Rivenrock Gardens Cactus Blog

Originally Posted in June 2005

Beam me up Scotty ‘Star Trek’ Star James Doohan Dies

   It was with a bit of amazement that I heard today that the actor who played ‘Scotty’ on Star Trek died at 85 years old today. I suppose that’s the thing with celluloide, the body ages in reality, but all who see the actor see him and think of him as not aging. It was also with some amazement and respect that I learned that he was a WWII vet, and participated in the landings on ‘D’ Day. He took several hits, including one in his chest that might have been fatal if it had not been stopped by his silver cigarette case.
   Star Trek was a series that was ahead of it’s time. It depicted a time when women would be in command positions, when persons of all races and ethnicities would be working together under a planet-wide system of government in a beneficial democracy. I for one am not a fan of one-world government, we are not far enough evolved for that yet, but it is the far thinkers, the Jules Vernes and the Gene Roddenberry’s who can look ahead, to dream the technologies, and the social evolutions that will be required to live the world of their fantasies. I just hope it is the Star Trek model we work toward, and not the ‘Star Wars’ or ‘Dune’ model that comes from our climb into the stars.
   On an interesting note, I understand that the censures of the early days in television would not have approved of many of the social interations and sexual innuendo’s that were presented in the original series, but that the writers staged it in such a way that it ‘included purple people on polka-dot planets’ and the censures were too confused and did not know how to respond, so that many of the scenes that might have been deleted were included.