A reader left this in a comment, but it should be up top:
James Randi underwent bypass surgery last Thursday. He is currently in stable condition. He is receiving excellent care, but will need quiet time to recover. We will release more information as it becomes available, and we ask everyone to please respect the family's wishes for privacy at this time. For those who feel a need to help, please consider donating blood at your local Red Cross or Community Blood Center. Cards may be sent to Randi in care of JREF, 201 SE 12 Street, Fort Lauderdale, FL 33316.
We certainly send our best wishes to James Randi and his family for a speedy and complete recovery. I know at least one of my readers just saw him in the last couple of weeks at his conference in Vegas, so this is rather unexpected.
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I bet that he had it done without an incision.
I would gladly donate blood, but the Red Cross still feels a lifetime ban on gay men is needed, even though they (apparently, though I have doubts) test all blood taken.
My best wishes to Mr. Randi -- he's done awesome service for Skepticism.
Should we pray for him? 8^)
"I bet that he had it done without an incision."
Unless this is an inside joke I don't know about, I didn't know you could do that.
My dad had bypass surgery about a year ago. He was feeling fine, but he had an angioplasty that showed significant blockage. If he hadn't exercised so frequently, he probably would have had a heart attack by then. They had to cut him open ("Give him a zipper"), break open his breastplate, and then sew all of that back together after they were done. He's doing just fine now.
FishyFred wrote:
It was a joke, but not terribly inside. One of the first bits of nonsense that Randi debunked was so-called "psychic surgery", or surgery without an incision. It simply involves someone palming some bits of chicken liver and such and some fake blood and pretending to remove bad tissue from a patient's abdomen, then wiping it all up and - voila! - no incision.
Thanks so much for bringing this to our attention. The only times I really visit the JREF page anymore is every Friday to read the commentary. This is terrible news, but I am glad he appears to be OK.
I know Randi is getting on in years now, but I still can't grapple with the thought of losing him. I can't even think about it. The loss to the skeptical community would be huge. Here's hoping he goes on for another 20 years at least.
I'm sure Penn will talk about it on his radio show tomorrow. For those who want to catch it, the stream I listen to is WJFK (a D.C. station that for some reason you can't pick up once you go into a building in this city because it's frequency sucks). If you go to www.freefm1067.com you can listen to Penn live from 2-3 EST. Or you can just go to www.pennradio.com and click "listen live." I'm sure this will definitely be the topic of the day.
I am a huge Randi fan. I,like another poster mentioned, simply can't imagine the loss of this man.
He is an amazing individual.
Yes, two weeks ago Randi looked spry and was mentally as sharp as ever. There were a number of conversations going on about who will pick up the torch when he's gone. The Heir Apparent is most likely Michael Shermer, and there were a couple of off-the-cuff remarks I heard from the rostrum that implied an impending merger of JREF and the Skeptics Society.
About fifteen years ago I saw him do a "psychic surgery" demo so graphic that a woman in front of me fainted.
I have found Mr. Randi a veritable font of inspiration and rationality ever since his 'OMNI' days way back in the late '70's - here's hoping for at least another decade of his wit, his wisdom and his humanistic understanding.