X-Message-Number: 21410 From: randy <> Subject: Another dipstick sports reporter takes on Alcor Date: Sun, 16 Mar 2003 10:14:52 -0600 References: <> Some dipstick sports reporter goes snooping around the Alcor building, harassing the employees, then writes a sports column about it for the Rocky Mountain News.... Excerpted quotes from the article and my comments are below: >>>> Ted Williams remains just as elusive as ever By BERNIE LINCICOME March 11, 2003 I am on hold for Ted Williams. Well, not Ted Williams exactly, but the place where Ted Williams is being stored, reports vary, hanging upside down in a freezer, zipped up in a bag, his whole body, just his head. A machine has asked me to wait. A human voice, I think, comes on the line asking if I can be helped. "Ted Williams, please," I say. Click. I call back. There is no answer this time. The Alcor Life Extension Foundation must be used to this. That is one of the things I would like to ask. About crank calls and disc jockeys. I want to apologize if they think I am a disc jockey. >>> I doubt they think you are a DJ. Something else, maybe.... >>>> All I want to do is pay my respects, >>>> Either that, or get some material for a column, huh? >>>> ...being this close to the semi-final resting place of the great man. We've heard the jokes. There is no cryogenics in baseball. The Splendid Popsicle. Stuff neither Williams nor his family deserve. >>>> No indignities must be suffered in the course of trying to save lives, huh? Ever witnessed removal of a colon or prostate cancer? >>>> I wonder when a final dignity will come to Williams, because as long as he is where he is, where he is believed to be - in the care of kind people, we can only hope - he is a punch line. >>>> And if he is revived in the distant future, I guess he can look back and read your column and be damn glad you did not get YOUR way. >>>> They must believe in what they are doing, that preserving so celebrated and beloved a national hero as Williams is worth the scorn of an ignorant world, and at least the curiosity of a harmless sports columnist. >>>> Ignorant, but possibly not harmless. >>>> Life Extension sounds wonderful and wacky at the same time. Death is just an interruption, a postponement, based in science as well as faith. >>>> It is not based in faith. When you have faith, you KNOW, without doubt, that God will give you eternal life if you have faith. Cryonics, OTOH, is an *experimental* procedure. We are going to try to FIND OUT if people can be saved by freezing them. We do not yet KNOW the outcome. If we KNEW the outcome already, then THAT would be faith. Cryonics is not based on faith. >>>> Kind of like having all the bases covered. And didn't Walt Disney do this, too? >>>> No. Didn't do much research for this column, huh? Huge surprise, there, given the quality of your writing... >>>> ... It is not certain that Williams is at Alcor Life Extension. The building itself is in a grim, gray, two-story office block, almost eastern European in feel, warehouse small business in design. Alcor has the west end of the row. Nothing indicates it is anything out of the ordinary, a very unremarkable place for so remarkable an ambition. Traffic is light and the directions are good and there I am at the glass - dark glass - entrance door. I cannot see inside. I lean to the glass and cup my eyes. Nothing. The door is locked. There is no bell. I knock. There is no response. A woman sticks her head out of a door down the way. I ask if this is where Ted Williams is. She closes the door. ... If this is where Ted Williams is, this dull, spooky place, it is more than a shame, it is a sin. >>>> Just how is it a "sin"? I guess if the building facade were more stylish, or the neighborhood more upscale, we would be absolved of sin by you, huh? >>>> I drive around back, past a dumpster, past signs that warn of danger and chemical hazards. The roll-up back door is open. It reminds me of where I stored my furniture. Someone is washing down several waist-high, shiny silver tanks. A milky runoff puddles at my tires. I wind down my window. "Is this where Ted Williams is?" I ask the man with the hose. Without looking at me, he hits the overhead door switch and the door rolls down. ..... >>>> Made a little column-writing hay offa Ted and the cryonicists, huh? Good for you. >>>> - E-mail Bernie Lincicome at lincicomeb(at)rockymountainnews.com. (Bernie Lincicome is a sportswriter for the Rocky Mountain News at http://www.rockymountainnews.com.) >>> I ccc'ed Lincicome. We'll see if he will respond here. I doubt he has the balls to do it Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=21410