Category: Random Thoughts

I haven’t been able to get to the computer much. This is not just because I’ve been too busy doing Absolutely Nothing to squeeze in much time for doing A Little Something, but it’s also because my little brother has taken up about 20 hours of every day playing his WWII game online. But I just got to the computer before he could after brunch, so he’s now sitting around waiting for me to get off. Bwah-ha-ha. Now’s my chance to write The Great American Novel while he twiddles his thumbs.

While he waits, I think it’s important that you know that it’s a miracle I’m here today. My dad’s cousin, cousin’s wife, and cousin’s daughter came over for dinner last night (the daughter goes to the school where my dad teaches and today’s move-in day). They started telling stories from their childhood, and now I live in wonder and awe that either one made it to age 18. Mark (my dad’s cousin) was at one point explaining that most of the things that happened to him weren’t his fault. I’ll let you be the judge.

“Things weren’t really my fault ever,” says Mark, a big Harley-riding son of a South Dakota farmer, in his soft, slow voice, dimples digging deep into each cheek. “They really weren’t. I just always got in trouble for them. Take the time we were sittin’ on the porch. One of the porch chairs had some stuffin’ that was fallin’ out. I don’t remember why that stuffin’ was so interesting. It must’ve been callin’ out to us. Anyway, my friend couldn’t get that cushion to start on fire, but as soon as I tried it went poof. We ended up havin’ to throw it off into the yard to keep the house from catchin’.”

No, that wasn’t his fault at all. And there seems to be a sentence missing from his story: the one that tells us why they thought there was nothing for it but to set that stuffing on fire.

Ok, I can’t take the “music” Jesse’s making (voice, piano, and guitar by this point), so I’m going to let him back at his computer.

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[Update: Pluto’s not a pluton. More here.]

So Pluto’s still a planet, but they’ve now classed it and a few other planet-like things as a separate class of planets called “Plutons.” That’s right, in the process of defining “planet” for the first time in history, we’ve been forced to include even more planets in our system. So now, if this new definition gets passed, we’ll have 12 planets in our solar system (though Pluto and Charon are now called a “double planet” for reasons that I don’t quite understand yet). Now we need a new mnemonic to remember Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Ceres, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto-Charon, and UB313. First we need a better name for “UB313,” if you ask me, though nobody has yet. Talk about a name that’ll get you teased in middle school!

Oh, and the “definition” that they (the IAU) drafted only requires that the mass in question orbit a star and be spherical, which could include a whole bunch of masses. But borderline cases have to be observed and approved (by vote?) before they can be defined as planet.

So, what’ll it be. What’s the mnemonic that’ll make it into grade school text books for the next few decades?

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CW tagged me for a meme a few days ago, so here goes. (This is harder than it seems because I could easily list off several dozen books in each category.)

1. One book you have read more than once.
The Lord of the Rings (I know, that’s technically more than one book, but only technically).

2. One book you would want on a desert island
That’s for me to know, and you to find out.

3. One book that made you laugh
The Princess Bride… oh boy did it ever.

4. One book that made you cry
Lots of books make me cry. I cry pretty easily for books. But Where the Red Fern Grows stands out as one of the saddest for me.

5. One book you wish you had written
84 Charing Cross Road. This has got to be my all-time favorite book. I wish I could write like either of those two letter writers.

6. One book you wish had never been written
The Bear. Ugh. And the professor who assigned it should have known better. (I’ve banished the author’s name from my mind, so I can’t find a link for you, but take my word for it, it was bad. It made me feel dirty. It STILL makes me feel dirty, even four years later.)

7. One book you are currently reading
Hmmm, which one? A couple of fluff books, a couple of serious books, and then Carleton’s Common Reading book, Persepolis and Persepolis II.

8. One book you have been meaning to read
The Shadow of the Wind, among about a million others.

9. One book that changed your life
They all have, but cliche as it is to say so, reading Jane Eyre stands out for being the first time that “literature” interested me.

10. Now tag five people:
There must be five people out there who want to do this… step up and claim your tag.

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So, there are wars, undeclared wars that are raging anyway, terror threats… you name it, it’s going on. But what am I most interested in today? What could change my universe? What’s made me vow that I’ll listen to NPR all evening tomorrow and the next day? I’ll tell you: I want to know if Pluto’s really a planet. Astronomers are debating that question at this very moment, and they’ll vote on Wednesday.

Not only is this just SO COOL, but it is a wonderful lesson in the instability of facts, even scientific facts. Since 1930 we’ve “known” that there are nine planets in our solar system. Now, on Wednesday, we may end up with only eight. Imagine all the mnemonic devices we’ll have to pull out of elementary school text books. Imagine the text book windfall!

What’s holding them back? According to the guy on NPR tonight (via MPR), it has more to do with how familiar we all are with having nine planets than much else. Sure, there’s also the little issue of Pluto’s atmosphere… but that only got a one-sentence mention on the interview. The rest of it dealt with scientists’ debates over what it would take to change several generations’ concepts of our solar system. So, if everyone likes having nine planets, does that make Pluto a planet? Tune in Wednesday to find out.

[Update: At long last, here’s how it turned out.]

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