Fun_People Archive
20 Jun
The FCC, Star Trek, and the Internet.

Date: Mon, 20 Jun 94 12:44:09 PDT
To: Fun_People
Subject: The FCC, Star Trek, and the Internet.

Forwarded-by: bostic@vangogh.CS.Berkeley.EDU (Keith Bostic)
Forwarded-by: jim@Tadpole.COM
From: Lisa Losito <lisa@access.digex.net>

In today's Washington Post (6/17) in the Business Section, page F2, is
an item about new FCC comissioner Rachelle Chong.

Portion of _The Regulators_ column by Cindy Skrzycki follows:
(excerpted without permission.)

"Can a Trekkie find happiness at the Federal Communications Commission?

Rachelle Chong, one of the FCC's newest commmisioners thinks so.

At her coming out with the press yesterday Chong sported on her
turquoise silk dress a Star Trek "com badge" -- a voice and data
communicator -- that flashed little red lights when she passed her hand
over it.

Her passion is watching "Star Trek: The Next Generation," every episode, 
several times. "It's shown more here than in San Francisco. I'm delighted."

Chong, who will be 35 next month and was a telecommunications attorney
in San Francisco before joining the FCC last month, went to Hollywood
recently for the screening of the last episode of "The Next Generation."
She recalled breathlessly that she met Q, Data, and Commander Riker.

At the outset Chong warned reporters that she wasn't up to speed on every 
FCC-related issue.

[text deleted about husband named Kirk, and problem with FCC phone 
system transfers falling into "cyberspace."]

And she described her "mission" at the FCC as "communications--the final
frontier.  These are the voyages of Commissioner Chong, whose three-year
mission is to seek out new communciation life forms, new services to
improve civilization, and to boldly surf the Internet where no
commissioner has gone before."

She flashed the Vulcan greeting sign and waved her hand over the com 
badge..."

[more text deleted]  
                        -- end of excerpt--

	Perhaps this indicates a desire by the FCC to "understand the
	culture?" Is this a bad omen with lots of horrible implications
	that will appear in the next Cook Report? Or should we be
	grateful they didn't recruit a Klingon?

© 1994 Peter Langston