Video: George Takei On CNN Talking Japan Earthquake/Tsunami + UPDATE: New PSA From Takei

As noted on Saturday, Star Trek’s George Takei has been leading one using the social networking site Twitter to do his bit to help the people in Japan following Friday’s horrific earthquake and Tsunami. On Sunday Takei appeared on CNN to talk about Japan, watch the video below.

New PSA on Japan from Takei

On Thursday George Takei released the following PSA calling for help for the victims of the Japan earthquake and tsunami.

 

original article

Takei talks Japan on CNN

Takei talks about the Earthquake and Tsunami in Japan and his work on US/Japan relations.

According to Takei, his twitter activity regarding the crisis in Japan has resulted in over 8,000 donations to the Red Cross. And today George pointed to the SupportTohokuBlog for "a good blog of the crisis in Japan with pictures, videos, and links for Int’l donations."

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First!

In my opinion, it is a great idea to accumulate money through social networking in order to help the Japanese people!

Keep up the good work!

News report right now about Fukushima nuclear power plant. Situation is getting worse. Non essential workers have evacuated. My thoughts go out to those brave individuals, staying behind to regain control.

An utterly terrible chain of events have unfolded these past few days and there still seems to be no end in sight. Words aren’t adequate enough to express my sorrow. The Red Cross can count on a donation from me.

“We are all Japanese.” Amen. (Meaning we are all affected by this tragedy .)

George looks so sad, understandably so.

Well, to say this is an enormous human tragedy…even that is an understatement. I’ve got a huge amount of respect for the Japanese and what they have accomplished since WW2 — and the fact they they have been one our staunchest allies.

My heart goes out to them.

Nice to see all these efforts being put into providing disaster relief to the people of Japan.

My question however is this: Of all these celebrities calling for private citizens to donate 5-10 USD to the Red Cross or similar organisations, how many of these celebrities are donating? And due to their status as celebrities and overall wealth among some of them, how many are donating alot more than 5-10 USD?

The news from Japan is getting worse, not better. Now there are reports of radiation “spewing” from the reactor site at levels harmful to health. This is a departure from previous reports which said that the radiation levels were not at such levels. The Prime Minister of Japan has warned residents to stay indoors or to risk radiation sickness.

Even workers trying to cool the reactors have been evacuated.

My God.

Rainstorms and winds are now moving in a southwesterly direction, toward Tokyo.

This, on top of potentially more than 10,000 dead and untold destruction from the original earthquake, now uprated to 9.0, and a massive tsunami that has destroyed much of the local coast.

This is truly a catastrophe beyond catastrophes for Japan. They will take years, possibly a decade, to recover from these disasters. It will take every ounce of national energy to overcome these multiple crises.

I feel nothing but sadness for the Japanese people, and I hope people around the world will help them any way they can. Even Japan’s arch-rival, China, has offered its sympathies and help. The United States, as usual, is among the first on the scene with substantial resources at hand… but even this pales in comparison with the needs that have arisen.

This is a very sad day for Japan, and for humanity.

I can’t quite put my finger on why, but this set of disasters has affected me more than the Katrina or Indonesian tsunami disasters. I’m not quite as distracted and disturbed as when 9/11 happened, but it’s got a hold on me I’ve not felt since… the death and destruction feels palpable to me, even though I am not “connected” to the Japanese people in any familial sense. I can’t imagine how devastating the experience must be for those who have suffered directly or indirectly as a result of this cataclysm.

The events in Japan are just so awful, very sad…

http://tvnz.co.nz/world-news/analysis-dangerous-japan-s-radiation-leak-4063896

Keachick, I admire your words and your class. If we, as Trek fans, have little concern for others in their times of need, then our fanship means nothing significant, in my humble opinion. Trek is not just entertainment, though in fact it is excellent entertainment, but it is also much more — it is a cultural expression for many of us. We believe in not just trying to be good, but to DO good. We want the world to be better than it is. Unlike some others, we want our lives to be meaningful and by that we mean that we want our lives to contribute to others’ welfare, or at least contentment, to some degree. To me, that’s what being a fan of Trek means.

I was literally moved to tears when I read this: ” ‘The earthquake was much bigger than what we expected. That’s why the damage was so great,'” Furuma told NPR. “‘This shows that from the great perspective of nature and Earth, our knowledge is minuscule.

“‘We don’t know how long it will take for the economy to recover and for us to rebuild [from this quake]. But we must not be depressed or devastated by this. We must learn valuable lessons from it in order to prepare for the next earthquake,” he said.”

That’s exactly right. That’s the right lesson, and the right approach.

Japan is a small island nation, about the size of California. The last century has seen so much turmoil, but the people of Japan who are alive now have done, in the last six decades, much to help themselves out of that turmoil, and to succeed, and to excel, and to do the things that are right. A country of 120 million or so, their economy until recently was greater than that of China, with its population of ten times that number. The Earth has struck a great and cruel blow against Japan, just as it has against New Zealand, and Chile, and Haiti. I believe that, at least metaphorically, the Earth has had enough.

But as human beings, we must unite to face the future together. As individuals — and I’m sorry, I must say this — each of us is relatively powerless and insignificant. But as a society made of individuals who have voluntarily joined together, even the gates of hell will not prevail against us. There are setbacks, of course. Nature will have her way and she will challenge us, because she lacks the knowledge of the suffering she has caused the billions of years she has existed. As sentient beings, it is up to us, the consciousness of the universe, the universe made aware, to redeem not only ourselves, but the idea of existence ourselves.

May whatever god we believe in have mercy on our souls, if we do not do what we can to help our fellow beings.

Some excellent posts here for sure! I want to add that Tge Japanese people impress me with their moral fortitude during this. Here they are — they hand entire towns swept away without ANY warning whatsoever; lost power; lost everything they had and now facing a nuclear nightmare but I have yet to see or hear anything about looting or any crazy behavior!

We saw when Katrina struck how some of our own behaved…and it was not pretty. I’m impresses with by the Japanese people during this — I really am!

You don’t see them acting like animals…

I feel so bad for Japan right now. Given the current situation (worsening), I think the nuclear power industry is done in America. Japan built that facility well, but nature upped the ante beyond what they were expecting to happen. Bad news is California also has coastal nuclear power plants vulnerable to tsunamis. So I guess that when you hear an advocate say that nuclear power is safe, that claim is actually meaningless outside of the context of assumed parameters that are never violated, ONLY within which it remains safe.

We just saw those parameters trashed in real life.

Obviously, radiation loosed by above ground nuke testing was worse, when it occurred, but that’s not much of a consolation when you are in that crowd of people dosed to requiring KI.

I think nuclear power is still going to be around for awhile. There is just too big of an energy need on this planet to shut it down. I do think, though, eventually we’ll find an alternative source of energy that will greatly reduce or even eliminate our dependence on nuclear energy and oil.

Nuclear plant disasters have been relatively rare up to this point. I suspect that all countries with nuclear power plants will overhaul their systems to meet higher safety needs in the wake of the Japan disaster.

It’s all too easy to look back in hindsight and call nuclear power “dangerous”. Indeed, many environmentalists before this disaster were urging more use of nuclear energy instead of oil, because of the lower pollution and lack of carbon footprints.

The truth is, what Japan experienced was a “Murphy’s Law” scenario. Everything that could go wrong, did. They had multiple safety checks and balances which, as proven by the tsunami, weren’t enough. Its too difficult (and more likely, impossible) to plan for every possible kind of scenario.
Nothing is disaster proof. There is risk in everything we do. The Japanese have loads of experience dealing with earthquakes, but could not anticipate the magnitude of what they just experienced.

Nobody was saying how nuclear power plants were dangerous before last Friday. This was really bad luck. Chernobyl happened because morons were in charge. I’d be more worried about North Korea or Iran firing nuclear weapons at another country, or Al Queda getting there hands on a nuke.

12: “Nobody was saying how nuclear power plants were dangerous before last Friday.”

Not true. ABC ran a story today about the GE scientists who reviewed that model’s design. They resigned decades ago over objections to its safety.

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/fukushima-mark-nuclear-reactor-design-caused-ge-scientist/story?id=13141287

Believe me, nuclear power after this is going to be politically radioactive. A hard sell.

12.
…..

I stand corrected, though I’ve heard many experts claim nuclear power is safe, and for the most part, it is with the right safety checks and balances and supervision.

As for it being politically radioactive, I’m not sure it will be in the long term. The only other viable mass-market energy source is oil, and that is always being deemed as highly destructive to the environment. I don’t know if any new power plants will be opened in North America or Europe, but places like China and India, with huge populations and energy demands, might not have any other choice. And existing plants around the world are unlikely to be shut down (barring safety issues of course) because of energy needs and no one wants to lay off more workers.

its so big – its hard to comprehend but we must not let it be a spectacle that we just observe- we are all people & connected by this in our global community.

My heart goes to all of Japan. Your strength is something that truly shows why the human spirit goes on. Star Trek is more than just an idea it’s how we should all live are lives.

This is message for George Takei:
George, I watched your CNN interview, please do not tell us that you were in an japanes intement camp and your mother ask you not to pee (Gaman) – you are full of it. japanesse have commited unspeakable attrocities (like when they capture radio men on isolated islands, used them to maintain the radio equipment and when they had to leave they found it OK to decapite them). You complain about holding pee? I think your mother was right Gaman crap-man, Gaman!

#18 Dragon. What are you on about? This thread is about George Takei’s efforts to help the people of Japan who are hit by triple disasters – earthquake, tsunami and possible meltdown of nuclear power plant. In his two videos appealing for help, he made no mention of his internment.

He is NOT full of it when he has spoken about his boyhood days spent in a Japanese internment camp in the USA during WW2. This is a matter of historical (public) record. The unspeakable atrocities occurred more than 60 years ago and no side is totally blameless. Certainly the Japanese and more so, the Nazis seemed to lead the way though, one of the reasons why there was a war. Fortunately, the Nazis and the Japanese perpetrating these atrocities were defeated.

Those Japanese children facing a very dangerous and uncertain future now, especially in the wake of possible nuclear meltdown, were not born then and had nothing to do with the events of WW2. Nor did I, and I suspect this would apply to most of the people posting here.

To Dragon – Enough already.

Today, I read in the newspaper about how global warming and earthquakes are related. First, scientists have studied the rise in the earth’s plates during the thawing after the ice age. They have compared their findings to evidence from the past thirty years of rapid ice melt. They have come to the conclusion that as the glaciers continue to melt, more weight will be put on fault lines. This will make us more vulnerable to more frequent and more cataclysmic quakes. Earthquakes that will become more shallow with the resulting tsunamis becoming bigger and much more destructive. In fact, the earthquake and tsunami we saw happen in Japan may be only a sneak preview of much more deadly and devestating disasters. Earthquakes that could be off the charts, going far beyond 10.0. The 9.0 quake in Japan could end up being a minor aftershock in comparison. Entire cities and islands can sink into the sea, and continents could split apart at the fault lines. And if the crust rises high enough, the plates may pull apart and create openings allowing cold ocean water to pour into the mantle, with the instant steam resulting in a flash explosion that will totally obliterate the Earth. The Earth would explode.

Oh, Red Dead Ryan, you are a “thrill a minute”… Hopefully, this is a worse case scenario. Yikes.