Friday
2/17/05
A Rose By Any Other Name...
It was just a little over a year ago on a crisp sunny afternoon that I was engaged in my usual routine: warming the front stoop as I looked over the days mail and enjoyed a fresh, steaming cup of joe whilst waiting for the school bus to arrive. And arrive it did, heralded as always by a squealing of brakes that was just barely drowned out by the squealing of its occupants.
This particular afternoon turned out just a little differently than previous ones however; rather than disgorging my older lad who would then normally trudge towards the house with a Sisyphean air of resignation, today the bus disgorged a lad who resembled mine in all ways except that this one was bursting with excitement. As it turned out, this pleasant change was because he and the rest of his third grade class would, for the time being, leave behind their normal curricula of the oft-stultifying beaux-arts and turn their attention skyward to learn about our solar system and the majestic planets that inhabit it. Even better, they were to build models of the solar system that would be hung throught his classroom. My son was, in short, thrilled to pieces.
We all remember, of course, (at least those of us who tended to gravitate towards the geeky end of the dance floor in high school) the tried and true mnemonic device that reminds us not only of the name of each planet, but the order in which they circle our sun: My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas. (Thats Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto, for those of you who tended to gravitate towards the end of the dance floor where everyone was gorgeous and actually had a good time. But I digress.)
Unfortunately though, armed as I was with this useful tidbit of knowledge, it wasn't long before I could no longer resist the recurring urge I often get to play the family provocateur. And, sure enough, it was over dinner that very night that I lost all willpower and, right in front of my Lovely Bride and the younger lad no less, I mused aloud as how that despite the presence of Pizzas in that handy example of astronomical mnemonics, Pluto is not, in point of fact, a planet.
There was a sudden silence in the room accompanied by the furrowing of my Lovely Bride's brow that was a certain signal that I had indeed crossed the line and had officially become a troublemaker. A few more beats went by and, as is no great surprise, the older lad looked up from his plate with his own brow furrowed and asked in that charming tone typical of eight year olds: "Wait, of course Pluto is a planet. What are you talking about?" Ahh good, I thought to myself, reel him in slowly...
Although it took some doing, I successfully avoided making eye contact with my Lovely Bride as I launched into an explanation of Pluto's deficiencies as a planet. To wit: its orbit around the sun is nearly perpendicular to all the other real planets... Pluto is not only smaller than our own moon, but there are no fewer than seven other moons in our solar system larger than it is... the area Pluto inhabits also happens to be strewn with quite a lot of other debris, implying that Pluto is nothing more than a particularly big chunk of astronomical detritus, and perhaps most damming, astronomers were already looking for a ninth planet they hoped would be somewhere out there, thus making Pluto's discovery the product of a flawed, self fulfilling prophecy.
I took a deep breath and sat back with what Im sure looked all too much like a self-satisfied smile and awaited a response. What I got, of course, was an unexpected response that I should really have seen coming: "Well I'm going to make my solar system model with Pluto because my science book says its a planet." There are few things more pure than the definitive convictions held by children, are there not?
Anyway, the matter was concluded by my Lovely Bride who explained to us both that, regardless of Pluto's real status, as long as our son was in school he would tow the party line and publicly sing the praises of Pluto's planethood. I, of course, learned long ago that it is usually wise to quietly acquiesce to my Bride's wishes if only because she's usually right.
But still, I cant get rid of that nagging suspicion that it would just be easier to move to Tennessee or somewhere that notions such as evolution are scoffed at and that believing in facts is optional. Lets try it out... "My grandpa was a monkey? Yeah, right."
Gosh, that really is easier. I'm moving.
|
A Rose By Any Other Name...
"I still have folders of hate
mail from third-graders"
Neil deGrasse Tyson, director of
New York's Hayden Planetarium
mail from third-graders"
Neil deGrasse Tyson, director of
New York's Hayden Planetarium
It was just a little over a year ago on a crisp sunny afternoon that I was engaged in my usual routine: warming the front stoop as I looked over the days mail and enjoyed a fresh, steaming cup of joe whilst waiting for the school bus to arrive. And arrive it did, heralded as always by a squealing of brakes that was just barely drowned out by the squealing of its occupants.
This particular afternoon turned out just a little differently than previous ones however; rather than disgorging my older lad who would then normally trudge towards the house with a Sisyphean air of resignation, today the bus disgorged a lad who resembled mine in all ways except that this one was bursting with excitement. As it turned out, this pleasant change was because he and the rest of his third grade class would, for the time being, leave behind their normal curricula of the oft-stultifying beaux-arts and turn their attention skyward to learn about our solar system and the majestic planets that inhabit it. Even better, they were to build models of the solar system that would be hung throught his classroom. My son was, in short, thrilled to pieces.
We all remember, of course, (at least those of us who tended to gravitate towards the geeky end of the dance floor in high school) the tried and true mnemonic device that reminds us not only of the name of each planet, but the order in which they circle our sun: My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas. (Thats Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto, for those of you who tended to gravitate towards the end of the dance floor where everyone was gorgeous and actually had a good time. But I digress.)
Unfortunately though, armed as I was with this useful tidbit of knowledge, it wasn't long before I could no longer resist the recurring urge I often get to play the family provocateur. And, sure enough, it was over dinner that very night that I lost all willpower and, right in front of my Lovely Bride and the younger lad no less, I mused aloud as how that despite the presence of Pizzas in that handy example of astronomical mnemonics, Pluto is not, in point of fact, a planet.
There was a sudden silence in the room accompanied by the furrowing of my Lovely Bride's brow that was a certain signal that I had indeed crossed the line and had officially become a troublemaker. A few more beats went by and, as is no great surprise, the older lad looked up from his plate with his own brow furrowed and asked in that charming tone typical of eight year olds: "Wait, of course Pluto is a planet. What are you talking about?" Ahh good, I thought to myself, reel him in slowly...
Although it took some doing, I successfully avoided making eye contact with my Lovely Bride as I launched into an explanation of Pluto's deficiencies as a planet. To wit: its orbit around the sun is nearly perpendicular to all the other real planets... Pluto is not only smaller than our own moon, but there are no fewer than seven other moons in our solar system larger than it is... the area Pluto inhabits also happens to be strewn with quite a lot of other debris, implying that Pluto is nothing more than a particularly big chunk of astronomical detritus, and perhaps most damming, astronomers were already looking for a ninth planet they hoped would be somewhere out there, thus making Pluto's discovery the product of a flawed, self fulfilling prophecy.
I took a deep breath and sat back with what Im sure looked all too much like a self-satisfied smile and awaited a response. What I got, of course, was an unexpected response that I should really have seen coming: "Well I'm going to make my solar system model with Pluto because my science book says its a planet." There are few things more pure than the definitive convictions held by children, are there not?
Anyway, the matter was concluded by my Lovely Bride who explained to us both that, regardless of Pluto's real status, as long as our son was in school he would tow the party line and publicly sing the praises of Pluto's planethood. I, of course, learned long ago that it is usually wise to quietly acquiesce to my Bride's wishes if only because she's usually right.
But still, I cant get rid of that nagging suspicion that it would just be easier to move to Tennessee or somewhere that notions such as evolution are scoffed at and that believing in facts is optional. Lets try it out... "My grandpa was a monkey? Yeah, right."
Gosh, that really is easier. I'm moving.
