On Friday, June 9, the Department of Anthropology and Sociology at Lake Tahoe Community College (LTCC) will host a public discussion on the topic "The Cultural Phenomenon of Star Trek." Guest speakers will be Eugene W. Roddenberry Jr., son of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry and producer of the upcoming documentary "Trek Nation"; Roger Nygard, director/editor of the two "Trekkies" documentaries; and Daryl Frazetti, faculty member at LTCC who teaches a course on "The Anthropology of Star Trek" (related story).

"This event is designed to raise community awareness of how the social aspects of Star Trek mirror contemporary society, including the topics of Universal Ethical Dilemmas, Cultural Perspective, Conflict and Optimism for Humanity's Progress," states a press release. The speaker presentations will be accompanied by a short amateur video featuring Star Trek's influence on local rock music bands "Warp11" and "Stovokor."

The event will take place from 5:30 to 10:30 p.m. at the LTCC Main Dining Hall, and refreshments and raffle tickets will be available. Ticket prices are $25 for the general public and $20 for any college student with a valid student ID. Tickets may be purchased at the door, depending on availability, or in advance from the LTCC bookstore by calling (530) 541-4660, ext. 227.

Ronald D. Moore to Talk Galactica in Big Apple

On Friday, June 2, the Museum of Television & Radio in New York will host a Q&A with the cast and creative team of Battlestar Galactica after screening an episode of the Sci-Fi Channel series. The panel will include Ronald D. Moore, former writer/producer for Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Currently tickets are available only for closed-circuit viewing, at $5 each. However, a webcast of the event will be posted on the museum's website the following Monday, June 5. Visit www.mtr.org for more info.

Creation's Vegas Convention Sponsored by A.I. Firm

Creation Entertainment has adopted an unusual new sponsor for its fifth annual Official Star Trek Convention in Las Vegas this August: an artificial intelligence technology company called Arovotech.

The high-tech firm plans to debut its new A.I. software at the Vegas convention, the largest Star Trek gathering of the year. The product is a new computer interface that uses simple speech, much in the way computers interact with people in the Star Trek universe. It's called Computer Automated Smart Semantic Interface or "CASSI."

"Star Trek fans are at the forefront of acceptance of new technology and are certainly open to learning about and adopting advances made in computer interface and the Internet," said Gary Berman, co-CEO of Creation. "Arovotech, in a sense, is bringing Star Trek technology to our daily lives today."

Vincent Arovola, founder of Arovotech (www.arovotech.com), said, "As a long-time Star Trek fan myself, I felt that this particular venue was the natural choice to present our technology. Clearly as Arovotech establishes its presence in the general public we look to those who are tech-savvy to be the first adopters of our technology. We're anxious to show the Trekkers in Las Vegas how they can help Gene Roddenberry's vision come true today using our CASSI artificial intelligence platform."

But will CASSI sound like MAJEL, we wonder...?

Paramount Parks Sold to Cedar Fair

Star Trek: The Experience, the attraction at the Las Vegas Hilton featuring Klingon- and Borg-themed virtual rides, will be taken over later this year by Cedar Fair, an Ohio-based amusement park operator. It is part of the divestiture of Paramount Parks by CBS Corp., which inherited the theme park division when it split with Viacom Inc. and subsequently announced its intention to sell (related story).

The transfer of ownership also includes Carowinds in North Carolina, which operates the Borg Assimilator roller coaster, and four other parks. Cedar Fair currently owns seven amusement parks, including Knott's Berry Farm near Los Angeles, and five water parks. The deal, which will nearly double Cedar Fair's business, is worth $1.24 billion and is expected to close in the third quarter of this year.

Cedar will adopt from CBS a 10-year licensing deal to use the Paramount name. However, Cedar officials have said they have not made any decisions about whether to retain, change or simply scrap any branding of rides, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Neither was the company ready to predict whether it would look to extend the arrangements once they expire, even though industry sources said they expect Viacom (owner of Paramount Pictures) and Cedar to both have an interest in extensions.

CBS has made assurances that Paramount Parks will remain in full operation throughout the divestiture process. However, the long-term implications of this deal for The Experience remains to be seen, so we will keep a close watch on this story as it develops.

Shatner, Stewart, Frakes, Billingsley in On-Line Videos

AOL/Moviefone has posted several videos of interest to Star Trek fans, though they are related to other franchise films. William Shatner and Avril Lavigne, who play father-and-daughter possums in "Over the Hedge," interview each other with fan-submitted questions. And Patrick Stewart talks about his role as "Prof. Charles Xavier" in "X-Men: The Last Stand," which opens today. Other "X-Men 3"-related videos feature Famke Janssen ("Kamala" in "The Perfect Mate") and Kelsey Grammer ("Bateson" in "Cause and Effect"). To view those videos, follow this link, then click on the "Features" tab.

In addition, Jonathan Frakes spoke to a local TV station in Portland, Maine, about why he and wife Genie Francis chose to live in that state, and how TNG changed his life. The video of that interview can be found at this link.

Have you seen John Billingsley in ads for his new fall series The Nine? The commercial premiered during the season finale of J.J. Abrams' Lost this past Wednesday, only a week after ABC announced it was adding Nine to its 2006-07 schedule, in the timeslot immediately following Lost. But you can also see Billingsley in a four-minute preview of the show at this abc.com link (click on any of the "Fall Show Previews," then find "The Nine" on the right side of the page). Billingsley is part of the ensemble cast of the new drama, which is about nine strangers who form a unique bond after being held hostage for 52 hours during a botched bank robbery.

Aberdeen Seeks Trek Tourism

One of several towns in Scotland to lay claim as the official birthplace of Montgomery Scott, Aberdeen is considering boosting tourism by developing a range of Star Trek-related drinks in its bars and clubs. The plan has gone before the city council's economic development sub-committee, which has decided to pursue investigation. While Linlithgow also claims the status of Scotty's hometown — based on a passage in a Trek novel — an Aberdeen official cites a line in "Wolf in the Fold" where Scotty describes himself as "an old Aberdeen pub crawler." The full story can be found at this BBC News link.

More Showbiz News: Dunst, Hatcher, Altman & Zicree

Kirsten Dunst ("Hedril" in "Dark Page") was at the Cannes film festival in France this week to attend the premiere of "Marie-Antoinette" in which she plays the historical figure of the title. The screening gained some notoriety, however, for drawing boos from local critics, presumably not from the quality of the film or her performance but from the "candy-coated approach to their country's most infamous queen" by director Sofia Coppola, according to Daily Variety. Still, the movie has bowed across France to robust ticket sales, and reviews in general have been positive. "Marie-Antoinette" opens in the U.S. on October 13. Dunst is currently shooting "Spider-Man 3" for a May 2007 release, and she may soon join Jack Black in a comedy called "Be Kind Rewind," about friends who attempt to re-film every movie in a video store after all the tapes accidentally get erased.

Teri Hatcher ("Lt. Robinson" in "The Outrageous Okona") has signed on to voice a dual role in an animated film that will combine CG effects with stop-motion and digital 3-D photography. The movie is called "Coraline," and Hatcher will play both the mother of the title character, voiced by Dakota Fanning, and her other mother in a parallel universe.

Mark A. Altman, writer/producer of "Free Enterprise" starring William Shatner, has joined forces with legendary filmmaker Ray Harryhausen on a series of new movies, telefilms, video games and merchandising under the "Ray Harryhausen Presents" banner, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The projects will be based on unproduced material by Harryhausen. Altman said scripts in development include one set in Greek mythology and another with an alien invasion theme, with production on the first film to begin this fall. Harryhausen will oversee all visual effects, which will be done in CGI but will capture the spirit of the stop-motion special effects he pioneered. One of the producers and writers on the Harryhausen films will be Marc Scott Zicree, who created the story for the TNG episode "First Contact" and DS9's "Far Beyond the Stars."

One more thing we'd like to mention: Aside from "X-Men 3," you should also check out another film premiering this weekend — "An Inconvenient Truth," the documentary featuring former vice president Al Gore's treatise on the consequences of man-made global warming. We mention this because Gore is a known Star Trek fan, having been outed by Tommy Lee Jones during the 2000 Democratic convention. "Truth," from Paramount Classics, has received raves from critics, including those at the Sundance and Cannes film festivals, and is touted as an absolute must-see. The film is currently running in limited release in New York and Los Angeles, and will roll out across the country over the next month.

"Little Captain Kirk" Born in Alaska

Well, the state may be off by a few miles (because it's Riker who was born in Alaska; Kirk was Iowa), but parents in Nikiski, Alaska, have named their newborn baby boy after the 23rd-century captain of the Enterprise. James Tiberius Kirk Weldy came into this world on April 21, and he's already being called "Little Captain."

"My whole family — my mom, brother, sister and my dad by forfeit — we're all Star Trek fans," said the mother, Rebecca McInnes Weldy. "The original Kirk was bold, determined and brave, so hopefully he will be, too."

The father, Marcus Weldy, said he is also a Trek fan and is happy with his new son's name. "It's unique, that's for sure." The full story can be found at Kenai Peninsula Online.