And now we have, a guest post from Bill Scadlock ;)
Eight Planets? I don't think so
By William Scadlock
August 15, Houston
It is August 15, and that can only mean one thing! In exactly nine days, it will be one year since Pluto was deleted from the list of planets. Why post nine days before, you ask? The reason is, obviously, to protest this decision to delete Pluto. Nine is a great number, an excellent number. I see no reason to move away from nine planets. Don't get me wrong : I love the number eight. But, without naming any names, I will just say that some people have gotten tired of these unpredictable shifts in the number of planets.
Nine has worked for us in the past. And - mind you - it was not always nine. First, it was six. Then, with Uranus, it was seven. Less than seventy years after that, in 1847 to be exact (you will notice that we astrologers like to keep our figures straight), it was eight. Then one black day in February in 1930, it went all the way up to nine. Do we have to have keep changing our charts every eighty years or so? I don't think so. "This is one horrible decision as it has caused many astrologers to reconsider their science. Many an astrologist's chart, based until last year on the now disreputable physics of nine planets, has had to be revised," said Ra's al Ghul, known to his friends as Algol.
Algol plans to stage a demonstration next week headed towards the NASA offices in Houston accompanied by his daughers Nyssa and Talia. The march will start exactly nine hours, nine minutes and nine seconds before the midnight of August 24. Nyssa said she ultimately expected this to grow into a global movement. "People around the world are watching this. This is an important event for people who care about science and the future of the world," said the star of "Death and the Maidens" speaking yesterday from her headquarters in Northern Africa. "I care about the world. I even gave the computer technician at our headquarters the day off because I think it is some sort of thing in India tomorrow." A critical response to this has come from the scientific community. Barbara Gordon will stage a counter-demonstration also headed towards the NASA offices. Barbara Gordon has composed an anthem for the march, which I reproduce here with her permission :
Imagine there's no Pluto
It's easy if you try
No Hades below us
Above us only sky
Alright, folks, so we have heard what Barbara has to say. But look closely at what she says right here : "It is easy if you try". Easy? What's easy? Imagining there are only eight planets? I don't think so. And easy for who? Nobody, that is who. Nobody except some millionaires up in Gotham City. We common folk want our Pluto back. Not 13430 Pluto. Just plain Pluto. The millionaires can do what they want. According to Algol, last year's decision is part of a disturbing trend away from Ptolemaic astrology of the second century, when "astrology was the common man's science". "Astronomy and astrology have become play-things of the rich.", said Algol. "We must restore them to their rightful place as the means of predicting the next day in daily newspapers for the common man." Ptolemy looked up at the sky - mind you, none of this million-dollar telescope stuff - and saw seven objects. And seven objects only. That is why we have nine planets in our system. Algol said he imagined that the decision to remove Pluto from the list of planets was ultimately the work of "some millionaire superhero somewhere".
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