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-- [ From: Seymour Gross * EMC.Ver #2.5.3 ] -- This article was on page C8 of the May 17 edition of the Philadelphia Inquirer Even with Parkinson's, Reno carries on By Carol Rosenberg KNIGHT RIDDER NEWS SERVICE NEW YORK - Some people with Parkinson's disease stuff their hands in their pockets. Others routinely sit on them or clamp them behind their back. Not America's attorney general. Three years after her diagnosis, Janet Reno does nothing to hide the tremors that wrack both arms. At a recent event at MTV's Times Square headquarters, she shuddered so much during a talk on youth violence that both the podium and microphone shook. "We are living in a culture of violence," the former Dade County, Fla., prosecutor said, asking adults to listen to young people - a short speech that won warm applause and kind words. In trademark style, Janet Reno has gone from Stage 1 to Stage 2 Parkinson's while in the limelight as America's top law enforcer. By dealing with it matter-of-factly, by dismissing her tremors as a "phantom wing" - Reno has, perhaps unwittingly, emerged as Parkinson's "poster child." Her experience may also say something about America's changing attitude toward disabilities. Listen to Judy McGrath, MTV's hip black-clad president, who joined with the Justice Department recently to promote a CD-ROM providing young people with advice on how to channel their rage creatively - into poetry , music, and public service: "I think of the power of her personality and who she is when she gets going - and I kind of forget what she's doing and how she looks," said McGrath, 46, whose corporation reaches 265.8 million homes worldwide. Not that it's easy to ignore. "I see it. I feel bad for a minute and I completely forget about it," she said. When Reno works a crowd, McGrath says, people look her in the eye, not at her hands. "If anything, you respect her even more." Why? "She acts like she's in charge of her own life. So you forget about it. You don't go to feeling sad. She crackles with life." Parkinson's is a brain disorder that generally comes with age and has no cure. It gradually robs people's ability to control their movements. It is caused by the absence of a chemical called dopamine, which lets most of us move our limbs smoothly. More than a million Americans have it, among them the Rev. Billy Graham and actor Michael J. Fox. Tremors are a frequent first stage. Then can come what doctors call a masklike face, meaning people with Parkinson's do not show typical signs of emotion. If they live long enough, people can lose all motor skills. So, is a public figure's disability necessarily a news story? When is a disease a disability? If it is only cosmetic, should journalists be asking questions - and writing articles - about something that is perhaps a private matter? A Justice Department spokesman recently welcomed a Miami Herald request for permission to interview Reno's Miami neurologist about how her disease has progressed. Her tremors became more noticeable lately, and seemed to surprise some people. Yet Reno's aides say she shows no signs of slowing down and seems untroubled by the disease that could someday leave her permanently bedridden. In a brief interview Thursday, she gave a one-word answer - "no" - when she was asked whether Parkinson's interfered with her work. "She has no evidence on examination that she has any problem with judgment, thinking, abstract thinking, etc.," said her doctor, Miami neurologist William J. Weiner. Weiner described Reno's condition as "mild Parkinson's." Technically, she is classified as Stage 2 on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being the most advanced, or bedbound or in a wheelchair. "She has Stage 2 because it's obvious on both sides of her body," he said. So much so that when she sat among reporters, rockers and youth counselors at the MTV studios, her feet flat on the ground, her hands folded in her lap, she shook in her seat while she listened attentively to a teen from Arizona recite rage poetry. "She doesn't seem to care. She says outright that she has Parkinson's. She is to be admired for that. She has nothing to hide," Weiner said. The doctor says her disability could disqualify her from certain jobs - such as brain surgeon or pilot - but not from directing the 100,000 lawyers and FBI agents, bureaucrats and border guards of the Justice Department. Of course, he and other Parkinson's experts say, stress adds to the symptom - accentuates the tremors - but it does not make it progress any faster than a stress-free environment. So, her doctor said, if she doesn't mind the stress of the job making the tremors more noticeable, why should others? Reno, for her part, cannot connect stress and her tremors. "It's so hard to tell because, some days, when I should be totally stressed out, it doesn't shake much at all," she said. "It doesn't seem to have any rhyme or reason to it."