A friend recently reminded me that Pluto was demoted to a “dwarf planet,” and it pissed me off all over again. Not because I have a particular loyal toward the ex-member of our solar system. I simply find it irritating how they can tell us one thing all through school, then just up and change their minds. And so, I’m taking a stand: astronomers may have a fancy new set of guidelines, but as for me, I’m not letting go of our ninth planet so easily.
I propose that some guy with a rocket, a dream, and a scanty map of the solar system make a voyage out to Pluto, despite all popular belief that Pluto is a dwarf. He can bump into it by accident, fight off the savage Plutians, stake his claim and get his own national holiday.
A bunch of us can follow him there and repopulate, make our Plutian children recite some cheesy song to help them remember the guy’s name and the year 2012, teach them about the Native Plutians during multicultural week at school, then ultimately go back and reteach them that the brave and valiant explorer from Planet Earth was really an orchestrator of mass murderer and genocide.
If you’ll excuse me, I’d like to go back to the days when life was simpler, back when Columbus was still a hero, Pluto still had dignity, Einstein was flunking math, Isaac Newton was getting clonked in the head with apples, Washington was chopping down cherry trees, and Ben Franklin was out flying kites and keys in the middle of electrical storms.
Long live the myth, ignorance and bliss, the American dream, and always last (but never least), Planet Pluto.