Versatile clones offer 101 uses

    by Mary Barrera

    Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.

    His clone works at the mall.

    We have heard a lot about clones lately with the supposed birth of the first human clone.

    Is it considered birth or did those scientists just retool the baby factory?

    Nevertheless, clones have come to life in movies like Star Wars: Attack of the Clones and Star Trek Nemesis.

    But those movie clones are bad-guy clones. I figure if we have clones, we should find something good to do with them.

    Someone should make a movie about space aliens (from France) who live in suburbia and call it Cloneheads.

    We could have clones wearing orange vests stand in front of highway construction and use them as traffic clones. We could replace dairy workers with ice cream clones. We could sprinkle pine clones with cinnamon and toss them in our potpourri.

    I wonder if Canadian clones would be considered snow clones.

    It makes you wonder what has gotten into these scientists' heads.

    It took more than one hundred tries before Dolly the sheep was successfully cloned. I shudder to think how many trial humans those geneticists went through. How do they know they got it right?

    We are all supposed to be unique individuals. So if two people are identical, that would make them only half as unique. Three would make them downright common.

    And how do scientists choose whom to clone?

    Do they draw straws? Do they pick the smartest people, the most talented, or the prettiest?

    When cloning, scientists could at least make all the women the same size so we could wear each other's clothes.

    And don't we all know two people so alike they cannot stand each other? And didn't we have to spend time with them over the holidays?

    I would not want to raise a copy of myself. Nor would I want someone else to raise a copy of me for fear that the second me would be much more successful than the original.

    That would stink.

    So, aside from the Clonehead movie thing, I think scientists should leave the whole cloning thing alone.

    I'm sure the first 99 Dollys would agree.

    I would prefer to remain unique ... just like everybody else.