The Saywot Blog

This is a long bow for me to draw, but when presented by a world famous and much published scientist it sounds like a plausible argument. This is going to be a twisty turny journey so hang on and pay attention!

“Star Trek Saved The World”

The most recent Sydney Writers Festival included a 5 x 15 session where 5 writers were given 15 minutes to present a completely unscripted talk related to their field of interest I’ve tried to summarise the Laurence Krauss section, he starts the presentation with how he met a pantsless William Shatner (he was in his undies) when he was making a film about how Star Trek saved the world and Paramount Pictures who owned the rights to Star Trek charged $300,000 for a minute of Star Trek footage and it’s hard to make a film about star trek without any clips but there’s an exception if William Shatner is in the film and, I presume, his name is in the title so the film became William Shatner Saves The World.
He goes on to talk about a few things that 40 yrs of Star Trek inspired Mobile Phones, CAT scans to name but two
But this is when the talk grabbed my attention. I heard the words “Chris Pine” or “Chris Pyne” !!

So here’s what I managed to recall after hearing the name of a person in Australian politics who I loath and managed a few quick notes. First I thought it was the Christopher Pyne who manages to present himself as a arse-kissing twit of a Liberal Party of Australia spokesperson, he thinks he sounds like some sort of a hard man but the reverse is often the case
But it wasn’t the Australian but an American with a homophonic name. The new Captain James T Kirk

Chris Pine also plays Jack Ryan in a film based on a book written by Tom Clancy

A real-life Jack Ryan was an investement banker for Goldman Sachs who made millions when the investment bank went public then quit his job to teach children in inner city Chicago who also ran as a candidate for the US Senate (Illinois)
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Following the story so far?

To Summarise

Chris Pine (not Christopher Pyne) – Jack Ryan – Jack Ryan

OK let’s continue.

Jack Ryan (the one who isn’t Chris Pine) married Jeri Lynn in 1991, they divorced in 1999. The divorce documents were on public record but the custody records for their son were sealed by mutual consent. When he stood for the Senate in 2004 the Chicago Tribune and WLS-TV (part of the ABC conglomerate) petitioned for their release in the public’s interest. They were successful but not completely. The judge for this matter ruled that in the interests of the child that the court would appoint a referee to decide which of the sealed records might be released.
This is where things appear to go a bit nutso, Ryan was trailing his Democratic Party candidate by 48% to 40% so it was a tight contest but since Ryan had a personal wealth of 10’s of millions of dollars it wasn’t insurmountable.

I’m going to pause for a minute.
Star Trek has been on the TV in various iterations for over 40 years
The original series was broadcast from 1966 – 1969
An animated version (1973 – 74)
Star Trek Next Generation (1987 – 1994)
Star Trek Deep Space Nine (1993 – 1999)
Star Trek Voyager (1995 – 2001)
Star Trek Enterprise (2001 – 2005)

If ratings are a measure of the success of a TV show the worst of these version was Star Trek Voyager, set on the USS Voyager with the female Captain Kathryn Janeway viewers slipped away for 3 years until the introduction of new character “Seven Of Nine”, a member of the ‘Borg’ ( The Borg are a collection of species that have been turned into cybernetic organisms functioning as drones of the Collective, or the hive) this character was played by an actress called Jeri Ryan

. I’m in no position to say if it was better writing, or the Borg were a truly terrifying species or the actress herself who lifted the ratings. But lets return to the main story.

The court appointed referee decided which documents could be unsealed in the custody agreement and not be detrimental to the child included a document filed by the mother that Jack Ryan had insisted that she visit a certain types of clubs in New York, New Orleans and Paris to perform sex acts with him and others in public. She described one as “a bizarre club with cages, whips and other apparatus hanging from the ceiling”. At the time of divorce proceedings Ryan disputed the allegations, the Judge agreed but with the release of the papers to the media Ryan’s campaign lasted only one more week before he resigned from the race.

Let’s make sure you haven’t forgotten anything

Star Trek ->William Shatner->Captain Kirk->Chris Pine->Jack Ryan->Jack Ryan->Jeri Lynn->Jeri Ryan->Seven of Nine.

So you’re in the home stretch, the woman in this case was the member of the Borg and her allegations of sexual impropriety in a divorce meant that the new candidate, Alan Keyes, had almost no time to campaign, almost no cash to buy TV spots and wasn’t even well-liked by his own party. In short he had no chance of joining the other Republicans who by then had been completely hijacked by the extreme right(I don’t have time to write anything about the Tea Party). So remember I said that the Democratic candidate was ahead by about 10 points? This margin blew out.
He was in such a strong position that the Democratic Party decided that he would give the keynote address to the 2004 Democratic Convention.

This young man was Barack Obama he won the seat 70%:27% – four years later he became the President of the United States

So to use Professor Krauss’ summary

“he protected us from a group of white men who were against women’s rights, against gay rights, against health care, against peace and justice as far as I can see they’re called the Republican Party and I shudder to think what would have happened if Barack Obama hadn’t been elected, he beat two men (1) John McCain a fake war hero and then worse a guy named Mitt Romney, a Mormon God forbid,(forgive the expression) who also was a slave to the Right Wing and they would have destroyed the world, so you see …
Barack Obama wouldn’t have been elected President if Star Trek hadn’t become a cultural phenomenon that would last 40 years,making Jeri Ryan a star of the 4th series and making her exciting enough for Chicago Sun Times to open those papers.

So that Ladies and Gentlemen is how Star Trek Saved The World !”

As I said this was mostly stolen from the speech, my sources say it was a different newspaper and a TV station that requested the papers be released. It was notable also for the fact that this decision was controversial because it went against both parents’ direct request, because it reversed the earlier decision to seal the papers in the best interest of the child, who had special needs because Obama publicly stated that his position was that the documents remain under court seal. Ryan was quoted afterwards as saying it was a new low in American politics and he campaigned against the unsealing of John Kerry’s divorce papers when he ran against GW Bush “let me be the only person this has happened to. Don’t ask for Ted Kennedy’s. Don’t ask for John McCain’s. Don’t ask for Joe Lieberman’s. Just stop. This is not a good precedent for American society if you really want the best and brightest to run“