Not Just a River in Belgium

Dear Friend and Reader:

For the first time, the United States experienced a terrorist attack on the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, incident. This happened at an American consulate (not an embassy, but the extension of one) in allegedly newly democratized Libya. The attack killed the venerated American ambassador to that country, J. Christopher Stevens, three of his staff members and a number of Libyan guards who tried to save his life. Stevens felt safe in Benghazi, which we're being told is why he didn't ask for a stronger security detail.

"Hero" by Charlie Lemay.

As events of the week developed, other U.S. embassies came under attack, including in Egypt and Yemen. As of press time, American and German embassies in the Sudan were also affected by protests or attacks -- all supposedly in reaction to a film that insults Mohammed, which I will get into in a moment. [One problem with the Egypt scenario is that the embassy in Cairo is located on a street that is blocked off by tanks and barbed wire. Our correspondent who was just there writes, "I'm not sure how the protesters got past these guys, unless (Pres. Mohammed) Morsi let them."]

What we're witnessing is an eruption of the Uranus-Pluto square, which gets more interesting next week. Seen another way, it's the latest episode in a kind of trumped-up pseudo war between certain factions in the United States and certain Muslim factions -- a war that's been going strong since the American embassy in Iran was seized in 1979, and which is now business as usual.

I describe it as 'trumped-up' and 'pseudo' because what we're seeing, and being told, seems propagated. When I listen for three minutes running, everything starts to sound like an excuse or bad explanation, fogging over what agendas are operating under the surface.

There's a way to make the various narratives make sense, though there are many facts missing, and indeed the whole thing has become something susceptible to numerous opportunistic agendas that are inserting themselves into the situation. My agenda is what you could call Amerocentric, because I'm interested in the United States taking responsibility for its conduct in the Middle East. I would also caution against the ruse of religion that we're being told is motivating events, as I described last week.

The modern history of the Middle East, and the involvement of the U.S. there, also makes me suspicious. For example: when Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush were 'elected' in 1980, it was with the help of the Iranians who were holding the American embassy and its infidels hostage in the name of Allah. The Reagan campaign cut an arms-for-hostages deal that included having the hostages held until Reagan was in office (they were released during the inauguration).

Then early in the Reagan-Bush administration, weapons were sold by the U.S. government to the Islamist Iranian militants newly in control of the country. The profits were used to fund the CIA-backed and trained militants in Nicaragua called the Contras, whom Congress had cut off and banned from funding. That sounds like a wild conspiracy theory; it became known as the Iran-Contra scandal.

Remember proud, tall Lt. Col. Ollie North and his lovely secretary, Fawn Hall, and her stash of government-sponsored lingerie and crates of shredded government documents? The good, the bad and the ugly? The 'bitter bile' in the throat of Mr. Reagan, when he claimed to have just found out? Col. North getting fired, and the forced resignations of Bud McFarlane and Cap Weinberger? And Old Ronnie Ray Guns mysteriously not getting impeached? (That batch of Republicans learned a lot from Watergate.)

At the time, the U.S. was official enemies with Iran and official allies with Iraq (meditate on that, Grasshopper), which two countries were themselves engaged in a long, vicious war -- the now nearly forgotten Iran-Iraq War. The U.S. was arming both sides, selling weapons to its friend Iraq above the table (which we later accused them of having) and to its enemy Iran under the table, using the profits to wage war in Central America. I think we have to be careful in interpreting the current situation in light of this kind of convoluted agenda.

"Beyond" by Charlie Lemay.

Just a few years later, the same administration -- now with Pappy Bush as president -- would bomb its old friend Iraq in Operation Desert Storm, leaving Saddam in place for future use.

A decade later, under the command of Baby Bush and his boss Dick Cheney, we were back, getting revenge for 9/11 against the people who didn't do it -- and that Iraq war has not, in truth, ended. It's still being fought by American mercenaries known politely as contractors, provided by companies which are being paid vast amounts of money. That motive is enough to perpetuate wars, whatever the apparent conflict, or the excuse to wage them, may be.

I believe that we're now witnessing another chapter in that pseudo war, the kind of conflict wherein you have no idea what the issues are, or who is on what side, or whose side -- the kind of war that George Orwell wrote about in 1984, when the enemy changes in the middle of the newscast, mid-sentence. If you take a longish view of history, this particular Christian v. Muslim saga goes back further: the tribes of Abraham have been bashing it out for 13 centuries.

Sticking to this week, however, here is how I would sum up the known facts in capsule format. We know that Libya has just been through a huge turmoil, involving the end of the reign of Moammar Gadhafi, who was killed one year ago in the wake of Arab Spring. On Tuesday, J. Christopher Stevens, our ambassador to Libya, was visiting the consulate in Benghazi, when militants supposedly associated with Gadhafi attacked the building with rocket propelled grenades and other improvised devices, setting it on fire.

This incident, we are told, was sparked off by an American-made video called "Innocence of Muslims," mocking Mohammed as a womanizer and child molester. This was promoted by Koran-burning 'minister' Terry Jones and his publicist, an Egyptian expat blogger named Morris Sadek. Word got out that this was not merely a file on YouTube, but allegedly a blockbuster hit film in the United States (watch the ridiculous trailer here). This reminds me of the butterfly flapping its wings in the Alps causing the hurricane in Texas.

The video recently had Arabic subtitles added, which we are told sparked a protest outside the Libyan consulate in Benghazi Tuesday night. While that protest was going on, a bunch of heavily armed militants arrived at the scene, and the consulate came under attack, and then caught fire. In the process, the ambassador -- who was visiting, and did not live there -- was killed, along with his staff members and the scant few Libyan guards who were supposedly keeping the place safe.

"Eclipsed" by Charlie Lemay.

Note, we were supposed to be hardening (as in fortifying) all of our diplomatic facilities starting in the early 1990s. I guess this one got left off the list, despite well-known threats in that very area going back years. Based on that one fact I find it strange that this incident in Libya even happened. I say that knowing we live on Planet Shit Happens. Yet this just seems to be the equivalent of driving the president through the crowd in an open limousine -- in 2012.

American press reports say that U.S. officials don't know whether the militants were aware that Stevens was in the consulate, or they just got lucky. I think they knew, since he was there for a public event this week. The attack seemed carefully planned, rather than spontaneous, giving rise to a whole diversity of questions, such as: what was their real agenda in attacking the consulate? Was it to gain power internationally, or to impress local warlords? Was it religious and political as we're being told, or was there a business motive?

Before we move on to my planned topic for the week -- denial -- let's consider the astrology of the Libya incident. There are a few things about it that are more than a little startling, particularly its similarities to the United States Sibly chart (considered by most astrologers the primary birth chart of the United States) and a chart from the summer of 2001 that, in a real sense, predicted the Sept. 11 incident about a month before it happened. The chart includes a rare aspect, the Saturn-Pluto opposition. Notably, a critical document, called the Aug. 6 Presidential Daily Brief, was written the day of this 2001 astrological event, which was written the day the opposition was exact, and which I discuss in more detail in the current edition of Planet Waves FM.

First, let's consider the chart of the Libya incident; then let's consider two others. The charts are presented separately, side-by-side (and for users of mobile devices, vertically).

When you see a chart, look at the ascendant first. An astrology chart is a real map, and the ascendant is the eastern horizon. That's the bold line sticking out to the left. The ascendant is where the story of the chart begins -- with the 1st house of the chart. 'Ascendant' translates to rising sign, and often, to the rising degree. The rising degree is very specific to a chart (including your own birth chart) because that degree ticks up rapidly, once every four minutes or so.

The degree rising in this chart is 12+ Gemini, which, without looking, reminded me of two other charts. Almost any seasoned astrologer will recognize it.

The first is the United States Sibly chart, which has the opposite degree rising -- 12+ Sagittarius. In both of these charts, 12+ Gemini/Sagittarius are on the horizon, the most sensitive line in the chart. Not only is the United States involved in what happened (in some way besides being the victim). These two charts are like mirror images of one another, which is exactly what's going on between the lunatic fringe Christians with blogs in the United States, and some batshit crazy Muslims with bombs halfway around the world.

First, look at this simple chart -- these two planets, Saturn and Pluto, were aligned at 12+ Gemini/Sagittarius in the weeks before the Sept. 11 incident. This axis lines up to the degree with the United States chart, and the chart for the Benghazi incident earlier this week. To see this, open up the chart file and look to the left side of the wheel.

By one analysis, these two groups of religious fundamentalists are locked in an ideological argument that they hope will ignite the war of the civilizations. I find many Christian extremists to be the more disturbing of the two, as they are convinced that the apocalypse is coming, and that it's their job to help bring it on. This whole scenario is being enabled by the American political system; few people seem to have the guts to call it what it is.

These are interlocking, even interchangeable philosophies, which support one another in their dysfunction. Yet they also support one another in what they're trying to accomplish, so the dysfunction itself may be a kind of fog thrown over the situation.

In the Benghazi event chart, we see that theme show up boldly. Last week I described the sickness disguised as religion, hiding another agenda -- emanating from the sign Sagittarius. There's a planet shown in Sagittarius, to the right side of the chart -- that would be Pholus, the volatile little centaur planet that often shows up angular (on the horizon, or high up) in charts for attacks and shootings. That's combined with Ixion (amorality, raping and killing for its own sake) and Hylonome (the cry of the poor; the song of war). If you're curious how this fits in, please review last week's issue.

These points are in Sagittarius, on the horizon, so we have an image of religious militancy showing up at the moment this attack happened. Yet this too shows up in a mirror effect. Notice that orange thing right below the horizon. That's Jupiter in Gemini. Jupiter rules Sagittarius, but it's rising, in Gemini (its opposite sign). This translates to "I'm rubber, you're glue, bounces off of me and sticks to you." Yet Jupiter also is about benefit, and the question here is: who benefits from this? It seems to me that the mutuality of these charts points to some mutual gain.

Whatever the Sagittarius side of the chart is about, the Gemini side of the chart is also about. So we see mutual reflections of Christian and Islamic fundamentalism -- yet meanwhile a lot of other things happen, and while vast resources are at stake (Libya, for example, is extremely wealthy, nearly all of it from oil.)

But now take a look at one other chart -- the middle chart in the set of three. That's for a rare aspect that happened in the summer of 2001, one month before the Sept. 11 incident. By rare, I mean that the last time it happened before 2001 was in the mid-1960s -- the opposition of Saturn and Pluto. This is the clash of the immovable object with the unstoppable force. Take a look at the location of those planets -- 12+ Gemini and 12+ Sagittarius. Most astrologers have this axis memorized, because it fits so closely with the Sibly chart, and predicted -- or should have predicted -- the Sept. 11 incident.

Yet in truth, Sept. 11 was more than an incident. It represented a massive shift in priorities both in the U.S. and the Middle East. Just moments after the Cold War ended, the U.S. got involved in a massive military and national security buildup, and a rollback of individual rights, which many people understand was the real agenda for Sept. 11 and its aftermath. Which brings me to my original topic for the week.

Psychologists Speak Out About 9/11 Truth

That topic is denial. Specifically, I've been developing the theme about how people respond to the mounting evidence that the official story of how the Sept. 11 incident happened cannot be true. I cover this in this week's edition of Planet Waves FM, available here (and in the section below).

Les Alyscamps, a medieval cemetery in Arles, France. Photo by Charlie Lemay.

The main problem with the official story is that steel-framed skyscrapers don't just collapse in their own footprint at free-fall speed unless they are demolished by explosives. The first time skyscrapers ever fell down, allegedly from a fire, was on Sept. 11, 2001, and it happened to three of them -- one of which, WTC 7, wasn't even hit by an airplane. Note that the main towers of the World Trade Center were designed to withstand airplane strikes, because there are so many planes coming into the New York-area airports. The airplanes hit both buildings toward the top, where there was far less load on the frames of the buildings.

None of this is a conspiracy theory; rather, it debunks a conspiracy theory -- the one given to us by the government. This debunking is based on a scientific examination of the debris from the buildings, videos and samples of the dust, all of which contain little balls of molten steel (which could only be created by a very, very hot incident). This information is coming from engineers and architects who design this kind of structure so that it will stand up in a hurricane, and be safe to go inside.

More than 1,000 of them have joined together as an organization called Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth. Recently, they released the final version of their documentary, called Explosive Evidence. You can watch a one-hour version of that documentary here.

Most people don't know that this information exists. Many people who do hear about it doubt it, though I would be curious to talk to anyone who watches this documentary and see what they have to say about it. To some extent, resistance to the truth about 9/11 is gradually dissolving, if only because it's normal to be suspicious of something so huge and powerful as government, particularly one so power-hungry as that of the United States. That, and many people see that the main results of what happened that day were two long, pointless wars, and a lot of money spent spying on Americans, searching their bodies at the airport, ramping up paranoia and making everyone feel like a suspect -- always in support of yet another war or security measure to keep us safer.

Many people recoil at any notion that the towers were not taken down by airplanes hijacked and flown by Muslims, and they overlook how ridiculous so much of the official story is. Many people have no idea about WTC 7, which was not hit by an airplane. There were several fires in the building, then it just imploded on itself. The weird thing is that the developer and leaseholder of the building said he authorized its demolition [see top recording] -- but that begs the question how anyone would get a demolition team in there with explosives, read the blueprints, consult engineers and set the whole thing up, all in the midst of the horrors of Ground Zero on day one.

"Aries" by Charlie Lemay.

And what about the fact that WTC 7 included the offices of the Secret Service, the Internal Revenue Service, the Mayor's Office of Emergency Management and the Securities and Exchange Commission (the SEC, which regulates Wall Street)? What the heck happened to all those documents? All those offices and their files and computers and vaults were all intentionally demolished, if you believe Silverstein who admitted this in 2002 in a PBS interview for a program called America Rebuilds.

Yet to accept any of this -- no matter how obvious -- is dangerous to your peace of mind -- and your view of the world.

Richard Gage, founder of Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, put it this way. "Most of us who have lived with the events of 9/11 have, as a result, experienced some kind of trauma. It can be very difficult to come to terms with what actually happened at the World Trade Center. In fact, someone told me recently, 'I wouldn't believe what you're telling me even if it were true'. Our petition signers with psychological expertise have stepped forward to offer their insight."

Marti Hopper, a clinical psychologist and trauma specialist, said, "We know this had a very severe and traumatic impact on a large majority of the population. At this point we have nine years of hard scientific evidence that disproves the government theory about what happened on September 11, and yet, people continue to be either oblivious to the fact that this information exists or completely resistant to looking at this information. So the question becomes why? Why is it that people have so much trouble hearing this information? From my work, I think we would be remiss not to look at the impact of trauma" as a potential cause.

Robert Hopper, another clinical psychologist, added: "Many people respond to these truths in a very deep way. Some have a visceral reaction like they've been punched in the stomach. To begin to accept the possibility that the government was involved, it's like opening Pandora's box. If you open the lid and peek in a little bit, it's going to challenge some of your fundamental beliefs about the world."

"Warriors" by Charlie Lemay.

Dorothy Lorig, a counseling psychologist, put it this way. "If we can think of our world view as being sort of our mental and emotional home, I think all of us will do just about anything to defend our homes, to defend our families. So I see that with people, and I saw that with myself when my brother tried to talk with me about it. Don't mess with me, don't mess with my home, don't mess with my comfort with how things are. About a week later, I read a lengthy article by Prof. [David Ray] Griffin about why he believes the official account of 9/11 cannot be true. It was a very well researched article. It was in my office at the time, I sat there and I felt my stomach churning. I thought maybe I was going to be sick. And I leaped out of my chair and ran out the door and took a long walk around the block, around several blocks, and just broke down."

Lorig continued, "I understand now that what was happening was my world view about my government being in some way my protector, almost like a parent, had been dashed, and it was like being cast out into the wilderness. I think it's the closest way to describe that feeling. And I sobbed and I sobbed, felt the ground had completely disappeared beneath my feet, and I knew at some point during the walk that I knew that I was going to have to become active in educating other people about this. That for me to retain any sense of integrity I was going to have to take some action. I couldn't just let something like this go."

Robert Hopper explained further: "9/11 Truth challenges the beliefs that our country protects us and keeps us safe, and that America is the good guy. When your beliefs are challenged, fear and anxiety are created. In response to that, our psychological defenses kick in and they protect us from these emotions. Denial, which is probably the most primitive psychological defense, is the one most likely to kick in when our beliefs are challenged."

And, explained Frances Shure, a licensed professional counselor: "What some of us will tend to do is deny the evidence that's coming our way and stick to the original story, the official story, and to try to regain our equilibrium in that way. Another thing we can do is decide to look at the conflicting evidence, and be sincere and be open-minded and look at both sides of the issue, and then make up our mind about what reality is."

That's the thing: looking at the issue and making up your own mind. Why? So that you -- and your society -- can heal from the injury. This is a little like why there are Holocaust museums all over Germany.

About That River in Belgium

I've spent countless hours studying the charts for the Sept. 11 incident, teaching internationally on the topic and writing numerous articles over the years, starting in 2002, when I figured out that what we're told happened at the Pentagon was a sham. In doing this work, I've used both my investigative skills and my skills as an astrologer, and all the evidence points to the same conclusion: that nothing we've been told adds up.

"Sunblock" by Charlie Lemay.

If you've read any of my prior work, you may recall that the keynote of the main Sept. 11 chart is that Mercury was rising right at the moment that Flight 11 struck the North Tower. This planet about a message, and wings, that represented some secret enemy, was precisely in the degree rising.

Not only that, Mercury was trine Saturn, suggesting collaboration between the 'terrorists' and the 'government', which are basically interchangeable. I cover that carefully in detail in several articles -- including this one.

Lately I've been working with the charts, and I noticed that there's also an asteroid right in the ascendant, exactly conjunct Mercury (again, all exact to the degree). The asteroid is called Sauer. I've gone digging on this asteroid many times, because it shows up at odd moments, only to find that it's the name of a river in Belgium, Germany and Luxembourg.

This past weekend, reviewing the 9/11 charts for this article, I noticed it right there in the Sept. 11 ascendant and I was determined to find out what the heck this thing was. Turns out that Sauer is not about the river, nor is it literally about the taste sensation of sourness (the German translation, and a suitable enough symbol of the bitter taste of this incident).

With a little help from some Facebook friends, I learned that it's named for Dr. Carl G. Sauer -- a flight dynamics engineer who worked for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory -- the private entity behind NASA, which is part of Caltech University -- starting in 1952. Out of the rubble and the lies and the politics and the wars was lurking a name and an identity.

Sauer was no ordinary rocket scientist. His bio says, "His work has included mission designs for advanced spacecraft propulsion systems, including solar electric ion propulsion, nuclear propulsion and solar sailing. His database of potential spacecraft trajectories to hundreds of comets and minor planets is an invaluable resource for mission design work at JPL."

This is a list-type display of the ascendant of the Sept. 11 chart. Note the proximity, indicated by the number 14, of the ascendant (which is the 1st house cusp), Mercury and Sauer. They are occupying the same degree of the zodiac, which happens to be rising. Each degree is rising for about four minutes a day -- the image of a fleeting moment.

Gee whiz. A flight dynamics engineer who understood how to get a spacecraft to an asteroid (not exactly easy -- try to think through the steps, when you're aiming for a moving object so far away you can barely see it with a telescope), with Mercury conjunct it, in the chart of a very, very strange airplane crash. Sauer was so advanced at this, and had made such a contribution to space travel system design, that he got his own planet named after him.

One of the first things that the name of an engineer so prominent in the chart suggested was: this was engineered. More to the point, it's a reminder what humans are capable of, and how extraordinary science is. To rig up some bullshit like 9/11 does not require a high order of intelligence or technology -- merely some half-decent media skills, money, no conscience, and most of all, a motive. If you want to understand the motive, look where all the money went.

The presence of a planet named for the eminent Dr. Sauer is also a sad reminder what human intelligence can do when used for a worthy cause, and what else we could be doing with our precious national resources, that is, after we feed a few hungry people and end a few wars.

Lovingly,

Additional research: Astrodem, Genevieve Hathaway, Christine Farber, Stacia Kilpatrick, Len Wallick, Lizanne E. Webb.


Saturday is the Virgo New Moon

Saturday evening is the Virgo New Moon. That's the Sun and the Moon aligning in the sign Virgo, as we go into the last week of Northern Hemisphere summer. Mercury is positioned in late Virgo, under some pressure as it makes its way into Libra and onto some big adventures.

Virgo New Moon, with Mercury at 28+ Virgo close to the Libra cusp. Note that weird little thing Transpluto -- a hypothetical point -- has transitioned into Virgo. Incredibly, it's been in Leo since the 1930s and is now taking three years to change signs to Virgo.

This is the time of year when life seems to grow even busier than it usually is. The change of season comes with a surge of energy; the Sun enters a cardinal sign (Libra) on Sept. 22. The days are now noticeably shorter, and there's the sense of rush that comes with our bodies knowing that winter is impending.

But I'm a little ahead of the story -- I'll cover the equinox in more detail next week. We're now looking at a New Moon that is dialing in at least three big themes. The first one is: get your work done. The Sun, Moon and Mercury in Virgo are providing a push in that direction. You will need to be efficient, if you're at all planning to enjoy some of these last dependable warm days. Virgo at its best is all about efficiency.

Second involves what you eat. Did anyone read about that new retrospective study claiming that organic produce is no more nutritious than McVegetables? This New Moon chart makes a comment about the importance of food: of labeling and reading labels; of knowing the ingredients; of eating lower on the food chain, and locally whenever possible.

Third, there is a warning about people who are too religious for anyone's good, and who turn God into an ego trip, or use God to advance some other agenda. I guess this happens a lot. That said, beware of religiosity -- which basically means faux piety, with added shamltz. There is no need for a spiritual excuse for anything, or a spiritual explanation, except maybe if you actually see someone walk on water. In the day-to-day affairs of life, ethics and personal responsibility are more than enough to win the day. So don't fall for anyone preaching the gospel of anything other than honesty and goodwill.

As for Mercury ingressing Libra -- when it does, it makes aspects to a number of minor planets located there, as well as to the Uranus-Pluto square. This will continue to stir up the news, though personally, watch out for the sense of involvement in something that feels out of control. Keep a grip by watching what you say, what you agree to verbally and what you put your signature on. Simply put, my advice for this week is: mean what you say, and say a bit less than you mean.


"Feed the little birds, show them you care..."

Scotts Miracle-Gro, the world's largest marketer of residential-use pesticides, was sentenced Friday to pay the largest penalty ever issued for criminal violations of U.S. pesticide law. The company will pay more than $12 million in criminal and civil fines for illegally treating wild bird products with deadly pesticides, falsifying EPA pesticide registration documents, marketing and distributing unregistered pesticides and pesticides with misleading and unapproved labels, distributing and selling unregistered, canceled or misbranded pesticides, submitting false registration documents to EPA and state regulatory agencies, and selling pesticides with false labels.

Please check your birdseed; if it is made by Scotts, dispose of it safely so that birds and other critters cannot get to it.

"The Scotts' settlement is unprecedented in terms of the scope of corporate-wide noncompliance addressed, the number of pesticide products involved, and the far-reaching nationwide noncompliance of Scotts' products," states the EPA. "This settlement holds Scotts accountable for its corporate-wide product noncompliance and results in a significant number of potentially harmful pesticides removed from commerce."

A list of the products involved can be found here.

Scotts wild bird seed products, including Country Pride, Morning Song, Scotts Songbird Selections and Scotts Wild Bird Food, were poisoned with Storcide II (chlorpyrifos-methyl) and Actellic 5E (pirimiphos-methyl). Neither pesticide is approved by EPA for use on bird feed, and both are known to be highly toxic to birds, fish and other wildlife. Chlorpyrifos-methyl is also implicated in the world-wide disaster of Colony Collapse Disorder that has wiped out global populations of bees and other pollinators.

Miracle-Gro or Miracle-Kill? Monsanto and Scotts team up to poison our water and food -- and that of every other living critter.

For at least four years, from 2005 to 2008, Scotts sold more than 73 million packages of the tainted birdseed, of which only two million were successfully recalled. As recently as 2010, these products could be found in retail stores, suggesting a possible cause of mass bird die-offs worldwide in recent years. Separately, a class action lawsuit against Scotts Miracle-Gro seeks damages for the company's willful distribution and sale of poisoned birdseed products nationwide.

Scotts CEO Jim Hagedorn summed up the company's response in a press release following the sentencing:

"As we reach closure on these issues, it's important for all of our stakeholders to know that we have learned a lot from these events and that new people and processes have been put in place to prevent them from happening again. Our consumers are at the heart of our business, and I hope they'll see our openness, cooperation, and acceptance of responsibility are all a part of our commitment to provide products they can trust and rely upon."

Scotts Miracle-Gro, it should be noted, is also the exclusive distributor of Monsanto's Roundup in the U.S. and much of Europe, profitably sharing Monsanto's long, sordid history of fraudulent practices in testing and marketing its products. Monsanto's safety tests for glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, were conducted by the notorious Industrial Bio-Test Laboratories (IBT), master formulators of fraudulent "magic pencil studies" supporting manufacturers' pesticide registrations. Amazingly, IBT found no effects in the uteri of glyphosate-exposed test rabbits -- which all turned out to be males.



'iManners' or 'iFascism'?

Chances are, at some time you've wished you could magically turn off the cell phone of the obnoxious person sitting in front of you at the movies. A new Apple patent could give that power to businesses such as movie theaters and airlines. Given the eroded liberties of our post-9/11 world, we need to ask: at what price?

U.S. Patent No. 8,254,902, otherwise known as "Apparatus and methods for enforcement of policies upon a wireless device," was granted to Apple in late August, and would allow phone policies to be set to "chang[e] one or more functional or operational aspects of a wireless device" if a certain event occurs. In other words, students taking a test for school could not link up to the internet to cheat; once the play begins, actors would not get distracted by a Justin Bieber ring tone; you wouldn't have to worry about your plane navigating itself to the middle of the ocean instead of your airport due to excessive in-flight phone use.

Unfortunately, it also means that governments in countries and municipalities with civil unrest (increasingly common around the globe, thanks to the Uranus-Pluto square) could prevent you from photographing police brutally beating your neighbor who was peacefully demonstrating within a specific area. It also means that the rare need to call for emergency assistance could be inadvertently blocked in an area in which connectivity has been cut. There is no guarantee Apple will ever implement this new technology -- patents often go unused. The question is, are you ready to give up further civil liberties in favor of a civil night of entertainment?



The Detective Writer and the Felon: Two Literary Birthdays

Amid the mind-numbing memorials for the carnage and deceit of 9/11, we take time to honor the birthdays of two remarkable authors whose prolific works in unique fashion celebrate life and humanity in defiance of adversity and death.

O. Henry.

O. Henry (September 11, 1862 -- June 5, 1910) was the pen name of William Sydney Porter, who created the pseudonym for stories published while serving time in federal prison for embezzlement. (He's influenced by a 12th house Taurus Moon, among other things, which imparts a stubborn fixation on, and insecurity about, financial and material resources.) His immensely popular tales, such as "The Ransom of Red Chief," "The Gift of the Magi," and "The Cop and the Anthem," continue to resonate today as ironic commentary on the twists and foibles of our all-too-human comedy.

O. Henry's chart illustrates the twists and foibles of his life, too. His 5th house (risk-taking and play) hosts his Sun conjunct Saturn in Virgo, and the two square a Uranus-South Node conjunction in Gemini. Translation: he was just as careful with his writing (creative risk) as he was with his embezzlement (financial risk) -- though obviously not careful enough with the latter, and its karma. His Gemini planets suggest that the surprising (Uranus) criminal behavior and surprise twists to his fiction come from the same place, all with a sense of duality regarding the things he valued most.

Last November, President Obama cited O. Henry in an appalling mock ceremony granting presidential pardons to a pair of Thanksgiving turkeys, which prompted a petition for a presidential pardon of O. Henry. In a twist that O. Henry himself would appreciate, on Tuesday the U.S. Postal Service issued an O. Henry "Forever" stamp in honor of former federal prisoner number 30664.

Incidentally, his Mercury (also in the 5th house, but in early Libra) squares his Part of Fortune and Vesta in Capricorn. It seems his incarceration in the very structured institution of federal prison (Capricorn) really was the best possible thing to focus his devotion to writing and ground the expansive nature of his Jupiter conjunct Mercury. Those planets form an Aries Point T-square with Neptune in early Aries; once O. Henry got his writing going, using Neptune's powers of illusion for good, the personal/collective magic took over and continues to this day.

Were she still with us, Agatha Christie (September 15, 1890 -- January 12, 1976) would be 122 years old this Saturday. The best-selling novelist of all time, with some 4 billion copies of her books in print, "The Queen of Crime" explored the depths of our capacity for deceit and the extraordinary number of ways devised by humans to kill each other. Her continued popularity taps into our ever-present awareness of death, and nostalgia for long-lost virtues of courtesy and civil behavior -- the latter qualities influenced by her beauty-and-balance-loving Libra Moon and Mercury.

Agatha Christie; PA photo.

Christie's chart is strong with Virgo: a perfect picture of the precision and efficiency needed to write as many complex mystery stories as she did, and the ability to serve her characters and her audience. She has Virgo rising, and her Virgo Sun is in the 1st house, square her lunar nodes; putting her writing ability to work was a matter of self-evolution as much as self-expression. (Her Virgo Saturn conjunct her Part of Fortune in the 1st house underscores that putting precision and structure in the service of her identity as an author would assure success.)

Mercury rules Christie's chart (as the ruler of her ascendant), and it is in the 2nd house in Libra. It was important to her to construct her stories elegantly, and her two famous protagonists balance each other in their different approaches and characteristics.

Christie's life spanned two world wars, women's suffrage, the spiritualist phenomenon, Einstein's discovery of relativity, the flapper era, and the slow fade of the British Empire. In imminent danger of death by bombing in the Battle of Britain, she wrote the final adventures of her beloved protagonists Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot and hid them in a safe for over 30 years before publishing them in 1975 (when Poirot became the only fictional character ever to be given a front-page obituary in The New York Times). Looming ever in the background of her tales is the shadow of war and its increasingly global weapons of mass murder.

That global/personal theme is no accident. Her Moon, at 1+ Libra, is opposite Pholus at 2+ Aries. That is an Aries Point placement: her books have had mass contact with the world in a personal way -- another thing she and O. Henry have in common, in addition to their Virgo Saturn and Libra Mercury. In Christie's case, we see how Pholus lets the genie out of the bottle: she is often cited as the most widely translated author in the world, and her books show no sign of waning in popularity.

"From what you read and hear nowadays," Christie wrote in Hallowe'en Party (1969), "it seems that murder under certain aspects is slowly but surely being made acceptable to a large section of the community."






Planet Waves FM :: What Do You Believe About 9/11?

In this week's edition of Planet Waves FM, I cover one of the most pressing questions about Sept. 11: What we believe and don't believe, and why. I base my discussion on a segment of Explosive Evidence: Experts Speak Out, a documentary about some of the flaws in the official story -- specifically, they don't match up with the laws of science. But what about human nature?

This edition also covers Saturday's Virgo New Moon. My musical guest is Purple Henry, also known as Fae Speaker.




Planet Waves monthly horoscopes provide a broader perspective that surveys the themes of the coming month and often, the weeks that follow. The September Monthly horoscope was published Friday, Aug. 24. Inner Space for September was published Tuesday, August 28. The August Moonshine Horoscope was published Friday, Aug. 17. Please note that the longer monthly horoscope (published Friday, Aug. 24) is being incorporated into the Friday issue after the Sun has entered a new sign; Inner Space still publishes on Tuesdays.




Friday, September 14, 2012. Weekly Horoscope #917 | Eric's Zodiac Sign Descriptions

Our new zodiac glyphs are by Neisha Hirsch.

Virgo Birthdays This Week

The central question of your life for the next year is: what nourishes you? You seem to be on a spiritual quest of some kind, but I always wonder what these things cover for. Spirituality in many of its forms is like eating McDonald's when what you want is a good home-cooked meal -- and I suggest you go for the latter and not the former, in all aspects of your life. That means real conversations and authentic companionship -- which is to say, people around whom you can be yourself, and people you trust are comfortable being themselves around you. It's not worth "trying to make someone fit" in your life; either they fit in a holistic way or they don't. I mention this because you may have the notion that someone will change, or that you can shape the relationship to suit you -- though I strongly advise against that. Be sensitive to what is so, and you will be a lot happier. Note, I've done a full treatment of Virgo birthdays at the Virgo birthday report.

Aries (March 20-April 19) -- You may feel like you're using your work as a distraction from relationships, though the things you need to address with partners will be presenting themselves soon enough. It's likely that they will take initiative, though you'll need to do some sorting out to determine what's really on the minds of the people close to you. Take some time; give yourself at least a day or two between learning something and deciding what it means. Meanwhile, you seem to have a lot on your plate, in terms of what you need to get done, and you may have the feeling that time is closing in. There are a number of projects that have a one-week time frame on them, though several that you will need to complete by the end of Friday (or Saturday at the latest). That means you've got to prioritize, based on relative importance, and on which projects have been delayed the longest. Once those are out of the way, you'll feel better. Hello Aries -- Eric has written a new description for your sign that you have access to from this link (no password needed).
Taurus (April 19-May 20) -- You seem to be invested in a situation that's approaching a moment of truth. Said another way, that's a checkpoint where you reconcile with yourself and someone else involved in the scenario, and clear up any factors of denial or deception that may be present. The reason that these are so popular is really a matter of convenience, in the short-run, anyway. One of the first things to check is whose conduct in the situation is self-serving rather than mutually supportive. This is another way of asking whose agenda is dominating? Who benefits, and who pays? Ideally, those things would be distributed more or less evenly, and if they're not, it's time to figure out why. This includes a number of emotional dimensions to the situation. When it comes to hidden material and motives, however, you're the one in the best condition to investigate what's going on for you -- and I suggest you do precisely that. If you do, you'll learn quite a bit about yourself. Hello Taurus -- Eric has written a new description for your sign that you have access to from this link (no password needed). If you would like to hear your Taurus birthday reading, please visit this link.
Gemini (May 20-June 21) -- Get ready for the pace of your life to pick up -- and for an adventure that will take you through next week. This may translate to a wild ride, though in order to keep some control over your affairs, I suggest you stay a step ahead of yourself. Nearly anything or anyone that you'll encounter is already in place, pretty much where you expected it to be. If you think things through, you'll be able to eliminate most of the elements of surprise. That will leave you clear to consider your responses. I suggest that you err on the side of saying less rather than more; and that you take fewer chances with what you say and do. That's going to be the challenging point, as you may be inclined to take bigger risks than are appropriate, given the challenges associated with the situation. I suggest you proceed slowly, taking one step at a time -- and responding rather than reacting. Hello Gemini -- Eric has written a new description for your sign that you have access to from this link (no password needed). Have you listened to your birthday reading? Click here for an hour of astrology plus a tarot reading by Eric.
Cancer (June 21-July 22) -- Focus your mind, and center yourself emotionally. I understand the challenges of doing so, given the current planetary setup. It's as if you're living underneath an invisible reservoir of things to do that keeps spilling its contents onto your head. What is not increasing is the time you have to accomplish all these things, so I suggest you ramp up your level of organization and basic maintenance. You're wrapping up one phase of accomplishment (though it may not feel like that yet) and are about to take up a whole new agenda. Based on this information, I suggest you begin to set aside all new activities associated with the old agenda, focus on wrapping up what you've taken on, and then prepare to move on to a new phase of experience. Focusing your mind will work; criticizing yourself will not, and it's vital that you not only know the difference, but act on it. Devote yourself to what must be done each day, and make sure you feed your spirit along the way. Hello Cancer -- Eric has written a new description for your sign that you have access to from this link (no password needed). To hear your birthday reading for the year ahead, please visit this link.
Leo (July 22-Aug. 23) -- I know this sounds strange to say, however, feeding your doubts does not build your confidence. Understanding your limitations and working with them would be the counterpart to that. Confidence translates to faith in yourself. You know you're working with confidence when you can stand up to a challenge, rather than worrying about whether you're going to be able to get it done. Still, emotionally, you may be walking a fine line here. You may feel like every time you do something vaguely bold, you pay for it in insecurity and uncertainty. Note carefully the presence of any guilt that you may feel, or shame that may be associated with feeling 'too' ambitious. If you're picking up any of this toxicity, I would propose that it's associated with the feeling of exceeding a boundary or challenging someone's authority. Look into that and remember, taking authority over your own life usually implies taking it away from someone else -- even if you didn't know they had it. Hello Leo -- Eric has written a new description for your sign that you have access to from this link (no password needed). Did you miss your birthday reading? Click here to order an hour of astrology plus a Tarot reading by Eric. Hello Virgo and Virgo rising readers. I've just finished your 2012-2013 birthday reading. Check this link to listen to your hour-long astrology reading plus Tarot.
Virgo (Aug. 23-Sep. 22) -- Saturday's New Moon in your birth sign is about developing self-esteem. New Moons represent the commencement of a new cycle, and in your own sign this is distinctly personal. The self-esteem question may surface first with the feeling that something is missing. You may discover that you're looking at yourself in a narrow, biased way. One of the first steps you'll take in getting to a better place is opening up your perspective, and taking a more balanced view. I suggest you gather the information that you need to do that, rather than allowing yourself to be backed into a situation where you feel like you've got no choice. If you start to feel like you have just one option, the very first thing to do is make up other options. This will help you exercise your best skill, which is your flexibility. You have others, of course; using your skills and talents is the best way to cultivate them, which is to say, use and develop them -- and as you do, one positive result will be the actual feeling of self-respect. Hello Virgo -- Eric has written a new description for your sign that you have access to from this link (no password needed).
Libra (Sep. 22-Oct. 23) -- You may be wondering what's brewing behind the scenes, though you could just as well look at what's obvious. I know there seems to be a strange kind of pressure leaning on you. Various planetary factors describe a crisis of maturity. This makes sense given how that's been the theme of your life for most of the time that Saturn has been in your sign -- particularly now that this phase is coming to a close (Saturn leaves your sign on Oct. 5). Here is the thing to remember: You're bigger than the parts of yourself that you don't like. You're bigger than your problems. You're stronger than any disruptive influence that comes in through a relationship. It's easy to lose sight of that. Yet keeping this in focus is a key element of this sometimes-elusive thing called growth. At the moment, however, you're in a kind of blind spot, which gradually opens up over the next few days. Remember to take the issues one at a time, start slowly and build momentum. Hello Libra -- Eric has written a new description for your sign that you have access to from this link (no password needed).
Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 22) -- You have every advantage now -- particularly if you know what you want, and focus on that. It seems that a high priority is making a particular relationship work, or getting that relationship started. My impression, however, is that you're figuring out that your most important relationship is to yourself. That means living differently, especially given Scorpio's famous desire for involvement with others. Though you've been here before, this is likely to feel like a radically new orientation for you, as you shift your identity away from 'relationship partner' and in the direction of 'whole person'. If you're doing this sincerely, then you will likely be experiencing some sensation of being in unfamiliar territory. However, this is not the time to say 'I tried being myself, but it didn't work, so I went back to whatever I was before'. Rather, it's time to stick with the feeling that you need to stretch, and ultimately, to let go of something, in order to be 100% you. Hello Scorpio -- Eric has written a new description for your sign that you have access to from this link (no password needed).
Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 22) -- You have a lot going for you -- though I suggest you carefully avoid being too full of yourself. This can come up in subtle ways, though one thing that would help is if you check in with others, find out how they're doing and listen to what they say. By all indications your own life is on solid ground; you have the respect of the people you work with and you have respect for your own talents. I suggest, however, that you let others do all the praising, while you invest yourself in paying attention to what's influencing the people you care about. You could easily project your own sense of success or accomplishment onto them, or worse, be seen as someone who is competitive with the people you love. In any situation where desire is a factor, make sure you carefully take everyone's wants and needs into account. The more you do this, the more others will be willing to give you what you want -- or rather, the more they'll feel the opening to do so. Hello Sagittarius -- Eric has written a new description for your sign that you have access to from this link (no password needed).
Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 20) -- If you're feeling the urge to be spiritual, I suggest you go for practical. 'Spiritual' is almost always a ruse, and too often it's a cover for egotism. It's almost always a way of saying that the allegedly spiritual person is better than someone else, and too often it's used as an excuse for hypocrisy. If spiritual means anything at all in real terms, that would be about ethics, honesty and friendship to the people in your environment. This is why I suggest you stick to practical, which is to say, love is what love does. Get away from theory and get down to the business of taking care of the people you love, and the people who take care of you. This is likely to extend into your professional life, an aspect of yourself that has been under major development the past three years. That comes down to one theme: your professional relationships are real, and call for the same respect as anyone else. Hello Capricorn -- Eric has written a new description for your sign that you have access to from this link (no password needed).
Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 19) -- It's time to stop being envious of anyone's success, and to take the risk and enter the territory yourself. You've been getting this message for a while, and it's not about to let up anytime soon; in fact it's in the process of making a translation from desire to necessity. Here is one thing that might be helpful at the beginning of this trip: You associate success with a feeling. Sometimes it's the feeling of power, but whatever it may be, you crave it emotionally. And that seems to be the thing you're not going to have for a while, so therefore I suggest you come up with another metric. One useful one could be that you're succeeding as long as you keep deepening your understanding of yourself, and of how the world works. That may not be tangible enough for you, though I would propose that it's a lot more tangible than the feeling of success, especially if that feeling is one of authority over anything but yourself. Hello Aquarius -- Eric has written a new description for your sign that you have access to from this link (no password needed).
Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20) -- You're under less pressure to accomplish great things -- and therefore, more likely to do so. Making it big in the world is only occasionally linked to talent alone; many extremely talented people live in obscurity while others get all the glory. Success is also not linked to how ambitious you may be feeling at the moment. Rather, it's about your intentions, your preparation and timing. Fortunately, those are the things you've got going for you right now. You've been on this page for a while, and I suggest it's where you keep your emphasis. Preparation is on two levels -- your awareness of what's going on around you, and learning the facts of any situation you find yourself in; and it includes personal preparation, which means taking a step when you're ready to take it. This brings me to the question of timing. Readiness is an important part of this, and so is being aware enough to know when to pause, and when it's time to make a move -- even if you don't feel quite ready. Hello Pisces -- Eric has written a new description for your sign that you have access to from this link (no password needed).