I just checked the blog of the woman who gave me a foundation in both astrology and journalism, Flo Higgins. Her blog covers celebrity stuff and mundane astrology. Her breezy style veils the depth of her insight. Look closely and you’ll see it’s full of little gems of interpretation. And I had no clue Barbara Walters is 80! Here ya go.

It strikes me as increasingly incredible that when the G20 or the WTO get together, they need to barricade themselves behind hundreds of riot police, chemical weapons and the attempt to starve out the protesters, as in the above video. I wonder if they wonder, inside their fortress, why people outside are so restless, given the good deeds the world money ministers so generously do for us.

One thing that’s encouraging is that over the past decade since this has been going on — we are coming up on the 10th anniversary of the “Battle in Seattle” WTO protests that started off this round of history — is that protesters have figured out that the corporate system as well as the government needs to be a target. For many years writers and thinkers on the left side of the bird were saying: this isn’t just about the government; it’s about the multinationals and their partnerships with the government.

This message has finally come through and now it’s getting out to the public.

Dear Friend and Reader:

Earlier this week, we experienced the first Libra equinox with Pluto in Capricorn: Sun square Pluto in the cardinal signs. This is the most recent of many firsts associated with this still-new Pluto transit. In a few weeks Saturn will enter Libra and we’ll experience another major event: Saturn in Libra square Pluto, one of the true stand-out sluggers in the vast aspect repertoire of astrology. If you want to understand the astrology, check out the news: a global climate summit in New York, the G20 erupting into massive protest and certifiably creepy police response, wildfires and floods and the weather going mad — what’s a girl to do?

Not Burning Man. The worst dust storm in decades swept across Eastern Australia on Wednesday, blanketing Sydney and snarling transport as freak conditions also brought earthquakes, giant hailstones and even a tornado. Photo: The Standard.

All of this is associated with the Aries Point — the potent first degree of the zodiac — because the planets involved are poised in the first degrees of the cardinal signs (Aries, Cancer, Libra or Capricorn). That puts them right near the Sun (i.e., conjunct, square or opposite) any time there is a change of seasons; for quite a while, these seasonal turning points will seem bigger than usual, and as they are today, come with concentrations of wide-reaching news that actually matters to us as individuals or feels like it should. For a while, every season will feel like another year; and with each passing season the news becomes more personal.

Even as President Obama was addressing the United Nations climate change summit, the cover of CNN included news of a drowning mother caught in a Georgia flood; wildfires that raged in California and a state of emergency was declared; Sydney, Australia, was swarmed with a dust storm that made it look like a Martian landscape; and Sanjay Gupta, CNN’s medical correspondent, caught H1N1.

At the UN, Obama also raised an issue we haven’t heard about in a decade: nuclear nonproliferation. He warned that, having evaded disaster in the Cold War, we now face the threat of regional nuclear arms races (India versus Pakistan; Israel versus Iran) and “loose nukes,” of which there are many as a result of the decomposition of the USSR. [Text, video of Obama's presentation at this link]

“No longer do we have the luxury of indulging our differences to the exclusion of the work that we must do together,” he said, which gave me an instant aha as I saw him say the words: exploiting differences and conflicts is a way to avoid the important work that we as humanity have to do. This is the game of stopping the conversation about health care reform by accusing someone of being a socialist; on one level, all of our red herring arguments amount to the admission of being too lazy to do anything, or too invested in another values system but not willing to admit it outwardly.

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Weekly Horoscope for Friday, September 25, 2009, #785 – BY ERIC FRANCIS

Gemini (May 20- June 21)
You seem to be stuck on an emotional point. You may also not know that’s what’s going on; it’s difficult to identify the true nature of a hangup when you’re in the midst of it. If you’re obsessing over finding ‘the right strategy’, that is a sign that you’re snagged. But how do I know the issue is emotional? Well, that’s what your solar chart suggests. Here’s what else: you are secretly trying to negotiate with one or both of your parents; to do what you think would impress or please them. This has been going on for a while, but not so blatantly as at this particular moment. Issues lingering from childhood usually go away when we want them to, so here is a question: what purpose is it serving? Clue: it’s a huge distraction.

Libra (Sep. 22 – Oct. 23)
The Sun is now in your birth sign, but this may not be granting the renewal, relief and sense of awakening that it usually does. It’s difficult to overlook the feeling that something huge is lurking behind the scenes of your existence, something over which you have no control. There’s a bit of an exaggeration going on for you; what you’re feeling is impending change. Remember though, this isn’t the kind of change you can plan. It’s the kind you must embrace when the time comes; and it won’t arrive all at once. The adjustments that will significantly improve your existence will arrive in a series of decisions. This information can relieve you of the need to plan, though I suggest you experiment with ideas for what you want.

Aquarius (Jan. 20- Feb. 19)
Your world is getting bigger. Finally and at long last, you have a sense of what is possible, as a feeling more than as a list. This feeling is crucial because it’s the experience of granting yourself permission to dance with your own potential. Aquarius is the sign of the zodiac that is about mental patterns. Many astrological factors have been conspiring to get you off the tracks and out of the mental maze that you’ve been calling a personality. In truth, your unconscious has sent you just about every kind of signal and given you the opportunity to experience just about every kind of test that’s available. Yet there are few experiences so powerful as stepping outside the door and recognizing that you can do anything you want.

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Today’s Oracle takes us to the Capricorn – Weekly of Jan 06, 2006

Photo by Danielle Voirin.

I recognize that an odd kind of fog is surrounding you and may be leading you to question the sanity of just about everyone, yourself included. But don’t get carried away with the questioning. If you’re suffering from anything, it’s a false lack of confidence. You’ve already been through anything you’re going to go through any time soon; there are not a lot of surprises in store at the moment. However, for that to remain true, you need to keep your attention fixed on the road. Just because it’s foggy out doesn’t mean that’s a good time to doze off behind the wheel.

(The Daily Oracle is a random selection from one of 10,000 Eric Francis horoscopes. The Oracle is a divination tool like tarot cards, and also can be used to research any horoscope for the past 10 years. It is available to subscribers of Planet Waves Astrology News in all its working glory. This is a brilliant piece of programming combined with a full decade of Eric’s writing — when you have a question, it really works (as long as you’re sincere), and we know that you’ll love it. Sign up to discover how and why. Or enjoy one selection free here every day.)

Check out this video from the Pittsburgh G20 protests. It’s the voice…that police voice sounds just like the Radiohead piece Fitter, Happier.

Note the two different protest styles; this is not the Yes Men in the video above.

The Yes Men just sent out this press release. Seems like Andy is fine after spending a day in the clink — specifically, The Tombs, New York City’s famous central lockup. These whacks tried to take the UN by way of the East River, floating in…video above gives details. No police officers were hurt when they tried to apprehend the creatures. Apparently Andy was arrested (as opposed to ticketed) because he had an unpaid ticket for bicycle riding through Washington Square Park. Good thing those routine roundups of SurvivaBalls catch bicycle scofflaws.

September 24, 2009

YES MEN HONCHO SPRUNG FROM CLINK

“Balls Across America” direct-action campaign launched; cop lies but it doesn’t works so well

Contact: The Yes Men event@theyesmen.org

Andy Bichlbaum, co-founder of activist group the Yes Men, emerged after 26 hours in New York City’s central lockup with all charges against him dismissed.[1]

“The judge just laughed,” said Bichlbaum. “The police had a less well-developed sense of humor – and, it turned out, much less regard for the law. But all in all, I’m ecstatic that they arrested me.”

At 10am Tuesday, Bichlbaum was arrested and charged with trespassing, after he and 21 “Survivaballs” [2] gathered on New York City’s East River and announced they were to going to “take the UN by storm” from the water, since all the land approaches were sealed. Once at the UN, they would supposedly use the Survivaballs to blockade the negotiations and refuse to let world leaders leave the room until they’d agreed on sweeping cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, as Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon has demanded.[3]

The event was a “scenic and mediagenic way to call attention to what our leaders need to do in the run-up to Copenhagen,” said Bichlbaum. [4] It was also the official inauguration of the Yes Men’s “Balls Across America” series of civil disobedience actions, inspired by the call for direct action on climate change by website http://BeyondTalk.net <http://BeyondTalk.net> .

Minutes after the balls began wading into the water, law enforcement swooped in on the protesters by land, sea, and air. In order not to harm their attackers, the balls admitted defeat and waddled out of the water and off the beach. Seven participants were given tickets for trespassing, and one-ringleader Bichlbaum – was whisked away to “the Tombs,” New York’s central processing facility at 100 Centre Street, due to an unpaid ticket for bicycle riding through Washington Square Park.

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Last week’s news takes us from Patrick Swayze, a man who embodied virtues that embrace both the masculine and the feminine, to a controversy over an athlete who didn’t fit an international organization’s gender expectations. We somehow don’t think it strange that most athletic competition is strictly segregated by sex; men and women generally don’t compete against one another, unless of course the game depends on mental prowess above all else. Yet gender isn’t what it used to be.

A brief recap: 18-year-old South African Caster Semenya, the women’s world record holder in the 800 meter run, won the 2009 World Championships in Berlin this August. However, she subsequently became the focus of high-profile, and humiliating, questions about whether she was, physically, a woman.

Recently, the results of physical examinations of Semenya were leaked from within the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), the agency that ordered the testing. Apparently Semenya has no ovaries or womb, but does have internal testes. The offensive term “hermaphrodite” was immediately tossed around by a gleeful tabloid press. Yet the test results have raised more questionsВ than they answered, many of them on social and philosophical issues.

Semenya’s postmodern gender is reflected in her natal chart as the Sun mixed in with the extremely rare triple conjunction of Saturn, Uranus and Neptune that rocked the world in the late 80s and early 90s. That conjunction seemed to melt away structure, coming with the disappearance of the USSR and the transformation of China into a new breed of capitalist communism.

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Today’s Oracle takes us to the LEO – Weekly of Mar 09, 2007

Photo by Danielle Voirin.

Others are starting to make more sense — to themselves. You have a pulse on the games and the gaming, and you can see the patterns clearly. Despite the best efforts of some individuals to obscure reality, you can gaze through their words. You may be wondering how they could possibly not notice the obvious. Now, this is not truth to be seen for its own sake, but rather for the sake of improved cooperation and focusing of energy. Listen to what people say they want; see where this intersects with your own perspective not only on what you want personally, but what would serve the greatest good for everyone.

(The Daily Oracle is a random selection from one of 10,000 Eric Francis horoscopes. The Oracle is a divination tool like tarot cards, and also can be used to research any horoscope for the past 10 years. It is available to subscribers of Planet Waves Astrology News in all its working glory. This is a brilliant piece of programming combined with a full decade of Eric’s writing — when you have a question, it really works (as long as you’re sincere), and we know that you’ll love it. Sign up to discover how and why. Or enjoy one selection free here every day.)

All day yesterday I was wondering what the Yes Men were up to. Late Monday I came back upstate and, with a few aches and pains from trooping all over the city with cameras and gear, and missing a bit of sleep, I finally heard from Mike last night.

The Survivaball, in promotion of the coming Yes Men movie that opens Oct. 7.

“Today, a cadre of Survivaballs took the UN by storm! Success! Not. Seven of the guys were given summonses for mischief, and one lucky guy got arrested: Andy!” He may still be in the can; I have not heard a legal update but I know they have that angle covered handsomely.

The photo at left is someone posing in a Survivaball. This concept was presented several years ago by the Yes Men impostering “Halliburton” officials at a business exec conference somewhere; as a concept for how the wealthy capitalists who are causing climate change can deal with the consequences. If The End arrives, you step out of your building and inflate the device, and you’ll be fine. You can float, you can crash, you can bounce — no matter what happens.

Donning this outfit and bouncing into the United Nations is how Andy and seven others got arrested/ticketed yesterday. (I could imagine them floating up to the west side of the UN in the Harlem River, but I think they took the sidewalk.) This means somebody else has to cover the city in promo literature for their film, which opens at one theater in Manhattan on Oct. 7. More about that another time — I am proposing a New York City field trip to the opening. I am pretty sure they will have lots of volunteers to pass out their leaflets for The Yes Men Fix the World.

Let’s go to the astrology. The Sun is still in the first degree of Libra, at 39 arc minutes as I write, which is to say that today is the first full day of autumn in Hemisphere North and of spring in HemiSouth. The Sun is also about to square Pluto, exact now to about four arc minutes applying, which is the defining theme of this equinox: our first Libra equinox with Pluto in Capricorn. The next of many firsts associated with Pluto in Cap.

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