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

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