X-Message-Number: 1119
From:
Subject: Alcor Laughlin Chapter Minutes
Date: Sun, 9 Aug 92 22:43:54 PDT
ALCOR LAUGHLIN CHAPTER MINUTES
SUNDAY JULY 19TH 5:00 PM - 10:00 PM
Mary Beth Jolina Lucero David S. Reyes
Art Gerstztyn Charles Platt Jerry Searcy
Eric Klien Susan Platt H. Jackson Zinn
Don Laughlin
Change of Dates
The next two Alcor business meetings in California have been moved up
a week. The reason is that the July 4th holiday and Labor day
holiday interfere with first Sunday meetings, so Alcor decided to
move up those meetings as well as the meeting in August between those
meetings. Therefore the August and September Alcor Nevada meetings
have been moved to the third Sunday of those months. After
September, we will go back to our second Sunday of the month meeting.
Change of Time
Beginning with the September meeting, the meeting time will be
changed from 5:00 PM to 1:00 PM. Please arrive promptly at these
meetings as Don must leave them by 3:00 PM.
Free Rooms
Don Laughlin has agreed to give a free hotel room on Sunday nights to
anyone who attends our Sunday meetings. You should call a week in
advance to confirm that the room is available.
Special Guest -- Charles Platt
Charles Platt and his soon-to-be wife, Susan, attended our meeting.
Note that I probably spelled Susan's last name wrong but I expect
Susan to correct her name to match my minutes.
Unfortunately, I suffered yet another car break down which limited
the impact of his visit. While Charles was able to spend a lot of
time with Don doing his interview for his book, he was unable to
spend much time at the meeting after I arrived. (Charles drove ahead
in a separate car.) Because of this breakdown, I will be buying a
new car. I am looking for a four door sedan for between $20-$30K. I
will either buy the new LH cars or a Japanese car. I am open to
suggestions.
At the meeting, Charles talked a little about his book and a lot
about his magazine, Cryonet Digest. This magazine will reprint the
best of the postings on the net. It will appear eight times a year.
$2 buys you a copy of the first 20-page issue, due in August (cash
only). $7 for four issues or $12 for 8 issues (cash, or check made
out to Charles Platt). Send your money to Charles Platt, 9 Patchin
Place, New York, NY 10011
While Charles was in town, Jerry Searcy and I had some fun with him.
The highlight of our time with him was when we went to the Tropical
Heat show at the Rio. Not only is this show managed by Cindy
Piturka, a local Alcor member, but the star of this show was in the
hospital so Cindy filled in and took over the lead part. The show
was very good and it sure didn't hurt that Cindy got us in for free
including two free drinks per person.
Special Guest -- H. Jackson Zinn
H. Jackson Zinn also attended this meeting. He is President of the
International Cryonics Foundation, was co-counsel on the Mitchell vs.
Roe case that Alcor recently won which made cryonics legal in
California, and has considerable experience in cryonics law.
He suggested that we compile a database of lawyers sympathetic to
cryonics. This would be very useful in local emergencies. To get
this idea off the ground, I have agreed to maintain this database for
now. Send the lawyers that you know about to me!
He also mentioned that Carlos had visited the ranch that Don Laughlin
wants to give us at least twice. This ranch is 60 miles east of
Kingman and is in a very seismically safe area. The worst earthquake
there since 1830 was between a 3.0 and 3.5 on the Richter scale. The
advantages of this over the proposed building in Scottsdale are that
it is much cooler and it is farther away from any cities where
rioting could occur. The disadvantage is that it would take longer
to deliver liquid nitrogen, you have to deal with mountain lions, and
there isn't much of anything to do nearby. It would probably be
better suited to be a storage building for patients than to be the
building where our headquarters are located.
Special Guest -- David S. Reyes
David won six gold and six silver medals in the Senior Olympics last
year. He came to America in 1958 and studied theology and herbology
at Pacific Bible College in Portland, Ore., and remains physically
fit with a regimen of exercise and a diet of fruits, vegetables, and
fruit juices - no pork rinds and beer to pollute his system - and
mentally fit by repelling negative thought.
"It's got to balanced", he said. "Some people are very good at
exercising, but what do they say when you ask them what they eat?
Junk food."
David passed around a booklet called "Old Age Begins in the Colon".
This booklet covered information about the dietary fiber psyllium,
everyday stretch routines, a Nutritional Meal Planner, and other
useful information. If anyone wants copies of this booklet, please
send me mail and I'll send you a copy.
Future Guests
At our next meeting, H. Jackson Zinn will be attending again. He has
lots of marketing ideas of how he can get our local chapter to grow.
Come and hear them!
EMTS
Jerry and I have completed our EMT training. In fact I just got my
certificate today -- I am EMS Certification No. 52045. Jerry and I
are the lowest level in the EMS system, but we now at least know
something. It is unlikely that we will go further in the system, but
along with Cindy Piturka's level two EMT certification we now have
some medical expertise in this area.
At this point we are waiting for Don Laughlin's employees to begin
their training. It is expected than an equal amount of level one and
level two EMTs will be trained. Once their training is complete,
then all of us will go through an Alcor certification course at one
time. After the course, we will buy two kits, one for the Las Vegas
area and one for the Laughlin area.
Just to be safe, I contacted the Clark County Health Department about
storing drugs like Heparin. They got back to me a few times, but
never with an answer. I plan on contacting the attorney general for
Carson City (our capital) and asking them for an answer.
Fire Department
As I mentioned earlier, an Alcor member was told by the Acting
Paramedic Coordinator at the Clark County Fire Department that our
bracelets wouldn't be honored. At the suggestion of Carlos I wrote
to him and he ignored me, at the suggestion of Austin Tupler I had
Don Laughlin's lawyer write to him and he ignored the lawyer, at the
suggestion of Sterling Johnson I arranged a meeting with him.
Luckily, when I called to arrange the meeting, a new person had taken
over the job so he didn't know about the letters. He agreed to send
a memo to all relevant fire departments about our bracelets. I sent
the information that will be contained in the memo a week ago and
expect to distribute copies of the memo that is actually used at the
next meeting.
Oh, and for those who know that I always dress in wacky T-shirts and
faded jeans -- yes, I did wear a power suit to the meeting. Even
bought new shoes that actually fit.
Publicity
A lot has happened since the last minutes where I promised to speak
at the Southern Nevada Astronomical Society. First, two days before
the meeting I was able to contact Richard Shock who had a copy of the
slides. The reason that I had such a hard time contacting someone
was that Alcor was doing a million suspensions at the time. Richard
Fedexed the slides the next day, and I received them the day of the
meeting. I gave the presentation that night; this was my first
public presentation of cryonics.
After attempting to follow the boring script that came with the
slides, I quickly came to the conclusion that it would be best to
wing it. I did wing it and the presentation went quite well. I cut
it short about ten slides from the end to adjust to the attention
span of my audience which I think was a good idea. As a bonus, a
reporter from the Sun was there because Lonnie Hammagren is pretty
famous in Las Vegas. Whether he's minting his own money (Dupees) or
putting a 2/3rds replica of a space shuttle on one of his homes, he's
always getting some press.
After the presentation, I was too busy to go to the library to check
to see if the reporter had run an article on us. The Sun is a left
wing paper so I don't subscribe to it. I planned on eventually
checking to see if an article was run, but I found out the easy way -
- the local NBC channel called me about it. The article was quite
favorable so here it is from the science section of the Sun:
Alcor hoping cryonics will mean a longer life
Members plan to be frozen for the future
By Debra D. Bass
Eric Klien of Las Vegas wants to live forever.
He is betting on cryonics to make that dream a reality.
Cryonics is a process in which critically ill or dying individuals
are placed in a state of suspended animation in hopes that future
medical advances will enable them to be restored to their former
health.
Klien plans to take full advantage of the technological wonder.
"I've never been in favor of dying", he said.
Klien belongs to Alcor, a nonprofit organization that offers cryonics
services to its members.
He introduced the newly formed local Alcor chapter at a meeting
Wednesday of the Astronomical Society of Southern Nevada.
Alcor is the largest cryonics organization in the world. There are
25 people being stored at its facility in Riverside, Calif. About 40
people have been frozen worldwide.
The group presupposes that medical capabilities will improve
substantially in the coming years, and assumes that innovations will
enable doctors to resuscitate patients now in cryonic suspension.
"Today's technology is very primitive", Klien said.
But science has made leaps and bounds in the last 50 years. Medical
professionals can revive patients who would have been left for dead a
few years ago, and considering that, today's standard of death may be
obsolete in another 50 years, Klien argued.
All Alcor members wear a bracelet with instructions stipulating their
medical wishes. Klien plans to have his entire body frozen in the
event that he meets with an illness deemed fatal because of today's
medical limitations. Some Alcor members plan to have only their
heads frozen.
Those individuals hope to have the rest of their body restored by a
cloning process. Klien said science now has the capability to clone
a cow, so the prospect of cloning a body is not that far-fetched.
The minimum cost of whole body suspension is $100,000 ((wrong)) and
the head-only process costs about $42,000. Most members arrange to
have the process paid by their life insurance.
Alcor has six local members and 300 worldwide. The local group's
meetings are conducted at the Riverside Hotel in Laughlin once a
month. Hotel owner Don Laughlin joined the organization in March
((wrong)).
The initial membership fee is $300, with yearly dues of about $260.
The fees are used to fight legal battles and improve suspension
methods.
University of Nevada Regent Lonnie Hammargren, who hosted the
Astronomical Society meeting at his home, said "There is some merit
(to cryonics)".
However, Hammargren, a Las Vegas brain surgeon, was skeptical of the
process used to sustain the brain.
He said the operation must be completed while the patient is still
alive because, "When the brain is dead, it's a useless organ. It
cannot rejuvenate itself."
Klien made it clear that Alcor offers no guarantee of life in the
future. It merely presents an alternative.
----
What I liked about this article was that it managed to mention both
Hammargren and Laughlin while putting a pretty good face on cryonics.
The result of this article was that the local NBC station wanted to
feature us on their news programs. Alcor sent them some footage of a
suspension and I provided them with the blue book plus Ron and Cindy
Piturka, two local Alcor members. The special, hosted by local
anchor, Sue Tripathi, was even more favorable than the Sun article.
It was entitled "Medical Miracles" and compared the status of
cryonics today to that of CPR twenty years ago. The special was run
at least three times during the Olympics, at 6 PM, about 9 PM, and at
12 AM. To give you an idea of how favorably it showed us, they
showed a clip of Lonnie Hammargren saying that Cryonics had merit
without including any negative statements from Lonnie as the Sun
article did. Note that this TV special didn't contain any of the
factual errors that the Sun article had.
Oh, in addition to this local publicity, HBO will be running a
special in August that will feature cryonics.
Information from Curtis Henderson
We passed around this "Fog from Foggy Bottom" from Curtis Henderson.
It contained information about the formation and nurturing of local
groups, training suspension technicians, cryonics youth, research,
third party grief (Fields v. Pilgeram), e-mail, and vitamin clubs.
I would be willing to make copies of this newsletter at request.
Curtis also sent me the book "Cryonics Reports - Vol. 3, 1968" and
the book "Cryonics Reports - Vol. 4, 1969". I would be willing to
lend these books which contain bound copies of the magazine Cryonics
Reports to those who are interested.
Information from Charles Hartman
Charles mentioned that the January 1992 issue of Esquire mentioned in
"Great Moments in Dubious History" that a Colorado surgeon, Henry
Swan, said that he had discovered a chemical that allows human beings
to "pseudo hibernate" for a day or so. This discovery was in 1978.
Charles asked for details about the investment program mentioned in
Cryonics. Here are the most recent recommendations that our
committees have made, note that only the TCW transaction was
accepted, as the board wanted to "think about" our suggestions for a
month. Note that this "thinking" will easily cost Alcor four
figures, or five figures on an annualized basis.
The Patient Care Trust Fund Advisory Committee has met via telephone
and recommends the following actions:
1) Close the Pacific Horizon bank account to simplify matters.
Transfer this money to the Charles Schwab account. 2) Close the
Benham Adj Rate Govt Sec Fund in order to get a higher rate of
return. Transfer this money to the Charles Schwab account. 3)
Accept the offer to receive one share of TCW at par for every five
shares that we have. We should accept this offer based on the 9.51%
premium that TCW currently sells at. This will give us a bonus
return for the past month of 9.51/5 = 1.902% or 22.824% annually in
addition to the average 9% return that this fund returns. 4) Invest
$100,000 of the money in the Charles Schwab account into the recently
reopened Fidelity Low Priced Stock Fund. 5) Invest $100,000 of the
money in the Benham Income & Growth Fund. 6) Invest the remaining
money into the Scudder Short Term Global Fund. 7) Notify our
committee when either these actions have been done or have been
rejected.
In addition to the bonus return from TCW during this past month,
Scudder Short Term Global Fund is now up to an 8.8% return per month.
Note that $1100 was lost due to the four week delay in implementing
our suggestions last time for an annual loss of $13,000/year. This
is not including the loss caused by our inability to make
recommendations last month since we hadn't received any confirmations
of our trades by the last meeting. (The lack of confirmations was
due to the fact that the trades were done only a few days before the
last meeting.) It is hoped that there will be a much smaller delay
this time.
The Endowment Fund Advisory Committee has met via telephone and
recommends the following actions:
1) Close the John Hancock Cash Management Fund, John Hancock U.S.
Government Securities Fund, and Benham Adjustable Rate Government
Securities Fund to get a higher rate of return. 2) Put $200,000 in
the Scudder Short Term Global Fund. 3) We have decided that buying
utility stocks would be a very good idea because a) they give a good
yield b) outperform the Dow over time c) fluctuate little as the
October 1987 crash showed. Unfortunately, there are no good no load
funds for utilities so we have decided to create our own. We
recommend that you buy what Steven Leeb of Personal Finance calls
"The fierce some foursome". With the remaining money in our fund,
spend an equal amount on the following utilities: Duke Power,
Southern California Edison, Dominion Resources, and Kansas City Power
& Light. The symbols are DUK, SCE, D, and KLT. 4) Notify our
committee when either these actions have been done or have been
rejected.
Additional non investment suggestions:
1) Send duplicate statements for both the Patient Care Trust Fund and
Endowment Fund to the executive officers (Carlos Mondrag n, Dave
Pizer, Paul Genteman, and Hugh Hixon) and to the three advisors that
are currently on the PCTFA committee and EFA committee. This will be
a lot cheaper than hiring an internal auditor to watch these books.
It would be easiest if we just told Charles Schwab to do this for us.
2) Require that all checks written for over $10,000 on the Patient
Care Trust Fund and Endowment Fund need two signatures. One of the
signatories should not be a board member. This will help convince
people that our books are being maintained honestly.
Additional areas that we are investigating:
1) We are considering moving our accounts to Canada to protect us in
case of civil legal suits. We must check first if a) this will
really protect us b) if Canada will require us to separately file for
tax free status there. Note that Canadian trading is not much more
expensive than U.S. trading.
Non advisory committee recommendations:
1) The budget that Alcor is following should be made available to the
board of directors. The board needs to be told how money will be
spent if it can advise us on how it should be spent.
Charles said that "The Seed of The Woman" was written by Arthur C.
Custance who is at address Box 291, Brockville, Ontario K6V 5V5. He
received his copy from the Ramaker Library, Northwestern College,
Orange City, Iowa 51041. This book which we could use for religious
groups includes a lot of useful information based on the Xeroxes of
some of the material that Charles sent me.
Charles asked about the prepaid suspension plan. The answer is that
he would have no direct control over the funds, as in picking a
family of mutual funds for the money. If he wants direct control, he
should form a trust as David Greenstein did. The process of getting
such a trust accepted by Alcor is very complicated, for more details
on how David Greenstein did it, contact the Alcor Boston number in
the back of an issue of Cryonics and ask for his number.
Charles sent me a videotape about his business. Thanks Charles!
Charles also sent me information about Scott A. Kjar's Libertarian
newsletter. I happened to see Scott A. Kjar yesterday and I
appreciate the info.
Recruiting Members
The Las Vegas Review-Journal ran my free ad for a fourth time. It
worked last time, producing David Reyes. I will run it again.
I will soon do a mailing using Saul Kent's mailing list to people in
Southern Nevada. I am working on this mailing with Jackson Zinn. If
Saul's mailing list is too small I will also use Longevity magazine's
mailing list. This mailing will mention our meetings plus offer
cryonics related literature for sale.
I recently sent information to the main talk radio show in town and
will contact them in the near future.
Next Meeting
Our next meeting will be on the third Sunday of next month, August
16th, at 5:00 PM at the executive office in the Riverside casino in
Laughlin, Nevada. Take 95 south from Las Vegas, through Henderson,
where it forks between 95 and 93. Bear right at the fork and stay on
95 past Searchlight until you reach the intersection with 163 a
little before the border with California. Go left on 163 and stay on
it until you see signs for Laughlin. You can't miss the Riverside
Casino in Laughlin, Nevada. For more information, call Eric Klien at
(702) 255-1355. I'll be car pooling there with other Las Vegans.
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