An Elementary Perspective: Shooting Stars
My daughter Julia came to live with me two years ago for school. It isn't easy for me to raise someone who is practically my nine-year-old clone, but that is exactly what I find I am doing with Julia. Through our judo and soccer practices, reading, writing and arithmetic, Girl Scouts, and Japanese language classes, we occasionally have a conversation that connects us both in a sometimes deep and usually humorous way. Hopefully, you will be as entertained as we are.
Shooting Stars
Julia and Daddy are walking home from school. Julia has learned something at school and, per custom, she wants to know everything about it from Daddy…
Julia: Daddy, what’s a meteor shower?
Daddy: Well, a meteor is this space rock and sometimes they come directly to the Earth. When they hit the atmosphere, they catch fire and shoot across the sky. A meteor shower is when a whole bunch do that at the same time.
Julia: Well, then, what’s a “shooting star?”
Daddy: Um, I think it’s the same thing.
Julia: Well, why didn’t you say that in the first place? Why did you have to say, “It’s a space rock that blah, blah, blah?”
Daddy: Sigh.
Dave Buck
2:14 pm on Tuesday, December 18, 2012
Shawn, Bryanna and Kurt,
Not trying to be intentionally critical, but given this recent blog was posted on Tuesday, December 18, in the wake of the Newtown, CT, shooting tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School on Friday, December 14, using a headline with the two words "elementary" and "shooting" in it shows a tremendous lack of good judgment and sensitivity. You should have known better and, instead, simply delayed this blog for a later date, in my humble and imperfect opinion.
Dave Buck
Mike K
12:03 am on Wednesday, December 19, 2012
Agree with Dave.
JBunny
12:50 am on Wednesday, December 19, 2012
There was a meteor shower. The kid is in elementary school (same district as my kids). Y'all need to turn off the MSNBC and Anderson Cooper 360. If you need to criticize someone about insensitivity, I'm sure Mike Huckabee is still available.
Mike K
6:14 am on Wednesday, December 19, 2012
What meteor shower would that be? It wasn't news about a meteor shower we could watch.
Seriously? You are defending poor taste/judgement/editorial license?
And defending it by saying 'well here is this example of someone with worse taste/judgement/editorial license, so we should give The Patch a pass on this one?
Remember, they are trained, professional journalists. Huckabee is a washed up politician desperately seeking a second career. Big difference. Not the same.
Ellisville Shopper
7:23 am on Wednesday, December 19, 2012
Subscribe to spaceweather.com and get alerts. It is not the job of the MSM to keep you informed of run of the mill space event.
Space Weather News for Dec. 13, 2012
http://spaceweather.com
GEMINID METEOR SHOWER: Earth is passing through a stream of debris from "rock comet" 3200 Phaethon, source of the annual Geminid meteor shower. Around the world, observers are counting as many as 60 shooting stars per hour, a number which could increase sharply as the shower peaks on the night of Dec. 13-14. Wherever you live, the best time to look is during the dark hours between local midnight and sunrise. Visit http://spaceweather.com for sky maps, photos, and updates.
"Sandy Hook Elementary School on Friday, December 14, using a headline with the two words "elementary" and "shooting" in it shows a tremendous lack of good judgment and sensitivity."
For crimeny sakes, there actually was a meteor shower on going.
I find the objection in quotes absolutely ridiculous.
Marvin J
7:13 am on Wednesday, December 19, 2012
Didn't anyone see the memo? Homophones be damned! We started calling them "turbo-speed flying stars" after this weekend because a word can only be linked to one single thing. (Humor people, try some)
Not to knock you guys off your high horses but I've heard several times that the blogs on this site aren't written by the journalists. Theyre written by people like me and you. God forbid Shawn, a PARENT, want to offer something else to talk about than the death of children.
Bryanna Hampton
9:31 am on Wednesday, December 19, 2012
Thanks everyone for your comments. As a regular weekly blogger on Patch, with a consistent title of "An Elementary Perspective," we continued to run Shawn's blog this week without altering. I'm sure after reading the blog it is evident that no harm was meant by it, and the Geminid meteor shower was a relevant and timely occurrence in which he and his daughter found humor. As we are all struggling to understand the horrible events that occurred last week in Connecticut, the content of the post is not insensitive to the families and friends directly affected or otherwise.
Our Local Voices section is populated by readers like you wishing to share their thoughts, tips of the trade, humor and perspective. Please let me know if you have any questions or if you would like to start blogging on Patch.
Mike K
2:59 pm on Wednesday, December 19, 2012
With all respect, perhaps Shawn should have actually used the words 'Geminid meteor Shower' in his article if he intended the context to be important. Maybe a link to the spaceweather site as another reader provided. Just a thought. Article was OK, but without the timely context reference, other (unfortunate) timely contexts were implied by the title.