I'm okay, Tokyo is okay. Origin was at Niigata perfecture. (kinda like a state) Quake wasn't too big, or too small. But it did knock down some 20 houses or so, and 18 (so far) young and elderly died. Around 1500 hurt.
Niigata is a very rural place, and while we were lucky it wasn't densely populated, now the problem is trying to get food and water to all that need it. As you can imagine, the roads aren't in very good condition, and since it a rural area, they usually have very few roads that serve as a lifeline, and in most cases, those roads have been broken.
But anyway, it's a small natural hazard, and I think people will manage. When the quakes reached Tokyo, it was very weak, but we did get about 10 in a row.
A family friend, who is a geologist from Switzerland, was staying with us, and he was very excited to have experienced his first earthquake. But was unhappy that he had no way of telling when a big one may come.
So, I'm curious. Did your country's news cover this? (also, how much coverage)
m6.8 earthquake in Japan
I very rarely watch TV and I do not read news papers much. But it was mentioned on the front pages of the 2 mayor TV-channels. Also the Typhoons get some mentioning. Not quite as much as the American huricanes, but still we hear about it (and I did think of you 5 or 6 times).
The American huricanes where strange. Haiti did get some mentioning, but a good deal less, than USA - though there where many more casualties in Haiti, and I think more people suffer harder from the damages, than in USA.
America has done a great job making the world want to pursue their values. And they did a great job getting a lot of good will. Personally, I think soap operas has a lot to do with that. So even though USA is leaded by a man, who I considder a (milder?) religious fanatic, who is very intollerant, who don't want to play with even rules (watch him frown, if Afganistan did did half the damage, he did to them), USA still has a lot of good will, and in many ways USA still leads the way our western culture is heading. I think that is the reason, why USA gets so much attension, when something hits them (totally out of proportions with the attension Darfur gets for its suffering).
I think, considdering the damage done and all the other pain which happens all over the world on a daily basis, Japan managed to get pretty good coverage in the Danish news - not bad for a country which I guess many Danes feel very little related to ... Japan? Yeah, they make small electronics and eat raw fish!
I hope noone here fells personally offended by anything I wrote here. If you do, it would be nice, if you told my via PM.
The American huricanes where strange. Haiti did get some mentioning, but a good deal less, than USA - though there where many more casualties in Haiti, and I think more people suffer harder from the damages, than in USA.
America has done a great job making the world want to pursue their values. And they did a great job getting a lot of good will. Personally, I think soap operas has a lot to do with that. So even though USA is leaded by a man, who I considder a (milder?) religious fanatic, who is very intollerant, who don't want to play with even rules (watch him frown, if Afganistan did did half the damage, he did to them), USA still has a lot of good will, and in many ways USA still leads the way our western culture is heading. I think that is the reason, why USA gets so much attension, when something hits them (totally out of proportions with the attension Darfur gets for its suffering).
I think, considdering the damage done and all the other pain which happens all over the world on a daily basis, Japan managed to get pretty good coverage in the Danish news - not bad for a country which I guess many Danes feel very little related to ... Japan? Yeah, they make small electronics and eat raw fish!
I hope noone here fells personally offended by anything I wrote here. If you do, it would be nice, if you told my via PM.
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hubird
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blazesboylan
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Interesting thread. Glad to hear you're OK Ken!
It's Sunday here (no newspapers today). But the website for my national tabloid has an article:
The Globe and Mail
My local tabloid has nothing:
The Victoria Times Colonist
And The Guardian Weekly will likely have something on it whenever it arrives, at Canada Post's whims, sometime this week (or next week, at Canada Post's discretion).
Immanuel: Didn't Stalin say something like: "One white death is a tragedy; 3 million black people slaughtered in the Congo in 3 years is merely a statistic."
Speaking of which -- the front pages of Canuck newspapers recently have been crowded with articles on the British submarine which spontaneously combusted and led to the death of -- you guessed it -- one white man.
Cheers,
Johann
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: blazesboylan on 2004-10-25 00:55 ]</font>
It's Sunday here (no newspapers today). But the website for my national tabloid has an article:
The Globe and Mail
My local tabloid has nothing:
The Victoria Times Colonist
And The Guardian Weekly will likely have something on it whenever it arrives, at Canada Post's whims, sometime this week (or next week, at Canada Post's discretion).
Immanuel: Didn't Stalin say something like: "One white death is a tragedy; 3 million black people slaughtered in the Congo in 3 years is merely a statistic."
Speaking of which -- the front pages of Canuck newspapers recently have been crowded with articles on the British submarine which spontaneously combusted and led to the death of -- you guessed it -- one white man.
Cheers,
Johann
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: blazesboylan on 2004-10-25 00:55 ]</font>
Yes Ken, the earthquake in Japan was a main topic here when it happened, plenty coverage on TV, radio and some in the newspapers.
blazesboylan, the millions in Congo were killed by our king Leopold2, who treated Congo as his playgarden. He plundered it, slaughtered the population, sold the richdom to his friends and gave the country, his private property, as a gift to the Belgian population when he was done with it. Soon after that, the colony was given independance. But the holocaust in Zaire, they never told us at school. We were told about the missionaries teaching black kids on our noble God. The deaths were only a rumour untill recently, when after a (shocking) BBC documentary, we had to aknowledge.
[edit: blazesboylan, how could I have forgotten the recent masacre?]
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: at0m|c on 2004-10-27 01:44 ]</font>
blazesboylan, the millions in Congo were killed by our king Leopold2, who treated Congo as his playgarden. He plundered it, slaughtered the population, sold the richdom to his friends and gave the country, his private property, as a gift to the Belgian population when he was done with it. Soon after that, the colony was given independance. But the holocaust in Zaire, they never told us at school. We were told about the missionaries teaching black kids on our noble God. The deaths were only a rumour untill recently, when after a (shocking) BBC documentary, we had to aknowledge.
[edit: blazesboylan, how could I have forgotten the recent masacre?]
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: at0m|c on 2004-10-27 01:44 ]</font>
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hubird
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blazesboylan
- Posts: 777
- Joined: Sat May 25, 2002 4:00 pm
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The actual Stalin quote is: "One death is a tragedy; a million is a statistic."
The massacre in the Congo I was thinking of happened 1998-2001, in the wars that came about as a result of good ol' King Leo's (and others') arbitrary borders, drawn across tribal lines; and also because of the western thirst for bloody diamonds, which are sold to the west by the Congo's warlords. Nevertheless it is sobering to reflect on the fact that the Congo has been full of mayhem since a long time before 1998!
I've been meaning to crack the biography "King Leopold's Ghost" for over a year now, I think it's time to start reading...
Oh, and just to try to change the mood into something a little less depressing (or more depressing, depending on your politics) -- my local tabloid has news of the quake on page 9; and the national tabloid, unless I'm blind, has nothing at all about it!
Cheers,
Johann
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next to nothing
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