Context

I know that disasters and tragedies sell papers and boost ratings.  But I find it inexcusable that most of the media reports dealing with what is going on in Japan lack even the most basic contextual reference points for laymen to be able to understand how bad things really are.

Some reports are tossing around meaningless terms like 'low level radiation', 'higher radiation levels', etc., when talking about the amount of radiation that has been released.  And others are including values without helping the news audience understand what those values actually mean.

Unlike hurricanes, tsunamis, and to some extent even earthquakes, radiation is precisely quantifiable.  Which makes it all the more egregious that the people in the know aren't consistently sharing the radiation values... and even when they are, the media isn't passing them along in a meaningful context.

I have found the chart below to be helpful in figuring out what the reports actually mean (source):

 

I've been to Japan many times, and have visited the museum in Nagasaki that sits next to 'Peace Park' (the ground zero point of the A Bomb explosion there). 

Radiation is to the Japanese as the Holocaust is to Jews.  It is so much more than any historical or scientific explanation can ever touch or define.  It is a wound in the national psyche that will never fully heal.

I can't imagine being Japanese right now.