X-Message-Number: 15697
Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2001 06:22:14 -0500 (EST)
From: Ben Best <>
Subject: CANADIAN CRYONICIST BLUDGEONED TO DEATH IN NORTH AFRICA

   DNA tests have confirmed that a body found bludgeoned to death in Mali
was that of Frank Cole, a filmmaker & cryonicist from Ottawa, Ontario,
Canada. 

    Frank was an ardent life-extensionist. I remember meeting him at the
first or second A4M conference in Las Vegas, where we discussed caloric
restriction, of which he was a disciplined practitioner. He attended one
of our first Canadian Cryonics Pool Parties. He also made a special trip
from Ottawa to participate in the cryonics local response training course
I gave in Toronto a couple of years ago. He was eager to find other
cryonicists in the Ottawa area to develop local response capabilities
there. 

   Frank was initially a member of Alcor, and completed at least one Alcor
Transport Technician course. Later he changed his membership to the
Cryonics Institute because he felt that a Michigan cryonics organization
would be closer and therefore provide better service for someone living
across the border in Ontario, Canada. 

    I expect that Frank was still a signed-up cryonicist when he died, but
his prospects for cryopreservation could hardly have been worse. He had
been bound & bludgeoned to death -- and robbed of all possessions
(including his shoes)  -- and abandoned on the Sahara desert where his
remains were not discovered for days (and were evidently so unrecognizable
as to require DNA verification of his identity).

    Frank's zest for life encompassed a fear & fascination with death --
which found its focus in loneliness, isolation, desert and filmmaking. He
became the first North American to travel from Mauritania on the west
coast of Africa to Sudan on the east on camel -- the first North American
to cross the Sahara desert alone. The documentation of his odyssey was his
life's work and his life's passion -- and it cost him his life. His file
LIFE WITHOUT DEATH -- a 10-year project -- premiered in Ottawa just days
after his own death.

   Death has won another terrible victory over one of its most
(ruefully) "mortal" enemies. Can we not stop this?

   Two URLs giving more details about Frank, his life and his
death can be found at:

    http://www.ottawacitizen.com/city/010211/5039460.html

    http://www.ottawacitizen.com/national/010215/5060453.html

  And a description of his films can be found at the very bottom
of this webpage:

    http://www.cfi-icf.ca/nov_films_2000.html

                -- Ben Best
         --------------------------------------------
            Ben Best ()
            http://www.benbest.com/
            ICQ -- http://www.mirabilis.com/20636141

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