I suppose I should be bothered about war or injustiice or something equally heinous, but right now, I am instead appalled by the fact that the media seem to be habitually refering to 2003 UB₃₁₃, which is arguably our twelfth planet, by its unofficial, informal, and utterly inappropriate nickname, "Xena" - as in "Xena, Warrior Princess".

Don't get me wrong - I don't mind the worthy toilers at Mount Palomar having their geeky fun amongst themselves with this - I am quite in favor of geeky fun myself.   But the name has been taken up by many - especially newspapers and, tellingly, television - as if it were the actual God-damned name of the thing.

As if they thought it would be reasonable for a planet to be named "Xena" - after a television character.

Re-read that last sentence a few times until the significance of this fact sinks in completely.   You'll know you've fully digested this tidbit when your extremities go numb and you start killing people and other living things.

O my brethren (and, uh, cistern?) this is very bad.   All things grand and large have traditionally taken the names of ancient Deities and, well, celestial beings, in line with the stature and, ahem, gravity of their high and supralunary station.  At times, demi-gods and heroes have been admitted into this pantheon, but mere-human worthies have typically been content to have a lunar crater or a park bench or an off-ramp dedicated to their beloved shades.   And these me-hums were not even fictional.   For Christ's sake, we used to worship entities like 2003 UB₃₁₃!   Perhaps we still should.   These are the ornaments of the night sky, which is the shared vista of all, from the slave to the emporer.   These are the large-scale features of natural - and ipso facto, of divine - reality.   These are entities which have inspired our philosophers, poets, and mystics; which have driven advances in mathematics and the sciences; which have fueled the progress of civilization (Galileo, anyone?); by which we have dreamed and yearned and wondered, and by which we have been awed and humbled and uplifted.  This is real, honest-to-whatever, really real reality here!   It appears that we have declined to the point where the lumpen-proletariat are thought to have lost the ability to discern the stars by which Ulysses steered o'er the wine-dark seas from the "stars" on Hollywood Boulevard.   Put differently, they think we can't tell myth from commodity.   They think we can't tell illusion from reality.

Undoubtedly, they are right.