Say you want to live forever…or at least have your consciousness, your inner self, your brain survive after you’ve shuffled off. Nectome, a start-up co-founded by an MIT grad, is offering to preserve and “back up your brain,” so that, at some as-yet-determined date, if can be uploaded to a computer and, voila!, you’re back on-line. It does this by mapping your brain down to the nano-synapses; which makes it different from cryonic preservation, such as the scientists who froze Ted Williams’ brain. One problem: the procedure that is uses to achieve this is, according the company, “100% fatal.” That hasn’t stopped them from getting nearly a million dollar government grant, and winning prizes and funding. And 25 terminally ill people have ponied up a $10,000 deposit to be among the first human whose brains “live” in the cloud, if not the clouds. This despite much skepticism in the scientific world. Michael Hendricks, a McGill University neuroscientist, dismissed ideas such as Nectome as “false hopes.” But these early adopters won’t be around to find out, will they?
Since we’re on the subject of the willingly brain-dead, it’s time to talk about Fox News. Some of you might remember the tragic murder of Seth Rich, a DNC staffer shot and killed in 2016. Well, that’s wasn’t enough for people such as Sean Hannity, a man whose head is so far up Donald Trump’s ass he’s less a TV personality than a Presidential Proctologist. He just had to recklessly and without confirmation connect Rich to his fevered dreams of DNC skullduggery, and went on the air claiming that Rich had been in contact with Wikileaks, and was killed in some sort of “House of Card” scenario. It turned out the story had no basis (an unsubstantiated story on Fox!?! Who knew?). The network retracted the story, but nearly a year later, Hannity has not apologized for his part in spreading the scurrilous story. The family decided this was more than they could take. They filed a lawsuit claiming that Fox and Hannity exploited a “sham story because it was good for ratings,” and asks for compensatory and punitive damanges. “According to a statement from the Rich family, “the pain and anguish that comes from seeing your murdered son’s life and legacy treated as a mere political football is beyond comprehension.”
After that, it’s time for a story that might restore your belief in humanity. When violet Violet Elias died in London, she was alone. Violet, who was Jewish, was a survivor of a Japanese concentration camp during WWII, but the experience scarred her, leaving her agoraphobic and a recluse. She died with her closest relative, a nephew, living in Australia. So Sanjoy Mukherjee-Richardson, a Scottish Jew of Indian origin, took it upon himself to arrange the funeral. According to Jewish law, a minyan of ten men is needed before the kaddish, or prayer for the dead, can be read. A tweet went out, asking for volunteers, and more than 50 people responded, and came to the burial, where Violet was laid to rest.
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