July 05, 2004

Star Trek Star diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease - 84 year old James Doohan, legendary actor who portrayed Scotty on the original Star Trek, and a World War II veteran, has been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. All of our old icons, the most recogniseable marks on our psychological landscape, are slowly fading away.
posted by Nostrildamus 20 years ago
  • More and more people come down with Alzheimer's every year, and yet some narrow-minded religious zealots refuse to allow stem-cell research to seek a cure? Set phasers on maximum. Let's win one for the Gipper and Scotty!
  • Wow! He has a great resume, and has lived a good, long life. I do hope the rest of his years won't be too awful, especially for his family.
  • Te amo, Scotty!
  • Why does this shit never happen to Courtney Love??
  • This is awful. drivingmenuts, you're comment is very poignant - it's moments like this that make the narrow mindedness of others less of an abstract idea, and more of a real detriment to freedom. Some claim that stem-cells may not lead us to a solution for Alzheimers, but even if that is not the problem, an afterlife believing group may be deeply opposed to life extending medical science altogether. If God's judgment is the consequence of "life", should people be allowed to meddle with their destiny? Perhaps preventing judgment altogether? I think I'll have to do some research on this. James Doohan makes the concern about Alzheimer's disease all the more poignant because Scotty has an aura of invincibility: his incredible mind made it seem as if he would live forever.
  • Whoa...I had forgotten that he & his wife had a baby just four years ago. A new dad at age 81 -- wow.
  • Nostrildamus: All of our old icons, the most recogniseable marks on our psychological landscape, are slowly fading away. Insight I would never have expected from somebody who posted "you sick fuck" as a comment 8,000 times over the past few weeks :)
  • A new dad at age 81 *applauds*
  • Crap... I've never been a ST fan at all; but for these faces, more familiar to us than our neighbours thanks to media, becoming prey to disease, showing that yes, they're human, just sucks. I've lived recently such a situation. Those moments you realize a line has been crossed, there's no turning back, no grasp that will hold hard enough... Crap. Crap. CRAP. I will say it again: I accept it. We all have to go someday. That's the law. It's the WAY WE GO that sucks. CRAP. /cranky, stressed, non-fulfilled. Sorry 'bout that.
  • *grooms Flagpole* Hey, don't worry about it. You need to let off steam, you know where our emails live, okie?
  • "/cranky, stressed, non-fulfilled." In other words: human. "Insight I would never have expected ..." I am only a troll north-north-west. When the wind is southerly ...
  • Oh this is sad. I hope legions of Trekkies flood lawmakers with demands to increase stem-cell research. Scary thought. My husband and I caught Star Trek IV a few nights ago on the tele. Hadn't seen it in years. It seemed like most of the actors didn't alter their characters much as they aged, but James Doohan added a kindly grampa sort of warmth. *sends kindly monkey vibes to Flagpole*
  • niccolo: after many years, i have come to the conclusion that each man's relationship to the hereafter is his or her own business and no one has any right to dictate terms. this view seems pretty well backed up by biblical verse, so i don't hold much with the rules and regulations of organized religion, which seem more politically inspired than derived from conscious deliberation. thus endeth my participation in any further religious discussion.
  • often on the receiving end of Captain Kirk's phrase, "Beam me up, Scotty" *stab*stab*stab* Ahem... I shall now return to lurking. ;)
  • aww, no, twine42, don't go!
  • Yeah, Kirk never said that even once.
  • "While leading his men into battle on D-Day, Doohan was wounded in the leg and hand, and eventually lost a finger. For the remainder of the war, he became a pilot observer, and received the dubious distinction of being called the "craziest pilot in the Canadian Air Forces." Ah, Jimmy, you crazy Canadian. All my best to you.
  • Ah, homunculus! Thank you yet again,
  • Ah, homunculus! Thank you yet again,
  • Ah, homunculus! Thank you yet again,
  • *gasp* path got cloned! In retrospect, that's a good thing.
  • I swear I didn't hit "post" twice.
  • Server burp.
  • "Server burp" Either that, or path has been made a part of the secret government Department of Redundancy Department, a secret government department.
  • OR, she lied when she said she didn't hit post twice. And, hey, stop derailing my sensitive thread where I was trying to rehabilitate myself.
  • Best. Profile. Ever.
  • Now I am really confused.
  • ...my senstitive thread where I was trying to rehabilitate myself... Aw, don't overdo it, mate, for I've grown very fond of the old Nostril's many-faceted, glittering persona.
  • You mean how I'm a big drunken abusive asshole who occasionally posts amusing links? Wolof tried to save my soul. I sent him soup in a paper bag.
  • Steve Martin offered the following set of instructions in his 1979 short story, "How to fold soup." " Soup Folding. First prepare the soup of your choice and pour it into a bowl. Then, take the bowl and quickly turn it upside down on a cookie tray. Lift the bowl ever so gently so that the soup retains the shape of the bowl. Gently is the key word here. Then, with a knife cut the soup down the middle into halves, then quarters, and gently reassemble the soup into a cube. Some of the soup will have run off onto the cookie tray. LIft this soup up by the corners and fold slowly into a cylindrical soup staff. Square off the cube by stuffing the cracks with this cylindrical soup staff. Place the little packet in your purse or inside coat pocket, and pack off to work. When that lunch bell chimes, impress your friends by forming the soup back into a bowl shape, and enjoy! "
  • Ah, you guys. Only this bunch would end up tacking "How to Fold Soup" onto a thread about Alzheimer's. You're the Monkeys that put the human into humane and the thought into thoughtful. Flagpole: hugs and bananas for you. Uncle Nostril: I don't believe a word they say about you. You can tell a hawk from a handsaw.
  • I sent him soup in a paper bag. Christ, I wondered what that thing at the bottom of the letterbox was.
  • RIP, Jimmy. Thanks for all the fun.
  • His engines, they could'na take it. RIP Scotty.
  • The only red shirt to survive all those missions. Cheers, Scotty.
  • Beam yourself up, Scotty.
  • Awwwwwwwwwwww.
  • His engines couldna take much more power.