X-Message-Number: 29307
Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2007 00:10:26 -0700
From: Kitty Antonik Wakfer <>
Subject: Re: Need Your Help!

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I forwarded Dave Pizer's message to Paul without first telling him who 
had written about Marce Johnson, whose name I new from his telling me of 
her a few times since we became a team in mid-2000. His response follows.

Paul Antonik Wakfer wrote:
Even though we worked together for many years and did not have the best 
of relations (to put it mildly :), particularly at the end of our time 
working in the same physical location, I could not help but read Mike 
Darwin's report with great interest. Apart from Mike's always well 
constructed prose and his always interesting (if not always valid, IMO) 
ideas on cryonics and cryonicists, my interest was, of course, Marce 
Johnson. Here are some of the thoughts which went through my head as I 
read it and the final result of those thoughts.

I don't remember exactly when I first met Marce, because I tend to not 
regard such details as highly important. However, it must have been soon 
after arriving in Southern California in Jan 1992 from Toronto Canada 
and locating myself as near as to Alcor's facility as possible, so that 
I could start what I came and brought my money for - to help enlarge the 
size of cryonics and particularly to promote cryonics research aimed at 
perfected suspended animation.

During my time in Southern California (until June 1999 when the INS 
decided that my activities of spending much of my past accumulated 
assets in the US constituted illegally working there and banned me from 
reentry - which was rescinded in 2002), I went to Marce's home in 
Huntington Beach several times. Some were for gatherings of cryonicists, 
but a couple times were at her invitation to dinner because she knew 
that I was all alone and would welcome a home cooked meal and a visit 
with always friendly people - her, Walt and perhaps a few others.

The rumor that I later heard was that Marce had Alzheimer's and now 
wished to be cremated or perhaps that her husband Walt (never a 
cryonicist) having now power of attorney over her health care had 
decided that she should not be cryopreserved. I am very pleased to hear 
Mike's account of the reality of the situation, which sounds much more 
credible from all that I knew about both of them.

The only fly in the ointment of Mike's report that I first perceived on 
reading it was that my disagreement with his following reasoning:

> On October 11, 1974 Marce reluctantly accepted the Presidency of CSC, 
> not suspecting that she had stepped into a nightmare that would go on 
> for almost eight years ....... Marce was the de facto President of CSC 
> when it came to light in 1979 that all of the patients in the 
> Chatsworth facility had been allowed to thaw and decompose. No, Marce 
> had no complicity in that horror beyond that of being loyal and 
> trusting. The very qualities that made Marce an exceptional human 
> being, her readiness to help, her willingness to trust the words of a 
> friend and colleague, and her quiet and nearly unshakeable loyalty had 
> set her up to be in the crosshairs of the litigation and enmity that 
> followed.

Much as I like and respect Marce Johnson and agree that she had no 
complicity (if defined as mere "participation in a harmful act") in the 
Chatsworth cryonics disaster, I cannot agree with the reasoning that she 
as President of CSC was entirely blameless as Mike appears to be 
attempting to imply above. It is one thing to be loyal and trusting with 
respect to personal dealings with friends, but it is quite another to 
ignore one's fiduciary obligations as President of an organization to 
personally check and inspect everything that is being done by officers, 
employees and contractors for that organization, particularly those 
things that are of critical importance to the prime purpose of the 
organization. However, enough of this relatively minor criticism, 
particularly since possibly no one ever explained to Marce at that time 
just what were the critical obligations of being President of an 
organization, and she, being a very trusting person, did not imagine 
that anyone could be doing (actually not doing) any such thing as it 
turned out was going on.

So after reading the appeal from Mike, two thoughts entered my head.
1) Marce should be cryopreserved at Alcor for whom she had worked so 
tirelessly and faithfully for so long, and donated considerable money, 
only joining CryoCare because she thought (as did many other major 
figures in cryonics, all of whom came from Alcor) that it was creating a 
far superior method of cryonics operation to any other existing 
organization. (And BTW, I am still convinced that this is true, which is 
the major reason why I do not support either CI or Alcor, even though I 
am signed up with the latter. I still hope for the eventual return of a 
cryonics organization modeled on the CryoCare structure and I retain all 
the contract and other documentation that I had worked out for various 
aspects of it - some of which were never implemented.)

2) I know that my very good friend Bob Krueger (now cryopreserved), who 
knew her much better than I, held a very good opinion of Marce and would 
want to ensure that she was cryopreserved. Therefore, for both Bob and 
myself I would send a check for $1000 to help get Marce cryopreserved 
hopefully at Alcor, but if at CI, not as good as she deserved, but still 
better than nothing.

Then I began to think about the Alzheimer's problem - about how much of 
Marce may be gone and irretrievable perhaps with *any* technology.
This last thought reduced the potential of my ever seeing the Marce 
Johnson that I knew once more, to a sufficiently lower amount that I 
decided in the end to send only $500.

It will go out in Monday's mail.
If anyone can convince me that the devastation of AD may still be 
reversible given sufficient technology, then I may yet send more.

--Paul Wakfer

-- 
**Kitty Antonik Wakfer

MoreLife for the rational - http://morelife.org 
Reality based tools for more life in quantity and quality
Self-Sovereign Individual Project - http://selfsip.org 
Rational freedom by self-sovereignty & social contracting



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