The
Poet's Eye
commentary
by Lightning Rod
the Poets' Eye is skeptical
without being cynical, innocent
without being naive and
critical without being
judgmental
Natural Selection
for release on 08-08-04
A Sausalito
Calif. company named Genetic
Savings and Clone,Inc. is taking orders to clone your pet. In other
words,if this is the best pussy you've ever had, you can get it copied.
$50,000 might seem a little steep for a piece of pussy, but the price
is bound to come down.
The firm is being funded by John Sterling, founder of the University of
Phoenix, to the tune of 15 million bucks. They cloned their first cat
three years ago. The second and third prototypes rolled off the assembly
line in Texas about eight weeks ago, two adorable kittens named Tabouli
and Baba Ganoush. They say that Tabouli has the IQ of Ben Stein.
It strikes this writer as altogether appropriate that the first pet clones
should arrive in Texas. There are rumors of several other projects proceeding
there as well. Despite their natural aversion to stem-cell research, the
Republicans are reportedly interested in the project that calls for the
DNA of a long extinct Mammoth Elephant to be implanted in the womb of
a modern GOP elephant. They claim that the resulting hybrid will be the
perfect party animal, a combination of the extinct and the soon to be
extinct.
Of course there is also the race to see if Don Rumsfeld or John Ashcroft
or George Bush gets the first mini-me. George's team seems to be in the
lead. They are going to export his genes to an outsourced Indian Elephant
host mother and the clone will come out fully developed in time to run
in 2008. They are thinking of calling it Jeb.
It remains to be seen if we can really clone the perfect Republican. Who
knows if their uniform opposition to abortion would run true to strain?
And one can only guess what other genetic horrors could come to pass because
of this ungodly and alien form of reproduction. One of these clones might
actually be in favor of gay marriage. Ron Reagan has jumped party lines
on the stem-cell issue, which involves cloning, but the Republicans always
wondered about him anyway.
If the Republicans are having trouble reconciling their morality with
their their ambitions of immortality when it comes to cloning, the Democrats
aren't faring much better. The last time there was a cloning experiment
that involved a donkey, they came up with the mule.
The next thing you know they'll be cloning terrorist cells. After all,
Bin Laden himself came out of a litter of more than fifty. And that was
doing it the old fashioned way. Ideas breed faster than moslems, but science
trumps ideology.
Just this morning I was talking to our cat. I do this sometimes in the
morning. He sits on my lap in front of the computer. I showed him the
picture of the cloned kitty on the screen. Wink is an old kitty, getting
near fifteen. I asked him how his bank account looked? What about the
401K? Investments? In short, did he have fifty thousand bucks tucked away
to get himself cloned? I suggested to him that this was a much better
option than social security. He wouldn't have to scrape by from check
to check and cut his pills in half, but would be a new, young, healthy
pussy full of moisture and life.
It usually takes politics a while to catch up with science. The candidates
for both major parties are fossils, thinking old thoughts and talking
about old issues. Abortion is a done deal and stem-cell research and cloning
are moving forward in spite of government restrictions. The Poet's Eyes
sees a brave new world not divided economically or genetically into Alphas
and Epsilons. We don't want a clone of the old parakeet. We want a new
breed. Democracy and natural selection have a lot in common. They both
depend on a vibrant randomness.
False
facts are highly injurious to the progress of science,
for they often endure long; but false views, if supported by some evidence,
do little harm, for every one takes a salutary pleasure in proving their
falseness.
Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge:
it is those who know little, and not those who know much,
who so positively assert that this or that problem will
never be solved by science.
Charles Darwin
Lightning
Rod
World Headquarters
Studio
Eight.tv
Showcase for
Writers, Artists,
Musicians & More
Studio Eight Forums
Discuss the Arts
& Comment on
The Poet's Eye
Freedom
Hall
say anything
doreenperi.com
Art, poetry, music
•
to
comment on this article
email Lightning Rod here