RoadDave

Looking back over the past few days’ coverage of the Japan Earthquake and Tsunami, aside from the jaw-dropping scope of the disaster, one can be struck by an observation:  There has been no breakdown of society, no looting, no massed protests, no bashing down the doors of the police stations.  Despite being in the most singularly difficult situation that can befall an island nation, Japan seems to keep moving along, working itself out of the hole.

We’re reasonably certain there have been episodes of badness occurring:  People under exceptional stress will behave poorly, no matter what, but in this instance, tens of thousands of homes erased, thousands of bodies washing up on shore, whole towns scraped away, the coverage on several media outlets has not shown badness happening.  Why?

The simple reason could be that there is no reporting of looting because there is no looting, rioting and civilian chaos nine days after the disaster changed the entire country of Japan.  By comparison (we can’t do apples to apples here) Haiti fell over in a couple of days and New Orleans imploded in less than 72 hours. 

One could argue that the elemental character of Japan precludes such uncivilized nonsense, but that is such a broad stereotype that it borders on racism.  To say that any nation is all one way or the other is objectionable, but it doesn’t bring us closer to an answer.

We do know that as a country, Japan has regular drills to cope with the spectrum of natural disasters that can hit their islands.  Tsunami evacuation routes are posted on the sidewalks and school children are taken on the drills as a matter of course.  Earthquake-resistant structures are common, as well as training the population how to react in an earthquake.  Those simple, but important, steps go a long way in getting a population to recognize that bad things can happen, easily, in their own neighborhoods.

Perhaps it is Trust.  The majority of people trust the authorities will do the right things, with the needed resources to put things as right as can be put right. 

The other descriptor that comes to mind is:  Dignity.  Are the majority of people self-aware enough to recognize that their personal dignity precludes walking out of a store with an armload of small appliances because there has been a flood?  Looting a store of milk and diapers we can overlook, as it speaks to the imperative of protecting your child, hardwired into any parent, but putting the grab on a big screen TV, no.

There was a scene in the coverage we caught earlier this week.  An older woman was found by the Japanese rescue forces.  They had recovered what seemed to be the body of a family member.  The woman bowed to the rescuers, to acknowledge and thank them for their efforts, then stooped to examine the remains.  It was her family member.  She bowed again to the rescuers then bowed in prayer, as the rescuers joined her in a moments’ prayer over the body. 

Aside from making tears shoot out of my eyes, it says much about the gratitude. compassion, respect and dignity shown and received by a group of three people, in the most difficult possible situation, on the street of a devastated town somewhere in Japan.

Wiser minds than ours will derive lessons from that short, poignant tableau. 

In some previous posts we’ve taken a few slices off the TSA’s backscatter X-Ray process, highlighting the serious flaws that permeate the entire concept from eyelids to toenails. 

The 247 airport body scanners at 38 airports are the backscatter-show-us-your pubes-nudie-shots machines.  The TSA has finally ‘fessed up that the technology is (or isn’t) putting out more radiation than expected.  What this actually shows, aside from radiating regular citizens with unknown doses of x-rays, is that the TSA is dangerously inept.

The distressing evidence in the USAToday article is that the TSA has a “haphazard oversight and record-keeping in the critical inspection system the agency relies upon…”  Or, to translate from bureaucratese, the TSA has no clue, no idea where to look for a clue and no idea what to do, if they find a clue, as well as what do to when the clue bites them on the ass after it takes a piss on the TSA’s leg.

To quote from the article,  Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) said “It is totally unacceptable to be bumbling such critical tasks.  These people are supposed to be protecting us against terrorists.”

Rapiscan, the company that made the machines, said their own engineers who tested the machines, were confused by inspection forms and instructions that led their folks to make mistakes that vastly inflated the radiation emitted by the machines.  This also gives us the warm-and fuzzy feeling that the TSA is hiring people who know what they’re doing and have at least a base-level competence. 

Why are we not surprised?