Eileen Cooper RA is an English contemporary painter and print-maker, who makes stylised paintings of women or couples, often featuring unexpected animals (particularly a tiger). She was born in Glossop, Derbyshire, studied at Goldsmiths College, London from 1971 to 1974 and the Royal College of Art, London from 1974 to 1977. Cooper was elected to the Royal Academy on 24 May 2001, and in 2011 she became the first woman to be elected Keeper at the Royal Academy.(HERE)
The figure of a woman is central to Eileen Cooper's imagery: heroine, goddess of myth, mother, lover. Her strong drawing with fluid simplified lines and colourful compositions make her work immediately recognisable. Her style invokes Picasso and Chagall as well as the Mughal miniatures she admires. (HERE)
An overall idea of her style can be found by taking a look at the Google Image page featuring her artwork: Eileen Cooper at Google Image
Brief video presentation:
ASTROLOGY
Natal chart set for 12 noon - time of birth unknown.
Eileen Cooper, born 10 June 1953 in Glossop, UK.
I've included a natal chart for reference but haven't attempted any interpretation out of respect, as Ms Cooper is still around, still painting, and not a very public figure, as are others whose natal charts are frequently investigated by astrologers. Instead I've chosen three of her paintings to include here:
Bathing
Promise
Boy Dreaming of his Manhood
Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s).
When feeling need for...something...I seem to recall that some people reach for The Bible, open it at random and find something on that random page appropriate to their need for....comfort, understanding....something. I don't use The Bible for such endeavours, but I have a tattered copy of Carl Sandburg's "The People, Yes" on the shelf under my computer, and I use that. It's a second printing, dated 1936. The book has has seldom failed me. I opened it yesterday afternoon, feeling somewhat numb, and mildly depressed after the previous night's primary results and announcements. I opened the book at random - once only - it opened to page 158, and this passage hit me in the eye straight away.
The people laugh, yes, the people laugh.
They have to in order to live and survive under lying politicians,
lying labor skates, lying racketeers of business, lying newspapers, lying ads.
The people laugh even at lies that cost them toil and bloody exactions.
For a long time the people may laugh, until a day when the laughter
changes key and tone and has something it didn't have.
Then there is a scurrying and a noise of discussion and an asking of the question
what is it the people want.
Then there is the pretense of giving the people what they want,
with jokers, trick clauses, delays and continuances, with lawyers and fixers,
playboys and ventriloquists, big-time promises.
Time goes by and the gains are small for the years go slow, the people go slow,
yet the gains can be counted and the laughter of the people foretokening revolt carries fear to those who wonder how far it will go and where to block it.
Today, a bit of what I like to call "drive-by astrology". More often than not "drive-by" is used in connection with shootings. I put the term to use in a more peaceful context. Whenever I come across an individual whose natal chart proves, on first sight, to be an excellent fit for the person I perceive, I post the chart with very brief reasons why it fits its owner so clearly. I hope this will provide a chance to see astrology working "before our very eyes" !
Drive-by subject: Francis Crick (8 June 1916 – 28 July 2004). Oh look - today is the centenary of his birth! He was an English biologist and neuroscientist who became one of the most important contributors to understanding DNA when he co-discovered its helical structure in 1953. He was also the one to coin the term "central dogma" in reference to how genetic information flows from DNA to RNA to protein.
I shall simply take a look at his natal chart. No time of birth is known, so chart is set for 12 noon on 8 June 1916, Northampton, UK. Crick was actually born in a tiny village, Weston Favell, near Northampton, chart is set for Northampton - nearest my software can manage.
From Gary Robbins' piece linked above:
Crick is remembered as a bold, brilliant, boisterous, bigger-than-life figure who expanded beyond genetics to search for a biological basis for human consciousness.
Wikipedia (linked above)
Crick was often described as very talkative, with Watson – in The Double Helix – implying lack of modesty. His personality combined with his scientific accomplishments produced many opportunities for Crick to stimulate reactions from others, both inside and outside the scientific world, which was the centre of his intellectual and professional life. Crick spoke rapidly, and rather loudly, and had an infectious and reverberating laugh, and a lively sense of humour. One colleague from the Salk Institute described him as "a brainstorming intellectual powerhouse with a mischievous smile.... Francis was never mean-spirited, just incisive. He detected microscopic flaws in logic. In a room full of smart scientists, Francis continually reearned his position as the heavyweight champ."
Airy Gemini Sun conjunct Mercury: an excellent start for mental acuity, here linked by harmonious trine to Uranus in its own sign of rulership, airy inventive Aquarius, seals the deal. Astrologers would not be in the least surprised to find that a person with this combination would have some manner of mental brilliance, more than likely connected to something new and futuristic (via Uranus). Saturn, the planet said to be connected to things scientific/mathematical/structured, was in Cancer, conjunct Venus and in semi-sextile to Sun/Mercury. Some interpret semi-sextiles as unhelpful, I don't. Though Cancer and Gemini are not seen as particularly compatible as signs go, I interpret this link as indication of the direction this man's brilliance would likely take : into science.
Crick's natal Moon would have been somewhere in Virgo, whatever his time of birth. Virgo is a sign known for meticulous attention to detail, and that attribute is essential in scientific pursuits. Virgo Moon could quite likely have been in helpful sextile to Saturn.
Crick's boisterous personality, loud laughter and general geniality is, I think, nicely represented by boisterous cheerful Jupiter in impetuous Aries.
Primary season is almost over, at last! Today voters in New Jersey, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana and California will declare their preferences. At the weekend primary voters in the Virgin Islands and in Puerto Rico had their say, Hillary Clinton was winner in each case making Bernie's already tough task that much more difficult. In Washington D.C. Democrats will vote on 14 June - that is the finishing post! There'll then be a break of several weeks before parties' conventions in July, when nominees will be officially chosen. There'll not be much of a break in media coverage in the meantime though, nor of parties' wranglings, attempting to bring their people into line.
I'll be watching for any shenanigans from MSNBC this evening - such as declaring Hillary Clinton the Democratic nominee hours before California votes are counted - before voters there have even finished voting - see videos below.
It's going to be a nail-biting evening for me, hoping that Bernie Sanders continues to add to his delegate haul and list of "states won". California, with its large number of delegates, is going to be a major focus of attention. I'd be especially happy also if my favourite state to visit, New Mexico, would give Bernie a win. I don't hold out much hope for a Bernie win in New Jersey but the rest may be, as they say, "in play".
P.S. ~ For John Laurits' latest rousing piece of writing do read his
Dean Martin, born 7 June 1917. I chose this video because it reminds us that he could act (kind of) as well as sing. He was so well-liked by audiences that what he lacked in acting skills was more than compensated for by an ever warm and easy-going persona.
Robert Preston, born 8 June 1918. Remembered mostly for his starring part in The Music Man, but I like this number of his from a lesser known show Mack and Mabel.
The original 1974 Broadway production starred Robert Preston and Bernadette Peters. It received eight Tony Award nominations, including Best Musical.
Mack & Mabel is a musical with a book by Michael Stewart and music and lyrics by Jerry Herman. The true story involves the tumultuous romantic relationship between Hollywood director Mack Sennett and Mabel Normand who became one of his biggest stars.
Happy birthday to Bonnie Tyler this week, she was born on June 8 1951.
THIS ONE's FOR BERNIE supporters, thinking of primaries to be held tomorrow:
I've noticed Cory Booker's name, among others, mentioned in respect of a possible VP pick for Hillary Clinton, should she be the Democrats' presidential nominee. Once Mayor of Newark, New Jersey, now United States Senator for New Jersey, he has climbed the political ladder since my first posts about him, one in 2008, with a follow-up in 2013.
From all I'd heard or read of Cory Booker in intervening years, I'd have expected him to have been a strong supporter of Bernie Sanders from the get-go. I was wrong. He seriously disappointed me in getting on board the Clinton bandwagon. I guess I was fooled - again. Pity! Maybe former commenter "LB" was right in doubting him in comments under the 2013 post.
Anyway, disappointment aside, let's take another look at Sen. Booker's natal chart. Maybe there'll be indication of a further rise up the political ladder - he certainly seems to be a determined political climber. It has to be a 12 noon version as I don't know his time of birth. He was born on 27 April 1969 in Washington DC.
I first look at Saturn for indication of career movement - and note that he had transiting Saturn conjunct natal Mars in March to May of this year, Saturn will be back there again, after retrograde motion in November. From that, I'd estimate some kind of emphasis on career - possibly as Clinton's VP, or some important cabinet post in her administration.
How about transiting Jupiter - the luck bringer (sometimes)? There'll be a "Jupiter return" for Sen. Booker in late August (i.e. transiting Jupiter conjoins natal Jupiter in Virgo).
Natal Jupiter is conjunct Uranus - likely to draw in something unexpected.
I still don't like that natal Mercury is conjunct Fixed Star Algol - but will not speculate further on that.
I'm sure there's more to say on this, in relation to transits and planetary formations current and future - so shall leave further investigation for commenter mike's more experienced eye to unravel.
William Roberts, born 5 June 1895, died 20 January 1980. He was a British painter of, mainly, groups of figures and portraits. He was also a war artist in both World War I and World War II.
I was unaware of Mr Roberts' paintings, but having wandered among those available via Google Image have been duly impressed.
Roberts, always himself a most independent figure, carved a special niche from an early age. Very much a man of the people, from the simplest East London beginnings (his father was a carpenter), he remained all through his life a man who chose not to communicate with people. Yet, he provided us through his oeuvre with a broad yet spectral insight into the social characteristics of society as he saw it and of its changing nature as the 20th century wore on...........
Roberts' dramatic set-piece, entitled 'The Cinema' (1920)
The film being a silent cowboy saga, the female musical accompanist is glimpsed through curtains below the screen and the monochromatic expression of the silent movie is represented in toned sepia, as a maelstrom of feverish activity. By contrast, the audience, mainly male, is shown enthralled in sombre, darkening colours, not without cubist or even futurist influence. It is interesting to be able to see, in the same exhibition, Roberts' 'TV' (1960).
TV
Here, a similar engrossment with the screen, now contained within a living room for a family grouping is revealed, yet all is at a private scale of activity. Privacy was a permanent necessity for William Roberts himself in his career and in his closely guarded family life.
Roberts had a highly proactive start to his career, following his scholarship to the Slade at the age of 15. By the time he was 20, he had signed the Vorticist manifesto with other colleagues, together with Wyndham Lewis and the poet Ezra Pound. Did active service as a young war artist in World War I ever expand Roberts's enthusiasm for the mechanistic surge and thrust of the compelling machine age? There is no evidence of this. Indeed, a degree of revulsion now turned Roberts towards full-blown figurative art, developing human forms that were well rounded and upright, generic in a language all his own. Roberts, from his working class background (which he never foresook) was able to provide a genuine social documentation throughout his career, of ordinariness and light together, of his fellow Londoners and Eastenders. He suffered after the war, for his apparent lack of charisma, buying, too, a simple home in Camden, becoming something of a recluse - always with his wife discouraging art critics. He taught at the Central School of Art, but even with students and staff maintained a 'Trappist' lack of verbal exchange, just drawing on his students' work, and in all human contacts painfully shy and less than amiable. His work, and family, became his entirety. Yet Roberts was also an exceptional portrait painter and was persuaded to complete portraits of such luminaries of the pre-war period as TE Lawrence and JM Keynes. His self-portrait shows a cloth-capped, warily reticent, red-faced individual.
Roberts's countervailing sense of humour is apparent in many paintings, such as 'Rush Hour' (1971), one of the best depictions of the almost-disappeared and much-lamented London bus.
Rush Hour
He distrusted critics for the most part and took strenuous measures to avoid them. What speaks out from his work is a self-explanatory integrity, both visual and of technique. He had developed and mastered his personal style from a young age, maintaining and developing it all his life.
Unfortunately, his typical rejection of the entire gallery system (with the proud exception of the Royal Academy, which had perceptively elected him an RA in later life) had long-term shortcomings for his estate. A most important collection of his work, comprising some 70 paintings, numerous drawings and other documentation, still lies in the Tate Gallery cellars, inaccessible as long as the Treasury Solicitors' Department takes to decide as to the best manner of its disposal. Roberts had, typically, died intestate aged 85 in 1980. Neither his family, nor indeed the William Roberts Society, have been able to advance this situation at present.
Many of Roberts' paintings can be seen via Google Image, his subjects encompass a wide variety of everyday activities. From HERE:
Painter, William Roberts, started out as a poster designer and studied at the Slade; leaving the school in 1913 he travelled in France and Italy and fought in the trenches during WWI, the sheer horror of the experience, as with many other artists who went to fight, significantly changing the direction of his work. Roberts was one of the signatories to the first issue of BLAST, the short-lived literary magazine of the Vorticist movement in Britain.
The Vorticists at the Restaurant de la Tour Eiffel: Spring, 1915.
He developed an interest for representing and interpreting the predominantly working class elements of metropolitan London’s everyday life and events – visits to the cinema, the dance hall but treating them with dignity and humour.
Cantering to the Post
The Palms Foretell
The Wimpy Bar
The Dressmakers
The Barber's Shop
ASTROLOGY
Born on 5 June 1895 in London, UK. time of birth unknown, chart set for 12 noon.
Mentioned often in descriptions of the artist is Roberts' need for privacy - from Wikipedia, for instance:
Roberts was often described as reclusive, and he was very wary about interviewers – especially after an Observer journalist who visited him produced an article that Roberts felt was concerned more with his rather spartan lifestyle than with his work. 'What kind of art critic is this, who sets out to criticise my pictures, but criticises my gas stove and kitchen table instead?' he asked. One admirer of his work has told how she saw him getting on to a number 74 bus and 'Fascinated to gain a sighting of the octogenarian recluse, she followed him to the top deck. Aided by "the chutzpah of youthful inexperience", she respectfully asked him if she were addressing Mr William Roberts. After what felt like an interminable pause, and with his gaze defiantly averted, he replied: "I really do not know."
That reclusiveness is reflection of four personal planets in Cancer: Venus conjunct Mars and Jupiter conjunct Mercury. Cancer, a sign said to indicate, when prominent in a natal chart, a propensity for feelings of vulnerability and need for self-protection - the sign's symbol - the crab displays these tendencies. From snips quoted above: His work, and family, became his entirety. That clearly signals Cancerian!
Elementally, Roberts' chart has a preponderance of intuitive, sensitive Water, with only Sun and two outer planets in Air, and no Earth or Fire at all - unless rising sign added one of those elements to the mix.
Roberts' Gemini Sun, closely flanked by Neptune on one side and Pluto on the other, seems a tad beseiged. This, in tandem with four Cancer personal planets could well account for a Gemini Sun person turning out to be against-type, and rather unsociable - at least on the surface. Roberts' underlying affection for ordinary people, though, is evident from his paintings - his way of communicating without making himself vulnerable.
Saturn, from secretive Scorpio trines Mercury, further adding to some feeling of inner restriction or limitation. Also in Scorpio are Uranus and, quite possibly Moon, with one or both in trine to some of the Cancer planets - still more reflection of Roberts' need for privacy - a known Scorpio trait.
Uranus' links to personal planets also relates to Roberts' modernistic quasi-cubist art style, and his connection with the avant-garde Vorticists.
Scooting around available BBC radio shows online last weekend, I happened across a programme where Bill Nighy was being re-united with tracks from his vinyl record collection, which had been lost in a flood. As I tuned in, the presenter was commenting on how Bill, holding the stack of vinyl LPs provided by the BBC, was fiddling with the records, making sure all were neatly aligned. Bill responded, "Yes, I'm really very good at aligning things - though not as good at dusting and cleaning them".
My astro-dar was alerted! Sounds like a Virgo trait ! I Google-searched to discover whether astro.com has Bill's natal chart, and found instead Astrotheme's. Born 12 December 1949 in Caterham, UK. Without knowing his time of birth, natal Moon's position can't be known, but Moon, along with Mars and Saturn, would have been in Virgo whatever time Bill was born.
Good to know my ol' astro-dar is still in working order!
The door of history turns on small hinges, and so do people’s lives. –Thomas S. Monson
June 1st - or, as ancient Romans called it the calends/kalends of June. Their calendar differed from ours in fine detail, due to a Pope's later reorganisation of it. Anyway, Romans called the first day of every month the "calends". (Wikipedia)
On this day, the pontiffs would announce the number of days until the next month at the Curia Calabra; in addition, debtors had to pay off their debts on this day. These debts were inscribed in the kalendaria, effectively an accounting book.
So...on the calends of June Romans honoured one of their lesser goddesses - Cardea. She had the job of ruling over door hinges. Someone, somewhere online had a good title for gods and goddesses of this lesser order: "odd jobs gods". On the face of it her job seemed of little importance but, looked at from a wider angle, it's not as much of an odd job as it at first might seem.
Cardea is the Roman Goddess of the Door Hinge, who protects the family and children of the house and keeps evil spirits from crossing the threshold. Her name comes from the Latin word cardo, which means "hinge" and which also encompasses the wider symbolism of the pole or axis around which the earth spins. She is therefore a Goddess of the Center as well as the change that emanates out from that center. The word cardo was also used by the Romans to refer to the north-south axis on which a new city was founded (the east-west line being the decumanus), and from this we get our word cardinal, meaning fundamental or principal, especially regarding the directions.
Cardea has close ties with the ancient Roman God Janus, God of Beginnings and Endings, who also watched over doorways, and was depicted as having two faces to see both past and future (our month January, the first month of the year, is still named for Him). The tales say that Cardea and Janus were lovers; and to reward Her for sleeping with Him, or perhaps from love, He gave Her the door-hinge as Her emblem, and the power to prevent evil spirits from passing through doors. Because She could keep bad spirits out of the house, Cardea was worshipped as the protector of children, for it was believed (or at least the children believed) that at night witches transformed themselves into screech-owls and flew in the windows of the house to suck the blood of unwary children. (The Latin words striga, "witch, hag, vampire", and strix, "screech owl, vampire" are clearly related.)
The legends say that Cardea protected these children with hawthorn (also known as whitethorn), by hanging a small branch of it over the child's window or in the baby's cradle.
(See HERE)
The New York Times obtained the deposition of former State Department administrative official Lewis A. Lukens, who had helped Clinton set up her computers when she took office in 2009. According to him, he had suggested that she use a desktop computer at the State Department solely for her personal e-mails, unconnected to the official department network system. Clinton shot that idea down, saying that she was "not adept or not used to checking her e-mails on a desktop........"
Explanations so far include: she did not want to carry two phones; she did not want the public reading her yoga routines and wedding plans for Chelsea; she doesn’t even know how to wipe a computer, anyway....
I refuse to believe that Hillary Clinton is not "adept or not used to checking her e-mails on a desk-top." The woman has been in a government environment for decades, either as First Lady, a Senator, or Secretary of State. She isn't adept with a desk-top computer? Maybe she doesn't like to use one in 2016, when most young things (decades younger than her) are all in with the hand-held variety of computerisation, but how about back in the 1990s and early 2000s? One had a desk-top, or its portable cousin a lap-top then - no other option. Has her memory failed her? She must have used a desk-top at some point in her working life.
More detail from Eric Zuesse on Lewis Lukens’s sworn testimony is HERE.
Opinions vary on whether E-mailgate will further unravel Hillary Clinton's progress in the presidential campaign. It was interesting to note that just before the weekend certain TV commentators, previously pro-Clinton seemed seriously concerned. At this link Andrea Mitchell and Chuck Todd, voice concern. Is this the first sign of a vibration that might, eventually, have Hillary Clinton being thrown, as they say, under the bus?
There's this also, regarding other serious charges which may or may not be pending. The article in the second link appeared at Huffington Post recently, but was later removed.
If any of this is even half true, then certain people must be rehearsing the under-bus Clinton throw right now.
Whether such an outcome would help or hinder Bernie Sanders is in doubt, dependent on timing. Timing on this must be a fine art for the DNC, the President and others with influence. They do not want Bernie as nominee - this we know.
The only way I'd speculate a reasonably good outcome, if any of this is true, would be for Hillary to be nominated, then forced to stand down due to legal matters pending, so that DNC would become able to replace her with a nominee of their choice. Joe Biden perhaps? Were that to happen, naming Bernie as Biden's VP might convince enough of Bernie's supporters to accept the outcome....or not. I cannot imagine any outcome more likely to help matters, or to avoid some very, very nasty scenes.
I'm more tuned-in to remembering those who died in wars on Britain's Remembrance Day, 11 November. The USA sees fit to have a full-blown Memorial Weekend in late May, complete with barbecues and other hi-jinks. This, she declares archly, seems hardly appropriate, to the occasion.
Here's my contribution, anyway. I'm not sure if the soldiers portrayed in this video are American, UK or Allied, but the message is the same. I have reason to be thankful, personally, for the US military's assistance to Britain in the 1940s. With regard to later wars, I have other opinions.
Brothers in Arms by Dire Straits - Mark Knopfler on guitar
Or there's this (edited from a post of mine dated June 2011)-
Is the USA run by psychopaths? It's tempting to say "Of course" in a flip, facetious tone, but it's a theory worth seriously considering. An article by David Schwartz at the weekend set me out on this tack:The Rise of the Second-String Psychopaths. David Schwartz refers to a comment by the late Kurt Vonnegut in his final book A Man Without a Country:
The United States corporate and government spheres have become, Vonnegut suggested, a perfect habitat for psychopaths. What has allowed so many psychopaths to rise so high in corporations, and then government, he wrote,
“is that they are so decisive. They are going to do something every fuckin’ day and they are not afraid. Unlike normal people, they are never filled with doubts, for the simple reason that they don’t give a fuck what happens next. Simply can’t. Do this! Do that! Mobilize the reserves! Privatize the public schools! Attack Iraq! Cut health care! Tap everybody’s telephone! Cut taxes on the rich!
In a country in which much of human culture has been rendered into machines for the manufacture of money, psychopaths are the ideal leaders. They are very focused. They are outcome oriented. They are frequently charming, and usually very bright and able. They can lay off thousands of people, or deny people health care, or have them waterboarded, and it does not disturb their sleep. They can be impressively confident. Psychopaths can be dynamic leaders of enterprises, but are handicapped by their lack of feelings for relationships. They may be accomplished captains of industry, or senators, or surgeons, but their families are frequently abused and miserable. Most psychotherapists have seen the wives or husband or children of such accomplished people.
I know little or nothing about how a psychopath is properly defined, wondered whether astrology can be used to identify traits of it.
A check list to determine if somebody is a psychopath: Hare’s Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R), appears HERE. It's said to be the most commonly used tool to assess a person’s psychopathy.
Each of the 20 items is scored a 0, 1, or 2. If a person receives a combined score of more than 30 points out of 40 possible points, then he is considered a “psychopath.” Here is the list:
Item 1: Glibness/superficial charm
Item 2: Grandiose sense of self-worth
Item 3: Need for stimulation/proneness to boredom
Item 4: Pathological lying
Item 5: Cunning/manipulative
Item 6: Lack of remorse or guilt
Item 7: Shallow affect
Item 8: Callous/lack of empathy
Item 9: Parasitic lifestyle
Item 10: Poor behavioural controls
Item 11: Promiscuous sexual behaviour
Item 12: Early behaviour problems
Item 13: Lack of realistic long-term goals
Item 14: Impulsivity
Item 15: Irresponsibility
Item 16: Failure to accept responsibility for own actions
Item 17: Many short-term marital relationships
Item 18: Juvenile delinquency
Item 19: Revocation of conditional release
Item 20: Criminal versatility
Can we see the psychopath in the horoscope?
It is fascinating, for example, that Moon and/or Venus often play a dominant role in charts of people whom we consider as psychopaths. In fact, the charts of a lot of allegedly "unfeeling" and "cold-blooded" psychopaths have an emphasis of the water element. Surprising?
From a psychological point of view it becomes clear that these people have often had difficulties to cope with their strong sensitivity and emotions in their past. They found it easier to lock their feelings away and keep them 'water-tight' so that they didn't have to feel them. But they have found other outlets for their watery side: they use their strong capacity for empathy to 'slip into their victims' skin' and find out about their weaknesses and fears in order to exploit them ruthlessly. To the psychopath it may "only" feel like striking back, like a revenge for their own hurt feelings...
So, are all people with an emphasis on water psychopaths?
The answer to the last question is quite clearly "No!"
I doubt that it would be possible, or ethical, to identify a psychopath from a natal chart. Too many variables, too much "grey area", too many unknown factors from the person's background etc. Given a certain set of life experiences it's possible that any one of us could display some psychopathic tendencies. Perhaps astrology might indicate those in whom "tendencies" could most likely mushroom into full-fledged psychopathy?
I'm taking the liberty of copying snips from two comments from the thread following the article by David Schwartz. These provides plenty of food for thought. First comment was written by "Giovanna" and can be found in full timed around 1 PM on 5th June in the thread beneath the original article.
.....It is an absolute mistake to dismiss psychopaths as simply crazy, wild-eyed serial killers. Serial killers are rare; and though it's true that most serial killers are psychopathic, most psychopaths are NOT serial killers and, by definition of law, they are absolutely sane: they distinguish the difference between right and wrong and they completely understand the nature and quality of the acts they carry out. Psychopathic individuals are not delusional and should not be confused with people who are psychotic and whose acts can be legally justified by an affirmative NGRI defense.
In fact, contrary to the myths surrounding them, most psychopaths appear quite NORMAL and even charming and charismatic... at first. They quickly reveal themselves, however, as parasitic, lying con-artists who are adept, cunning and ruthless masters at exploiting any perceived weakness, which is why they gravitate to authoritarian politics and find their comfortable niche in the capitalist/corporate/political imperial milieu. I've always found it interesting (and disturbing) that the most important decisions affecting society are placed in the hands of these shallow, superficial, career charlatans because absolutely nothing -- NOTHING -- is more important to them than their own self-interest.
...............Corporate and political malfeasance fall under the quaint euphemism known as "white collar" crime, which sounds very milquetoast. As the world is currently experiencing, there is nothing tepid or inconsequential, however, about the massive societal and evironmental destruction psychopathic corporate and/or political criminals leaves in their wake.
Many years ago I figured out that psychopaths are drawn to positions of power and domination like moths to flame. For instance, there are probably more psychopaths milling about Wall Street and "K" Street than anywhere else on the planet. There is not a doubt in my mind that these "people of the lie" are the poster children of imperial-corporate capitalism and responsible for most of the world's ills......
Second comment by Mairead dated 6 June at 1:59 PM
This first-string second-string stuff becomes more clear if we remember that psychopathy is at one end of *one* spectrum, with something like selflessness at the other end. The other basic spectrum we're dealing with is the skein of abilities that we lump together as "intelligence".
So down at the psychopathic end, we have the "obligative" psychopaths, who totally lack the ability to experience empathy. To them, other living creatures *truly* might as well be made of cardboard.
If those ones aren't smart, they'll eff up pretty quickly and end in prison. But if they are smart, they'll learn to feign the feelings they don't have. They'll learn the right words, facial expressions, etc. for any given situation and use them as a tool.
Further toward the middle of the spectrum, we have those who *do* feel, but not very deeply. They don't have the ethical "tin ear" that the obligatives have. They hear the music, they just don't always pay attention to it. They behave badly toward others whenever they think they can get away with it. The politicians who sell us out, the judges who take bribes, the brutal cops, the professionals who charge for unnecessary - and often unperformed - work, the priests who molest children, et lengthy cetera are in this category. They do it because they can.
The DSM has a big table of diagnostic criteria for "antisocial personality disorder". But it lets the rich off the hook because it's considered normal for the rich to treat the poor badly and the DSM addresses disruptive deviation from cultural norms rather than illness. Someone could be delusional as hell and if they are able to avoid being socially disruptive, they won't get a diagnosis.
So the real differential diagnosis for psychopathy, obfuscated by the DSM, boils down to just one question: does this individual routinely disregard, without remorse, the legitimate rights of other living creatures?
The "second string" psychopaths are the ones who don't have to be, and who know that they're not smart enough (or not quite depraved enough) to get away with it usually. They come out from the woodwork when the political environment has become so corrupted that even they can get away with it, as now.
("psychopath" and "sociopath" are synonyms. Some professionals distinguish them, but few agree on how)
After pondering on that little lot, I'd say the case to prove psychopaths are running the USA would be easy to make.
Born: May 27, 1883, Chicago, Illinois. Died: October 2, 1971, Ventura, California.
From wildlifeart.org
Born to English parents in Chicago in 1883, Jessie Arms Botke spent much of her free time as a child sketching and painting. At the age of fourteen, she took art classes at the School of Art Institute of Chicago. When she graduated from high school, she enrolled as a full-time student at the Institute. During her summer vacations she participated in intensive painting workshops in Michigan and Maine, which led to her first exhibition at the Art Institute's American Annual in 1904. After school, Botke worked in wall decoration and book illustration and refined her skills as a decorative artist. Inspired by an exhibition of friezes, decorations, and tapestries from Herter Looms of New York, Botke moved there in 1911 and immersed herself in the city's artistic climate. Several years later, she was employed at Herter Looms where she worked on tapestry design, painted panels and friezes, and began to specialize in painting birds.
In 1914, Jessie Hazel Arms met design artist Cornelius Botke in Chicago, and they married a year later. Together, the Botkes worked as artists in Chicago, San Francisco, and Carmel, CA, and they traveled often to New York City and Europe. They both worked on major art commissions and held their largest joint exhibition in 1942 at the Ebell Club, a conservative club for the advancement of women and culture. When Jessie's eyesight began to fail in 1961, she continued painting small watercolors until surgery and contact lenses restored her vision and she resumed painting full-time. A stroke in 1967 destroyed her ability to paint, and she died four years later at the age of 88.
"The indomitable Jessie Botke was one of the most celebrated decorative painters of the twentieth century. From her early plein-air landscapes to her decorative friezes and imaginary scenes, she arrived at a richly intricate mature style in the 1930s. Working in an era when many women artists were forced to abdicate their careers, Botke successfully integrated her painting with her personal and public life. That her work was accepted in the teens and twenties, and yet remained relevant in the sixties, is a testament to her staying power and the sheer beauty of her paintings." (Patricia Trenton and Deborah Epstein Solon; Birds, Boughs and Blossoms: Jessie Arms Botke (1883-1971); Williams A. Karges Fine Art, Spring 1995)
Jessie and Cornelius Botke
Some of the artist's many bird paintings are shown in this video; dozens more can be seen via Google Image:
Her bird paintings are beautiful, but I also like her imaginative landscapes:
The Pool
An Idle Afternoon
ASTROLOGY
Born on 27 May 1883 in Chicago, Illinois. Time of birth unknown - chart set for 12 noon.
The artist had planets concentrated in Earth and Air signs, with just Mars in Aries (Fire) and Jupiter in Cancer (Water) as balance. I suppose Earth and Air elements reflect her choice of subjects for her artwork: birds, many being of a species who don't spend all (or any of) their time in full flight.
Time of birth isn't known, but Moon would have been somewhere in Aquarius, and probably in trine to one or other of the Gemini planets.
There's a nice helpful sextile from Venus, planet of the arts, in its own sign of rulership Taurus, to Jupiter in Cancer...so, a little sentimentality, from Cancer, in the style of presentation of her subject matter; aalong with potential for Jupiterian wide distribution/appreciation.
National Paper Airplane Day is an unofficial observance, celebrated on May 26 each year in the United States to commemorate the simple aeronautical toy.
Paper airplane day celebrations typically include social gatherings at which participants create and fly paper airplanes.
Really? How odd!
All the while, we await news, still, after 2 years, of lost real plane MH370 in the Indian Ocean, and more recently lost EgyptAir 804 in the Mediterranean, with all souls aboard both. RIP.
Seizing on the Democratic National Committee's (DNC) reluctant concession allowing him to appoint five members to the committee that writes the party platform, Bernie Sanders on Monday announced a suite of picks that included activists across the progressive sphere.
Sanders' appointees to the 15-member Platform Drafting Committee include: racial justice activist and scholar Dr. Cornel West, 350.org co-founder and noted environmentalist Bill McKibben, Native American activist Deborah Parker, Progressive Caucus co-chair Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), and James Zogby, a pro-Palestinian scholar as well as founder and president of the Arab American Institute (AAI).
Senator Sanders has picked wisely and well! I'm especially pleased about Dr West's inclusion. I've been a fan of his since I first saw him as a guest on Bill Maher's TV show, back in 2008. Below is the post I wrote then - it's relevant also, with regard to yesterday's post, because Dr West has natal Sun+ in Gemini.
Drive-by Astrology # 1 - Dr. Cornel West
More often than not "drive-by" is used in connection with shootings. I'm going to put the term to use in a more peaceful context: "drive-by astrology". Whenever I come across an individual whose natal chart proves, on first sight, to be an exact fit for the person I perceive, I'll post the chart with very brief reasons why it fits its owner so clearly. I hope this will provide a chance to see astrology working "before your very eyes" !
First up in the drive-by series: Dr. Cornel West, author, lecturer, public speaker, social activist, democratic socialist and major figure in African American academia, including the illustrious Princeton and Harvard. I've seen Dr. West on several occasions as a guest on Bill Maher's "Real Time". Each time I've been impressed by his eloquence, charm and ability to hold my interest, whatever the subject under discussion. He obviously has a brilliant mind, yet his approach is straightforward and lacking in all the scholarly affectation so often encountered among the egg-head community.
A descriptive paragraph from here:
"...... an eloquent lecturer, whose lithe and energetic body was totally involved in the torrent of words and ideas that tumbled from his mouth. He asked his listeners not only to hear what he said, but to enter into his thought processes and share his enthusiasms or generate their own thoughts and enthusiasms. His speaking style was symbolic of his convictions, which rejected the divorce of body from mind, of emotion from intellect, characteristic of much philosophy since Descartes. In a time when many philosophers would be horrified to be called preachers, West (although not an ordained minister) was not embarrassed to preach an occasional sermon. For him a passion for social justice was as intellectually respectable and demanding as the most rigorous intellectual analysis of propositions, and the two were never far apart in his philosophy."
ASTROLOGICALLY DRIVING BY:
Born on 2 June 1953 in Tulsa, Oklahoma (I didn't have him down as an Okie!)Birthtime unknown.
Sun and 3 planets in Gemini (the sign of mental process, communication, a quick mind). Good start! Two of the Gemini planets are conjoined, Mercury and Mars at 22 degrees. Mercury is at home in its own sign, Gemini, therefore unadulterated by other influence, though strengthened and energised by Mars.
Saturn and Neptune are conjoined in Libra (diplomacy and justice), Moon is in Aquarius between 9 and 22 degrees (social awareness). So, Air, the mental element, rules - Gemini, Libra and Aquarius predominate. Gemini and Libra planets in close trine, and the Moon is very likely in trine to both, though how close we can't be sure. What a circuit, enabling all kinds of mental acrobatics!
One more point - in January 2002 Dr. West underwent surgery for prostate cancer. Saturn (restriction, limitation) visited Gemini from May 2001 to Dec 2002, hitting his 4 Gemini planets one by one along its journey, reflecting what must have been a very worrying and restricting time for Dr. West.
In his book, Astrology (pub.1964) Louis MacNeice, not an astrologer, but a poet and scholar, gathered together much of interest from a variety of sources, ancient and modern. On zodiac sign Gemini, through which the Sun now travels, he wrote the paragraphs below, quoting from a variety of professional astrologers. This extract was copy-typed by my own fair fingers, by the way, not copied and pasted from elsewhere. As some of the astrologers mentioned may be unfamiliar, at the end of the extract I've added some links to relevant websites for each named astrologer.
A mutable, airy sign, Gemini is ruled (easy to guess) by Mercury. The word "dialectical" might be applied here too, but more in the original Greek sense where "dialectic" meant conversation - a quick and most argumentative conversation, full of twists and traps and contradictions. all astrologers agree that the Gemini type enjoys argument; after all, this comes naturally to a double man, born under a double sign. Barbault stresses this "bipolarity" and points out that Gemini rules the lungs with their double process of breathing in and breathing out. He adds that if Aries symbolizes the original fire at the source of life, and Taurus the condensation of this life in a material form (as it were, an egg), it is when the process arrives at the stage of Gemini that this egg is polarized and we meet the differentiation into the masculine and feminine principles.
Morrish, in a not altogether dissimilar way, having equated Aries with the male creative impulse and Taurus with the matrix, takes Gemini to stand for that "self-conscious entity which is the result" (being the third and last sign in his phase of unit germination). And in a discussion of "astro-symbolism" in which Aries represents motion and Taurus inertia, he makes Gemini represent "rhythmic balance or oscillation." Also, Morrish finds in the hieroglyph of his sign two pillars, one light and one dark, a "portal through which every human being must pass."
Alternatively, he suggests that the two uprights of the hieroglyph, traditionally equated with the "heavenly twins" Castor and Pollux, could as well be equated with two apes - the divine ape of intelligence and the chattering ape of imitation. This last piece of symbolism brings us back to dialectic or, we might as well say, to the good and the bad sides of Mercury.
Being both mutable and airy, Gemini is intellectual but fickle. (Pearce describes the Gemini type as having "disposition fickle, understanding good.") Ingrid Lind writes that he goes to "extremes of rationality" and possesses the "ability to live a double life." It has often been claimed by astrologers that many intellectuals are born under this sign. But, as indeed is often the case with intellectuals, the Gemini person is often emotionally cold. His congenial signs are Aquarius and Libra; he would not get on with cosy old Taurus. When we are told by Gleadow that Gemini is "pure intellect" and that no one is more mobile (a word frequently used of this sign), it is surprising to find him quoting Queen Victoria as someone who was born with Gemini rising...........
As regards the minor characteristics of Gemini people, Tucker notes that, if this is your Sun-sign, you may be inclined to vegetarianism. Barbault observes that Gemini women prefer two-piece suits and checkered materials. The physiognomist John Varley writes: "Gemini, though a beautiful and human sign, yet occasionally gives to persons born when it is rising [note that he is concerned with the ascendant, not the Sun-sign] a strong resemblance in the head and neck to the characteristic forms of goats, kid and deer."
This sign stands for nervous energy; the United States is said to be very much under its influence. among people born with Gemini rising many astrologers include Dante, Kepler, Wagner, Bernard Shaw, and Clemenceau. Barbault includes Conan Doyle in his list of Gemini types; he adds that Sherlock Holmes is a "popular Gemini hero." On the debit side, apart from producing madmen, it can (like its ruler Mercury) produce crooks and very selfish people.
Once again, in moving from this sign to the next, we find a complete change of atmosphere.
I, with airy Aquarius Sun, usually find instant easy rapport with Gemini-types ( not necessarily those with Sun in Gemini) and, something I find strange, much easier with Gemini-types than with Libra-types (Libra is the other airy zodiac sign) with whom I often have had problems. I've come up with several possible reasons, none of which are a really good fit. The obvious one has to be that it's not a good idea to rely on Sun sign only - nor even on Sun, ascendant and Moon signs combined. Digging deeper is essential - that, or forgetting astrology altogether and going along with one's intuition - which has been known to work out better at times!
"Do Cosmic Forces Control life on Earth?"
I found that the linked article, by Ker Than, provided food for thought. If scientists are right, isn't this a pinprick of light at the end of an astrological tunnel? Of course, even if the theory were found to be correct, it would not automatically validate astrological doctrine, but it could provide a starting point.
The fine detail of astrology will, in my humble opinion, never be capable of proof. I often feel that much of astrology is superfluous anyway - the product of centuries of attempts to unravel a mystery. It's all we have, and we pick and choose from it the bits that make sense to us personally. I just know that astrology is a broad natural phenomenon, which man will be able to better understand, someday in the far distant future (should the human race survive long enough). Until then, astrologers and interested parties will muddle along using whatever ancient, and modern, tools are available.
The last paragraph of the article states
If future studies confirm the galaxy-biodiversity link, it would force scientists to broaden their ideas about what can influence life on Earth. “Maybe it’s not just the climate and the tectonic events on Earth,” Lieberman said. “Maybe we have to start thinking more about the extraterrestrial environment as well.”
Amen to that!
“Our biological rhythms are the symphony of the cosmos, music embedded deep within us to which we dance, even when we can't name the tune.”
― Deepak Chopra
