CT Scan

So I had a CT scan. If you don’t like the prospect of having a kidney stone, you might check out the National Kidney Foundation’s website.

While I was being slid into the machine, there was a dark piece of glass overhead that had a line of red light going through it that looked suspiciously like a laser. Sure enough, there was a little sign that told me not to look at the laser. That didn’t help. So I closed my eyes as I was slid in all the way.

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What I didn’t know was that I would be slid in and out a few times. Then the images are processed by sophisticated algorithms to produce cross-sectional images of the body. Did it show that I had a kidney stone? That’s private. A good side result is that it showed my other organs were mostly without defect Mostly.

Nichelle Nichols Passed Away

Nichelle Nichols, who was the original Uhura in Star Trek, passed away. You can read all about her at various sites, but I’ll try to put a unique spin on my comments. The Uhura who was played by Nichelle Nichols was African, not African-American. This could be seen from her easy facility with Swahili and the décor of her quarters. It could be argued that she might have been an aficionado of African culture, but the original series was obviously trying to impress on us that she was from Africa.

The Uhura in the new movies, played by Zoe Saldana, is obviously African-American. She acts like a typical young woman raised in America. Except for her name, she could have been a Caucasian, Hispanic, Asian, etc. character, and there would have been no difference.

The Uhura in the new series Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, played by Celia Rose Gooding, is definitely African, not African-American. How do I know? Watch the series.

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And just to put my own self-serving spin on things, I had a short story published in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Vol. 5 some years ago. How could this be? Was it time travel?

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