The Trouble With America

Last semester I had this class called Research and Business Writing - just a kind of glorified Comm Skills course that was meant to drill us to worship the APA Gods of Formatting. One of the projects we had to do for the course was a formal group presentation. One of the groups chose to talk about stem cell research (don't ask me why), and we sat through half an hour of excruciatingly boring information overload. The floor was open for questions at the end of it. There were none from the students, who, by that time, were comatose; the teacher cleared his throat and began to speak, in order to get the ball rolling, presumably.

This teacher was a really fun fellow. He was one of those utterly academic sorts, looked the part to a T - thinning hair combed over a large bald spot, oversized khaki pants hanging off his waist, barely held up by a ragged belt, a green shirt three sizes too big, drooping off his shoulders, a brilliant blue dinosaur tie (I used to think they'd made that up just for Ross), and a brown tweed jacket with leather elbow patches (which I didn't think were legal outside England) - you get the picture. He used to joke around a lot, never took himself or his subject too seriously, which is as it should be when it comes to Comm Skills. He told us once that he wrote freelance for science journals, and that he's an atheist, and I found myself looking at him with some respect.

Until this next lesson, that is.

So he clears his throat, after that long, abundant stem-cell research report, and launches into what cannot be honestly described as anything but a diatribe -

"Well, I have a question to get the ball rolling... Uh...

I think... uh... one thing you didn't mention in your report is the money aspect. You know, how these pharmaceutical companies just want to make millions off of this stuff... uh...

And then there's that question that's always there, you know, these scientists - they're talking about cloning babies, you know, and since the 1800's there's been... uh... Frankenstein and all that. It's not just that, look at the movies - Spiderman 2! What about Doc Oc, huh? I mean, you have all these scientists running around wanting to clone babies until you're not even sure they're of the human species, you know, they actually want to make babies perfect...

There are people predicting that it'll get to the point that it will actually be considered, you know, irresponsible to have babies through... uh... anything but petri dishes. I mean, the question is, can you let this stuff happen?"

All this with a perfectly straight face, mind you. At this point, people have stopped emitting the bursts of laughter that came at points like when he mentioned Spiderman 2 and "Doc Oc", and are just staring unsurely. I recover enough to say, "Er.. Dr. Rivers.. they were talking about stem cells, not cloning or anything..."

"Yes, but that's just it, isn't it, the whole question - where do you draw the line? ... "

Punishment, I suppose, for all those times when I have used that very question during debates, knowing fully well that it has no meaning in the context but I might as well use it because I have nothing else to say. He went on for five or six minutes after that, but I wasn't listening.

What the bloody hell? I'm just disgusted beyond words. And angry. Dude with a PhD, I ask you? What hope is there for George W. Bush, then?