OK, I am cheating here, crossposting between here and my site at mundaneastrology.net I know my astrological work is beyond the ken of most people on the planet now, but the topic below ties intimately with issues we will increasingly face over the next ten years.
The more astute among us will have noticed that the issues of the 60s reverberate throughout our lives everyday. Civil rights, women’s, racial and gay, while improved, remain unresolved. The US finds itself in another unwinnable war and protesters search for new means to convince politicians to remove troops from harm’s way. The mid 60s included the Cultural Revolution, the Seven Day War, Saddam Hussein’s climb to power; Africa gained confidence in its efforts to throw off colonial chain; Che Guevara made efforts to spread unrest in South America. In so many ways what happened then laid the seeds for what we experience now. In so many ways the 60s saw ways of old come to an end. It marked an end of innocence, but also the birth of new ways. The era of Ozzie and Harriet came to an end, shattered by gunshots that erased two Kennedys and Martin Luther King and the pen of Rachel Carson.

Then and Now Astrologically

October 29, 1966

I chose the chart above based on the fact that it was on the day of an eclipse, typically times that mark important dates throughout a year. It just so happens it is the day that the National Organization of Women drew up its charter. Outer planet wise, Saturn (bottom of the chart, 3rd house) is opposite Uranus conjunct Pluto (top of the chart, 9th house). Without repeating the details, note that the events mentioned already tie into this astrological configuration. Conjunctions (Uranus aligned with Pluto) represent seed moments, both beginnings and ends. The last Uranus-Pluto conjunction before this one appeared around 1848, the year of revolutions all across Europe, when the Communist Manifesto reached publication and the Seneca Falls Convention first launched a feminist movement. A layperson probably finds these connections unconvincing, but astrologers are not surprised that much of what happened in the 60s reflects the previous Uranus-Pluto conjunction period of the mid to late 1840s. I don’t expect the uninitiated to accept this association, but the open-minded will at least pay attention.

June 26, 2010

In the chart above the three main components again find themselves in interesting alignments, Saturn opposes Uranus, as it did in the mid-sixties, but Uranus has moved 90° in relation to Pluto, a condition known as a lower square. The technical details do not matter as much as knowing that the components remain the same thought their relative positions will have changed. For perspective know that the Great Railroad Strike of 1877 appeared under similar Uranus-Pluto conditions.
The main point to take from this that unlike the other 2012 predictions, this one is based on a system anyone can follow. The connections between the 60s and present, escalating issues follow a clear path tied to real issues we can understand in today’s terms. Most will remain skeptical about these connections, but when 2010 brings up all of the issues festering since the 60s remember where you heard it first!

It took me an insane amount of time, but I just finished the book The Immaculate Invasion by Bob Shacochis. The book is about the American invasion of Haiti after the first coup the removed Aristide in the early 1990’s.

I have one big huge nitpick, but otherwise the book was pretty good. Nitpick first-

It is understandable that when writing about government agencies, etc. that you will use a lot of acronyms. However, the writer got more than a little bit lazy and overindulged in the acronyms, to the point that large chunks of paragraphs looked like I needed my secret code breaking ring found at the box of Fruity Chewy Ohs! circa 1982.

John Edwards doesn’t really care about the poor cause he has money.

Hey Jonah- Are any of the other candidates, Dem or Rep, male or female, black or white, rich or richer- talking about the poor? Anyone? No.

Hey Jonah- when Obama’s campaign callers keep stalking me for funds I tell them over and over again that I make Welfare level wages- their response is to tell me about programs that Obama supports that have nothing to do with my income level- cause I am that poor. Then the ask me for just a little donation, just $25 dollars or something.

Hillary’s people do the same thing.

You know who doesn’t- John Fricken’ Edwards somehow gets that someone making under $15000 a year couldn’t afford to contribute money to his campaign but would still support his campaign.

Hey Jonah- who in this country has made money without getting it in some way, manner, shape or form from poor people? Who?

John Edwards is the ONLY candidate (ok- Kucinich too- but viable candidate) who is trying to put some of that money back.

With today off from school, the Kid was watching Oprah while I managed to waste a perfectly good afternoon doing absolutely nothing (yay me!) Oprah is doing a “How cultural bias makes me feel not pretty” show and the Kid was struck by a segment where a bunch of African American kids decided that white dolls were more attractive than black dolls. Ahhhh- learning moment presents itself.

I have tried to explain to the Kid that aside from his mother’s crushing poverty level- he hit the cultural bias lottery. He’s white and male. This doesn’t make him better than anyone, but it does mean that he gets a lot pf privileges for no reason other being white and male. For instance- his placement in the gifted program at his school.

We live in one of the most culturally diverse neighborhoods in American with a high portion of African Americans as well as Ethiopian and Somali immigrants. We are the only white people in our apartment building and have been for all the years we have lived here. His school is two blocks away, and Seattle has a program of putting gifted students into schools with high levels of poverty (it’s no coincidence that high levels of poverty also coincide with high levels of minorities- we all know that already). The idea is that the smart white kids will help pull up the brown kids while giving the smart white kids an environment with more cultural diversity. But that’s not how it works in real life.

The gifted kids have little to no interaction with all the other kids at school. I asked the kid to think about how many African American students are in his gifted classes. There are only 2. Contrast this with his special ed class, where he is the only white kid. So we went and did a little research on the school’s ethnic breakdown.

The school is:

23% African American

28% Asian American

10% Hispanic

38% Caucasian

If there was no racial bias then we could expect that in a class of 30 students then only 12 would be white. The reality is that there are 2 black, 2 Asian, and 2 Latino students in his gifted classes- or 20% of the students are not white in a school where 60% of the students are minorities. (As an aside- I love combining a sociology lesson with a math lesson).

Then we went on to talk about how cultural bias is insidious. Nobody says that black students aren’t as smart as white students (ok- people do say that kind of racist crap, but the ones who are upfront about being idiots are so much easier to make fun of) but the way that the classes are made up shows that there is a bias.

So I went back to a math problem that the Kid had recently- Ricardo buys 3.2 oz of prosciutto to make sandwiches. Each sandwich uses one 0.4 oz slice to make a sandwich. How many sandwiches can Ricardo make?

Prosciutto is expensive. Most poor kids (and a huge chunk of middle class kids) wouldn’t know what the hell prosciutto is. Hell, Microsoft Word’s spell checker doesn’t even know what it is, it keeps wanting to change it from prosciutto to prostitute. The only kids who would know what prosciutto is are ones who can afford very expensive meat to make sandwiches, the rest of us stick with bologna or ham. While the math problem itself is not difficult- how many non-privileged kids would get caught up just trying to figure out what the hell kind of sandwich Ricardo is trying to make.

So the Kid’s math book, designed for gifted kids, is culturally biased towards more privileged kids. This is a pretty good example of the millions of tiny ways that bias influences everything and why poor minority kids might not do as well on tests or in gifted classes when just the basic homework questions assume a frame of reference that these kids just don’t have. Why not ask how many bologna or turkey sandwiches could be made? Why prosciutto? (I love prosciutto, so does the Kid, but then we are poverty gourmands- exception as opposed to the rule).

In the end the gist of the lesson was this: Life is unfair, but that doesn’t mean you don’t work your ass off to make it fairer. Cultural bias is everywhere, but just because you hit the bias lottery by being a white male doesn’t mean you get to ignore that bias. You have to work your ass off to understand your privilege and then make it easier for people who didn’t hit the bias lottery to succeed.

1) Do not say that you are looking for a “real woman”. Unless you have access to some super secret government Stepford Wives project, women who read this will assume that you have been spending all your time with an inflatable woman or a Real Doll. All women are real, live, actual persons.

2) Clichés are bad. Do not include anything about walks on the beach, staying in and watching movies, looks good in jeans or a dress, or a partner in crime. You will be seen as the dullest thing since watching a movie about two partners in crime who take long walks on the beach in jeans and a dress.

3) I cannot reiterate enough- if you call yourself a man you better be looking for a woman, not a girl. You will be considered sexist at best, a child molester at worst.

4) If you say you want a woman who knows how to treat her man, you better mean she knows how to point you towards the refrigerator when you whine about dinner not being ready.

5) Only married men post ads about how romantic they are, but don’t include pictures. This is because married men have nothing else to offer but romance and have had all of their shortcomings in the romance department clearly laid out for them by their wives. Flowers and presents are nice, but honesty and, you know, not being a lying, cheating bastard are better.

6) For years women who waited to have kids have gotten the short end of the stick on the dating scene. But you, 50-year-old guy who waited to have kids and now wants to find someone 20 or 30 years younger than you to shoot out your spawn, keep dreaming. I have no interest in becoming a baby-making machine for a guy old enough to be my dad. You should have thought about it earlier, but you can’t always have it all.

7) Men complain that women are misleading in describing their body type online. We won’t get into the whole range of body image issues that women have- they exist and wouldn’t it be nice if we didn’t have them. On the other hand- spending all of your spare time watching sports and drinking beer rarely leads to a masculine body type that is described as “athletic”, yet so many of you describe yourselves that way. Huhm- pot meet kettle.

8) Putting lol after everything you write makes you seem like a giggling idiot, not a funny guy. Putting lol into the 3^rd email you’ve sent me with no response from me (i/e lol I’m still trying lol I’m really a nice guy lol why won’t you write me back lol) makes you seem like a giggling idiot stalker.

9) Most girls actually like sex (I do) but if you start asking me about “the naughtiest thing you’ve ever done” before you’ve asked me about anything else or if sex is all you can talk about- you are a giant bore. Trust me, I have probably done most naughty things that you can imagine (yes I’ve done THAT, and THAT and probably THAT too) but you won’t be doing any of those things with me if you can’t talk about anything more interesting than where you want to stick your penis. I know where you want to stick your penis, there are only a limited number of options for that. There are, however, limitless options for discussing books or music or art or politics or travel or or or…..

10) Do not write your profile as a command to your future girlfriend. I/e “You will be a hot blonde who weighs under 110lbs and has DD breasts. You will be the type of woman is a lady in the streets and a freak in the sheets. You will love me in spite of the fact that I hold your head under the sheets when I fart and leave skid marks in my underwear that you will lovingly wash for me.” If you write a profile like a command- You will be the type of guy that deserves a stiletto up his ass.

I took this picture in Belize last summer. After I saw his shirt I asked the boy if I could take his picture while we were waiting for breakfast. Afterwards he went off and found his friend to tell him about the “Picture Miss” who took his picture. As we were leaving to catch a bus back to Mexico, the boy and his friend climbed on the top balcony and started yelling “Picture Miss! Picture Miss!” and asked me to take a picture of the two of them together.

Seriously, could there be any cuter reason why immigration should be a good thing?

And just for fun….

Wherever we went in Mexico- if there was sign in English then there was always a serious typo. This one has to be my favorite.

This sign is at a series of 3 waterfalls- this is the smallest.

Andrew Leonard of How the World Works thinks that Bill Clinton would make a fine replacement for Wolfowitz at the World Bank.

I second the idea!

So I am coming out as a great big Edwards supporter, and not just because Wonder’s mother (my favorite Aunt) says that we are distant cousins to him.

Let’s see some recent Edwards quotes- shall we?

“The war on terror is a slogan designed only for politics, not a strategy to make America safe. It’s a bumper sticker, not a plan….It has damaged our alliances and weakened our standing in the world.”

“I believe that couples in committed, long-term relationships should have the same rights, benefits, and responsibilities, whether they are straight couples or same-sex couples. I support civil unions to guarantee gay and lesbian couples the same rights as straight couples, including inheritance rights, hospital visitation rights, equal pension and health care benefits, and all of the 1,100 other legal protections government affords married couples. I support the repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act provision that prevents the federal government from recognizing same-sex relationships. Gay marriage is an issue I feel internal conflict about and I continue to struggle with it. However, I believe the right president could lead the country toward consensus around equal rights and benefits for all couples in committed, long-term relationships.”

“Washington failed America today when Congress surrendered to the president’s demand for another blank check that prolongs the war in Iraq. It is time for this war to end.Congress should immediately use its funding power to cap troop levels in Iraq at 100,000, stop the ongoing surge, and force an immediate drawdown of 40-50,000 troops, followed by a complete withdrawal in about a year.The American people’s call for a new course in Iraq was not answered today, but Congress still has the power to end this war. Our security and democracy alike demand it.”

So he calls Bush out on his “War on Terror” propaganda, doesn’t think the Dems should have caved in the Iraq spending bill, thinks everyone should be able to get married, wants Universal healthcare, and is the ONLY ONLY ONLY candidate to talk about poverty without just a glancing ‘poverty is bad’ stance.

Not to mention that anyone smart enough to get Elizabeth Edwards to marry him is an impressive dude indeed.

I am casting my vote for Edwards. There is still the chance that Gore might get into the race, and I will admit that I would be torn between the 2. But Edwards is proving himself to the kind of outspoken leader we need to rebuild after 8 years of Bushco plundering.

Keith Olberman- he’s all real and I have a crush on him too.