show. how are your friends and family doing in japan? i was concerned about them and i checked first thing friday morning. they have all checked in well. the friends are scattered all over the tokyo area and the osaka area a distance from where the tsunami and earthquake happened. so i m very grateful for that. george, let s talk about is there is there something culture until japan, the word you gave us, how do you say that? gaman? what does that mean? it means to endure with fortitude and dignity, self-restraint, control. because japan is a densely populated country, you have to be respectful of others and exercise self-restraint. and it s really moving and
powerful to see people who, i ll sure, are experiencing great anguish having lost family and loved ones, to be so orderly and dignified in that. it remains me of when i was growing up as a child in the u.s. interment camps. we had to line up for everything there. and i remember one incident, my mother i was a child, we had a little baby, my sister, and we have regularly lined up for medicine for her. i had to go to the bathroom and i told my mother, i need to go, and she said, gaman. hold it. be dignified. and i couldn t. and i slightly wet myself. it was very embarrassing. but it s that that i see again in the pictures that we see on our television screens. it s very moving.
said, you misunderstand, it was a couple of foreigners. i really did feel that this discipline, this stoicism, this gaman was really truly something beautiful to admire that is something we americans can learn from. obviously economically, they re getting hammered at the moment. and we would expect that. do you think that they have that business drive that s going to be required to rebuild their economy in the country? is that part of their psyche, as well? yes, absolutely. look what happened after world war ii when the whole country was rebuilt. and you saw the same thing after kobe. now, the nikkei is down because there are some sectors, manufacturing is going to be corporate profits are going to be hit badly. the construction industry, a central pillar of the japanese economy, is going to benefit from this. and employment will benefit. and so it s obviously a huge tragedy. but it does have some elements in which it will
dignity and that reserve, doesn t stop the japanese from solving the problem, going in and trying to deal with the tragedy. well, again, there s gaman. they are members of a community so they have to they know that they re taking a high risk, but they bear it, they endure it, fortitude, and for the sake of the others, they go in to keep the situation in the nuclear plants from getting worse. it s a remarkable cultural trait. i think it s a very distinctive thing to japanese, and i m a third generation japanese-american, but i remember growing up with that concept. well, people are talking a lot about nuclear energy, whether it s good or bad p for the country. i ve put this to you on social media, twitter and facebook and on my blog. i get a lot of responses to a lot of questions. this one is burning up the
continue to learn and when paul talks about dirty and dangerous, nuclear power is emissions-free and there have been no u.s. fatalities regarding nuclear power. paul, last word to you. five seconds or less, is there some amount of safety we can apply to nuclear power plants that would have you change your mind at all? well, you know, it s first of all, these things openly spill nuclear waste. we re aware that was sort of a yes or no question. i ve got to wrap up my show soon. no. i don t think that you can make an inherently dangerous system safe. well, i promised you two guests with different views. gentlemen, thanks very much for articulating your views. there s certainly a lot of attention going to this topic. let s discuss it again. come back on the show. paul gunlter, the director of reactor oversight at beyond nuke letter and james taylor. in times of jait need like in japan, nations rally to aid those in need. but there seems to be something different going on fo