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Yuriko Nakao / Reuters
Koyu Abe gives instructions to volunteers during a radiation cleansing event hosted by himself at an elementary school in Fukushima, Japan on Feb. 5, 2012.
Yuriko Nakao / Reuters
Volunteer workers clean inside ditches during a radiation cleansing event hosted by Zen priest Koyu Abe at an elementary school in Fukushima,
Yuriko Nakao / Reuters
A Buddhist priest in Fukushima works to clean up radioactive
Reuters reports: Last summer, Zen monk Koyu Abe grew and distributed sunflowers and other plants, such as field mustard and amaranthus, in an effort to lighten the impact of the radiation and cheer local residents of Japan's Fukushima city. Now he is trading his ceremonial robes for a protective mask, working with volunteers to track down lingering pockets of radiation and cleaning them up.
"The damage here in Fukushima is different from the destruction caused by the tsunami," Abe said.
"You can't see it. Nothing looks as if it's changed, but really, radiation is floating through the area. It's hard for those hit by the tsunami, but it's hard to live here too."
Yuriko Nakao / Reuters
Koyu Abe prepares for a workshop to inform local residents on how to deal with radioactive contamination at his study room.
Yuriko Nakao / Reuters
Hisashi Abe, 3, plays inside his grandparents' house near Joenji temple in Fukushima, Japan. Abe has been kept inside most of his time since last March due to fear of radiation.
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Where is his Tinfoil hat?
Here is an article about a person who is working hard to make his part of the world a better place. He is not asking for a government handout. He is actively working to clean up a mess, albeit an invisible mess, that was caused by the unthinking action of others coupled with a natural disaster. And all you can think of to say is, "Where's his tinfoil hat"!? Please....
Roger,
You've obviously have yours on. It's blocking those little waves that are most commonly referred to as "respect" and "pro-social behavior".
The wind blew it off!
roger, radiation actually exists. Not sure if you've been keeping up but there was a disaster in Japan last year where one of their nuke plants went into meltdown.
Someone actually living his faith. And no you don't have to be a Christian to do that !
Buddhist doing great things....American (Roger) sounding ignorant on the internet. Happens every day.
This scene will be repeated worldwide if Iran or Syria are attacked.
Like Damascus or Tehran?
But, what happens if Iran drops the first bomb??
Iran might ne insane, but they aren't stupid. If they ever did drop anything like use a nuclear bomb, in ten years we all would be sitting around talking about "hey remember that country that used the nuclear bomb?"..."Oh yeah, that one that all the counties surrounding it came to an agreement and invaded it and left a crater where it use to be" "Yeah yeah yeah, that one"
Looks like more than Iran its US who wants Iran to drop the first bomb. That will be a great way to officially grab Iranian oil.
PJ, yeah just like we grabbed all the Iraqi oil, right?
You got your PJs on, go back to sleep.
"Buddhist' Priests" album,
"Hellbent for Radiation Protecting Leather".
@dunnoBro - may be you should check where the Iraqi oil is going now a days vs where it was going before the 2003 invasion.
I definitely expected to see something different from the title. Good for him though, it must be difficult to deal with something they have so little control over.
How correct! They certainly can point you in the wrong direction with their misleading headlines!
yeah, i was thinking, oh great please don't tell me .... but he and others seem to really care and putting themselves in harm's way to do what they can to help.
Hey roger, do some reading on the situation. If you beleive what you're hearing on the tube, you're kidding yourself. Things are not okey dokey, not at all.
I wish this monk and his community success in their efforts.
I did notice however that nowhere in the article did the monk refer to radiation as an "invisible demon". Why the author chose to put this phrase in quotation marks as if Abe said it I find hard to understand. It makes the monk look like a superstitious idiot when in fact he is well aware of the scientific basis of radiation.
Looking at the article and the embedded link, I believe the MSNBC author was quoting the headline of the Reuters article and not trying to attibute that description of radiation to the monk at all.
Fukashima reactors, possible operating failures- Stuxnet viruses; depleted uranium throughout Iraq and Afghanistan...Libya.
I too would have liked to have read about what Buddhist monk saw, knows.
I salute him: much respect.
Same here!
To learn more about the seriousness of the radio-contamination in Japan go to;
ENENEWS.com And FukushimaDiary.com
(Trolls are welcome, but be prepared to be exposed and ridiculed by informed people who are well aware of the ongoing problems with radioactivity released by Fukushima Daiichi, in Japan and elsewhere)
America should donate supplies : perforated sheet metal, filtered respirators, graphite, emf detecters etc...
The article was about a good mans effort to clean up after a natural disaster. Blog poster seem to always have to bring in their fear based comments, Sometimes just wishing well to the doer is more than enough. Maybe if we all do this just a little more the world just may become a better place..
A triple nuclear reactor meltdown is NOT a "natural disaster!
"just wishing well to the doer is more than enough"
Yeah, that pesky ol' radioactivity will just go away by itself.
Maybe we can pray it away, huh?
And BTW- An earthquake/tsunami is a natural disaster. A triple nuclear reactor meltdown is NOT a "natural disaster"!
@lokay5
Did you even read the article? He isn't "praying away the radiation" he is actually finding it and trying to cleanse the area. if you actually looked into it he has modern science helping him do so. The natural disaster is what caused the meltdown. So yes, this was a natural disaster. This specific event alone is not, what caused it, did. New orleans wasn't destroyed by a natural disaster, it was the failure of man made levies according to your assumptions.
I welcome the Japanese people who choose to say no to any further nuclear power generators in their own country. It could lead to less nuclear weapons eventually.....maybe the curse of Japan is their savior...or all of ours.
Sorry MSNBC, did the monk specifically say ONI? Thats Japanese for demon, to toss the word demon in this article unless this monk used the term really throws him back into a time when he would be some stone age cave dweller who is uneducated and lacks education and the ability to understand radiation. I personally find it an affront to Koyu Abe and all practicing monks, Japanese anyone who MSNBC designates as beneath them. Just because someone takes up the robes of a monk, do not take them for a fool. The only one doing that was the person who wrote the article.
Kayless: My guess would be that (though the information was lost in the editing, which made the article non-traditional in that it did not have a dateline) either the priest or the original reporter did use the word "demon" (i.e., "oni").
A search using the terms "demon fukushima priest Reuters" turns up this page: http://blogs.reuters.com/faithworld/2012/02/10/japanese-zen-monk-fights-fukushimas-invisible-demon-radiation/. The date of the photo at the top, 3 February, is significant: 3 February in Japan is a holiday called 節分・せつぶん・"setsubun." The holiday is marked by uttering the phrase "鬼は外! 福は内!, Oni wa soto! Fuku wa uchi!” (or, basically, "luck in; demons out.") The pun would be mundane and obvious to those familiar with Japanese culture; indeed, on 3 February, I heard the same pun used several times in ordinary conversation.
It looks like this page does not handle Japanese characters correctly: in #12.1 I used several, which are not showing up on my screen as nonsensical strings of characters.
A look at http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/10/us-japan-disaster-invisible-idUSTRE81906N20120210, which may be the original, seems to show that the "invisible demon" comment comes from one of the people who put together the article. So far as I could hear in the accompanying video, Abe does not use the word oni (or any other words, e.g., akuma/devil, like oni). The voiceover by Reuters reporter Villar includes the wholly inappropriate phrase "nuclear winter": this would seem to be another example of word play.
In any case, MSNBC does not have any reporters in Japan and does not seem to have any editors who understand Japanese, so the editors here seem simply to have trusted Reuters.
The article title would imply he is mentally wacky, and my first reaction was why did they do a report on him? But this is in Fukushima, and he is an active and sane person. Many people would be like the first poster roger ramjet and not be curious enough to read the article.
I agree, gross mis-characterization. Headline needs a re-write and an apology to Mr Abe.
It's really a race against the clock at this point, because with all the radiation, Godzilla could appear at any moment.
And the elements therein will burn up.....
3 known nuclear reactor accidents so far, one that was devestating. an unkown number of close calls and the US is building another reactor? i guess no one believes in Murphy anymore....yet he has proved himself and his laws time and time again... however, money doesn't think nor do the people behind it...
Three reactor accidents... one in the Soviet Union, at a plant that was built in the 1970's and essentially made out of cardboard and paste, with undertrained staff and no safety precautions... and even then only failed when the scientists tried an experimental procedure that the reactors hadn't been designed for.
Another in the United States where absolutely no harm came to anyone whatsoever because all emergency procedures worked.
And the last one in Japan, at a plant designed and built in 1967 and set to be decommissioned anyway, and only after one of the largest earthquakes in recorded history.
Meanwhile, hundreds of other nuclear plants operate flawlessly around the world without incident for the last six decades.
TJP77- These accidents demonstrate the lack of control we actually have over our enviornment and over our fellow human beings. Your argument also points out the fact that we have so very much to learn about this subject as we have only been working on nuclear energy for 50 years est. The problems have only come with the old reactors. What happens when we litter the earth with them, and then in 50 more years, these reactors become old and obsolete? Or a hundred years? And you point out that hundreds of nuclear plants operate flawlessly. It is a good thing, because it will only take one.
It will only take one? It only takes one to what?
To cause people who are pointlessly afraid of every little thing the media shoves in our face to turn against a source of cheap, reliable and nearly inexhaustible energy? That's the only sensible answer I can come up with.
Also, your logic concerning the obscelence of modern reactors in 50 years sort of implies that new threats to nuclear reactors will appear in 50 years that modern ones aren't designed to handle. Although I obviously can't prove that isn't true, I can't see any evidence that it is.
I'd much rather live next to a nuclear plant than a smoke-belching fossil fuel-burning plant. Or a windmill farm, for that matter. (Solar would be okay)
He follows what every religion says... "Service to people is Service to GOD"
ya...too bad most religions don't practice what they preach.
But the eastern religions are not about God, they are about elevating themselves to become their own gods. This is the basis even for yoga -- look further into the premises of yoga, and you realize you're giving up your psyche "to spirits" in the effort to elevate oneself to become godlike -- totally against the teachings of Christianity.
Eastern religions have long gone beyond imaginary friends...
I think this article may be a little insulting to the monk.
No this would not be insulting to him, he is a Zen Monk, and I am a Buddhist, I also study Zen Buddhism, the very first thing this man would think is, if this article inspired someone to act in a similar way, and did something, anything, to help end the suffering of others, it is a wonderful article.
He is Buddhist, they do not follow a god. Take your proselytizing elsewhere. It is as offensive as the demon comment made by the author.
Namaste, my friend.
Niacin - vitamin B3 helps handle the effects of radiation.
Don't get the "no flush" kind as the whole point is to flush out the radiation.
One would start small like 50 or 100MG and build up until no longer getting flushes.
Even old bathing suit marks will show up as radiation is cumulative and the sun is a major source of radiaton.
What kind of witch-doctor pseudoscience is this. The flush from Niacin is from dilating blood vessels at the surface of the skin. That flush has no bearing on "flushing" toxins out of your system. Same term; different meanings. Don't prescribe treatments if you are not a doctor and have no clue (obviously) what your are talking about.
The Medical Monopoly uses personal attacks on anyone who attempts to help.
Are you a member?
NWOwatchdog,
Vitamins don't do f-all for radiation. You might want to pick up a book and learn about what radiation is. Either that or buy the extra-thick aluminum foil.
the pat robertson of japan.
Oh, I think he's a little better than that !
This man is what people should be like and, sadly, seldom are.
I agree the title of the article is not quite right, but on the other hand I have no problem saluting this warrior-monk. This is a real man! Semper fi.
"I am the Lord thy God, thou shalt not have strange gods before Me."
Good, as long as they aren't strange....
Stop the Bullsh1t,
Jesus pumps my gas!
Hey Stop, read your handle and stop the bull!
Thy shall not put your imaginary friends before us!
For those of you who have already forgotten -- or never paid attention in school -- Japan has already recovered from two much worse nuclear situations. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were removed from the map once, but Japan struggled to scrub, clean and rebuild both cities, even though the forecast was officially "uninhabitable for hundreds of years". This monk is at least trying. It's better than what the owners of the nuclear plants have done...which is exactly NOTHING!
mathuin: Neither Hiroshima nor Nagasaki was "removed from the map": tens of thousands died; further thousands were permanently sickened or damaged; further thousands still were sickened less severely; and yet further thousands were rendered homeless. Neither city, however, was ever abandoned.
We've changed the headline.