X-Message-Number: 14319 Date: Tue, 15 Aug 2000 21:19:11 -0400 Subject: Wakfer's Thunderous Reply From: Rudy Matic <> I began reading Mr. Paul Wakfer's post -- installment #1 -- but after hearing about my 'many snide remarks and devious methods', etc., in the very first third of the very first sentence, and browsing down several pages further to see 'unethical', 'distortion', 'defamation', etc., I kind of sensed myself being pulled into a recurring sort of discussion I see quite often on Cryonet -- ie, two screeching fishwives lashing each other with wet sheets. Very stimulating for the masochists involved, I'm sure, but doing no good for cryonics generally or the people involved personally. This seems to me not very productive. Certain that there is gold amid the dross, I shall courteously read all Mr. Wakfer's remarks in a few weeks or so after he pumps all his installments out and calms down. If there is anything in them worth making a point about, I ll do so then, trying not to boost his adrenalin levels by mentioning the source or quoting him directly. Paul Wakfer is to be praised and admired for having put together INC and headed the hippocampal project, not to mention other well-intentioned projects, such as morelife.org. I think it is fair to say that the realm of diplomacy is not Paul's natural fief, however. Well, no one is perfect me, I m snide, devious, and unethical, myself. Hey: as Mao says, 'let a hundred flowers bloom.' I suggest we all give Paul a round of hearty and well-deserved applause and compliment him on his productive efforts in the one field, and pass over his efforts in the other with silence. I hope that at the end of Mr. Wakfer's second installment -- or third, or fourth, or seventeenth -- he pops some Mantovani in his CD player, sits back in his easy chair with a glass of port, 'calm of mind / all passion spent', and devotes his not inconsiderable thinking abilities back to the task of making cryonics scientifically and socially viable. And I also hope that he recalls that you can't do the former if you ignore the latter. Speaking of which -- at the moment it appears that INC is funded through the rest of the year, and should it be in trouble then, Robert Ettinger has said that he personally will kick in $10,000 to save it, and ask CI and IS directors for a corporate contibution. I did not see the words 'thank you' in the sections of Mr. Wakfer's post which I browsed; so on behalf of everyone interested in pushing scientific brain cryopreservation research forward -- thank you, Bob. David Pascal www.cryonics.org Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=14319