An astronomical loss in 2006

We may remember 2006 as the year we lost

a planet.

When the year started, the Solar System had nine planets. When it ended, we had only eight.

Pluto was downgraded last year to a “dwarf planet.”

Pluto was like the kid who goes out for the team even though he’s smaller and much slower than everyone else.

Despite the demotion, Pluto continues his 248-year-long orbit around the sun.

I expect him to stay loyal to the Solar System because he’s just that kind of a guy.

People we lost in ‘06

The Associated Press sent out a list on New Year’s Day of notable people who died in 2006. It filled almost 10 typed pages.

The most memorable came at the end of the year: Former President Gerald Ford, whose straight-talking manner was so important to modern American history, and Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, who was hanged for crimes against his people.

But 2006 also saw the deaths of Corretta Scott King, who helped her husband lead the civil rights movement, and Betty Friedan, whose writings helped start the modern women’s movement.

Politics lost one-time U.N. ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick and former Texas Governor Ann Richards.

Economics lost Harvard liberal John Kenneth Galbraith and University of Chicago conservative Milton Friedman.

Journalism lost “60 Minutes” correspondent Ed Bradley, former CBS news director Frank Stanton, retired New York Times editor Abe Rosenthal, former Los Angeles Times publisher Otis Chandler, and Louis Rukeyser, who made financial news fun on public television.

Sports lost cigar-smoking coach Red Auerbach, who built the Boston Celtics into the dominant professional team of the late 1950s and the 1960s, two-time Olympic decathlon champion Bob Mathias, former Michigan football coach Bo Schembechler, long-time DePaul University basketball coach Ray Meyer, Negro League baseball star Buck O’Neil, and Lamar Hunt, who helped start the American Football League, helped manage the merger with the National Football League, owned the Kansas City Chiefs and coined term “Super Bowl.”

Time magazine got it wrong

Time magazine named all of us as its person of the year. We won because we each can influence the world through technology.

Time named a collective person because it found no individual who had enough influence on the world to win.

Time should have given the award to Fidel Castro, who had more influence from speculation about his health than anyone in other ways, It would have been a lifetime-achievement award for holding the world’s most powerful nation at bay for 48 years, for surviving after his prime sponsor disappeared, for building a network of allies throughout Latin America, and for keeping the love of his people despite their lack of freedom.