So
this is embarrassing …
ITEM: Panicked shoppers
stripped stores of table salt in Hong Kong amid internet claims that it can ward off radiation exposure from Japan.
It can’t, of course – not without killing you, after which radiation sickness is the least of yr problems. But you know, it’s on the Internet, so it must be true.
The bridal unit encountered this first-hand at the supermarket yesterday. She can also confirm that people were panic-buying soy sauce and rice for the same reason.
Personally, I’m not sure which is worse – that some people are ignorant enough to believe any fool chain email that comes their way, or that some shop owners took advantage of it to jack up the price of salt 10x.
On the other hand, a fool and his money, etc. And it
was kind of fun watching Food/Health Secretary York Chow bust each myth one by one and tell people (diplomatically) to
use their f***ing heads.
To be fair, there’s a good chance that most of the people panic-buying never saw the Internet rumor in the first place – it was classic
“herd mentality” behavior in action, bolstered by the basic knowledge that Japan has a nuclear crisis on its hands, which – unfortunately – is being covered by a lot of media who, like most of us, don’t know all that much about nuclear physics beyond what they’ve seen in movies like
The China Syndrome, and find the whole thing a bit frightening.
The bright side, I suppose, is that at least it’s not like the US, where I understand the TV media is covering the Japan nuclear crisis with all the subtlety and rational analysis of a Jerry Bruckheimer production. As usual.
Granted, you don’t see people in the states lining up to buy the last of the salt. But then a worrying number of Americans take
Glenn Beck seriously, so it’s not like they can talk.
The punch line to all this, of course, is that Team Def ran out of rice and soy sauce last night.
Pass the pepper,
This is dF
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
