American Beat: Just Cloning Around

The biggest story last week was the diva in the cage. No, not Martha Stewart going to prison, but the world premiere of those cloned cats.

Actually, there were a lot of similarities between Martha Stewart and the cats, Baba Ganoush and Tabouli. Both Martha and the clones are huge celebrities in their respective worlds. Both shuttle between appearances in limousines. Both are surrounded by a media frenzy and a huge crowd of rubberneckers. And both are plagued by deep ethical questions. (As far as I can tell, the only difference between Martha Stewart and the cloned cats is that Martha would never allow her litter box to get so full.)

The clones were the highlight of last weekend's Cat Show, sponsored by the Cat Fanciers' Association at Madison Square Garden. Think of it as Woodstock, but with catnip instead of brown acid. I've always liked the Cat Show and meeting cat lovers. They're good people--as long as they own fewer than four (that's my dividing line between cat lady and crazy cat lady).

Like a carnival freak show, large crowds gathered to gaze at the twins and their genetic mother, Tahini, who were pulled out of their cages at half-hour intervals amid extra security (yes, there had been threats by animal rights activists).

You had to feel a little put off by the weird science on display in the Genetic Savings and Clone pavilion. (Genetic Savings and Clone? Tabouli and Baba Ganoush? Somebody stop these people before they pun again.) While I was waiting for the debut of the copycats, I perused some of the company's fact sheets about cloning, a process that I can describe in one word: Incomprehensible. To create a clone, the company removes a cell nucleus from the donor animal and implants it into an egg cell from another cat that has had its nucleus removed (it's kinda like taking a pit out of an olive and putting in a pimento, only the whole thing is a lot smaller, frankly, and not as tasty). This is not a foolproof system, of course. Plenty of cloned animals have been born malformed and died. It took 277 tries, for example, to get Dolly the sheep.

Genetic Savings and Clone is sensitive to charges that it's creating a race of two-headed freak cats (the ones that don't get displayed), so the company points out that it uses a different cloning method than the one that created Dolly (and all her genetically mutated cousins). Genetic Savings and Clone even has a "Code of Ethics" on its website that swears it won't pursue human cloning. Besides, it says, "the technology we're developing is unlikely to be useful for human cloning." Then again, the company admits that "the Code needs to evolve as our understanding [of cloning] evolves." In other words, you'll soon be able to be your own grandpa).