Imagine a better translation. I'll see about helping one day.
> “In 50 years, nearly 100 residents died at an average lifespan of 39 years !!”
The shocking findings were announced at the Miyazaki Prefectural Education and Research Meeting.
The media was surprised and made a big report on this news, and the #MiyazakiPrefecture #PollutionDivision was in a hurry and immediately started a health survey of the residents of Toroku.
https://sakamoto-masanao.com/en/dt_portfolios/jurenji-persimmon-picture-story-show-en/
#Toroku #KazuyukiKawahara #MasanaoSakamoto

I was in #Toroku over the weekend learning with Asia Arsenic Network NGO, Miyazaki Prefecture's Forestry Dept, and Minami Kyushu University. The arsenic mine and kilnes that sickened and killed people is considered pollution (#公害 or #CommonsDamage). One speaker pointed out that when damage reaches beyond the workplace they are chalked up to #pollution, until then they are chalked up to #OccupationalHazards. He made me re-read a page of #Galeano's #ChildrenOfTheDays to remember #Ramazzini.

I was in #Toroku over the weekend learning with Asia Arsenic Network NGO, Miyazaki Prefecture's Forestry Dept, and Minami Kyushu University. The arsenic mine and kilnes that sickened and killed people is considered pollution (#公害 or #CommonsDamage). One speaker pointed out that when damage reaches beyond the workplace they are chalked up to #pollution, until then they are chalked up to #OccupationalHazards. He made me re-read a page of #Galeano's #ChildrenOfTheDays to remember #Ramazzini.

> In a 2007 cable.. made public by #WikiLeaks, an unnamed U.S. official summed up his government’s analysis of what went wrong on the island: “Nauru simply spent extravagantly, never worrying about tomorrow.” .. that diagnosis is.. [not] unique to Nauru; our entire culture is extravagantly drawing down finite resources, never worrying about tomorrow.
#ThisChangesEverything
Learning from #Toroku I bet there was resistance in #Nauru too, but the #SacrificeZone attitude overwhelms locals.

> Reviewing the island’s painful history, it strikes me that so much of what has gone wrong on Nauru—and goes on still—has to do with its location, frequently described as “the middle of nowhere”.. remoteness made it a convenient trash can—a place to turn the land into trash, to launder dirty money, to disappear unwanted people, and now a place that may be allowed to disappear altogether..
#NaomiKlein on #Nauru, an example of #MetropolisSatellite #CenterPeriphery #extractivism like #Toroku

I had forgotten which mining town he was talking about, probably because there are similar vignettes about other places in #Galeano's later, more poetic work. It's nice to find this again after #AmitavGhosh's more recent non-fiction work. The same pattern is seen in #Toroku #Takachiho, it boomed with silver in the Edo period, and then Arsenic in the early 1900's and now the beautiful place is struggling for survival, like much of the rest of Japan's countryside...

In Japanese the equivalent of "anti-American" (a phrase Chomsky says is totalitarian) is 非国民 HiKokuMin. The middle box-like kanji stands for State, nation-state. While paying attention to #Toroku and #Minamata I think why not words like 売国奴 BaiKokuDo for people that sell their villages' water, or land to the State and Corporations? Why no 非村民 HiSonMin or 売村奴 BaiSonDo for men that give rights to exploitative mines, factories, and corporations? Should be seen like selling daughters off for #口減らし

One of the questions was about rumors that the victimized area was home to people who do not work. #MinamataDisease symptoms were (are?) explained away as alcoholism in MInamata (and a Native American Reservation in Canada too!). In the documentary #Crude #Chevron's lawyer blames death and disease on hygiene. In #Toroku the loss of honey bees and other farm produce was blamed on technique. As if people hadn't been successful there for generations before industry. Another common strategy...

> The #AsiaArsenicNetwork (#AAN 2006, 4) documented the case of #KiemonSato’s family that lived only 100m from a kiln. All seven members suffered similar symptoms, including blackened skin and bad coughs. Five members died between 1930 and 1931. Another died in 1937, and yet another in 1951, all of them still rather young.
#Toroku on #EJAtlas #CommonsDamage #BampenChaiyarak
https://ejatlas.org/conflict/toroku-miyazaki-prefecture-japan

> House tree persimmons
in a sunset
red glow reflecting ......
in a memory so far off
in a distant dream ......
so far
in a dream distant
--- Tsurue Sato while dying of arsenic pollution
> 庭の柿の実が 夕焼けに 赤く 照り映えている......
思い出は遥かに 遠い夢の中に......
遠い
夢の中にある
「海よ母よ子どもらよ」 p. 75
#砂田明
> #歌人 の佐藤鶴江さんの歌が俳優の砂田明さんの本 「#海よ母よ子どもらよ」 にある。 #鶴江 さんは「宮崎県の山奥で砒素鉱毒で死にはった…」#土呂久 #persimmon
#Toroku #TsurueSato #CommonsDamage

#JuRenji #Persimmon in #Toroku #Takachiho #miyazaki
#宮崎県 #高千穂町 #十連寺柿 #土呂久

- https://www.asia-arsenic.jp/ctrl-hiso/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/kamishibai.pdf

#Miyazaki #Takachiho #Toroku #JuRenJi persimmon tree.
#KamiShibai #Art #SakamotoMasanao #公害
#宮崎県 #高千穂町 #土呂久 #十連寺柿 #紙芝居 #坂本正直

#Miyazaki #Takachiho #Toroku #JuRenJi persimmon tree.
#KamiShibai #Art #SakamotoMasanao #公害
#宮崎県 #高千穂町 #土呂久 #十連寺柿 #紙芝居 #坂本正直
- https://sakamoto-masanao.com/dt_portfolios/jurenji-persimmon/

- https://www.asia-arsenic.jp/ctrl-hiso/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/kamishibai.pdf

#十連寺柿 #JuRenJi #Persimmon #Takachiho #Toroku #土呂久 #高千穂