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Jewish World Review August 9, 2005 / 4 Av, 5765 Don’t clone that dog! By Brad Dickson
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
Like learning that Kennedy had been shot, Neil Armstrong walked on the moon and Michael Jackson was a father, I will never forget where I was when I heard that scientists had cloned the first dog. This was truly a watershed moment.
The dog was cloned in South Korea and answers to Snuppy, which sounds like something Gwyneth Paltrow would name her baby. Isn't there already a Snuppy Zappa?
This will change the world as we know it, as the dog population spirals out of control. Imagine a society dominated by a group that spends one-third of its time sleeping, one-third sniffing but-s, and the other third trying to lick itself? (Just like Congress.)
Count me among the naysayers who are adamantly opposed to dog cloning. Right now I devote many waking hours to cleaning the manure of strange dogs from my yard. If cloning takes off, between picking up dog chips and toiling in my garage laboratory perfecting my new method of identifying dog owners through their pet's feces, I will have no free time.
This pales in comparison to the fact that in the near future we may be forced to shoot excess canine fecal matter into outer space, which will soon be the only thing NASA is still allowed to shoot into outer space.
The weightless dog fecal matter will orbit the Galaxy at the speed of light, where one day thousands of years from now it will be discovered by an advanced society who will look back and think Earthlings of our era were either incredibly weird or else very bored.
Also worth considering: the hard, cold reality that while to us a dog and his clone may be a "pair," to a certain percentage of the world they're a "buffet." That's right. Americans may view dog cloning as a breakthrough way of maintaining a relationship with man's best friend, but to many other cultures dog cloning is essentially the equivalent of super-sizing a Happy Meal.
Nevertheless, this cloning is not as easy task. Cloning has an extremely low success rate. Just like NBC programs, Rocky movies and Larry King marriages only one out of 2,000 attempts is successful. It literally took years to clone this first dog. Which is probably a fine example of why South Korea doesn't lead the world economy, as making a Xerox of Benji was its top priority.
To create Sea Monkeys you just added water, and an "enhancing agent" and I should've known better than to try and love a pet that operates under the same basic principle as Hamburger Helper.
The bottom line: when dog cloning really takes off Americans en masse are expected to begin banking large amounts of DNA samples from deceased pets. This will make us a nation of people who have an average of $12.79 banked for retirement, but with tens of millions of canine tongue pieces, cuspids, and paw particles securely put away for the future.
Now although I've painted a rather bleak picture don't worry too much. Cloning dogs on a large scale is not expected to become reality for a very, very, very long time, perhaps around the end of President Bush's vacation.
If and when this comes to fruition you can go to a company and have Bootsie cloned for the right price. Just please keep him off my yard.
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© 2005, Brad Dickson |
Arnold Ahlert | |||||||||||
