I did myself a favor by being unusually balanced in my original post. I stuck to facts. I posted them. I have received an enormous amount of hits from that post and have spawned other things. I know the Japan Times saw this before posting an article which claimed no "Mass-looting" which is better than "No-looting" but still may not be accurate. I know a writer from there downloaded images before writing their piece because I received a backhanded compliment to a mail to Amy Chavez which had her ip in the response (gmail) which was the same computer which downloaded the pics previously.
Your welcome Japan Times.
Google's 1st page.
While The Huffington post and The Daily Telegraph U.K. kept my comments up which were very polite. I have received close to 6000 hits from the media outlets but SLATE and CNN only posted them for a day and then deleted them while allowing others to link to outside sources.
Please click the picture and read what I circled. These are our educators. That's pretty sad because they are being racist and don't seem to realize it. I already made clear in the original post that they were wrong but...they are pretty ignorant and don't seem interested in facts that contradict their incorrect writings.

This was perhaps the site that got it all started. Besides being wrong he looks like a former ALT. Pasty skinned Japan lover that after returning home kept his warped view and now via his position, is able to promote factually incorrect pieces for a Major Media outlet. (To the Telegraph's credit they never deleted my link. CNN is apparently not as mature as they. I never much liked CNN but this whole thing sealed it for me.
I have received hits from several forums that are linking to the original post. I don't even know what the forums are about?
The original post is HERE
The Japanese people are under enormous stress for obvious reasons. Some of the social and cultural uniqueness has shown through clearly in a good way.
They are not immune to things such as looting, sexual assaults, petty crime, fake donation scams, and countless others. The more you dig the more you will see that Japan has a very active underbelly that is using this disaster as a money making scheme. That is not unusual, what is unusual is a Media bias that is so contrary to facts stated by the Japanese media and people in the area that it gives one pause in even trusting them as a source for information.
Do you not see the racism in claiming one culture to be so totally different from another when survival is at stake?
It's untrue (easily proven) and simply doesn't make sense based on Japan's own history, including the Great Kanto Earthquake and more recently Kobe.
These are not forum fools ignoring facts on the ground.....these are major supposedly trustworthy News gatherers who have apparently let opinion or stereotyping get in the way of real reporting.
Can you show me how it is helpful in ANY way?
This is my first experience with media bias and it's kinda frightening to see the power of disinformation. They are perpetuating myths that serve no one really....no one but themselves and their own personal biases.
Absolutely amazing to observe.
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Some additions
NAGASAKI —
Police in Omura, Nagasaki Prefecture, on Sunday arrested three men in connection with the theft of an earthquake relief donation box from a convenience store. The men, all aged 22, were arrested by police on suspicion of stealing the donation box from a convenience store around dawn on Saturday.
According to police, the three men were filmed by security cameras as they stole the box containing around 16,000 yen from the store counter.
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FUKUOKA —
Two men stole an earthquake relief collection box from a “gyudon” restaurant in Fukuoka on Sunday night, police said Monday. According to police, at around 8:05 p.m., one man entered the diner, while his accomplice waited outside on a motorbike. The first man grabbed the donation box, containing around 10,000 yen, which was placed next to the cash register.
A member of the kitchen staff chased the men for 200 meters before eventually losing sight of them.
According to police, the man who entered the store was around 170 cm in height, of slim build and wearing a parka and a cap. He appeared to be of junior high school or high school age.
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Masayuki Sasaki, 42, lost his mother to the tsunami that almost obliterated the town of Rikuzentakata, some 50 kilometres (30 miles) south of Kamaishi.
He and his widower father returned to the flattened remains of their home to try and salvage anything useful or personal.
But, Sasaki complained, survivors and rescuers were not the only ones hunting around.
"I can cope with living in the refugee centre and all that, but what I really can't stand is the thieves who come here," he said.
"They pretend to be helping, but they're looking for money, or maybe for bank books. I have lost everything and they come here looking for money. It's disgusting."
The vast majority of Japanese have remained calm and stoical, putting up with difficult conditions at evacuation shelters and waiting patiently in line for hours at gas stations and outside supermarkets running low on supplies.
And what theft has taken place has generally been low-level, including cases of people siphoning fuel out of abandoned vehicles.
Nevertheless, some people have still been appalled that any crimes have been committed at all at a time when people are trying to pull together -- and in a usually safe country where such behaviour is not common.
"Is it safe now? No, in fact you can?t say it's safe," said Ayako Ito, 84, whose mountainside home overlooking Kamaishi was high enough to be spared the ravages of the tsunami.
"People who see the thieves scream 'Stop it, stop it!' It's best to not go far from your house because our belongings are inside," said Ito, who had only eaten one rice ball all day and said she was suffering from the cold at night with no power or electricity.
Masuya Misato, 33, a volunteer worker in Kamaishi, said he had witnessed several cases of smash-and-grab raids..
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One of the two is Fumitaka Umewaka, 50, a Kobe-based health food dealer, who is suspected of violating the pharmaceutical affairs law. Umewaka said on a promotional website that the drug absorbs radioactive substances and removes them from the human body, police said.
He allegedly posted the advertisement after the current nuclear crisis broke out at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station in northeastern Japan which was hard hit by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.
Umewaka, who has no license to sell medicine, sold 10 bottles of the unauthorized liquid drug, called premium zeolite, to three people between Feb 17 and March 29 for a total of 47,500 yen, the police said.
Police said they believe the suspects sold the drug to more than 1,000 people mainly in northeastern and eastern Japan following the disaster, with sales totaling about 24 million yen.
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TOKYO —
Police arrested two people Tuesday for allegedly selling an unauthorized drug by telling customers that it is effective for detoxification, including dealing with internal contamination with radioactive substances. One of the two is Fumitaka Umewaka, 50, a Kobe-based health food dealer, who is suspected of violating the pharmaceutical affairs law. Umewaka said on a promotional website that the drug absorbs radioactive substances and removes them from the human body, police said.
He allegedly posted the advertisement after the current nuclear crisis broke out at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station in northeastern Japan which was hard hit by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.
Umewaka, who has no license to sell medicine, sold 10 bottles of the unauthorized liquid drug, called premium zeolite, to three people between Feb 17 and March 29 for a total of 47,500 yen, the police said.
Police said they believe the suspects sold the drug to more than 1,000 people mainly in northeastern and eastern Japan following the disaster, with sales totaling about 24 million yen.
I think we can finish the "Japanese don't loot" myth once and for all...can't we?
ORIGINAL POST
This Blog post is a part of Budget Trouble's Show me Japan Series


































