Monday, February 18, 2002

I have a confession to make: I'm an inveterate punster. I credit (some might prefer "blame") my father for my love of wordplay. He, in turn, got it from his father. Many of my best childhood memories are of the two of them, sitting in my grandfather's living room after a holiday meal, volleying puns back and forth on that session's ever-morphing topic.

In the eyes of the cognoscenti, punning is the redheaded stepchild of wit. To the world at large, puns are something to be tolerated, but never encouraged. Folks will groan good-naturedly for a little while, but if a couple of punsters really get rolling, they have to find a quiet spot somewhere away from the general populace for fear of ostracism and retribution.

I say all this to establish my bona fides on the subject. I want it made clear that I have no prejudice against puns or punsters per se. I do, however, worry when they start playing around with experimental genetics.

I was quite taken with CC, the world's first cloned cat, when word of her existence burst onto the scene a few days back. She's a cute little furball, and much more engaging than Dolly ever was. But the story took on a disturbing turn for me when I found out the name of the company that's backing the experiments: Genetic Savings & Clone

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Vindication, sweet vindication. Months after I railed against the media's inaccurate and overheated coverage of the "Summer of the Shark," the final numbers show I was right all along.

Posted @ 3:15 PM

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