I’m working on a fairly long post about recent developments in the presidential campaign, which should be up tonight or tomorrow, but I have a couple of other things I’d like to share in the meantime.

First off, I’d like to note that James “Scotty” Doohan made his final public appearance over the weekend. (You may recall that Jimmy has recently been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease.) The James Doohan Farewell Star Trek Convention & Tribute was held at the Renaissance Hollywood Hotel and was supposed to include the entire surviving cast of the original Trek, including Grace Lee Whitney, who played Yeoman Rand in Season One, and — most surprisingly — William Shatner, with whom Jimmy has had a long, ugly feud.

(A quick sidenote on that topic: I hope Bill and Jimmy have truly buried the hatchet and that Shatner’s appearance wasn’t merely PR nice-nice because of the nature of this event. I’m sure the gossips on the various Trek message boards will find out for sure.)

Other people supposed to appear included real-life astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, various actors who guested on the original Trek, and a handful of folks from the Trek spin-offs (including a favorite blogger of mine, Wil Wheaton, who has posted the remarks he intended to make at a tribute dinner on his site; they’re quite nice, if you’re interested in reading them).

I really wish I could have attended this event. Doohan’s signature character, Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott, has always been a favorite of mine, and Jimmy himself struck me as an incredibly sweet man when I met him briefly a few years ago. It’s a damn shame what’s happening to him. I’m keeping an eye out for accounts of what happened at the con — I imagine Wil Wheaton will put something up — and I’ll post links when I find them.

On a related note, Jimmy will be receiving his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame tomorrow morning. Details are available on the Planet Xpo site I linked to above; just scroll down until you see the story.

In other news, I read today that early-80s pop star Laura Branigan died of a brain aneurysm last Thursday. She was only 47.

Branigan was never what I would consider a huge star — she had only four hit singles that I know of — but her best-known song was huge. “Gloria” stayed on the charts for an impressive 36 weeks and earned her a Grammy nomination, according to this Billboard article. I personally didn’t get the fuss over “Gloria” at the time — I always preferred one of her lesser hits, “Solitaire” — but just the other day I heard “Gloria” on the radio for the first time in forever, and I was struck by what a well-crafted song it really was, with a catchy hook and soaring, powerful vocals. Branigan’s voice was different then I remembered it being. It was clear and immensely strong, and not very much like the female vocals you hear nowadays, which seem to either fall into the sex-kitteny Britney style or the whispering Sarah MacLachlan/Lilith Fair thing, neither of which appeal much to me. Branigan sounded like an intelligent woman who could project sex appeal without resorting to vocal tricks, who was attractive not because she was particularly sexy but because she was interesting. After the song ended, I found myself wondering what had happened to her. Today I’m sorry to have found out…