Kavanaugh - Astrological

A quick look at the astrological side of Brett Kavanaugh. I did, initially, take a passing glance at Brett Kavanaugh's natal chart - a 12 noon version as time of birth, unfortunately, remains unknown. My first, and mistaken, thought before emergence of the current spate of investigations and accusations, on seeing an Aquarius trio of planets including natal Sun, was that perhaps Kavanaugh would be another Justice along the same lines as Chief Justice John Roberts, who by the way has a birthday on the same day as my own, 27 January - different year. I've since come to different conclusions.

Brett Kavanaugh born on 12 February 1965 in Washington DC. 12 noon chart, time of birth unknown.

Looking more closely at Kavanaugh's chart now, digging a little deeper into those Aquarius planets I noted that his natal Sun, at 23 Aquarius, is conjunct Fixed Star Deneb Algedi. How is that interpreted?

With Sun: Loss through false friends, high position but final disgrace and ruin, loss of money or property, sickness, worry through children. [Robson*, p.159.]
http://www.constellationsofwords.com/stars/DenebAlgedi.html

I also noted there could be (depending on exact Moon position) a Yod (Finger of Fate), a formation linking a possible sextile between Moon in Cancer and a conjunction of Uranus and Pluto in Virgo, to two quincunx (150 degree) aspects to Mercury and/or Venus in Aquarius. I'd see this formation, if it does exist, depending on time of birth, as an indication of an overly sensitive Cancer Moon being modified (corrupted even) by the eccentricity of Uranus and the potential darkness of Pluto, then emerging as inborn attitudes via natal Mercury and Venus.

Here's a good, and recent, rundown of Kavanaugh's natal chart by an astrologer I've admired since my first blogging days - Lynn Hayes, who now writes at Astrodynamics.

The astrology of Brett Kavanaugh

Saturday & Sundry Words on this Week's Kavanaugh Circus

Although I've lived in the USA for 14 years, I still retain innate Britishness - sufficiently so to agree with the following piece on this week's Supreme Court nomination circus. I worked for a quarter century in a government department, in the UK, where judges and lawyers were main players. I gained a sincere and abiding respect for those people. Measuring them against the types in high office in the courts here, I shudder.


The Kavanaugh Hearings Encapsulate the Rampant Emotionalism of American Politics
by Benjamin Studebaker.

Opening paragraph:

The British have a visceral hatred for Donald Trump. It’s not because of his positions on immigration or tax policy–there are plenty of European politicians who are at least as far right as Trump is, substantively. No, it’s because of the way Trump presents himself. He’s combative, he gets angry, he makes flippant, emotional remarks. When British politicians show emotion it exposes them as weak, out of control, and unstable. If a British politician shouts or cries in public–especially in a formal setting–it’s embarrassing. It’s not proper behaviour. Everyone in Britain knows, from an early age, that this is just not how politicians are supposed to behave. They like their leaders calm, stoic, controlled. This is less true than it used to be–for a time, Tony Blair got away with wearing his heart on his sleeve. But there were always those who made fun of it, who thought it “un-British”. Whenever a British politician makes an emotional display and gets away with it, there is a chunk of British people who write nervous columns about creeping Americanisation. Having spent some years in the UK, I can spot the kind of American politics they hate a mile off. And it has never been so blatant, so in-your-face, as this senate hearing for Brett Kavanaugh...............

Closing paragraphs:

That’s the level at which we’ve been making personnel decisions as a country, and it’s landed us a congress full of emotionally manipulative con artists, a president who knows nothing about statecraft, and now a judicial nominee who helps presidents torture people and then lies about having done that to save his own skin. And the only question senators are asking themselves as they consider whether or not to vote for this reactionary patsy is “Do the voters at home like Kavanaugh? Do they think he’s a nice guy? Would they have a beer with him?”


Disgraceful. Disgusting. Despicable.

Still on the Kavanaugh issue, this excellent answer at Quora to the question
Why is Brett Kavanaugh a bad choice for the Supreme Court?
was written by Judy Klass, Truman Scholar, D.Phil Political Science/Latin American Studies. Ms Klass has kindly given me permission to post her words here.

Before any women stepped forward, Kavanaugh reminded me of Clarence Thomas. He’s that shallow and callow. His repetitive, weaselly, evasive answers to Senators’ questions annoy me. There are some men (John Roberts comes to mind) most of whose opinions on the Court I violently disagree with, and yet they have gravitas and comport themselves with dignity; they at least seem smart and thoughtful enough to be Supreme Court justices. Before we heard about the binge drinking of Kavanaugh, and the gambling addiction (all that money spent on baseball tickets? Really?), and him damaging someone’s truck while a drunken senior at Yale and refusing to apologize or pay for it, and the sexual allegations — before we’d heard all that, there was a snotty, bratty, inauthentic quality to Kavanaugh that I found quite off-putting. I went to prep school in the 1980s. I watched him and thought: I went to school with that kid. I know that type. Yuk.

Senator Leahy and others exposed the ways he lied before the Senate at earlier confirmation hearings for a lower judgeship — how he lied about whether he’d been part of W. administration conversations about the legality of torture (he said he wasn’t part of those talks and he was) and his disingenuous answers about illegally obtained information on Democrats that was shared with him … It just left a bad taste in my mouth.

Then I learned that he was the one pushing the garbage story about Vince Foster. Vince Foster battled depression, and was used to the more gentle, small-town feel of political life in Arkansas, and was overwhelmed by life in Washington DC, and was smeared by the Wall Street Journal, and committed suicide, and it caused his family great pain when Republicans pushed the BS story that the Clintons killed him. We learned during Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings that Kavanaugh was pushing that BS story about Foster harder than anyone; he wouldn’t let it go. And then we learned he was the one pushing for both President Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky to be forced to answer graphic, detailed, humiliating sexual questions about a consensual relationship that she initiated, he broke off and that they both preferred to keep private. That sewer bilge that was such a distinctive part of (college rapist enabler) Ken Starr’s investigation … apparently, a lot of it originated with Brett Kavanaugh.

If you watch Monica Lewinsky’s TED talk, she talks about how being publicly slut-shamed ruined her life. She compares herself to the Rutgers student who was gay and had his first sexual encounter, then learned his roommate had filmed and broadcast it — and the student who had been humiliated jumped off the George Washington Bridge. It was Brett Kavanaugh and Ken Starr who played the roommate’s role in her life, not the Clintons; Starr and Kavanaugh slut-shamed her and President Clinton, both. I’ve been thinking about that for the last few days: about Julie Swetnick’s statement that Kavanaugh loved to talk in crude, ugly, sexual terms, and talked about women in demeaning ways … and I thought of that TED talk when I read how Kavanaugh’s freshman college roommate said it would be totally in character for Kavanaugh and his crowd to have gotten Debbie Ramirez drunk on purpose and done what she says he/they did to her.

One of these personas was his prep school/frat boy incarnation, and one was his self-righteous, hyper-partisan, moralizing Republican lawyer incarnation — but are the two personas really all that different? Each persona adds up to a shame-challenged, potty-mouthed guy, an enemy of human privacy and dignity, into rude, crude humiliation games …

It’s unprecedented that Republicans refused to release SO MANY documents about Kavanaugh’s time in the W administration for Senators to consider before voting on his nomination. And the way they are refusing to have the FBI investigate credible claims of sexual assault is equally unprecedented — and a testament to how little faith they have in him, and how much they think they and he have to hide.

Seeing him yelling at the start of the hearing today, a hearing he asked for, calling it a disgrace, wallowing in self-pity, snippily scolding Democrats, showing no respect for US Senators … It was the same callow brat, just demonstrating more of his ugly side in public. He’s a Republican Party stooge, a party hack, a man who was all for destroying a president for purely partisan reasons, who then, with breathtaking hypocrisy, did a 180 and said oh, a president could commit any crime and still should not get prosecuted for it while in office … He’s Trump’s safety, his Get Out of Jail Free card, and it stinks to high heaven.

And if Republicans go ahead and hustle him through, and confirm this lying, boorish, unstable, contemptible creature to the United States Supreme Court, I won’t be a bit surprised.

After I'd prepared the above yesterday, what happened next?

Senate Republicans voted to advance the confirmation of US supreme court nominee Brett Kavanaugh after an extraordinary display of 11th-hour drama that saw a key Republican senator break ranks and call for an FBI investigation into the sexual assault allegations against Donald Trump’s pick for the Supreme Court.

Just before the Senate judiciary committee voted 11-10, along strict party lines, to send Kavanaugh’s nomination to the floor for the full chamber’s consideration, Republican Senator Jeff Flake (Arizona) announced he would support a “limited” FBI investigation and threatened to oppose Kavanaugh if there was no further examination of the allegations against him.

President Donald Trump said he has ordered the FBI to "conduct a supplemental investigation to update Judge Kavanaugh’s file" but clarified that he wanted it "limited in scope and completed in less than one week."

So on we go, the circus remains in town for another week.

Saturday & Sundry Pieces of Interest

 Mabel Lucie Attwell's illustration

Why the Democrats Are Also to Blame for Brett Kavanaugh by Joshua Frank at Counterpunch this week:

Snips

If the Democrats cannot cobble together a solidified opposition to Trump’s most egregious policies, why would the Kavanaugh nomination be any different? Instead of drawing up a visionary blueprint that aims to excite a true grassroots movement against the corporate establishment, they continue to shiver in the face of internal upheaval as they have with the recent victory of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in New York.


The Democrats don’t control the Senate for a reason. They have not galvanized the majority of Americans who oppose the Wall Street takeover of our government and the perpetual wars that prop it up. Why? Because the Democrats don’t actually oppose either. They aren’t inept, Democrats are simply professional defenders of the status-quo................

Remember, this is the same party that demonized Bernie Sanders’ supporters and believed the movement he sparked and the issues he raised were unworthy of recognition.

This is the same party that rubber-stamped the endless wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, the slaughters in Libya, Yemen, and more. This is the same party that backs Israel’s brutal occupation of Paletine. This is the same party that overwhelmingly backed the PATRIOT Act and the ongoing evisceration of our civil liberties. This is the same party that dismantled the welfare system while increasing corporate welfare. This is the same party that claims to believe in climate change but hasn’t done a damn thing to stop Big Oil. This is the same party that supports the death penalty, mass incarceration and a militarized Police State. This is the same party that claims to support women’s rights in the US but outright ignores the horrible working conditions and abuse their neoliberal policies inflict upon the women, many of them girls, who toil away in sweatshops around the globe in the name of profit.

They will whine that they’ve been steamrolled by Trump and the Republicans, but shed no tears for the Democrats. You can’t be steamrolled if you aren’t even standing in front of the machine that’s about to crush us.

The New Age of Astrology

In a stressful, data-driven era, many young people find comfort and insight in the zodiac—even if they don’t exactly believe in it. An interesting piece by Julie Beck in The Atlantic earlier this year.

It begins:

Astrology is a meme, and it’s spreading in that blooming, unfurling way that memes do. On social media, astrologers and astrology meme machines amass tens or hundreds of thousands of followers, people joke about Mercury retrograde, and categorize “the signs as ...” literally anything: cat breeds, Oscar Wilde quotes, Stranger Things characters, types of french fries. In online publications, daily, weekly, and monthly horoscopes, and zodiac-themed listicles flourish.
This isn’t the first moment astrology’s had and it won’t be the last. The practice has been around in various forms for thousands of years. More recently, the New Age movement of the 1960s and ’70s came with a heaping helping of the zodiac.

In the decades between the New Age boom and now, while astrology certainly didn’t go away—you could still regularly find horoscopes in the back pages of magazines—it “went back to being a little bit more in the background,” says Chani Nicholas, an astrologer based in Los Angeles. “Then there’s something that’s happened in the last five years that’s given it an edginess, a relevance for this time and place, that it hasn’t had for a good 35 years. Millennials have taken it and run with it.”

Lots more at the link!

A recent challenge at Quora brought about many answers, all entertaining: Remove one letter from the name of a TV show or movie. What's the premise of the new show or movie?
Here's one of the first, and more compact answers I stumbled upon, it's by a Quora friend Charlie Anne Excell, who gave her permission for its use on my blog.

I enjoyed the chuckles:

••NOW••SHOWING••

Mad Ma - Crazy mother of a hero takes the car keys, for pimpin' her car again. Gets to bingo quicker tho..

Forrest Gum - Mentally challenged son learns to blow impressive bubbles, which rise & save him after falls off shrimp boat. Mum likes it, she really really likes it…

One With The Wind - Frankly, people not giving a damn about openly farting during their public meditations.

Lord Of The Rigs - Tall hatted magician helps hairy-footed kids, hairy-faced equestrians and pointy-eared models drive an evil semi-trailer smack into a fireplace.

0 Shades Of Grey - Smartass guy and oddball chick sit round knitting, reading the phonebook and yawning. (I know.. I removed a number, not “a letter!” Sheesh, CHILL!, hava cold shower..)

Crocodile Undee - ‘Tables are turned' as U.S. journo chick pervs at reptile wrangler's bum cheeks in U.S. thong undees, as he gratuitously bends to look in water for a croc.


Star War - Basic type space movie. Doubt there'll be a sequel.

COMING ATTRACTIONS: Harry Otter; Py Kids; The Leg Movie; SharkNad!; When Harry Et Sally; Fiddler On The Roo; and, Itchcock.

NEXT RIGHT TURN...?

Once upon a time I lived in a land where judges or justices were not supposed to be, overtly, members of a political party, or particular religion. Maybe you did too. They did not talk publicly about their religion or political views. Their job was applying the law, interpreting the law even-handedly, whatever the political flavour of the nation's government happened to be at the time. Judges or justices were appointed for their excellent record, their wide experience and their intellectual brilliance. Nobody even knew, for sure, their political leanings. Their decisions were almost always clear, trusted and highly respected, even when there was room for some disagreement. In the USA, though, the Supreme Court is politicized and religion-led, which seems to me to be at root of all recent problems with their rulings, as well as their apparent inability to write clear, concise decisions.

While I have no respect for Hobby Lobby and the Green Family who created and incorporated it, and my respect for the Supreme Court of the United States is dwindling rapidly, I am surprised (perhaps ought not to be), at some early misunderstandings appearing as a result of the SCOTUS ruling in the Hobby Lobby case. Threads of outrage, making some points with which I agree wholeheartedly, but some which were quite incorrect, have been all over the net this week. As usual in the USA everything becomes hyper-hyperbolic.

Again, I hate to say anything even vaguely in favour of Hobby Lobby or SCOTUS, but facts are facts. Hobby Lobby and the Green family are not objecting to contributing towards all contraceptive methods. What Hobby Lobby will not cover are the four contraceptive methods listed below. These, Hobby Lobby owners fear, are abortifacients - they believe that these methods are "tantamount to abortion because they can prevent embryos from implanting in the womb". Most commenters say they are mistaken. The four methods to which Hobby Lobby owners object:

Plan B (“The Morning After Pill”)
Ella (a similar type of “emergency contraception”)
Copper Intra-Uterine Device
IUD with progestin

(How odd, then, that Hobby Lobby's healthcare plan pre-2012, pre- the Affordable Care Act, included the first two of those 4 items.)

Other forms of contraception are still covered, for instance:

Male condoms
Female condoms
Diaphragms with spermicide
Sponges with spermicide
Cervical caps with spermicide
Spermicide alone
Birth-control pills with estrogen and progestin (“Combined Pill)
Birth-control pills with progestin alone (“The Mini Pill)
Birth control pills (extended/continuous use)
Contraceptive patches
Contraceptive rings
Progestin injections
Implantable rods
Vasectomies
Female sterilization surgeries
Female sterilization implants.

But wait.....that was in relation to Hobby Lobby's case. The Supreme court, the next day, 1 July, confirmed that its decision a day earlier extending religious rights to closely held corporations applies broadly to the contraceptive coverage requirement in the new health care law, not just to the handful of methods the justices considered in their ruling. (See HERE)

The justices did not comment in leaving in place lower court rulings in favor of businesses that object to covering all 20 methods of government-approved contraception.

Oklahoma-based Hobby Lobby Inc. and a Pennsylvania furniture maker won their court challenges Monday in which they refused to pay for two emergency contraceptive pills and two intrauterine devices.

Tuesday's orders apply to companies owned by Catholics who oppose all contraception. Cases involving Colorado-based Hercules Industries Inc., Illinois-based Korte & Luitjohan Contractors Inc. and Indiana-based Grote Industries Inc. were awaiting action pending resolution of the Hobby Lobby case.

They are among roughly 50 lawsuits from profit-seeking corporations that object to the contraceptive coverage requirement in their health plans for employees. Contraception is among a range of preventive services that must be included in the health plans, at no extra cost to workers.

The justices also ordered lower courts that ruled in favor of the Obama administration to reconsider those decisions in light of Monday's 5-4 decision.

Saying anything at all in SCOTUS' favour is now impossible. The whole caboodle is blatantly against Separation of Church and State. Christian groups are being allowed to dictate to their employees on matters which should be immune to outside interference. Some see this as a "slippery slope" - actually I think we're already half-way down that slope and gaining speed. Family planning clinics being closed down, "Christian" employers dictating to their female employees on matters of birth control; several new abortion restrictions also became law this week in at least five states (detail HERE). A road sign in the near distance says:
Handmaid's Tale & Theocracy NEXT RIGHT TURN!

The most significant factor is that this recent ruling of SCOTUS grants corporations religious freedom, along with the "person hood" they already enjoy. What next?

First Female US Prez? & SCOTUS on Hobby Lobby

Something that brought on a mini-rant from me in 2007 is bubbling up once again, with 2016 in the far distance, but just about visible. Hillary Clinton. Yeah, yeah - she's female. Feminists with a capital "F" (which I'm not) keep on about how right and good it would be for the first woman president of the USA to follow the first African-American president of the USA. Tommyrot!!! Absolute wrong thinking, in my opinion. The USA's presidential position is not there to provide a platform for celebration of equality of the sexes (or races). It's the right person that's important, not that person's gender or ethnicity. Hillary Clinton is a "hawk" (“hawks” are those who advocate an aggressive foreign policy based on strong military power). How very feminine! She's also a corporatist, and scarcely more than a fraction of a degree left of conservative. How can this be thought desirable by anyone calling themselves Democrat or Liberal?

It's looking ominously as though Hillary Clinton will run in 2016. Most of those who seem to be in the know think that, if she runs, she'll be nominated, never mind who else dares to run against her from her own party. I use the word "dares" advisedly. It is, apparently, a done deal. Whether she could win in the General Election is another matter.

Snip from 2007 rant:

Leading off from this topic is something currently in spotlight in the USA - the possibility of a woman president.

If mainstream media and the corporations get their way, Hillary Clinton will be the next US Prez. Some people think that a woman president would be something to celebrate - just because she is a woman. Huh?? Why?

Yes, women have been held back for too many years, and still have a legendary glass ceiling to negotiate before they can get a look-in in many spheres. That does not automatically mean that a woman who manages to negotiate the glassware would make a good president or a good anything. There's as much chance of a woman being a good president as there is a man - good/bad = 50/50.

Let's not get all starry eyed about women in charge. They are no better and no worse than men - it's just that there are fewer of them in that position. My own life and work experience has led me to trust women in charge less than men - due purely to experience, not because I think they are less able or psychologically different. My own experience has taught me that the old myth that "if women were in charge this world would be a better place" is wishful thinking, at best.

A woman could make the best president ever seen in the history of the world - but equally, so could a man.

I still feel the same in 2014, only more so.

As mentioned in a post some days ago, the person I'd most like to see running in the presidential campaign 2016 would be Al Gore. I found an article from 2011 in which the author, someone who appeared fairly regularly on all the usual liberal-type websites, wrote that it'd be a good idea to begin a movement to draft Al Gore for 2016. The same author wrote a more recent article proposing that Hillary Clinton will be the likely 2016 nominee. He appears to be an avid fan of Clinton. As there was a contact e-mail address for the author (I'll not mention his name here), I dropped him a note reminding him of his earlier feelings. He kindly replied immediately, and twice, that he's pretty sure Clinton will run and be nominated (he seems to be "in the know") and that he has seen no evidence that Al Gore is interested in running...unless, perhaps Clinton decided for some reason to decline to run, but this is not expected. He said that in the absence of a run by Clinton "all bets are off". My fingers are crossed for one of those "all bets off" situations, unlikely as one such might seem to be right now.

When Al Gore was asked in a Politico interview recently about 2016 he responded only that he's "a recovering politician" ... he didn't say, "No way, no how."

AG: You say you can ask the question a million ways. I’m going to only answer it one way. With apologies, I’m sure you’ve heard this answer before. I am a recovering politician. And the longer I avoid a relapse the more confidence that I will not succumb to the temptation to run yet again. But I’m a recovering politician. I’ll just leave it at that.

I'd hate to knock a recovering alcoholic off the wagon, but this is different. If somebody doesn't do something pretty major soon there'll be no wagon, and no anything much, as climate change advances during the years to come.

Does anyone have any ideas? Writing to Al Gore, snail mail, via his Tennessee office is the only thing I can think of, but it'd be highly unlikely he'd ever even see the letter. Why aren't other people thinking along these same lines regarding a run by Gore? Am I right around the loony bend on this?

Yesterday's ruling by the Supreme Court in favour of Hobby Lobby (+ Another) probably came as no surprise to most people. My 2012 post about the issue is HERE. The ruling was limited though, and applies only to "closely held" corporations which, I think, means privately or family owned rather than publicly held corporations. That's some crumb of relief, I guess. It still opens the door for other creatively imagined religion-based claims though. Watch that space! And wonder at the blatant hypocrisy of it all.
From The Week.com

"We're Christians," Hobby Lobby's president Steve Green proclaims, "and we run our business on Christian principles."

That is music to the ears of many conservative Christians, who rallied around Hobby Lobby when the retail chain argued at the Supreme Court that ObamaCare's contraception mandate unlawfully burdened their religious beliefs. But a closer look at Hobby Lobby's actual business practices reveals this claim to be as hollow as a flute. Turn over just about any trinket in a Hobby Lobby store and you'll find a gold oval stamped with "Made in China," a country that is one of the worst offenders of human dignity, unborn infant life, and economic justice anywhere in the world.

As such, those shiny stickers littering every Hobby Lobby from sea to shining sea are more than a statement about a product's geographical origin; they are also a stinging indictment against the way the retailer has sought to label itself.

Imagine for a moment a nation with nightmarish labor conditions, inadequate workplace regulation, and rampant child labor. You've just imagined 21st century China. Seventy thousand Chinese employees die every year in workplace accidents — that's roughly 200 humans snuffed out of existence every day........................

If Hobby Lobby was concerned with religious freedoms — not just those of conservative American Christians — it would quit doing business in China.

We haven't entered Hobby Lobby since 2012, apart from once, when away from home, we were waiting for another nearby store to open and it began to rain heavily. We walked into Hobby Lobby to keep dry, wandered round the perimeter of the store's interior, and out again.

SCOTUS carries on piling it on.....

From Brennan Center for Justice website yesterday:
Yesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court voted in McCutcheon v. FEC, the most critical campaign finance case since Citizens United, to strike down overall contribution limits, known as aggregate limits. The Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law released the following statement from President Michael Waldman:

"Today’s Supreme Court decision rejects decades of precedent and strikes a sharp blow against the interests of average voters. Once again the Court has struck down a law that curbs the corrupting influence of large campaign contributions in our politics. Sadly, the Court has also achieved a new milestone by striking down a federal contribution limit for the first time.

Our Founders feared corruption. They did not want government beholden to narrow, elite interests. Eliminating these limits will now allow a single politician to solicit, and a single donor to give, up to $3.6 million through the use of joint fundraising committees. Following the Citizens United decision, this will further inundate a political system already flush with cash, marginalize average voters, and elevate those who can afford to buy political access."

Ye Gods! Was I wrong or was I wrong about Chief Justice John Roberts back in 2008, when I, still naive as they come about US politics, wrote the following as part of a blog post about well-known people with a birthday on 27 January (same as mine)?
His natal chart is available at astro.com

US Chief Justice John Roberts has Sun and Mercury in Aquarius, with Aquarius' modern ruler Uranus conjunct Jupiter in Cancer. Jupiter is traditionally connected with law, and government. Incidentally, with his natal Moon almost certainly in Pisces, Sun in humanitarian Aquarius, and that conjunction in sensitive Cancer , I'd say Chief Justice Roberts is a compassionate man, it's good to see such a person occupying that lofty position.

Come back all I said!! Admittedly, Roberts is just one of 9, but it is his Court!

Here's a voice worth a listen:

Lady Day, Hilaria, SCOTUS .....and stuff

Today, March 25th is Lady Day. The name is a reminder that March 25th was honored as the date and festival of The Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary - the date of conception of Jesus Christ, 9 months from the supposed date of His birth, 25 December. It's now widely accepted that 25 December was not Christ's birthday, so Christian festival dates are treated as symbolic.

25 March in ancient Rome also had connection to things female, a celebration called Hilaria. As a general term, Hilaria covered several types of anniversary or joyous personal occasions. There was also a more general Hilaria celebrated on 25 March "the eighth day before the Kalends of April, in honor of Cybele, the mother of the gods. The day of its celebration was the first after the vernal equinox, or the first day of the year which was longer than the night. The winter with its gloom had died, and the first day of a better season was spent in rejoicings."

Coincidentally, this year, 25 March is the date when the Supreme Court of the United States will be hearing argument on a case relating to female matters: (see here)

Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. and Conestoga Wood Specialties Corp. v. Sebelius, two highly anticipated cases that deal with the Affordable Care Act, religious freedom and women's access to contraception. The case won't be decided Tuesday, but we could get a clear indication of which way the justices are leaning.

My own thoughts on the Hobby Lobby case are in a 2012 post, HERE.

Back to Lady Day...
Lady Day was adopted in Britain and Ireland as one of four Quarter Days. These were days when servants were hired, and rents and rates were due. They fell on four religious festivals roughly three months apart and close to the two solstices and two equinoxes.
Lady Day (25 March); Midsummer Day (24 June); Michaelmas (29 September); Christmas (25 December). In the UK, the tax year still begins around Lady Day (actually 6 April to 5 April) a relic of the traditional Quarter Days.

Lady Day, 25 March, was also New Year's Day in England until 1752 when a crossover from the Julian to Gregorian calendar took place, moving New Year's Day to first of January. When I worked with a County Archivist long ago, I had to carefully remember, when dealing with documents from before 1752, which were dated January, February or March(up to 25), to catalogue them as, for example, 16 March 1714/5.

(See here - for further detail on the history of calendars).

"Calendar is a word that comes from Latin calendarium, or account book, and is derived from calendae or the calends, the first day of all of the old Roman months. This was the day on which accounts were due and on which the priests of Rome called the people together to proclaim (calare) that the new moon had been sighted.

Calendars generally have been based on some combination of celestial observation and observance of the pattern of human activities and rituals. Despite all of the astronomical dilemmas (lunar, solar, seasonal, etc.), we have arrived at our present Gregorian calendar because of the astronomical and political skills of many generations."

Also, it has to be said that religion has always played a major part in defining calendars throughout the world.

Sidelight: "Lady Day" was also the nickname of legendary jazz singer Billie Holiday, who, though not born on this day, was born with Sun in Aries (7 April 1915.....chart and biography at Astrodatabank's Wiki, here. )

Equal in Diversity

A linked article, Are We Equal, by Walter Williams also appeared in our local newspaper; my husband drew my attention to it, as a topic in which I'd be interested. I read it, re-read parts of it but remained puzzled about the point of it all. The topic seemed too clear to have required a professor of economics at George Mason University to explain it. Then, yesterday morning, I noticed a report that the US Supreme Court is this week deliberating on the issue of Affirmative Action. Aha! That could be why Prof. Walter Williams chose to write on that topic at this time?

Affirmative Action refers to policies taking factors including race, color, religion, sex, or national origin into consideration in order to benefit an underrepresented group in areas of employment, education, and business. It's a tool designed by Congress in the mid 1960s to ensure that positive steps were taken to advance qualified women and people of colour after decades of segregation and discriminatory practices.

In the 1960s, and for and a decade or so after, there was no doubt whatsoever that Affirmative Action was essential. The people of the USA, and especially those in Southern states had, for years seen African Americans as second-class citizens, treated them abominably through segregation - and worse. Women, unless of the wealthy privileged class, were still thought of as lesser than any male counterpart in matters of employment and education.

Those opposing Affirmative Action today bring arguments including the proposition that the need for this type of direct legislation has now passed. They propose that a new generation of women, and members of minority races, who have not been raised in, or with close memory of, segregation or ill-treatment, are no longer in need of the help afforded by Affirmative Action.

It will be interesting to find out what SCOTUS has to say on the matter. My view, for what it's worth, is that unless and until the day dawns when every last US citizen is free of every embedded, hidden unacknowledged racist or sexist feeling, there will never be equal opportunity and equal treatment for all. That point hasn't been reached in this country yet, far as I can tell. The next generation - another 20 or so years on - might see the dawn of such a day.

Back to Walter White's article. Surely, few people truly consider that we are all equal - on every level? Who has ever put forward that point of view? Is this what he had in mind? -

The opening of the United States Declaration of Independence, written by Thomas Jefferson in 1776, states as follows: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

All people of the USA have equal rights to life, liberty, pursuit of happiness .......It doesn't say that all people are equal in talent, insight, vision, skill, physical strength, mental strength. We each have those attributes in differing proportion and mixtures, but none of us, however wonderfully gifted, however powerful, however wealthy, is entitled to be treated under the law with greater preference.

We could, if we as the human race would only allow ourselves to do so, complement each others' proportions and mixes of qualities and strengths. We're part of a whole, part of the same huge jigsaw-puzzle of life. A piece depicting sky and clouds cannot be placed in the midst of a brick wall and still make sense. We are entitled to the same equal treatment before the law and before education authorities and employers, each according to our inborn and/or developed abilities and qualities. All pieces of our human jigsaw are equal, but equal for different purposes.

Gay Marriage

The topic of gay marriage is in the news yet again with the Supreme Court's deliberations on the issue proceeding this week. Personally, I cannot see what people can find to complain about if two gay people wish to marry. It affects nobody but the two parties involved. Laws against smoking in public places, sale and use of alcohol and drugs, especially when driving, or texting when driving are different - those activities affect others detrimentally - sometimes fatally. Gay marriage doesn't affect others. So......?

I also agree though, from a slightly different perspective, with what Norman Pollack wrote yesterday at Counterpunch in a piece headed Gay Marriage: A Contrarian's View :

SNIP~~~

..........But let’s put the issue of gay marriage into context, i.e., prioritizing national goals. At this time, the issue is a diversion and trivialization, in the face of large-scale poverty, the vast gulf in wealth-and-power differentials, militarism run amuck, the nation in steep decline with respect to its social safety net, etc. Frankly, compared with the civil rights struggle, which NYT raises as analogous, and in which in the 1950s-60s I was active, I find proponents and affected parties of gay marriage self-indulgent and flaunting their preferences as though that form of discrimination raises to the plane of deprivation experienced by others in America’s long history of oppression and repression.........

There are far more urgent issues facing the country, and the planet - those mentioned above, and the old elephant in the room: climate change - but not many out there seem at all interested in seriously addressing them.

Pawns in their game: SCOTUS, ACA, Chief Justice Roberts, Re-consideration, Retrograde Planets.

Re-visiting my March 29 post on the SCOTUS debate on health care I noticed, and thought again, about these lines:

I stumbled upon a non-astrological blog: His Vorpal Sword written by Hart Williams. Mr Williams' post dated 26 March is titled Athena and the Jurists and opens like this:

Any astrologer worth her salt would tell you that there is not a lot of good that you can expect from a grand Supreme Court argument over the future of health care, held on a day when Mercury is retrograde, Saturn is retrograde, and Mars is retrograde. And, since, like global warming, astrology is easily refuted, except by observation, allow me to make this observation on the madness of the zeitgeist.

That's the only mention of astrology in the complex and interesting post......rather a good astrological point he made....

In an UPDATE to this Thursday's post I wrote: "trust a triple Aquarian to do the unexpected" - referring to Chief Justice Roberts' voting with the liberal justices rather than with the four right-wing conservatives on the bench, as has been usual. Recalling, via the above extract, that retrograde planets were around at the time of the initial arguments makes me wonder whether those retrograde planets have turned out to have had some symbolism or astrological importance: i.e. an eventual revision, reversal, reconsideration (retrograding) of one justice's crucially important opinion ?

I've read several comments from lawyers who, having perused the SCOTUS decision, and the dissent, have come to the conclusion that the dissent seems to have been written more in the style of a majority decision. If they are correct, and I have no means of knowing how reliable their opinion is, it might mean that there was a last-minute change by someone - Chief Justice Roberts?

Part of my My 1 April response to blog buddy R.J. Adams has turned out to seem correct:

I'm suspecting now that SCOTUS was only showboating, and they'll uphold the Act but don't want to make it look too easy. They couldn't possibly take away all that extra dosh from their pals the insurance corporations.

Chief Justice Roberts achieved two things by upholding ACA: he somewhat rescued SCOTUS's image from appearing to be politically-driven and partisan; it has been seen that way due to many recent rulings, leading to a huge dip in public approval of the Court. CJ Roberts has managed to adjust Scotus's image for the better while still buttering up the corporations - again. This time the insurance corporations benefit. CJ Roberts might even have achieved a third result: Gov. Romney now has another weapon to wield in his campaign against President Obama - that newly named "tax".

They say that President Obama is a political chess player. It now seems that Chief Justice Roberts can match him, move for move. And where are we in all this? To paraphrase a line from Bob Dylan: "We're just pawns in their game".

During coming months it will be interesting to note whether the SCOTUS decision will benefit President Obama in his re-election campaign because his flagship legislation, The Affordable Care Act or so-called Obamacare, has survived SCOTUS. Or, whether the categorising as a dreaded "tax" the penalty for not buying health insurance will assist Gov. Romney in firing up his base, along with some independents and libertarians.