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EXAMINE THE NET WAY OF LIFE

APRIL, 2011

 

IN THIS ISSUE:

JAPAN AFTERMATH

NEW cyberbarf KOMIX

SCREEN SCREAMS

PODCAST: STORM CLOUDS

THE OIL ECONOMY II

iTOONS

WHETHER REPORT

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JAPAN AFTERMATH . . . . . . . . . .

Click of the above Graphic to find the Real News Japan AfterQuake Edition at skirealnews.com

Every day it seems that the crisis in Japan gets a million times worse. A million times more radiation than normal is leaking from the TEPCO Fukushima nuclear power plant reactors. But as conditions worsen, the global media begins to lose interest in the story. It get transplanted by some other event, like the attack in Libya (see Commentary below).

For those interested in the full story, the internet did contain a few excellent resources of continuing information. Japan's NHK network has provided very good coverage of the nuclear disaster, as well as personal stories of the aftermath in the coastal towns and villages that are still struggling with the winter elements, lack of fuel, food, water or shelter. NHK's English version newscasts, News Line, are broadcast nightly on many local American PBS stations. It gives the viewers a more in-depth perspective on the Japanese people during these trying weeks. American television networks sent their anchors to Tokyo to report (no, really read old copy) to their viewers. U.S. based studio reporters had more access to information from the wire services in NYC than American reporters in Japan.

Another excellent place for continuous news coverage was the BBC. Its Asian-Pacific home page devoted itself to 9 straight days of continuous, live coverage of the events unfolding in Japan, including on-site reports from their own correspondents, as well as a running blog of other wire reports and personal twitter feeds from people throughout the world. After nine days, the BBC pulled the live coverage from its pages, and brought the story back to its main news pages with less frequent updates.

Another good resource was the Kyoto News Service (which English version was found through Drudge Report). The wire service ran continuous, detailed reports from government briefings and reports from throughout the region as the events unfold.

But it is the film reports on NHK nightly that begin to hammer home the massive devastation the earthquake and tsunami had on the country. Recently, there was a report of a man who was at work away from his village in Fukushima providence. When he returned home, he found his village wiped out. His wife and children were missing. But due to the nuclear crisis, his village was in the first evacuation zone so he could not go back to look for his wife and children. He has spent the last two weeks going from shelter to shelter trying to find out whether his family is still alive. He also goes to the morgues, reviewing the lists of people posted in the lobby, to see if his family is confirmed dead. After each trip, he has found nothing. But he continues on because he wants to know. He needs to know. Now the government will not allow him back into his old village to search because of the high radiation levels. He really does not care about radiation at this point, he says. He wants to know what happened to his family.

Those types of stories have been repeated almost nightly on the NHK newscasts.

The American public may not understand the gravity of the situation. For the TEPCO nuclear meltdown, it is basically taking 1/50th of Japan's electric power off the grid. This is why even Tokyo, 150 miles away from the doomed plants, has had to have rolling blackouts. It is like if the State of Ohio shut down all of its power plants at once. In addition, to compound the power situation, have the entire Ohio Valley from Pennsylvania to Missouri wiped out by a Biblical flood. Then add to the misery with the terror of large aftershocks, almost one an hour, with a magnitude of more than 5.0. Basic survival is unnerved by the prospect of another, larger earthquake, on the horizon. That is what the country of Japan has been dealing with since March 11, 2011.

Despite all the hardships, the people, the survivors, and the rescue workers continue move forward on towards recovery. But there are continuous set backs that the world media is beginning to leave to the back pages. The Fukushima nuclear power plant is heading toward the point of no return, releasing large amounts of radioactive materials into the soil, ocean and air. The plant may be a lost cause. It may have to be sealed as a lost cause. But it cannot be done until the still super-hot fuel rods can be cooled down before the encasement procedures could be attempted.

 

cyberbarf

SCREEN SCREAMS ARTICLE

There is a national paralysis that will soon affect every single one of you. It is zombie attention to a computer screen that locks out a person's own common sense.

A few recent examples of this nonsense:

One goes into the public library to look up historical stock information from 1963. Many former Ma Bell workers kept onto their stock holdings throughout all the anti-trust breakups and subsequent re-acquisitions. So when they sell their stock, they need to know the cost basis in order to calculate any capital gains tax owed to the government.

Newspapers used to print entire business sections that contained small agate type of all the stock listings and closing prices. Today, newspapers have given away the recording of daily stock quotes to Internet search engines and on-line broker databases, which may or may not, go back very far in time.

Looking up an old stock symbol that does not trade independently because of being merged, sold, spun off and re-merged should not be a daunting task. You just have to go to the library resource counter and ask for the newspaper archive for the specific date in 1963. The business section of the paper would have the closing stock price.

Except, the librarian says, “why don't you look it up on the Internet. Everything is on the Internet."

NO, everything is NOT on the Internet

If you have not been to your public library in a decade or so, you will find stacks of dusty books. And you will find desk upon desk of computer terminals for the general public to use. But when you ask to see old papers, either in microfilm or microfiche form, the librarian says to look for a newspaper archive on-line. It appears the library has abandoned its microfilm archives and knowledge contained in those older publications.

If you go on-line to find a newspaper archive, first it costs money, and second, it is not a pure microfilm copy of each newspaper page. It may only contain “summary information” about the subject search.

In some ways, it is like scholars watching the Great Library of Alexandria burn to the ground, and with it, the destruction and loss of vast amounts of knowledge.

Maybe the librarian was too lazy to check if the library still had its microfilm archives. Maybe if they were stored away, she may not know how to use the ancient machines. Maybe the librarian was too naive in thinking that everything important is on the Internet. Maybe she just did not want to leave her desk, which contained a computer screen, fixated on open node to the net.

In the end, the customer left the library without the information he sought from the newspaper archives, the same archives as a student years ago would have been mandatory to create school bibliographies for term papers.

It is sad to find a trip to the public library that the guardians of the written word would surrender to their computer screens which in reality would be the last place to find out historical, fact checked, information.

 

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STORM CLOUDS PODCAST

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THE OIL ECONOMY II COMMENTARY

Last month, we published a commentary on the belief that the New Economy is based on the Internet was greatly mistaken. The world does not run on telecommunications. It runs on petroleum.

Another month, oil and conflict continue to explode to the surface of world events. This time, the United Nations resolved to end the reign of Col Gaddafi of Libya, who began using deadly force to quell the protesters in his land. Everyone thought the gains of the protesters in the moderate Arab nations of Tunisia and Egypt would spread like wildfire throughout the region, but violent and egotistical dictators like Gaddafi will not give up power without a bitter fight. Gaddafi has something other Arab nations do not have: oil reserves. Europe, especially France, is addicted to this light crude for its refineries.

French President Sarkozy has been pushing for intervention and regime change from the beginning of the uprising. It is way to secure two percent of the world's oil supply for the EU. American leadership has been muddled on this point. After several weeks of conflicting rumblings, the White House shipped Obama to Brazil for a vacation when the U.S. forces pounded Libyan military assets to create the U.N. no-fly zone. Without a clear mandate from Congress, or a mission statement that the UN or Arab League could agree on, the US was front and center in another conflict on oil rich soil.

The Arab world that agreed to the no-fly zone to stop Muslims from killing other Muslims, were shocked and appalled by the level of destruction aimed at active Libyan national troops. The US and U.K. forces took out communications, air defense and command positions. But then the mission got larger and more critical in the Middle East: the attacks continue on to Gaddafi's personal compound, killing one of his sons. Some Arab leaders said they never agreed to a NATO assassination of Gaddafi The coalition began to crumble from almost the beginning operations.

More troublesome has been Obama's incoherent pledge that American troops would be out of harms way in a matter of days. That there would be no ground troops. Except, everyone knows in these situations, coalition forces reverts to the US talking the lead on the front lines. See. Iraq, Afghanistan. The weakness of the President charged Gaddafi's troops to try to get a death blow on the rebel forces in the Eastern regions. But the US military used its vague mission statement to directly attack ground forces to stave off a rout. At the Pentagon, generals acknowledge that the US may defer the no-fly zone to NATO command, but the US would still be leading the “combat operations.”

Combat operations means military intervention. Combat operations means declaration of war on a sovereign nation. Combat operations takes approval from Congress before the President can commit troops in combat. For an alleged Constitutional professor, Obama failed to get any such approval. In fact, both Democratic and Republican leaders on Capitol Hill are outraged by the unilateral actions taken by Obama. Obama, the Peace candidate, has turned into a bully hawk. Senators are demanding a detailed briefing of the real mission, the real conflict, the real cost and real time line for the American military operations in Libya. After a week, there has been so such detailed briefing or argument why the US needed to rush into Libya, when the same violent repression is going on in Bahrain and Yemen, two American allied countries. It appears that America just followed the lead of an ill-advised French proposal to secure foreign oil reserves during a Libyan civil war.

A civil war which has no unified rebel leadership. A rebel force of the ragtag unemployed work force. A rebel force undefined in its own mission except for the battle cry that Gaddafi must go. Critics believe that the Western intervention in this civil war, with no actual understanding of internal Libyan politics, will lead to a potential disaster. For terrorist organizations have been quick to side with the leaderless rebel forces, in order to secure a place in an overthrown government - - - and the wealth of oil to fund their global ambitions against the United States and its allies.

 

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EXAMINE THE NET WAY OF LIFE

 

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