It's a Shame About Pluto

I read earlier in the week that the High Poo-Bas of Intergalactic Studies (OK... some group of scientists who have a completely benign name I've now forgotten) were going to vote on the status of Pluto. Up for decision: Does the lil' one on the end really deserve to be a planet?

Well, the vote is in -- and it's a sad, sad day in Muddville, folks, because poor Pluto has been struck out.

As of Thursday, we have only 8 planets.

Sigh....

Look, it's a nice, round number -- I concede that. Cleanly divisible by two if the planets ever need to employ The Buddy System. And, hey, we've still got Uranus. (Insert joke here.) It's just sad. I mean: Who wants to be labeled a "dwarf" and put on the cosmic B-list? I feel bad for Pluto! The poor guy was already living in the low-rent district of the solar system. What's next? Deportation to another galaxy?

It's bad enough, this treatment of Pluto. But what about the rest of us? Woe to all now-grown children who once made styrofoam and coathanger mobiles of the planets! How will we UNLEARN what we went to such trouble to commit to memory in the first place?

I say: SO WHATif Pluto is on the puny side and not exactly made of "planetary stuff?" Hello, Charlotte's Web! Wilbur was small, too. And, hey, do astronomers not watch sports flicks? Becuase if they did, they'd know the underdog always turns out to be the MVP!

SO WHAT if Pluto's personal space is a bit messy, that he can't quite muster the muscle to clear space debris? He has a medical condition! He's size challenged! Unlike millions of American teenagers, at least he has an excuse!

SO WHAT if Pluto's orbit is "irregular?" Are we not taught, in today's world, to value diversity?! I personally liked learning that for years at a stretch, Pluto's orbit takes it closer to the sun than Neptune. I LIKE that slightly out-of-the-box, planned deviant behavior in my celestial bodies.

Those scientist types? ...Apparently not so much.

Hey, they make their points. They have logic and a bully pulpit on their side. But I have passion for this topic. Passion, baby! Again, I cry: What mass degredation is next? Are we going to kick Q out of the alphabet because no one uses it much?

Perhaps I shouldn't take this so hard. I read that the widow of the man who first discovered Pluto is handling the news quite well, thanks, and believes her husband would have come around, too. I quote:

Meanwhile, the widow of Clyde Tombaugh said he would have understood why his discovery was demoted to non-planet status, because he was a good scientist.

“Clyde said, 'Well, it's there. You can do what you want with it',” Patricia Tombaugh, 94, said from her home in Las Cruces, New Mexico.

Her husband, who discovered Pluto while working at the Lowell Observatory in Arizona, was disappointed and frustrated when scientists began questioning its status.

But, she said: “Clyde would have said, 'Science is a progressive thing and if you're going to be a scientist and put your neck out, you're apt to have it bitten upon'.”

(full story here)

I'm proud of that spunky Patricia and her ability to put things in perspective. I'll try to follow her lead -- though not, perhaps, before I file a complaint at InterplanetaryPoo-Bas.com. I feel I need to do it... for Pluto! For Clyde! For moldy sytrofoam models in closets and basements and attics everywhere!

Power to the Laypeople! Up with Small Semi-Planets! Bigger isn't Always Better!

Feel free to deviate your own, usual orbit this weekend, in solidarity with rebel Pluto and me. We appreciate your support.