Dear Friend and Reader:

For those of you who are not plugged all the way into the blogosphere via one of those Matrix ports in the back of your head, I have some funny news. A number of top blogs are reporting Sunday night that the McCain team is in Wasilla, Alaska vetting Sarah Palin. Vetting means checking her background, making sure she’s up to the job and so on. The story reportedly broke on the blog of Andrew Halcro, a Republican who ran against Palin for governor in 2006. The story was picked up by John Cole’s Ballon Juice and bas been bouncing around all night.

It’s also been widely reported that McCain met her just once before last week. But he seems to really like her a lot.

I forgot to predict last night that Sarah Palin wasn’t going to make it. She’s a test balloon to see what they can do in the polls using some, er, goddess power. Even as a delegate of the divine feminine, her selection reveals a stunning lack of leadership in a Republican party that has been choked by a decade of Neocon death grip.

Meantime, the Associated Press is reporting that John McCain “tore up the script” for the Republican National Convention on Sunday, “casting himself above politics as Hurricane Gustav churned toward New Orleans.” I mean, they can’t have a political convention in Minneapolis if New Orleans is flooding again.

It gets better. Bush and Cheney aren’t going to the RNC themselves. Why should they? They’re not really Republicans. McCain himself may not even attend. Instead, Laura Bush and Cindy McCain “would speak from the podium and describe ways to help victims of the storm bearing down on a region that was devastated three years ago by Hurricane Katrina. The first lady visited the convention hall Sunday evening to check out the podium.”

“This is a time when we have to do away with our party politics, and we have to act as Americans,” McCain said as fellow Republicans converged on their convention city to nominate him for the White House. Aides said Monday’s program would be shorn of political rhetoric, AP reported.

What exactly are they going to do? Recite the Vagina Monologues?

Yours & truly,

PS, it must be hopping up in Alaska tonight. A reader keeps writing to me about how They are using the HAARP facility in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park to create Hurricane Gustav. I might think she’s a little on the tin foil hat side of things except that I know for a fact that weather control has been used as a weapon by the U.S. military since the Vietnam days. I know because my therapist wrote an investigative piece in ’73 or so for Newsday called “A Weather Arsenal.” And that was back in the day when you needed a warehouse to hold what you could put in an Apple IIe.

The Oracle takes us to the June 2006 Cancer monthly horoscope. The oracle is a database of some 10,000 daily, weekly and monthly horoscopes written by Eric Francis. It pulls up one totally at random in response to a question. The Oracle is included with subscriptions to Planet Waves.

If you take charge of your finances and resolve to make some crucial long-term decisions, it will be possible to get results that last for many years. This stage of your life, counting this year and next, is one of the most important times ever for building your economic foundations. At the same time you can and indeed must face your personal insecurities and remember that you are a unique individual with talents, resources and a gift for humanity that only you possess. It’s almost a birthright that you be one who is not only financially successful but actually content — but you have to claim it.

Note, the discussion thread on the presumptive Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin is continuing below. Here is the link. Last year I published an article on the chart for the election of 2008, looking in detail at its astrology. Here is that article, called My America.

TONIGHT is the burning of the Man ritual at Burning Man in Black Rock City, Nevada. In many ways this festival has set the tone of counterculture for the past two decades, it being the central meeting point for many of the most creative people in the world. Burning Man is the perfect blend of Bohema and Babylon, and the festival’s reputation for edgy, saucy fun veils its most potent contribution to culture, art.

The Man got checked out by one of the Man crew just before the first people climbed aboard.

Black Rock City emerges out of the landscape of an ancient plateau left by the extinct Lake Lahontan. It is a living work of creative community. For its weeklong existence each year, it becomes the third largest city in Nevada.

At this writing, final preparations are being made for the burning of the Man ritual and it won’t be long before a sizable crowd has gathered. What has for a week been a Bedouhin tribal outpost with deisel generators, an airport and satellite hookups, is about to transform into a Fire Bowl celebration. This happens when the central icon of the festival, a wood statue of a man about 60 feet high, is torched.

As dusk falls over the desert, fire spinners dance and provide an opening act. These are often young men and women clad in just shorts or bikini bottoms, the movement of whose hips accents the spinning balls of flame. As night subsumes the landscape they turn to silhouettes. Black Rock Rangers patrol the crowd.

As the Man is lit the crowd transforms into that of a Western football game, alive and cheering in the energy of transformation, creation and libido, converging on the embers as the huge statue finally collapses.

Tonight’s fire ritual is just hours past the Virgo New Moon and as such is a de facto honoring of the Goddess in her many forms and ways of expression. Tonight, her name is Vesta.

Editor’s Note: I was just sent this article from Daily Kos by our longtime reader, political observer and artist Fe Bongolin. Here is a short excerpt from a very worthwhile piece of writing. Thank you Fe as usual. –efc

To put it simply, the 2008 Presidential race will not be over politics but — as it was in 2000 and 2004 — over the purpose of politics. In that sense it will be a meta-debate, and one that many will miss because they thought it was settled long ago.

Here then are the disputants in this argument over what politics is for in the first place. On the one hand, there are those who think that political argument is best aimed at perfecting a pluralistic society of equal citizens who do not agree on metaphysical questions of purpose and meaning, but nevertheless wish to live together under conditions of amicable cooperation, and on the other hand those who think that political debate is about winning, precisely, the metaphysical argument — about settling fundamental questions of purpose and meaning on the public stage.

Pluralists do not want to address metaphysical questions on the public-political stage. This is not because they think they cannot win but because they think they should not win. Religio-philosophical victory in a political — as opposed to dinner-table — setting has, pluralists think, no upside. We get along as a people in the first place because we first agreed that religio-philosophical issues are not something we need to agree upon. We don’t debate those matters at the ballot box. Rather, we need only agree on the best ways to further our society to the benefit of all, so that we may in our own ways address questions of purpose and meaning at home. A home secured by a concern for the general welfare.

Dear Friend and Reader:

Writing about other things overshadowed any comment on the Virgo New Moon (except in the horoscope), so I’m leaving you in the capable hands of three commentators. First is Kirsti Melto, wose Lunations series covers the major lunar markers for Planet Waves. Second is Priya Kale, who wrote this blog for more than a year. Third is Shelley Ackerman, whose post today covers both the New Moon and the Democratic National Convention. Click on the author’s name for a direct link to their commentary on the Virgo New Moon, which is exact to one degree as I write at 3:16 pm EDT.

Yours & truly,

Today’s Oracle takes us to the March 3, 2006 Aquarius weekly

In late December (ages ago, I know), you had a revelation; you came to a point where you truly felt like you were waking up. Yes, it may have been overwhelming, too, but you were definitely feeling the cosmic spark plug go off in your brain. Not a lot of time has passed, and in truth you’ve accomplished an enormous amount — and none of what you’ve done counts for a digression from your true purpose. Nor is it exactly what you would be doing; and as Venus gets ready to make its return to your sign, you get to reorient on your deeper desires, your precise needs and take a little bath in divine nourishment and pleasure.

Speaking of the Beatles

Dear Friend and Reader…

(comments on this article are accumulating below)

Are they serious? She’s been governor of Alaska less than two years and they’re putting her on the presidential ticket with a 69-year-old guy with cancer? Alaska? I mean, it’s a great state. It’s just that you preside over more bears than you do people. So much for the theory that Barack Obama is under-experienced. At least he represents Chicago.

Who? Me? Sarah Palin.

For those concerned about gun-toting vice presidents, at least she’s in the NRA. For those concerned with the ratings, the results are in: most guys would do her. For those pondering over astrology, here is your report. Note, we don’t have her birth time, so I’m using a noon chart. (In the absence of birth time, most astrologers use a chart set for sunrise for a non-famous individual, and a noon chart for someone who is in the public spotlight.)

Palin is an Aquarius, which would make her either super duper groovy or someone who wants to sign up for the FBI Academy.

She arrived in the United States four days after the Beatles did (they came to New York City, she came to Iowa) during that eventful Aquarius season of 1964 — the year of the Green Dragon. We now have our first politician on the national scene who was born with the Uranus-Pluto conjunction in Virgo, going at full throttle. I know these people; I am one of them. We make fabulous revolutionaries and perfectly good Nazis. We believe in “service” but that is a matter of who you serve. No matter who they are, there is a touch of revolutionary in their hearts.

Palin has the perfect chart for a conservative, with Mars and the Sun conjunct Saturn. Why is this perfect? Well, because she’s driving with the emergency brake on. Saturn makes the perfect air-tight container for the vital force implied by Mars and the Sun. She really, really, really wants to be free. But it’s like she’s trying to do ballet in a snow suit, in August.

We don’t know her Moon, because it’s so early in Aquarius that were she born before 8 am, it would be in Capricorn. I would need to leaf through her sketch book and inspect her liquor closet and/or her stash box to determine what sign her Moon is in. Anyway, she has enough Aquarius to be serious, smart and hard boiled. I would not be surprised if she’s still a virgin, but then she is born the year of the Dragon. Oh, and she has five kids. So it’s somewhat unlikely.

Wait a sec. If her Moon is in Cap (it would be late in the sign) that aligns her with many of the greats, such as Lincoln and Hitler and Washington and I Love Lucy, who all had this Moon. Mark Lerner writes in and mentions that McCain himself has a Cap Moon in the neighborhood, and the USA Pluto is hanging around the last degrees of Capricorn as well. This is a little reminder to mention that the United States is now entering its Pluto return.

The lady’s Venus is in Aries, in a little cluster with Eris and Jupiter. Venus in Aries people are special. Or at least they think so. Jupiter in Aries people are lucky and this helps her feel extra-special.

She has the Sun and Mars square Neptune. Not only is she very likely one who may lie casually, she is the kind of risk taker whose finger you would not want to have anywhere near the Button.

You know, the nuclear button.

I have nothing more to say, except that I miss Geraldine Ferraro. No wait, now she’s a Fox News commentator. Well, we all gotta eat.

Catch you later with Saturday’s Oracle.

Yours & truly,

Editor’s Note: We will have her astrology profile posted later this afternoon. Please check back. The article below is an overview on Sarah Palin by Rachel Asher. -efc

Dear Friend and Reader:

In the wake of Obama’s speech last night at Mile High Stadium and the Democratic National Convention, John McCain has announced his running mate: Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska.

Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, aka McCain’s running mate, aka second-place winner of 1984 Miss Wasilla beauty contest.

She is 44 years old, born on February 11, 1964 in Idaho, and a lifetime member of the NRA according to CNN. She approved TransCanada Corp’s, the nation’s largest pipeline company, plan to build a $27 billion pipeline through the United States’ “largest remaining piece of U.S. wilderness, Alaska’s North Slope,” according to a National Geographic article. But of course she did: her husband has a job drilling in North Slope as a result.

Palin is a first-term governor, elected in December 2006, and probably chosen to make McCain seem less old, less boring white male and more appealing to Hillary Clinton supporters. Her staunch conservatism, proven by her “go-ahead” attitude towards drilling in Alaska’s wildlife preservation areas and rumors of corruption surrounding the abrupt firing of Alaska’s Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan, should jive well with her Bush-loving running mate.

Her sister was married to state trooper Mike Wooten and went through a bitter divorce, and Palin allegedly used her position to try to have him fired. When Walt Monegan refused to do the deed, he was sacked. The issue is currently under legislative investigation.

Here is a quote from the Associate Press on the matter:

A legislative panel has launched a $100,000 investigation to determine if Palin dismissed Alaska’s public safety commissioner because he would not fire the trooper, Mike Wooten. Wooten went through a messy divorce from Palin’s sister.

Palin has denied the commissioner’s dismissal had anything to do with her former brother-in-law. And she denied orchestrating the dozens of telephone calls made by her husband and members of her administration to Wooten’s bosses.

Palin said she welcomes the investigation: “Hold me accountable.”

Still, the allegations she abused her office could prove embarrassing for Palin, who got elected in 2006 on an ethics reform platform.

To return to the issue of drilling in Alaska, the direct impact on drilling in this vast wilderness area is not an overwhelming headline these days. In this National Geographic image, “Graduate students Kyle Whittinghill, at left, and Marselle Alexander-Ozinskas inspect a soil sample in one of the North Slope’s many thermokarsts, or tundra fractures, caused by melting permafrost,” where Sarah Palin has just agreed to drill. “Thermokarsts on the slope have become more frequent in recent years, due in part to rising temperatures and a loss of insulating ground vegetation.”

So agreeing to this $26 million job is not going to do Palin any favors in an environmental debate. And, as a note to McCain staff, Hillary Clinton supporters are not looking for just any woman: female biology does not guarantee feminist values or feminist appeal, and Palin proves this clearly. She is staunchly anti-choice, according to CNN reports, and to prove her point, knowingly gave birth to a baby with Down syndrome a few months ago.

The story is still developing, but that’s the long and short of it for now: a young, conservative woman with corruption charges after only two years in a public office. Oh, and apparently, though not importantly, she enjoys a nice, juicy moose burger from time to time.

WELCOME TO PLANET WAVES. Today we are posing the lead article from our subscriber edition. The full edition includes the weekly horoscope, writing by Judith Gayle and an excerpt from A Course in Miracles. Subscribe at this link.

Dear Friend and Reader:

ONE THING I’ve been thinking about a lot the past few days is what it would be like for Martin Luther King to have seen Barack Obama’s speech Thursday night. Dr. King of all people would understand that this was not the symbol of progress, but the thing itself. Whether Barack wins or loses, what matters is that he is a contender for president of the United States.

Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, July 1939: “Colored” water fountains were fixtures throughout the South during the Jim Crow era. Photo by Russell Lee.

I was born in 1964, and within my lifetime, “separate but equal” facilities still existed. It may seem outrageous to any young person today, but until 1965, in our country, African Americans had to use different bathrooms than Caucasians. It was not until 1967 that the Supreme Court ruled in a case called Loving v. Virginia that blacks and whites could legally marry one another.

For those unfamiliar with history, this was fully 100 years after the abolition of slavery: you know, white folks at the front of the bus and colored folks at the back.

Now we have an African-American presidential candidate, and not only that, a good one. He speaks in full sentences and he can spell his own name and he went to Columbia University in New York City. He has ideas and an aura of authentic dignity. He has spent time living out of the country doing something besides shooting people. He is promising to lead the country on some course other than open war and corporate greed at every possible opportunity.

I have vivid images in my mind of his mom schlepping him around Honolulu as a kid, struggling to pay the bills. He was raised by a single mother, not in a model 2.4 kid, mother, father and Fido household of Americana mythology. He is from an actual normal American family. He has, no doubt, personally gone grocery shopping. He grew up black in the United States, which is an extremely difficult thing to do; that distinction alone has about a one in three chance of landing you in jail in our era. When you have that experience, you know what it means to struggle with the unspoken rules of our society.

Continue Reading »

Hey all,

We’re holding Friday’s Planet Waves two hours (usually we run at 9 am Friday) to includeВ  coverage of the Democratic National Convention. We plan to have it in your inbox by 11 am Eastern Time.

Today’s Oracle takes us to the Aries weekly of September 16, 2005

(The Oracle is a random daily selection from among 10,000 horoscopes written by Eric Francis)

You may be wondering where all this unusually brilliant inspiration is coming from and one glimpse at the Pisces Full Moon this weekend should provide a clue. This lunation does something rather beautiful which is merge perfectly all the different qualities of mystical inspiration and practical work and service. If you are an artist of any kind this is a rich moment to plunge into your deepest state of creativity. If you’re more the worker type your efforts can take on a cosmic quality that can manifest as the ability to penetrate any problem create new systems of organization or gaze through the most complex situations.

The daily Oracle is a special feature here at Planet Waves; it is the only free access to Eric Francis’ horoscopes. Currently, we have weekly, monthly and annual horoscopes on offer, some for as little as $7.33 per month. A subscription to Planet Waves Astrology News contains:

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