This flap about mike not taking his meds has a basis in fact.

He did a today show interview years ago, and he's all shaky, but he was still a working actor and didn't shake at work, or was able to turn his jerky actions into an acting method (if you watch spin city he fidgets with his hands a lot, and when he needs to speek he tends to dip his head to the right)

While doing the interview he was asked about why he's shaking so much during the interview, but is still able to act, and he responded honestly, that the interview was occuring early in the morning, and it sometimes takes several hours for the shakes to fade.

In another interview that was taped ahead of time in an afternoon show, he said that he schedules interviews in the morning for two reasons, one that it's more convenient for him to work, and it also makes his condition more apparent so that people can understand parkinsons and it's affects while he is waiting for the meds to kick in.

So it's not unreasonable to think that he might have scheduled the filming of the commercial at a time (in this case night) when the meds were either seeping in, or he's dosed up to minimize the affect the next morning so he doesn't have to wait so long.

HOWEVER!

Laying any kinda of "i'm a victim, I'm a victim!" kinda label on MJF is just plain CRAP, and he proved it in this interview. He's a decent person with an agenda that is not at all manipulative or cruel, he is just trying to convince people that the effort is worth while.

MJF is a much better man than most of the people he supports.

Great prop for Katie...sort of needs it right now.

What I personally find disgusting is one person's self interests being made out to be more important than someone else's self interests.

but that is the core of societal ills, is it not ?

Donnah, I met a lady once who had osteoporosis so bad, that she lived in a wheelchair, had multiple
non-healing fractures throughout her body, and also carried a small fortune in PCA pump cartridges of pure Morphine Sulphate, baby. Oh yes she was the definition of addiction.

Too bad that the politico-jaundiced 28 million dollar contributers to this deal fell for the Fox
porn. Now if they interviewed a few real people...eight-year old people, Almost retired school teachers, etc... THEN they could sell this thing to the masses easy.

They take the populous for idiots who don't have their OWN personal suffering.. hell, my Mother-in-law has lung cancer, my cousins husbands funeral is this weekend, etc. I figure most people know Michael still has a personal masseuse,
rides EVERYWHERE in the lap..so get real.

I think it's a stupid idea to try to raise support for this kind of stuff using what most people regard as one of the 'pretty people'.

They should hire the Jerry Lewis people.

I read his autobiography a few years back. Good read. He's a very intelligent guy, and, of course, very funny.
He understands what some people's objections are, and just doesn't feel the same (images of a South Park Christopher Reeve popping the heads off babies and chugging the contents). I can't say I blame him for his point of view, but there are other people who are just as disabled who say "no thanks" to embryonic stem cells. IVF clinics definitely need more regulation, this latest stuff with cytoplasmic transfer and the kid having DNA from three parents is really gross.

There was an ethical debate in the 80's about using the drowning and freezing research from experiments conducted in the concentration camps. Some scientists were gung-ho to use it (it's there, why waste it?), others wouldn't touch it. He wants "cells" that are just laying around, other people have a problem with that. Again, IVF clinics need an overhaul so they won't fertilize more eggs than will be implanted at that time.

After having seen the Madonna/Oprah love-fest, I was very surprised with Couric's conducting a very thorough and professional interview with someone as charming and sympathetic as Michael J. Fox. She asked a lot of the questions I had in my own mind, got the other side's point across, and pushed him on some things. I think she did a good job.

Well with the "well they're just laying there" argument, is that, technicaly, they aren't "just laying there" Most of those zygotes actually belong to people, but the people that they "belong" to were never informed that they still exist.

I don't mind embryonic stem cell research, as long as it is performed 100% completely and totaly honestly, and WITHOUT PAY, beyond basic physical maintenance for health care.

If you can find a man to toss seed with full knowledge that he isn't making a child (yeah thats tough, (sarcasm, just ask my belly hair)) and a woman willing to offer up eggs without specific financial gain (after all, isn't it OUR responsibility, being the argument of the federal funding crowd? Why can't WE take part by having women going through the painful process of egg collection without collecting a fee? Let THEM the ALTRUISTIC women pay the taxes of pain before I even think of being "Altruistic" through the extortion of taxation)

If the male and female portions of Embryonic Stem Cell cultivation are offered up without payment, then, I can't argue with the process. But if you tell me to pay taxes, have my taxes diverted to abortion clinics, or college planning centers (there are financial centers that recommend selling eggs to young women) so that they can bribe young women into being nothing more than Stem Cell Cows, then I will support it.

Michael? Donate your sperm, Michaels wife? donate your eggs. Lead, not by talking about how it's a responsibility of society, but by creating a batch of human tissue that could otherwise be a child, but will be held in stasis as nothing more than an stem cell production center.

Tim Robbins? Same with you and Susan. Susan's ovaries are nearly useless, but theres pleanty of eggs that can be harvested as recepticles of tims seed, so that your egg can be fertilized, and then harvested for stem cells.

Every person who is RIGHT NOW! demanding Publicly funded Stem Cell Research should be required to release their own genetic material for stem cell harvesting.

"OH THATS NOT FAIR WICKED!!! Thats like the Chicken Hawk Argument" but it's not. The people in the military chose, the zygotes don't. Let the people demanding that the "snowflakes" be released for research for selfish purposes lead the way.

I would even accept this. "Federal funds will be released for the maintenance of every line of new stem cell harvesting at a rate of 2/1. for every 2 pundits in favor of embryonic stem-cell research? we will fund the maintenaince of ONE new line acquired via 100% volutary participation."

You think they will sign on?

I say no.

Sometimes, I'm just flogging brilliant.

One thing that has been brought to light about Fox is his recent admission that he hadn't even read Amendment 2 and really couldn't speak on the specifics. This really makes his appearance in the ad appear superficial and weakens it in my view.

"This really makes his appearance in the ad appear superficial and weakens it in my view."

Yeah, sort of reminds one of Michael Nifong...

I had a kid once that was diagnosed with Osler-Weber-Rendu syndrome...or Weber-Rendu-Osler..

depending on which doctor you spoke with. OWR is an 'orphan' disease, affects four percent of the population, and gets a little coverage in the Reader's Digest once in a blue moon.

Here's the point. It's hard to convince all the heart disease people and the cancer people that a disease that affects a minimal slice of the rest of us deserves funding. The truth of this whole matter goes right back to insurance companies.

The insurance industry has made a fortune off of known illnesses. A lot of policies don't even cover rare and orphan illneses, so you're on your own. If there was some bread to be made off of Parkinson's (the same condition that put my Dentist out of work...can't run a drill and jiggle) you can bet the insurance industry would have already jumped on it. Adding a cancer rider USED to be a long shot, not anymore...if you can afford it, you better have it.

Now my dentist goes to church with my Mom. His wife is the dentist with Parkinsons..they worked for years to get her through school so they could both be dentists...then she got diagnosed, go figure.

Since most of the general public doesn't really understand the whole process of having an orphan illness, and having to become your own researcher, etc. I guess I figure it's wrong to appeal to the public's interests in this matter.

Moreover, when you line up all the sufferer's of orphan illnesses, how does one pick out the one's that we spend the money we don't have to research ?? Should we pick one that affects 3 percent ? Four percent ? (yay, then maybe my daughter would have lived) 2 percent... This is gonna be expensive research...we don't know anything about the illness, it could be 30 years before we even know it's mechanism.

Meanwhile, millions die of cancer and heart disease. Bottom line, the media age is on us...people are going to do whatever they think is in their own best self interests.

I liked Back To the Future, but I'd rather watch
chocolate pudding wrestling than to hear about some rich white guy complain about his little itch, especially in light of the fact that dollar for dollar, we'd all be better off if the research money went into conditions that affect us all.

Sry if that offends anyone... If anyone has a right to bitch about research dollars it would be my daughter's Mama..we had to beg doctors to treat our kid.

ESC research is looking to help those with juvenile diabetes, alzheimer's, ALS, Parkinson's and who knows how many others.