William Shatner, the actor probably best known as Capt. Kirk of the Starship Enterprise in the show "Star Trek," also appeared on the TV series "Boston Legal," and while portraying an aging lawyer, the charactor would once in a while tap his temple, give a weird look from an eye, wink and say, "mad cow."

He was introducing a difficult subject to the viewing audience on a show that was mostly a drama about attorneys, but it was also a comedy about lawyers. The subject of the temple tapping was early onset dementia, also known as Alzheimer's disease. Sometimes it wasn't clear that the charactor was making an excuse to get out of a jam, or whether he was suffering a lack of character.

Well, today, I'm fessin' up to the sin of omission. Ronald Shelton's murder remains unsolved. It's one of two major murder cases in less than a year. It's just not a county case, so a county detective's recollection omitted Shelton's death, a city case, when he and I spoke last week. I didn't remember to correct him, or write a different headline, and I regret it.

By the way, I'm not suffering Alzheimer's. I'm just learning about it. It's like learning about NASA. It doesn't mean you're a rocket scientist.

I do hope that American scientists and an American pharmaceutical company can develop a drug or procedure to prevent, or stop, the onset of dementia. It's amazing that baby boomers haven't suffered more cases of dementia, given the extent of the drug culture of the late '60s.

There are a lot of jokes about Alzheimer's. It's sometimes called old timers.

You're constantly meeting "new" people and going to "different" places.

I'm lucky; knock on wood.

Knock, knock.

Somebody's at the door.

One residence for those with the malady supposedly has a bus stop at the side of the yard. Once a day, the management has a driver take the home's van to that curb with a sheltered bench. Residents climb on board and he drives them around the block.

I could go on, but there's a limit.

It's time to move on.

This week one of Lewisburg's medical professionals - I'll call him Ray Painless - was talking about helping others in need by providing his services at no charge. He's planning to do a good deed, perform a random act of kindness. And as with practically everything else, there's a limit. If you give it all away, you can't continue a service offered commercially, and then it couldn't be provided at all.

There's a funny thing about business. If you're not making a profit, you're not in business. It's Economics 101.

I'm not exactly sure how to help Painless, but I'm thinking about it.

Painless also mentioned the race for president, conceding that it's difficult to unseat an incumbent. I don't know exactly what he's been reading, but it's been stated here that if Clinton could get re-elected during the Lewinsky scandal and Nixon could get re-elected during Watergate, then Obama probably won't be a one-term president.

Moving on...

Voting is our American right and today the county's election administrator points out that she started accepting applications for absentee balloting on Thursday.

It's like voting early, only you can do it by mail and a photo ID isn't needed.

So, there are three ways to vote: in person early, on election day, or by mail. Moove on beyond the mad cow.

These views are the author's and not necessarily reflective of the Tribune's views.­