Tough Rocks
“Two exoplanets proven hard to kill!”
A headline like that promises a thrill.
“The two survived their dying star’s last gasp,”
It says, but this is difficult to grasp.
The parent star turned red, puffed up, and died.
It was assumed the planets would be fried.
Not only did they ride the scorching out,
But played a game of turn and turn about.
For sure the babies lost a hunk of bulk,
But also took a bite of bloated hulk
From the giant, their new-found nemesis.
They say there are few instances of this.
But here’s something that truly gives me pause:
Our own Sun’s contract has an exit clause.
In some five billion Christmases from now
Our Sun will have a red-faced, holy cow.
When starved of hydrogen it will get gross,
And gobble up the planets that are close.
The dear sustaining star that gave us birth
Will swallow Mercury, Venus, and Earth.
It will collapse into a dwarfish thing,
Forgetful of its planetary fling.
Although this fate seems very far away,
The long run’s getting shorter every day.
Should we pray? Of course! It does no harm.
A fervent prayer may prove a lucky charm.
Another strategy that may be sound:
Find a different star to orbit round.
The long and short of this sad tale, however,
Is now, nor then, there’s no such thing as never.
Reference
http://www.livescience.com/17606-survivor-alien-planets-dying-star.html
(Copyright 2018 James Mansfield Nichols. All rights reserved.)
EthicalDative 
“When did you stop beating your wife?”
“Through his mysterious and appealing lectures, they were guided away from the cold sobriety of genuine knowledge into the picturesque realms of pseudoscience….” (Grete de Francesco, “The Power of the Charlatan,” quoted by John Ganz in an opinion piece in the NYTimes)
When the title of this comment occurred to me, I thought it was from some old comedic shtick, akin to “Take my wife… please.” I have no idea when or where I first heard it. On impulse I Googled “When did you stop beating your wife?” It came up as an example of the “loaded question.”
For me, it symbolizes a type of headline that seems to be a staple of clickbait journalism: The provocative assertion posed interrogatively. It’s a come hither device to draw the surfer into an inflamed or tendentious opinion piece. It’s of a piece with headlines that taunt “You won’t believe…,” and those that scream words like “destroy” and “shred” to proclaim the outcome of a tweet skirmish.
I understand the drive to capture audience. It’s hard to write dispassionately and disinterestedly about a topic. Unvarnished reflection isn’t always shiny. The principled urge to write without embellishment fights with the yearning to be noticed.
My contrivance vice tends to be to let a soupçon of swagger creep in, a saucy dash of erudition, wit, or even modesty. Such strutting, besides playing the reader unfairly, compensates for under-confidence in the face of the sheer volume of quality blogging that’s out there.
I resolve to try to: (1) Strive for greater allusiveness and economy of expression; (2) Err oftener on the side of understatement; (3) Refrain from snuffing my own candle.
(Copyright 2018 James Mansfield Nichols. All rights reserved.)