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 THE LIBERTARIAN ENTERPRISE Number 828, July 5, 2015 Most Americans just want to be left the bloody hell alone
Attribute to L. Neil Smith's The Libertarian Enterprise For the last several weeks I've been working on a more comprehensive article on the latest plea of necessity regarding the bugaboos of invasive species and GMO. But it has been very busy between working overtime and a family crisis that has been taking up much of my time. So progress is slow and I loathe the idea of pushing to produce a half assed job because this journal and its readers deserve better. Also as time goes on—new information continues to emerge which may make for an even more interesting story when all is said and done. So I decided to go out Saturday night and see Jurassic World for both the entertainment value since I've had a life long interest in dinosaurs and to write a review—which is only fitting because Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park Franchise is all about the ultimate invasive species that are als GMOs! Yes, those reckless mad scientists from InGen are at it again playing Russian Roulette with dinosaur DNA to stock another theme park built on the remains of the original on that island off the coast of Costa Rica! It's the classic "not nice to fool around with Mother Nature" theme obliquitous to Hollywood science fiction that probably began with Mary Shelly's "Frankenstein" monster. I could lament that it is just another environmental alarmist theme—but even though it is I must give it and all the other Jurassic Park films a thumbs up on the grounds that you don't have much of a disaster film without some kind of disaster. And the Raptor handler—bad ass Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) and his leading lady Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard) make a pretty pair. And the dinosaurs were also very impressive. Especially the Mosasaur that jumps to snack on sharks like Shamu jumps for fish and the newest creation: Indominous Rex—a trans-genetic construct of a T-Rex spliced with genes of a cuttlefish that gives it the chameleon like ability of camouflage in addition to being a really bad ass carnivore—plus genes from another dinosaur that are a trade secret of the InGen corporation and would be an unforgivable spoiler to reveal to those who have not seen the movie yet. It leads to an interesting exchange between Simon Masrani (Irrfan Khan) and Henry Wu (BD Wong) who is the head of the lab where the dinosaurs are designed and created. Simon is a bit dismayed at the idea that the Indominous Rex is a GMO but Henry argues that all the dinos in the park are GMO since it is standard procedure established since the first installment of the saga to fill in the gaps in genetic code of the dinosaurs from modern animals. Which can lead to unpredictable outcomes as the genes interact and are expressed. Plus—Henry reminds him that everyone wants the animals to be more interesting and scary so they are designed to be so in order to generate continued interest in the park. It's greed, greed, greed! And there is a tactical military interest in the Velociraptors being handled by Owen because they can be led and will follow orders from a human trainer much like dogs. But even before I saw the movie that thought occurred to me—though I don't think it would trust them. They would probably be worse than fire and almost as bad as government—which George Washington called "A dangerous servant". Creatures like that would never be happy being controlled by something weaker than themselves and would revolt the first chance they get. And I'm not sure if the "Dog bites Man—Dog gets whacked" concept would work either. Which begs the question—if we could clone dinosaurs—should we? I'd say yes—partially because of my bias of being interested in dinosaurs ever since I was a kid and also because of my loathing of the risk aversive mentality of environmentalism that cheated my generation out of the opportunity to actually live and work in space. And it would be entertaining to watch PETA and ALF going bananas over the exploitation of the dinosaurs in a real life Jurassic World as they do Sea World and many a zoo. That might even come close to watching Bryce Dallas Howard outrun a T-Rex in her stilettos!
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