Jenny Holiday

Pack your bags for happily ever after

astronomy

Sometimes misogyny is so heavy-handed that it’s almost a parody of itself

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Here at Mock Chicken we like to take a sassy approach when misogyny rears its ill-styled head. We’re always on guard, of course, because we believe that the woman-haters in our midst can masquerade as any number of respectable sorts and that they require our scrutiny. But we generally feel like our righteous indignation is best served up with a laugh or at least a little sarcasm, if only because people who are serious all the time are tremendously tedious and the last thing we want people to say at our funeral is, well, what a relief.

Sometimes, though, misogyny isn’t subtle, there to be ferreted out with a wink. Sometimes it’s so heavy-handed that it’s almost a parody of itself. This was certainly the case in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, yesterday. I read in the Times that as the Amish prepare to bury their daughters Naomi Rose, Anna Mae, Marian, Mary Liz, and Lena, they are stoic and not angry. I wonder how this can be.

I thought about this all day, and was oddly buoyed when I read that they gave out the Nobel prize in physics today to John Mather and George Smoot who measured the oldest light in the universe, light from 380,000 years after the Big Bang (which was itself about 14 billion years ago). Apparently they effectively verified the Big Bang Theory. People are capable of amazing and ingenious things. It’s good to remember this.

Pluto gets taken down a notch. Well, finally

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Sometimes it’s important to report back.

1. In the “justice has prevailed” category, I am happy to report that Presse Internationale carries soft-core gay porn. You may remember my trip to an outlet near my house to buy a copy of Out Magazine, which turned up 18 knitting magazines but not a copy of Out or The Advocate. You may remember my promise to investigate whether this was a Riverdale-related oversight or an instance of systemic bigotry. I’m happy to report that although the Bloor and Bathurst branch of Presse Internationale was sold out of Out, I was directed to some alternate titles featuring nearly-naked men on the cover. You can rest easy.

2. Also in the justice has prevailed category: Pluto gets taken down a notch. Well, finally. Didn’t I recommend this in the strongest possible terms?

3. Someone requested a photo of the double Ferris Wheel from the Minnesota State Fair. Here it is, though I have to protest that it goes really fast and so is much scarier in person. Lulu wouldn’t even go on it with me, so I had to take my Dad, who’s fearless. We also went on a roller coaster and in the row behind us was a girl of about 8 and her father. She spent the whole ride shrieking, “Dad! Dad! Dad!” and though I had twenty years on her, I was unable to speak. But I was saying the same thing in my heart.

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It’s the end of the solar system as we know it.

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So the latest outrage on my list is that the International Astronomical Union is acting like this girl I knew in junior high who lived for male attention. She’d stop talking to you mid-sentence if a boy sauntered by. I’m all for a little boy-craziness—okay, a lot—but what I’m trying to say is this girl had no standards. She didn’t discriminate between a pint-sized Johhny Depp and a pint-sized Jeffrey Dahmer (am I spelling that right? I don’t know, but I refuse to google Jeffrey Dahmer). She’d start orbiting around the nearest boy faster than you could say Pluto.

If these astronomical-sluts get their way it’s the end of the solar system as we know it. They’ve decided that a planet is—wait for it—a round thing orbiting a star. That’s like saying that a symphony is something you play on the piano.

There are apparently now 12 planets: we get to keep Pluto and we have to add Ceres (hello, asteroid?), Charon (the planet previously known as a moon of Pluto), and the charmingly-named UB313 (nicknamed Xena, with a moon called Gabrielle, which, okay, I even have to admit is cute).

And of course if we actually apply the new standards, assuming our backs don’t give out as we stoop down to scrape them off the floor, there are around 50 other chunks of cosmic debris out there that qualify as planets. What is this going to do to mnemonic devices everywhere? How am I supposed to take “Mother Visits Every Morning Just Stays Until Noon, Period” and make it work for 50 more planets? And what will this mean for astrology? Am I even still a Capricorn with a moon in Gemini?

Everyone was all worried about Pluto, the “darling of school kids everywhere.” How can they keep Pluto and not add all this other junk, everyone wondered? Screw Pluto, I said. It never counted and “school kids everywhere” could stand a little taste of disappointment. It’s good practice. Pluto never made sense in my mnemonic device anyway.

But, no, the IAU has gone all planet-crazy. Like a hypochondriac who sees germs everywhere, they’re busy rechristening every hunk of rock out there. Apparently the whole body is going to vote on the concept later this week. Let us hope that cooler heads prevail.

 

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