What are we to make of Obama’s eagerness to amp up the death pit of Afghanistan, which foreign-policy-wise was America’s aboriginal Iraq? Historians know that the idea of “winning” there is a joke. No colonial power has ever come close. Over the centuries, all of the expensive attenuated military attempts to steal the Silk Road away from its native defenders have ended in humiliation for prouder empires than our own. Each had to drag their sorry asses and state-of-the-art armaments home with their tails between their legs.… click here to continue reading.

I don’t begrudge America for its over-the-top bliss-fest yesterday after eight hideous years of degradation any more than I’d begrudge a Gitmo survivor a vacation on a tropical isle. But after several pina coladas, even the most exultant celebrant will get a headache. And though I risk sounding like a crab, at best, and a traitor, at worst, allow me to declare here and now that I am not wondering how to cop an inaugural coffee mug.… click here to continue reading.

We are now making our way towards the climactic Full Moon of January tenth.

Our much-beloved Obama is focusing heatedly on the economy right now, harried the while by the embarrassment of his lone Latino cabinet member being caught up in a (dare we say it?) less-than-shocking pay-to-play scandal. In between these troubles he has been embellishing his photo-op standing with domestic tableaux surrounding the move from Chicago to Washington.

In regards to the global unanimity demanding that Israel end its seige on Gaza, from which the United States has been the lone dissenter, the President-elect has been as silent as the tomb.… click here to continue reading.

(This is a post script to my New Moon posting, below.)

I watched the quarter Moon in the darkening sky as the speakers’ voices rang out. Tonight we marched again down the streets of San Francisco in support of the besieged people of Palestine, this time to protest the ground invasion that had just begun. It has been seven days, a clean quarter cycle, since the ominous New Moon of 12/27.… click here to continue reading.

The new year began, astrologically, with the New Moon of December 27th. Astrologers had been watching its approach with bated breath. Like its parallel transit exactly a year ago, when Benazir Bhutto was killed in Pakistan, we knew this latest Pluto-Mars duet would stimulate a vision of civilization breaking down. It was widely expected that somewhere in the world something would happen to epitomize the convulsions our globe is experiencing right now.… click here to continue reading.

My neighborhood went nuts last night. A street party spontaneously combusted as the reports came in of Obama’s win. Whoops, whistles, howls of joy. And pots and pans! Love it when people bang on pots and pans. On New Year’s Eve it happens too, but this was way better. Congo drums in the streets of Harlem. In Chicago’s Grant Park: joy on faces not used to exuding joy.

This was my favorite layer of meaning to what happened Nov 4th, 2008, as Uranus and Saturn opposed in the sky.… click here to continue reading.