Cloning. What's wrong with that?

Today I've determined to discuss this issue of cloning, simply because at least a few perspectives on cloning irritate me. I will admit that there are a few issues concerning cloning that are reasonably debateable: harvesting organs, methods of protracting life..., there may be more, but they aren't coming to me at the moment.

Anyway, here's my take on cloning. Go for it. If you want to clone yourself. If you want to clone dead kids. If you want to clone Einstein, let it happen. It won't matter, because your clone ISN'T YOU!!!!!!!!! People who think cloning is controversial (outside of the realms I mentioned moments ago) need just a wee bit of education. By definition, your identical twin is actually more like you than your clone would be. How is that possible? you ask. It's simple. Identical twins (also known as monozygotic twins) originally came from a single cell. As such, they have exactly the same DNA, just like your clone would.

However, DNA isn't the whole story. See, DNA isn't actually what we're made up of. DNA is simply the road map for the proteins that ACTUAL determine what we are. Even those proteins aren't what we're made of. We also include water, fat, lipids (which is really just another word for fat), and various other things that I don't have the necessary degrees to mention. In other words (as any good identical twin will tell you), two creatures that have the same DNA are not the same creature in two different shells.

Identical twins often have different personalities and always have different finger prints. They've experienced different things, developed slightly differently in the womb, and ingested different things throughout life. Now imagine for a moment that your clone is basically your identical twin, born between 20 and 50 years after you were. Can you even imagine how different the two of you would be? The only thing you'd both have in common would be a roadmap. Even your bodies (let's call them shells for fun) would be a great deal different.

And, if you are catholic or in some religion that believes in the concept of souls, you should already know that souls can't be split or divided. Your clone wouldn't be you, simply because your clone wouldn't have your soul. Ultimately, unless your concern is scientific study, organ harvesting, or the like, you should have no freaking problem with cloning, unless you happen to hate twins. And, as far as I can tell from that Miller Lite commercial, no one hates twins.

While I've pretty much gotten over last Tuesday, I, like many others, feel the need for soul searching. As such, I've determined to read Thomas Frank's book "How the conservatives stole the heart of kansas" or some such title. As well, I intend to single handedly reinvent my party as exactly what it already is, only maybe presented a bit more like MLK jr. would have presented it.

However, just to help describe my sense of frustrated sadness, I've decided to print the following article from the humor webpaper, The Onion.

WASHINGTON, DC—The economically disadvantaged segment of the U.S. population provided the decisive factor in another presidential election last Tuesday, handing control of the government to the rich and powerful once again.

"The Republican party—the party of industrial mega-capitalists, corporate financiers, power brokers, and the moneyed elite—would like to thank the undereducated rural poor, the struggling blue-collar workers in Middle America, and the God-fearing underpriviledged minorities who voted George W. Bush back into office," Karl Rove, senior advisor to Bush, told reporters at a press conference Monday. "You have selflessly sacrificed your well-being and voted against your own economic interest. For this, we humbly thank you."

Added Rove: "You have acted beyond the call of duty—or, for that matter, good sense."

According to Rove, the Republicans found strong support in non-urban areas populated by the people who would have benefited most from the lower-income tax cuts and social-service programs championed by Kerry. Regardless of their own interests, these citizens turned out in record numbers to elect conservatives into office at all levels of the government.

"My family's been suffering ever since I lost my job at the screen-door factory, and I haven't seen a doctor for well on four years now," said father of four Buddy Kaldrin of Eerie, CO. "Shit, I don't even remember what a dentist's chair looks like... Basically, I'd give up if it weren't for God's grace. So it's good to know we have a president who cares about religion, too."

Kaldrin added: "That's why I always vote straight-ticket Republican, just like my daddy did, before he lost the farm and shot himself in the head, and just like his daddy did, before he died of black-lung disease in the company coal mines."

Kaldrin was one of many who listed moral issues among their primary reasons for voting Republican.

"Our society is falling apart—our treasured values are under attack by terrorists," said Ellen Blaine of Givens, OH, a tiny rural farming community as likely to be attacked by terrorists as it is to be hit by a meteor. "We need someone with old-time morals in the White House. I may not have much of anything in this world, but at least I have my family."

"John Kerry is a flip-flopper," she continued. "I saw it on TV. Who knows what terrible things might've happened to my sons overseas if he'd been put in charge?"

Kerry supporters also turned out in large numbers this year, but they were outnumbered by those citizens who voted for Bush.

"The alliance between the tiny fraction at the top of the pyramid and the teeming masses of mouth-breathers at its enormous base has never been stronger," a triumphant Bush said. "We have an understanding, them and us. They help us stay rich, and in return, we help them stay poor. See? No matter what naysayers may think, the system works."

Added Bush: "God bless America's backwards hicks, lunchpail-toting blockheads, doddering elderly, and bumpity-car-driving Spanish-speakers."

THE END

Now I don't necessarily believe and agree with everything written in this column intended entirely for humorous purposes. I just think the right has somehow won the war of words. A friend of mine recently stated she voted for the president who stood on the platform of Values, Morals, and Beliefs. The crazy bit is that I really don't think she did. She believes she did. It seems over half of America may believe it has. I just think they may be wrong. I feel we're being hoodlummed, shnookered, bamboozled, and all of those other words that mean being taken for fools. The democratic party stands for rights, equality, health, education, and hope. The democratic party is the party that stood behind MLK jr. as he dreamt of a world where black children and white children could eat at the same table. We champion the weak, the poor, the underpriveleged, the uneducated, and the unappreciated. Our presidents have gone on to be humanitarians. Republican presidents have gone on to be criminals and oil barons.

Perhaps I am overstating the case, but, excusing the minutia, it is a valid point.

And so I am left to wonder. Where did this disconnect come from? We still champion these ideals, yet the general public seems to disagree. Is it because we don't support a constitutional ban on gay marriages? It's possible, yet to support such a ban would be to go against the very fiber of the democratic spirit. There is a reason the first ten amendments were called the Bill of Rights, rather than the Bill of Persecution. Is homosexuality immoral? I'm pretty sure it isn't. Was it immoral for black people to work with white people years ago? Some said it was. Was it immoral for women bare ankles 100 years ago? I'm gonna hazard a guess of yes. Was it immoral for people to drink alcohol 80 years ago? Once again, I'll say... yes.

Guess what? The only time we elliminated a right of the general public using a constitutional amendment, we overturned it. I'm pretty sure democrats believe the MOST immoral thing in the world is hating those of us who do things that we dislike, when those things hurt absolutely no one.

A second possibility exists. Maybe the disconnect happened 20 years ago, when abortion became legal. Maybe it happened 15 years ago, when democrats generally began to agree that they'd support women's rights. I've already discussed this issue, so I won't go too far into it; however, let me say again, for the first time: making something illegal doesn't stop it, and stopping something doesn't always involve making it illegal. It's just a thought, but it certainly feels like an important one. Remember, Clinton was the first president we ever had who was openly in favor of choice, yet under Clinton, abortions decreased annually. This may not make sense, but I suggest you think about it, long and hard.

The third possibility is a little more depressing, because it hangs the guilt squarely upon my social psychology friends. Maybe the republican party really did hoodwink everyone using the tricks of social psychology better than the democratic opposition. In essense, maybe the republican leadership had better screenwriters and a better director. If that is the case. If the nation is being run by far right money grubbers whose only real agenda is tax cuts, cheaper oil, richer rich and poorer poor, and scare tactics, then perhaps we do have a problem.

I was watching some talking heads show on CNN or CNBC or something. The heads were discussing Catholics and noted something sad, though not surprising. In years past, presidential hopefuls looks to earn the "catholic vote." Basically, this means catholics voted as a block (bloc?), and our opinions were all very similar. These days, that no longer seems to be the case. Zogby, Pew, CNN, and everyone else has come to the painful conclusion that catholics are as divided as the nation.

For every conservative catholic, there seems to be a liberal one. For every archbishop who loudly refuses Kerry communion, there is another who quietly mumbles something contradictory.

These are painful years. These are bipartisan years. These are years in which we only see the world as left and right, when such a dialectic may be hurting us as a people more than it is helping us and teaching us to grow.

As I read this letter from the Archbishop and Coadjutor Archbishop of KC, I was startled to find myself becoming angry. Not so much at the opinions expressed, but at the lack of empathy for other, possible opinions. Does that make me an immoral catholic?

Maybe.

I found myself startled when killing an innocent life was considered an intrinsic evil. Does that mean killing other kinds of life some other form of evil, and perhaps not evil at all?

I don't know. I only know that I'm sad and dissappointed that America has progressed to the point that the people of catholicism are so obviously divided down a political line. When did pre-emptive war become debatable in its immorality? The question seems to be not whether it was right to attack Iraq. The question is where does it stop? Saddam killed hundreds, perhaps thousands of people (the northern, insurgent Kurds) and put them in mass graves. We stopped him. Since our war began, some estimates suggest 100,000 Iraqis have died. Should we continue this practice? Should we attack anyone who kills its citizens?

Is the new point of catholicism to stop death with more death?

I'm sorry. I'm not frustrated. I'm just so sad that our foreign and local policy solutions must always seem to fall under one of two alternatives. I'm sad a nations creativity for alternate solutions to problems seems to have died in some shallow grave somewhere. I'm sad that when we agree with one part of a policy, we feel the need to agree with other segments that may be wrong. And I'm sad that we assume the alternative is agreeing with the other side.

I suppose I'm rambling now. It's just, what if we started something new? What if we started something incredible? We could call it Catholics for Creative Alternatives. We could stop accepting what the left and right are telling us as scripture. Instead, we could take all the facts we are provided with, come up with goals, and make our own solutions. The politicians in washington aren't smarter than us, and they definitely are caught up in a culture where you are either left or right and nothing else. What if we changed all that?

The following is an article from Pauline Arrillaga, an AP journalist. It doesn't really have any issues in need of discussing, I just figured I'd post it because it so nicely encompasses how most of America seems to feel about this election.

Four years ago, when 105 million Americans cast ballots for George W. Bush or Al Gore , there was peace and relative prosperity. Airport security meant a quick zip through an X-ray machine, not a shoeless pat-down. Iraq was a place where a fast war was fought and won. Florida was about Mickey Mouse, not hanging chads.

What were the issues then? some voters now ask. A few need prompting to even recall whom they voted for.

In the next breath, in voices full of passion, they explain why things are so different this time. Why voters so closely monitored the race between President Bush and John Kerry. Why citizens endured lines at election offices to ensure they were registered. Why the debates drew more viewers than baseball.

Why, this year, the presidential campaign is America's pastime.

The last time the people of Anthony, Kan., chose a president, Memorial Park was a patch of grass with picnic tables and elm trees but no memorial to speak of. Rising from the earth now is a tribute to the turning point of the past four years — parts of steel beams from the World Trade Center, a block of limestone from the Pentagon, some dirt from a field near Shanksville, Pa.

Osama bin Laden is as common a household name as John Deere. The postal carrier's son spent eight months in Iraq and might have to return. Wheat farmers at the co-op feel the pinch of soaring diesel costs. And business at the Pride of the Prairie Quilt Shoppe has collapsed as manufacturing layoffs left customers cutting back.

Change has visited Anthony's 2,440 souls. It's in their park and pocketbooks and fields, in the eyes of their friends.

And it's very much in their hearts and minds as they get ready to pick a president again.

"I'm real concerned, real concerned about this election," says the quilt shop owner, Debbie Mangen. "This country is a lot more vulnerable than we were. That makes it very important."

The consensus in Anthony and Anywhere, U.S.A.: Election Day 2004 matters one heck of a lot.

Americans use words like scared, frustrated, disgusted, angry to describe the campaign. But mostly, they echo Mangen.

They are real concerned.

Will their votes count? Will they wake up Wednesday and not yet know who the nation's next leader is — again? Who can protect them, provide them insurance, create a job for them, lead them out of war? Will they make the right choice for the times? Will whomever they choose make a real difference in their lives?

"This election is more important to me than any other election I've voted in," says Clint Flanagan.

"This year, there's a lot of issues I feel strongly about," says Jimmy Gosnell.

Both Gosnell, 45, of Irmo, S.C., and Flanagan, 33, of Frederick, Colo., are Iraq-bound. As they prepared for deployment, many things shared space on their to-do lists: getting wills in order, spending time with their families — and voting.

Gosnell supports Bush. Flanagan supports Kerry.

What they agree on is how invested they are in the outcome this time.

"My life is on the line," says Flanagan.

Far from any warfront, Margie Miller sees it that way, too. She wonders whether her kids will be safe from terrorists — or killed like her husband, Joel, who was sitting at his desk on the 97th floor of the World Trade Center when an airplane hit and "vaporized him."

"Every election's important, but ... my very survival is an issue, and that never was," says Miller, 55, of Baldwin, N.Y. "I'd like to know I'm gonna live another 20 years, that I'll have grandchildren. All I care about is safety, safety, safety."

Miller, a self-proclaimed "loyal Democrat," was undecided heading into Election Day. As she put it: "in turmoil."

Mary Maglidt — one of those millions of uninsured everyone's heard so much about — is desperate to know how the next president will help her afford her medicines for diabetes and arthritis. Trouble is, the 64-year-old Wal-Mart cashier has been unable to wade through the negative ads and personal attacks to get a sense for either candidate's plan.

Kerry's Vietnam service? Bush's National Guard record? Maglidt, of Parkville, Md., quickly got her fill.

All this "bashing back and forth" has left her undecided, she says. "Sometimes I even think like my husband does — `Why bother?'"

But she darn well plans to bother, because: "Every vote counts." She remembers Florida four years ago.

Palm Beach County, Fla., was election-fiasco-central in 2000. And that's where Florence Zoltowsky, 74, will vote. "I know it won't count," she says. "It won't make a difference. Am I cynical? Yes I am."

Zoltowsky was a plaintiff in one of the many lawsuits over Florida's confusing butterfly ballots; in 2000, the Gore supporter accidentally cast her vote for Pat Buchanan. This year, she's infuriated over pre-election lawsuits and word that so-called "SWAT teams" of lawyers are geared up for a postelection battle.

"They're already in line to sue and to sue and to sue. It's not supposed to be like that," she says. "A vote should be holy."

So who gets hers? She's uncertain.

Miller, Maglidt and Zoltowsky are three of the much-sought-after undecideds ready to finally decide. In past years, their choice was clear-cut. What changed?

Miller's explanation: "I can't seem to filter out one person's spin versus the other's to find the truth. I guess we never do get the truth, but I guess I never cared as much to know the truth."

It all comes down to that. People care, many more than ever before.

In Anthony, Kan., folks turned a patch of grass into a memorial to the victims of Sept. 11, 2001, not because someone with ties to Anthony died that day — no one did. They built it because the attacks somehow felt ... personal.

This Election Day, they feel much the same way.

It's less about lawsuits or flip-flopping or finger-pointing. It's about whether mail carrier Randy Patterson's son has to quit college and go back to Iraq, whether co-op manager Dan Cashier's patrons can afford fuel to plow their fields, whether Debbie Mangen can hold onto her quilt shop.

Election 2004 is about more than politics. This year, it's downright personal.