X-Message-Number: 3681 Date: Fri, 13 Jan 95 20:49 GMT From: (John Styles) Subject: CRYONICS Guardian Newspaper Article The Guardian, one of Britain's 10 or so national daily papers, has a column musing about cryonics on its op-ed page today (Friday 13th Jan). This is mentioned on the banner above the title on the front page (where articles are highlighted) as 'Is there eternal life at the end of the Rotherhithe tunnel?' The 'commentary' by Joanna Coles is titled 'Is life after death an eternal chat show with Oprah?'. Some quotes follow: 'At number 52, F A Albin & Sons know a fair bit about tradition: they've been directing funerals in London for 212 years. But tradition suggests old fashioned and Barry, the fifth generation Albin now managing the family firm, is anxious to persuade you otherwise. "We have the technology," he says, with no hint of a smile. And who knows? Perhaps he is right. Perhaps the 90-year old lady in Cologne who is presently waiting to die, will one day reawaken and thank the Lord that she booked Barry Albin to embalm her. [...] 'It takes a special kind of mind to meddle with the dead and exploit our fear of dying by promising eternal life. But unlike Dr Frankenstein, Bob Ettinger has no illusions about playing God. In fact Bob takes a purely pragmatic view of his work. Like he once said to Barry: "Hey, dead people don't have much fun!" 'Who knows? But the point of cryonics is surely that nobody does know. Just like Bob also said to Barry: "Hey, once you're in a box and buried out there in a graveyard, that's it!" 'But with cryonics there's the chance. A tiny chance that in 100 years you may receive a wake-up call from the big chill and be brought back to life. [...] 'It's not difficult to dismiss cryontologists as cranks. Never mind the technology, who would want to come back in 100 years? You wouldn't know anyone. Sentence to captivity in your grizzled body, you'd end up confined to the chat show sofa while Oprah Winfrey III grilled you over the significance of sexual abuse in the 20th century. But oddly, Barry shows no signs of crankery [...] [...] 'As we nudge towards the year 2000 we appear to have developed a fin de siecle obsession with death. No wish is too absurd, no request ignored. As long as the price is right. One man, conscious he didn't have much longer on this planet, begged Barry to dispose of his remains in space. Cremated in Rotherhithe, he was flown to California where his small pot of ashes was fixed on to the outside of a satellite and released into orbit. 'Meanwhile, there are 40 bodies stored in Bob Ettinger's fridge at the Institute of Cryontology. Are they the latest victims of a confidence trick that has been going on since carpet-bagging medicine men purveyed the elixier of life off the back of a wagon? Of will they have the last laugh, post mortem? To put this into context, The Guardian is fairly up-market and is the most 'left-wing' daily paper (apart from one owned by the Communist Party which sells about 3 copies a day). The general tone of the article i.e. it probably won't work but more likely to work than the alternatives, a bit cranky, rather a waste of money but people should be allowed to choose it if they want to, is what I perceive to be the general attitude to cryonics in Britain. John Styles () Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=3681