Nobles and knaves

Nobles: James “Scotty” Doohan, for accepting a lifetime role thrust upon him with grace and humor.

As any Trekkie will tell you, Montgomery Scott was born in Aberdeen, Scotland, on 2222. He joined Starfleet in 2242 as an engineering officer, and in 2265 was assigned as chief engineer under the command of Capt. James T. Kirk on the USS Enterprise, whose ambiguous mission was to “boldly go where no man had gone before.” And so it did, thanks in no small part to Scotty’s engineering skills.

Whether he wanted it or not, the life of Scotty became the life of Mr. Doohan, who died Wednesday at his home in Washington state at 85. It was an identity the Canadian-born actor at first resisted, much like William Shatner (a.k.a. Capt. Kirk). As he would tell the story later, only when reminded by his dentist that Scotty will live on long after he himself had died, did Mr. Doohan welcome his peculiar fate. He quickly became a regular at “Star Trek” conventions across the world, delighting fans young and old alike with his fake Scottish accent and recitations of “She can’t take much more, Cap’n.”

But for all of Scotty’s heroics down below in the Enterprise’s engine room, Mr. Doohan was a hero in real life. Assigned to a Canadian artillery regiment in World War II, he stormed the beaches of Normandy on D-Day, where he was shot several times and lost his middle finger.

Perhaps due to the vagaries of the space-time continuum, Scotty was still alive in 2369 when he was rescued on a distant planet by the USS Enterprise-D under the command of Capt. Jean-Luc Picard. And as long as fans remember that bit of trivia, Scotty will always be earthly.

For his endearing (and enduring) portrayal of an American icon, Mr. Doohan is the Noble of the week.

Knaves: The San Bernardino City Unified School District, for doing its students no favors.

File this one under “Great Moments in Public Education.” The San Bernardino, Calif., school district is going to begin incorporating Ebonics — black slang — into its curriculum in the fall. And one sociology professor at Cal State San Bernardino couldn’t be happier.

“For many of these students Ebonics is their language, and it should be considered a foreign language,” said Mary Texeira. The idea is that if students are taught in their “native” dialect, then they will do better in school. “There are African-Americans who do not agree with me,” the professor said. Really? “They say that [black students] are lazy and that they need to learn to talk.”

Nothing closes the doors of opportunity quite as fast as not being able to speak and read English. Unfortunately for the great minds in San Bernardino, (most) college professors and employers talk in an language called English.

For creating a new foreign language, the San Bernardino school district — and one nutty professor — are the Knaves of the week.