{"id":1499,"date":"2008-08-07T13:21:42","date_gmt":"2008-08-07T13:21:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/?p=1499"},"modified":"2008-08-07T13:21:42","modified_gmt":"2008-08-07T13:21:42","slug":"is_the_dog_cloner_the_mormon_m","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/2008\/08\/07\/is_the_dog_cloner_the_mormon_m\/","title":{"rendered":"Is the Dog Cloner Also the Mormon Manacler?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>So, have you heard about the woman who reportedly sold her house to raise $50,000 so she could pay a South Korean company to clone her dead pit bull, which went by the charming and tasteful name of &#8220;Booger?&#8221; The basic <a href=\"http:\/\/ap.google.com\/article\/ALeqM5gdrPiVkhRcWxpCDJQYH8kIZlZiRAD92CCQ9G0\">story<\/a> is pretty weird on its own &#8212; not least of all because the woman apparently thinks the cloned puppies are reincarnations* of Booger, based on her statement that they &#8220;know her&#8221; &#8212; but now it seems to be getting even weirder. I&#8217;ve been reading some <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.sltrib.com\/slcrawler\/2008\/08\/mormon-manacler-re-emerges.htm\">speculation<\/a> that Bernann McKinney, the proud owner of a litter of clone puppies, might in fact be <i>Joyce<\/i> McKinney, who, 30 years ago, abducted a Mormon missionary and took him to a rented cottage in the English countryside, where she chained him to a bed with mink-lined handcuffs and had her way with him &#8212; several times &#8212; in the hopes that he would marry her. The British tabloid <i>The Daily Mail<\/i> has the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/femail\/article-1042506\/A-cloned-dog-Mormon-mink-lined-handcuffs-tantalising-mystery.html\">gory details<\/a>, if you&#8217;re interested.<\/p>\n<p>Brenann McKinney is denying that she&#8217;s the notorious missionary rapist, but I see a strong resemblance in the photos on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sltrib.com\/Salt%20Lake%20Tribune%20Home%20Page\/ci_10127466\">Paul Rolly&#8217;s blog<\/a>, and Salt Lake filmmaker <a href=\"http:\/\/www.echocave.net\/\">Trent Harris<\/a>, who once did a documentary on Joyce McKinney, is quoted as being &#8220;pretty sure&#8221; they&#8217;re one and the same person.<\/p>\n<p>I vaguely remember hearing about the missionary abduction when I was growing up, but I always thought it was an urban legend, like Emo&#8217;s grave or the satanists in Memory Grove. I should&#8217;ve known better&#8230; if there&#8217;s a weird story out there, it almost always seems to come with a Utah connection. This state seems to exert a magnetic pull on colorful characters and offbeat occurrences. I consider it one of the many fringe benefits of living here&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a name=\"footnote\"><\/a>* You know, this is a common misperception, that clones are not merely genetic duplicates but somehow retain the memories and personality of the donor organism as well, and it drives me crazy. It&#8217;s nonsense, of course. A clone is no more the same animal &#8212; or person, because you know that&#8217;s coming eventually &#8212; than a so-called &#8220;identical&#8221; twin sibling. They may share the same DNA, but they have their own thoughts and experiences, and often don&#8217;t even look all that much alike. The culprit is, I believe, a whole lot of really bad made-for-TV movies and a big dose of ignorance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>So, have you heard about the woman who reportedly sold her house to raise $50,000 so she could pay a South Korean company to clone her dead pit bull, which went by the charming and tasteful name of &#8220;Booger?&#8221; The basic story is pretty weird on its own &#8212; not least of all because the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-ramblings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1499"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1499\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}