Yesterday brought the first reports of Polish Flu in the United States, with cases in Boston, New York, New Orleans, Houston, Chicago, Denver and Seattle. This distribution of cases, and the suddenness of their appearance, suggest artificial introduction. The World Health Organization reports fatalities of more than 7,500, mostly in central Europe.
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Headline News
Atlanta, GA, Jan. 29
Concern about the Polish Flu has closed schools in all 50 states, Canada, and Mexico. The disease, which acts quite rapidly, has already claimed its first victims here. Preliminary WHO statistics show more than 100,000 dead worldwide.
Rioters destroyed die Grünen offices in several German, Austrian, and Swiss cities. Known members have been found murdered. Police have taken others into protective custody.
Headline News
Atlanta, GA, Jan. 31
The “Green Flu,” previously known as “Polish Flu,” has been reported in 46 states. The U.S. Public Health Service reports 10,211 known flu deaths here as of 10 p.m. yesterday. The WHO estimates as many as 10 million dead worldwide.
European health officials state that the fatality rate there is falling, though many new deaths continue to be reported. In Poland, 28,000 reportedly died yesterday, compared to 53,000 the day before. The strain does not appear to be as deadly as claimed by die Grünen, but it is the deadliest known since the Spanish Flu of 1918.
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Headline News
Atlanta, GA, Feb. 6
The Green Flu death rate is definitely on the downswing here. Only 14,612 new deaths were reported in the United States yesterday, bringing the total here to just short of 1,600,000. Worldwide, the official death tally has reached 75 million, with China hardest hit. Upward of 1½ billion are thought to have had the illness. Few new cases are being reported.
The historic Greenpeace ship, Rainbow Warrior II, was gutted by fire last night at its mooring, at San Francisco’s Maritime Museum. A caller claimed it had been burned to avenge the Green Flu victims.
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Headline News
Atlanta, GA, Feb. 12
Sometime last night, a Russian Parachute brigade dropped on Yakutsk, the capital of the breakaway Republic of Eastern Siberia. The population of Yakutsk had reportedly been decimated by the flu, and there is said to have been no resistance. It is not clear whether groups elsewhere will continue the independence movement.
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Journal of Religious Philosophy
March Letters Section
I agree with Dr. Venkatanarayana’s comments in the January issue, regarding Ngunda Aran’s teachings, and Aran’s support and expansion of Dr. Verbeek’s mental-spiritual therapies. But I would stress more strongly the value of Mr. Aran’s remarkable charisma in stimulating the interest of people normally uninterested in matters spiritual.
We are in a period of dangerous disorders and violence, and we need all the truly spiritual leadership available.
In this regard, it will be interesting to see what Pope John XXIV’s Vatican Council comes up with. I find its title, “Transition to a New Era of Human Spirituality,” very encouraging.
Dr. Cloris Stuart Wiesenthal
Institute for Human Development
A CNN Special Newscast
Atlanta, GA, Mar. 4
“We switch away now from ‘Talk Back Live,’ to the Vatican, and CNN’s Vatican reporter, Warren Ohlmann. Because of the extreme number of news agencies present to carry the pope’s address, the papal Office of Public Information is providing the camera coverage itself. Thus we will not see Mr. Ohlmann, but we will hear him. Here he is now.”
[The picture changes to a very large, gently sloping auditorium with a broad stage. The seats are full of people facing the front. The lower rows are filled with Vatican officials. The men in the first rows wear the red cloaks and caps of cardinals of the Church. There is no one on the rostrum except two tall Swiss guards at the sides, splendid in their broad vertical stripes: black, gold, and red.]
[We can hear Ohlmann murmuring quietly into a directional microphone.]
“I’m waiting with several hundred other journalists in the press rooms in the rear of the Pius VI Audience Hall. Pope John is expected to appear at any moment. You will notice . . .”
[Ohlmann pauses. Several clerics are issuing from a door to one side of the stage.] “I believe the Holy Father is about to enter the room . . . Yes, there he is . . . The seventy-seven-year-old pontiff is crossing to the stage . . . He is climbing the steps . . . Now he crosses to the rostrum.”