Author: Andrew Sullivan

Astronomer Adam Frank addresses the kerfuffle about removing Pluto from the pantheon of planets:

"Why did you do it?" people ask, (especially kids with big pleading eyes). "Why did you whack Pluto?" There is such real pathos in the way the question gets asked, as if the entire cadre of professional astronomers had just choked humanity's favorite puppy. My first instinct is to reply "Sheesh! It’s a rock. Get over it!" I have learned with time,  however, that my Jersey-tuned sensibilities in this regard aren't going to help anyone.

After pondering the problem for some time, I believe our collective grief over Pluto's demise as a planet is not because of its link to a dopey Disney dog but because of something deeper: a hunger for order and simplicity.

in the last 20 years something remarkable has happened in our understanding of solar systems and, in some deep recess of our collective imaginations, we just don't like it.

We have come of age. We have grown up. Instead of the tidy vision we were taught as children, with 9 planets moving along their color coded orbits, we now know that solar systems can be very messy places.

From studies of other solar systems (discovered only since 1995), we know that giant Jupiter-sized planets can live right up against their stars in orbits so close it would make Mercury blush. We know that rather than the stately circles our planets move along, some of these systems have giant planets winging back and forth on wildly cigar-shaped orbits (ellipses) that can play hell with smaller Earth-sized worlds tossing them into the frozen depths of space just (perhaps) as life was getting going. And in our own corner of the galaxy, this solar system that once seemed so orderly and compact (even with that untidy asteroid belt) is now populated by all manner of malformed worldlets.

(Artist's reconstruction of Pluto (seen at center from one of its moons) courtesy of NASA, ESA and G. Bacon (STScI))

"Birthday" by Henri Cole ran in The Atlantic in July, 2005:

When I was a boy, we called it punishment
to be locked up in a room. God's apparent
abdication from the affairs of the world
seemed unforgivable. This morning,
climbing five stories to my apartment,
I remember my father's angry voice
mixed up with anxiety & love. As always,
the possibility of home—at best an ideal—
remains illusory, so I read Plato, for whom love
has not been punctured. I sprawl on the carpet,
like a worm composting, understanding things
about which I have no empirical knowledge.
Though the door is locked, I am free.
Like an outdated map, my borders are changing.

Clark Williams-Derry points to methodological flaws in the Urban Mobility Report that could drastically change how we measure congestion in cities:

Consider two hypothetical cities, Sprawlville and Compact City.  In Sprawlville, people travel a long way to work — an average of 20 miles door to door.  In free-flowing traffic, the trip would take 20 minutes, but it takes 10 extra minutes during rush hour, for a total commute of 30 minutes.  In Compact City, people don't have to travel as far:  it's just 10 miles from home to work on average; the trip takes 10 minutes off-peak, and 10 extra minutes during rush hour, for a total of 20 minutes. 

In this example, congestion slows commutes by the same amount — 10 minutes — in both cities. Sprawlville residents wind up with longer total commutes, since residents travel longer distances.   Yet the "Time Travel Index" shows that Compact City has a worse rush hour!!  That's because the Time Travel Index shows a 2:1 ratio (i.e., 20 minutes vs. 10 minutes) for rush hour vs. off-peak travel in Compact City, and a 3:2 ratio (i.e., 30 minutes vs. 20 minutes) in Sprawlville.

A reader writes:

The view of Christ catching the Devil with a baited hook described by your reader is often referred to as the Ransom view of the Atonement.  More recently, it's been called the Christus Victor view. It's the one I personally prefer.  And it's the one depicted in C.S. Lewis' "The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe." If you're interested, Greg Boyd has a great essay on Christus Victor. 

Boyd also delivers a riveting history lesson above.

Valerie Schultz confesses:

Much of my personal pain has stemmed from writing columns in the secular press in support of civil marriage for same-sex couples and the ordination of women, and the unpleasant admonishments and consequences thereof. Public dissent, apparently, has no place in ministry. I have been politely removed from the Catholic part of detention ministry, although I am still welcome to serve in a nondenominational capacity. People in power have told me to shut up or leave, but is God telling me to leave? Is God telling me to shut up? […]

A small revelation sustains me: In order to stay Catholic, I’ve had to cut away, at least temporarily, my distraction with everything between the Eucharist and me. The parish, the ministry chain of command, the diocese, the Roman hierarchy: everything. A day spent alone and in prayer led to this understanding, born not of conceit but of desperation. My relationship with the Eucharist has been the only way to salvage and practice my Catholicism.

Jerusalem, Israel, 2 pm.

A reminder of submission rules (which we break very occasionally because a foolish consistency etc …):

No rainbows, children, or animals.

The reflex is good for your health:

Yawning doesn’t just relax you—it quickly brings you into a heightened state of cognitive awareness. Students yawn in class, not because the teacher is boring (although that will make you yawn as well, as you try to stay focused on the monotonous speech), but because it rids the brain of sleepiness, thus helping you stay focused on important concepts and ideas.

Tell that to this Cornell professor.

(Hat tip: Frank Wilson)

Ben Greenman finds:

The Internet’s search capabilities, which permit easy detection of unoriginality, also have a chilling effect on originality.

An example: There’s a guy in my neighborhood who dresses exactly like Bruce Springsteen, circa 1975. He has the jeans. He has the cap. He has the beard. After seeing him a handful of times on the street, I nicknamed him “Born to Rerun.” It made me laugh, for a second. It was a pointless little joke, no more than that. Out of curiosity, I searched for the phrase, which I thought I had invented—or rather, which I had invented, at least for my purposes. I discovered, predictably, that the phrase has been used before, frequently: in 2003 by Entertainment Weekly, last year by a fan posting a review of “Darkness on the Edge of Town,” and on and on.

I’d like to report that I don’t care about those earlier occurrences, that I brushed them off and moved on, but the fact is that I do care. It’s deflating to learn that your original idea, no matter how trivial, has already made an appearance. Before the Internet, I might have kept that pointless little joke alive in my head. It might have ripened into something or it might have died on the vine. But it would have been my tomato. Now, the process works differently. The incontrovertible proof that the phrase was already circulating made it difficult, if not impossible, for me to claim it as my own. It acquired the feel of something shoddy and second-hand, and I jettisoned it.

"Gifts" by Peter Davison appeared in The Atlantic in October 1965:

When I was a child, a heartstruck neighbor died
On her birthday. Dying was strange enough,
But what a way to choose to spend your birthday,
I thought, and what sort of a gift was this?
From time to time, people have done it since–
Dying in the environs of a celebration
As though they had picked out the day themselves.
Perhaps they had, one way or another,
Prayed for something to happen, and prayed wrong.
Sophocles, when old enough to die,
Suspected prayer and entered a caveat:
'Zeus, act kindly whether or not I pray;
And, though I plead for it, turn harm away.'
I keep a wary silence on my birthdays,
Make up no lists at Christmas, lie low
When asked what I really want. How should I know?
Best ask for gifts as though I had none coming.

(Photo: Joel Saget/AFP/Getty Images)