To Iowans, It’s Not a Warped Idea

A small town in Iowa wants to boldly go where no one has gone before--and erect a statue to a favorite son who hasn’t even been born. Four years ago, Riverside, Iowa, lobbied to become the “small town in Iowa” where James T. Kirk, whose captainship of the spaceship Enterprise is enjoying its fifth go-round on film, is to be born on March 26, 2228. Super “Trekkie” Steve Miller, who came up with the proposal, received the blessing of Gene Roddenberry, creator of “Star Trek,” and now Miller is working with Paramount Pictures to get permission to erect a bronze statue of Kirk in the town’s park. The town already has its head in the stars, being host to a Trek Fest each year, with the fifth celebration coming at warp speed this weekend.

--London cellist Julian Lloyd Webber, who sold his rare cello last week for $125,000 to pay for a divorce settlement, has announced he is engaged to marry an Afghan princess. Lloyd Webber, 38, the brother of theatrical composer Andrew Lloyd Webber, said the bride-to-be is Zohra Ghazi, 25, whose great-uncle is the exiled King Mohammed Zahir Shah.

--The venerable Smithsonian Institution is indulging in some child’s play this summer, sponsoring a special exhibition at its National Museum of American History honoring the 20th anniversary of “Sesame Street.” Mr. Hooper’s storefront, trash-can habitue Oscar the Grouch and the gangly Big Bird are all there. Museum Director Roger G. Kennedy hailed the show’s achievements, declaring that its creators had prevailed against “the greed, heedlessness and irresponsibility of much of network television” to produce a program that has “made an immense difference in the tone of our culture.”

--A dog apparently blessed with a cat’s nine lives showed up at a Mt. McKinley research camp 18 days after it was lost by a pair of French climbers sledding up the Alaskan mountain. Patricia and Jean-Francois Tuveri, of Chamonix, France, assumed the dog, part of a team of four, had fallen in a crevasse and died after disappearing May 31. After descending from the top of the mountain, only the second expedition using dogs to reach the summit, the Tuveris did some sightseeing around Alaska, then returned to pick up the dogs for the return to France. That’s when they learned that Oukiok had turned up at a medical research camp on the mountain. The dog was uninjured but exhausted. Jim Leach, chief veterinarian for the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, said snow and ice could have provided enough liquid to prevent the dog from dying of dehydration.