THEREFORE I AM: Egads! We're killing the Great Red Spot!

By David Spates / davespates@tds.net

Jupiter’s Great Red Spot is shrinking, and I blame the Democrats. No, wait, I blame the Republicans. Or is it the Communists? No, that doesn’t sound right either. I blame the mortgage industry. I blame global warming, I blame high fructose corn syrup, and I blame the labor unions.

No? Well, OK, you tell me who’s to blame. We both know that nothing just happens in the world, and I can only presume that nothing just happens on other worlds as well.

It’s a knee-jerk world of blame. I recently read on CNN.com that Jupiter’s Great Red Spot is shrinking, and reflexively, before I thought of anything else, I wondered whom we should blame. Weird. Am I overly cynical and jaded? Perhaps, but I live in a society where everything bad is someone else’s fault, and I suppose I’ve been conditioned to think that issues come down to “their side vs. our side” confrontations.

Obviously there is nothing we Earthlings can do to affect Jupiter, which is a gazillion (a little-known math term) miles away. Nevertheless, my first thought was that Republicans would blame Obama, Democrats would blame Bush, and obese people would blame trans fat.

Warning: Science Content ...

We all learned (or should have learned) in elementary school that Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system. In fact, Jupiter is more than twice as massive as all of the other planets in our cosmological cul-de-sac — combined. Apart from the sheer size of Jupiter, the planet’s most distinctive characteristic is the Great Red Spot that scientists have determined is a persistent storm that, oh, just happens to be larger than our entire planet.

According to the CNN story, scientists who are interested in these kinds of things have determined that the spot has lost 15 percent of its diameter between 1996 and 2006. The storm has shrunk. Astronomers have been tracking the storm since the 1870s, presumably a prehistoric period in America when personal responsibility was considered an admirable trait.

So if they aren’t spinning it already, I present these talking points to the pundits of America. Just select a goat and enjoy your day.

• The Democrats are to blame. Everyone knows that ALL Democrats everywhere are interested only in forwarding their ultra-liberal agenda and taxing-and-spending us all into oblivion. The Great Red Spot is actually the nerve center of Jupiter’s robust capitalistic society, and the socialistic tendencies of Earthling Democrats have sent blue-shifted light waves through space striking the spot, thereby causing it to shrivel. You can almost hear the Jupiterians screaming, “More spot, less government!”

• The Republicans are to blame. Republicans care only about rich, white people, and the Great Red Spot is home to Jupiterians who have slightly darker complexions and don’t drive Jags. Republican trickle-down policies have no doubt benefited the ultra-rich residents of Jupiter’s relatively calm northern hemisphere, the suburban gated communities of the planet, but the working-poor in the Great Red Spot are shafted again.

• The mortgage and banking industries are to blame. I don’t understand the science behind it, but the Great Red Spot serves as Jupiter’s 401(k) plan. Jupiter had hoped to retire to Boca Raton, FL, in a few hundred eons, but the mortgage lenders’ and bankers’ greed and mismanagement have caused the spot to shrink significantly over the years. (Personally, I think Jupiter should quit whining about its 15-percent smaller spot. I would be absolutely thrilled if my 401(k) were down by a mere 15 percent.)

• Michael Vick and the Octo-Mom are to blame. I can’t explain exactly how they are to blame, but I just presume they did something that someone didn’t like.

• Earthling’s carbon emissions are to blame. Burning fossil fuels not only has unnaturally warmed our globe, but in a peculiar twist of Newton’s “for every action there’s an equal and opposite reaction” law, it seems that the added heat to our globe is sucked directly from the Great Red Spot. It’s just a little something to remember the next time you hop into your 10-cylinder Jag, you filthy, greedy Republican. No, wait, Democrat. Communist? Illegal immigrant? Special-interest lobbyist? Whoever you are, I blame you.

I’ve got an idea. Let’s turn this whole thing around and blame everything bad that happens in our lives on the Great Red Spot! Curse you, Great Red Spot! You and your 400 mph anticyclonic winds!

I hope you’re happy with yourself, Great Red Spot. You’re ruining America.

David Spates is a Knoxville resident and Crossville Chronicle contributor whose column is published each Tuesday. He can be reached at davespates@tds.net.

Text Only