerer’s apprentice in Disney’s Fantasia.

In addition to this fiasco, the precarious condition of the Unit 4 Spent Fuel Pool has also gained a lot of attention because TEPCO will soon be ready to start the delicate operation of removing 1,500 spent fuel rods contained within. The building was damaged by the earthquake and an explosion, leaving it vulnerable to earthquakes and open to the sky. All of the machinery for transferring the fuel rods was damaged, so until now there has been no way to resolve the dangerous situation. If the pool should go dry, or the building should collapse in an earthquake, the spent fuel fire would burn out of control, render the area too radioactive for people to work in, and create an unprecedented disaster. Or maybe not. The only certainties about Unit 4 are (1) that it scares the crap out of everyone, pro and anti-nuke, and (2), although it is exposed to the elements, it remains shrouded in mystery.

Into the void of unanswered questions, all manner of speculation has rushed in. Some say that Japan was running weapons fuel experiments at the time of the earthquake in reactor four, which would account for the secrecy and Japan’s reluctance to accept foreign help. According to this theory, the fire and explosion were in the reactor, not in the spent fuel pool. This could account for the contradiction we hear now. There was definitely an explosion in Unit 4, and some fuel rods burned and became distorted, but TEPCO now says everything should go well with the removal of the rods because none of them appear to be damaged. If this assessment is wrong, one mishap, one dropped fuel rod, could set off a civilization-ending disaster, or a mass species extinction. Or minor fumbles with the rods might just lead to regrettable incidents causing releases of radioactive xenon and iodine that will have to be funneled out the stack to drift over the ocean, or Tokyo, depending on how the wind blows. These will be setbacks, but they’ll go back to work.

When the fears about Unit 4 first appeared, there were occasional comments on blogs by nuclear engineers who tried to assure people that the fuel rods would be sufficiently cooled down within a couple years, and the doomsday scenario would not come to pass. These messages fell silent for a long time, but finally reappeared this week in an article in Bloomberg: Three Mile Island Veteran Optimistic on Fukushima Fuel Removal. It was curious that someone working on the operation was now made accessible to the media. The news story was long overdue after the media had been reporting on it for months from the viewpoint of outside critics who were deeply worried about the situation. Now, finally, there is some limited comment on the situation from the people officially in charge. I suspect TEPCO would have preferred to say nothing, but the international attention from alternative media and NGOs forced them to admit they have to say something to try to take control of the narrative (Here is their video production explaining the operation).

The Three Mile Island veteran working as an adviser for TEPCO said, “There’s no indication based on sampling of the water that the fuel has been damaged in any significant way… There’s a high confidence that the defueling of the pool can go in a normal way.”* The article mentions that two rods were removed as a test, and these were found to be unbroken. Based on this, and water sampling, it is assumed that all the remaining rods, over a thousand of them, are intact! It seems like another case of TEPCO failing to ask, “OK, but what if…” I guess we just have to take their word for it because who else, besides these nuclear industry cheerleaders, could do this job?

The notable reveal in the report was in comments by another voice for TEPCO, spokeswoman Mayumi Yoshida:

It hasn’t been decided where the fuel will eventually be taken for storage, Yoshida said. She said she couldn’t provide additional details about when the removal would begin, citing treaties aimed at reducing the risk of terrorist attacks.

So it seems like under those Tyvek suits officials have all been wearing diapers too, prepared to shit themselves at any time. Unit 4 has been sitting open to the sky for 30 months now, a very vulnerable target, with scarcely any mention of the terror risk having appeared in the mass media. It is reasonable to assume that the “international community” has been aware of the vulnerability and doing a lot behind the scenes, all the while ignoring the critics, petitions and campaigns to take action. The less said the better.

Security is the big obstacle to public information on this issue, and the best reason to be anti-nuclear. As it is in personal relations, if you’re doing something that provokes a high level of secrecy and fear, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it. 

The public deserves to know all the details of what exactly happened to Unit 4, and what the plan is to get the fuel out of it. The risks have been well explained by outside critics like Arnie Gundersen (listen to Libbe Halevy’s interview with him), Hiroaki Koide and Harvey Wasserman, and many others, so now TEPCO should address all the concerns that have been raised and make a full, convincing explanation of how they can remove those 1,500 fuel rods without a single mishap. The public deserves more than the pathetic press release that was spoon-fed to Bloomberg News this week. The assertion that the rods are intact is not credible, considering the number of experts who have noted that the rods were damaged, not to mention partially exposed and burning in March 2011. Or was it essential to cover up the fact that these things happened in the reactor?

If TEPCO can’t assure the public that this operation will go off without a hitch, wouldn’t it be better to reinforce the structure and let it cool off for a few more years? If not, why not? But we are not going to get squat in the way of a public discussion of this plan. Security trumps all.
The only reason to have a shred of hope is to think that maybe TEPCO has been sidelined or put under adult supervision for this important job. Perhaps the water show has been a convenient, though unintended, distraction while the really important job got done. The nuclear industry certainly should be motivated to get it done right, for the same reason we trust pilots to land safely: self-preservation. If they don’t, it will be the death blow for the industry (one would think — for a while I thought the 2011 accident would accomplish this). But then again, despite the rational motive, we have to remember there is nothing rational about nuclear power. If the industry really worked so cautiously, the accident never would have happened in the first place. Who knows the limit to human recklessness?

* A TEPCO spokesperson contradicted this rosy assessment a few days later in this report filed by The South China Morning Post:

“A spokesman for Tepco said… however, that it was not clear whether any of the rods were damaged or if debris in the pool would complicate the recovery effort. ”

What's On the Beach? Another danger from Fukushima that will be acknowledged too late

Chernobyl and Fukushima taught the world what
should have been on the back cover of this story

What’s On the Beach? The title refers to the famous 1957 novel (and later film adaptations) about the encroaching nuclear winter that comes to Australia after global nuclear war in the Northern Hemisphere. Fifty years ago, everyone thought that this was the existential risk we faced, but the Cold War subsided and World War III was avoided. What caught everyone by surprise was Chernobyl and Fukushima, the risks of even greater accidents, and the lingering dangers involved in nuclear waste disposal, which really hasn’t even begun seventy years after the dawn of the nuclear age. Nuclear accidents have shown us that the threat all along was just as much in the slow motion nuclear war (a phrase coined by Robert Jacobs in this article) that accompanied the “peaceful” use of the atom.

This article asks not only “What’s On the Beach?” but also “What’s on the beach?” Now that the Japanese authorities have admitted the serious problems with leaking radioactive water from Fukushima Daiichi, and now that the world has grasped the risk posed by the site’s spent fuel pools, we may be ready to ask about the future implications of all this pollution spreading along Japan’s northeastern coast.

Much of the concern outside of Japan has been about the spread of radiation into fish stocks and across the Pacific Ocean. There have already been low levels of radionuclides measured in fish in California. While some scientist say the damage could be horrific, even some anti-nuclear critics are refraining from saying there will be an impact on health. Besides, the oceans have other problems such as acidification, over-fishing, nitrogen runoff from fertilizer, and the great Pacific garbage patch.

Chris Busby, well-known as a long-time critic of the nuclear industry, has said that people in California can relax. The ocean will dilute what Fukushima is dishing out. It would be better to consider how people are going to be impacted along the coast of Japan. In an interview with Russia Today, he described the problem:

The contamination of the sea results in adsorption of the radionuclides by the sand and silt on the coast and river estuaries. The east coast of Japan, the sediment and sand on the shores, will now be horribly radioactive. This material is re-suspended into the air through a process called sea-to-land transfer. The coastal air they inhale is laden with radioactive particles… We looked at small area data leaked to us by the Welsh Cancer Registry covering the period of 1974-1989, when Sellafield was releasing significant amounts of radio-cesium, radio-strontium, and plutonium. Results showed a remarkable and sharp 30 per cent increase in cancer rates in those living within 1km of the coast. The effect was very local and dropped away sharply at 2km… Make no mistake, this is a deadly effect. By 2003, we had found 20-fold excess risk of leukemia and brain tumors in the population of children on the north Wales coast… the sea-to-land effect is real. And anyone living within 1km of the coast to at least 200km north or south of Fukushima should get out. They should evacuate inland. It is not eating the fish and shellfish that gets you - it’s breathing.

So that’s something to think about for the Japanese government that wants to rebuild the communities that were destroyed by the tsunami. We might have to say now that the waves destroyed the towns, and the meltdowns made sure they would never come back. Or we have to say rather should never come back. The Japanese government is likely to ignore this hazard and encourage people to resettle the coast.

The problems with radioactive sand and silt are well-known near the old nuclear bomb and fuel factory in Sellafield, UK. The issue was covered by The Guardian last year. The article reports on the beach pollution that Dr. Busby discussed. It quotes a Health Protection Agency official as saying, "No special precautionary actions are required at this time to limit access to, or use of, beaches." A Sellafield spokesman concurred, saying, "… the overall health risk to beach users is very low and significantly lower than other risks people accept when using beaches. It should be noted that people visiting beaches in places on the south coast, such as Devon or Cornwall, will receive a far higher dose of radiation, from naturally occurring background radiation, than those visiting beaches close to Sellafield."

In these two brief quotes we see a rather stunning display of the moral confusion that is typical in the official dismissals of the concerns that the public has about man-made radiation. It consists of three features:

1.

The conflation of natural, unavoidable risks with those imposed by human agency upon non-consenting populations.

If I walk into a cancer ward and light up a cigarette, I can’t object to being told to step outside with it. I can’t say that the cigarette is insignificant compared to the overall health risks that cancer patients accept when submitting to chemotherapy and staying in germ-filled hospitals. Yet somehow this way of thinking is allowable in the official rationalizations of man-made pollution. Imposed, unnecessary risks are considered equal to unavoidable risks.

2.

Minimizing the effect of added man-made radiation by pointing to natural background radiation.

This is subset of point 1. It excuses a willful act of contamination by likening it to that which is not caused by human agency. The point is always made in a condescending way, as if the non-expert is too dim to understand the risks of the world he lives in. But it is actually the experts who have a diminished capacity here. A normal person can see that it is the same difference as between death by a lightning strike and homicide. We accept natural misfortunes but reserve our moral outrage for humans who commit deliberate harm.

3.

Willful neglect of internal emitters of radiation, namely beta and alpha emitters, and neglect of the chemical effects of pollution from nuclear facilities.

The Sellafield spokesman referred to background radiation, which is normally a measure of gamma radiation that can be picked up by any cheap dosimeter. Any amateur who has learned a little about radiation will agree that the gamma dose on these British beaches is not the thing to be concerned about. The official health studies of atomic bombings, in Japan and in nuclear testing throughout the world, persistently ignored the damage done by internal contamination, and this comment by the Sellafield spokesman shows that the tradition is still alive. We can be sure that it will continue as people begin to ask troubling questions about what is blowing in the sea breeze on Japanese shores.

The article in The Guardian pointed out that the Health Protection Agency (not the Sellafield spokesman) did concede that there are uncertainties in the beach monitoring. The article pointed out that the HPA added:

… the latest equipment might miss tiny specks that could be inhaled, as well as buried alpha radioactivity that  could give rise to a significant risk to health if ingested. Documents released under freedom of information law show that in 2010 the Environment Agency agreed that monitoring for contamination on the beaches should avoid peak periods such as during bank holidays. This followed a complaint from St. Bees parish council expressing "strong concern that this would have an adverse impact on tourism.

Ah, yes. Save the economy. During the Vietnam war, US officers claimed with knowing irony that they had to “destroy the village in order to save it.” In peacetime, the phrase becomes “destroy the people in order to save their jobs.”

Further reading on the novel and the 1961 film On the Beach: 
Mick Broderick, "Fallout On the Beach," Screening the Past, 37, June, 2013.

Finally, a somewhat gratuitous reference to Neil Young’s On the Beach. I don’t think Neil was thinking of nuclear meltdowns, but some of the lines evoke my present unease about being on the beach.

On the Beach (1974)

Neil Young

On the Beach, track 6, 19:00~

The world is turnin', I hope it don't turn away,
The world is turnin', I hope it don't turn away.
All my pictures are fallin' from the wall where I placed them yesterday…
Though my problems are meaningless, that don't make them go away…
Now I'm livin' out here on the beach, but those seagulls are still out of reach…
Get out of town, think I'll get out of town.
I head for the sticks with my bus and friends,
I follow the road, though I don't know where it ends.
Get out of town, get out of town, think I'll get out of town.
'Cause the world is turnin', I don't want to see it turn away.

Studies indicate thyroid cancer latency much less than four years

Some of the Chernobyl research indicates that the latent period of thyroid cancer was much shorter than what has been recently stated by experts. The implications about the present cases of thyroid cancer in Fukushima are obvious.

(revised on 2014/03/10)

Last month there was an important finding about thyroid cancer research in the blog written by Paul Langley. He points out a serious contradiction in the claims that prominent “health physicists” have been making about the cases of thyroid cancer that have appeared in Fukushima since the nuclear accident. At the time he wrote this, I expected the news to go viral, but I’ve seen scant mention of it on social networks, and of course, the mass media did not notice it.

The reason for this oversight may be that Paul Langley’s blog posts are superb, but long and heavy on detail. Casual readers may have passed over important information without recognizing its significance. So I will try to summarize the main points and post the most interesting citations.

After the second anniversary of the Fukushima Daiichi catastrophe, a sharp increase in childhood thyroid cancer was recorded in Fukushima Prefecture. Health officials hesitated to attribute the cause to the nuclear accident because they said that it was simply too early to be finding cases of thyroid cancer. The Chernobyl studies all indicated, they said, that the mean latency period was at least four years. Experts in health physics outside Japan also repeated this claim. They seemed to wish that no one would remember their middle school math lessons and point out that a mean indicates that in the sample many values were higher and lower than the mean. Thus it is not surprising that thyroid cancer cases would appear much earlier than four years after the accident. A high number of early cases should be cause for alarm because it would indicate many more are yet to come by the mean time of onset.

Paul Langley found several studies that stated the latency period was much shorter than four years. According to these studies, an increase in the rate of thyroid cancer incidence is exactly what one would expect to find two years after a nuclear accident. One of the authors was none other than Shinichi Yamashita himself, the former head of the Fukushima Prefectural Health Management Survey Review Committee.

Paul Langley, quoting an article in The Japan Times, noted that this committee has stated that Chernobyl data shows that the latency period for thyroid cancer is 4–5 years, and that the progression of disease was slow in the case of the Chernobyl children.

Paul then found this quote from a 1998 research paper of which Dr. Yamashita was one of the authors:

“The high incidence of childhood thyroid cancer in Belarus is suspected to be due to radiation exposure after the Chernobyl reactor accident…  All of the preceding thyroid carcinomas developed after longer latency periods, whereas tumors arising in the Chernobyl population began developing with surprising rapidity and short latency.” (Shirahige et. al.)

Other research papers say:

“… absence of marked latency period is another feature of radiation-induced thyroid cancers caused in Belarus as a result of this accident.” (Malko)

“[the latent period for thyroid cancer is] 2.5 years, based on low estimates used for lifetime risk modeling of low-level ionizing radiation studies.” (Howard)

So about that latency period, which is it? 1 year, 2. 5 years, 4 years or 5 years, and does it really matter anyway? The denial of a causal relationship is the worst sort of deflection and quibbling by people who are highly motivated to avoid the truth. Japanese authorities claim that the high number of cancer cases found in Fukushima is a result of having used very sensitive equipment, with very close attention paid to a particular group. They imply that the same rate of thyroid cancer would be found in any other group subjected to the same intense analysis, but they refuse to carry out such a comparison in a region far away from Fukushima. This is typical of official studies of radiological disasters. Hundreds of studies are done, except the ones which seem most likely to produce results unfavorable to institutions which would be legally responsible for damages to health and property.

Sources:

Howard, John. “Minimum Latency & Types or Categories of Cancer” Administrator World Trade Center Health Program, 9.11 Monitoring and Treatment, Revision: May 1, 2013.

Kyodo. “Thyroid cancer found in 12 minors in Fukushima.” The Japan Times, June 6, 2013.

Langley, Paul. The Characterization of Chernobyl Findings by Fukushima Medical University’s Thyroid Survey, September 8, 2013.

Malko, Mikhail V. “Chernobyl Radiation-induced Thyroid Cancers in Belarus.”
Joint Institute of Power and Nuclear Research, National Academy of Sciences of Belarus. 2002.

Shirahige Y, Ito M, Ashizawa K, Motomura T, Yokoyama N, Namba H, Fukata S, Yokozawa T, Ishikawa N, Mimura T, Yamashita S, Sekine I, Kuma K, Ito K, Nagataki S. “Childhood thyroid cancer: comparison of Japan and Belarus.” Endocrine Journal, 1998 Apr;45(2):203-9.

Shinzo Abe likens Japan to The Sandman

Won't you stretch imagination for a moment and come with me

Let us hasten to a nation lying over the western sea…

Here’s a Japanese Sandman sneaking on with the dew

just an old secondhand man

He'll buy your old day from you…

There's the Japanese Sandman trading silver for gold

The Japanese Sandman

written by Raymond Egan and Richard Whiting

(1920)

 

The Fukushima Daiichi ruins, once said to be “under control” and in “cold shutdown,” have gathered world’s attention again because, in fact, it has become apparent that the situation there remains terrifying and unsolvable. Massive volumes of radioactive water have been stored on the site in a haphazard manner and irradiated groundwater leaks into the sea. No one knows what the effects will be, or whether the situation will worsen. The spent fuel pools pose a risk that some experts classify as potentially a threat to civilization, and certainly a grave risk to Japan.

During this time, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has managed to convince the IOC that Tokyo will be ready to host the Olympics in 2020, and he went to New York this week to sell his new Japan to American investors on Wall Street. Some call him a liar, others wonder if he keeps himself intentionally ignorant or is just incapable of comprehending the danger posed by Fukushima and the demographic collapse of the economy.

His speech in New York (full text here) was a bizarre hodgepodge of references to American culture, all loosely tied to his thesis that “Japan is back” in the high life again, the place it left thirty years ago when Sony ruled with the Walkman cassette recorder.

In the speech he began with the strange request, “Buy my Abenomics.” Then he seemed to be wishing to flatter his hosts, but he just reminded the world of Wall Street’s reputation for criminality by making reference to Gordon Gecko, the criminal, sociopathic stockbroker in the fictional films Wall Street and Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps. He also talked a lot about sushi, wasabi, bullet trains, LED lights, wind turbines and batteries. There was no mention of the enormous amount of economic growth that would be necessary to raise the revenue that could shrink the deficit and the national debt. But he did have this to say, straight faced, about Japanese nuclear technology:

Japan will also continue to make contributions to the world in the area of safety technology for nuclear reactors. There will be no abandoning them. I believe that it is incumbent upon us to overcome the accident in Fukushima and contribute to the world by having the highest level of safety in the world.

He also talked about his plan to finally give women a useful role in the labor force. Listeners might wonder why the sudden urge to do the right thing has appeared after sexual inequality has been a problem in Japan for so long. It seems the government has suddenly decided that if women don’t want to produce the tax payers of the future, they will have to be the tax payers of the future. The decision is purely economic rather than moral, just as it is in the decline of the nuclear industry in America. Recent plant closures have come because of financial pressures, not because of the moral arguments from the anti-nuclear movement.

Finally, Mr. Abe talked about baseball, the Yankees and Mariano Rivera’s recent last game with the team. From there, the topic jumped bizarrely to Metallica’s Enter Sandman, the song which was always used at Yankee stadium to herald Rivera’s entry onto the field. In this way, the song was appropriated by Rivera and the meaning of its words were somewhat forgotten. Mr. Abe appropriated the song for himself by saying,

Japan is once again in the midst of great elation as we prepare for the Games seven years from now. It is almost as if Metallica's ‘Enter Sandman’ is resounding throughout Yankee Stadium: you know how this is going to end.

This is precisely the problem with Mr. Abe’s attitude: actually, no, you don’t know how this is going to end. Will those hundreds of spent fuel rods in unit 4 be safely removed over the next two years, or will the whole thing come crashing down and create a bigger mess than ever? If Mr. Abe could show a little more nuance in his statements, and a little more awareness of the dangers ahead, we might have more confidence in him. We would all worry less if he would worry a little more and tone it down with the “guts pose” and other empty words and gestures about a yet unproven triumph. Sorry, but Japan is not back yet. Do the victory lap seven years from now, if things go well--but keep in mind that even a century from now, Fukushima Dai-ichi will be a radioactive sacrifice zone. There will never be a tidy restoration allowing anyone to say "job done." 

Since Mr. Abe’s speech writers did such a wonderful job in free-associating with so many diverse elements of American culture, I thought I would add a little more to the flow of this consciousness. I can play this game too. We can look more closely at the cultural history of the Sandman and ask what it means about the present Japanese government policy.

The Sandman was a character from European folklore, a benevolent spirit who sprinkled sand on the eyelids of children to give them a peaceful sleep. But in some stories he was a malevolent character, as he is in the song by Metallica. The child in the song can pray to God for protection, but he goes to sleep with a feeling of dread, as conveyed by lines such as these:

Sleep with one eye open
Gripping your pillow tight…
Something's wrong, shut the light
Heavy thoughts tonight
And they aren't of snow white…
Dreams of war, dreams of liars
Dreams of dragon's fire
And of things that will bite...
Sleep with one eye open
Gripping your pillow tight…
And never mind that noise you heard
It's just the beast under your bed,
In your closet, in your head

Indeed, when this pounding heavy metal song is used to signal Rivera’s arrival on the field, it seems to be an intentionally ominous signal of a force that has come to knock out opponents and deliver their worst nightmares. It may not be the allusion to peaceful trade and prosperity that Mr. Abe wanted to create. Instead, the message is that Japan is the monster under the bed, and in fact, that is how I feel many nights with the ruins of Fukushima Daiichi just a two-hour drive from my home.

Extending the Sandman reference farther back in American culture, we could recall the roaring 20s with mention of stories from that era like The Great Gatsby, or the contemporary period drama, Boardwalk Empire, which incidentally revived the period tune The Japanese Sandman. The song is an example of the sort of meaningless exotification of The Orient that was common then. There is no apparent reason why the Sandman had to be Japanese in this song, other than to just lend it a mood of escapism. But if Mr. Abe is suggesting that Gordon Gecko, Mariano Rivera and Metallica are all somehow relevant to Japanese economic policy in 2013, then I’ll use this and leave readers with the lyrics to this wistful song from a century past.

The Japanese Sandman

written by Raymond Egan and Richard Whiting

sung by Nora Bayes (1920), 

sung Lauren Sharp (2011) on Boardwalk Empire

Won't you stretch imagination for a moment and come with me
Let us hasten to a nation lying over the western sea
Hide behind the cherry blossoms here's a sight that will please your eyes
There's a lady with a baby of Japan singing lullabies 

Hear her as she sighs

Here’s a Japanese Sandman sneaking on with the dew

just an old secondhand man
He'll buy your old day from you
He will take every sorrow of the day that is through
And he'll bring you tomorrow just to start life anew
Then you'll be a bit older in the dawn when you wake
And you'll be a bit bolder in the new day you make
There's the Japanese Sandman trading silver for gold
Just an old secondhand man trading new days for old.

Then you'll be a bit older in the dawn when you wake
And you'll be a bit bolder in the new day you make
There's the Japanese Sandman trading silver for gold
Just an old secondhand man trading new days for old.

Enter Sandman

Metallica (1991)

Say your prayers little one
Don't forget, my son
To include everyone

Tuck you in, warm within
Keep you free from sin
Till the Sandman he comes

Sleep with one eye open
Gripping your pillow tight

Exit light
Enter night
Take my hand
Off to never never land

Something's wrong, shut the light
Heavy thoughts tonight
And they aren't of snow white

Dreams of war, dreams of liars
Dreams of dragon's fire
And of things that will bite

Sleep with one eye open
Gripping your pillow tight

Exit light
Enter night
Take my hand
Off to never never land

Now I lay me down to sleep
Pray the lord my soul to keep
If I die before I wake
Pray the lord my soul to take

Hush little baby, don't say a word
And never mind that noise you heard
It's just the beast under your bed,
In your closet, in your head

Exit light
Enter night
Grain of sand

Exit light
Enter night
Take my hand
We're off to never never land

For more on this topic

Pesek, William. “Abe's Turn on Wall Street Is Lost in Translation.” Bloomberg, September 27, 2013:

Nine months into Abe's tenure, nothing has been done to better utilize the female workforce, reduce trade barriers, cultivate entrepreneurship, prepare for an aging workforce, internationalize corporate tax rates, find an alternative to nuclear reactors, wrestle government power away from a vast, unproductive and sometime corrupt bureaucracy and improve relations with Asian neighbors. It's great Abe is putting these issues on the table for discussion, but it's far too early to be telling Wall Street that Japan is back and better than ever. That day is years off, at best.

Abe's clumsy sales job is emblematic of Japanese governments, past and present. Japan has long had trouble capitalizing on its soft power around the globe. Abe certainly tried in New York, with references to baseball star Ichiro Suzuki, sushi, bullet trains and advances in maglev rail technology that Japan is itching to export to America's Northeast corridor. Yet nothing would sell Japan Inc. globally like success. Revive the economy, reinvigorate the biggest corporate names, unleash a wave of innovation among young Japanese, and the international clout Japan craves will follow.

A blunt report on Japanese TV about the Fukushima Unit 4 Spent Fuel Pool and the possible end of Tokyo

How commercial TV covered the hazard of the Unit 4 Spent Fuel Pool at Fukushima Daiichi: A segment of the program Morning Bird, broadcast by TV Asahi on March 8, 2012

Over the summer, the Fukushima Daiichi catastrophe came back as a major story in world media. There was alarming news about large leaks of radioactive water, and each story carried mention of the potential of a larger disaster that could happen if the spent fuel rods of unit four are not safely removed. (For full coverage, go to the interview Arnie Gundersen on the radio show Nuclear Hotseat.)

Eighteen months ago, at the one year anniversary of the catastrophe, the journalist Toru Tamakawa hosted a panel discussion on Japanese TV about the perilous condition of Fukushima Daiichi Unit 4 Spent Fuel Pool. The segment includes an interview with Hiroaki Koide, professor at the Research Reactor Institute, Kyoto University.

At one time there was an English-subtitled version of this report on Youtube, but TV Asahi had it removed. For some reason, they haven’t done the same thing with the French-subtitled version which is still at the link above.

I translated the report into English, but decided not to upload an English-subtitled version on Youtube. It could be taken down at any time, and I wanted to preserve the report as a historical document.

The report is significant because it shows that the mainstream media is not always lamestream media. This report was broadcast on a major commercial network, for a target audience of housewives and senior citizens and whoever else is home during the day. The standard theory in media studies says that the purpose of such programming is to keep the audience comfortably stimulated with mild controversies, but not with extreme topics that could diminish interest in the advertised goods. But in this case there was a crack in the usual facade, as the host of the report told the panel and the viewers that there is a high chance that the accident could still turn bad and spell “the end” for northern Japan and Tokyo. It kind of spoils one’s motivation to buy luxury brand soaps. People overseas might wonder how people can live with this knowledge from day to day, but it's not that much different than the threat of nuclear annihilation that we've all lived with for sixty years. President Kennedy said it was like a Sword of Damocles above our heads. Now we have two.

This report shows that the media cannot take all the blame for public apathy on this issue. The very shocking and disturbing truth of the situation has been shown to the public. Other aspects of social control and mass psychology must explain why there hasn't been more widespread opposition to the mishandling of the Fukushima Daiichi catastrophe. One thing I can fault the journalist and the panelists for is their naïve view that they could change things by voting for someone different, or that proper action will be taken if the matter is debated in parliament. They have too much faith. The passage of time has proven that the government is more interested in building Olympic facilities than in telling the nation the truth of the Fukushima catastrophe. It’s more likely that nothing will improve until there is a mass movement to block government plans. When the Soviet bloc was collapsing, it was solidarity movements and general strikes that brought change for workers and for Chernobyl victims (see my earlier post on the book Chernobyl: Crime without Punishment). Such a trend is yet to materialize in Japan.

Transcript: Morning Bird, TV Asahi, March 8, 2012

IN THE STUDIO, SPEAKING TO THE PANEL
Tamakawa:	You might think it’s been a year now, it’s over, but actually it’s been only a year, and it’s far from over. The real cause of the accident has still not been identified. The results of the National Diet of Japan Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission (NAIIC) have not yet been published. Yet the government is talking of restarting nuclear power plants. I have to ask exactly what lessons they have learned from this accident. I ask you whether the Fukushima Daiichi site is really safe at this time. They speak as if the accident has been resolved, but look at this. The two big political parties hope to restart reactors, but is the accident really resolved?  For example, Unit 4. Professor Koide of Kyoto University is one of the experts most concerned about it. He says it is the most dangerous aspect of the situation. Here’s the actual state of Unit 4. You can see that it practically has no walls. They were blown out by the explosion. It’s a ruin, and inside it is the spent fuel storage pool. Until here, the space is taken up by the reactor, and here, beside it, is the storage pool. 1,500 rods of spent fuel are stored here, 2.8 times more than in a reactor. These rods have to be constantly cooled. So what will happen if an earthquake strikes and water begins to leak out of this pool? I asked this question to Professor Koide. Please listen to his answer.
INTERVIEW WITH PROFESSOR KOIDE
Koide:	As you see, this is the spent fuel pool with numerous spent fuel rods stored in it. If a strong earthquake comes, these walls could collapse, the water could spill out, and the rods would no longer be cooled. So they would begin to melt, probably entirely. An enormous amount of radioactivity would be released without any way to contain it. We don’t know when an earthquake could come.
Tamakawa:	Couldn’t we just build another pool beside the old one and transfer the rods into it before an earthquake strikes?
Koide:	If you removed a fuel rod and lifted it through the open air, an enormous amount of radiation would be released. It would kill everyone working there.
Tamakawa:	It’s that strong?
Koide:	Yes.
IN THE STUDIO, SPEAKING TO THE PANEL
Tamakawa:	So the spent fuel rods are in the pool, but that doesn’t mean that we are safely done with them. They continue to produce heat and deadly levels of radiation if they are exposed to air. They are not dangerous now only because they are under water and the radiation is blocked. As you saw in the video, I asked why we couldn’t simply move the rods to a new storage pool. First, let’s look at how they transfer the spent fuel rods in normal circumstances. The rods are at first inside the reactor. Then they are transferred to the spent fuel pool. At first, they lower a large container into the water. Then they do the transfer underwater. They put a cover on it, then they hoist the container out of the pool. But now, because of the earthquake, this crane no longer exists. So how are they going to do it?
INTERVIEW WITH PROFESSOR KOIDE
Koide:	You see here there is a giant crane which is used to raise and lower the container, but this can no longer be used. So there’s a lot of work to be done. First, they have to take out the debris and other things that have fallen into the pool. Next, they have to build a new crane to lower the container into the pool. They have to prepare some way to do that from the outside of the building. They will have to lower the container into the pool and transfer the rods, and many of them appear to be damaged. Then they have to pull them up and out of the pool. All this is going to take years to complete.
Tamakawa:	And what will happen if an earthquake occurs during that time?
Koide:	That will be the end.
Tamakawa:	The end?
Koide:	Yes.
IN THE STUDIO, SPEAKING TO THE PANEL
Tamakawa:	You see: the end.
Panelist 1:	Unbelievable.
Tamakawa:	So it’s a serious problem. TEPCO knows this is the most serious problem. And today, as if this was announced just in time for our program, TEPCO has announced its plan for this operation. It could begin taking out the spent fuel as early as January next year [2013]. So if an earthquake happens before that time, perhaps not even a very big one, the pool could crack and leak, and it would be, as Professor Koide said, “the end.” That means the end for a large area, including Tokyo.
Panelist 1:	And unbelievably, they are talking about restarting nuclear power plants.
Tamakawa:	I think it is out of the question to restart them before the NAIIS report comes out, and before the new regulatory agency has a chance to assess the report.
Panelist 2:	For such an important issue, the opposition parties should question what the government plans to do, but in this case even the opposition parties want to restart nuclear power plants. They all want to make use of the power plants again.
Tamakawa:	But there are people within each party who disagree with this policy.
Panelist 2:	But they are the minority, aren’t they?
Tamakawa:	No, this is not the case. There are people who think the same way even inside the party in power (DPJ), but there are also people who want to restart.
Panelist 1:	I want to vote again.
Panelist 2:	They talk of restarting after they have obtained the consent of local affected communities, but actually all of Japan, and even neighboring countries, are part of the “local affected communities.” It isn’t just the vicinity of the power plant that should be considered as affected.
Panelist 3:	We have to recognize that the accident is far from being resolved. The crisis is in fact ongoing.
Tamakawa:	That’s right, and I have a correction to make. The removal won’t start until December next year [2013] at the earliest, not January as I said before.
Panelist 3:	December next year? Seriously?
Tamakawa:	Yes. Sorry, what I said before was too optimistic.
Panelist 1:	About those members of parliament who want the restarts – I want them to resign.
Panelist 3:	We’ve got to rethink this problem.
Panelist 2:	I want the names of all those members who want the restarts. I want to ask them about their opinions.
Tamakawa:	Well, I hope this issue will be discussed in parliament soon.