X-Message-Number: 1669
Date: 23 Jan 93 23:35:51 EST
From: David S Pizer <>
Subject: CRYONICS

In reply to Curtis Henderson.  I have always admired your honesty.  I
appreciate your open answers to me in previous discussions. In your
Cryonet posting you state that I (and Scott Herman) "... know full well
where the entire archives of CSNY and Cryospan are located."  

Curtis, I know your statement is an honest mistake on your part as I
have no idea where they are.  I would like to see them.  If anyone
knows where they are and how I can see them I would appriciate this
information.  

In reply to Saul:  I am not accusing you of anything except, perhaps,
occasional bad judgement, not bad intentions.  And in fairness, I am
trying to gather information to help me see if my first impression of
your bad judgement is true, or if I might have been wrong.  As a Board
Member, and a suspension member, I have a responsibility to consider
the judgement of each powerful person in Alcor.  I have been honest and
open to you in my opinion of your judgement.

As far as Dick Jones wanting to give more money to his relatives, (which
you say is "factually wrong and grossly distorted"), I got that
information from your article in "Cryonics" magazine, where you stated
that Dick came to you several months before his deanimation and wanted
to rewrite his will to give his relatives a larger chunk of his estate,
and you talked him out of it.  If there is an error in my reading of
your article please tell me specifically where it is.

I don't understand the difference in your new claim that I am not
exactly responsible for the failure to get the Arizona building but you
now say it is an "evasion of his (my) responsibility."  What does that
mean?  

While I was calling and getting pledges for the building, you were
telling people that you were not for it.  How is this an evasion of my
responsibility?  I was asked by the Board to make calls to try to raise
the money.  I got pledges and money for a good part of it, before you
started the war on Carlos.  What else could I have done? 

Saul, you have stated several times that you would be glad to answer
questions about the past.  In a recent posting I have asked some
questions.  I tried to ask them "nicely" as you requested.  Would you be
willing to answer them nicely?  

If you feel the questions are phrased in a bad way, would you please
give me an example of how you would like them asked and I will rewrite
them.  These are hard questions that I feel obligated to ask and I
don't know any other way to ask them.  Saul, I feel there is some
evidence that the troubles with CSNY and Cryo-span were more than just
soley financial.  If you will answer all the questions, I will be able
to determine if I am wrong.



I would like to address some of the comments made by Mike Darwin in his
response to my earlier comments and my attempts to ask questions of
Saul Kent and others about historical cryonics matters.

First, I would like to say that I am sorry that Mike has combined his
remarks with so much personal attack on me.  I hold no such hatred for
Mike.  I disagree with him and I respect his right to disagree with me.
I hope in future responses Mike can stick to issues.  I value what he
has to say.

Mike has called my questions to Saul "dirty innuendos."  I will admit I
am not as good a writer as Mike and others.  Perhaps in my style of
writing I am being misinterpreted.  If this is so, would someone please
take my questions and put them in a style that is more correct so I can
learn what I am doing to give this false sense of accucsation in my
questions.

Mike says my questions are "loaded."  I do not intend them to be.  For
them to be "loaded" I would have to know the answers.  If I knew the
answers, I would not ask the questions.

Mike says: "The story of CSNY and Cryo-span is an interesting one, a
tragic one, and one from which there is much to learn.  Unfortunately it
is the Board of Directors of Alcor and some of its staff which needs to
learn the lessons this story has to teach, not Saul Kent."

Mike, I am a Director.  I am asking Saul Kent about this.  I am trying
to learn the story.  If I don't ask Saul, how am I going to learn?

Mike states in several nasty ways that I alledge 7 patients were "lost." 
Mike seems to take offense with the word "lost." I got my information
from Mike Perry.  Mike then names 7 patients who CSNY or Cryo-span had
some involvement with that were eventuly unfrozen.  If you don't like
the word "lost" then I will use some other word to refer to the
patients who were unfrozen and are now rotted away.  Would you please
suggest a word to replace "lost?"

Mike defends CSNY and Cryo-span with stories of how they didn't have
enough mnoney and lots of other reasons.  I am not condeming them.  I
want to look a little closer at the stated reasons.  Curtis has
indicated that there may have been more going on than just financial
problems.  I would like to look into this.  Am I wrong to want to ask
questions about other possible problems?

Mike claims that the patients seemed doomed from the start.  He gives
excuses because these were the first ones.  However, Mike forgets that
the first man frozen is still frozen.

Mike says that 2 years with the first 5 patients was not long enough to
know that the arrangement of giving the relatives control was a bad
policy.  Yet Curtis indicates that some other CSNY members were arguing
that the policy was wrong in the beginning?  Is it wrong to ask
questions about this?

Mike says that they kept hanging on because they felt things would get
better.  But things got worse.  I want to know why, if they honestly
felt things would get better, they got worse.

Mike refers to various posting on the net in the past few months by
Alcor members as "mean-spiritedness and gross stupidity."   How can the
act of Alcor members asking questions, giving opinions, and trying to
learn more by brainstorming on the net be "gross stupidity?"  

Mike, if Alcor members are going to learn about the organizatin that is
charged with trying to save their lives, they have to be allowed to ask
some "stupid" questions.  Personally, I do not think there are any
stupid questions when one's life is at stake.

Mike then goes on to refer to the Alcor Board and Staff as "Crud rising
to the top."  I believe that at this time Alcor has as good a Board and
Staff as we have ever had.  Just because you have left and other are
now volunteering to carry the load is no reason to refer to them as
"crud."   

Mike says that patients DeBlasio and Mandel were removed for financial
considerations.  Curtis, on the other hand, has indicated that there may
have been other reasons; That their relatives were unhappy with their
care and other things that were going on.  Is it irresponsible to ask
questions about other possibles reasons why any cryonics organization
might lose patients?  

Mike says that Nelson had everyone fooled.  How do you explain then that
the Chamberlains could see through him?  If the Chamberlains could see
he was a phoney, why couldn't others?  (I ask this in an honest,
curious manner).

Curtis has indicated that there was a lot of dissent in their
organizaiton.  Now it seems to me that you are confirming this in your
statement referring to others in their organization: "... in sharp
contrast to the dozen or so others who were content to sit on their
asses and throw innuendo and lies about the situation they knew Nothing
about."   Would you please name the dozen people who were telling lies
about CSNY and Cryo-span and perhaps Saul and Curtis at the time, and
what were the lies they were telling?

Towards the end of your posting you again say: "Alcor could learn much
from the CSNY/Cryo-span experience."  Damn it Mike, that is what I am
trying to do.  How can I learn if you keep arguing that Saul, and
perhaps others, should not answer questions about this?  Do you want to
censor us from asking questions and insist that we only listen to
prepared responses and not have an opportunity to ask questions when we
do not understand what when on?

Lastly Mike, I notice you often try to compare people, who differ with
you, to Bob Nelson. You accuse me of defending him, when Mike Perry and
I did on interview of him several years ago.  I am sorry if I gave you
the impression I am defending Nelson; I am not.  However, I see Nelson
differently then you see him.  You see him with an intent to do wrong
from the start.  I see him as a man who acted irresponsible and
compounded problems, and bad judgement, with dishonesty.  However I do
not think he meant to do wrong from the start.  In either case, he did
do wrong.  In my view, I am not trying to defend what he did.  I am
just trying to objectively see the facts.  You have hatred for Nelson,
while I more fear that situations that happened in the past might
happen again and I would like to have a calculated plan to avoid any
past mistakes, in the future.  To do this, I feel I need to know as
much about the history of cryonics as possible.  Therefore I ask
questions.

I resent that you try to dirty me by comparing me to Nelson, a man who
abandoned his patients when the going got rough.  Perhaps you forgot
that after I was released from the Alcor facility, by the police, the
first time (in the Dora Kent raid), I returned to the facility (with
Mike Perry) to do what I could.  After I was ordered to stop taking
pictures, I continued to take them. This led to my arrest.  I did not
know what they would do to me, I was frightened, but I felt an
obligation to try to help as best I could.  It turned out that the
pictures I took served as evidence to prove that an official was at the
raid.  That official claimed he wasn't there, but my pictures proved
otherwise.  It ended in a $90,000 award for Alcor members and was part
of the overall force that caused us to win our battle with them.

Perhaps, my action, and the action of others, may have prevented them
from destroying Dora?  In any case I did not abandon Alcor.  You on the
other hand, did quit your position as leader of Alcor.  I hope in the
future you will cease to compare me with Nelson.  I have never quit my
position at Alcor, nor resigned my membership; even though the lies and
inneundos about me have caused me, my wife and friends much pain and
sorrow. Throughout this, I continue to  volunteer to do work for Alcor,
I continue to speak up for Alcor, I continue to give all I can spare
for Alcor, I continue to bring more of my friends and others into
Alcor.  

Mike, I am not the one who has abandoned Alcor and I am asking you to
please quit comparing me to Nelson.

Dave Pizer

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