Field Report from Agent Scha

[Guest guest]

Dear Friends and Fellow Agents,

This is agent Scha, reporting from Ground Zero in the Santa Cruz

County Lyme Wars, which oddly enough turns out to be my apartment.

There is cold morning air coming in through all the windows. I

shiver gratefully because the heat has been spiking up in the 90s

here in the afternoons and collecting cold air overnight and in the

morning has become essential to my survival of the long afternoon

heat.

Today my older brother is bringing me an air conditioner. The cheap

kind that sits in the window is not allowed in my apartment complex,

so family funds were required to purchase a portable unit powerful

enough to cool a large apartment.

My brother lives more than 5 hours from here, in a part of the state

that gets a LOT of heat, so he's bringing a more expensive, high-

tech thingamabob that vents through a tube that goes flush with the

window without poking out of it.

There is a medical reason for my brother's visit, beyond rescuing me

from the heat. Because my HMO has declared war on my diagnosis, what

was already a desperate medical and financial situation is now also

a legal minefield. So there is something of great importance that

may or may not happen today, but for legal reasons I can't tell you

what it is.

Now several of you have offered to write letters. I received a

request from one of you for details, which I provided. With Penny's

permission, I will post those details (a concise summary of things

that have already been disclosed here) to the Files Section. That

way if you want to write a letter and need notes to crib from you'll

have them, but they won't disrupt " the purpose of this list. "

In the meantime, I wanted to share something I saw on 60 minutes,

which even my 'now you see it, now you don't' memory hasn't been

able to shake.

It was a few weeks back, if go to cbsnews.com you can probably find

it. The report was on these people who survived the Tsunami, when

everyone else was devastated, because they saw it coming. It turns

out that several generations back something of the kind had happened

before.

Because these people convey their history through an oral tradition,

they had a reference point, an oral history that said " when you see

the sea acting like this, all hell is going to break loose, you must

get to higher ground. "

So when the sea began to behave oddly, they had a reference point,

knew a huge wave was coming and got themselves to higher ground. It

took some shouting. The younger ones were skeptical when the elder,

who knew the old tales better than anyone, told them: get to higher

ground, or you die. But the whole tribe listened, and the whole

tribe survived.

Now I'll share another story with you, that my sister-in-law shared

with me about a personal acquaintance. He too was in Southeast Asia

in the path of the Tsunami. But he's a modern guy, like me. He

looked out his hotel window. The sea had receded with freakish

speed, there was this big wave coming.

He didn't think, just dived off the balcony of his hotel into the

pool, where he remained underwater by clinging to the ladder you use

to climb out. When he finally had to come up for air, everything was

underwater, and he was surrounded by corpses, raw sewage, the

skeleton of the hotel...

I tell these stories, because they describe the response to

imminent, unstoppable catastrophe.

In the 60 minutes piece, we're reminded that listening to stories

about things that we ourselves have never experienced, and taking

them seriously, can save us in situations where nothing else can.

In my sister-in-law's story, we're reminded that in real life we

seldom have the time we would like to deliberate on how best to

respond to a problem. Some problems deprive of us of that luxury.

What matters then is:

Do I see what is coming?

Do I hear, and act on, that still small center knows WHAT to do, but

has no time to explain WHY?

I believe that the Lyme epidemic is real, driven by multiple

pathogenic strains of borrelia. I believe that there is a real,

organized effort to conceal the scope and seriousness of this

epidemic from the public. I believe that effort extends as far as

the influence of the United States, the United Kingdom, and huge,

multinational corporations whose gross revenues exceed the gross

national product of many countries.

I believe that there is a real " Tuskegee II " experiment going on,

and that the right of all human beings everywhere, even the wealthy,

to critically needed medical care will emerge from this experience

either greatly diminished or powerfully reaffirmed. I believe it is

one or the other, there is no 'third way'.

I am acting under pressures that words cannot convey. If you think

you understand, you're wrong. If you know that you don't understand,

you're right. I don't understand these pressures - or the price they

exact from me - myself, and I know infinitely more about that than I

can communicate to you.

Besides, there is no time.

So if you want to think good thoughts my way today, I'm grateful for

them. If you want an image to focus on, picture me jumping off the

balcony into a pool that may or may not be deep enough for cushion

my fall and protect me from what is about to hit.

Yes, the pool will be deep enough.

Yes, I have seen what's coming in time to escape being crushed by it.

No, Tony, I do not have time to debate with you about whether the

Tsunami is real. When Tuskegee II has been stopped, I'll be happy to

have that conversation with you. Right now, we must all do what we

can, and I respect what you are doing or trying to do to help the

survivors.

Me, I have no sense. I not only intend to survive, I intend to stop

this damn wave and send it back to the hell it came from.

Damn. That's a long way down, that pool. Oh well. Here's goes nuthin.