Captain James Kirk to command new US Navy ship

[47of74]

Yes there is a real Captain James Kirk. And yes, he is being tapped to command a US Naval vessel.

The commander of the U.S. Navy's sleek new guided-missile destroyer, which launched late last week in Maine, has a name to match its space-age look: Captain Kirk.

Captain James Kirk, the prospective commanding officer of USS Zumwalt, will lead the 610-foot vessel, the Navy's largest destroyer and first of three new Zumwalt-class ships "designed for littoral operations and land attack," the Navy said.

Kirk, a native of Bethesda, Md., was commissioned at the U.S. Naval Academy in 1990 and has served in a variety posts as a "surface warfare officer," according to his online bio. "Ashore, Captain Kirk has served as Executive Assistant to the Navy’s Chief of Legislative Affairs and as an Action Officer on the Joint Staff."

Kirk obtained a master's degrees in national security studies at the U.S. Naval War College and U.S. Army War College, where he undoubtedly heard more than his share of "Star Trek" jokes.

Congratulations Captain Kirk!

[malthaussen]

1. Dang, that's not your mother's destroyer...

... looks like it should be submersible even though of course it isn't.

-- Mal

[bananas]

2. Life Imitates Art.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_imitating_art

Life imitating art

Anti-mimesis is a philosophical position that holds the direct opposite of Aristotelian mimesis. Its most notable proponent is Oscar Wilde, who opined in his 1889 essay The Decay of Lying that, "Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life". In the essay, written as a Platonic dialogue, Wilde holds that anti-mimesis "results not merely from Life's imitative instinct, but from the fact that the self-conscious aim of Life is to find expression, and that Art offers it certain beautiful forms through which it may realise that energy.".[1][2]

The philosophy holds that art sets the aesthetic principles by which people perceive life, and does not imitate life. What is found in life and nature is not what is really there, but is that which artists have taught people to find there, through art. As in an example posited by Wilde, although there has been fog in London for centuries, one notices the beauty and wonder of the fog because "poets and painters have taught the loveliness of such effects...They did not exist till Art had invented them.".[1]

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[Fortinbras Armstrong]

3. To go along with that

There used to be a press officer at the prison at Guantanamo Bay named Lieutenant Mike Kafka.

[Fortinbras Armstrong]

4. Incidentally, it would be appropriate for him to command the USS Enterprise (CVN-65)

Unfortunately, she has recently been decommissioned. And the next USS Enterprise (CVN-80) probably won't commission until 2025 or 2027.

[krispos42]

5. I wonder how many sailors he's busted down to bilge-cleaning duty...

...for making impromptu "Star Trek" skits?

[YankeyMCC]

6. Congrats to the Captain but

I wish any poor sailor assigned to security details attached to the ship best of luck.

[Bill Lermer]

7. As long as their uniforms aren't red they have a chance.

[wyldwolf]

8. BREAKING!! To Save The World, Captain Kirk Forced To Blow Up the USS Zumwalt

Officers and crew slip off quietly after activating self-destruct sequence, leaving Somali pirates on-board.