Not long ago, as Horatio noted in this post, the International Astronomical Union sat down to decide what made a planet a planet, and which bodies deserved the title. The big controversy of the meeting was whether fan-favorite Pluto would lose its planet status, but I was more interested in whether or not we would add a few new planets to the roster.

The asteroid Ceres was up for the honor, as was Pluto’s moon Charon, but most interesting (to me) was 2003 UB313, an as-yet-unnamed object that was larger than Pluto. If Pluto got to be a planet, I thought, this thing had to be one too. And they’d get to name it! This is the sort of shit that gives nerds like me a serious buzz.

Well, the ruling came down. Pluto wasn’t a planet, and neither were Ceres or 2003 UB313 (I didn’t hear much about Charon, but come on. That thing was tiny). They weren’t just asteroids or “objects” either; they were the freshman class of the newly-created “dwarf planet” category. Dwarf planets were exactly what they sounded like, and now one of them needed a name.

2003 UB313 had previously gone by the nickname “Xena” (after Lucy Lawless’s popular TV character) but that name would hardly do for a planet, even a dwarf one. So the astronomers set to work coming up with a better moniker, and at the end of their deliberations they chose…

Eris. Planet Eris. Named for the Greek goddess of chaos and strife, star of counter-culture classic the Principia Discordia, and my all-time favorite classical deity (I even have the tattoo to prove it).

The scientists came up with some bullshit explanation about how creating the dwarf planet classification caused discord among astronomers, making the name a perfect fit. I’m not buying that for a second. These guys named their planet after the modern version of Eris, an icon of freak culture and an inspiration to countless geeks and stoners the world over.

After all, who names planets? Distinguished scientists, that’s who. And “distinguished scientist” is just a polite term for “nerd who’s old enough to remember Eris’s last pop culture splash.” And though the evidence is mostly circumstantial, it does start to stack up.

For example, there’s the fact that in ancient times, Eris just wasn’t a very big deal. She figures into exactly one myth. Most books on mythology, when recounting that myth, use Eris’s name exactly one time. She’s usually not even in the index. The other planets are named after some serious gods, though; Jupiter and his little pals had temples devoted to them all over ancient Rome, and their predecessors had similar temples in Greece.

That raises another point. Greek and Roman deities are more or less the same*, but with the exception of the unfortunately-named Uranus, all the planets bear the names of Roman gods. From Mercury to Ceres we’ve got nothing but Roman names, but Eris, as you may already know, was Greek. They could’ve just as easily given the planet her Roman name, Discordia, but no one on the panel had ever read a meandering comedic novel about Discordia.

So I posed a question to Horatio: What if we had been on that panel? Wouldn’t that be the first name we threw out? And wouldn’t our bullshit explanation sound a lot like the one the scientists actually gave? After all, they want their work to look legit, and they certainly don’t want it to be identifiable as a product of their collegiate gigglefests. Chances are there are tons of old pothead astronomers in the Carl Sagan mold who have been waiting their whole lives for a chance like this.

I also jokingly asked him what it meant for the field of astrology, but I have yet to receive a reply. Not that it matters, since I’m more interested in what it means for the Discordian religion. Sooner or later the connection is going to come out, and even if it doesn’t Eris’s public profile has just increased a thousandfold. Before this, only Hellenophiles and Discordians knew her name. Now it will be taught to millions of elementary school children.

This may diminish the Eris mystique a bit, but the increased exposure could be worth it. Which is to say: there may not be many people who worship Zeus/Jupiter, but they still far outnumber the people who dig Eris. And hey, Discordians will finally have a planetary correspondance, which will give them some Pagan cred.

The implications are far-reaching. The mainstream media will offer up brief versions of Eris’s place in culture and mythology. Astronomers will be beset by laughing fits for years to come over the stunt they managed to pull. And upon hearing the new dwarf planet’s name, all of my ex-girlfriends will probably think about me for a few minutes.

My friends and I were into Eris before it was cool, and as such I almost feel tempted to welcome her to the planet club. But that would be a mistake. No, instead I will welcome humanity to her abode, because for the first time in milennia they remember her name.

She is chaos. She is alive once more, and she has come to tell us that we are free. So get to it, humanity.

*I understand they’re not really the same. Rome had its own deities, and then gradually adopted Greek myths and inserted their own characters into the stories. The end result, though, is that the average person on the street just assumes the two sets of myths are identical.

I moved to New York City about six weeks ago. A lot of people were envious of me. I’m still not sure why.

Not that it especially matters why, I’m sure people have their reasons for doing what they do. What matters is that there are a lot of people who want to. Maybe it’s the adventure, maybe it’s the glamour, maybe it’s that special thrill of paying a thousand dollars a month in rent for a place that still has the occasional homicide just around the block. Whatever the motive, what people most often ask me is, can it be done?

The answer is yes. You only need two things to succeed in New York: determination and money. And if you have enough money, you don’t need the determination.

Now, lots of people have actual careers: doctors and engineers and hairdressers and such. If you’re one of those people who has a regular career that you have knowledge and experience in, then all you have to do is flash your credentials and send your resume around. That’s it; don’t sweat it, because there are millions of people here, thriving industries, and plenty of jobs. Yes, cost of living is outrageous, but you’ll get paid enough to make up for it. Good luck with the whole career thing.

But what is everyone else to do? You know who I mean, all those clever slackers with no experience or marketable skills, those artists and writers who need day jobs, and all those people with useless Bachelor’s Degrees. Can they move to New York? I’ve established that; all they need is money. So how do you make money without a practical trade? If you’re like me, you temp.

Temping is a fantastic way to make quick money, because once you get a good agency on your side, they do all of the job-hunting for you. You just have to show up when they get you a gig. Temp agencies make money by pimping you out to their clients, so it’s in their best interest to get you hired. Which means that if you interview with ten temp agencies on Monday, you can play Nintendo for the rest of the week while waiting for the phone to ring. That’s my kind of job hunting.

But New York temp agencies aren’t like temp agencies in smaller cities, where there are a limited number of competent workers available and you can snap up a position in something you’re not at all qualified for with relative ease. No no, there are thousands of temps in New York all clamoring for that cheesy three-day data entry job. But that’s okay too, because there are hundreds of agencies, and they’re all based within a four-block square of Midtown Manhattan. The secret is to schedule interviews with as many agencies as possible, or “do the circuit” as one recruiter I spoke with recently calls it. Most of them are in the phone book; most of them have their own websites. Some of the more open-minded agencies post ads on craigslist, so that can be a good place to start, too.

So how do you get your foot in the door for basic temping? You pass four tests: Typing, MS Word, MS Excel, and MS PowerPoint. I’m not trying to make a commercial for Microsoft Office or anything, but you’re screwed if you can’t demonstrate some level of competence in at least two or three of those four areas. And the first time you take these tests, memorize them, because you’ll see them over and over again. Every agency in New York uses the same exact fucking MS computer tests. No one knows why.

Here’s another secret: in New York, things either move very fast or not at all. If you haven’t received a call-back within five days, the person you interviewed with has forgotten all about you. Call them back. Call them back every friggin’ day if you have to. “Hi, this is Johnny Outtacash, just wanted to let you know I’m still available.” “Yeah, thanks, I’ll let you know when I have something.” If you have that conversation often enough, a lot of recruiters will find you work just to make you go away.

Monster.com is another handy tool for the modern slacker. Here is one way to test your marketability before you invest any money at all in moving to New York. You’ll need:
1. A resume
2. The Internet
3. A fake New York City address

It doesn’t matter where you live for this experiment, but you have to appear local on random searches. Google-search the appropriate zip codes. It can be anything as long as it sounds good, something like 200 4th Street, Apartment 99, Brooklyn, New York, 11201.

Step 1: Post your resume on Monster.com. If you live in the Midwest, you probably think Monster is a useless sham. In the Midwest, it kind of is. But in big cities, it’s useful. Recruiters actually use it, I shit you not. Fill out your contact info profile, including your accurate e-mail address and phone number (it doesn’t matter what area code you have, because these days everyone’s locked into long-term cell phone contracts with unusual area codes anyway) and your fake New York address.

Step 2: Sit back and wait for the phone to ring. While waiting, resist the urge to actually apply to the posted jobs, because nine out of ten jobs will never reply to you anyway.

Step 3: If, after a few weeks, you have not received any phone calls, revise your resume. Recruiting agencies in New York use keyword searches to find candidates to offer jobs to. If you’re not getting any calls, it means your keywords suck. It’s exactly like designing a website that will turn up in lots of Google searches.

Step 4: If you get lots of calls, that means you look good on paper. You can then analyze your offers to determine whether any of the jobs are good enough to be worth bullshitting your way through an interview, or, more to the point, whether the jobs are worth relocating.

Now, you’ve probably heard a lot of this job-finder crap before. You’ve probably even read something similar in big occupational how-to books in your local library, attempted to put it to use in whatever recession-starved Midwestern job market you may live in, and found it all worthless. Well, the reason is because all of those books were written by New Yorkers, with their fat New Yorker publishing contracts and connections. If those books haven’t worked for you, it’s probably because those weren’t written for people in, say, Pittsburgh. They were really written for people in New York. Aha. Now it all comes together.

At any rate, that’s about all I’ve learned so far. Oh, one other thing: if you do decide to move to New York, don’t expect to be able to park your U-Haul. Parking is not a right or a privilege here; it’s a pipe dream. Unless, of course, you have a lot of money. Good luck.

Something worth noting.

I’m going to go out on a limb here, and assume most Beak readers missed something worth noting in last week’s Christian Science Monitor. The essay (which can be found here) reminds us that we’ve had over 1000 days of consecutive world peace over the last three years.

Wait. Who what what? Where were you all last month, when Israel was bombing civilians and airports, and Iraqis were busy Not Having a Civil War, Dammit, and Taliban fighters sat up in their mountain caves alternating between “we’re not dead yet” and imitations of Monty Python’s Frenchman?

But technically, none of those are interstate wars, authors Kurzman and Englehart point out. True enough, they’re right. Israel never declared war against Lebanon, only against Hezbollah, and the Lebanese government responded in a way similar to the way in which the U.S. would if al Qaeda made a public pronouncement declaring that they were attacking “blue states only.” Meanwhile, if we can all remember “mission accomplished” for a minute, although we might be at war with nearly every citizen, and are almost universally regarded as an invading army, marginally one step sociologically from rape-n-pillage, the proxy propped-up governments of Iraq and Afghanistan mean that, on an interstate level, peace reigns supreme in the Middle East.

As if we were ever really at war.

Now call me an old fashioned monarch, one who believes in both the national and the international rule of law, but it seems to me that “war” – being a very specific thing as a codified action of violence – has become a very overused term, and the more it is overused, the more its actions are propagated in situations completely inappropriate to national conduct.

There was an era of history, in fact, for most of civilized history, where armies had to be rebuilt before every war – sometimes on a battle-to-battle basis. Much like volunteer emergency services, when not at war, individuals would have day jobs. (Or, further back in time, would be landed gentry. Which is like a day job, only without indoor plumbing.) There were famous generals, but, like the original G.W., to be remembered, you’d better have options when the fighting was over. Declaring war under these circumstances was a temporary measure, and of limited duration. Even the “Hundred Years War” came to a measurable end.

Meanwhile, national law suggests that any war declared by a military Commander-in-Chief must be ratified by the all-money-controlling Legislative branch. The declaration of war, therefore, is two parts: declared military strategy and action as proposed by the Executive, and as ratified by legislation. (This is, for the moment, leaving out the necessary step of validation – examining that the rules governing war were carried out in legitimate fashion – which is, ideally, to occur after the fact by the Judicial branch.) The result of which is that the U.S., as a state entity composed of branches, has refrained from war for fifty-odd years.

As if we weren’t already feeling enthusiastic about what “world peace” looked like, we only need to reflect on the U.S. military might, weight, and use over the last fifty years to see that a non-war war (even for the moment excluding the TRUE non-war wars: War on Terror, War on Drugs, and even that “still no signs of winning” War on Poverty) is just a megalomaniacal use of force without any ability for oversight or international accountability. Phrases such as “enemy combatant” belie this disaster, as the executive branch tries vainly to create a third type of individual, one not subject to rights as a citizen as a result of being an enemy, nor due rights as a prisoner of war because, as everyone knows, we’re undergoing “world peace.” Ouch. World peace is painful. Somebody got a tranq. gun?

Now, without being a pacifist or insisting the military stand down, I do think it’s about time to get some bloody rules and values. Militaries are for making war, with a secondary modern purpose of UN-style security missions and occasional disaster relief rescue missions (see: voluntary emergency personnel). That, in and of itself, is more than a full day’s job, and to do anything else with them is both moralistically wrong and a strain (politically and physically) on the force’s assets. To see the military engaged in violence in a period of world peace violates both national and international law. Declare a war, follow the laws, and stop being such a crybaby. Or don’t, and go home. Really. Then we could see what world peace is really like.

I’m starting to wonder if the November Midterm Elections are going to turn out like Snakes on a Plane: more exciting to talk about beforehand than the actual event itself. Though the stakes really are as high as everyone says they are – those stakes being the control of the U.S. Congress – the big question now is, will the Midterms live up to the hype, or totally blow the payoff? Republicans currently dominate all three branches of American government – Executive, Legislative, and Judicial – and whether or not the Democrats will manage to regain control of Congress is a big deal, not only for those who wish to hold Washington, but also for those who would like to restore a little balance to the system.

Republicans who are running in the Midterms this year have a good reason to be nervous: their leader. A backlash has been building against President Bush, in case you hadn’t heard. Last week NPR’s All Things Considered ran a story in which an aide to Illinois Republican gubernatorial candidate Judy Topinka stated, at a Chicago fundraising event, that, “the campaign wished he’d come to raise money in the middle of the night,” suggesting that the association with the president’s agenda was damaging to Topinka’s own local chances.

CNN.com, meanwhile, ran a story on Thursday describing a shunning of Bush by Southern women in areas like Macon, Georgia, leading with the damning quote: “‘I think history will show him to be the worst president since Ulysses S. Grant,’ said Barbara Knight, a self-described Republican since birth and the mother of three. ‘He’s been an embarrassment.’” Ouch. Can I just point out, as a writer of humorous political commentaries, how totally pointless it is to bother with making fun of George Bush these days? Housewives in Macon, Georgia are busting on him! Busting on Bush in 2006 and thinking anyone is going to be impressed is like thinking you’re a badass for committing identity theft against the elderly. It’s just not cool.

The situation only got uglier on Friday, with the release of a new report by the Senate Intelligence Committee. The report declared that the CIA knew there was, “no evidence Saddam Hussein had a relationship with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi,” and that Hussein even considered al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden to be a threat to his own administration. That’s not surprising; Saddam’s an intelligent man. An intelligent man who loves his Cool Ranch Doritos.

Democratic Senator John D. Rockefeller, who sat on the committee, summed up the report as follows: “The administration exploited the deep sense of insecurity among Americans in the immediate aftermath of the September 11 attacks, leading a large majority of Americans to believe – contrary to the intelligence assessments at the time – that Iraq had a role in the 9/11 attacks.”

In response to the report, Press Secretary Tony Snow referred to the report as “nothing new,” and then followed up by asking reporters, “Why you bringin’ up old shit anyway?”

A more relevant response came from Republican Senator Pat Roberts, who dismissed the charge as, “little more than a vehicle to advance election-year political charges,” and it doesn’t matter whether or not he’s right, because the practical application is that it probably will affect the Midterms in favor of the Democrats, no matter how much G.O.P. candidates try to distance themselves from the president. With this much bad publicity, America may be gearing up for a G.O.P. purge.

Granted, we’ve come a long way from the French Revolution-style “chop off all their heads and start over with somebody else” system. The new version is a more civilized, more democratic, “vote them all out and start over with somebody else” system. But the purge isn’t limited to the Republicans; a number of incumbent Democrats may also be on the chopping block. Witness the dethroning of Joe Lieberman in last month’s Connecticut primary. Incumbency is one thing, but primary incumbency is often impenetrable, to the point where the incumbent doesn’t even bother to campaign and often no one bothers to run in opposition either, presuming that the party’s endorsement is guaranteed to go to the person who’s already holding the reigns. Lieberman was a sitting senator, and a prominent one at that. Why vote out someone who’s already proven that they can win the seat for the party, especially to an unknown like Ned Lamont? Because this is 2006, motherfucker, and all bets are off.

It’s an easy thing to overestimate the probability of major changes once you start reading these kinds of reports. If the Midterms turn out to be as drastic as such predictions claim, the results could be pretty neat. Imagine a secret meeting of a hundred newly-elected Congresspeople on the day after Election Day. “Holy shit, they really were all pissed off enough to vote us in! What are we going to do now? Those motherfuckers want results!” Any endorsement of a new candidate specifically because they’re not the standing candidate is in effect saying, “you’d better be better than that last guy, or else.”

And that’s got to be both a terrifying and an exhilarating feeling for candidates hoping to be on their way to Washington in a couple of months. Personally, if I’d known how easy it was going to be to get elected just by virtue of not having screwed up yet, I would have considered running for office. Although I’m equally glad I won’t have to face the pressure of expectation in January. So, how screwed is the G.O.P. going to be this fall? Still not a tenth as screwed as anyone who lives in Iraq, that’s for damn sure.

CNN has discovered a new way to confuse the hell out of New Yorkers. Their latest poll, released today, predicts that, two years from now, we’ll all be watching the final round of what promises to be a very ugly Presidential race between New York Senator Hillary Clinton and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani. For voters across the United States, the response will probably start off as something like, “well, that’s not as bad as we were expecting,” but in New York, reactions will likely run from “vaguely frustrated” to “bitterly conflicted.” This stems from the innate New Yorker desire to “vote for our guy” and the confusion caused when both choices become “our guy.” Giuliani is probably the only Republican candidate who could switch New York from Blue to Red, at least if he were going up against anyone other than Clinton. Similarly, just about any Democrat could beat just about any Republican for New York’s electoral votes, except maybe if they were going up against Giuliani. This is just one of the many ways in which things are going to get ugly. Or… stay ugly.

The poll was conducted separately for Democrats and Republicans, asking loyal members of each party (and “leaning independents”), from a prepared list, whom they’d most like to see run for President in 2008.

In the GOP, Giuliani kicked the crap out of the rest of his party with 31%, followed by John McCain with 20%, No Opinion with an impressive 14%, and “Uncle” Newt Gingrich with 12%. George Allen, Bill Frist, George Pataki, Mitt Romney, and Sam Brownback each got less than 10%.

In the Democratic party, Clinton scored even higher, with 37%, while Al Gore got 20%, John Kerry and John “Pretty Boy” Edwards tied for 11%, No Opinion scored 8%, while Evan Bayh, Joe Biden, Tom Vilsack, Mark Warner, Bill Richardson, and Russ Feingold all sucked ass with 3% or less.

Granted, none of these people are actually running yet, since there’s no point in even going there until after the Midterms in two months, only that these are the individuals that CNN’s pollsters consider most likely to give it a go. My editor will have pointed out by now that Barack Obama isn’t on the list at all. That’s CNN’s fault, not mine, but for the moment I’ll stand by my prediction that Obama’s going to wait until 2012 or 2016 before giving it a serious attempt.

What this tells us then, is that at the moment, Republicans like Giuliani best and McCain second-best, while Democrats like Clinton best and Gore second-best. (Actually, that’s not true. Republicans like Ronald Reagan best, and Democrats like Bill Clinton best, but for the sake of relevance, we’re going by people who are actually eligible to run. Americans in general like Samuel L. Jackson best, but he has not given any indication of desiring to run thus far.) A similar poll last December offered essentially the same results, although with the odd addition of an 18% vote for Condoleeza Rice, whose name is missing from the new poll, presumably because by 2008, the names of anyone in Bush’s cabinet will be Mud.

This isn’t the first time Clinton and Giuliani have been expected to go a few rounds in the dojo. Giuliani was scheduled to run against Clinton for New York’s open Senate seat in 2000, until prostate cancer and divorce drove him to back out and pretty much hand the seat to Clinton on a silver platter. Giuliani lost a lot of popularity in 2000, but got it all back after 9/11, and news junkies will fondly remember those journalists who “accidentally” referred to him as “President Giuliani” for that first post-9/11 week, before Bush began his tougher, spotlight-stealing Team America: World Police Program.

Clinton is expected to keep her seat in the ’06 Midterms with no trouble whatsoever. Giuliani is currently head of a GOP fundraising company called Solutions America, though from the looks of their website, it could transform into official campaign headquarters without even adjusting the graphics scheme.

While we’re speculating, there’s also the question of potential running mates for 2008. A Giuliani/McCain ticket could be amusing, but what about a Clinton/Gore ticket? Can they even do that? Is that, like, Vice Presidential Incest? Stay tuned.