Bama Nation's best investment should be a 'Bear' clone
Britain?s New Scientist magazine reported on its Web site last week that a woman is eight weeks pregnant with a human clone. Italian physician Severino Antinori, one of two specialists leading the effort, is quoted as saying: ?One woman among thousands of infertile couples in the program is 8 weeks pregnant.?
Controversy is swirling around the origin and accuracy of the story, not to mention the ethics of cloning. But, hey, the story moved on Reuters, which is a respectable outfit. And Antinori and his associates, who run a clinic in Italy, have been saying for years they had the technology to begin human cloning by the year 2001.
I must say, I?m more than a little skeptical. But just in case it is true ... I have a humble suggestion.
I?ve thought of a better way for the University of Alabama to spend $150 million than renovating Bryant-Denny Stadium. Somebody over there needs to get on the horn to Dr. Antinori and say, ?Doctor, the Bama Nation?s got $150 million in cash right now and we?ll come up with as much more as you think you?d like if you will immediately, immediately, immediately initiate the ... ?Clone Bear Bryant Project.??
I did a little freelance marketing survey on my own time this weekend, just to test the waters, you know? I called up several old friends who went to school with me at Alabama, told them of Antinori?s work and my idea to see if there was any enthusiasm for the project.
What I heard on the other end of the line reminded me of the day Van Tiffin kicked the 52-yard field goal to beat Auburn on the last play of the 1985 Iron Bowl. Grown men and women spontaneously burst into tearful exultations of thanksgiving and joy.
One of my former college roommates, Lester ?Pig Pen? Pettway, who quit the motorcycle gang and abandoned his life of sin to become an evangelist, actually started speaking in tongues.
Since I started the ball rolling, friends have called friends, things have started to snowball, and heck, man, this thing is getting bigger than Amway.
I have received calls from more than 500 Alabama fans who have pledged their life savings to the project. Jack ?Hawg? Waller, one of Pig Pen?s old partners who didn?t quit the motorcycle gang, volunteered to sell one of his kidneys ?and anybody else?s he could get his hands on.
?All you do,? Hawg said, ?is secretly inject the people with a heavy sedative, take them to a hotel room where you spread plastic on the bed, get it? You hire a veterinarian to take out one of the kidneys and then he sews them back up and you plunk ?em in the bathtub and cover ?em with ice. They wake up the next morning, they?re doing OK. Few weeks? They?re fiiiiine.?
He said he had a connection that could sell kidneys to black market transplant hospitals in South America for not less than $150,000 each.
I told Hawg I?d get back to him.
I got another of my old college roommates, C.E. ?Bud? Waller, on his cell phone. C.E. ?Bud? is the biggest Bama fan alive, hasn?t missed a Crimson Tide football game since 1973, and has a shrine in his house with lighted candles and fresh forget-me-nots in front of a life-size portrait of Coach Bryant leaning on the goalpost before the 315 game.
I caught C.E. ?Bud? in a sports bar in Birmingham. He spontaneously formed a bucket brigade and collected $437 at the intersection of Lakeshore Drive and the Green Springs Highway in two hours last Saturday afternoon. When the police came to arrest him, he told the cop what he was doing. The officer handed over $20 then went back to the station house and came up with an additional $137 in cash and a diamond earring that had previously belonged to a drug dealer.
Serena ?Bitsy? Matthews-Engel, a former Crimson Tide cheerleader from the Bill Curry era, offered to sell her children, Muffy, Biff and the toddler, Kingsley, into slavery if that?s what it took.
So far, I have received e-mails and phone calls from 324 women, ranging from current University of Alabama freshmen to the only living graduate of the class of 1924, who have volunteered to serve as the mother.
I also have deposits on 36 luxury skyboxes, provided they?re ready in time for the first game of the 2040 season.
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Britain?s New Scientist magazine reported on its Web site last week that a woman is eight weeks pregnant with a human clone. Italian physician Severino Antinori, one of two specialists leading the effort, is quoted as saying: ?One woman among thousands of infertile couples in the program is 8 weeks pregnant.?
Controversy is swirling around the origin and accuracy of the story, not to mention the ethics of cloning. But, hey, the story moved on Reuters, which is a respectable outfit. And Antinori and his associates, who run a clinic in Italy, have been saying for years they had the technology to begin human cloning by the year 2001.
I must say, I?m more than a little skeptical. But just in case it is true ... I have a humble suggestion.
I?ve thought of a better way for the University of Alabama to spend $150 million than renovating Bryant-Denny Stadium. Somebody over there needs to get on the horn to Dr. Antinori and say, ?Doctor, the Bama Nation?s got $150 million in cash right now and we?ll come up with as much more as you think you?d like if you will immediately, immediately, immediately initiate the ... ?Clone Bear Bryant Project.??
I did a little freelance marketing survey on my own time this weekend, just to test the waters, you know? I called up several old friends who went to school with me at Alabama, told them of Antinori?s work and my idea to see if there was any enthusiasm for the project.
What I heard on the other end of the line reminded me of the day Van Tiffin kicked the 52-yard field goal to beat Auburn on the last play of the 1985 Iron Bowl. Grown men and women spontaneously burst into tearful exultations of thanksgiving and joy.
One of my former college roommates, Lester ?Pig Pen? Pettway, who quit the motorcycle gang and abandoned his life of sin to become an evangelist, actually started speaking in tongues.
Since I started the ball rolling, friends have called friends, things have started to snowball, and heck, man, this thing is getting bigger than Amway.
I have received calls from more than 500 Alabama fans who have pledged their life savings to the project. Jack ?Hawg? Waller, one of Pig Pen?s old partners who didn?t quit the motorcycle gang, volunteered to sell one of his kidneys ?and anybody else?s he could get his hands on.
?All you do,? Hawg said, ?is secretly inject the people with a heavy sedative, take them to a hotel room where you spread plastic on the bed, get it? You hire a veterinarian to take out one of the kidneys and then he sews them back up and you plunk ?em in the bathtub and cover ?em with ice. They wake up the next morning, they?re doing OK. Few weeks? They?re fiiiiine.?
He said he had a connection that could sell kidneys to black market transplant hospitals in South America for not less than $150,000 each.
I told Hawg I?d get back to him.
I got another of my old college roommates, C.E. ?Bud? Waller, on his cell phone. C.E. ?Bud? is the biggest Bama fan alive, hasn?t missed a Crimson Tide football game since 1973, and has a shrine in his house with lighted candles and fresh forget-me-nots in front of a life-size portrait of Coach Bryant leaning on the goalpost before the 315 game.
I caught C.E. ?Bud? in a sports bar in Birmingham. He spontaneously formed a bucket brigade and collected $437 at the intersection of Lakeshore Drive and the Green Springs Highway in two hours last Saturday afternoon. When the police came to arrest him, he told the cop what he was doing. The officer handed over $20 then went back to the station house and came up with an additional $137 in cash and a diamond earring that had previously belonged to a drug dealer.
Serena ?Bitsy? Matthews-Engel, a former Crimson Tide cheerleader from the Bill Curry era, offered to sell her children, Muffy, Biff and the toddler, Kingsley, into slavery if that?s what it took.
So far, I have received e-mails and phone calls from 324 women, ranging from current University of Alabama freshmen to the only living graduate of the class of 1924, who have volunteered to serve as the mother.
I also have deposits on 36 luxury skyboxes, provided they?re ready in time for the first game of the 2040 season.
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