Midweek Miscellany

We frequently see or hear quips about the older generation's fumble-fingered efforts with new (to them) technology - here's a chance for those of us of "a certain age" to have a little snigger at the younger generation:

"Are we supposed to pick up the phone and then do it?' Fun footage shows two teenagers completely baffled by a rotary telephone when given four minutes to make one call:

Teacher wears same dress for 100 days to teach students a lesson

By Hannah Frishberg

Teacher Julia Mooney dressed to impress her earthy beliefs on middle school students.

To prove that you are not what you wear, Mooney, 34, donned the same gray, button-down dress for 100 days in a row, washing it only “as needed.”

She didn’t tell her young charges what she was up to in the beginning — but slowly they caught on that she was rocking the roughly $50 frock “through ceramics projects, blizzards, whatever.”

“I was a little bit fed up with the cultural expectation to go shopping and spend all this money for other people to approve of me,” Mooney told “Good Morning America” back in November, when she launched her minimalist mission. “There is no rule that says I cannot wear the same thing every day if I choose to, so I thought, why not.

Fast-forward to February: By buying into the buzzy “fast fashion” trend, Mooney says we are cultivating what she describes as a “culture of excess” that hurts the environment — and young people.

"This is something they deal with every day as 12- and 13-year-olds,” she tells TreeHugger. “As they try to define themselves, they are often identifying with brands or superficial things like their social media presence. Many seemed excited to have a reason to talk about how silly all of that really is.................“Let’s use our energy to do good instead of looking good,” Mooney advises on her @oneoutfit100days Instagram account, where she posts about the importance of sustainability and the evils of fast fashion.

Do read the full piece (linked at the title) where there's a photograph of Ms Mooney, and the dress.

Cartoon by Mad John Peck (1971) - the idea never gets old!

A movie "coming soon"- actually at the end of June 2019, is said to offer a new slant on Beatlemania, with a spoonful of sci-fi added.

A failing musician finds himself the only person in the world who remembers, after a weird world-wide sci-fi type event, the Beatles and their music. Guess what a failing musician might do next in such circumstances!

If the movie hadn't been written by Richard Curtis (from a story by Jack Barth) I'd probably be very wary of its potential, but Curtis has written such delights as Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994), Notting Hill (1999), Bridget Jones's Diary (2001), Love Actually (2003)... Yesterday is directed by Danny Boyle.

This coming movie has to be worth a look (keeping disbelief suspended!)

Official trailer:

2020 in Oklahoma ?

Looking through my WordPad index for something else, I found a snippet I'd saved in 2012, from a thread of comments at Common Dreams under an article by George Monbiot headed "Stop This Culture of Paying Politicians for Denying Climate Change".
NC Tom's imaginative comment I'd stumbled across again, two years on, rings ever more insightful by the month. At present, in our drought-ridden south-western section of Oklahoma, outdoor watering of grass and gardens is restricted to just two designated days and must be done before 9 am. A complete ban on outdoor watering waits in the wings.

Comment written by NC Tom in 2012:

The year is 2020. 86 year old [James] Inhofe is up for re-election. Perryton and Woodward Oklahoma have been abandoned because of lack of water. The only farmable land is near the state's lakes, where they can be used for irrigation. The meager rainfall the state has been receiving for the last decade has not been able to keep those lakes full, and their level noticeably drops every year. The situation is unsustainable.

At a mid October campaign rally, the still defiant Inhofe railed against those "ecology nuts" that said man made climate change was getting so bad that within 10-15 years the heartland of the country would be uninhabitable. "What the hell do those idiots know?" He yelled as loud as his old man lungs would allow so he could be heard over the bank of fans that were doing their best to keep him cool. "This is just 'La Grande Nina'* causing this little heat wave. Plus it's mid October, and it's supposed to be hot!"

That first Tuesday in November most of Oklahoma was experiencing daytime temps of 140 − 145 degrees F. For safety reasons it was decided to hold the election at night, when the temps got down to the tolerable mid 90s.

Turnout was better than expected because everyone who went to the polls would get a free hand held fan with the image of none other than Jesus Christ himself on it, with the slogan "Jesus Cools" sprawled across the top.

The next morning the election results were no surprise, Inhofe won hands down. His campaign platform of "Don't let the environmental wackos, take away your pickup." was hugely popular.

Later that day a representative from Koch Industries congratulated him on his win. Inhofe thanked them for all the money they had given him over the years, and he also thanked them for the retreat they had built for him and his family in northern Alaska, called "Tulsa Two" or 2Ts for short.

He chuckled over the phone, "I don't know why everybody is whining about the weather around here, up there at 2Ts things are just fine..."

*Note: La Grande Nina was coined by the Heritage Foundation, in an attempt to explain away the high temps.

Then there's this, from Tuesday this week:

Oklahoma Being Swamped by Earthquakes, But It's Probably Just A Coincidence There's All This Drilling Right Nearby

A series of earthquakes rocked Oklahoma over the weekend - six Friday night alone - thus continuing an alarming trend: Already this year, the state's 252 quakes have "crushed" last year's record of 222 quakes.

Hmm.
“What you’ve got to understand, son,” says the doctor, “is it’s all the fault of the alien space bats.”
(Cory Doctorow, The Rapture of the Nerds: A tale of the singularity, posthumanity, and awkward social situations.)

Earth: "This Godawful mess"

To give this post an astrological flavour I'll invite passing visitors, before reading on, to crank up their inner Virgo (responsible, careful, health conscious), and their inner Saturn (self-discipline, thrift).......then continue:

And Man created the plastic bag and the tin and aluminum can and the cellophane wrapper and the paper plate, and this was good because Man could then take his automobile and buy all his food in one place and He could save that which was good to eat in the refrigerator and throw away that which had no further use. And soon the earth was covered with plastic bags and aluminum cans and paper plates and disposable bottles and there was nowhere to sit down or walk, and Man shook his head and cried: "Look at this Godawful mess." ~ Art Buchwald, humorist

By the time I left its fair shores in 2004, recycling had become way of life in England. Local authorities provided separate garbage bins for our newspapers. Centres for collection of other items, such as glass and aluminium cans, were plentiful in most neighbourhoods. Here in Oklahoma it's a different story. Few facilities to encourage recycling exist, and whenever some do emerge they are short-lived.

For a few years we ferried our collection of newspapers and aluminium cans the 35 miles to a recycling collection centre in a neighbouring city. Then the military base in that city, whose staff collected recycling materials from several centres, was prevented, by Department of Defense financial constraints, from continuing the collections. Later a few, smaller, re-cycling bins were replaced in school locations.

Then, about a year ago, Power Shop, an organisation which helps to provide jobs for people with disabilities set up a re-cycling centre in our town. We were able to deposit paper, cans, cardboard, and plastic bottles there regularly. The centre seemed to be doing good business, but last week, when we visited to deposit some newspapers, we were told that the centre is closing, is now closed in fact, for re-cycling, but will continue to accept donations of aluminium cans. Reason: it hasn't made a profit. “We had a grand idea that we believed would provide jobs for people with disabilities, help the community, save the earth and make money,” the executive director said in a statement. “Unfortunately, it did everything except make money.”

Ye gods!!! Surely the state or city or federal government could subsidise something as important as this, so that profit need not be paramount? I should send a letter or a copy of this post, perhaps, to the state's governor, Mary Fallin - but it's a lost cause. A standard letter would be the response, as it was when I wrote to our Senator Tom Coburn about health care reform. They. Don't. Care. In this as in many spheres Oklahoma lags behind the rest of the US. I should not tar the whole of the US with the same brush. The following is from Encyclopedia of Earth's Recycling section

.....In particular, the culture of consumption of post-World War II America re-enforced carelessness, waste, and a drive for newness. Environmental concerns contributed to a new "ethic" within American culture that began to value restraint, re-use, and living within limits. This ethic of restraint, fed by over-used landfills and excessive litter, gave communities a new mandate in maintaining the waste of their population. Re-using products or creating useful byproducts from waste offered application of this new ethic while also offering new opportunity for economic profit and development.

Non-profit recycling centers began opening around the country, followed by municipal recycling programs. Today, most U.S. communities have such programs. A typical program asks people to separate their recyclables from their trash before placing them at the curb for collection. To encourage recycling, some communities also charge residents for the quantity of trash put out for collection. The most commonly recycled household items are paper and cardboard; metal, glass, and plastic containers and packaging; and yard waste. Recycling the recovered materials is simple for metals and glass; they can be melted down, reformed, and reused. Yard waste can be composted with little or no equipment. Paper, the most important recycled material, must be mixed with water, and sometimes de-inked, to form a pulp that can be used in papermaking. Plastics recycling requires an expensive process of separation of different resins.

In the US, plastics are all numerically coded according to type, including: polyethylene terphthalate (PETE or PET; 1) an example of these plastics are virtually all soft drink bottles, high density polyethylene (HDPE; 2) an example would be detergent bottles, polyvinyl chloride (PVC; 3), sometimes used for water or oil bottles but now rare in food beverage packaging, due to concerns about its environmental hazards; low density polyethylene (LDPE; 4) often used for plastic bags, polypropylene (PP; 5) examples are some yogurt containers and bottle caps, and polystyrene (PS; 6) used to make Styrofoam containers. Number 7 seen on some packaging, refers to all plastics other than these six. It is not a single plastic material.

Lessons are being learned - somewhere - if not in Oklahoma. Because of the horrendous growth of the "plastic garbage island" in the North Pacific, grown 100-fold in the past 40 years, several Californian city authorities have placed a ban on the use of plastic bags in grocery stores. That's a start! The use of styrofoam/plastic cups, cutlery and plates in motels and fast-food places ought to be next on the list.


Photograph from ambiental.

The huge patch (some say the size of Texas, but calculation is difficult because much of the broken down material remains below the surface) of 80% plastic garbage has been created by waste swept into the North Pacific Subtropical Convergence Zone by circulating ocean currents known as a gyre. Eventually the plastics are broken down by wind and waves and become small particles which will, someday, enter the food chain.

"Your descendants shall gather your fruits." ~ Virgil
(Note: I'd add to Virgil's ancient wisdom, and no doubt it was implied anyway: "whether the fruits be nourishing or poisoned is up to you.")

10 - 10 - 10

I feel as though I ought to be writing something about 10 on this day of three tens.

As a start: what's the significance of the number 10 in astrology? Let's see.

Each zodiac sign of 30 degrees is split into "decans" - 10ths : 3 sets of 10 degrees. Erm.....Capricorn, Cardinal Earth is the 10th sign of the zodiac, ruled by Saturn . 10th house represents one's career, work and public persona. On 10th house cusp is the midheaven angle - a potent spot in any astrological chart.

That's all I can come up with for astrological 10.

In Tarot, card 10 of the Major Arcana is The Wheel of Fortune. In traditional tarot decks the wheel has the four mystical creatures of the bible (Ezekiel 1:10, Revelation 4:7) in the four corners, corresponding to the four Fixed signs of the Zodiac: A bull = Taurus, a lion = Leo, an Eagle = Scorpio, and a winged man = Aquarius. The card is interpreted along these lines: unexpected developments, change of course, new way of life; conflicts of interest , circumstances beyond one's control; some chaos then the start of something better ; the hand of fate; advice to maintain a flexible attitude.

Number 10 follows number 9 which in the Tarot is the Hermit. The Hermit is the self-realized wise one. 10 + 9 = 19; 1 + 9 = 10; 1 + 0 = 1.... and round and around we go.....the wheel turns.

Ten is the culmination of previous steps into a 2 digit numeral
but 1 + 0 = 1 thus the end becomes the beginning.

The 1 and the O = binary code, the male and female that is within every structure and every code of creation.
Biologically the 1 represents the male penis and the O is the woman's vagina, which combine to create life.

Everything written thus far may seem like so much gobbledegook to some passing readers, but there ARE far more down to earth events taking place on 10-10-10.
What follows might just herald in The Wheel of Fortune's promise of better things after chaos, or echo astrology's Capricorn and 10th house symbolism of Earth, work - getting things DONE!

When our leaders won't lead, it's time to take climate matters back into our own hands. At the Global Work Party this weekend, October 10, we are organizing our communities from the ground up.
350.org - are inviting people in every country on earth to take tangible local actions to make their communities better places to live, and emit less carbon at the same time. Through local climate action projects, we'll make our leaders wake up and lead on the climate crisis. It's a plan that may well break the logjam and get us moving.

http://tcktcktck.org/events/major-moments/global-work-party


Some things we can all do to help the cause today....and every day following:
Easiest of all, but oft forgotten - switch off unnecessary lights and appliances.
Adjust thermostats to more economical settings. Be aware of wasteful use of water - lawn sprinklers are not a necessity of life on Earth. Recycle, recycle, recycle.



Some events organised for today in countries throughout the world (copied from http://blog.iesve.com/)

Sumo wrestlers cycling to practice in downtown Tokyo.

An education center in the Namib Desert in Namibia installing six solar panels.

Divers on the smallest island nation of the world, Nauru (8.1 square miles) will plunge into their coral reefs for an underwater clean-up.

President Mohamed Nasheed of the Maldives is installing solar panels on his roof.

Partiers in Edinburgh will be throwing a “Joycott” (a reverse boycott) at a local bar that agreed to put 20% of its extra revenues on 10/10/10 to making the bar more energy efficient. Attendees will try and drink as much as possible to raise money. Cheers!

In San Pedro Garza Garcia, Mexico, students will hand out solar-powered lights to families, who are still recovering from the devastation of Hurricane Alex this June, 2010.

Over 100 cyclists from Jordan, Israel and Palestine taking part in a 3-day bicycle relay to carry water from the Yarmouk River and the Sea of Galilee to the Dead Sea to symbolize the need for cooperation to stop climate change and save precious water resources.

On 10/10/10 the Mayor of Mexico City will sign a commitment to reduce the city’s emissions 10% in a single year. The city government will be directly responsible for 5% of the reductions and lead a public campaign to get citizens to cut the remaining 5%.

Young people in Barbados will be demonstrating the viability of fuel cell technology in a hovercraft they have built themselves.

Oil, USA, and the love affair with cars.

The chart for the "birth" of the USA which appeals to me most is that for 2 July 1776, shown below - the Armistead Chart. I prefer it over the popular 4 July charts for reasons of both history and symbolism. The sharp opposition (red line vertically crossing the circle) between Moon/Pluto (public/passion) and Mercury (communication, mental processes) symbolises, for me, the sharp, passionate divisions of opinion which have arisen in every important matter throughout this nation's relatively brief lifespan. In the US I, as an outsider, sense this as a far more bitter, all encompassing and absolute division than generally occurs in other countries.

The other very interesting alignment, given current circumstances, is a harmonious trine (the blue diagonal on left side of chart) between Neptune, representing oil, and Moon representing the public -& Pluto representing passion and potential threat.


Chart copied from Astrodatabank.

In the USA, more than any other nation, the people simply love their vehicles. Beloved cars, SUVs and trucks need gas/oil of course, and here's where that harmonious trine (oil/people) manifests. Vehicles represent that highly-valued sense of freedom craved by The American People. Vehicles are also a necessity in many areas. Much of this vast country isn't served by public transport. There is little or no access to sidewalks (footpaths), so use of "Shanks' Pony" is strictly limited - if one values one's life.

Motor vehicles then, outside of metropolitan areas, are the only means of transport. In some cases several cars are owned by a single family, to meet the the demands of differing job/school/college locations. From such necessities has arisen this love of Americans for their vehicles. As an extension of that, there is an insatiable need for gas (petrol). I ought to mention also that the US Military Industrial Complex - a truly gargantuan entity - uses gazillions more gas than the average Joe.....and the MIC is indeed insatiable.

The current tragedy in the Gulf of Mexico has to be bringing home to many (or should be bringing home to many) that halcyon days in the love affair of Americans for their vehicles are almost over. We are rapidly reaching a fresh state of affairs. Things must, somehow, change if we and the planet are to survive.




There's a must-read article on the topic by Johann Hari at Huffington Post: We Are All Trapped in a Global Oil Slick. The piece closes thus:

And so we are all left slithering in the global oil slick. Yet the anger of the sane citizenry -- those of us who don't want to engage in collective self-destruction -- has been weirdly muted. Most of us know instinctively that we can't carry on like this. Most of us know Big Oil is a swelling tumor. But it is still much more common to see protests for cheap oil than to see protests to build a world beyond it. We wait passively for a rational politician to emerge through the corruption, when we should be relentlessly pressuring them all.

The oilman John Paul Getty once joked: "The meek will inherit the earth, but not the mineral rights." If the sane proponents of a post-oil world stay so meek and mild, we may not inherit much worth having at all.

There are doom-laden articles and comments about the oil leak all over the internet at present. I avoid such writings for the most part, but occasionally feel a nagging responsibility to investigate these cries of "Wolf!" There is talk of methane gas deposits exploding and causing earthquakes or a tsunami. Talk of movement of tectonic plates. Talk of oily/poisonous rains falling when noxious fumes are carried up into the atmosphere; and of hurricanes still to come.

O joy!


By way of antidote - or not - I decided to pull 3 cards from my tarot deck. I asked "What do I need to know about the future in relation to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico?"
Strength/7 Wands/7 Cups emerged after a good shuffle and cut.
Hmmm - definite cause for some slight feeling of relief? The Strength card is the most important one of the 3 as it comes from the Major Arcana. Its meaning is obvious, really needs no further interpretation.

7 of Wands = showing defiance and holding out against pressure, resisting authority, showing conviction. 7 Cups = procrastination, avoiding being pro-active, lacking focus, having a variety of options but being indecisive. Is this a picture of the current US administration?

7 Cups is the dangerously undermining card of these 3, otherwise hopeful, cards. Strength could and should overcome it with the stamina, courageous outlook and unshakeable resolve indicated by the card.

Looks like the tarot is casting a dividing line reminiscent of that in the US chart. In this case it's Strength v. procrastination and indecision.



(Illustration above is taken from Prop Art, by Gary Yanker, on my bookshelf. This poster and the one earlier in the piece were issued in 1970 and 1971 after an oil spill off California.

When will they ever learn?

Viva VIVACE !

A system, conceived by scientists at the University of Michigan, called VIVACE, or "vortex-induced vibrations for aquatic clean energy", could possibly be the answer, or part of it, scientists are looking for to solve the world's future energy problems. A revolutionary (Uranus) device that can harness energy from slow-moving rivers and ocean currents (Neptune) could provide enough power for the entire world, we are told.

This is classic Neptune in Aquarius, Uranus in Pisces, known to astrologers as "mutual reception". Neptune connects to water and the sea, Uranus to invention, technology. These two outer planets are currently travelling in the zodiac sign of each other's rulership, Aquarius and Pisces, their "energies" are blended. Look what happens!

In an article in the UK's Telegraph by Jasper Copping he describes VIVACE:

The technology can generate electricity in water flowing at a rate of less than one knot - about one mile an hour - meaning it could operate on most waterways and sea beds around the globe.

Existing technologies which use water power, relying on the action of waves, tides or faster currents created by dams, are far more limited in where they can be used, and also cause greater obstructions when they are built in rivers or the sea. Turbines and water mills need an average current of five or six knots to operate efficiently, while most of the earth's currents are slower than three knots.

The new device, which has been inspired by the way fish swim, consists of a system of cylinders positioned horizontal to the water flow and attached to springs.
As water flows past, the cylinder creates vortices, which push and pull the cylinder up and down. The mechanical energy in the vibrations is then converted into electricity.......

"This is a totally new method of extracting energy from water flow," said Mr Bernitsas. "Fish curve their bodies to glide between the vortices shed by the bodies of the fish in front of them. Their muscle power alone could not propel them through the water at the speed they go, so they ride in each other's wake."

Such vibrations, which were first observed 500 years ago by Leonardo DaVinci in the form of "Aeolian Tones", can cause damage to structures built in water, like docks and oil rigs. But Mr Bernitsas added: "We enhance the vibrations and harness this powerful and destructive force in nature."

It's a piece of hopeful news, surfacing as our Sun lies in Sagittarius, sign of optimism. I feel certain that Mother Nature has a solution for us, it's just a question of finding it in time. She is, like any mother, tolerant of her children's misdeeds - and we've chalked up lots of those!

UPDATE
AND STILL MORE GOOD NEWS!
Hillary Clinton nominated as Secretary of State! YAY!!!!! Thanks P/E Obama.

A Masterpiece by James Michener

We've started watching again my twenty six and a half hour long VCR set of a 1970s TV series, "Centennial".
In my opinion it's the best TV series ever made, adapted from the book by James Michener, who I see as one of the best and most hard-working writers ever. The amount of research involved in his novels would cause any but the brave to falter!

I wrote about Michener and his natal chart in my early blogging days in late 2006:
"James A. Michener - Aquarian Storyteller".
Michener's style often reminds me of another Aquarian novelist, Charles Dickens (7 February 1812). Others might find this a peculiar thought, but I see the painstaking research and fine characterization, allied to subtle social comment included in their plots, bearing a striking resemblance. Naturally their natal charts contain many differences, but I see Aquarius shining through.

Most of Michener's novels are sagas, "Centennial" is no different. It traces the development of beautiful Colorado, from pre-historic times to what was "the present"-the early 1970s, at the time of Michener's writing. Fact and fiction intertwine as the story swings from days when only Native American tribes, odd-ball woodsmen and trappers inhabited the plains and mountains, to the days of early European settlers, good, bad and ugly. Onward, through a variety of adventures with ranchers, business men and politicians of the 20th century.

The late David Janssen plays the part of ranch owner Paul Garrett, descendant of the character we met in the story first of all, Pasquinel, woodsman and trapper who hailed originally from Quebec. As the saga draws to a close, the words Paul Garrett utters are even more pertinent today, over thirty years later:

"The Earth isn't something you take from without ever thinking about giving back. The Earth is something you protect every day of the year. The river is something you defend every inch of its course. We have to look to the past and get back to some basic principles if there is going to be any future worth having."

AMEN!

I've discovered that "Centennial" was released in DVD format just this summer. I highly recommend it to anyone who hasn't already seen it or read the book. There are countless familiar faces in the series, some sadly no longer with us, some in the intervening years have become almost household names. A reviewer at Amazon.com remarked, "No one can teach history like James Michener". I agree. He informs while entertaining his audience and, on occasion, moving them to tears.

This YouTube video is one of the final scenes from the TV series. I find it very moving. Country star Merle Haggard, who enters the story briefly in the last episode, as a descendant of one of the original characters, can be heard singing in the background.