How the Borg helped pass health care reform
March 24, 2010Jon Brooks Comments Off
I have to say I have tested people with this riddle myself, only with two less degrees of separation:
What is the chain of events that connect the Borg — the evil cyber-bio villains of “Star Trek” fame — and health care reform.
The blog a grammar asks and answers this in a post called unsung heroes of healthcare reform.
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?”
But consider the following chain of events:
1. 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.
2. The 1997 casting of Jeri Ryan as Seven of Nine surely changed the course of her 1999 divorce from Illinois politician Jack Ryan.
3. 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.)
4. His withdrawal left one Barack Obama running basically unopposed, except by Alan Keyes (who doesn’t count because c’mon, Alan Keyes).
5. 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.
