OPINION
Talking about cloning my aunt
Marks Meland
If they're going to begin c loning
people." I told my friend
Shankar. "I hope they'll be
cautious about the kind of peo
ple they pick."
1 had been invited to dinner at
Shankar's house. We were talk
ing about the recent cloning of
a human embryo.
"Just imagine." I said, "if they
cloned my Aunt Elisabeth.
Frankly. I think that God had a
reason to only put one sample of
aunt Elisabeth on the surface of
the earth. A very good reason,
too. mind you."
"Is she the one with all the hus
bands?" Shankar asked.
I nodded. "Seven, on the last
count, though I hear she's getting
married again this Christmas. Of
her seven ex-husbands, one
threw himself in front of the sub
way train, two were admitted to
a mental institution, and one
moved to the Easter Islands to set
up a medical practice, after find
ing out that the Easter Islands
were the point geographically far
thest away from my aunt.
"And then there's my barber’s
brother. Jonathan." 1 said. "It they
cloned him, it would lw a natur
al disaster worse than those tires
down in California He's got tin
most morbid sense of humor in
the history of humankind Hid
you hear what he did tor Hal
loween'"
"I heard the story. .Shankar
said, "but I didn't think it could
be true.''
"It was. Believe me, 1 saw it
with my own eyes, l or Hal
loween. he actually dug up his
own mother, who was buried in
his back yard, and hung her on a
string in front of his house. When
the trick-or-treaters saw the
decomposed corpse, they got so
scared that they called the police
"1 didn't think he'd ever go that
far. lust the thought of another
Jonathan gives me the shivers.”
Shankar said. "But I know some
people who would make pretty
good clones. Imagine if they took
some extremely talented people,
such as Ernest Hemingway and
John Lennon, and put them into
the cloning machine
"And then there's the mili
tary." I said "They'd never have
to draft anyone again. They'd just
have to make a million clones of
Colin Powell, and we'd have an
aaaaaaa aaa
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army of superior soldiers."
“Not to mention the girls, of
course." Shankar said "Think
about that girl down at the coffee
place, for example. Or the girl at
the circulation desk at the library.
Or the (JIT- for my ecology < lass
They’d he perfect for cloning."
"You're right," 1 said. "I know
some girls I would love to multi
ply. Just think of it If we took
Cindy Crawford and made a mil
lion copies of her. perhaps reg
ular guys such as vou and me
would stand a chance. Statisti
cally speaking, I mean ."
"Exactly. And for those who
prefer the more cerebral type, we
could clone Janet Reno or Hillary
Rodham Clinton. How great: a
nation filled with beautiful, intel
ligent. charming women!”
For a moment there, we
thought wo hod solved all of the
problems of the world, theoreti
rally speaking But then a shad
ow fall upon Shankar's face.
"But there's a problem, you
know," he said.
"What could be the problem
with a world of perfw t women7”
"Wall, think about it If we can
do it to them, there's no stopping
them from doing it to us."
"You mean they'd clone Tom
Cruise and Mel Gibson and |ohn
T Kennedy |r. and guys like
that?"
"Of course they would."
Shankar said. "And where do
you think we would stand in a
world filled with perfect men7"
The room was utterly quiet
Finally, Shankar broke the
silence and said, "You know, I
don't think this cloning business
is such a good idea after all."
Manns Meland is a columnist
for the Emerald.
1
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