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Letters From North America |
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For questions or comments, please contact me at www.pearyperry.compperry@austin.rr.com |
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Letters From North America |
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For questions or comments, please contact me at www.pearyperry.compperry@austin.rr.com |
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Is it me or has the world just gone nuts? In the news the other day, we find that some scientists in Siberia have just uncovered a 20,000-year-old creature called a woolly mammoth. It seems this monster was probably trucking it along the road of life looking for his/her next quick meal when he/she slipped and fell into some icy crevasse and has been entombed in the big Russian freezer for all these years. The article goes on to explain that this has caught the interest of many different scientific groups who hope to be able to extract DNA from the animal and clone it. Another possibility is the hope that some sperm from it would still be active and they could impregnate a female elephant and produce some little woolly mammoths for the entire world to see. Let’s look at this a little closer. Here we have some large piece of elephant type meat that died 200 centuries ago and we’re going to thaw it out with hair dryers and put it back into our modern world? Is this smart? Does this make any sense? One sentence in the article was of particular interest to me. It said…”One mystery is why the woolly mammoth became extinct in the first place.” Well, hello. I know I’m not some scientist that went to school for God knows a lot of years to study beetles or whatever, but I do think I’ve got some common sense. My theory is that if it’s been dead this long, let it stay dead. We don’t want to know what killed it or what kind of stuff is in its stomach. One of the people working on the thaw process (maybe that means they get to hold the hair dryer) said that perhaps the beast has some sort of viruses that might be of interest to us today. Isn’t this a great idea? What the world needs is another virus. As if we don’t have enough. We have viruses now that no one can figure out how to cure or to treat. What do we need with some more that might be from the Ice Age? If the cave man didn’t survive and this animal didn’t, then isn’t it possible that we don’t need whatever they were exposed to so many years ago? There is another quote that I find of interest. It says and I quote…”No scientist has ever attempted to clone an extinct animal.” In other words…we don’t know what we’re doing. You know this kind of stuff doesn’t make me a happy camper. I don’t think they have ever proved that mankind was running around on the planet at the same time that these things were tearing up the place. So what happens if we go out here, clone something that just hates humans and spreads all kinds of diseases as well as eats people? Is this smart or what? Like let’s go get Godzilla and bring him back while we’re at it. I don’t know about you, but I’m fairly certain that this research is all being done at government expense which means tax dollars. Your tax dollars and my tax dollars. We probably couldn’t say anything about any of this of course, or get the attention of any major media types since too many people might be sympathetic to the animal. This has serious potential repercussions such as the possibility of new groups springing up all over the place with signs saying…”Save the Wooly Mammoths!!!” Or “Don’t wear Wooly Mammoth fur!!!!.” We better get used to seeing bumper stickers that read “I (heart symbol) Woolly Mammoths”. Next thing we’ll be doing is putting the thing on the endangered species list. I guess if there’s only one or two that’d mean it was endangered wouldn’t it? Then someone will go out and establish the “Wooly Mammoth Society” Then we will all start getting subscription letters in the mail wanting us to send a donation to some new mascot named “Wally” or some such. Then of course, the woolly mammoth stuffed animals. Can’t have a kid without one can we? Soon after that we’ll get a kids TV program called something like…”The Adventures of Wally the Woolly Mammoth.” You and I will be so sick and tired of hearing some dumb song that Wally sings; we’ll be about to go crazy. It’ll stick in our brains like the one that Barney or whoever sang for years…”I love you, you love me…” Once we start the cloning process then it can only be a matter of time before some lame brain starts breeding these creatures for their meat. New investments will crop up urging investors to put their money in the latest sure to get rich food product since the EMU. We’ll see herds of these things roaming the countryside as America tries the latest lean beef burger to come along in 50 years. Of course, it couldn’t be worse than buffalo meat can it? I don’t know though, as for me I’m going to have a hard time eating something called a Woolly-Burger. Let the dead alone is my motto. If you agree with me, good for you. Send me a note at www.pearyperry.com. If you don’t agree, then put your note in a bottle, stick it in the freezer and give it to me in a few thousand years. I don’t care.