Imagine the possibilities of human cloning
SCIENCE:Advancement in technology will make life quite
interesting
When the Scottish cloned Dolly the sheep last year, I thought,
cool  more comfy cotton socks. But the issue of human cloning
stimulates my imagination in ways even footwear falls short.
Last week, Chicago physicist Richard Seed (love the name)
announced his plan to produce a cloned human within the next few
months. Tired of ugachaka baby replicas dancing their way from the
Internet to prime time, Seed wants to groove on to the real thing.
He proposes to use cloning to help infertile couples conceive (and
did he mention the possibility of landing the Nobel Prize, getting
lots of patients  in and out of utero  and making tons
of money?)
I, however, understand the impact of cloning far better than a
Harvard-educated genius. Cloning is more than a cure for
infertility; it is the key to satisfaction and fulfillment. Our
greatest desires and deepest fantasies will come true when human
cloning becomes an accessible phenomenon. Take a look at how your
drab days would change.
You’re at Maloney’s when a beautiful woman catches your
testosterone-brimming eyes. When your cheesy pick-up line fails,
don’t stress. Grab the strand of hair that fell on the table when
she shook her soft mane, go home, clone the DNA and make your own
hot babe. Voila.
Or try to imagine this  I know it’s a stretch, but bear
with me, here  say there is a UCLA professor who is so
unbelievable, so charismatic and interesting and stimulating that
all of us want to be in his/her class. Of course, URSA won’t let
all 30,000 of us enroll. Whaddaya do? Clone the prof and we all can
get an education, for once.
You know how the cops are in your face when you don’t need them
but when you’re stuck on the call box-less side of the freeway with
a ruptured gas tank praying for serious help they’re always too
busy battering someone to come to your aid? Cloning can solve this
dilemma. Simply clone a cop and stick him in your pocket for
safekeeping. Whip him out when you’re in danger  your own
personal bodyguard! Better yet, clone a whole bunch and get a
militia going … they can live in your gun rack until you are
ready to attack. Feed them, breed them, watch them grow Â
bring your childhood sea monkey fetish back to life.
Think of how cloning could contribute to the possibilities of
eternal life, or at least eternal entertainment. If we start
cloning Barbra Streisand now, Yentl 2 will take her place in two
short decades. We’ll never have to say good bye to our favorite
stars! Had we started this at the beginning of the century, we
would be spared the nightly news updates on Frank Sinatra’s health.
People wouldn’t be so worried about his death because the minute he
was gone there would be another pair of Ol’ Blue Eyes to sing at
the funeral. Notorious B.I.G would still be with us … Sonny Bono,
too … no better way to keep dreams alive than by cloning me and
you.
Clone the Kennedys  god knows there aren’t enough of them
already. Don’t forget JFK Jr. Â he’s the finest of the bunch.
Come to think of it, everyone who is a junior should be mandatorily
cloned for the aesthetic pleasure of the rest of us: JFK Jr., Cuba
Gooding Jr., Antonio Sabato Jr., Robert Downey Jr. Actually, one
Robert is probably enough.
Suffering from long distance relationship trauma? Not a problem.
Clone your significant other so the real one can go half a world
away and the clone can keep you company! In all practicality, he
will be six months old. So what if he acts like a child, crying and
whining all the time?
It’ll be nothing new.
Tired of frat parties with way too many girls and not enough
guys? Thanks to Seed you can clone the cutest boys and balance out
the ratio.
Got a favorite restaurant? Clone the chef and keep him in your
kitchen … have tiramisu after every meal.
If you’re the restaurant owner, clone more customers when
business is slow.
Clone all the people who work in Murphy to speed up the
bureaucratic process.
Clone the smart kid in your class so she can be in your study
group, too.
Clone Michael Jordan and put him on all the teams that really
suck to give them a fair chance.
Want to see Matthew McConaughey naked? Clone him. He’ll be six
months old and you can peek at his pudgy pecs and tickle his tush
for hours while you change his diapers.
Clone David Duchovny, Brad Pitt, Liam Neeson, Nia Long, Matt
Dillon, Gwyneth Paltrow or whoever your flavor of the week may be.
They’ll chill in your closet, or under your bed, or in your
underwear drawer if there is overflow, and you can hand pick one
when you need a date. What better way to impress the obnoxious
people at your high school reunion? Your biggest problem will be
deciding which clone babe to take. Imagine the threesome
possibilities!
And you can finally quit making copies of that Pam and Tommy
video and grow the real couple for private live shows!
Yet cloning is not limited to whole personages. You could opt
for the part-only deals. Want thighs (or lack thereof) like Kate
Moss? How about a chest like Oscar de la Hoya? Clone ’em and keep
what you like. And back to Pamela Lee Anderson, she could make so
much money off of this. She could clone her breasts and sell them
at "Pam’s Parts" on Melrose to those who want them bad enough. You
could tell your jealous friends, "I bought my boobs at Pam’s!" And
if she doesn’t authorize the Great Breast Sale?
No matter. Just painlessly scrape off a skin cell (like when you
gathered skin cells from the inside of your cheek in elementary
school) while sitting next to her on the bus and go home to your
chemistry set.
Wait  you’re way smarter than these Hollywood hotties. You
have personality, damn it! And you’re not about to go give that up
to be some Cameron Diaz look-alike. So fine. Take her cloned body
but implant your brain. Who says you can’t have it all?
Perhaps you are having serious performance problems: impotence,
insecurity about size or shape, etc. Forget penile implants or the
pump; get a brand spanking new one by cloning your ideal member.
Dirk Diggler’s, perhaps? I can see the catalog spread now: "We’ve
got the perfect penis for any paranoid partner." Competitors could
offer special promotions: buy one get one free, variety packs, two
for a dollar with lotion thrown in. A whole new industry will rise
out of this so invest while there are shares left!
Of course, there are serious ramifications to this cloning
confusion. We wouldn’t want more than one Ralph Reed or Saddam
Hussein. We don’t need extra Timothy McVeighs running around with
O.J. Simpsons. No more convicted rapists like Mike Tyson or
neo-Nazis like David Duke.
But we have to take the good with the bad. We must balance
things out by cloning more Hillary Clintons and Jesse Jacksons and
Geraldine Ferrarros. More Gloria Steinems and Ally McBeals and
Spike Lees. Seinfeld wants to leave? No fair! Clone him and get the
new guy to continue the show. Surely he wouldn’t say no to the
bajillions of dollars. Better yet, clone Adam Sandler and have him
fill in as Sandlerfeld. He is much cuter and still Jewish!
Of course the moral and ethical dilemmas must be straightened
out. Cloning, like any other experimental process, takes time to be
perfected. The probable rate of deformities and abnormalities is
high, but so what?
Michael Stipe would still be amazing if his arms and legs
switched places. And how bad could Kathy Ireland look if she were
missing a nose? Hell, guys, you would even like her if she were
born with a penis. She’d have to wear panties all the time to cover
her flaw, but a girl’s got to have her secrets. What do you think
Victoria’s Secret is?
And even if you’re concerned about clones’ ability to reproduce,
well Hello, Dolly! Only five more months until the chic sheep gives
birth to her own baa-by.
President Clinton plans to withhold all federal aid from cloning
research and hopes to pass laws to prevent private money from going
toward it as well. While I find that ridiculous, I can’t blame the
guy. The last thing he needs is a multitude of Flowers and Joneses
flocking to the press. Or more right wing fanatics to oppose his
bills in Congress. Or more homophobes to pressure him the wrong way
when it comes to gays in the military.
Overall, cloning could have some very pleasant outcomes. I look
forward to the day when there are hundreds of little reproductions
of me writing amok. Think of all the columns about cloning you
could read. Let the cloning begin begin begin begin begin
begin!