X-Message-Number: 26164 Date: Wed, 11 May 2005 11:35:42 -0700 (PDT) From: Christine Gaspar <> Subject: a suggestion...regarding Ben Best's "quackwatch" on cryonet --0-1163902373-1115836542=:23861 After reading some of Ben's messages on cryonet, I am glad that others are finally becoming as concerned as I have been over Jon Despres' announcements, ideas, etc.. For those of you not familiar with this issue, Mr Despres is a young man living in Quebec, Canada. He has been very vocal about his "ideas" and "business ventures" surrounding cryonics...ideas which are at best ill conceived, and at worst just ludicrous, immature, and potentially very damaging to cryonics as a whole. He has been making announcements on the internet, cryonet, and the CSC yahoo site, advertising cryonics services, and suggesting alliances with members of CI and SAI that really do not exist. I'd like to revisit an idea I had a while back... that would be that the CSC, CI, Alcor, and other "real" cryonics groups or organizations post a section on their home page entititled "Quack Watch". This link could be kept up to date on each organization's sites, listing "areas of concern" or flat out "quack warnings" or "potential money pits".. that each company or group sees fit to post. In doing this, you give the press, and the every day cryo-curious the opportunity to avoid such questionable groups or people, or at least the information necessary to make up their own minds about where they want to focus their interest..and provide a caveat out there for the consumer in general, that in cryonics, as in any type of industry, there are legit companies and there are not-so-legit companies (or in this case people)... Honestly, as we receive more and more media scrutiny / coverage, I think this is a necessary step to cover our a*ses from possible litigation, or bad press. At least we can say that we put out warnings on our home pages, and that anyone spending money on anything without proper research is a fool anyways. As cryonics grows in the public mind, the crazies will come out of the woodwork... And as a note to Mr Despres: we do appreciate your enthusiasm, but you cannot merely advertise every idea that comes into your head on the www, and profess that it is for the benefit of cryonics. If you want to make a difference, close your mouth more, open your ears more, and perhaps you can learn something from the people that have years of experience dealing with the press, and the public. What you do not seem to understand, is that it would take very little, in today's political climate, to piss off the wrong people, and have legislation created that could make cryonics illegal. If you care as much as you say that you do, then try to understand that your childish attempts to make a "business" out of cryonics may not only hurt yourself, but ruin it for the rest of us. So please, try to grow up, and learn something from all of this. Christine Gaspar President, Cryonics Society of Canada --0-1163902373-1115836542=:23861 Content-Type: text/html; charset=us-ascii [ AUTOMATICALLY SKIPPING HTML ENCODING! ] Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=26164