Michael J. Fox

[Wol]

And reason #745,188 why Rush Limbaugh is a piece of garbage:

An official of the National Parkinson Foundation said movements like those exhibited by Fox are the result of taking medication to treat the disease, which would otherwise result in rigidity.

“When you see someone with those movements, it’s not because they have not taken medication but because they probably have taken medication for some time,” the official said. “If you don’t take the medication, then you freeze.”

Team MJF, all the f**king way.

[proper stranger]

I had the biggest crush on MJF when I was a preteen--I used to have all of these pictures of him from 16 and Bop on my bedroom wall. Now seeing the class and grace he's displayed in working to find a cure for Parkinson's, I admire him even more.

Rush Limbaugh, Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity need to STFU. I'm sure if anyone of them were stricken with one of the many illnesses that could benefit from stem cell research, they'd change their tunes pretty quick. My grandfather and aunt are diabetic and I lost my godmother many years ago after a battle with mutiple sclerosis. I applaud MJF and the important work he's doing to support this research.

I saw on Keith Olbermann last night that Michael responded to Rush's rantings with real class. They wouldn't be able to air my response on TV if Rush had attacked me that way, so MJF is a bigger person that I am.

[Ripley]

TTMR sent me a link via ICQ earlier today (which I can't seem to find now) where Keith Olbermann ripped apart Limbaugh for this. The best part of the piece was when he (Olbermann) talked about how Limbaugh said MJ Fox is being exploited by Democrats because of his illness. Olbermann showed an ad that MJ Fox did for Arlen Specter (R) back in 2004 where Fox was giving a positive ad because Specter had voted for medical research (not sure if it was stem cell research). As Olbermann asked, "Where was the conservative outcry then?"

[grumpygirl]

He always seemed like a sweet, unaffected, decent guy to me. Must be because he's Canadian. My grandfather had Parkinsons and it goes from tremors to complete rigidity. What happens is that your neurons keep firing. At first it just causes tremors, but then they fire continuously and it causes rigidity. Think of Pope JP II, how stiff he looked, even his face. Eventually you can't make facial expressions, talk, swallow properly and definitely have trouble walking, you start to shuffle and eventually nothing works. The L-Dopa that they give you stops working as the disease progresses and higher doses can have toxic side effects including drug-induced dementia. I think the saddest part of this is that he's a young man.

Rush Scumbaugh should be shot at dawn and his head put on a pike in front of the Parkinson's Foundation building.

ETA: Oops, I know that we're only allowed to wish death on CMJ, but in this case can we wish a tiny bit of death on Scumbaugh?

[kafka]

auroranorth said:

Here it is.

That Slate article was awesome! The writer was so tongue-in-cheek that you just know he was having a blast writing it. I giggled at his fake argument that Limbaugh was being so unbelievably moronic and dumb, that he had to be pretending and it was all one big Con. Heh.

I also liked this part:

Limbaugh's continued refusal to drop the matter as more commentators become aware of his stunningly boorish remarks has inevitably led some of these commentators to conclude that Limbaugh is mentally defective. Who but an absolute moron would attack a Parkinson's sufferer for displaying impaired muscle function?
--snip--

You think Rush Limbaugh is dumb enough to lay into a person for exhibiting symptoms of a debilitating disease? Come on. Nobody's that dumb.

[starskin]

Going back a bit, but..

I delightfully put him in the same category as Anne Coulter.

Eek! It's Ann with no 'e'. We Annes with 'e's don't want to be associated with that hosebeast! Or with Rush Limbaugh, for that matter.

I never had a crush on MJF (I was all about George McFly), but I still love him, and he's definitely one of my absolute favorite stars from the 1980s. He's just a class act.

I really believe that if stem cell research is going to happen in any viable way, it will have to happen in another country before it will happen the US. Then people like MJF can benefit from the work, come back over and say "See?! This is what we've been saying for years, you idiots!"
But that's probably o/t

On topic---
I love loved loved Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey. He's a great voice actor.

[abbynormal]

As a Republican, all I can do is disavow Limbaugh... again and again and again...

I'm a right-leaning moderate/libertarian, and yeah, I agree. That scumbag doesn't speak for me.

[pittipat]

My Dad has been dealing with Parkinsons for 5 years now. MJF faking it, my ass. My dad has literally thrown himself out of bed when off his meds. Maybe Rush is just jealous he doesn't have any drugs to not take.

[Deleted]

ripley said:

TTMR sent me a link via ICQ earlier today (which I can't seem to find now) where Keith Olbermann ripped apart Limbaugh for this. The best part of the piece was when he (Olbermann) talked about how Limbaugh said MJ Fox is being exploited by Democrats because of his illness. Olbermann showed an ad that MJ Fox did for Arlen Specter (R) back in 2004 where Fox was giving a positive ad because Specter had voted for medical research (not sure if it was stem cell research). As Olbermann asked, "Where was the conservative outcry then?"

This one?

I <3 Keith. And Michael, of course.

[ownlife]

Fox was on the Today show a couple of years back around the time of the stem cell research vote and he was shaking so badly it was painful to watch. Yeah, that was a run-on sentence. He kept apologizing for his condition and saying that his meds hadn't yet kicked in. Poor guy. I don't think it's a bad thing if he adjusts his meds intentionally to show the full effect of Parkinson's if he's doing it to focus attention on the importance of stem cell research. I don't see it as "faking" because he truly is ill. YMMV.