Thinking Out Loud

By Gerard Meister

I shudder to think what the bipartisan rancor in Congress would be like if the movement for human cloning gathered some steam. If Democrats, say, tried to clone Alan Dershowitz, who could fault the Republicans for countering with a carbon copy of Rush Limbaugh. And the political shenanigans could go even further than that.

It might well be that the zealots of the Green Party would attempt to clone their champion, Ralph Nader, a couple of dozen times. Although a good number of Republicans might support this idea, too, it would never get past the Supreme Court, where, many legal experts feel, a majority of the justices would be inclined to protect the Constitutional rights of Pat Buchanan against such a shameless piece of flimflam.

Then, of course, the states would come into play. Any number of state Democratic Committees would be happy to run a Bill Clinton clone for Governor. As popular as our ex-president is, it's not difficult to imagine forty-eight (or more) states going for the guy. The fly in the ointment here is neither moral nor ethical; it's marital. Hillary had enough trouble keeping track of him when he operated solo. I think she would mount a filibuster over this, and who could blame her.

I've always had a soft spot in my heart for Philadelphia. Not only for its hallowed place in American history, but it is where my father landed when he emigrated to America in 1907. So I don't agree with all those W.C. Field's jokes about how dull things are in the City of Brotherly Love. Take what happened a few months ago in Elkins Field, a suburb about a mile outside of Philadelphia proper.

A couple kids playing ball heard screams coming from a portable toilet located on a nearby field. One of the kids, apparently well toilet trained, told his mother who called the police. The police duly arrived and found a man wedged into the toilet's lower chamber up to his hips. The gentleman, who was not identified, reported to the officers that he had accidentally dropped his keys down the john, dove in after them and had been stuck there for the better part of an hour.

An emergency crew was called in and had to destroy most of the portable toilet to get him out. The man was treated for cuts and bruises - nothing serious, but doctors did have to cut away the toilet seat, which had become jammed around his waist. The doctors also noted that the man had removed his shoes and socks before taking the plunge and applauded his fastidiousness.

It's too bad that the unfortunate guy didn't drop twenty or thirty dollars down the toilet instead of his keys, because, as everyone knows, money doesn't go far nowadays.

Maybe I'm just plain neurotic, but I worry when anything or anyone disappears without a trace. I still wonder about Jimmy Hoffa; that 'dream team' attorney, Robert Shapiro; and all those dot com millionaires of last year. Gone, as they say, but not forgotten.

Al Gore is another matter. I know I didn't vote for him, but I distinctly remember seeing his name on the ticket, despite all those pesky butterflies we had on the ballot where I live in South Florida. Seems, we always know where former President Clinton is, because there are people watching him at all times. Not so apparently, for our former Vice President, who had to grow a beard to be located. Now if Mr. Gore decides to run for office again, even if it's in some unlikely place - Tennessee or either one of the Dakotas, for example - the media will have no trouble finding him.