Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, March 17, 1994 TAG: 9403160049
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Joel Achenbach
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
"Hello I am a marijuana smoker. I believe that this drug, as it is called, in the most part is not harmful to your health I have been smoking for about 10 years now. I stop when I want, and un like alcohol it is not adicking . . . "i
Dear 23-year-old: We hate to tell you this, but you've been adicked.
Next question comes from Randall Z., of East Pointe, Mich., who writes, "I've heard that in a few years, seven of our planets are going to line up. And if this happens it will cause disasters worldwide. What will happen to the world with the gravity pull and all?"
Dear Randall: Planetary alignments are usually a sham. The planets don't really line up!
For example, the Grand Alignment of 1982, which was supposed to result in cataclysm as a result of something called the Jupiter Effect, was in fact not particularly grand. What happened was merely that most of the planets were arrayed across about 90 degrees of arc in the sky. So they weren't aligned at all, they were just somewhat segregated in the sky.
It is true that there will be an "alignment" again in the year 2000. (We will let everyone know when they can stop calling it "the year 2000" and simply call it "2000.") On May 5, 2000, the sun, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn will be arrayed over about 30 degrees of arc. The Earth will be on the opposite side of the sun from those planets. That means you probably won't be able to see any of them, because they'll be washed out in the sun's light.
As for gravity-induced disasters: Don't worry, you won't be ripped sideways out of the stuffed chair in your living room. LeRoy Doggett, a U.S. Naval Observatory astronomer, investigated the alleged Jupiter Effect back in 1982 to see if these alignments actually exert much gravitational force. He found that if we could perfectly line up all the planets to generate the maximum tidal force on Earth, it would be about 0.0001 of the ordinary tidal forces that we have every day due to the sun and moon.
Doggett says the alignment in May 2000 hasn't been named yet. Obviously we should christen it the Millennial Alignment, though we also kind of like the idea of calling it the Alignment of Doom.
Monty M. of Tacoma, Wa., asks, "Is it ever really too cold to snow? If that is true, what is all that white stuff at the poles?"
Dear Monty: That's not white stuff, it is merely the absence of dark stuff.
OK, so it is snow. But keep in mind that when it snows at the poles the stuff stays there and doesn't melt. Antarctica is a desert, trust us, but it's an old desert and a sprinkle now and then really adds up over time.
It can snow even when it's 20 below, but it's not common, because when it's that cold you are usually in the middle of an Arctic air mass, and those sorts of things are very dry. Your big snows occur when warm, moist equatorial air moves north into colder latitudes. Why is cold air dryer than warm air? Good, but boring, question, and we don't know the answer, so let's just say it is because of "density."
A reader in Rockville, Md., asks, "Why hasn't natural selection eliminated homosexuality?"
Dear reader: People find pleasure in all sorts of things that don't directly spawn offspring. We're sexually diverse. Even the terms we use, like "heterosexual" and "homosexual" imply a standardization that doesn't really exist. The point being that there are a lot of "unproductive" sexual activities that natural selection hasn't eliminated.
But it's still a good question, and there are several possible explanations.
For starters, we'd point out that homosexuality isn't a classic genetic trait, like blue eyes. Yes, there is evidence linking homosexuality to genetic factors, but it's not that simple, because there are also hormonal and environmental factors. Human sexuality is largely shaped in the womb by hormones, and hormones aren't precision instruments. There's some slack built into the system. You might say that becoming "heterosexual" or "homosexual" isn't an exact science.
Another thing to think about: Homosexuals do sometimes have children. Moreover, they play a role in their families. Rutgers University anthropologist Lionel Tiger told us, "Many homosexual people are very much involved in their relatives anyway and there's a phenomenon in biology called helpers-at-the-nest." Raising two nephews is as good as raising one son, says Tiger.
He had some other theories that were really interesting and potentially highly offensive and so we'll just let them sit in our computer for a few months or centuries until we find the right time to spit them out.
Still More Trouble: In the feedback category, we have Terry J. of Holly, Mich., sending an angry letter about a joke we made featuring the line "adventures don't kill people, guns kill people." He wants to know why we would make such an "irresponsible" comment, and he writes, "To take up as little of your time as possible (so that you can put more thought into your next article) you can just check whichever statement applies: 1) Thought that it was funny. 2) Didn't put any thought into it. 3) Anti-gun crusader. 4) Just like to make contemptible statements. 5) All of the above."
Dear Terry: 6) Born evil.
by CNB