...but it is often true...?

Late in the 2008 campaign and even early into his administration, there was a lot of talk comparing Obama to Spock. By "a lot" I mean that there was any at all. On "Wait, wait, don't tell me," Leonard Nimoy recounted the tale of how, during one of his convention appearances, a candidate for high public office stepped out of the crowd and flashed him the Vulcan hand sign; "[the candidate] was not John McCain". I think there was also a Newsweek cover.... The chatter was driven by the perception that Obama was/is rational to the point of aggravation (his logic can be most annoying), even though, "he only knows how to give pretty speeches," seemed to be an equally popular criticism.

I think I just found another parallel.

I love Star Trek (for those who didn't know that: "Hi, my name is Scott; who are you?"). I love Star Trek so much that I define it only to include television episodes that were aired between [fall 1966:spring 1969, fall 1988:spring 1994] and movies featuring Leonard Nimoy that have even numbers in their titles (though, it has recently been brought to my attention that Captain Kirk is climbing a mountain). None of those are typos. The dates are chosen very carefully. That is how much I love Star Trek.

Were it my decision, I would reserve a special place in movie hell for Abrams Trek.

My problems with the most recent Star Trek movie are many (no one but William Shatner should ever be allowed to scream: "I am Captain Kirk!" and be taken semi-seriously). Today, the villain stands out in my mind. For those of you who haven't seen the movie (DON'T), the villain is a Romulan from the future bent on destroying Vulcan. Why is he bent on destroying Vulcan? (Because he's in love; you didn't click on the link, did you? you should really click on the link). He is bent on destroying Vulcan because, in the future, Spock failed to save the Romulan homeworld from falling into an artificial black hole. Spock did not make the black hole; Vulcans did not make the black hole; but, because Spock (having already saved the galaxy from Klingon-Federation war, a giant space Amoeba, THE Doomsday Machine, whale-loving hippie goofs....) failed this once in his heroics, every Vulcan everywhere had to be punished. No Melville was spouted in the pursuit of this vendetta.

Oh yeah, I was talking about Obama. I haven't heard anyone claim that he or the Democrats caused this recession. Most of the academics (read: people who make a living trying to understand the economy through the intellectual lens that helped us invent computers and wipe-out smallpox) I've heard seem to believe that recent government action actually helped prevent the recession from becoming a depression. Nevertheless, voters seem bent on punishing the blue team this November, not because they hurt us (like the other guys probably actually did), but because they couldn't save us... enough.

Maybe the president should stop stumping and start figuring out how to slip his katra into John Boehner's coffee.