Buy me a chai?

Okay, guys. It's the end of the month, and so it's begging season. With seven days to go, I have enough money for only ONE chai-chai-latte. If you love me, maybe you want to buy me a chai. Maybe you don't, but it'd be a whole lot cooler if you did... If you aren't down with PayPal, Emily's collecting cash-cash-greenbacks and forwarding it on to me. My love is unconditional though, so don't feel like you have to.

That said.

I don't know if the confusion surrounding the official status of Pluto as a planet or a not-planet is confined to people over the age of... twenty or so, but I know that I'm never sure exactly where things stand. I know that popular informed opinion says no, but I'm not clear on the "official" position. What are children being told about this controversial issue? Is the general public's uncertainty being passed on to the next generation, or are kids being given a clear yes or no?

I'm not sure. BUT, here's what I do know: Barnes & Noble offers for sale a model of the solar system as an overhead light - the role of the sun, of course, being played by the light itself and the planets attached to radiating spokes that rotate around said solar substitute. It is not, in case you're interested (as I was), to scale, which makes sense, as the proportions of our corner of the galaxy - as far as I know (which isn't especially far) - do not lend themselves to practical, space-sensitive applications. (Space as in area, not space as in outer-.) But I digress. The point is that this model comes complete with... wait for it... eight planets.

Problem solved, and a hearty thanks to Barnes & Noble, for clearing that up.