Saturday, August 26, 2006

My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas

Soon the educated mother will have to serve Noodles or Nuts or whatever! No more "nine pizzas". In case you did not notice, MVEMJSUNP is a mnemonic for the nine planets of the solar system, with even NASA popularising it. Or should I say, was a mnemonic. Yes, Pluto is being voted out of the Solar System. No one is disputing that there is a body that revolves around the sun just after Neptune, but it looks like Pluto does no fulfil the important condition of having its own orbit. Pluto's orbit overlaps that of Neptune. It will be called a "dwarf" planet from now on under a newly accepted definition of "planets".

This raises several issues for trivia lovers: (a) what happens to all those astrological predictions that depended on 9 planets? (b) what happens to Walt Disney's lovable character? - I remember that in the Greenwich Observatory outside London, there was a telescope that promised to show PLUTO, but it turned out to be Pluto the dog! (c) what about all those geography textbooks that mention 9 planets? (d) what happens to several religious beliefs, including the Hindu one, that there are 9 planets for a reason? - the counterargument to this question is that Pluto does exist, only that some scientists do not wish to call it a planet.

Anyway, the replacement of Pizzas with Noodles could represent an important immigration issue! It recognises the fact that Europeans have less influence on the American diet than ever before - and that there is a Chinese joint even in the remotest of American villages. We should probably have a Mexican dish for Neptune, but I am not familiar with that cuisine. Allow me to suggest the venerable Naan to represent the increasing Indian influence on America:-)

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