Friday, December 31, 2010

Happy New Year- National Alzheimer's Project Act

Well a Wish for a Healthy, Blessed and Happy and Safe New Year. God Bless All of you, Even the cool intellectual atheists, agnostics and everyone else that would have a hard time accepting the blessing.  I go to mass nearly every Sunday, I won't begin to tell you my Christmas Eve Mass Experience at Holy Rosary Cathedral In Duluth, MN. My God it makes me almost feel embarrasseabout being Catholic, the way some of these middle aged narcissisits and their offspring and their offspring's offspring, behave in church on the one day a year they actually go to mass. Makes it very miserable and difficult if you just want to pray in peace. Shameful and despicable, and I promise you I am not being vindictive. And we wonder why our children and each subsequent generation is so mean and disrespectful. I get tired of being surrounded by 45 year old adolescents sometimes.- But I guess that's what the world is amounting to.

Just a quick note on the business at hand since this is an Alzheimer's blog. So both houses of Congress passed the National Alzheimer's Project Act. So now the president has to sign it. It passed on December 15th the house and the senate, and was sent to the president Barrack Obama to sign. He has ten days to sign it and if he does not sign it, while congress is in session, it automatically becomes law in 10 days. However if congress adjourns before the 10 days, (they adjourned on December 22,) and the president does not sign it, then it is a pocket veto. Now, I am no lawyer, did not go to law school, so I am sure I am missing something in the constitution. Perhaps it is already signed by the president and no press release, doubt it. It creates more government control, basically by forming a committee, to find a cure and effective treatment for Alzheimer's. The committee consisting of lots of federal goverment officials, and private sector experts in the field, will help oversee funding alotments foer treatment and research in the field. The Act in no way alots funding for Alzhiemer's disease, jst oversees it. So with more government control and oversight, I would expect the president to sign it. On the other hand I can certinaly think of many reasons why he would not sign it. 
The head of  the consortium woul;d be the director of the health and human services, Kathryn Sebelius a lawyer, or her disignee. As you might imagine almost everyone who is affected by Alzheimer's disease, is behind this, because it brings attention to AD. That is a good thing. The Alzheimers association loves it, obviously it would or could give them the chance to maybe even move into an important and powerful role on the committee, Wonder who wants to be designee.

If Obama signs it, then it would illustrate his dedication to the elderly, the ignored and the downtrodden, those people and families  directly affected by the devastting disease. It would be counterintutitve if he did not sign it right?
I am very concerend about these congress and veto time constriants, I can't understand why the Alzhiemer's Association is not all over this, and the New York Times and everybody else. I must be missing something. These has to be some loophole, he must have lots of time to sign it right?

Thursday, December 9, 2010

Mr Joe Potocny's Book

I had the pleasure of receiving in the mail a signed copy of Mr Joe Potocny's book Living With Alzheimers' [A Conversation If You Will]. It is published by Xlibris and is 311 pages. It covers Joe's blog from September 2006 to Sept 2010. Joe has had almost 50,000 visitors to his blog and the book contains those blog entries and comments from readers over 4 years. There are hundreds of entries. It basically takes you through the life of Joe and chronicles the Alzheimer's he is living with. In addition it gives a little slice of his readers and what they are going through and how they relate to Joe's journey.  We are all fortunate that Joe put this together, as it needed to be detailed not just in the cyber web land but in good old fashioned book form. He has it available in hardbound and paperback and ebook and kindle.
It is very cool because you can pick it up and turn to any page and find a moving blog entry. Or you can read it from cover to cover or back to front. You will pick it up and get a real slice of the Alzheimer's world and learn something. And like I always say, you don't have to be affected by this or have a loved one affected to pick it up and learn something. Congratulations to Joe on a job well done. He continues to wage the war, fight the fight, and make us all aware.
Living with Alzhiemers': A Conversation If You Will

Talking about the book with the Lake Superior wind....... a calm day