Kirk here. Today is May 1st, the 67th anniversary of the first official report of the disease. So, a ceremony was held in Minamata and Minister of the Environment NISHIMURA Akihiro came to attend. After the ceremony he had to explain why it is that, even though the government wrote a law in 2009 that requires the conduct of a survey of the extent of the damage to the health of all of the people who lived near the polluted waters, the survey still hasn’t even been started. Nishimura said that, while he can’t promise he would like to try to set up a committee to begin studying how to actually do the survey by this summer.
It’s hard to get the government to do it’s homework.
Teacher: Where’s your homework? It was due weeks ago!
Student’s spoken words: “I hope to form a committee to begin considering how to actually conduct this homework you speak of. If all goes well, we may be able to hold our first meeting, in which we will discussion the scheduling of future meetings, as early as next week, but I can’t promise. These things take time, you know. But I really do want to move as quickly as possible.”
Student’s thoughts: “If I can just keep stalling, this teacher may retire before she can actually make me do the homework.”
