May 31, 2019
From the cover page of a grant application to Tristate Pacific Blue Health by Drs. Valerie Jordan and Brad Schulz. *GRANT AWARDED
Project Narrative (describe your research proposal in up to three sentences using lay terms):
Amyloid precursor protein is the protein that, when aggregated in a wrong way, accumulates in our brains to cause diseases like Alzheimer’s. We want to understand what it is used for in a healthy brain and why this protein is so important that it remains a must-have component of our brain cells despite its propensity to trigger unintended negative consequences of neurodegeneration.
Relevance to public health: The new knowledge obtained in this project may help fight neurodegenerative diseases.
Is this a competitive renewal of a project funded before 2018? NO
Have you previously applied for Federal or Red State funding for this project? YES
Years of applications: 2017, 2018, 2019
Was this project funded? NO
For Red state applicants: Attach a one-page justification for seeking out-of-state funds.
Enter the Just Divide tax ID for your institution and unit: *ID provided
Taxation statement: I agree to withholding at the Tristate Pacific Blue rate: *initialed
Public disclosure statement: I hereby acknowledge that if the grant is awarded, information about the project, its funding source, and the results it produces should be made available for dissemination to the public for the purpose of enhancing public understanding and interest in science and technology.
*SIGNED: Valerie Jordan, Ph.D., Brad Schulz, Ph.D.
January 7, 2021
From an article in The Brave New Scientist:
“Texas A&M scientists discovered a new type of modification enriched on amyloid precursor protein present in the neurons of the amygdala, our brain’s emotion processing center. It is as yet unclear how this modification affects the protein function. Unexpectedly, the study uncovered a link between the prevalence of the modification and individual’s political values. The study may shed a new light on the observations generated almost a decade ago, in which one’s political leanings were correlated with the size of one’s amygdala.” (click to read more)
Public disclosure: The study was funded by Tristate Pacific Blue Health, a program of the Tristate Pacific Alliance Health and Human Services.
February 13, 2021
From a transcript of an interview with Drs. Jordan and Schulz, conducted by Cat Sanchez, host of Your Morning Dose:
Cat: Brad, Valerie—welcome to the program. Tell us a bit about yourselves. I am curious how you two work together. It is a rare thing, I am told, two heads in one lab. Do you ever argue?
Valerie: No, never.
Brad (chuckles): We debate.
Valerie: We keep each other sharp.
Cat (laughs): Sounds like you’re a great team. I’m envious. So…tell me about your discovery. What is all this buzz about, this amygdala modification, this…curser protein?
Valerie: Precursor. As in a form of the protein that is parental to the form that we know as amyloid.
Cat: Right.
Brad: Look, Cat. It’s like this: imagine a protein is a body and a modification is like a tattoo in a particular place, for example on a shoulder. OK? Now. The protein we’re talking about is named APP, amyloid precursor protein, and—
Cat: A tattoo? On a shoulder of a protein named APP?
Valerie: I’d rather liken it to a lapel pin than a tattoo.
Brad: But tattoo works, too. Now, what we’ve discovered is that only APPs that reside in the area of the brain called amygdala have this tattoo.
Valerie: Well, um, it wasn’t quite that simple—
Brad: But it is a reasonable approximation. Amygdala is our emotions factory. It makes fear, aggression, anxiety, thrill, things like that. Now, what was most thrilling, Cat, was that when we compared brains of people who self-described as Patriocratic and those identifying with Multi-way, in the former the tattoo, the modification, was seen less often than in the latter.
Cat: In other words Patriocrats have fewer tattoos.
Brad: Um…so to speak.
Cat: That is thrilling, Brad. Tell us what it means.
Valerie: Typically, modifications are there to temporarily change the protein’s actions or make it easy to be recognized by other proteins. As a lapel pin would. Or a boutonniere. Or a handheld sign, “Hi, I am here to help”—
Cat: But you believe it affects one’s political values.
Brad: We don’t know that.
Valerie: Mind you, all we have is a correlation, not a cause-effect relationship.
Cat: How do you know?
Valerie: We know because we analyzed the numbers, and the confidence level for the correlation is extremely high.
Cat: Right…
Brad: In other words, we counted it, Cat. The modifications, the proteins, the people. The numbers speak for themselves.
Cat (chuckles): Okay. Tell us why it matters. Do you believe this—tattoo—causes dementia?
Valerie and Brad: No, absolutely not, not at all!
Valerie: These are completely unrelated functions.
Brad: What she means is that the APP modification we are talking about does not—and I emphasize it—does not contribute to brain disease.
Cat: Phew! That’s a relief (laughs). I’m glad you two agree on this. No need for the public to be concerned, then. Well, I’m no scientist…but it seems to me if you say it’s like a pin or a handheld sign, or even like a tattoo, you seem to imply that you can put it on…and you can take it off, am I right?
Brad: You are right, Cat. Well done for a non-scientist. Yes, in theory. But let me tell you—
Cat: These are foundational values, though. Aren’t you being a little…high-handed by even suggesting such a thing?
Brad: Look…this was your suggestion, not mine, first of all—
Cat: I only asked the question—
Brad: And second, this is a purely hypothetical scenario, an unlikely possibility among many others—
Cat: Of course. Only a thought experiment. Will erasing the—tattoo—change one’s political identity?
Brad: Not if—
Valerie: Cat—if you want to know if we can change it by giving a person a pill, the answer is absolutely not, we can’t and we won’t. But does it mean it cannot change at all—no. Of course it can change. That’s what matters. What if one’s political identity is not a fixed personality trait? Not hard-wired before birth or in early childhood as they would have us believe. What if? Maybe you can change it just by thinking about it, right now. A thought experiment, like you say, Cat. Right?
(A long pause.)
February 14, 2021
An email thread:
Valerie Jordan to Brad Schulz:
What the hell?! That was an ambush. Our PR man had said not to worry—what was he thinking? O! M! G! I will never, EVER agree to ANY public outreach in the state of Texas again. Did you not see it, what this Cat was doing to us?
Brad to Valerie:
Valerie,
As a matter of fact, I did see it and did all I could to prevent it from flying off the handle.
Valerie to Brad:
And yet your choice of words…I would not have used a culturally charged reference such as tattoo.
Brad to Valerie:
My choice of words? First you freeze and speak in impenetrable scientese and then she baits and you take it. We both know you shouldn’t have said what you said. And you hold me at fault for a tattoo metaphor?!
March 1, 2021
Select headlines:
Scientists Say Your Core Values Are Like a Tattoo on Your Forehead
National Interest
She-Scientist Valerie Jordan Wants to Do a Thought Experiment to Make You Vote Blue
The Well-Informed Man
Blue State–Funded Scientists Want to Vaccinate Your Children Against Patriocratic Values
Patriot Watch
Only Demented Degenerates Vote Patriocratic, Scientists Say
Daily Outrage
March 24, 2021
You are evil and the cause of all evil. You, the American Imperial academia, disdain and despise us who are fine people and only the rest of this country that used to be great, exceptional, and a shining city on a hill supposed to lead the whole world into freedom, democracy, and equality but then you let Jews, Blacks, and Women into our colleges and you teach them fraudulent sciences how to brainwash our babies and shove poison down our throats and that there is no truth only a matter of schooling. My wife she died yesterday of your Oldstimers disease she would of liked to give you her piece of mind about how you shredded the Constitution and your whole Just Divide that is nothing but your conspiracy to bleed the Red drop by drop because people like you don’t give a flying fuck about cures just about more money to prove the blues are better. This letter is a bomb.
May 12, 2021
Our Lady of Mercy Rehabilitation Center, College Station, TX Case history:
V.J. is a 37 y. o. left-handed female with no history of hearing or cognitive impairment prior to hospitalization. She was employed as an academic professor. V.J. sustained a severe penetrating traumatic brain injury to the right hemisphere on 3/24/21 as a consequence of receiving an explosive in the mail. The patient scored 6 on Glasgow Coma Scale when found, and continued to require management and sedation post-operatively. She had increased muscle tone and hyperreflexia two weeks after surgery. Second attempt at extubation was successful. The patient continued to improve in the following month. She was able to reach and squeeze staff’s hand, and produce simple sounds. The patient was able to ambulate with assistance and perform routine hygiene tasks at 6 weeks post-injury. Speech was limited, poorly articulated, and often perseverative (e.g.: “bray bo, bray bo, bray bo…”). The patient demonstrated inability to follow verbal commands but showed comprehension of written words and was able to answer simple written questions regarding her name, age, and personal data.
Questionnaire #1:
Do you know where you are?
HOSPITAL. YES?
What is your name?
WHAT IS VALERIE
What is your birthdate?
OCTOBER NINETEENTH EIGHTY FOUR
What is your party affiliation (check one):
Patriocratic ___
Multi-Way I THINK SO
What is your occupation?
SCIENTIST
What are your hobbies?
HUMAN BRAIN
Who is your emergency contact?
BRAD?? WHO IS
Do you know what happened to you?
NO
June 8, 2021
From Valerie Jordan’s writing pad:
Hi, Brad. You came.
…
I do not understand you.
…
Can you write this on my pad?
CAN YOU TALK?
Not very well. I prefer not to. I slur and lose words. Voice too loud. So strange: I know what I want to say but can’t figure if it comes out right or not. No feedback. Not that I was well-spoken before (just joking).
VALERIE I AM SO SORRY
Thanks. Are you ok? You look tired.
WORK
Brought me some?
NURSE SAID I SHOULDN’T
Pity.
…
I understand gestures and faces.
I AM SURE YOU WILL GET BETTER
Thanks. When I opened the bomb parcel I saw a brain in a zip-loc bag.
…
I really did. I remember. A brain bomb.
…
It is ironic. Don’t you think?
…
Okay, go. I’ll see you later?
June 30, 2021
Summary of findings:
MRI is consistent with multiple lesions in parts of V.J.’s right lateral sulcus and of the right superior temporal gyrus of the primary auditory cortex region. Neurophysiological workup shows no significant motor or somatosensation deficits. Performance in spoken task instruction tests is severely impaired. Pure-tone audiometry reveals no hearing deficit. In audio tests the patient correctly identifies meaningless sounds (e.g., whistle, rap), environmental sounds (e.g., wind, water, dog bark), and musical sounds, but shows no ability to interpret human speech. Written text comprehension is within norm. The patient is aware of her condition. A diagnosis of word agnosia or cortical deafness is suggested.
Questionnaire #5:
Do you know what happened to you?
BRAIN BOMB.
Questionnaire #10:
Do you know what happened to you?
YES, I DO.
Would you like to start speech therapy or train to lip-read?
NO.
From Valerie Jordan’s writing pad:
Dear Sir,
I should not remember this. It is a memory that should not have had a chance to form prior to the bomb going off. Yet I do. I remember how I opened your parcel, being hasty with a one-sided razor blade, as I often am, and veering out of the groove between two flaps of cardboard held together by clear packing tape. I had purple nitrile gloves on my hands because I’d been doing bench work. Your hate letter could be mistaken for an invoice, folded loosely and tucked between the wall of the box and the bag. The bag had a queasy look of a vacuum seal that was meant to be but failed; the antiseptic cling of plastic to dura had sweated off, leaving smears of tea-colored, cloudy liquid. I must assume you did this to your wife’s body because you were moved by the kind of extreme angst that I am yet to experience. But you’ve only proved that if you want to be heard with a bomb your intended audience is rendered unable to hear you.
The old factoid goes, there are as many brain cells as stars in the Milky Way in each and every one of our heads. I imagine a Milky Way blown apart in a big bang and hurled screaming at me. Billions of brain cells, their connections severed or burned, no longer a conscious whole but a mess of parts, agnosia incarnate. Each cell, if lucky, if not choked by the creeping rigor mortis of the amyloid clutter, only holds on to one or two poor scraps of the most deeply stowed, treasured memories. A few sweet moments perhaps: of childhood or motherhood or maybe of how you kissed her for the first time. Some of these cells are intact and now lodged in my cortex. I am not afraid of them. What’s left of your wife’s consciousness is nothing of the sort you are taught to call core values.
When the Constitutional crisis had hit, when the Just Divide had started I had been working so hard on my science I could barely spare time on anything else around me. Agnosia is the state of hearing and not understanding. You’ve shown it to me. Human speech, reduced, in the mind of the listener, to bird tweets. Yet even now I can write—I can pin thoughts to a solid surface, unburdened by the sounds of misunderstanding all around. I will write, revise, and write again till you can understand me. You had written down your return address—either you hadn’t cared, or had thought it’d be destroyed in the explosion. It was destroyed, but I happen to remember it.
This letter is not a bomb.