Thirtysomething

PD

For those of you who haven't already figured this out, Rush Limbaugh is a freaking idiot. And the Michael J. Fox thing is just the latest of his idiotic comments. Michael J. Fox wanted to do those ads and of course Democrats wanted him to do them. Can you blame them? I don't think it's shameless. The reality is that he is the poster child for a disease that could potentially benefit from stem cell research and he wanted to do it.. And this is an example of how I differ from my more conservative counterparts: while I'm personally on the fence about stem cell research, I have no problem at all with this ad campaign. That Limbaugh thinks Fox was faking...c'mon, have you lived in a vaccuum for the last 10 years? Have you not seen him on TV since he's announced he has Parkinson's?

The other part of this is that my grandfather had Parkinson's. He did not have some of the medications that Fox is privy to having. It is a degenerative disease. My grandfather didn't have the jerky movements that Fox has, but Fox has said in the past attributed those movements to his medications. It might seem like an awful side effect, but that's only if you don't know the alternative. The alternative, at least in my grandfather's case, was the loss of just about every motor skill. He had tremors initially, but as it progressed all his movement became slower until it stopped entirely. It was almost funny at the time how he could be walking, slowly, shuffling really, down the street and then just stop. And not be able to restart. It's like the message from his brain to his legs got intercepted. We use to say that Pop-pop had stalled out. His voice got soft and hoarse and eventually he couldn't talk at all. And then he couldn't swallow. And then that was the end of that.

Anyway, so while I may not be a huge proponent of stem cell research I am certainly outraged that Michael J. Fox was accused of acting. Or of not taking meds. Trust me, if he weren't taking his meds, he probably wouldn't have been able to tape that commerical at all.

posted by DJ Heavy D @ 8:23 AM