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Send
in the Clones
by Mad Dog
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A clone looks,
sounds, feels, and for all intents and purposes is exactly like the
original, just like the movie sequels and TV sitcoms the studios and
networks keep churning out except for some strange reason those are
legal. |
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The big news this week is
that a religious cult led by a man who claims space aliens he met in a
volcano told him humans had been cloned from the DNA of extraterrestrial
scientists now says a company he started has cloned a woman. This
shouldn’t be confused with the other big news story of the week—that
for one day every newspaper in the country, including the New York Times, mistook itself for the Weekly World News and prominently ran the clone story, more often
than not on the front page.
A clone, for those of you who slept
through that day’s high school biology class because you’d stayed up
late reading the Cliff’s Notes of the text book, is an artificially
produced, genetically identical copy of a living thing. Think of it as a
breathing Xerox copy except you get it at Kinky’s, not Kinko’s. A
clone looks, sounds, feels, and for all intents and purposes is exactly
like the original, just like the movie sequels and TV sitcoms the
studios and networks keep churning out except for some strange reason
those are legal.
Clones have been around for a long
time. The most famous was created in 1997 when, after eliminating such
potential duplication candidates as dogs, head lice, and Pauly Shore, a
team of Scottish scientists cloned a sheep which they named Dolly. This
wasn’t, as you might think, so they could have the perfect lamb chop,
the world’s fuzziest wool sweater, or twins to give as a surprise gift
at a friend’s bachelor party. The truth is, they were trying to create
the perfect haggis.
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If the clone is in
fact an exact copy, would that mean the child is its own parent? And if
so, will the family have to move to West Virginia where that sort of
thing is not only allowed but a time-honored tradition? |
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Haggis, for those of you who have never been brave enough to eat
a meal that looks suspiciously like Alpo and is made from the ground-up
heart, liver, and lungs of a sheep, is a traditional Scottish dish
that’s as disgusting as it sounds. In order to try to kill the taste
they mix it with suet, onions, oatmeal and, if it’s a special
celebration, a handful of fresh maggots. Then they boil it in the
sheep’s stomach, hopefully after it’s dead. We can only hope the
Raelians, the cult that claims to have cloned a human, have different
intentions. It’s definitely a good sign that they don’t call
themselves the Donners.
The details of how they produced the
purported clone have yet to be released, but if they used the Dolly
method they took a single mammary cell, made it go dormant, then
inserted it into an unfertilized egg cell while sacrificing a white
chicken during the waning moon. And sang Oops!…I
Did It Again backwards while doing the Macarena on one leg, of
course.
Even though there’s no proof they
really did it, this has raised the hackles of political and religious
leaders everywhere since it brings up a lot of ethical questions,
including what happens if the clone isn’t healthy, is it right to
bring a child into this world with that nose, and whether doing the
Macarena—on one leg or two—should be legal in mixed company. Not to
mention that if the clone is in fact an exact copy, would that mean the
child is its own parent? And if so, will the family have to move to West
Virginia where that sort of thing is not only allowed but a time-honored
tradition?
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A clone of Saddam
Hussein might turn out to be Mother Theresa’s replacement.
And Ted Koppel’s clone might actually grow up to have a sense
of humor, though thanks to genetics he’d still be stuck with hair that
looks like a cheap toupee. |
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Rael, the founder of the eponymous cult, claims 2,000 people are
already on a waiting list to have themselves or a loved one cloned. Some
want to do it so they can have the offspring they’re unable to produce
the fun way. Others think it will grant them a certain immortality.
Still others are doing it because they think that by making copies of
themselves they’ll be improving the species. No matter how you look at
it, it’s pretty much ego cloning. Unless, of course, you’re a
Raelian, in which case you’re doing it because it’s the only way to
ensure that there will be a steady supply of gullible people to join
your cult.
Before you decide that cloning is the
best thing since plastic wrapped slices of peanut butter, remember it
doesn’t mean you’ll end up with an exact duplicate of the original.
While the clone may be physically identical, its brain development will
be quite different since it would have an entirely new set of
experiences to build on. Thus a clone of Saddam Hussein might turn out
to be Mother Theresa’s replacement.
And Ted Koppel’s clone might actually grow up to have a sense
of humor, though thanks to genetics he’d still be stuck with hair that
looks like a cheap toupee.
This should give you a lot to think
about while you’re sitting in the waiting room of the You’ll Never
Walk a Clone duplication clinic reading a three-year-old copy of Family
Circle with the coupons torn out, hoping that when the nurse finally
calls out “Mr. Smith, you’re next” everyone including you
doesn’t stand up. If you walk out and don’t go through with it, the
only place future generations will see your face is in photographs. If
you stay and do it, one day you’ll truly understand the feeling of
being beside yourself with joy. Literally.
©2003 Mad Dog
Productions, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
These columns appear in better newspapers across the country.
Read them while waiting for your clone to arrive by FedEx.
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