unsung heroes of healthcare reform, #8,129,123I can not explain how happy this post makes me.
This morning, for reasons that are PERSONAL and MINE,* I wound up watching “I, Borg,” the 1992 episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation in which the crew picks up a wounded Borg and nurses him back to health. Also they name him Hugh, he becomes friends with Geordi, and over the course of several colloquys about humans, individuality, and friendship, he learns to use the word “I” and concludes that “resistance is … not futile?”
(So it’s basically just another example of a hostile race being exposed to Levar Burton and deciding that he seems like a super-nice guy, and why do we dislike them, again?)
But consider the following chain of events:
- The deprogramming of Hugh from collective Borg to individual “I,” in this episode, sets the precedent for the 1997 introduction of Seven of Nine, the ex-Borg crew member on Star Trek: Voyager.
- The 1997 casting of Jeri Ryan as Seven of Nine surely changed the course of her 1999 divorce from Illinois politician Jack Ryan.
- In 2004, Jack Ryan sought to replace retiring Republican Senator Peter Fitzgerald, and won the Republican primary, but withdrew from the race after details of his divorce were made public, including a bunch of stuff about maybe trying to pressure his wife into swinging or public S&M. “We did go to one avant-garde nightclub in Paris,” he said, “which was more than either one of us felt comfortable with.” (When in doubt, blame the arts and the French; they’re just freaky like that.)
- His withdrawal left one Barack Obama running basically unopposed, except by Alan Keyes (who doesn’t count because c’mon, Alan Keyes).
- You can take it from there.
So, after the fashion of the butterfly that flaps its wings and causes a hurricane on the other side of the globe, I — as someone who looks forward to one day purchasing fuller health coverage on a standardized exchange — would like to say KUDOS TO YOU, HUGH THE ADOLESCENT BORG WHO LEARNED TO SAY “I,” for your hand in this historic reform.
* Cable marathon, DVR, laziness
I'm totally behind this interpretation of history. Of course, I'd take it back even further and blame the BBC. See, the Borg were just a rip-off of a species of aliens that appeared in a couple eps of the show "Blake's 7." So, at the very least we can blame the creator of the Daleks (and "Blake's 7"), Terry Nation, if not the entire remnants of the British Empire.
Just sayin'...
1 comment:
actually it was in the child custody papers which were sealed by the mutual request of both parents
.. for the protection of their son.
there was another factor
if your recall Jeri was under heavy guard due to a serious death threat. One can wonder as I do
had Jack been the sole parent
isn't it likely the court would have unsealed [only] the divorce records and left the child custody records sealed?
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