In the wake of Hurricane Irene, it's important to remember that any natural or man-made disaster continues to impact many lives in various ways, long after the clean-up crews and the news vans leave and move on to the next event or the next story. This is a pretty shocking and compelling piece on what is still going on in Japan after the earthquake/tsunami that hit earlier this year. Not only is the nuclear plant still leaking, but estimates are that radioactive cesium that has been leaked from the plant into the atmosphere is equal to 168 of the atomic bombs being dropped on 1945 Japan. That's around one nuclear bomb every day since the initial disaster occurred.
Something that frustrates me about our media is its attention deficit disorder. When a big event, such as the Japan earthquake/tsunami or the Deepwater Horizon explosion/oil rupture, first occurs, we see the "breaking news" graphics and around-the-clock coverage. But in a matter of days, after receiving "assurances" from government and corporate officials that everything is under control, and also due to its ADD, the media moves on to other stories, typically of the "light" variety. And the coverage of the event/disaster doesn't merely decrease, it seems to disappear completely, like it never even happened.
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