Re 4 July

I'm not even going to wish the USA "Happy Birthday" this year on 4 July 2020, as I've done on this blog in most of the previous 16 years I've lived here, especially in those years after becoming a US citizen - 2008.

This is a vast, varied, very beautiful country, with potentiality to be a powerful force for good in the world. From time to time, over centuries and decades, it has managed to be just that. Right now, though, due mainly to the man who became president in 2016, the country's reputation has nosedived to a place between laughing stock and heartless would-be master of the world with a highly incompetent leader. "Incompetent", though, is too mild a word on its own, to get a clearer description, Google synonyms of the term - they all (and more) apply.

I do not understand why, somehow, the leaders and members of the Republican Party could not have rid the country of this man as a leader months ago? There have to be ways and means. He is doing the party's reputation no good, but its leaders seem afraid to take steps in that direction. "Home of the brave" they said? Hmmm!

There is, and has been for many decades, a dreadful level of racism here in the USA. There is also deep general inequality - not only among the African American communities, but also among the population as a whole, whatever their skin-shade or ethnicity. Until THIS area of general inequality of opportunity is adjusted nothing else will change in any concrete fashion. If this inequality were to be adjusted, and in an appreciable way - then all kinds of change could follow smoothly, it'd be a natural progression.

On a different topic - I managed to get my PET scan done on 30 June, 8 am, without too much difficulty, after days of anxiety bringing on nausea and even more loss of appetite than normal. I wasn't sure I'd be able to lie flat on a hard surface for 20 minutes during the scan, due to the joint and muscle pain I experience (side effects) - but I did, with the help of an extra pain pill. Now I must wait until my appointment with the doc. on 15 July for results. I guess there'll be something to deal with, but shall try not to let anxiety get the better of me, at least not for a few days!

It's That Day Again + Medical Update.

Happy Indi Day - for me also - kind of. I have no radiation or medical appointments until Monday! Also, I'm happy because the course of radiation related to lesions on my hip and leg is done - for now anyway. The treatments on my chest wall will continue for a few more weeks - as a precaution - making the sessions shorter.

Pain pills are still necessary, but not working especially well. Dr K. kindly provided a refill prescription yesterday. Such prescriptions, for medications which include any kind of opioids, have recently come under a spate of New Rules, to safeguard those who would use opioids for purposes other than pain relief, sometimes accidentally killing themselves. That is all fine and good, but the complications involved in obtaining these medications now mean that even cancer patients cannot obtain refills without the requisite prescription, on paper (no fax or e-mail) signed in ink, by the ordering physician, and handed to the pharmacy. These rules were followed by us yesterday afternoon - to the letter. What did the pharmacy say? "Sorry these are not due until tomorrow (4th July) and we are closed for Independence Day so we'll have the refill ready on Friday". My response: "What am I supposed to do tomorrow, when I run out?" She: "Do you want to pay for a day's worth, the insurance will not pay until tomorrow and we are closed." Me: "So, as you are closed, should you not compensate for that by filling the prescription today?" Nope! If I had agreed to pay for one day's tablets it would have cost me $60+ for the generic. Ridiculous! I guess the fact that I'm English, and that Independence Day is the fly in the ointment, didn't help ;-)

Dang! I was cross and getting hotter under the collar! I'll manage, but some people in the same position might not. This is so unfair to those who need opioids for all the right reasons.

I do suspect that the generic of my pain medication, stocked by our pharmacy, doesn't work well, possibly due to certain cheaper "fillers" used. Comments online by those who have been taking the pills for years have indicated that this is the case - do I believe online commentary? Hmmm? I had, earlier, asked what the charge would be for the branded version of the same medication, not covered by insurance. One would, I was told, have to buy a full 100 tablet bottle of the original branded version, its cost, with discount, would be $500. Sigh. The generic, to be collected Friday, will have to suffice!

Fireworks Day

"I wonder what went wrong..."

I've sometimes offered a "Happy birthday USA!" type of greeting on 4 July in years past, but this year Americans, life and breath of the USA, seem anything but happy; such a greeting would be akin to flogging a dead horse.

Although I'm a US Citizen myself, I guess I'm not, and can never be, at heart "An American". I do love the land itself though, but not much of what goes on within it.

There's no real political left in the USA. It's out of balance. Both Democrats and Republicans dance to the tune of the corporations, one does a tango the other a waltz, but both dance for beaucoup dimes. A proper political left is needed, to provide balance, and support for the working class. Yet because corporations own the media and can manipulate and brainwash those Americans not deeply into politics, the rise of any strong 3rd party has become impossible.

Paul Simon's classic beautifully rendered by jazz singer Kurt Elling:

Independence/Interdependence

“There’s a lot of things wrong with this country, but one of the few things still right with it is that a man can steer clear of the organized bullshit if he really wants to. It’s a goddamned luxury, and if I were you, I’d take advantage of it while you can.”
― Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in America: The Brutal Odyssey of an Outlaw Journalist, 1968-1976

“When it can be said by any country in the world, my poor are happy, neither ignorance nor distress is to be found among them, my jails are empty of prisoners, my streets of beggars, the aged are not in want, the taxes are not oppressive, the rational world is my friend because I am the friend of happiness. When these things can be said, then may that country boast its constitution and government. Independence is my happiness, the world is my country and my religion is to do good.”
― Thomas Paine, Rights of Man

The USA's Independence from Britain in the 18th century is celebrated today, while Britain, or parts of it now strain for their own independence from the European Union. Hmm. I saved a comment found on a British-Ex-pats' discussion forum this week, as representative of the situation in the UK at present:

"So, let me get this straight… the leader of the opposition campaigned to stay but secretly wanted to leave, so his party held a non-binding vote to shame him into resigning so someone else could lead the campaign to ignore the result of the non-binding referendum which many people now think was just angry people trying to shame politicians into seeing they’d all done nothing to help them.

Meanwhile, the man who campaigned to leave because he hoped losing would help him win the leadership of his party, accidentally won and ruined any chance of leading because the man who thought he couldn’t lose, did – but resigned before actually doing the thing the vote had been about. The man who’d always thought he’d lead next, campaigned so badly that everyone thought he was lying when he said the economy would crash – and he was, but it did, but he’s not resigned, but, like the man who lost and the man who won, also now can’t become leader. Which means the woman who quietly campaigned to stay but always said she wanted to leave is likely to become leader instead.

Which means she holds the same view as the leader of the opposition but for opposite reasons, but her party’s view of this view is the opposite of the opposition’s. And the opposition aren’t yet opposing anything because the leader isn’t listening to his party, who aren’t listening to the country, who aren’t listening to experts or possibly paying that much attention at all. However, none of their opponents actually want to be the one to do the thing that the vote was about, so there’s not yet anything actually on the table to oppose anyway. And if no one ever does do the thing that most people asked them to do, it will be undemocratic and if any one ever does do it, it will be awful.

Clear?"
(mrken30, British Ex-Pats forum)

Happy Birthday USA / Open Thread

At the dentist's office the other day reception staff asked,
"Doing anything special for The 4th?"
Me: "Don't think so - we don't usually...oh, well we put out the flag!"
Them: "There ya go!"

So, what are y'all doing?

A few quotes I see as apt for the day, just to help things along.....

America is so vast that almost everything said about it is likely to be true, and the opposite is probably equally true.
~James T. Farrell


The metaphor of the melting pot is unfortunate and misleading. A more accurate analogy would be a salad bowl, for, though the salad is an entity, the lettuce can still be distinguished from the chicory, the tomatoes from the cabbage.
~Carl N. Degler


America! half-brother of the world!
With something good and bad of every land.
~Philip James Bailey


I always tell myself: “You can do better than this.” The best slogan I can think of to leave with the U.S.A. would be:
“We can do, and we’ve got to do, better than this.”
~Theodor Seuss Geisel.

USA's Birthday and Ebenezer Sibly, Creator of Its Most Popular Natal Chart

As it's the birthday of the USA today, a look at the astrologer whose natal chart for the nation's birth has gathered most acclaim and remains in popular use: Ebenezer Sibly.

I found a brief article about Sibly in an old volume I've featured in posts before here: The Best of the Illustrated National Astrological Journal 1933-1935, compiled by Edward A. Wagner (1978). The piece is part of a series titled Astrologers of History. These short pieces are uncredited, so I assume they were written by editorial staff of the National Astrological Journal - or perhaps a credit appeared in some earlier "Best of" volume.

Below I've copy-typed what the author, whoever he/she was, had to say. Sibly's date of birth is given in New Style. A piece at Skyscript on Sibly quotes his birth date in Old Style: 30 January 1751. "L.M.T." I take as being the same as GMT : London Mean Time/Greenwich Mean Time.

One of the most noteworthy astrologers of the late 18th century was Ebenezer Sibly. He was born at Bristol, England, February 10, 1751 (N.S.), on a Wednesday at 11.33 am (L.M.T.) according to a horoscope of his own making.

With the intention of following medicine as a career, he came to London in his youth to study surgery, and afterwards, in 1792, graduated as a doctor of medicine at King's College, Aberdeen.
He settled for a time at Ipswich, but, fascinated by the study of astrology, he returned to London, where his brother Monoah, who was a well-known Swedenborgian preacher and astrologer, had a place of worship in Friars Street, Ludgate Hill.

Ebenezer Sibly was a voluminous writer on astrology and allied subjects. He wrote "Magazine of Natural History", in three volumes, "A New and Complete Exposition of the Occult Sciences", in two volumes, "The Key to Psychic and the Occult Sciences. His most important work was a large book, "The Celestial Science of Astrology", first published at London in 1785. The last edition appeared in 1817. These volumes contain many valuable observations and much curious information of great interest to students of astrology.

He was the first astrologer to publish a horoscope of the United States of America. This appeared in the 1785 edition of his large book on astrology. There is a symbolic picture representing the chart of the Declaration of Independence. This chart was cast for July 4, 1776, at 10:10 p.m. From it he predicted that "America in time should have an extensive and rising commerce and advantageous and universal traffic to every quarter of the globe and great prosperity among its people."

In the same work he makes an interesting allusion to the ill-fated poet Thomas Chatterton, whose nativity he gives and from which he prognosticated his fatal end. He gives also a very interesting delineation on the horoscope of the Rev. George Whitefield, who was a friend of Benjamin Franklin.

Ebenezer Sibly stands out as one of the great geniuses of astrology and it is to be regretted that his life was cut short at an early age. He died at London in his 48th year, on a Wednesday at 1 o'clock p.m., October 30, 1799.

There's a small image of a hand-drawn chart in the article, it doesn't indicate whether it comes from Sibly's writings or the magazine staff - but it doesn't copy well. The only difference in the chart below, by my software, and that in the article is the addition of Pluto, and a few minutes (not degrees) of difference in some planets' positions.

Here's a quadruple Aquarius-type with Gemini rising and Jupiter sextile his Aquarius stellium. Is there any wonder he became such a prolific writer, and with some rather out-of-ordinary interests? Additionally two personal planets sextile his Sun from Jupiter's home sign Sagittarius, bringing even more harmony to this chart. Natal Moon in Leo (known for leadership and love of the spotlight) opposes the Aquarius stellium - a balancing act perhaps, and indication that one day Sibly's work would become more famous than he had ever imagined?

INDEPENDENCE DAY

Happy Birthday USA!

"Landscape photography, most of it done by photographer Bud Lebens from Port Townsend, Wa accompany the Neil Young/Crazy Horse version of Woody Guthrie's song This Land Is Your Land. Bud has been a photographer for over forty years and studied with Roger Staub at the University of Washington.".

USA: 236 Today, Still in Adolescence.

Here we are again, celebrating the birthday of the USA.....Independence Day, 4 July. How many candles this time? 236.....a lot of candles for a cake, but not many for a nation as vast as this one. The USA, by European and other standards, is still in its adolescence. What is almost always a difficult stage of development for humans has to be similarly difficult for countries, wouldn't you say? Adolescents shouldn't be allowed to get away with too much bad behaviour though, or be given too long a rope -they could do themselves a whole lot of damage. Adolescence is no excuse for wrong-doing. The nation's birthday is no time for a list of its wrongs though.

From my blog archives, brief extracts from two old posts. First is from 2008, after the ceremony in Oklahoma City which made me a real citizen of this land after four years as a legal resident. It was the culmination of a long, winding, and often very frustrating road from Yorkshire to Oklahoma!

At 11.30 applicants were told to take their seats, according to the number they'd been given (mine was 69 - no sly grins please!) By this time my husband had managed to slide into a seat towards the back of the Ceremonial Courtroom, now filling rapidly with families and friends of applicants.

At exactly noon, five judges filed in. Everyone rose as the judges took their places on the bench. The chief judge, a female, welcomed us, said a few words then handed over to a designated INS official to "present" the 140 applicants who came, we were told, from 42 different countries. The official spoke briefly then named, in alphapbetical order, the native countries of all the applicants, asking each to stand when their country was called. I was the only one of the 140 from the UK. Every continent was represented. This, of course, was just one of many similar ceremonies, held monthly in three areas of Oklahoma, and regularly in every one of the other 49 states. I find this a mind-boggling proposition!

Next, we, the applicants, were asked to stand, raise our right hands, and repeat after the Clerk of the Court the words of the Oath of Allegiance. Each of the five judges then spoke briefly, after which the Pledge of Allegiance was recited by all present. The judges then left and a video of President G.W. Bush, welcoming us as new citizens, was shown, followed by another video of scenes of American life.

I hadn't expected to feel as emotional as I did. I joked later that it was the sight of G.W. Bush on the screen that made my cry, but I lied. I had an overwhelming sense of the nobility of the original vision for the United States, as I sat there in the midst of 140 people, born in so many different countries. Many of my companions had experienced a far greater struggle than I'd had to reach this point. The thought passed through my mind then that the USA is truly an Aquarian country. Whatever chart is used by astrologers cannot change the fact that, in essence the vision was, and is, pure Aquarius. There have been broken dreams and wrong turnings, but beneath it all, I'm confident that vision remains intact.

Applicants were then asked to file out in seat number order to officially receive their Certificates of Naturalization, and some other paperwork, along with a small US flag - I can be seen waving mine in the photograph.

Second archive extract is from a piece by my husband's son-in-law from his regular column in a local newspaper. It was published in July 2009. I re-air this because its subject matter is something I rattle on about often: the divided nation, so well illustrated astrologically by the Armistead chart for the USA - not the usual 4th July one. This is set for 2 July 1776, the date when Congress adopted the resolution of independence. Astrodatabank explains it HERE.



Look at that heavy red line joining opposing planets Moon/Pluto in Capricorn and Mercury in Cancer - Cancer-Capricorn a cardinal opposition clearly seeming to divide the chart, with Moon (the people)and Pluto(power, passion)in staid business-oriented Capricorn versus Mercury (communication and mental processes) in gentle, intuitive sentimental, home-loving Cancer. A divide difficult to cross.

The article from which I'm quoting was headed "Sure We're Divided But It's Been Worse"

"..............political and social pundits keep hammering at us about this being a nation divided, and some even suggest we’re currently more sharply divided than at any time in American history.

Oh, puh-leez! What hyperbolic hogwash. Enough already!

Did these Big ‘n’ Loud Voices of Distress and myopic pundits never hear of something called the Civil War, when a half-million Americans were slaughtered because of our political and cultural differences?

And beyond that great cataclysm, can someone please point out an extended period of U.S. history in which we are all on the same page politically and culturally? If there was such a halcyon, blissful age, we need to identify it and figure out how we can return to it.

The population was politically and culturally split before we became a nation, and little seems to have changed since 1776. Even during World War II, when political and cultural debate seemed to be put on the back burner, our differences continued to simmer. Heck, I had one grandfather who thought Franklin D. Roosevelt was a god, while the other thought FDR was a devil.

Here in the 21st century, we may be more “evenly” divided than at anytime before, but so what? Disagreement and diversity are the life blood of liberty and democracy......."

HAPPY BIRTHDAY USA!

Maya del Mar on USA, Corporations, Planetary Cycles, the Future.

Among the archives at Daykeeper Journal, website of the late Maya del Mar, astrologer, I found a couple of her articles which, on this Independence Day are of particular interest. They were written nine years ago, in 2002, but are even more relevant today.

In the first piece: Why Corporations Rule the Nation Ms del Mar began thus:

Corporations provide the matrix for our lives.

Our lives are shaped and governed by corporations. The consumer culture, the sea in which we live, is run by corporate image-making, advertising, and media control. Corporate values become cultural values. Corporate politics become government politics. Every area of our lives is fashioned by the dominant corporate culture.

The corporate movement grows implacably, like a giant amoeba, and threatens to take over the world, and destroy it in the process. As it grows, it shuts out democracy and effective decision-making. It is no wonder that people have quit voting and quit paying attention to civic life. We feel disempowered—and in many ways we are.

How can astrology shed light on this growth of corporate power?

She explains the cycles of the outer planets and the relevance of those current at the time of writing. She then goes on to look at the chart for the birth of the USA using 4 July 1776 at 5:10 PM, Philadelphia. Snips:

The United States has a lucky chart.

The U.S. Declaration of Independence chart (7-4-1776, 5:10 p.m., Philadelphia) is blessed with a grand earth trine, which means material success comes easily to this nation....................... We have the resources to enable us to develop models for harmonious, bountiful living.

However, this great gift of earth energy has been co-opted by corporations, and much of it transformed into toxins and garbage. The early idealistic political vision of Americans has been gradually subverted by the corporate bottom line of making profit for the corporation. Earth, tangible goods, is also the raw material of corporations.

The U.S. chart is also fortunate in having a Sagittarius Ascendant. This makes Jupiter the chart ruler, governing all U.S. expression of energy. Jupiter is the greater benefic, and shows good fortune and expansion. It is also especially associated with corporations (and old boys’ groups).

20-year Jupiter-Saturn cycles show the social-business character of our everyday lives.............................For most of this nation’s history, we have had Jupiter and Saturn joining every 20 years in earth signs.... This earth phase really went into full gear in 1842, as the Civil War was building up...... We have just experienced our last Jupiter-Saturn conjunction in earth signs for the next 600 years, in May of 2000. This one was at 23 Taurus. Taurus is the most fixed, determined, and possessive of the earth signs. It is loathe to let go. The last conjunction in Taurus was in 1881, which began the "gilded age," the time of millionaires, consolidations, mansions, and high living. Corporations came into their own then.

Now we are closing the long earth cycle with Taurus. Will corporations extend their power, as they have in the past? Will we, the people, look at their excesses and corruption, and decide to take charge of them again? Will we reclaim democracy? Or will it be that the 200-year earth period was the time for corporations to grow into ruling the world?—regardless of who and what gets hurt and destroyed?

This last Taurus conjunction in May 2000 ties in very nicely with the U.S. chart. It helps U.S. corporations move ahead with the steamroller effect until 2020, when we begin the air cycle in Aquarius. In the meantime we can begin to rebuild a democratic movement, and be ready to emerge with some sovereign infrastructure by 2020.

In the second piece, also from 2002, Maya del Mar reviews a book of essays: Defying Corporations, Defining Democracy ed. by Dean Ritz.
She writes:

We take corporations for granted. This is it. This is how life is. We let them define our entire culture, including our political scene, without really asking, "Hey, what’s going on?"

We also take them for granted as we try to fight them—regulation by regulation, harm by harm, in thousands of little battles. And still they grow more powerful. In fact, the first regulatory agency, the Interstate Commerce Commission, was established in 1887 at the behest of the railroads to reduce competition, and staffed by railroad people.

It wasn’t this way when the nation was founded. The rebellion against England was, in fact, against corporate charters given by the King to certain companies.

Those who won independence from England hated corporations as much as they hated the King.

The men of property who wrote the Constitution did not want the King’s unfair, oppressive competition. They determined to hold corporations in check. They chartered only a handful of corporations in the decades after independence, and when they did they severely limited a corporation’s powers, purpose, capitalization, and length of existence.

Here are the kinds of limitations that were once law in nearly every state:
Corporations were required to have a clear purpose, to be fulfilled, but not exceeded.

Corporations’ licenses were revocable by state legislatures for any of a great number of reasons, including doing harm to the common good or general welfare.

The act of incorporation did not relieve management or stockholders of responsibility or liability for corporate acts.

As a matter of course, corporation officers, directors, or agents could be held criminally liable for breaking the law.

State (not federal) courts heard cases where corporations or their agents were accused of breaking the law or harming the public.

Directors of the corporation were required to come from among the stockholders.

Corporations had to have their headquarters and meetings in the state where their principal place of business was located.

Corporation charters were granted for a specific period of time, such as 20 years.

Corporations were prohibited from owning stock in other corporations.

Corporations’ real estate holdings were limited to what was necessary to carry out that specific purpose.

Corporations were prohibited from making any political contributions, direct or indirect.

Corporations were prohibited from making charitable or civic donations.

State legislatures set the rates that corporations could charge for their products or services.

All corporation records and documents were open to the legislature.

However, gradually, as people forgot the original corporate excesses, the legislatures dropped their vigilance, and corporate power grew and grew, helped in large part by judges educated in the same law schools as were the corporate attorneys. Many states still have pieces of these laws on the books. However, corporations have established a group of attorneys whose job is to infiltrate states one by one and get these remnants inconspicuously wiped off the record—in the name of "modernizing corporate law statutes."

The coup d’etat occurred when in 1886 the U.S. Supreme Court decreed that corporations are "persons" under the Fourteenth Amendment. This ruling gave corporations almost unprecedented "rights" to question almost any law applied to them and frustrated the ability of the people to direct corporate action in service of the public good. Nearly all of the cases brought under the 14th Amendment are corporate cases, not cases about the equal rights of people!

The question is, "Who’s in charge here?" Corporations are only legal fictions, created by law, controllable by law, and dissolvable by law. They have used cunning propaganda to make us forget that. And in the process we have forgotten democracy, and the sovereignty (imperfect as it is) of the people.

Not celebrating

Celebrating Independence Day this weekend seems somehow wrong, bearing in mind the ongoing devastation in the Gulf of Mexico, two endless, useless, cruel wars, the little being done to address climate change, as well as the.....oh we all know the contents of that dismal list. No doubt the challenging planetary configuration we're experiencing this summer has something to do with the insidious gloom that steals in whenever I start thinking on these matters.

The late Howard Zinn always had the right words, words to alert, enlighten and inspire us. He was an outspoken civil rights and anti-war activist, "people's historian" and political scientist. He died this year, aged 87 (and on my birthday, as it happens). I've chosen a few of his wise words to post, below.



Born on 24 August 1922 in Brooklyn, New York, his natal Sun, Mercury and possibly Moon are all in Virgo, ruled by Mercury, the communicator's planet. Saturn, Venus and Jupiter all in Libra, sign of the diplomat. Not every critic looks on Zinn as diplomatic, however. His radical opinions have ruffled a few feathers in the past. Uranus in Pisces lies opposite Mercury in Virgo providing a dynamic pull towards rebellion and against the status quo.





A few of his words:

The challenge remains. On the other side are formidable forces: money, political power, the major media. On our side are the people of the world and a power greater than money or weapons: the truth.

Truth has a power of its own. Art has a power of its own. That age-old lesson – that everything we do matters – is the meaning of the people’s struggle here in the United States and everywhere. A poem can inspire a movement. A pamphlet can spark a revolution. Civil disobedience can arouse people and provoke us to think, when we organize with one another, when we get involved, when we stand up and speak out together, we can create a power no government can suppress. We live in a beautiful country. But people who have no respect for human life, freedom, or justice have taken it over. It is now up to all of us to take it back.

I think people are dazzled by Obama's rhetoric, and that people ought to begin to understand that Obama is going to be a mediocre president — which means, in our time, a dangerous president — unless there is some national movement to push him in a better direction.

To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.

What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places — and there are so many — where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction. And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.

— Howard Zinn

USA Celebrates

It's my first Independence Day as a US citizen! Nothing special on the agenda - just staying indoors to avoid the heat, 'skeeters and allergens. We might venture into the front yard tonight to watch the fireworks in the park, at a distance.

I love this famous song, written by Woody Guthrie, son of Oklahoma, whose birthday (14 July) was just 10 days later than that of his native country. I can sing along now because this is now "my land" - at last! It's sung here by Steve Earle, one of that rare breed: a country music artist who is also a left wing activist. He has Sun in late Capricorn opposed by rebellious Uranus with expansive Jupiter in Cancer. Mercury is in...Aquarius! (Wouldn't you know it!) I'm quite surprised his photograph wasn't part of this collection of photographs and details of Red State/Blue State singers of their different versions of what constitutes a patriotic song.

Enjoy July 4th celebrations y'all!

This land is your land This land is my land
From California to the New York island;
From the red wood forest to the Gulf Stream waters
This land was made for you and Me.

As I was walking that ribbon of highway,
I saw above me that endless skyway:
I saw below me that golden valley:
This land was made for you and me.

I've roamed and rambled and I followed my footsteps
To the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts;
And all around me a voice was sounding:
This land was made for you and me.

When the sun came shining, and I was strolling,
And the wheat fields waving and the dust clouds rolling,
As the fog was lifting a voice was chanting:
This land was made for you and me.

As I went walking I saw a sign there
And on the sign it said "No Trespassing."
But on the other side it didn't say nothing,
That side was made for you and me.

In the shadow of the steeple I saw my people,
By the relief office I seen my people;
As they stood there hungry, I stood there asking
Is this land made for you and me?

Nobody living can ever stop me,
As I go walking that freedom highway;
Nobody living can ever make me turn back
This land was made for you and me.

Happy Birthday, USA!!

I'm just three weeks away from becoming a naturalised US citizen. I already love the land itself - it's hard not to. There's so much beauty, variety, and space, space, space. Space to breathe - at least here in the mid-section, in Oklahoma, and in neighbouring Texas, magical New Mexico, beautiful Colorado, down to Earth Kansas. Those who think the USA = New York, Washington, the East Coast and California just don't get it!

I do not love the land's government, but then I'm not required to, few natural born citizens do at this moment. A country isn't its government and the dreadful things they frequently impose upon their citizens, and citizens of other nations. A country is the land and its people. I find myself now, here in the midst of it all, able to say, hand on heart, that this land is truly grand, as are its people!

A handful of quotes from 4 famous US Presidents. They do (kind of) reflect their owner's astrology:

George Washington born 22 February 1732 (Sun+Venus Pisces, Moon Capricorn) called "Father of the Nation"

"Happiness depends more upon the internal frame of a person's own mind, than on the externals in the world"


John Adams born 30 October 1735 (Sun+Mercury+Venus in Scorpio, Uranus in Sagittarius, Jupiter in Capricorn)

"The divinity of Jesus is made a convenient cover for absurdity. Nowhere in the Gospels do we find a precept for creeds, confessions, oaths, doctrines and whole carloads of other foolish trumpery that we find in Christianity".

(Wow! Well said Sir!!)


Thomas Jefferson born 13 April 1743 (Sun Aries, Moon Sagittarius)

"A little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical."



And, from a little nearer to our own time:

Franklin Delano Roosevelt born 30 January 1882 (Sun+Mercury+Venus in Aquarius. Moon in Cancer).

"A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs, who, however, has never learned to walk."

And speaking of good legs.....



Enjoy the day y'all!