Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Amendment I
The Constitution of the United States of America
September 17, 1787 

It seems like every day brings us one step closer to a totalitarian police state, and today is no exception.

The Daily Crux and Economic Policy Journal have reported on a little known bill that was overwhelmingly approved by the House of Representatives (H.R. 347 vote tally 388-3) and the Senate (S.1794 passed with unanimous consent, no voting records were kept of which Senators approved).

The Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act of 2011 essentially strips Americans of their right to protest and assemble in government buildings or on public or private grounds where events of “national significance” are taking place.

The summary of the bill clearly outlines the direct attack on our First Amendment protections which allow for peaceable assembly and public redress of grievances against our government or elected officials within it:

Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act of 2011 – Amends the federal criminal code to revise the prohibition against entering restricted federal buildings or grounds to impose criminal penalties on anyone who knowingly enters any restricted building or grounds without lawful authority. Defines “restricted buildings or grounds” as a posted, cordoned off, or otherwise restricted area of: (1) the White House or its grounds or the Vice President’s official residence or its grounds, (2) a building or grounds where the President or other person protected by the Secret Service is or will be temporarily visiting, or (3) a building or grounds so restricted due to a special event of national significance. 

Bill sponsor Tom Rooney (R-FL) claimed in a tweet responding to grievances on the internet, that “HR 347 does not effect your right to protest in any way whatsoever. It deals with fence jumpers, not protestors.”

As it turns out, the two page bill deals not just with ‘fence jumpers,’ but also lays the groundwork for all protests, gatherings and politic dissent in any facility or grounds in the United States of America that has been identified as a place of ‘national significance’ or where the Secret Service is charged with the protection of an individual – ANY individual, whether it’s the President, a congressional member or anyone else of national interest.

This is serious business, and you can be assured that, while Tom Rooney may have meant for the bill to stop fence jumpers, it can and will be used for far more than that:

The new legislation allows prosecutors to charge anyone who enters a building without permission or with the intent to disrupt a government function with a federal offense if Secret Service is on the scene, but the law stretches to include not just the president’s palatial Pennsylvania Avenue home. Under the law, any building or grounds where the president is visiting — even temporarily — is covered, as is any building or grounds “restricted in conjunction with an event designated as a special event of national significance.”

It’s not just the president who would be spared from protesters, either.

Covered under the bill is any person protected by the Secret Service. Although such protection isn’t extended to just everybody, making it a federal offense to even accidently disrupt an event attended by a person with such status essentially crushes whatever currently remains of the right to assemble and peacefully protest.

Hours after the act passed, presidential candidate Rick Santorum was granted Secret Service protection…

In the text of the act, the law is allowed to be used against anyone who knowingly enters or remains in a restricted building or grounds without lawful authority to do so, but those grounds are considered any area where someone — whether it’s President Obama, Senator Santorum or Governor Romney — will be temporarily visiting, whether or not the public is even made aware. Entering such a facility is thus outlawed, as is disrupting the orderly conduct of “official functions,” engaging in disorderly conduct “within such proximity to” the event or acting violent to anyone, anywhere near the premises. Under that verbiage, that means a peaceful protest outside a candidate’s concession speech would be a federal offense…

Source: RT

For those who will undoubtedly be charged under the new legislation, the penalties will be severe.

If you are found to possess a weapon deemed as dangerous (not necessarily a gun) when you knowingly enter an event of national significance you can be imprisoned for up to ten years.

If you are a peaceful, unarmed protester and you disrupt an event you’ll be treated with a bit more mercy by our benevolent leaders and be given up to one (1) year in prison.

With what we’ve seen over the last few year in Greece, greater Europe, Syria, and even the United States, the legislation makes complete sense from a government standpoint. What better way to keep dissenters and protesters quiet than to imprison them for months or years? It will take only a few public examples the next time a Tea Party or Occupy style protest take place and millions of Americans will understand that staying home and staying silent is their new Patriotic duty.

And, if it so happens that protests turn to violent rioting and civil unrest, the government will have the pretext to arrest, detain and imprison anyone and everyone in those ‘restricted areas of national significance.’

Housing these criminals should not be a problem, as our government, the Pentagon and DHS have been planning for just this scenario for quite some time, going so far as to build largescale detention facilities where those identified as subversive to our government can be re-educated.

Author:
Mac Slavo
Date: February 29th, 2012
Website: www.SHTFplan.com

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~3/1/11 Today was the day we went to Orlando so that I could be assessed and measured for a powerchair (motorized wheelchair). This big change was initiated by me and precipitated by a fall from my scooter in mid-January (see my posts of Jan. 21st and Jan. 24th). I had swiveled the seat and leaned my head on my arms on a table for a little rest – as I sometimes do – and when I raised up, the spasticity in my legs was so strong that I was pulled forward and ended up on the floor with my legs underneath me. With some pain, but no bruising and little swelling, it was several days before I went to my doctor and found out I had fractured my tibia. After an aborted trip to an orthopedist who refused to treat me because I could not get onto his x-ray table unassisted, and a weekend spent wearing a splint from ankle to mid-thigh that was put on over the course of 8 hours at the emergency room, I finally (at the office of a much kinder orthopedist) had a cast put on my lower leg. After several weeks, during which I’ve gotten more – but not entirely – self-sufficient at using the bathroom at night and getting dressed, the cast is due to come off in 2 weeks. Even though I now wear a seatbelt on the scooter, a powerchair will be more secure and in many ways more comfortable. It will force me to have better posture, but will also allow me to have a little catnap whenever I like (check out the tilt, recline, and leg lift features here). When I sent a similar link to my friend Cris, she said, “It looks like you will be able to leap tall buildings in a single bound on that thing!” I should have it in about a month.

~12/3/10 Sorry for the big gap since my last entry. Things have been relatively stable and I’ve finally worked out a routine to get the most productivity out of my day. When I watch TV at night (usually a 10pm program), I use this “Cat’s Paw” hand exerciser that my yoga instructor recommended – it’s fun! The weather here has changed (high of 70 during the day, low of 40 at night), but a little bit of a chill rather than too much heat allows me to move a little better. I got an e-mail from the British journal The Lancet asking me to post a link to their site about M.S. It is very informative, so I have done just that (above).

~8/12/10 To know me

is to understand that I don’t like to talk about my health (which is no doubt why I update this diary so infrequently) and that my reluctance does not stem from denial. I think it’s because having to live with MS makes me strongly opposed to the idea of devoting any more conscious time to it. Beyond a concerned “How are you doing?” my eyes start to glaze over and I’d rather be talking about anything else. A friend who was over the other night suggested that I do a 2nd blog on the subject of MS, and was very surprised to learn that that was one of the last things I would ever do. I want to be seen as a woman with many interests and a talent for writing about them who happens to have MS, not as a woman with MS who happens to be able to write well about her many interests. Ask me about my blog, not how my last infusion went.

~5/6/10 Oops. When Del was driving me home in the van after I met some friends for our weekly Scrabble games, I slid off the seat of the scooter and became wedged in between the scooter and the front seat of the van. My legs were doubled up, but I was able to relax and not tense up, so the position was uncomfortable but not painful. We were less than a mile away, so we hurried home and my Mom and Del repositioned the scooter and lifted me under the arms to put me back on it. I have an ongoing antagonistic relationship with gravity, but no lasting effects from this incident.

Meanwhile, I’ve been meaning to describe the way I keep my mind occupied instead of focusing on lifting up my legs, which I cross over my lap one at a time while on said scooter to put my shoes and socks on: I spell words backwards – whatever comes into my mind, complete with spacing, capitalization, and punctuation, for instance “y-e-l-g-i-u-[cap]Q-[space]-e-n-i-t-s-i-r-h-[cap]C.” Strange, but it usually does the trick.

~3/17/10 Things are steady on the health front, but over the last month I’ve had a flurry of news about MS treatments, so I thought I’d share the links. The National MS Society offers a fact sheet about the newly-released oral symptomatic medicine for improvement of walking in people with MS, Ampyra. Other medications pending FDA approval are listed on page 6 of the NARCOMS Newsletter. MS patients benefit from stem cell therapy and occasional reader Wendell wrote to tell me that (largely unreported) research in the U.S. and Germany indicates that people taking Tysabri have 6-7 times more stem cells in our blood. There is growing clinical evidence that medical marijuana reduces the spasticity and other symptoms of MS. Reader Chase pointed me to this site that discusses the health consequences of using aspartame, including anecdotal evidence of onset and worsening of MS symptoms. It is known that MS symptoms subside during pregnancy, and researchers are studying the possible benefits of hormones - including estrogen and progesterone – on the disease.

~2/18/10 Far fewer meltdowns now that I am leading a less stressful life. I did have a cry after coming down with a cold last weekend, because for the first 2 days it completely amplified the symptoms of the MS, so not only was I miserable with an alternately runny and stuffy nose (no cough, thank heavens), I was frustrated by moving even more slowly than usual and having my legs fly out of control every time I did so. I’m a firm believer in Zicam, and that brought the cold under control pretty quickly. It’s almost gone – though I still sound a little nasally.

~12/30/09 She has not

complained about preparing my meals, helping me in and out of the shower, or doing my laundry, but my Mom did make the tongue-in-cheek suggestion that I purchase this item for use as a bib!

~12/5/09 Bringing you

up to date at last, I have gotten quite comfortable in my new surroundings and things have fallen into a routine. I usually check my e-mail and the weird news first thing, and may or may not ask for some tea or hot chocolate (I don’t eat breakfast). My Mom opens my window shades and makes my bed. With my ceiling lift, I am nearly self-sufficient getting in and out of the shower. I do yoga in class T and Th and on my own the other days. I start my blog post, break for lunch (prepared by Mom) at noon, then finish that and do some other writing (my next book, book reviews, and right now peer-reviewing a journal article). I intermittently and rather obsessively check my e-mail (I’ve got at least a half-dozen games of Lexulous going) and more weird news, and never quite get caught up with all the things on my list. We have dinner at 6:30pm, while watching the national news, and the evening is up for grabs – a lot of TV, often in the background while I research a future blog post, some reading, maybe some word games with Mom, etc. She has to close my shades and turn down my bed for me. I am usually in bed at midnight and set my alarm every morning for 7:30, although I’ve been known to hit the snooze button more than once on occasion.

One of the things I’ve adjusted to fairly seamlessly is never (or rarely) being alone in the house. When my Mom and Del want to take a vacation, we arrange to have someone here to look after me. My friend Cris was here for 3 weeks (and Dad for 1 overlapping week) in September while Mom and Del went to the Florida Keys, my friend Deb was here for a weekend in October, and my Dad and stepmother were here for Thanksgiving while Mom and Del went to Texas to visit a friend.

The most frustrating thing is that due to the decline in my manual dexterity, the number of bathroom breaks I need to take, and other factors, everything takes a lot longer than it used to, so I am getting less done in a day than I was doing when I wrote, blogged, and worked full-time. I am grateful not to have the stress of having to get to work and get through the day, however, and have in fact finally been approved for Social Security Disability benefits. With Dad’s help on this last visit, I am now prepared to jump through some final bureacratic hoops.

One of the annoying symptoms of M.S. is the spasticity in my legs. When I move them after sitting relatively motionless, they will stretch out straight, shake uncontrollably, or a combination of both. I use some of my yoga relaxation techniques to try to forestall or minimize this – which can be quite dramatic and nearly pull me off the scooter – but I am also on a medicine called Tizanidine. I had been taking 3 tablets at night, but just found out during a follow-up visit with my new neurologist here in Florida that I have been taking it wrong and can also increase the dose, if necessary. I should be taking it 3 times a day, because it wears off. So I started the new dosing this morning and haven’t seen the progression of the spasticity as the day wears on, so: so far, so good.

There is some news on the MS front. Although I am way beyond ambulation, the first-ever oral medication specifically for MS – intended to improve the gait, has been recommended for approval. Researchers are also beginning studies of a possible breakthrough treatment that an Italian doctor has discovered. Lastly, I just heard from a reader who has a blog – Pawn to Queen – with the intention of helping people with disabilities receive proper treatment from public services.

~9/21/09 Since my last entry, I have gotten accustomed to my new lift (a.k.a. the “zip-line”) and here is a video as I demonstrated it for my Uncle Chuck. My friend Cris is here for an extended visit while Mom and Del take a much-needed vacation. Del helped immensely with getting my new room ready – painting, staining, helping build the deck, assembling new furniture, and my Mom has been invaluable helping me adjust and unpack, among other things. All of my books and collections are in the right cabinets, but Cris and my Dad (who will also be here in a couple of days) will help me get the “museum” just right. Tomorrow I have to see a doctor designated by Social Security to give me a “repetitive muscle strength test” as part of my disability claim. Then on Wednesday, I have my monthly infusion. I have succeeded in making yoga part of my daily routine and – having purchased a lifetime “club membership” to the senior community where I was living – will be able to continue with the class I attend T/Th. Meanwhile, I turned 46 on 9/10 and got so many well-wishes that I am still answering them!

~9/4/09 Yesterday was moving day - hence no time for a post. Del, my Mom, and I are finally under one roof! Photos of my room will follow and I will blog later, after lunch and a power nap…

~9/3/09 I fell this morning while making my transfer from scooter to toilet, ironically two days before I will be moving into my fully-equipped room (see 7/17/09 entry) at Mom and Del’s house. I survived without injury and it doesn’t seem to have sabotaged my self-confidence. Also to report: I have had an uneventful follow-up appointment with my neurologist, another of my monthly infusions, and yesterday – for the 1st time in 20 years, and on the advice of my new g.p. – a flu shot. I am in the process of applying for Social Security disability benefits and they require a muscle strength test, which I have scheduled for later this month. I am also waiting to hear if I can continue my privileges here at the senior community after I move out, so that I can still attend what is the only seated yoga class in the area. I’m looking forward to moving into my new digs, to several visitors I’ve got lined up over the next few months (which will give my Mom and Del some well-deserved time away), and to my 46th birthday right around the corner on Sept. 10th!

~7/29/09 I have been showering with the use of a shower chair, which works very well and eliminates the stress of struggling on and off a shower bench, but I do need my Mom’s assistance getting the chair – with me on it – into and out of the shower stall. She devised a method of securing my smallish towel to a string so that when I’m done, I give it a yank and it comes flying over the door of the shower into my lap. I’m big on nicknames (as my friends well know) and animals (as my readers know), so I call this trick the “flying squirrel“!

Here’s something else that will make you laugh, but first the sad part….I decided the other day that I can no longer travel and stay overnight at a hotel. I just don’t have the physical resources to adapt to different configurations, in the bathroom for instance, even if there are handicap rails. And I’m not sure I would be able to get up on – or sit myself up in – a hotel bed….Here’s the funny part. I used to fly until recently (to Seattle, Phoenix, etc.) and boarded early because I need to be put on the plane with an aisle chair. On one airline (I don’t remember which one), the flight attendant explained that he would get me out in the event of an emergency, but asked, “Would you prefer that I carry you over my shoulder or drag you by your feet?” The thought of my head bouncing down the aisle prompted me to reply that I would prefer the shoulder, thanks!

~7/25/09 My Mom and I watched “Music Within” (2007) on Wednesday and we both loved it. It’s the true story of Richard Pimentel, who came back from Vietnam with a hearing impairment and became instrumental in the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Sounds kinda boring, but it is riveting, at times irreverent, and has a great 1960s soundtrack. The ADA just celebrated its 19th anniversary and I am grateful for – among other things – the “blue buttons” that mean I don’t have to wait for help to open doors!

~7/17/09 My application for long-term disability benefits has been approved. I have settled into my new routine here in Florida, although I hardly spend any time outdoors because my body turns to a lead weight in the heat and it’s been in the mid-90s since May. The renovations to my Mom’s house will be complete by September, and we will have a generator for my A/C unit in case the power goes out. We met with the SureHands rep this morning and will be installing a ceiling lift system - which we call the “zip-line”!

~6/21/09 First Lady Michelle Obama’s dad had MS. I don’t know how I missed this, since she talked about it during her 2008 speech at the Democratic National Convention, but I only heard it mentioned this morning. She says he taught her a lot about work ethic, since he got up and want to work on time every day without complaining about his physical constraints. He walked with a cane and died of “complications from MS” in 1999.

~6/16/09 I have been introduced in the newsletter to fellow residents of Waterman Village, the senior community where I am living temporarily. I have given up on the Nu-Step machine in the Wellness Center, because I can’t keep my legs in position, and instead am focusing on the yoga, which I do in a class twice a week and on my own each morning that I don’t have class. I have noticed improved strength in my arms. I go for another Tysabri infusion on Wednesday and received a couple of comments on that. There is more information about the drug here, and a reader noted that research in other countries has shown its effectiveness against cancer, as well as MS. I don’t notice a day-to-day difference, but unlike other infusions I have tried, it doesn’t “wear off” by the end of the month, so I guess it is keeping me on an even keel. In other news, I ran over my Mom! – I backed up over her bare foot on my scooter…

~ 6/11/09 I have established a relationship with a new primary care physician down here in Florida and had my first appointment today, which I am happy to say (although I do like her very much) was uneventful and requires no follow-up labs or tests. She was glad to know that I already have a neurologist here for specific treatment of the M.S.

Speaking of which, my friend Kristina alerted me to the fact that Exene Cervenka, co-lead vocalist and founding member of the band X, was just diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. Other notable Americans with M.S. include singer and actress Lola Falana; former Mouseketeer Annette Funicello (see my Halloween slideshow at the bottom of this page); actress Terri Garr; singer and actress Lena Horne; talk show host Montel Williams; comedian and actor Richard Pryor (1940-2005); and the actor who played “Squiggy” in the TV show “Laverne Shirley,” David Lander.

§ 6/3/09 The Breast Cancer Patient Protection Act needs your support. Lifetime has an on-line petition to support passage of legislation to allow mastectomy patients 2 days in the hospital after surgery, rather treating them as outpatients. My sister brought this to my attention and all it requires is your name, e-mail address, and zip code – and a moment of your time.

§ 5/31/09 I had my first monthly infusion of Tysabri since being here in Florida. I suffered no ill effects from missing a month, and I got along fine with my new nurse Debbie. She drew lots of stories out of me about my job, my books, and my blog…and then we discussed face transplants, gory accidents, limb-lengthening operations, etc. She used to work for a microsurgeon reattaching severed fingers!

I have settled into my routine here at the senior community, participating in seated yoga on T/Th and beating the ol’ ladies at Scrabble on Thursday afternoons. On M/W/F, I have been using the Nu-Step machine over at the Wellness Center. I am hoping to build back up some upper-body strength, but so far the yoga relaxation techniques and stretching exercises are the most beneficial (help me sleep, deal with the spasticity, and reduce meltdowns).

§ 4/15/09 I just learned from author, editor, and essayist Evelyn Bence that my first boss – Rev. John B. Breslin, S.J., who hired me 22 1/2 years ago to work for Georgetown University Press – has Alzheimer’s. I am very saddened by the news. As frustrated as I get about my own health, at least I still have my stories…

§ 4/11/09 I’m settling in to life in Florida, one month into my medical leave from work. My Dad and stepmother Sarah flew out and drove me down in the Mother Ship, and the trip was efficient and uneventful (except for the rescue I needed in the Cracker Barrel restroom). I spent the first few days in the guest bedroom at my Mom and stepfather Del’s house, but I am now staying in an assisted-living apartment a mile away. My Mom has been staying with me until I’m comfortable with my new routines re: transfer from scooter, using new bathroom, etc. I am strongest and most confident in the morning, and by bedtime I’m ridiculously flimsy. I am wearing an “I’ve fallen and can’t get up” necklace that gives me a direct link to the complex’s gatehouse, but I haven’t had to use it yet (although Mom and Del have had to help me transfer and have yanked me off the floor at their house).

Healthwise, I’m still weak, shaky, and stiff, but having a much lower stress level and staying in the A/C have helped. I have a referral to a neurologist so I can stay on schedule with my monthly infusions, and have my first appointment on Tuesday. I have not found a local adaptive yoga class, but plan to resume a daily routine by following a dvd about yoga for people with MS. It took a few days to get my phone and Internet hook-up here in the apartment, but I am on-line and blogging from my own laptop. I am also enjoying my Kindle, which makes reading books a fluid process again, instead of a 2-minute break every time I turn the page without bending or tearing it.

I’m eating much better, too. Healthy home cooking (and grilling), thanks to my folks. Very little fast food (previously a necessary staple). And lots more fruit and vegetables (although my palate for veggies is limited to green beans, potatoes, carrots, and salad – no broccoli, squash, or asparagus for me!) Less salt, virtually no junk food, and limited amounts of chocolate – except today: it’s Easter, after all!

§ 3/5/09 Since my last entry in The Health Diary, I have fallen twice in the bathroom at the office and have been picked up off the floor by my colleagues. It’s wounded nothing more than my pride and my confidence, but has reinforced my decision to take a 90-day medical leave from work to try to regain my health. I will spend the time de-stressing, eating better, and practicing yoga under the supervision of my Mom and stepfather in Florida. I will be blogging from there as of the end of this month…

§ 2/23/09 In better spirits and feeling like my “normal” self today. Lately, I’ve been thinking about my similarity to other big-brained animals (octopi, dolphins, elephants) with cumbersome bodies, but maybe I am anthropomorphizing and they are not frustrated by their bodies at all. Hmmmm.

§ 2/22/09 I woke up in meltdown mode. When my friend Deb went to China, she saw a poorly translated sign at the top of some steep, rocky stairs that warned, “Not for partial people.” I feel like a partial person today.

§ 2/18/09 I’ve been falling with more frequency – in the bathroom at work a couple of weeks ago, in the van this past weekend, and then a very close call at home this morning. I talked to one of my favorite nurses at my monthly infusion and she told me about another patient of hers who appears to have a very cluttered home, because there are books on the floor – actually, she has placed them in strategic places throughout the house so that when she falls, she has something to read until she is rescued! I was also crying a lot, but I think I’m all cried out – in part because my neighbor Steve has given me a lot of emotional support lately and my friend Valerie has solved my saggy mattress issue by inserting a piece of plywood under it, so I am sleeping better.

I have been listening repeatedly to the song “Right as Rain” by Adele and finally thought to have a good look at the lyrics, which I found quite applicable to my own situation. At about that same time, my boss – a photographer – forwarded this link to a slideshow of self-portraits by a woman with MS, Patricia Lay-Dorsey, who calls her essay “Falling into Place.” I identified with those photos, too, and plan to contact her as soon as I post this.

§ 1/30/09 I bore up pretty well under stress today, but exhausted all the same. Day started with a crisis at work, but I had to leave at noon to get the van to the shop. Of course I got lost (one of my biggest phobias, which conjures tears in moments). The Mother Ship is now driving better, but I’m not–after a long day, my arms have begun to get tired like my legs. But at least I get a second wind and refresh overnight.

§ 1/17/09 I am experiencing technical difficulties! Yesterday, I spent 3pm-3:49pm stuck in the handicapped bathroom at work. This time I didn’t fall–the deadbolt wouldn’t let me out and I had to be rescued by Facilities. Then today, on the way to the local mall, I noticed that the Mother Ship was very bouncy in the back and that her “kneel feature” wasn’t working, so I think her hydraulics need repair. While I was on the 3rd floor of the mall, the elevator stopped working and I had to exit by way of a huge freight elevator thanks to two of the housekeeping staff. Healthwise, I am feeling fine and happy to report that none of the above caused a meltdown…

§ 1/7/09 Don’t want to jinx anything, but I’ve been getting along fine (with BeBe’s help, of course). The legs have been “good girls,” instead of the “bitches” I sometimes call them. I deal with my body by committee, often yelling at various parts to do their bit! Since I have little strength and balance, it’s a matter of fine-tuning how I do things so that it’s most efficient, and about doing them the same way each time, so that it’s habit. Overthinking an action can be a problem.

§ 12/24/08 BeBe and I are once again reunited! I picked her up this afternoon. She felt incredibly tiny when I got back on her (a good thing). In grad school, I had to make a presentation about the postmodern body. I began by talking about how my scooter and I are a cyborg!

§ 12/23/08 Hunky-Dory (as I have dubbed this big, ugly-ass scooter) and I have achieved a working relationship after an ugly tousle at the end of the evening wherein she had me stuck in my tiny bathroom for a 1/2 hour until I finally wiggled and inched her out. We’re ok today: got a great night’s sleep and looking forward to time off.

§ 12/22/08 Made it through yesterday with nary a tear. Valerie and Roger brought cheeseburgers from Five Guys for lunch and we hammered out the plan that we carried out this morning. The good news: BeBe is where she needs to be for repair or replacement. The bad news: the rental scooter they gave me is clunky as hell–square front, wider with armrests, and with the dreaded cushiony seat that Yellow Jacket (the last awful loaner) had, which means I have to be extremely careful with transfers. And I will probably not get BeBe back until after Christmas. Well, at least I’ve got that covered: I sent out cheery holiday cards and chose this year’s e-card in the midst of meltdowns. Today, I had a good cry when I got home from work and since then I’ve been ok. Looking forward to sleeping in my bed.

§ 12/20/08 Past due for an entry in the Health Diary and the fact of the matter is that I was riding kind of low after my last infusion. The usual wiriness (plus an excess of spasticity, i.e. “shaky legs”) kicked in, then I was in the manual wheelchair in Illinois, but came back with a slight cold, which dragged me down again. I got quickly reaccustomed to the scooter, then made it almost through the week, when– ironically, since I had another infusion in the morning–I fell in the bathroom at work again Friday afternoon. I didn’t hurt myself and was quickly put back up on the scooter thanks to colleages Joni and Joyce, but it gets worse. My scooter, recently repaired, had been slowing down again when going in reverse, indicating the same damned problem (a design flaw, in my opinion) that was just fixed. Of course Murphy’s Law kicked in when I made a mental note to deal with the scooter as soon as the cold was gone and I was back to “normal.” At 11 PM last night, BeBe decides not another inch backward. So there I was and had to call Valerie (Steve is sick) to help me transfer from scooter to manual wheelchair, which is where I am sitting now. It is much lower than the scooter, so although I can use the bathroom without too much of a problem, I can’t get into the bed (have to sleep in the recliner) or the van. But I have to stay in the wheelchair until Monday, because the scooter place is closed on the weekend and I can’t even leave a message. I am resigned to a manual weekend, resentful that I have to contend with physical and technical difficulties at the same time, liable to cry at the least opportunity, and alternately stubborn about maintaining the status quo and wondering how long my body will cooperate. Thinking about large and small questions with a tendency to melt down at any moment. It’s hard. If you are reading this and thinking of calling me, please remember I hate the phone (!) and consider an e-mail or text message. I will call you back at an opportune moment. Thanks all for your kind thoughts. It may be the beginning of the end, but it’s not the end. I’m still a trooper.

§11/21/08 Infusion this morning and worked the rest of the day. I’m feeling wiry, but in general I am exhausted by the end of the workday. I think part of this is due to a chill I get every day at about 2pm. I begin to tense up and scrunch up my shoulders…and stay that way all afternoon, despite putting on a scarf, hat, or sweater. By the time I shiver to the van, I don’t have much oomph left to transfer to the driver’s seat. I may have to get a space heater for the office, although I have to be careful with that, too, because I can easily get overheated without realizing it–and then I’m worse off than when I started!

§11/11/08 Pleased to report that I have been feeling better lately. I feel “wiry,” like I usually do right after my infusion. By that, I mean that I feel like I have some bones in my limbs, rather than feeling like a blob. To manipulate my body requires just the right combination of relaxation (yoga helps) and wiriness (Tysabri helps), so if one or the other is missing, things can get dicey (but I’m always as careful as I can be and have my cell phone handy).

§11/4/08 Big day today! I had a mammogram (using a new machine that allows me to remain seated on my scooter). I resumed weekly sessions of Adaptive Yoga (done from my scooter – working on breathing, relaxation, and upper body balance and strength). I voted for Barack Obama (took advantage of newly-offered curbside voting). And the short piece I submitted to the Washington Post about living with a chronic illness was published!

§10/29/08 Lately, I’ve been dragging a bit despite my recent infusion. I’ve been keeping my errands to an absolute minimum because I’m so worn out by the end of the day. I’m a hermit anyway, so I rarely get cabin fever. But when I do and just need a get-away, I have found some great websites: I can see a slideshow of Pompeii or Petra; I virtually visit the Taj Mahal or the Eiffel Tower; or I can look in on the animals at the National Zoo or the Elephant Sanctuary. The best site of this kind that I found is Panoramas.dk, where I just had a 360-degree view from the top of Mt. Everest without too much of an effort!

§10/24/08 Earlier this week, I brought a good friend with me to hear a presentation by my neurologist Carlo Tornatore about current and future MS therapies. (He is very optimistic that more than a half dozen new medicines will be out within the next ten years, including some in pill form.) I am currently doing a monthly intravenous infusion of Tysabri, and I infused this morning. The effects usually last the full month, but fell a little short this month–I think because of the stress and exertion of being on the loaner scooter(s). Last night, I lost my balance and fell in the bathroom. I called Steve, my next-door neighbor, and he hauled me up off the floor. He has graciously come to my rescue a couple of times since I met him a couple of years ago. I was convinced we were meant to be neighbors when he told me he was born on Halloween!

§10/18/08 Pleased to report that I have had a pleasant and meltdown-free morning of running errands, the most important of which was my annual pilgrimage to the Salvation Army for components of my Halloween costume…

§10/15/08 I just finished the semi-annual NARCOMS survey I have been filling out for years. It is long, but pretty easy to complete, since it is on-line. The hard part is assessing the changes since the last survey (fatigue, bladder/bowel function, gait disability, spasticity, etc.), since it’s a matter of indicating current status with a radio button—in effect, locking in what one had hoped was only temporary, but in fact represents yet another step down. Kind of odd to use a walking metaphor in this context, but there it is.

§10/10/08 William J. Cheverie (1921-2008) died on 9/24. He was the father of my friend Joan and widower of her mother, who had MS. Joan shared the eulogy she recently gave in Boston and it included these words:
As you may know, Dad cared for my mother during her long illness. He did all the cooking, all the cleaning, and all of her care without any help. I watched as he brushed her hair and then held up a mirror for her to look at as he asked her if she liked it. Sometimes she said no, that she wanted it another way, which he did and then showed her again. I asked him, “Dad, why do you do this when you have so much else to do and so little time? Does it really matter?” He said to me, “Joan, this is one of the most important things I do all day. Everyone needs to be independent and this is the level of independence that she has now…so it’s very important that she be able to say what she likes and doesn’t like to keep that independence.”
I didn’t know him, but Joan’s dad sounds like a remarkable man.

§10/9/08 BeBe and I are happily reunited!

§10/9/08 People tell me how strong I am to be living on my own and still working full-time. Usually, I find the comments affirming and empowering, but sometimes (like yesterday), they shake my self-confidence and it takes a day or two to build it back up and “resume my normal routine,” which is in fact what is keeping me going.

§10/4/08 “I am cheerful in nature and morbid in inclination—much better than being morbid about my health!” This is how I ended my 250-word submission to the Washington Post‘s “Living with…” series. Maybe they will publish my entry on Halloween!

§10/4/08 Loaner scooter has not yet merited a nickname. She and I are getting along cordially, but I miss BeBe’s seat for 2 reasons: the loaner’s plush seat is not conducive to transferring on and off and it also doesn’t lock into place at 1/8 turn. In combination this has caused close calls and meltdowns (i.e. I have almost fallen and I have cried).

§10/2/08 I am on a loaner scooter after another scooter ordeal. BeBe is in the shop waiting for a part, so REP loaned me an older scooter (immediately dubbed “Yellow Jacket” because of its color). We got along ok until she left me in the lurch literally in the doorway of my building at work after 5pm. Luckily, I had help and got pushed to the Mother Ship, got home, and got pushed to my apartment, where I got into my manual wheelchair (yes, she has a name, too: “Rosslyn”). The Sept. 30th post was written from Rosslyn the next morning after spending the night in my recliner (bed is now positioned for scooter height and Rosslyn is a good 6-8” lower). Then commenced a 2-pronged effort to replace dead-as-a-doornail Yellow Jacket. I pursued REP and made a request of the MS Society loan closet. Both came through, REP first, so I called off the MS loaner with many thanks. I am now on a newer fully-charged model (nickname uncertain) until I get BeBe back.

Article source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/C2C-InTheNews/~3/GnfHNW2vA3A/earliest-artificial-eye.html

There is an asteroid called 2011 AG5, and if it follows the orbit scientists have plotted for it so far, there is a small, small chance that it could hit Earth in February 2040.

Don’t quit your job and sell your house just yet. Astronomers, who have been tracking the asteroid since January 2011, say it is in an elliptical orbit that could bring it somewhere near Earth in 2040. Earth is about 8,000 miles in diameter; the asteroid appears to be about 450 feet across.

The problem is that having watched it for only about half an orbit around the Sun, the scientists cannot say for certain where it will be 28 years from now. So, for the moment, NASA’s Near Earth Object Program says the odds are about one in 625 that it could hit us in that still-distant future.

“We have a good opportunity to observe it next year and again in 2015,” said Donald Yoemans, who heads the program at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “We fully expect that the odds will go way down, most likely to zero, by then.”

In the meantime, it was a subject of discussion at a meeting in Vienna of the Scientific and Technical Subcommittee of the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space.

The committee members agreed that 2011 AG5 bears watching, and could be useful as the subject of a “tabletop exercise” in what to do if, anytime soon, there really is an asteroid with our name on it.

“In our Action Team 14 discussions, we thus concluded that it not necessarily can be called a ‘real’ threat. To do that, ideally, we should have at least one, if not two, full orbits observed,” said Detlef Koschny of the European Space Agency in an interview with Space.com

Scientists have discussed all sorts of far-out plans in case a future asteroid truly does turn out to be coming our way. If they have enough lead time, they might send a probe with thruster rockets, or even explosives, to nudge an asteroid into a slightly different orbit. A very small course change, years in advance, could make a big difference by 2040, they say. Even if the asteroid misses Earth by less than a hundred miles, its passing will be a non-event.

There are asteroids wandering around the inner solar system all the time — one of them, called 2005 YU55, passed within 201,000 miles of Earth in November, closer than the moon is to us.

But about half a dozen times since the planet formed, there have been major for-real impacts with catastrophic results. The last, 65 million years ago, is believed to have killed off the last of the dinosaurs with the dust and ash that darkened the skies after it hit, though there have been scientists who disagree.

Scientists estimate that the asteroid from back then was about nine miles across at its widest, far larger than 2011 AG5. And they point out that they know very little about 2011 AG5; they cannot say whether it is a solid hunk of rock or a loose jumble of debris flying together in space. All they know is that it’s in a long, elliptical orbit that takes it almost twice as far from the sun as we are.

“The bottom line is: We have time,” Yoemans said. “The sober approach is to make more observations, to wait and see.”

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Source Article from http://getreadyportland.com/2012/02/29/march-amateur-radio-license-study-course/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=march-amateur-radio-license-study-course

Source Article from http://apartmentprepper.com/?p=4052

Flatworms, known as planarian worms, have long fascinated scientists because
they have an extraordinary ability to regenerate.

A planarian worm split lengthways or crossways will regenerate into two
separate living worms.

The researchers found that flatworms can continuously maintain the length of a
crucial part of their DNA, known as telomeres, during regeneration.

Dr Aboobaker’s team studied two types of planarian – those that reproduce
sexually, like humans, and those that reproduce asexually by simply dividing
in two.

Both types appear to regenerate indefinitely by growing new muscles, skin,
guts and even entire brains again and again, but the asexual ones also renew
their stocks of a key enzyme which may mean they can be immortal, the study
said.

Scientists know that one of the key factors associated with ageing cells is
telomere length.

Telomeres are sections of DNA that cap the ends of chromosomes, protecting
them from damage and the loss of cell functions linked to ageing.

Shorter telomeres are thought to be an indicator of faster ageing.

Article source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/C2C-InTheNews/~3/_rWJg6NosZg/Flatworms-could-hold-key-to-immortality.html

Betty Flemming celebrates her 22nd birthday this year, but frankly, she has always looked old for her age.

Her condition isn’t medical, it’s “calendar-ical:” She was born Feb. 29, 1924. As such, she only has a birthday every four years, which means she only was legally old enough to buy booze in 2008.

But that’s only if you go by the birthdays that were actually on the calendar. Chronologically, Flemming will be 88 this year and lives in a retirement community in Springfield, Va. She has enjoyed her unique birthday since she first discovered she was a “leapling” at a surprise party.

“On my eighth birthday, my mother threw me a big surprise party on Feb. 29,” Flemming told HuffPost Weird News. “I then realized what a special day it was. Every other year, we celebrated my birthday on March 1 because my mother said ‘Feb. 28 was a day too soon!’”

Waiting four years for a real birthday sounds tough, but Flemming sees advantages.

“I get to hear from people and talk to people that I hadn’t talked to in four years. It’s a memorable day, so close friends and family always remember to celebrate,” she said. “However, like any birthday, the hardest part is aging. Even if Feb. 29 doesn’t come, I’m still another year older.”

It is estimated that 4 million people share Flemming’s birthday, including celebrities like rapper Ja Rule, motivational speaker Tony Robbins and actor Antonio Sabato Jr., who said in 2003 (a few months before his “eighth birthday”) that he never felt shorted by the timing of his birth.

“I’m okay with it because it’s also my grandfather’s birthday,” he said. “Plus, I get four years’ worth of presents every Feb. 29.”

It’s true that having four years between birthdays might teach delayed gratification, but there are downsides, according to Lisa Barr, a publicist in New York, who will turn “12″ this year.

“I don’t think I realized that I was ‘different’ until I was in fourth grade,” she said. “I remember someone saying that I didn’t really have a birthday — it was a non-leap-year — and I remember feeling hurt and didn’t understand what that meant.”

Another problem: People forget she even has a birthday.

“I remember and always send birthday cards to people, so for them to ‘forget’ or say, ‘Well, you don’t really have a birthday this year anyway,’ can hurt your feelings. Also, it’s like you don’t have a ‘real day’ that’s yours… You just get older.”

GALLERY: FAMOUS PEOPLE BORN ON FEB. 29 (Story continues below)

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Eve Griffin, a curatorial assistant of modern and contemporary art at the Harvard Art Museums, enjoys the unique status of being a leapling, but admits it can sometimes make her shortcomings obvious.

“The worst part about the birthdate is that it’s an embarrassing reminder of how terrible I am at simple division,” said Griffin, who was born in 1980. “You know, ‘So how many birthdays have you had? Seven?’ ‘Ummm…’”

Stuart Hochwert, a publishing executive, said the problems go beyond mere mathematics.

“I tried to rent a car from a national car rental firm a few weeks ago,” he told HuffPost Weird News by email. “Their system would not take (the birthday) 2/29. I told the agent to use 2/28 and it was accepted. She did not ask any questions, did not seem fazed, and I was off and driving quickly.”

“This happens on occasion. Some reps via phone, etc., are quite indignant that they cannot help me when my birthday will not take, as if their computer just popped up a screen that says ‘call FBI and keep customer on phone.’ I have to explain Leap Year and some get it, and some have no clue,” he said.

Another challenge facing people born on Feb. 29 is figuring out when to celebrate during the non-leap years. Some try to milk it by celebrating on both Feb. 28 and March 1, but Suzanne Lyons, a public relations professional, said her mom nipped that idea in the bud when she was young.

“From the time I was a kid and knew my birthday was different, my mother explained to me that time never moves in reverse, it always moves forward,” she said. “I was never born on Feb. 28, I was born the day after Feb. 28 — no matter what day that is. That made perfect sense to my kid brain then, and still makes sense today.”

It might sound like leaplings have suffered because of the intricacies of the Gregorian calendar, which was created in 1582 to keep time on Earth in line with the planet’s orbit. But Lara Leff, a Bloomingdale’s buyer, who will celebrate her “eighth birthday,” said there have been some good birthday parties despite not having many of them.

“I turned 5 years old while attending Syracuse University,” she said. “My friends got me over to my friend’s apartment and surprised me with a stripper who posed as a pizza delivery guy. A non-traditional fifth birthday party.”

As for how leaplings can best celebrate this particular Feb. 29, Griffin has perhaps the most specific advice: “Try not to dwell on the fact that you also share a birthday with not one but two serial killers: Aileen Wuornos and Richard Ramirez,” she advised.

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Photo: Dwight Eschliman

Jeffrey Mitchell, a volunteer firefighter in the suburbs of Baltimore, came across the accident by chance: A car had smashed into a pickup truck loaded with metal pipes. Mitchell tried to help, but he saw at once that he was too late.

The car had rear-ended the truck at high speed, sending a pipe through the windshield and into the chest of the passenger—a young bride returning home from her wedding. There was blood everywhere, staining her white dress crimson.

Mitchell couldn’t get the dead woman out of his mind; the tableau was stuck before his eyes. He tried to tough it out, but after months of suffering, he couldn’t take it anymore. He finally told his brother, a fellow firefighter, about it.

Miraculously, that worked. No more trauma; Mitchell felt free. This dramatic recovery, along with the experiences of fellow first responders, led Mitchell to do some research into recovery from trauma. He eventually concluded that he had stumbled upon a powerful treatment. In 1983, nearly a decade after the car accident, Mitchell wrote an influential paper in the Journal of Emergency Medical Services that transformed his experience into a seven-step practice, which he called critical incident stress debriefing, or CISD. The central idea: People who survive a painful event should express their feelings soon after so the memory isn’t “sealed over” and repressed, which could lead to post-traumatic stress disorder.

In recent years, CISD has become exceedingly popular, used by the US Department of Defense, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Israeli army, the United Nations, and the American Red Cross. Each year, more than 30,000 people are trained in the technique. (After the September 11 attacks, 2,000 facilitators descended on New York City.)

Even though PTSD is triggered by a stressful incident, it is really a disease of memory. The problem isn’t the trauma—it’s that the trauma can’t be forgotten. Most memories, and their associated emotions, fade with time. But PTSD memories remain horribly intense, bleeding into the present and ruining the future. So, in theory, the act of sharing those memories is an act of forgetting them.

A typical CISD session lasts about three hours and involves a trained facilitator who encourages people involved to describe the event from their perspective in as much detail as possible. Facilitators are trained to probe deeply and directly, asking questions such as, what was the worst part of the incident for you personally? The underlying assumption is that a way to ease a traumatic memory is to express it.

The problem is, CISD rarely helps—and recent studies show it often makes things worse. In one, burn victims were randomly assigned to receive either CISD or no treatment at all. A year later, those who went through a debriefing were more anxious and depressed and nearly three times as likely to suffer from PTSD. Another trial showed CISD was ineffective at preventing post-traumatic stress in victims of violent crime, and a US Army study of 952 Kosovo peacekeepers found that debriefing did not hasten recovery and led to more alcohol abuse. Psychologists have begun to recommend that the practice be discontinued for disaster survivors. (Mitchell now says that he doesn’t think CISD necessarily helps post-traumatic stress at all, but his early papers on the subject seem clear on the link.)

Mitchell was right about one thing, though. Traumatic, persistent memories are indeed a case of recall gone awry. But as a treatment, CISD misapprehends how memory works. It suggests that the way to get rid of a bad memory, or at a minimum denude it of its negative emotional connotations, is to talk it out. That’s where Mitchell went wrong. It wasn’t his fault, really; this mistaken notion has been around for thousands of years. Since the time of the ancient Greeks, people have imagined memories to be a stable form of information that persists reliably. The metaphors for this persistence have changed over time—Plato compared our recollections to impressions in a wax tablet, and the idea of a biological hard drive is popular today—but the basic model has not. Once a memory is formed, we assume that it will stay the same. This, in fact, is why we trust our recollections. They feel like indelible portraits of the past.

None of this is true. In the past decade, scientists have come to realize that our memories are not inert packets of data and they don’t remain constant. Even though every memory feels like an honest representation, that sense of authenticity is the biggest lie of all.

When CISD fails, it fails because, as scientists have recently learned, the very act of remembering changes the memory itself. New research is showing that every time we recall an event, the structure of that memory in the brain is altered in light of the present moment, warped by our current feelings and knowledge. That’s why pushing to remember a traumatic event so soon after it occurs doesn’t unburden us; it reinforces the fear and stress that are part of the recollection.

This new model of memory isn’t just a theory—neuroscientists actually have a molecular explanation of how and why memories change. In fact, their definition of memory has broadened to encompass not only the cliché cinematic scenes from childhood but also the persisting mental loops of illnesses like PTSD and addiction—and even pain disorders like neuropathy. Unlike most brain research, the field of memory has actually developed simpler explanations. Whenever the brain wants to retain something, it relies on just a handful of chemicals. Even more startling, an equally small family of compounds could turn out to be a universal eraser of history, a pill that we could take whenever we wanted to forget anything.

And researchers have found one of these compounds.

In the very near future, the act of remembering will become a choice.

Article source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/C2C-InTheNews/~3/jhR8N19vt5g/1

Timothy Green Beckley of Global Communications continues to do the UFO/paranormal communities a great service by reprinting and updating long sought after books by the early pioneers of the various fields of endeavor, especially, but not limited to, UFOlogy. Beckley has recently unearthed a triptych of wondrous works by Michael X that focus on the darker side of the flying saucer phenomenon. Beckley calls the new collection “Trilogy of the Unknown, A Conspiracy Reader.”

            In his introduction to the new edition, Beckley writes, “Michael X was one of the greatest avatars of the early UFO/New Age movement of the 1950s. He spoke with great articulation and sincerity at many of the well-attended outdoor conventions held annually at Giant Rock, a private landing strip just outside of Joshua Tree in the hot Mohave Desert of Southern California. He spoke calmly and collectedly about the arrival of the silvery spaceships, dubbed flying saucers, explaining how they were piloted by friendly space beings from this solar system and way beyond.”

            Michael X perceived the Space Brotherhood to be on a mission to elevate our consciousness and invite us to join a cosmic “League of Nations,” a federation of spiritually advanced worlds who exist around us and in other dimensions.

secret space giant spacecraft enbeded on lunar surface

            “I guess you could call Michael X a guru of sorts,” Beckley continues, “though he didn’t head a religious cult nor was he looking to attract a fanatical following in the manner of other more self-absorbed ‘masters’ of universal wisdom. No! Michael X was an avatar in the truest sense of the word – an advocate for all humanity.”

            Michael X even went so far as to refuse to reveal his last name so that he didn’t become part of a cult of personality. He chose the letter “X” as a reference to the mysteries of our world and the space and time we inhabit. As a result of his secretiveness, there is little known about his background beyond the fact that he was a salesman of some kind before he discovered UFOlogy. Beckley once spoke to Michael X, but the pattern of secrecy continued and Beckley learned nothing more than he had known before.

            The aliens with whom Michael X communed were said to be from Venus, typical of the time period in which he wrote. His contact with them mainly consisted of telepathic voices and they spoke to him about the secrets of good health and offered a new understanding of science, philosophy and religion that could possibly propel us forward into a New Age of reason and enlightenment. He wrote about what the Venusians had taught him in a series of very concise study guides, perhaps around 25 or so, according to Beckley.

Menger photo taken by Howard of spacecraft about to land on moon

            “But as it turns out,” Beckley writes, “Michael X’s career was not only involved with the sweetness and light aspects of the New Age movement, but he had also stumbled upon the darker side of UFOlogy, which frightened him to the point that he eventually left behind the work he loved so much. This is a little known ‘secret’ about Michael X that I don’t believe has ever been presented before.”

            Beckley says that he obtained this information from Dr. Frank E. Stranges, the late author of “Stranger At The Pentagon” and a good friend of Michael X’s. Apparently Michael X had run across some UFO-related secret and was deemed to have “gone too far.”

            “During one of his meditations,” Beckley writes, “a ‘voice’ came to Michael X and gave him a specific place and time to meet for a face-to-face encounter with his supposed alien friends. They promised to reveal some information that had not been disclosed before that would be helpful in the dissemination of his work.”

            Michael X was sent to a secluded place in the Mohave Desert where he and his contacts could be free of prying eyes. When he arrived, he saw nothing but remained in his car, waiting. After a while, he saw the glint of something in the sunlight and assumed it was the spacecraft arriving. He began to walk toward where he had seen the light when all of a sudden he sensed terrible danger. He heard an inner voice warning him to flee the scene, and when he looked back he saw one of the men he had intended to meet lowering his rifle, which had been the object that had glittered in the sun, not any ship full of Venusian Space Brothers.

            Shortly after, Michael X completely withdrew from the UFO/New Age community and has not been heard from to this day. When Beckley spoke to Michael X in this same timeframe, Michael X confirmed the details of the desert escape story though he refused to elaborate further on anything. Beckley now says he doesn’t know whether Michael X is still alive or not, but that Michael surely wouldn’t mind seeing his works republished for a certain kind of truth seeker to learn from.

            Which brings us around again to “Trilogy of the Unknown.”

secret space Nazi saucer in a hanger from iron sky

            “We present what might be considered to be information on the seamier side of the subjects at hand,” Beckley writes. “Here is information on Nazi UFOs, which Michael X spoke about years before anyone else dared touch on the theory that German scientists had stumbled upon a revolutionary form of propulsion and had constructed disc-shaped devices that they had hoped would help them win the war. There is also a warning from the space people to get our tail off the moon and never return – OR ELSE! And if you think David Icke was the first to write about reptilians roaming the earth, guess again, for Michael X told about the existence of a race of serpents running around inside Rainbow City, located in Antarctica, as part of an inner earth contingent.”

Along with the idea of aliens on the moon jealously guarding their territory and the underground race of terrifying, hostile serpents, a great deal has also been written and talked about regarding the belief that Nazi German scientists may have developed working flying saucer technology close to the end of World War II that was later suppressed by the victorious Allies. But one may never have heard the following story, taken from the middle section of “Trilogy Of The Unknown” by Michael X.

            Michael X relates the rise and fall of a German named Karl Michalek, who in 1958, while living in Santiago, Chile, began to write some very unusual articles. He sent his articles to a publication called “Neues Europa,” or in English, “New Europe,” which was published by Louis Emrich. Emrich printed everything Michalek sent him, and within a short time, Michalek had garnered a large following of readers. The small newspaper had at first printed articles of general interest, but as time passed, Michalek’s messages began to dominate the publication. [Michael X is quick to acknowledge the similarity of his own name to Karl Michalek’s, which he feels is an unfortunate coincidence that hopefully won’t confuse people reading this account.]

            “The German readers were fascinated,” Michael X writes, “intensely so.”

            Just what was stirring up so much excitement? Michalek was calmly announcing in the “New Europe” that he was in positive contact with the governmental heads of the planet Venus. The name of the particular intelligent being from Venus who was acting as Michalek’s present contact was “Ase.”

            “Ase and Michalek are desirous,” Michael X writes, “of bringing about everlasting peace and order to our planet Earth. In his series of regularly appearing articles, Karl Michalek presented himself as a sincere, God-fearing man who believes in the almighty power of the Creator. He is against those world groups that are promoting war, which Michalek knows will destroy the planet.”

            Michalek also authored a book laying out his beliefs called “Michalek: The Prophet of the New Era. Unearthly Forces and the Human Race.”

            He was not only egocentric enough to call himself a “prophet,” he also declared himself to be “the spiritual bearer of this great idealistic world idea” and “the President of the coming majestic government of the World Republic of this Earth.” He sent stern warnings to leaders like Nikita Khrushchev and Dwight Eisenhower not to meddle in his Venusians’ plans for world conquest or Moscow and Washington would be wiped out.

            Michalek also told his followers reading the “New Europe” that the ships from Venus would land on “X-Day,” in December of 1958, in Berlin itself, causing great excitement among his loyal throng. Predictably, the day came and went and not a single UFO was seen. Michalek covered his embarrassment by saying that the President of Venus had passed away unexpectedly at the age of 193. Ase, Michalek’s contact among the Venusians, was forced to delay the landing maneuver for a short period of time.

            “Two years later, Michalek again predicted ‘Der Tag X.’ This time he stated that it was fixed and irrevocable. The date of the Venus Fleet landing was to be April 21, 1960! Note how X-Day was set for one day after Hitler’s birth month and day, April 20.

            “April 21^st arrived – uneventfully. Again, for some unknown reason, the Venusian UFO fleet had seen fit to stay away. This time, the failure of the spaceships to ‘arrive’ as Michalek had promised brought forth a storm of protesting letters from readers of the ‘New Europe.’ Because the predicted Venus landing didn’t take place, the curve of Michalek’s success has sunk into the negative realm, and Michalek has sunk with it. INTERPOL in Austria takes a very dim view of his claims and is opposed to him. Even Michalek’s former staunch supporters, including the disillusioned publisher Louis Emrich, have fallen away.”

  Hollow Earth          

But there is more. In 1959, Michalek claimed, “For some time now, I have been the one designated to be President of the highest governmental authority of the coming World Republic. I have been so designated by the power of the Chief Leader of the planet Venus.”

            Michael X then backtracks to 1945, a mere fifteen years previous to the time in which he was writing. Michael X says that when Hitler was drawing up his last will and testament, he did not name a second Fuhrer to succeed him. He chose Admiral Karl Doenitz as the next President of the Reich, Joseph Goebbels as Reich Chancellor, and Martin Bormann as the Party Minister.

            From there, Michael X reasons that Hitler had secretly survived his supposed suicide in Berlin in 1945 and was in fact living in South America. This was easier to believe in 1960, when Hitler would have been in his early 70s. In any case, it was a surviving Hitler who was the true authority that Michalek served, not the disappointing Venusians.

            “It is possible,” Michael X writes, “that Karl Michalek is in actuality the illegitimate son of Adolph Hitler. Mind you, I say it is ‘possible.’ I do not claim it is the gospel truth or a proven certainty. No. It’s a simple hypothesis and nothing more. So far, Michalek has not ‘delivered the goods’ in regard to his predictions of UFO landings, and his own broken promises have dubbed him a charlatan, a hoaxer on the grand scale. Those who formerly believed in him now DO NOT.”

            The point is that Michalek, as a Nazi conspirator and a member of a surviving Hitler’s inner circle, did have knowledge of genuine UFOs, but of Nazi design as opposed to true extraterrestrial spacecraft.

            “The Michalek story may be part of the Nazis’ plans, a preliminary test phase that for some reason, perhaps a good reason, had to be discontinued. If our hypothesis is right, Hitler has the UFO secret. And if we could manage to look in on his Argentine Hideout, we’d no doubt see quite an armada of earth-built UFOs. Not only that. It is also likely we’d find the craft well-armed.”

            As an interesting side note, just as this article/review was being written, a news story appeared on the Yahoo! website with the headline “Did Hitler Have A Secret Son?” According to the article, until his death in 1985, a man named Jean-Marie Loret believed he was the only son of Adolph Hitler. The article says there is currently a renewed attention to his claim because of evidence from France and Germany that adds credibility to Loret’s story.

            “Loret claimed that his mother, Lobojoie Charlotte, met Hitler in 1914, when he was a corporal in the German army and she was 16. She described Hitler as ‘attentive and friendly.’ She and Hitler would take walks in the countryside, although conversation often was complicated by their language barrier. Yet, despite their differences, after an inebriated night in June 1917, little Jean-Marie was born in March 1918, according to Loret.”

In evidence, Loret offered the results of two studies, one that proved his blood type is similar and another that proved his handwriting is similar to Hitler’s. The evidence is inconclusive but Loret’s story continues to be investigated by a leading French newspaper called “Le Pointe.” Meanwhile, the official story is still that Hitler died childless in 1945 at age 56.    

So the work of Michael X manages to resonate even in the present time some 50-plus years later, and NOT ONLY in regard to the concept that at least some aspects of  the UFO phenomenon might have had their roots in a Nazi space program developed at the end of World War II. Remarkably, Michael X, as we have seen, is the author/researcher who actually laid the groundwork for a theory that has become increasing popular. In this book published by Beckley, there is much more to inhale and mull over. There is also Michael X’s brave discussion of reptilian humanoids that may co-exist along with homo sapiens on planet Earth without our knowledge, and a bizarre group of serpent-like creatures living within the earth, in both caverns beneath our feet and possibly inside a grand paradise to be found at the North and South Poles. Then there is the very relevant warning given our astronauts and leaders that we should NEVER   return to the Moon. And, amazingly enough, we might have heeded their demands since decades have passed and we have not ventured back to the lunar surface.  

Perhaps when you can achieve that kind of universal meaning along with what might prove to be a nearly prescient eye into the future, you have truly been in contact with some kind of genuine alien presence – whether you claim they came from Venus, which today might be called laughable, or from some dimension where spirit and alien forms commingle and occasionally reach out to one of our fellow mortals for the sake of all of us.

[To read more by Sean Casteel, visit his “UFO Journalist” website at www.seancasteel.com]

Trilogy of the Unknown – A Conspiracy Reader Is Available On Amazon.Com  http://www.amazon.com/Trilogy-Conspiracy-Reader-Exposing-Research/dp/1606111078

Other works that can be found by Michael X on Amazon include

Venusian Health Magic – Venusian Secret Science. . . Two transformational courses in one large size study guide. http://www.amazon.com/Venusian-Health-Magic-Secret-Science/dp/1606110500/ref=sr_1_1?s=booksie=UTF8qid=1330227182sr=1-1

Vivenus Starchild and Flying Saucer Revelations: Two Flying Saucer Classics by Vivenus and Michael X -  http://www.amazon.com/Vivenus-Starchild-Flying-Saucer-Revelations/dp/160611106X/ref=sr_1_2?s=booksie=UTF8qid=1330227351sr=1-2

 

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