X-Message-Number: 19455 Date: Wed, 10 Jul 2002 08:42:06 -0700 Subject: Cheers and Worries From: Peter Merel <> Over half a million hits on Alcor's excellent website per day? Thank you Ted Williams! Most likely Alcor cannot respond directly to the media on Williams due to contractual obligations. If Williams requested confidentiality, their hands are tied. But a short Alcor press release belaboring the obvious is in order: - Alcor don't accept last minute signups under any circumstances. - Alcor require a minimum of 5 double-witnessed signup forms in triplicate, plus notarization. - One of these forms is a detailed and definitive last will and testament for bodily remains. - Alcor's suspension process requires extensive cooperation from the deceased's hospital and doctors - Alcor have previously cancelled suspension when the patient or their doctors thought twice (esp. Tim Leary) - Someone's DNA is much more reliably preserved in a $2.00 jar of formaldehyde. Cryonics preserves brains. As to the negative spin of some media, it's only natural. Cryonics is the least popular activity in the history of mankind. I mean there are, what, 2 million American engineers and scientists, right? Maybe ten times that many New-Agers. The idea's had 30 years of publicity good and bad. And we have less than a thousand people signed up. CNN are part of the great feedback howl that is American culture - they're not going to broadcast possibilities the masses aren't ready to accept. How the heck will you sell soap-powder and SUVs doing that? In general this publicity does make me worry about the orgs' physical security. We have easily ten times as many violent nuts gunning for us as we have signed up members. I've never physically visited the orgs - how vulnerable are they to someone with a truck full of modified fertilizer? Peter Merel. Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=19455