Memories of Or, Why Rush Limbaugh is an Ignorant, Fat Douchebag Vince Yim, OP Contributor My childhood was marked by the news that my father was involved in an incident of work- place violence. When your world is Saturday morning cartoons, hockey cards, and homework, learning that a mental patient put a knife in your dad’s back can really put a wrench into things. Suddenly, the man that picked you up from school and took you fishing during the summer was stuck in a hospital bed. When he got over it, yet another wrench was thrown in the gears. Parkinson’s disease is a degenerative neural disorder that affects movement, speech, and posture. Tremors and shaking are the initial symptoms, which only get worse over time. Difficulty walking, clumsy movement, dementia, and impaired swallowing aré common. After about ten years, watching my dad almost choke on family dinners became a daily occurrence. There is no cure, only treatment to attempt to control the symptoms or slow the progression. There is no specific cause either, although it is suggested that it may be genetic or caused by head injury. It’s been speculated that my father’s spinal injury may have had something to do with it. For most people, Parkinson’s isn’t actually fatal, although patients typically expire due to complications of the disease. For my father, he developed osteoporosis (due to lack of physi- cal activity brought on by impaired mobility, in turn due to Parksinson’s); fell, broke his spine and was hospitalized, where he was infected by MSRA (antibiotic resistant bacteria) and died in Father hospital. This was in 2004. He lived with the condition for almost 17 years. Michael J. Fox is one of the more well known sufferers of Parkinson’s disease and is a wi known advocate for stem cell research. Having being diagnosed while barely in his thirties, he’s one of the younger people to be diagnosed (many sufferers develop Parkinson’s in their 50s and 60s), and as a result, has been active politically, appearing in front of US congress ar most recently appearing in a television ad, endorsing Democratic Missouri senate candidate Claire McCaskill, a known proponent of embryonic stem cell research. The ad (currently available on YouTube.com) depicts Fox speaking his views, while his stereotyped and involuntary body movements depict someone unable to sit still, typical of Parkinson’s sufferers. The ad is fairly disturbing to watch for most people who are unfamilia with the disease, which is a very strong endorsement. For most people, save for right wing political pundit Rush Limbaugh. In his radio show, Limbaugh lambasted the whole ad, even going all the way to accuse Fe of either intentionally going off his medication or acting. Admittedly, Limbaugh’s accusatio1 have some merit, as Fox’s memoirs do indicate that he intentionally went off medication whi appearing before senate in 1998. And certainly, in comparisons to many of his other appear ances on television, such as a recent appearance on Boston Public, his symptoms are much mo pronounced. That is where they end, however. Anyone with familiarity of Parkinson’s will recognize the movements immediately. High levels of medication are required to keep movements in check, although the medication will lose effectiveness over the years, and in some cases, actually promote involuntary movement, Additionally, given the edited nature of episodic television, it’s not hard to get footage of Fo during his more calm moments. As it stands, accusing statements as such not only smack of general ignorance, but highly insensitive as well, regardless of Limbaugh’s pre-emptive apolo if he is indeed wrong. Would Limbaugh be making statements like that if 4e were living with Parkinson’s or kne someone close to him with Parksinson’s? After making those statements, what are the odds that he’s ever had to watch a loved one crawl on his or her hands and knees to get to the bat room? Or even try to stop the rude stares from strangers in public, reacting to the bizarre, involuntary movements? Or had to hope and pray that he wouldn’t choke on breakfast or fi down a flight of stairs? Limbaugh goes onto suggest Fox is a political pawn for doing this. As a first-hand witne to Parkinson’s, my impression is that Fox is merely acting in his own interests, namely a cure Suggesting otherwise is general douche-baggery. Indeed, everyone is entitled to their opinion, whether we want to hear it or not. Howeve half-cocked statements really should be better thought out before being made public. True, attempts to know every single fact before expressing opinions would make it so opinions would never be made. However, Limbaugh’s comments were made while ignoring key detail such as the actual movements of Parkinson’s, the long-term effects of medication, or even t details of television production. His attempts at qualifying his statements by admitting Parkinson’s devastating effects come across as empty and hollow. This Week in OP History J.J. McCullough, OP Contributor ment. was an easy trip. Can you believe 1994 was 12 years ago? This week we look at what the Osher Press was publishing on November 2, 1994, Top retro headline: “Anal penetration no longer obscene, says Canada Customs.” ._ Living in this enlightened era of ours, it can sometimes be easy to take our most sacred freedoms for granted. Yet we should never forget that many of the privileges we enjoy.today were not # avaliable to earlier generations, and were in fact won only after a long and difficult struggle. Take the unalienable right to enjoy hardcore, American-made homosexual pornography, for example. As this article points out, such a privilege has only very recently been available to Canadians. Canadian customs officials have long held the power to seize and refuse entry to “obscene” material being brought across the US-Canadian border. “Obscenity” is obviously a rather subjective category of subject matter, but * prior to 1994 it was understood to apply to many types of “extreme” pornographic material, especially homosexual porn. Since the American gay porn industry is considerably more established than the Canadian one, this rule frequently made it needlessly difficult for Canadian porn shops to import the high-quality merchandise their customers desired. Over the years, many lawsuits were launched in protest, including one mentioned in this article by the well- known Little Sisters bookstore in Vancouver. Rather than fight yet another battle with Canada’s irate pornographets, however, on September 29, 1994 Canada Customs pte-emptively changed their rules to remove material depicting “anal penetration” from the list of forbidden items. It was not a total victory of course. “Our case is much more encompass- ing than just arguing the validity of anal Ne ’ quipped the Little Sister’s co-owner in response to the develop- Though anal sex may now be officially acceptable, the hou! battle over what other types of pornography can be legitimately classified as “obscene” is a debate which continues to this very day. But no one said the road to freedom Bottom retro headline: “Briefcase Stolen at Concert” . 8 THE OTHER PRESS NOVEMBER 9 2006