2B — Thursday, September 19, 2019
b-side
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
There
isn’t
much
to
remember about 2006. It was
a year of Razor scooters and
Dum Dums and multiplication
tables. I was in second grade,
where our hottest topics were
who was seen holding hands
on the playground, or what
treats we were bringing in for
our birthdays. We certainly
weren’t talking about scientific
discoveries,
intergalactic
developments or the terrifying
depths of the universe. That
is, of course, until it was
announced that Pluto would no
longer be considered a planet.
This plunged our narrow
halls into despair. I don’t know
why I took this news so hard.
My teacher told me I was at a
fifth grade reading level and
I had just gotten a life-sized
stuffed dog for Christmas, so
things were going pretty well.
But this news about Pluto —
it rocked me. It shook me to
my Lisa Frank-clad core. I
remember little about that year,
but I do remember the day Pluto
was demoted.
For
those
who
don’t,
some background: Pluto was
discovered on Feb. 18, 1930
at the Lowell Observatory in
Flagstaff, Ariz. by astronomer
Clyde W. Tombaugh. According
to a website for the Library of
Congress that looks straight out
of the year 1993, the era during
which Pluto was discovered
was one of “intense planet
hunting.” Hardcore. The name
“Pluto,” later the name of a
beloved Disney pet, was actually
proposed by an 11-year-old girl
from Oxford named Venetia
Burney who was interested in
mythology. To thank her for a
name that would literally be
used for the rest of time, Burney
was awarded five pounds.
Such a great story, right? Well,
astronomers don’t care about
the story, they care about the
facts. And, in 2006, the fact was
that Pluto could no longer be
considered a planet. Instead, the
International Astronomy Union
(IAU) downgraded it to a dwarf
planet. To be a full-blown planet
a mass needs to: 1) Orbit around
the Sun 2) Have sufficient
mass to assume hydrostatic
equilibrium (a nearly round
shape) and 3) Have a “cleared
neighborhood” around its orbit.
Apparently,
Pluto
also
has
annoying neighbors that hover
around it, because the third
criteria is where it lost out.
That’s a lot of science for
me to understand now, so I
certainly didn’t understand it
during the year “A Bad Case of
Stripes” caused me to become a
juvenile hypochondriac. What
I understood was suddenly my
time spent memorizing the
nine planets was wasted — all
the acronyms, the solar system
dioramas, the crudely colored-
in circles. Why had we even
spent so much time learning
about planets? Was it all a
waste? A facade of happiness to
be ripped apart when some old
men decide a planet just wasn’t
good enough anymore?
In hindsight, I think our
little
second
grade
hearts
were broken because we truly
did love Pluto. It was every
student’s favorite planet — the
underdog, the little guy. Oh you
like Jupiter, Sarah? We get it,
your dad’s a broker at Meryll
Lynch. Your favorite planet is
Saturn, Jason? No one cares
that you’re in accelerated math.
Pluto was the planet for the rest
of us, the ones with no rings, no
red storm, no semblance of life.
When Pluto was told it wasn’t
good enough, we were told we
weren’t good enough. Everyone
always says kids are the future,
the next generation will change
the world — how could we do
that when no one will respect
us?
It wasn’t just the second
graders, though. The world felt
the effects of the diminished
Pluto. Just in the past month, 13
years since the tragedy of Pluto,
there
have
been
numerous
articles about just how bad
everybody wants Pluto to be a
planet again. We just want it
to be happy, to be recognized
again, to stand along the big
boys of the Milky Way.
Honestly, I think all of us see
a little bit of Pluto within us.
Yeah, it sounds silly to care so
much about an insentient rock,
but this stuff hits home. We’ve
all been told we’re not good
enough, and if an entire planet
can be ousted, so can we. I don’t
care what the IAU says, they
can’t tell us how to see Pluto, no
matter what fancy degrees they
have or how many telescopes
they own. For Venetia Burney,
for heartbroken second graders
and for NASA administrators
that can’t let things go, there
will always be Pluto. And for
Pluto, there will always be those
who never give up on it.
WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
In defense of puny Pluto
SAMANTHA DELLA FERA
Senior Arts Editor
B-SIDE: FOR THE SAKE OF PLUTO
The first few bars of the theme
music for “Star Trek: The Next
Generation” sounds more like
ambient music at a yoga retreat
than the introduction to an ’80s
imagination of the year 2364. Then
things speed up, soaring into a
marching band-esque crescendo,
and it’s clear: This is the future.
The Star Trek franchise includes
12 movies, eight television shows,
two theme park attractions, two
magazines, about 850 novels and
17 series of comic books. The
cultural impact of the show can’t
be understated — it’s where we
got “live long and prosper,” “beam
me up, Scotty” and “make it so.”
It inspired “Galaxy Quest” and
“Futurama,” a few notable scenes
in the music video for Eminem’s
“We Made You” and even a 2010
training video made by the Internal
Revenue Service.
The franchise garners the kind
of obsession that’s endearingly
embarrassing:
flashing
the
Vulcan
hand
salute,
having
intimate knowledge of Klingon
chess, making detailed costumes
for conventions. “Trekkie” has
become cultural shorthand for
a very specific kind of fixation.
It suggests, with a patronizing
wink, that wanting to be part of
the world of “Star Trek” requires a
mix of social isolation and naiveté.
Instead I think it requires hope, or a
profound lack of it.
At the height of my Star Trek
fandom, I was never the kind of
enthusiast who found themselves
mired in the minutiae of the show.
Instead, it was the big picture that
I latched onto. I watched “Star
Trek: The Next Generation” with
my mom when I was in middle
school; we liked the cleanliness of
the Starship Enterprise and the
grand, sweeping views of planets
and stars. The world of the show
(an immense silver vessel, aliens
with ridged foreheads) seemed
very far away from the setting and
context of my life at the time: our
little row home in Philadelphia,
homemade pumpkin ice cream,
math homework, forgetting to
hang my suit up to dry before swim
practice. Now, rewatching the
show, the associations have become
reverse engineered. “Star Trek” is
inextricable from the way it felt to
be fourteen and think the future
could contain absolutely anything.
According
to
“Star
Trek,”
everything we’re worried about
right now will be OK. There will
be other things that go wrong — a
species intent on taking over the
universe,
arguments
between
factions of aliens — but these
concerns are foreign enough that
they’re intriguing rather than
scary. The show depicts its fair
share of pain and suffering, but
usually it’s the aliens who suffer in
any permanent way; when humans
do, it’s an aberration from the new
normal that’s been created. By the
time the Enterprise is exploring
new worlds, we’ve eliminated
climate
change,
war,
disease,
xenophobia and sexism. On Earth,
everything is as it should be.
In the rest of the universe,
though, these things still exist, and
nearly every conflict on the series
involves starship crews becoming
entangled
with
random
and
calculated unfairness, cruelty and
moral complication. We get Klingon
in-fighting,
alien
merchants
selling slaves, a civilization about
to be decimated by its dying star.
“Star Trek: The Next Generation”
is especially prone to depicting
easily-recognizable
versions
of
real quandaries. The characters
encounter everything from sex
trafficking to territorial disputes
on distant planets, and they’re
forced to confront moral codes
that exaggerate the ironies and
falsehoods of our own beliefs.
Familiar
dramas
play
out:
Apartheid is displaced onto a
matriarchal society in “Angel One,”
and the Israel-Palestine conflict
plays out with a group of alien
separatists in “The High Ground.”
Here lies the ethical problem with
“Star Trek,” and also the thing that
is so deliciously attractive about it.
Every earthly dilemma has been
outsourced to an alien species,
and we get to be the arbiters of
goodness, the agents of scientific
reason. Who wouldn’t want to buy
into this vision of the future?
When I was in middle school
and
watching
“Star
Trek”
I
imagined we were moving closer
toward the show’s version of the
future:
egalitarian,
democratic,
creative. Now when I watch the
show, I vacillate between hope and
escapism. I want to believe that
“Star Trek” is predictive of how
things will turn out for humanity.
I want us to wander the universe in
brightly colored uniforms, listening
to operas sung by sentient robots. I
hope we will find our way to peace.
But if that’s not what the future
holds, if it’s more war and injustice
and greed that we’re headed for,
then all I want is to watch Captain
Picard hold court on the bridge one
more time.
Trekkie optimism, or: On
the merits of Klingon chess
MIRIAM FRANCISCO
Daily Arts Writer
PARAMOUNT PICTURES
B-SIDE: MUSIC NOTEBOOK
There’s something so magical about the night sky. Yes,
the millions of glowing balls of fire above our heads, so
far away that we perceive them as only twinkles in a sea of
darkness, are astounding to think about. And yes, there’s no
act more humbling than staring into space and comparing
yourself to the scale of the universe. But the true gift of the
night sky lies in something much harder to articulate: the
magic of the unknown.
Just like our expansive oceans, with points deeper than
Earth’s tallest mountains above sea level, we know very
little about outer space. The vast majority of space matter is
unidentified; we know it’s there based on its gravitational
pull on other matter, but we can’t see it with our eyes. This
dark matter is second only to dark energy, which is causing
the universe to accelerate in its expansion, a forward
feedback loop with its feet permanently off the brakes. Yet
here we are, nice and cozy on our Earth, rarely stopping to
gaze up into the night sky and wonder about everything that
remains to be discovered.
In bustling Ann Arbor, though, looking up
into the sky will reward you with a fuzzy haze
of gray. Between lamp posts on South University,
streetlights on State Street and the glow from
buildings bordering the Diag, light pollution
blocks the gems of the sky so effectively that it’s
hard to even make out what you’re missing. But
I’m always looking, trying to catch a glimpse.
Whether on a bright fall afternoon, cloud-
covered, misty day or warm summer night, my
first instinct upon stepping outside is to gaze up,
take a deep breath and smile in solitude. To know
that it’s just you and that beckoning expanse
above, if only for a moment, is the best form of
therapy.
Growing up in the Metro Detroit area has given
me very few chances to see the night sky in all its
glory without ambient light washing everything
out. The most memorable time happened to be two
weeks ago, in the depths of Acadia National Park
in Mount Desert Island, Maine. At 8 p.m., I sat wiped-out
in the backseat of my family’s rental car, my legs quaking
slightly from trekking all day and my Circadian clock
disoriented by the early sunsets on the eastern-most state of
the East Coast. The endorphins from earlier in the
day had faded away, leaving me with an empty but
peaceful feeling in my stomach, something close
to gratitude for being alive, though I couldn’t
place my finger on the emotion at the time.
Our destination? Sand Beach in the heart of
Acadia, always populated by tourists and locals
alike. New pairs of feet continually trampled the
sand below, only to have their footprints washed
away by the roaring Atlantic in an instant.
Sand is a deceiving name: Shell fragments
make up the majority of the soft earth, teeming
microorganisms are littered throughout the rest.
During the day, one can clearly make out the
looming granite rocks rising on either side of
the sand stretch, forming a small bay with calm
waters. At night, it’s a whole different story.
The wooden steps felt foreign under my feet as I
descended in the darkness: My feet had forgotten
that I’d taken the same path the day before in
broad, piercing daylight. Everywhere I looked was shrouded
with intense darkness. The only color I could make out was
jet black, putting even the poignant black of ink cartridges
to shame. We stumbled onto the beach, faintly able to make
out the mound of people in the distance. Everyone else had
brought a blanket, some were cuddling under sleeping bags.
We sat on the bare sand, letting it fill our shoes and seep
through the gaps in our clothes. If you’re going to stargaze
on the beach, best to do it right, no boundaries necessary.
There was light, just not the kind one might expect. All I
had to do was look up and the night sky shone upon me, glad
that my eyes had finally found its destination. Millions of
stars danced in the night, teasing me, inviting me to dance
with them. The broad band of the Milky Way stretched from
horizon to horizon, home to millions of stars, planets and us,
the Earth. Park rangers pointed out dozens of constellations
smiling down at us. I smiled back up at them. This world has
always been there, waiting for the right moment, the right
place, to show itself. Second only to the total solar eclipse
of 2017, I’d never beheld anything like it.
I can only grasp at memories of that night, close my eyes
and let the stars that fill my mind push all my lingering
thoughts away. Whenever I get the chance to gaze again, I
know they’ll be waiting.
Soul-searching and solace-seeking in our solar system
TRINA PAL
Senior Arts Editor
B-SIDE: COMMUNITY CULTURE NOTEBOOK
The only color I could make out was jet
black, putting even the poignant black
of ink cartridges to shame
Yet here we are, nice and cozy on
our Earth, rarely stopping to gaze
up into the night sky and wonder
about everything that remains to be
discovered
It was every
student’s
favorite
planet — the
underdog, the
little guy