JamesG
03-31-2011, 06:25 PM
Lawmaker to Kan: Watch Jack Bauer
By Yoree Koh
March 30, 2011
What’s a leader to do when he is faced with a crippling disaster of proportions perhaps only imaginable on the silver screen?
Watch and learn, suggests one Japanese lawmaker.
Upper house lawmaker Kouta Matsuda said Prime Minister Naoto Kan could learn a lesson or two from “24”, the intense TV show where the world is brought to the brink of a nuclear or biological calamity, then somehow miraculously saved at the hands of the equally intense Jack Bauer.
The show’s extremely popular in Japan: one channel recently ran every episode of every season back-to-back.
“Prime Minister Kan, I imagine you are busy but I think you have time to watch one episode on a DVD if it’s late at night,” mused Mr. Matsuda on his blog Wednesday afternoon.
“Please take a look at ‘24’ (season 2).”
Mr. Matsuda, the founder of the Tully’s coffee shop chain in Japan and a novice lawmaker, is referring to an episode when the fictional U.S. President David Palmer declares he will go to and command from Los Angeles immediately amid fears of radioactive fallout to be close to “the people who feel the most uneasy.”
Prime Minister Kan made a helicopter visit to the Fukushima area March 12, the day after the earthquake struck, but has yet to return, having postponed a visit planned for March 21.
While the lawmaker, part of the tiny Your Party, recognizes that “24” is not reality, he believes it encapsulates important lessons in crisis management.
Mr. Matsuda repeated his proposal that Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano conduct his daily press conference from within the precarious 20 – 30 kilometer radius away from the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.
“But if that’s not possible, then don’t ‘recommend independent evacuation’ of the area, make an ‘evacuation order,’” he wrote.
http://blogs.wsj.com/japanrealtime/2011/03/30/lawmaker-to-kan-watch-jack-bauer/
By Yoree Koh
March 30, 2011
What’s a leader to do when he is faced with a crippling disaster of proportions perhaps only imaginable on the silver screen?
Watch and learn, suggests one Japanese lawmaker.
Upper house lawmaker Kouta Matsuda said Prime Minister Naoto Kan could learn a lesson or two from “24”, the intense TV show where the world is brought to the brink of a nuclear or biological calamity, then somehow miraculously saved at the hands of the equally intense Jack Bauer.
The show’s extremely popular in Japan: one channel recently ran every episode of every season back-to-back.
“Prime Minister Kan, I imagine you are busy but I think you have time to watch one episode on a DVD if it’s late at night,” mused Mr. Matsuda on his blog Wednesday afternoon.
“Please take a look at ‘24’ (season 2).”
Mr. Matsuda, the founder of the Tully’s coffee shop chain in Japan and a novice lawmaker, is referring to an episode when the fictional U.S. President David Palmer declares he will go to and command from Los Angeles immediately amid fears of radioactive fallout to be close to “the people who feel the most uneasy.”
Prime Minister Kan made a helicopter visit to the Fukushima area March 12, the day after the earthquake struck, but has yet to return, having postponed a visit planned for March 21.
While the lawmaker, part of the tiny Your Party, recognizes that “24” is not reality, he believes it encapsulates important lessons in crisis management.
Mr. Matsuda repeated his proposal that Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano conduct his daily press conference from within the precarious 20 – 30 kilometer radius away from the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.
“But if that’s not possible, then don’t ‘recommend independent evacuation’ of the area, make an ‘evacuation order,’” he wrote.
http://blogs.wsj.com/japanrealtime/2011/03/30/lawmaker-to-kan-watch-jack-bauer/