Is Pluto really something that we need to protest over?

I mean, really, folks, things are a little out of control when it comes to this issue of Pluto's no longer being a planet. These people actually protested that Pluto was no longer being labelled a "planet". Andrew Cohen wrote a great satirical piece about people's bizarre obsession with Pluto's status.

Of course, before the decision to relabel Pluto, the astronomers had been discussing keeping Pluto a planet but adding three more planets, but they decided against that. The problem is that Pluto, as well as these other objects, does not really behave like the other planets. Frankly, it seems to me that, if terms like "planet" are to have any real meaning, then it is necessary that there be rules regarding what gets categorized as what. This is like getting upset that giant pandas aren't really bears.

I think the more interesting, but underplayed, aspect of the entire story is that there are so many different objects of different sizes orbiting the sun. Before the discovery of these other objects, it just seemed that we had these nine random bodies going around the sun. Now, we know that there is a whole breadth of objects in our solar system, from small asteroids to super-planets like Jupiter.

But back to the main part of this post: Don't people have better things to do than protest these things? Like, oh, I don't know, working at a homeless shelter? Picking litter off the highway? Gazing at their navels?