Published: May 17th, 2012 at 7:20 pm ET
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Rogue Penguin Resurfaces in Tokyo Bay
ABC News
Akiko Fujita
May 17, 2012 2:27pm
SOURCE: Japan Coast Guard
A Humboldt penguin that made a daring escape from a Tokyo aquarium has resurfaced two months later. [...]
The bird, known only as Penguin Number 337, escaped Tokyo Sea Life Park in March by scaling a 13-foot rock wall and squeezing through a barbed wire fence. Keepers at Tokyo Sea Life Park launched a daily penguin-hunt, fearing the bird could get sick from the pollution in Tokyo Bay. [...]
The young creature remains in Tokyo Bay waters for now, but there are concerns about its long-term safety. People are worried about radiation levels in the bay, a year after the meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear plant.
Published: May 17th, 2012 at 7:20 pm ET
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sending...
it amazes me how a small cute and cuddly animal can conjure up more sympathy than a thousand children with lymphatic cancer!!!!!
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Agree. I was telling someone about what was happening in Japan a few months ago and they had that look of “what are you talking about”, “you must be over stating the problem”, “it can’t be that bad”. Then about a week later they had seen a story about the abandoned pets and farm animals and they called me up and were very upset and thought someone should go in and rescue them.
I’m still scratching my head. What is the disconnect people have to their own species? Have they never seen a kid with cancer, a little girl with a bald head from chemo, a benefit for a kid who needs bone marrow, pictures of kids from the Chernobyl nuclear accident? It must be some sort of self-preservation mode that people go into to protect themselves from the emotional horror of it all.
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i second that. we are spoiled and pampered little pooches, true suffering of the children of our species is something our minds cannot comprehend and process in our power pink fluff world of super heroes and higher powers. everything has been controlled and guided by something bigger than us .. now we are waiting for divine intervention. lets look away and talk about how to bake the perfect glitter sprinkled cup cakes and go and rescue a fluffy animal … look away when children die, as that is not part of the plan and the illusion we call our life.
if it gets you down, then you just need to take another pill to make it go away and better….
we are powerless, so our brains start looking for relief from the dilemma that we are faced with…. it takes a lot of strength to not look away when there is suffering. denial is a powerful weapon of our minds
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I think you hit the nail on the head when you wrote that it must be a defense mechanism against the psychological horror of it. The majority of people depend on a deeply-held belief that human beings are in control of everything that could threaten them and their families. Seeing pollution harm an animal is disturbing, and many people will react strongly to urge help for the animals. Animals needing help plays to human vanity and hubris: we are like gods that can protect helpless fuzzy animals. If PEOPLE need help… well that means that WE may not be so all powerful… this horror could happen to YOUs to YOUR KIDS or even to EVERYONE… The possibility that humankind is in over our heads as a species is too much horror for many people to grasp (assuming they even HEAR the truth at all).
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One more argument that our capacity for selecting among possible responses to threats is overstated.
We make judgements without the use of logic, analysis, mathematics, and indeed without relating to existing experience.
A discussion of this inexplicable tendency to communal stupidity can be found on blogs at FT Alphaville, should anyone wish to have a read. I guess that the global community is of a size exceeding that where rational conversation is possible: sort of, the inverse of "critical mass".
As an aside, the much maligned dinosaurs seem to have managed a lot better. Oh well.
Anyway, one might suppose, if it takes a penguin to illuminate the spectrum of risk …
Maybe the penguin was watching Happy Feet and thought it was time to act!
M
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The story that sells, a cute animal on the loose. OH by the way the bay has radiation.
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And of the Japanese children…
… Concerns for them?
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smoke and mirrors max1
better to talk about the single wildlife than fukushimas impact on nearby wildlife reserves
better to talk about a single bird than 350,000 effected children..
go figure!
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Fukushima; Today's Titantic and Costa Concordia; via A Green Road Blog
http://agreenroad.blogspot.com/2012/04/fukushima-todays-titantic-and-costa.html
Prediction;
Until there is some transparency, truth telling and disaster prep going on from within the industry, these nuclear disasters will continue to get worse and worse.
So far, little to nothing has changed in a positive direction, except that civilians as well as 'outside' the industry experts have started buying Geiger Counters and/or sharing truth based information via the Internet.
Sail on Titanic, Costa Concordia, Blitzen, Radiation, Radium, Cesium and Strontium. Sail on.
The glowing red, green and blue lights at night will let us know when you are close by…
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=w_XZTJQImMA
China Syndromes are like cookies.
Too many cookies = sick tummies for everyone that eats them…
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Chuckles
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[OFF-TOPIC]
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What do you mean it's not on th e sushi menue yet, it must be radiated
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step write this way for a glowing Tokyo Bay cruise, never mind the penguin that glow's, he ate to much local food….
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The penguin must have felt like a 'canary in a cage'. I know that feeling.
The real story here is that Mr. Penguin was trying to evacuate Japan, but authorities neglected to inform the penguin that Tokyo Bay was also highly contaminated.
Returning the penguin to it's cage, as an example to others who may try to jump ship, has become a top priority.
I get the picture. This story's really NOT about a penguin. It's about the innocent children/people of Japan that are trapped in a cage and cannot leave. It's a story that tries to get one to think of the catastrophic absurdity of it all. It worked for me.
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the saddest part of this article are the ones who wrote it.
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+1000
Akiko Fujita journalist of the year? not!
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The comments on this thread: well said, all.
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