チキン・リトル CHICKIN RITORU

Someone directed my attention to this article about the nuclear reactor accident in Sendai, Japan. (ref)  I have since seen the article reproduced in several forms and I regret to see the harm that this alarmist nonsense is causing. The dramatic graphics and the breathless updating themselves every hour or so only fakes the appearance of events too fast to handle. The extensive use of the verbs “would” and “might” and the capital "IF" in the title all serve to indicate the deep level of speculation in the article. 

One of the advantages of coming here from the 20^th century is that I seem to remember a lot of crap that many people in this century don’t know or have forgotten. The story of Chicken Little seems to have gone by the wayside. For those of you who want to brush up on the reference, Wikipedia continues to be the collective memory which I use. Wiki’s entry pretty much sums up my attitude toward the present reporting on the situation in Japan:


"The names of the main characters in the fable - Chicken Little/Chicken Licken and Henny Penny - and the fable's central phrase - The sky is falling! - have been applied to people accused of being unreasonably afraid, or those trying to incite an unreasonable fear in those around them. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary records the first application of the name Chicken Little to 'one who warns of or predicts calamity, especially without justification’ as dating from 1895,^[2] although idiomatic use of the name significantly predates that attestation.^[3] Because of this association, the tale has become politicized.


Fear mongering - whether justified or not - can sometimes elicit a societal response called Chicken Little syndrome, described as 'inferring catastrophic conclusions possibly resulting in paralysis.' ^[4] It has also been defined as 'a sense of despair or passivity which blocks the audience from actions.' ^[5] The term began appearing in the 1950s^[6]and the phenomenon has been noted in many different societal contexts." (ref)

Googling it, I did find one person who recognized the reference…immediately dismissing it and continuing to squawk about the immanent fall of the sky (ref). Note that this is the same article that links to “Nuclear Apocalypse in Japan”(ref). Oy.

Before I marshal my points, let me ask you to review the articles you’ve been seeing and think how you would feel about the reporting style if this were an official release from the government or the mainstream media: the breathless style, the references to people lying to us, and the need for us to panic. We’d immediately accuse the government of propaganda and manipulation. Yet when some blogger we’ve never met uses the same tactics, we think that they may be right? Comment back, “Get over yourself."

1) First of all, it is not a nuclear bomb. Explosions there are largely steam explosions of the plant itself. The mechanisms of a meltdown are well understood and have nothing to do with a nuclear explosion (ref) 

2) This animation showing streaming gobs of radiation crossing the Pacific to reach us is getting a lot of play. But it is only a simulation of the path that something MIGHT take if it came our way (ref) . In fact, the scale on it, in "arbitrary units” still only shows levels at tenths and hundredths of one percent. Their own arbitrary scale still can’t even show anything significant. The heavier elements and ash from fires and explosions at the plant will stay close to the ground, the lighter elements will disperse in the winds and even more so by the jet stream.

3) The amount of radiation that MIGHT reach this far is going to be too small and too diffuse to be of much significance especially compared to our daily dose. According to Otis Brawley of the American Cancer Society, “ ‘As for radiation drifting through the air across the ocean, it will be too diluted to cause harm,’ Brawley said. ‘For those in the U.S., a typical day of sunbathing would probably result in more radiation exposure than the Japanese accident, he said.’” (ref).  Bloggers would serve us better going bananas and nuts about actual bananas and nuts than worrying about what might come from Japan. (ref)

Selling fear is an industry and its purveyors gain viewers, readers and Internet hits so their self-interest is blatant and uncontrolled. And don’t get me going on the Internet hoaxes coming online phonily claiming to cure the radiation sickness you are not about to get.