Gender and Racial Equality

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Captain’s log: Stardate 201903.31. As Korea’s first Star Trek professor and its first foreign civics professor, I follow the philosophy of Gene Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek, which advocates gender and racial equality. To that end, I just made donations to the United Negro College Fund and HeForShe, a movement sponsored by the UN to promote gender equality. Star Trek was a ground-breaking show for its time, and showed men and women of different races working together as equals, and I want to be involved in making this a reality in my lifetime. Live long and prosper.

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The Late Rear-Admiral Fred Crickard

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Captain’s Log: Stardate 201902.20. Here is a nice digital oil painting that I commissioned of my mentor and friend, the late Rear-Admiral Fred Crickard, Royal Canadian Navy (Ret.). This picture dates back to 1985 when the admiral was retiring and decided to wear his old RCN cap badge instead of the Canadian Forces cap badge worn by flag officers. He was like a second father to me and he is dearly missed. He passed away at age 81 in 2012, and you can read his obituary by clicking here. RIP.

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PS: I recently came across a photo of Lieutenant Crickard in 1957, and asked my artist to colourise it. The result is below.

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A Review of Two New Star Trek Children’s Books

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Captain’s Log: Stardate 201902.16 For those of you with little ones who need to be exposed to classic Star Trek at the earliest possible age, I recommend the new books I Am Captain Kirk and I Am Mr. Spock, both available on amazon.com, and are thankfully based on classic Star Trek, not the reboots. The artwork is outstanding, although Kirk doesn’t look much like William Shatner. I sent both books to my niece so she can read them to my four-year-old great nephew. Let’s get a new generation to love classic Star Trek! Live long and prosper.

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This Side of Paradise and the End of the Kelvin Timeline

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Captain’s Log: Stardate 201901.18. I am on holiday and thought I’d update the log. One of the most popular episodes of TOS featured in my class is This Side of Paradise, and it’s one of my favourites too. My students seem to rate this episode higher than The City on The Edge of Forever, and I think it is because they, mostly young Koreans, seem to prefer Spock-oriented stories over those that focus mainly on Kirk. In the book The Ultimate Star Trek and Philosophy: The Search for Socrates there is a chapter called “Destroying Utopias: Why Kirk is a Jerk” by David Kyle Johnson in which the author takes issue with Kirk’s decision to remove the spore-infected but extremely happy and healthy colonists on Omicron Ceti III because man was not meant to be completely happy all the time. Kirk says man will not achieve anything if he does not have a “challenge”, but Johnson says the people on the planet have already overcome all adversity and are happy so they don’t need to be challenged. They, he says, have already reached what all men and women want and strive for, so they should be left alone. He also points out that Omicron Ceti III would be ideal planet for people suffering from terminal diseases and depression, and I think he makes a pretty good point there. Is Kirk a jerk? I would say not usually, but in This Side of Paradise I think he was. He had to get his crew back, that is true, but the colonists should have had the right to stay if they wanted to remain wonderfully happy and healthy.

In other news, I don’t need to be infected by spores to be happy that Star Trek 4, the latest instalment in the dreadful Kelvin timeline started by JJ Abrams in 2009, has been cancelled. This is good news for all Star Trek traditionalists and I hope to see a return to old school Star Trek in the new animated show starring Patrick Stewart.

I’ve attached a public domain photo of Leonard Nimoy and Jill Ireland from This Side of Paradise for your enjoyment. Live long and prosper.

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I love classic Star Trek, so I also love The Orville.

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Captain’s Log: Stardate 201901.15. As a fan of classic Star Trek (including TOS, naturally, but also TAS, TNG, STC, and Voyager), I really like The Orville. And apparently I am not the only Star Trek fan who prefers this programme over Discovery, which I find too dark. The Orville is light, bright, optimistic about the future, funny, and has likeable characters, something I cannot say about Discovery. Before I forget, the spring 2019 issue of the official Star Trek magazine will feature a profile on me as a Star Trek educator and I’m really excited about this! Hope all of you get a chance to read it. In any case, you can be a classic Star Trek fan AND love The Orville at the same time. Here’s me as Captain Ed Mercer of the USS Orville. Enjoy.

Supplemental: Click here to read a British article that urges disappointed classic Star Trek fans to watch The Orville.

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“Above All Else A God Needs Compassion, Mitchell!”

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Captain’s Log: Stardate 201812.7. Today we watched Star Trek III: The Search for Spock and used Ross’s prima facie duty ethics to analyze it. I always liked how this movie ended, and the caption “And the adventure continues.” In other news, my artist friend just completed a digital oil painting of me as Kirk from Where No Man Has Gone Before. It’s based on a photo from 2009 and I rather like it. Some great lines in that episode like “One jealous god, if all this makes a god, or is it making you something else?”

Roger Kirk Where No Man Has Gone Before