Cover of the Rollin' Clone

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Lightning Rod
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Cover of the Rollin' Clone

Post by Lightning Rod » April 17th, 2005, 11:09 pm

Image
"Willbuuurrr, don't come near me with that swab."

The Cover of the Rolling Clone
for release 04-18-05
Washington D.C.

To hear this piece in the writer's own voice, go here

It's an old bedouin saying that once the camel gets his nose under the tent, he's IN the tent. This parable also applies to the subject of cloning. Technology is much like the camel's nose. Once it insinuates itself, there is no stopping it. The nose is part of the whole beast. When you buy the nose, you buy the humps.

We were all amazed when Dolly the synthetic ewe was born. But the camel's nose was already way inside the tent by then. Scientist had been cloning laboratory animals, like hairless mice that can be infected with AIDS, for years. Maybe the camel's nose was under the tent as soon as Mendel started messing with sweet peas. But now the beast is at least half-way in the tent.

Scientists have now cloned an Arabian show horse from the genetic material of a champion gelding. In case you are not up on your equine terminology, a gelding is a castrated stallion. A stallion is a male horse. Up until now it has been hard for a gelding to reproduce. Maybe 'hard' is a poor choice of words here. But, now, through the miracles of science, eunuchs can breed and we can have thoroughbreds issuing from the wombs of nags. It sounds promising.

We have moved from simple tissue cloning to cloning frogs and mice for lab work to cloning livestock and now showhorses and kitty cats. Surely you know what's next. The camel has at least one hump in the living room.

Smarty Jones won the Kentucky Derby and then the Preakness by fifteen lengths. He missed the triple crown by a neck at Belmont but still guaranteed himself a lifetime career in the sex industry. For the rest of his natural life they will let him fuck the prettiest mares in the land in procession four times a day. It's called being put to stud. Hey, if I could get a contract like that for just winning the Kentucky Derby, I would have my track shoes on in a minute.

But because of the advances in science, Smarty Jones may be representative of a dying breed. Yes, for the time being there is still decorum in the world of horse racing. No cloning is allowed. The stallion has to actually mount the mare in order for the breeding to be official in a thoroughbred racehorse. They can't even use artificial insemination. That's why the researchers chose to clone a show horse rather than a racehorse, which could be much more lucrative. But it's only a matter of time. You know what they call a horse designed by a scientific committee, don't you? A camel. And the camel's nose is under the tent.

It's only a matter of time before some sports laboratory wants to clone Tiger Woods or Barry Bonds or Shaquille O'Neal. They could insert a gene that automatically produces undetectable steroids. Hell, they could even dig up the bones of The Babe or Jesse Owens or Bobby Jones to get a scrape. We could clone Lenin or Kennedy or US Grant or the Unknown Soldier or King Tut. We know where their tombs are. That's why I want to be cremated.

The problem with this concept is that when we start making clones, it's just as easy to clone Adolph Hitler as it is to clone Mahatma Gandhi. And suppose we cloned Mickey Mantle? Would he still hit sixty homers in a season? If Tiger Woods was cloned would the copy shoot way under par? I doubt it. Golf is a game of skill, not genetics. A new Tiger Woods would have to spend six or eight hours a day for fifteen years practicing in order to win the Masters four times.

We could clone beautiful women and handsome men. Can you imagine spending the night with three Nicole Kidmans or seven Angelina Jolies? We could turn them out like hotcakes. Ladies, how much would you pay for a date with Brad Pitt-17 or Sean Connery-24? Celebs would have a whole new revenue stream--selling copies of themselves. If we cloned Mozart would there be another Don Giovanni in the works? Would Jimi Hendrix-6 be able to play Foxy Lady? Not without some practice. Would Robin Williams' clone know how to tell a joke? I mean, he would look like Robin Williams and sound like Robin Williams, but would he be funny? We don't know. Not until we try it.

The Poet's Eye fully expects to see human clones appearing soon. It probably won't be in the United States because of the restrictive government policies about this type of research, but sooner or later some billionaire in Argentina or Singapore will lose a beloved daughter and want a second copy. There are rumors that this has already happened.

<center> we take all kind of pills, that give us all kind of thrills
but the thrill we've never known, is the thrill that'll getcha
when you get your picture on the cover of the Rollin' Clone

CHORUS:
Rollin' Clone,
wanna see my picture on the cover
wanna buy five copies of my mother [ Yeah! ]
wanna see my smilin' face, on the cover the cover of the Rollin Clone--
paraphrased from Dr. Hook</center>
Last edited by Lightning Rod on April 18th, 2005, 8:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by sooZen » April 18th, 2005, 9:48 am

Lrod, Smarty Jones is a gelding so get ready to see him cloned soon. Besides, the breeding industry (it is what it is) doesn't allow stallions to breed mares the old fashioned way anymore. They are mostly test tube foals nowadays so those valuable mares don't get injured. I have been to breeding barns, seen the 'teaser' stallions (talk about a frustrating life) and then all the gadgets for masturbating the intended stallion into tubes for posterity and big buckaroos.

I digress...now about cloning...I figure it will be a good way of proving astrology. You can clone the genes, create the likeness but unless it takes a breath under the same, exact energies, the same exact place that created the original...it will never be the same. That's one thought.

Plus the fact that we are never the sum of our genes anyway. Our environment has a great deal to do with what we become. So say, we clone a Hitler...I seriously doubt we could recreate the circumstances and influences of the original so I have no fears there. Our cloned Ghandi could turn out to be the real threat.

Mutation...now there's a subject I can relate to. My second son is a prime example of what nature loves to do, mutate. Mutation is how nature adapts and it happens all the time. An orchid grows in Sumatra with a nectar tube that is twelve inches in length and so, a moth with a twelve inch proboscis pollinates it...one exists so nature provides the other. They are specific to each other and mutation is what happens to create or fill niches.

We may think we are gods, that we can fiddle around with genes, create what we think we need, want or would like to have but nature has a way of dealing with our ideals so no fear here.

We must play out our parts in this expansion of what we can do, are capable of and we (humanity) will stretch it as far as we can. It is our nature to do so.

SooZen
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Post by Lightning Rod » April 18th, 2005, 10:48 am

sooz, if Smarty Jones is a gelding, that's news to me.

I tried to find the facts on the net and couldn't come up with an answer.

Do you have a link?
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Post by Lightning Rod » April 18th, 2005, 11:21 am

ok, I found it:

said trainer John Servis. "But this is Smarty Jones. I don't see anyway he can earn on the racetrack in a year what he can earn next spring in the breeding shed. And then you have the emotional trauma if anything should happen to him. I can't blame the Chapmans for retiring him."

"I think the move he made in the Preakness was just a preview of things to come. Smarty Jones has responded to every challenge in his life with enthusiasm, talent and every fiber of his being. I think he'll make a great stallion." continued Servis.

sorry sooz, he still has balls
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Post by sooZen » April 18th, 2005, 1:35 pm

Sorry Rod, I was wrong, got him confused with Funny Cide...not thinking very clearly today...
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Post by stilltrucking » April 18th, 2005, 1:43 pm

Last week you told me that civilization is collapsing. This week I think that might be good news.

good work amigo
don't mind me I am drunk again

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Post by Lightning Rod » April 18th, 2005, 3:38 pm

thanks truck, I'm not doin' too good myself for the middle of the day (sound of beer popping)

sooz, I had to check it out because you very rarely point me in a wrong direction, plus I would have had to rewrite my column is SJ had no nuts. You know, journalistic integrity and all that. My language might veer from the ordinary at times, but I try to keep my facts straight.

The other thing you mentioned about the breeding is a little off too. Yes, many stock animals, cutting horses, work animals are bred with AI. I've spent time doing artificial insemination on cows. But a thoroughbred racehorse has to be bred in the old fashioned way (I guess you would call it the equine missionary position.) That's why thoroughbred stud fees are what they are. (The act has to be witnessed too, which is kinda kinky.)
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Post by sooZen » April 18th, 2005, 5:25 pm

again, Lrod, I'm sorry to confuse and alarm you. I shoulda' kept my hands off the wheel this morning as I might as well been as drunk as Truck although I wasn't. (no offense to you Jack) :wink:

My experience in racing is with Quarter Horses (Ruidoso is the capital of Quarter Horse racing) so that shows what I know...and bull barns (I've been in both), both of which use AI extensively if not exclusively now. Semen is kept frozen and shipped all over the world and it's lots easier on the dams and safer for both them and the sire too. I think Standardbreds (harness racing) use AI too???

Learn something new every day...sorry again. I stand by the rest of my story. Hah!

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Post by Lightning Rod » April 18th, 2005, 6:56 pm

"These words don't make me a poet, these Eyes make me a poet."

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The use of human clones

Post by Jenni Mansfield Peal » April 18th, 2005, 7:03 pm

It seems to me the most practical use of a human clone is as a part farm. Here's this person with my genetic code who can be produced fresh at any time in my life, let's say when I turn fifty, with no identity or human rights. My alter Jenni could even be a "vegetable," and we've seen what rights those who can't speak for themselves have. I'll just let this non-person humanoid grow me a new liver, new kidneys, new lungs ...

As creepy as the pod in the cellar seems, what's creepier to me is the thought of people rich enough to live indefinitely on farmed parts. Now I'm only assuming that this technology would not be available to just everybody - what am I thinking! As if the rich would ever have a life-saving advantage over the less-than.
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Post by Lightning Rod » April 18th, 2005, 8:10 pm

it's interesting, Jenni, that you should take this angle

the showhorse that they cloned was a gelding. The whole purpose of the clone was to continue the blood line. This means that the foal was cloned for the purpose of body parts, to wit, testicles.

I don't know if I could make a clone in time to save my liver. :lol:
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Post by stilltrucking » April 19th, 2005, 6:46 am

For humans I wonder.
Whose uterus are they going to use to grow those things? They don’t do too good in Petri dishes.
Maybe manufacture some breeding stock first?

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Post by Jenni Mansfield Peal » April 20th, 2005, 6:15 pm

If you can think it, it can happen. You have just made a deposit to the collective conscious.
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Post by stilltrucking » April 21st, 2005, 8:42 am

...
Last edited by stilltrucking on April 23rd, 2005, 9:54 am, edited 5 times in total.

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Post by stilltrucking » April 21st, 2005, 8:53 am

...
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