As Bob Seger might have written: "Feel like a number, I'm not a number, I'm not a number, dammit I'm a planet." Poor Pluto:
Pluto has been given a new name to reflect its new status as a dwarf planet.
On Sept. 7, the former 9th planet was assigned the asteroid number 134340 by the Minor Planet Center, the official organization responsible for collecting data about asteroids and comets in our solar system.
It's one thing to get demoted; this is downright cruel. On the very day Pluto was deplanetized, I saw a Web site offering a T-shirt that said this: "OK, all planets, take one step forward. Not so fast, Pluto." (That refers to the punchline to a funny joke about a military drill instructor who has had sensitivity training about how to break it to a recruit that his parents have died.)
