In 2008, federal health officials urged on by patients who insisted they itched and ached and emitted all kinds of colored fibers from their skin, shelled out 600 thousand dollars to study this freakish condition called Morgellons.  And lo these years later, the White Coats have decided it’s all what most us thought (even us lay people) that it’s a mental thing, with non infectious cause…and that comes from Mark Eberhard, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention official who was part of the 15-member study team.

Don’t believe me?   Read it for yourself.   The study appears in PLoS One, one of the Public Library of Science journals.

Sufferers of Morgellons (mor-GELL-uns) describe a variety of symptoms, including fatigue, erupting sores, crawling sensations on their skin and — perhaps worst of all — mysterious red, blue or black fibers that sprout from their skin. Some say they’ve suffered for decades, but the syndrome wasn’t named until 2002, when “Morgellons” was chosen from a 1674 medical paper describing similar symptoms.

Afflicted patients have documented their suffering on forums and websites–websites that lacked an incredible amount of credibility.  Morgellons could be found next to  the latest Big Foot sightings and the latest on Bat Boy or the woman with the third breast that has a face.  She named it, “Skeeter”.    

Five years ago when I started this blog, I was more into satire.  I was also much more Conservative politically.  I still am, I’m just much less vocal about it. 

Anyway, I’d read about Morgellons on one of those Art Bell-ish type blogs.    Nestled among the stories about  FEMA work camps in Georgia, I found a Morgellons story and  while my heart goes out to anyone with a psychosis that manifests physically (by neurotically picking at the skin, etc.) I actually had to laugh at some of the people who were writing in to describe what they were feeling . 

I decided to satirize it by writing a blog about Morgellons.

It started out sounding serious.  I described symptoms;  even included a photo of a woman who firmly believed that her  were riddled with  dermatitis brought on by Morgellons.   I don’t remember the website, but it was one dedicated to Morgellon’s sufferers.

Then I went in-depth about the odd blue fibers that so many claim erupt from red, welts on their skin, oddly, strangely located ONLY on places on the body within reach.

Hhhhhhhmmmmmm…  

I also commented how awful it would be t0 feel the tingle of insects crawling all over me….bugs, critters, parasites under my skin.   The possibility would be terribly annoying, right?  

And then I wrote, “but nothing gets under my skin quite like Democrats!!!!”

GOOD LORD!!!!!

It was a joke.  Satire.

Didn’t hear word one from the Democrats, but the Morgellons mob???????   They had and I would guess, still have  an issue with anyone who dares to tell them that their eruptive sores are anything BUT physical.    And because of this, that post got  117 comments, but I chose to allow just 64 to remain for public consume.  Some of the comments came perilously close to threatening me.    And they still send me hate mail and frankly, it’s gotten very old and tiresome.   I would imagine they’re having a great deal of difficulty accepting the results of this definitive  study.

I was convinced then, as I am now that Morgellons is not only a true psychosis,  but a huge  ’fringe thing” and ‘fringe things” are required  illnesses among “fringe people”,  those who live in homes decorated with delusion.   They HAVE to believe  George Bush orchestrated 9/11 with 220 carefully placed bombs on each floor of both World Trade Center towers, that one of the dwarfs in the cast of the Munchkins fed up with this small stature killed himself on the set of “The Wizard of Oz”, right in the middle of filming.   That Clinton (either Hillary or Bill, take your pick)  had JFK Jr’s plane shot down due to political paranoia.    

Fringe people are needy types.    They simply cannot be satisfied with  simple, everyday answers to out-of-the ordinary events.    They need more.    For fringers with Morgellon’s, I equate this with a woman who has  Munchausen Syndrome.   They LIKE the attention a little known issue gives them.   From the letters and emails I’ve gotten, I dare say some enjoy their itchy sores.  They feel special…ordained…annointed by some big petri dish in the sky.  Morgellons makes them feel special;  they need to feel special.

For fringers who don’t go the route of needing to have Morgellons or odd metal tracking bar implanted in their groins after a late night visit by The  Reptilians”,  they simply require a little excitement in their ho-hum, hum-drum lives.   Their “itch” must be scratched with conspiracies.  Take  Princess Diana’s death.    There are many people who refuse to believe that something as mundane as the driver of a speeding car lost control in a tunnel and careened said car head-on into a concrete support pillar.    There are those that can’t handle that a sawed off runt with a Napoleonic complex named Lee Harvey Oswald quite possibly staged a one-man coup d’etat from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository Building 49-years ago.   

To think anything else troubles our safe, comfy sense that the world  is relatively stable, safe place . It’s in the process of searching for explanations that  some cast their polls of imagination out into the sea of unknown with the hopes of reeling in an explanation that matches the magnitude of whatever event or reality  with which they’re having issues .    For example: cold air colliding with warm, unstable air on a balmy spring day last year didn’t cause those killer tornadoes that decimated Joplin and Tuscaloosa. 

It was a weather machine. 

Silly?   Completely, but for some people who live on that cusp of created normalcy,  it becomes a most comforting  explanation;  nothing else could come close to comfortably justifying  how or why so many died.    

Now, I don’t doubt for one minute that Black Ops exist and covert shit is being done all the time and I don’t doubt the American government stirs a  large shit pot in shittiest of shit holes all over the world;for political gain…..

But…..I also understand fact vs. fiction.   I also understand plausibility–that  ten years ago, 19 “religious” fanatics fueled by skewed arrogance killed almost three thousand people in Manhattan, Washington and a rural field in Pennsylvania one morning vis-a-vie a plan that while horrific, was brilliant in its simplicity.      They used our own naiveté and arrogance as a weapon against us.    

In closing, take heart Morgellons patients:  I will give you what you need to hear: you DO  have something wrong with you–a 15 member panel of experts determined that you do, but it’s not physical.   Do you understand???  IT’S  NOT A PHYSICAL MALADY.    But please seek help. 

Seriously.

 That said, the next blue fibers you should seek out should be those found in the weave of a psychiatrist’s couch.

I didn’t know that much about the man, other than he was the Penn State head football coach for as long as I can remember.    

I first became aware of Joe Pa and the Nittany Lions in December of 1971 when I learned that my as Southwest Conference champions, my beloved Texas Longhorns were set to play Penn State in the Cotton Bowl on January 1, 1972.

The Horns would end up losing that game, 30 to 6.

I remember the first time I laid eyes on Paterno all those years ago.  It was  in all the pre-Cotton Bowl media hoopla.    To me, it seemed he always wore that dark blue slicker; regardless of the temperature.  And I always thought he looked 65.    Even 40 years ago.   Here he is after the UT victory in the Cotton Bowl.   In this photo, he just looks like a younger version of himself….like maybe 64. 

Again,  I didn’t know the man, nor do I know much about his life, other than he designed all the X’s and O’s on the Penn State gridiron for 46 years and in that time, he amassed a hell of a record:   409–136–3.

And yes, I also knew that he was, for all intents and purposes, embroiled in the recent scandal at Penn State.    And of course, I learned more than I wanted to about  Joe Pa when the mess emerged about former  defensive coordinator, Jerry Sandusky.

In early November, Sandusky was arrested on 40-counts  relating to the sexual abuse of eight young boys over a 15-year period. Most of the incidents allegedly happened on the campus of Penn State.   According to a  grand jury investigation, Mike McQueary, who was at the time  a graduate student assistant, supposedly told Paterno back in  2002 that he’d seen Sandusky sodomizing  10-year-old boy in Penn State football’s shower facilities.    The report also says  Paterno notified Athletic Director, Tim Curley the next day about the incident,  A bit later, he also notified Gary Schultz, the Director of Business and Finance, who oversaw the University Police.  

Here’s where it gets a bit confusing:     Paterno said McQueary told him he’d witnessed “an incident in the shower” but said he never conveyed anything else;  certainly nothing specific and McQueary himself  denied ever using the words “anal” or “rape” when describing what he’d seen in the shower.  

Prosecutors stated that Paterno was not accused of any wrongdoing, as he fulfilled his legal obligation to report the incident to his immediate supervisor, Curley.  However, he was harshly criticized for not reporting the incident to police himself, or at least seeing to it that it was; 

He says he first told his father about the incident, then the next day informed Paterno, and then ten days later informed other university officials.  He was also criticized for not intervening to protect the boy from Sandusky, as well as for not reporting the incident to police himself. McQueary insists he made sure the  assault stopped before leaving, and that he discussed the incident with police but there are no records of this, either with university police or officials with the City of State College.  

The university senior vice president and others have been charged with perjury for saying that McQueary had reported only horseplay at the time. A prominent Pennsylvania physician says he was present when McQueary described the incident to his father and the description mentioned hearing but not seeing a slapping sound in the other room, seeing Sandusky put his hand around the child’s waist and later emerging wearing a towel. McQueary’s testimony for the preliminary perjury trial says that he heard ‘two or three’ slapping sounds before entering the locker room, and later saw Sandusky with his arms around the child’s waist while hearing ‘more than one  of the shower heads  running and saw that the child’s hair ‘was wet’; although he did not see any sexual contact at all….just that the positions of the bodies  told him something was ” extremely sexual” and  ‘over the line” . According to Pennsylvania governor, Tom Corbett,  who as state attorney general opened the grand jury investigation,  McQueary “met the minimum obligation in reporting the situation.   but he went on to say that it u”did not in my opinion meet a moral obligation that all of us would have.” 

Joe Paterno 1926 - 2012

On the night of November 8th,  hundreds of  supporters  gathered in front on Paterno’s home.  He addressed the crowd, thanked them and then said the  that kids involved at the center of the scandal are the real victims.  They deserve prayers.     The next day,  Paterno announced he would retire at the end of the season, stating:

. . . I have decided to announce my retirement effective at the end of this season. At this moment the Board of Trustees should not spend a single minute discussing my status. They have far more important matters to address. I want to make this as easy for them as I possibly can…