X-Message-Number: 17255
Date: Sun, 12 Aug 2001 03:50:27 -0400
From: <>
Subject: Your front page story in the 8/12/2001 Sunday San Francisco Chronicle

Hi David,

Thanks for writing the article on cryonics which appeared on the
front page of the Sunday, August 12 issue of the San Francisco
Chronicle.

Although i think that it may not be so reasonable to gauge the health
of the cryonics industry by the number of patients at Trans Time, i
understand that naturally you'd like to include some local news in
your piece.  And by the way, the fact that Trans Time is still solvent
and took care of the patients it had says something about the caution
that cryonics organizations have shown over the last couple of decades
to make sure that funds are available to keep their patients frozen.

Did your editor choose the subtitle `Cryonics movement is feeling heat
of discord, financial problems and shaky future'?  I don't think that
your article shows this, and if you provided a graph of the totals
(total membership in cryonics organizations, total number of frozen
people, total financial assets), i believe the trends would all show
positive growth over time.

I do think that no matter what editorial pressure you were under,
you made an effort to be impartial.  Thanks for that.  I think
your story showed some real integrity in the actors at ACS
(Swank, Yount, etc) in the way they stepped up to the plate
for pioneer Jerry White.  [I also imagine that there's
much more to the story than you had room to print.]

Did Mike Darwin ask you not to mention him by name (in the
spot about the facility being set up by `a former Alcor executive')?

Perhaps some time we'll get a chance to hear what the interviewees
felt about your piece.

I like your paper's policy of putting the reporter's e-mail address
(e.g., ) at the end of a story.

Thanks again for writing, and i hope you have a chance to do
another piece on the movement 5 or 10 years from now.  (And i hope
everybody will be pleasantly surprised by growth and development
in the field.)

dan

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