Friday, November 6, 2015

Live from Fukushima (video)

CC Liu, Pat Macpherson, Pfc. Sandoval, Wisdom Quarterly, VICE Int'l; Texan in Tokyo
Manmade nuclear disasters are nothing new, but their aftermath in Japan is bad.


Alone in the Zone: (February 2015) It was two years since the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant went into full meltdown with an explosion and leaks. The result was that a 20 kilometer "evacuation zone" was enforced. But one Japanese farmer still remains behind braving high levels of radiation and ultra-loneliness in part to tend to some abandoned animals.

It's like having my phone on all the time.
His name is Naoto Matsumura, and he is the last man standing in the world's newest ghost town, Tomioka. Another farmer is named Kenji Hasegawa. His town of Iidate was also evacuated due to high levels of radiation. At that time he and his family sought refuge in the south with his sister and in emergency housing. Both rejected his family of radiation refugees.

Faced with a post­-nuclear world, both men share brutally honest views on the state of their lives, TEPCO, government inaction, and some of the hardest situations they have had to face in the midst of overwhelming radioactivity.
 
Hand rising from Fukushima debris. It's just a mannequin (David Guttenfelder/AP).

 
The day my Japanese farmer dream died
Texan in Tokyo, Aug. 2015


id:TexaninTokyo(HowIBecameTexan) Ryosuke and I spent hours weeding a small section of dad's garden while we were visiting over the weekend. I have a new respect for all of the little old Japanese farmers seen out in the countryside. Farming is serious work. We need a new retirement plan because there's no way I'm going to be weeding a garden every week when I'm 80+ years old. I can draw. Buy my comic books: on etsy.com, Amazonmy blog, or 漫画 (日本語).

The infamous Fukushima Mutant Daisies growing by the side of the road after meltdown.
We've got to get out of here if we want to live cancer-free and in good health.

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