Staying A Head

In a slow week in celebrity estate news, the only newsworthy item is an NYT article about cryonics and a young woman who had her brain preserved upon her death from cancer 2 years ago.  To raise the $80K needed to pay for the freezing of her brain until her brain can be brought back to life in the future, she and her boyfriend posted a plea on Reddit.   A post-death brain scan has shown that the chemo-preservatives needed to protect her brain from ice damage only reached the outer level of her brain.

Several points, mostly dorm room existential:

1.  If you could be brought back to life, but everyone you knew had died, would you still want to be brought back?

2.  If you are the boyfriend and your long dead girlfriend was brought back to life, would you leave your current spouse and family to be with her?

3.  If 80% of your dead girlfriend's brain is damaged by the freezing, would she still be the person you would want to be with?

4.  Would Bill Clinton preserve Hillary's brain?  Or vice versa?  I think we all know this answer.

5.  If the young woman ever wanted Ted Williams' autograph, or to meet Walt Disney, cryopreservation was her only hop

Tragic Kingdom

Walt Disney's youngest daughter died in 1993 survived by her 3 children.  She left her fortune in trust for them with a provision that they would receive their inheritance in $20+ million installments at the ages of 35, 40, and 45 if they showed "maturity and the financial ability" to manage the money.  Her son, Brad,is embroiled in litigation with the trustees over their refusal to give him his installment on his 40th birthday even though they gave installments to his older sister who was allegedly addicted to heroin and died a year after receiving her first installment and to his twin sister who had suffered a brain aneurysm and never held a job.  Brad does receive $1 million annually but his step-mother allegedly wants him to receive the large distribution so the funds will be available to her children. The attorney who drafted the trust said the provision about maturity was his mother's way to never give Brad control of the funds but to still treat him the same as her daughters.

Several points:

1.   When children have different needs and abilities, parents should treat them differently in their trusts to protect the children.

2.  The trust should have had a no substance abuse clause which would have allowed the trustees to pay for treatment for the oldest daughter and not give her funds to pay for a lifestyle that led to her death.

3.  Any similarity between the step-mother and Maleficent is purely coincidental.