I saw Mr. Sulu!

As you know, George Takei, who played Mr. Sulu on "Star Trek", recently outed himself, and since then he's been doing speaking tours for the Human Rights Campaign. Tonight was the inaugural speech, and Dan and I were there. It was great! Takei was a great speaker, and he has a really infectious laugh. His speech was short (about 10 minutes) but stirring, and he had Q&A for nearly an hour afterward. There were about sixty or seventy people there, and they by and large asked great questions. He then hung around to speak with folks, sign autographs, etc., but we cut out at that point. I'm a bit leery of asking celebrities for autographs; it always makes me feel intrusive. I realize Takei does this for a living, but I still can't shake the feeling.

Takei talked about his childhood growing up in the Japanese-American internment camps, and he was so eloquent I couldn't help but feel a sense of shame for my own country. (Interning American of Japanese decent was not good...suck it, Michele Malkin!) Still, he spoke mostly of his sense of pride in America, and it was a good reminder that, even with a country under such fucked-up leadership as ours, that the US is a great place to be.

Oh, and can I say it's awesome that a sister was driving the Enterprise?