MANY ARE COLD BUT FEW ARE FROZEN
I was not going to blog today. But I came across articles that knocked my socks off. I thought cryogenics was the field of science dedicated to freezing humans just prior to death so that somehow the specimen could someday be revived. But i was wrong:
In physics, cryogenics is the study of the production of very low temperature (below −150 °C, −238 °F or 123 K) and the behavior of materials at those temperatures. Rather than the familiar temperature scales of Fahrenheit and Celsius, cryogenicists use the Kelvin (and formerly Rankine) scales. A person who studies elements under extremely cold temperature is called a cryogenicist.
The correct term for this area of scientific endeavor is cryonics.
The Alcor Life Extension Foundation must be staffed by Yankee fans. The Daily News reports that Frozen, a new book by former Alcor executive Larry Johnson, reveals the company's abuse of the frozen body of Ted Williams, the Red Sox star and .400 hitter. Williams's body was apparently kept in a steel tank alongside junk and cardboard boxes, and his head--"gleefully" removed by technicians with no medical certification--was balanced on a can of Bumblebee tuna. In an effort to remove the head from the can (we all get hungry sometimes), one employee whacked at it with a monkey wrench, sending "tiny pieces of frozen head" flying. Johnson, who once tried to sell photos of Williams's corpse online, says that he hopes the book will lead to the fulfillment of Teddy Ballgame's wishes: the major league star expressed in his will a desire for his body to be cremated. http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheat-sheet/?cid=hp:cheatsheet2#cheatrow_9763
I followed up and found this:
The book, out Tuesday from Vanguard Press, tells how Williams' corpse became "Alcorian A-1949" at the facility, where bodies are kept suspended in liquid nitrogen in case future generations learn how to revive them. Johnson writes that in July 2002, shortly after the Red Sox slugger died at age 83, technicians with no medical certification gleefully photographed and used crude equipment to decapitate the majors' last .400 hitter.
Williams' severed head was then frozen, and even used for batting practice by a technician trying to dislodge it from a tuna fish can.
_lab_thumped_remains_of_baseball_imm.html#ixzz0SoxXKPJr
When I was a child, my favorite reading material was contained in Mad Magazine.
Then came the National Lampoon.
Now its NY Daily News
How dare you Day...heads will roll. Oops!
"What me furry" - Murry Katz
October 2, 2009 7:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
A LOT OF PUNS TONITE. HAHHAH
how is my feline canine friend
October 3, 2009 1:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
As a guy who believes that baseball is by any measure the finest sport invented in the whole of humanity's existence, and that Williams was one of its finest exponents, I am appalled.
Then again, I was appalled when his (clearly demented) son went against his last wishes and had him frozen in the first place. The practice itself is insane. Its adherents, far more so.
Just don't let them do this to Ernie Banks!
October 2, 2009 7:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
"[B]aseball is by any measure the finest sport invented in the whole of humanity's existence"
Word.
October 3, 2009 12:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Give me the carcass of Ernie Banks/ I wanna keep it in a 50-gallon tank/ I'll write you a check and leave it blank/ Give me the carcass of Ernie Banks
Give me the carcass of Ernie Banks/ I don't care how bad it stanks/ Ain't no joke, ain't no prank/ Give me the carcass of Ernie Banks
Johnson & Tofte
October 4, 2009 10:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
hahahahaha. I read this a day late. hahahaa
I LOVED Ernie Banks. Can you imagine? Okay we in Atlanta tonight. Your hotel room is down the street.
Not that the hotel in Chicago was that happy about the situation.
But where would the frickin Cubs find anyone to play shortstop like Ernie?
ERNIE BANKS ROCKS...HAHAHAHA
October 4, 2009 3:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Gotta rec this post for the title alone.
October 2, 2009 7:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Absolutely! An incredibly choice use of the language here. You hit it out of the park, DDay! Oh, wait....
October 2, 2009 10:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Mr. Day. This is just awful, what they did to Mr. Williams. No respect at all. No honor. If it was his wish to be cremated, his son must honor that wish. What the farking hell is the matter with people and their quest for the dirty dollar?
I am having a bad day, dd. First the torture links, then I spent the afternoon researching how the Spaniards treated the NA's upon their arrival in the New World, then the frac drilling torturing our water supply and now Ted Williams.
It has been many, many years since I drank alcohol, but this might be a good day to start again
October 2, 2009 8:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sounds like it's time for happy news,
http://www.happynews.com/news/9282009/lucky-injured-turtle-gets-coasters-feet.htm
October 3, 2009 1:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
That was cool! Thanks!
October 3, 2009 7:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
I rescued a very large, smelly, and disagreeable snapping turtle last month. It showed up in my cul-de-sac, covered with mud and looking as pre-historic as all snapping turtles do. It was a female, and did NOT want to be rescued, but would have been run over for sure had I not intervened.
I put her in my car, carefully avoiding her snapping jaws, and let her go in a nearby river. The previously ugly, nasty-looking thing swam along and seemed really happy, and I was so glad to see her in an environment that she belonged in.
PS: I love turtles
October 3, 2009 8:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
And here I am just trying to get ahead in life....
Okay, that was cold. Mea culpa.
I'd just like to add that, from now on, I'm buying Chicken of the Sea.
October 2, 2009 8:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
It is difficult to regard this as other but a tawdry and debased attempt to garner cheap laughs at the expense of this grotesque spectacle, little schoolgirl!
October 3, 2009 2:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sorry Charlie!
October 4, 2009 5:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hideous! Horrific!
A reality check (although pretty drastic) of why we all need to take responsibility and purchase our own preplanned package that will remove anyone else from the burden of making decisions and financial concerns about the final personal processes. Just as important as wills, etc.!
October 2, 2009 9:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
OK. That does it. I'm changing my last wishes back to Global Thermonuclear War.
October 2, 2009 10:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Fer cryonics out loud ...
October 2, 2009 11:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
NO SWEARING ON FRIDAY NITES
HAHHHA
October 3, 2009 1:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
Dickon, I'm cold.
Please warm me.
October 2, 2009 11:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Dickon, I'm cold.
Please warm me.
October 2, 2009 11:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Dick, I think you should go back to Mad Magazine. For obvious reasons.
October 3, 2009 3:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
Not to throw a monkey wrench into the works here, but doesn't this give a new meaning to Mr. William's nickname, "The Splendid Splinter?"
October 3, 2009 3:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
'cross the threshold have no dread
lift the sheet back in this way
here is little Effie’s head
whose brains are made of gingerbread'
—E. E. Cummings
Giggle; snort; sorry, Ted. Whaddaya think of your son, now? It's on HIM that we have to now carry around a mind-picture of somebody wacking your Severed Head around with a bat.
Guess he'll sue the shite outta that phoney baloney cryogenics business, eh wot?
October 3, 2009 8:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
Many are culled but few are frozen???
18 from my class have been culled so far...16 men and 2 women. None of them used for batting practice as far as I know.
October 3, 2009 8:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
"Then worked in hair replacement
Swindling the bald!
Where very few are chosen
And fewer still are called!
-- Warren Zevon (Mr. Bad Example)
October 3, 2009 1:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
That's the funniest thing I've seen in a while, DD. The title alone... (and damn you for making me laugh at the expense of the great T.W.). But thanks for refuting the rumor that his head had been attached to the body of a large tuna (kept alive in a secret tank at SeaWorld).
October 3, 2009 4:52 PM | Reply | Permalink