Dear Friend and Reader:
I promised my friends the Yes Men to send today’s article from Planet Waves Astrology News about them to every email address I had. They’ve managed to get their new film finished and into a theater in New York City. It’s called The Yes Men Fix the World, but there’s not exactly an advertising budget. So, let’s take it to the people ourselves. That link, covering last night’s takeover of a Whole Foods Market in Manhattan (plus the astrology of the Yes Men, written about in Planet Waves for the first time ever), is included with this letter.
But when I was sending out today’s amazing edition to our passionate, loyal subscribers, I was wondering: where are the rest of you? You like astrology, but you don’t subscribe to the coolest astrology magazine on the Web? Well, some people need a little friendly persuasion.
Today, I’m going to make it gosh darned virtually inevitable that you will allow yourself the relief and pleasure of signing up for a subscription, or coming back into the fold. Maybe you’re one of those people who’s wanted to forever; or you sit in quiet anguish, reading the free materials, knowing your neighbors sponsor them. Or you missed our last 3,000 invitations to sign up. Or you haven’t forgiven us for that typo you found six years ago. Or you think we still use a black background and Planet Waves is difficult to read on your 1986 Dell laptop, the one with wheels. Whatever it may be. Now, none of that matters.
Most of you are Americans, and Americans adore a discount. In fact, if you knock 10% off the price, you can sell most Americans something they don’t want or don’t even need. If you want to sell to Brits, include a free umbrella and if you want to sell to Europeans, tell them that there’s been a new regulation passed requiring them to do whatever it is you want them to do.
I’m going one-up all of that — for today only. Today means all day Friday, Oct. 9, 2009, and we will use California time to be fair to everyone. If you purchase a three-month subscription to Planet Waves Astrology News, we will upgrade you to a one-year subscription. You will get 52 weekly editions, 52 Tuesday bonus editions, and discounts on all of our other products and reports for a full year. This includes being eligible for the substantial subscriber discount on Cosmic Confidential, the 2010 annual edition of Planet Waves. All this can be yours for just $29.95. But it can only be yours today. Tomorrow, it will be $88 again — and well worth the price.
Here’s the link to subscribe — remember, it says you’re getting a three month subscription, but we will automatically upgrade you to one year if the sale is processed in the next 15 hours or so. You can also use this option to purchase gifts, but just today.
Here’s your link to How To Fix The World, Part Two, starring The Yes Men. I’ll tell them you said hello.
Yours & truly,
Loft thee well, Mystes, and for all of us (or it)! –
blessings, anna
Shanna, you are right! I just love Mrs. Obama – she just has that look of love about her that I adore.
My dad always did 7 years of crop rotation. I don’t know a single farmer that does it anymore – except maybe this poor farm back in the hills where I live. I’ve always thought he’d be the one I’ll ask for wheat because I see him out spreading manure on the fields.
Mystes – Our 16 year old neighbor had colon cancer, and now so does his mom. I think about your daughter every time I see him – and him a big old strapping football player wasted down to nothing. The DDT will always be with us. It will never break down. Most people don’t realize that I guess.
BK you are the last person I would call a butt-head! That desciption fits me a little better than it fits you, me with all the Aries hot air – haha
next year we are going to try covering everything, and use weed barriers too. I don’t know – it is all hard work. At least I don’t have farm run-off or any farmer spraying next to my gardens. My mom lost her grapes this year due to the weed killer drift from the fields. We are eating and breathing this stuff whether we want to or not.
Oh yes, it’s so easy not to have the whole story when we are typing little bits’n’pieces from afar.
Here’s a bit of evidence that even city folk may not been all they appear:
I always had my own garden in my backyard in Detroit (nothing like fresh strawberries, warm from the morning sun) — and spent summers at my uncles’ farm camp – initially as a camper then as counselor, milking goats, butchering bunnies for dinner (sorry veggies) and understanding why my cousins named their cows before putting them in the freezer (sorry again veggies). Oh, and took groups of kids weeklong on horseback into “wilderness” – when we even did things like picking wild berries to eat….wow! sometime it WAS amazing to city kids who came to camp — so great that they had the experience. As for me, “natural” is second nature, and I’m pretty sure I’m not alone – urban dweller or not.
I would grow on my apartment patio, but the local rats get to it first and my rescue cats aren’t ferel enough to scare them away.
And the city doesn’t want “victory gardens” spoiling the parks, too bad the ecomony didn’t get worse so we could have more motivation for that????
I think agriculture has been as much downtrodden by “corporate” as anything else in this country and we are slowly becoming more aware – as with so many things. Soon we even may begin to better understand that we have made ourselves sick, how we have done that, and agressively stimulate new ways of living to counter our previous mistakes.
xo
Yep. 7 years. The good old-fashioned time-tested crop rotation method. Most folks know so little about how food it made. Heck, I’m not picky about organic (maybe I should be); I’m more concerned with local farmers just surviving. Certified “organic” is a complex game in it’s own right. And yeah, I think in five years your suburban type will finally come to terms with dirt. It’s takes time and education, exposure and NEED for people to refine their ideas.
It’s a symbolic gesture, but I’m glad the Obamas have a garden in the White House backyard now. As the mother of a second grader, I can say it’s more than a gesture for us; my daughter knows about the garden and though she doesn’t eat many veggies, she thinks gardens are cool and is very concerned with healthy eating. The Obama garden did influence this attitude!
Mysti: good luck on the transit. Thank goodness it only comes once every 3 or so years.
Pattissima, forget “organic.” What I want to see are signs at groceries and farmer’s markets saying: Warning: Meth vegetables – grown in dead soil under a veil of poisons. “Conventional,” my ass. These weren’t ‘conventional’ until 1978 when the FDA altered the language of its regulations to permit *untested* carcinogens into the food stream – to make up for the lack of DDT.
Exactly 19 years later I wound up with a 19 year old daughter with colon cancer. I believe we can file this under the ‘no shit’ sign.
***
Now, kittens, I gotta transit and a half comin’ up. My natal Uranus/Mars conjunct (8th house, woot!) is going to be tickled tomorrow – as Mars rounds the corner to the 27th degree *while the Moon is in Cancer!* Sabian symbol? A storm diving into a valley of expensive homes. Awrighty then. We got yer water (rain), yer fire (lightning), yer air (wind).
Fortunately, I usually can turn this kind of stuff into Tantra. Wish me loft.
Kissies,
M
Patty!
Your Ceres is showing! Wanted to tell you something from a week or so ago(see next paragraph), but first. .I can just imagine how the farmers feel about the folks who have heard about how “great” organic produce is, but, unfortunately, they have never SEEN real food; only the air-brushed (I’m exaggerating) stuff at the super market. They are like little children and have to be taught that food is grown in dirt and sometimes. . s-o-m-e-t-i-m-e-s a little dirt gets stuck on the food. Maybe in 5 years or so they will have become educated. Especially if they have to learn to grow their own veggies, which we all might be doing in the not-so-distant future. Three or more cheers for our wonderful farmers. . . don’t give up on us butt-head city folk. Teach us.
My brother tells me that before she passed away, my mother and brother had her home put in her childrens names. That is all; no special legal process like I thought. Perhaps this would be a possibility for your mother and your siblings so that the state can’t touch her home if or when she dies.
(Seven years of fallow ground? Dear me.)
As one who sells at a farmer’s market, I can attest that customers do NOT want organic. If there is a bug or spot on the produce, you are history. They want big fat shiny apples and clean lettuce. They don’t even want to trim the roots off of a freshly piulled onion. They don’t want to break a bug bite out of a green bean, and God forbid a worm be found in a head of broccoli. Anthony Bourdaine would probably eat the worm, but the average Sally Sunshine that shows up with her fistful of one dollar bills wants her food cheap and fresh with no bugs, bites, or dirt. The extension office warns us to clean the produce for the customer ‘because you can’t trust the customer to take it home and wash it’. That’s the real world. You have criticized the food industry for not being organic, and when they try to be organic you protest? What the fuck is that all about? Oh right – food growers are not supposed to make any money! Duh! Well at least some values haven’t changed in 200 years! Farmers got screwed being told to grow corn for gasoline, and then the ethanol companies all filed bankruptcy leaving the farmers with outrageous fuel, seed, insurance and fertilizer bills. If there is starvation, somehow it is the American farmer’s fault. What would you do if they laid down their plows for a decade of protest? It could happen. Maybe I’ll become an activist again and promote 7 years of fallow grounds to save the planet. Jeez.
Oh yeah, when I was 16, I told my dad if he ever hit me again, I’d kill him, Fucker never hit me again, damn well knew I was serious.
DON’T EVER HIT!
Just don’t do it man.
We will destroy you. Sad, but true. Not funny, sorry. I’d rather laugh, but some shit’s just not laughable. I do laugh at all the shit now but, I gotta stick up for the kids in life…
They’re a blessing and laughter, and smiles all around! Got It?!? Best. I Love you, (and I’ll kick it with you ’til you get it too! Got It?!?)
Love peace and happiness, (good thing for alone time man, I’d drive myself crazy without me…)
Love (although a bit weird and kinda funny) Jere
Hey, way too much came out right there. I’m Pluto Libra, welcome to the opening square, eh. Fuck you Virgo, Leo, Cancer mother fuckers, this shit’s goin’ down now, eh, not in the past… welcome to the 30’s, again I guess. My dad was a Nam draftee, ’68/’69, immigrant out of S.F. state, trying to save his 18 year old bro. My mom was born Santa Cruz 1950, she caught the Pop Festival Excursion, thought Hendrix was a dirty Mofo, she also hung out with Sonny Barger and had no idea what was going down, dull freakin’ girl.
I don’t know what I was saying, just pissed. I’ve definitely got to learn the channeling effect. People, and sign have no idea how well they have it, unless they’re gettin’ their asses kicked on a regular basis, and then it’s normal.
I know I just jumped a million miles an hour, Kids are getting smarter, seriously, talk to them, like they’re freakin’ people man! Treat them with the utmost respect, like they might actually be there for your dumb-ass in the end! Not like you’re scared, but that you care, and not for your own selfish ass, but for your kid’s well being. (Yeah, I know man, the wheels came off when I was young, and all I care to do anymore is Love, so fuck it all dude, it’s Love!)
and here I seem to be another “anomoly”….I am one of those “older” folks who has Pluto in Virgo (’58)….but still wasn’t old enough to be a “hippie”. My barely older brother registered for the draft when Vietnam was still happening (got lucky, didn’t get picked) — this and the fact that he was still of Pluto/Leo vintage separated us by – figuratively – generations.
So there are some of us out there who have always sort of “bridged the gap” between these generations you speak of – and it’s not a particularly easy ride, I have to say.
While my big brother was pretending to be political conscious and smoking weed, drinking Annie Greensprings and having sex in his bedroom (mine was next to his) — I was the one with pix of MLK and Bobby Kennedy on my walls (not the Beatles, sorry) and a hand-written copy of the I Have a Dream speech. My friends and I were activists during that lull between the roaring 60’s and the sleepy 80’s.
It’s all good – we’re picking up pieces and people like Eric have kept the ball in the air.
Love,
Linda
“Jimi played the Star Spangled Banner in that magnificently twisted way, to remind everyone what was going on in the world around them.”
Thank you for reminding me of this. I love Jimi’s Star Spangled Banner. But does anyone younger than 40 know the arrangement was intended as a political statement? As you suggested, there’s much to this era we’ve forgotten or never properly learned in the first place.
The astrology does, indeed, suggest we’re due for a reminder. Thanks for the long comment, Eric.
On a serious note: I think of the 60’s as being populated and promulgated by young, beautiful people in their twenties and thirties, when in reality the people who first rode the Freedom buses were in their fourties and fifties, making them Pluto in Cancer generation. A lot of the early movers were older.
And male. Yeah. Thanks for pointing that out, Eric. When I think of it, most of the leaders were very angry men, and cheezes, god! The cults of personality!!
I love David Halberstam’s book, The Fifties. Should be required reading for anyone who doesn’t get that movements aren’t birthed fully formed from the foreheads of three people who suddenly got a Great Idea. Certainly the 60’s wasn’t. And politics of the 60’s seems to me much more about the disillusion of a certain segment of the Pluto in Cancer/post-WWII generation than Pluto/Leo self-righteousness.
I know a few boomers who really admire our generation for their work ethic, and I’m sure we have a lot to learn from one another: how to get something done; how to enjoy the fruits of getting that something done.
Hands to Hearts, everyone.
Hey, Pluto in Virgo people: Function does not equal functionary! 🙂
Or, the enlightened PV tee! “Pluto in Virgo: we put the ‘fun’ in functionary!”
As time goes on I am increasingly grateful that, from a young age, I had mentors who explained to me what the Sixties were about (Thank you Michael Frisch, my American Studies prof, who sat me in his home office and dragged artifacts out of his attic, that kind of professor). Then I learned astrology.
There are several issues with the Pluto in Leo generation vis a vis activism; and remember, only a small portion even of Americans took part in any protests.
First, the “movement,” to the extent that it was one, unraveled the day that the troops were withdrawn from Vietnam. The protesters finally [thought they] won, and then people who had stayed in school to dodge the draft were free to join the system, and I do mean Wall Street, banking, multinational, etc. The truth is the war ended because the government ran out of money, not excuses.
Jerry Rubin led the way. I remember the Yippie-Yuppie debate that came through Buffalo.
Additionally, it was a “movement” dominated by ego, and predominantly the egos of men. By this I mean there were what were known as the Big Heavies, the leaders of the movement. It was quite a lot of rallying round the flagpole. We’re not talking Freedom Summer here.
What Mike Frisch taught me decades ago was that it was a mistake to organize the whole movement around the war. We don’t have that problem now; the current wars are considered irrelevant by all but the most aware people. Or they are academic questions, budget questions, and so on; nobody seems to be wondering why we’re still fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq when neither had anything to do with Sept. 11.
Pluto in Leo tends to think for itself first; that’s its inherent nature. Then family will be included, which is an extension of “oneself.” To overcome that and participate in a larger world, from the inside, takes a lot of growth. Pluto will bestow it, eventually. Many of this generation want to get involved now — in something, really. That Pluto is calling for the personal fulfillment piece that does not exist when what you’re doing is, well, strictly personal.
I doubt that for many of this generation who went from Yippie to Yuppie, they have seen as fulfilling days as the ones they devoted to stopping Vietnam in its many facets; or even witnessed that process and supporting it in conscience; which (for a few people) included Woodstock and the idea of Woodstock (he thing about that word is that it’s far more a concept than a reality). But that event was indeed a picnic, and the heroism was that people put up with a little rain on a nice fresh cow pasture. Maybe 10% of the audience paid to get in. Somebody paid for the stage, the land, the sound system, the damage; but it was free, man. Like wow! Maybe that was destiny.
Jimi played the Star Spangled Banner in that magnificently twisted way, to remind everyone what was going on in the world around them.
Pluto in Virgo has another problem — it can’t find its way out of the office; it struggles to find a purpose of its own. Nearly everything is about something else; for another purpose, Vesta style. That’s why I got into photography. It got me out of the office and into something that I could claim as personal territory.
Meanwhile, I still have to explain to hippies that nothing is really free; everything takes at least attention and energy and someone has to invest it.
Hey, Shanna, Hella cool man! I had a thought last night regarding throwing up signs on freeway overpasses, with congested traffic and all, and the specific message I thought of was “The first eye too close is the third”. I can’t exactly do that now, having written this but, the principle still exists, I want in! My leg is going ninetey to nothing as well. I just want to do it for the pure enjoyment of doing it. I’ve nothing better to do with my reality. And it’s always pretty cool too help people to think!
These Yes Men cats are pretty cool, Eric. Thanks for showin’ the sheisse, (Hella appreciate the charts too.) (You opened up a new box on the 12th. Thank you.)
Sometimes this world seems like it’s goin’ down, sometimes, picking up.. I Do Understand it’s where we throw our immediate energy. The glass ceilings in my personal hovel.
Oh, I’ll freakin’ get there, if there doesn’t get me first!
Catch you all on the flipside of reality…
(The most beautiful 3 words)..
Love, Peace, Happiness
Jere
Uhm, back, and ready to qualify what I said in my caffeinated haze.
I want to make myself clearly heard on my opinion of the Pluto/Leo generation protests: I will never deny the tears, heartache and hard, hard labor that many Pluto/Leo folk invested in causes like the Freedom Riders on the mid-60’s; there was an earnestness and simplicity in their actions that let the rest of the world see in stark clarity the difference between love and hate.
Perhaps it’s my own generational bias that so deeply admires protest work like this, because it embodies much of my own sense that no great change of consciousness happens by way of entertainment alone. And entertainment, the great legacy of Pluto in Leo, overshadows the collective memory of those days. Woodstock came long after Selma, but who among the young people today remember Selma –or Montgomery? Images of attack dogs and high pressure water hoses don’t translate into great t-shirts for Target. Portraits of Malcolm X aside, no one then or now has found the “X-factor) to mass-marketing civil rights protests.
And yet, if it weren’t for people like the Freedom Riders who faced real guns, real beatings, and real fire-bombings just so white and black folks could do astoundingly simple things like travel together on interstate highways freely and without threat, we would not be looking at a black man in the White House. If it weren’t for people who fought at the risk of their very lives, things like poll taxes, we wouldn’t have a black man in the White House.
This isn’t just a black-white thing. I’m sure many of you have other examples you can cite about equally revolutionary ideas that have come to pass these past 30 years. My point is, all require an amazing amount of real hands-the-clay work and real feet-on-the-pavement sacrifice.
Who knows what my Pluto in Virgo generation will be remembered by. Who knows what I’ll be remembered by. Maybe it’s a good time for us to review the real cost of change by learning more about the people who really produced change the last time around. We know too much about Jimi Hendrix and too little about CORE and the SNCC.
All I DO know is I want to hand my daughter a legacy that’s something more than a CD collection.
this may be off topic but in the context of “fixing” the world – any astrology on the moon bombing this morning?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/09/nasa-moon-bombing-lcross-_n_314956.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/amy-ephron/help-save-the-moon_b_313056.html
I agree that Whole Foods has become part of the Big Lie since selling out a number of years back. And Big Profits for sure.
Confusing the consumer runs rampant – even our corner Albertson’s (the junk of junk grocery chain) has re-tooled their look and promoting “health” – on their labels, certainly not what is inside the package.
But our local “health food store” sells moldy bread and limp produce….not a reasonable alternative. And I’ve found not much more than steep prices at the local “Farmer’s Markets” which move around town from location to location, same people different place day to day – probably same produce too.
On drive back from Montery Bay along the 101 a couple weekends back I stopped at numerous vegie-stands along the way hoping for some fresh’n’reasonably priced food.
Turned out the “stored in the back room” fodder at Albertson’s was better quality and price.
So much for today’s rant on food quality. Maybe it’s just that in SoCal too many growers sold out long ago to Con-Agra.
ALSO, I firmly believe that the biggest problem with wheat today is that it’s stored too long (mold) and much of it is GMO. Same issue as lots of other “food” today.
xo
I can’t get a subscription – I’ve been unemployed for a year now and am living on a friends couch.
I like reading the site anyway…
Let me be the first one (maybe!) to hop on the comment stream and tell everyone how brilliant and inspiring this issue is!
Maybe it’s because Jupiter is stationing direct; maybe it’s the amazing fall day we’re having and maybe it’s because of the really yummy gluten free chocolate cake I just ate, but this story brought home that I am, indeed, in LOVE with being here and now. This is the turn I’ve been yearning for, but had somehow forgotten.
The Yes Men will some day be the iconic protest voice for my generation, Pluto in Virgo. They’ve set the model and the tone for people like me, and all of Virgo’s smart, edgy, analytical dagger-sharp wit focused with exacting precision. And humor. Let’s not forget the humor Virgo is very, very good at. No soft, warm-hearted laughs, but you know you’re in well-intentioned company anyway.
Another lesson Pluto in Virgos will teach us is that real reform, real heath comes with real effort. No song, or good feeling, or simple pull of the election booth lever will change the world. Our president this morning seemed almost embarrassed by his accolade; this is the nature of the better members of my generation. Symbolic gestures do make great theater and do warm hearts, but it only our devotion and attention to the practical outworking of our grand dreams that those dreams become real. This is the reality our president knows, but many of us have yet to grok.
(picture me bouncing my caffienated foot and looking around at my little suburban life…as Saturn begins is crossing of my mid heaven) Now what? Now what? Now what?…
When the environmentalists are having the most fun, everyone will want to be environmentalists!
I love this:
“The Yes Men are rising to the occasion of history, and they are in tune with the times: the only people who can tell the truth have a sense of humor.”
Too true – the only news program I can stomach is John Stewart’s Daily show.
Thanks for covering the Yes Men. They are awesome awareness raisers.
Yes, well, when WFM stopped stocking bulk herbs, I stopped shopping there. And I began with the Good Food Market in the 70s, ancestor to WFM! Wheatsville (our local co-op) was a reaction to the biggification of Good Food. And WV –as a commie/pinko/community store– is constantly under surveillance – so everything has its price.
But Mack doesn’t have anything to do with operations at WFM anymore – I believe (if my source is correct, one of the local managers) he has less than 20% ownership right now.
I’m not defending him. Mackey and his entire ‘spiritual’ family (sigh) are certainly elites. When WFM became ‘Whole Paycheck’ and stopped providing real roots, seeds and leaves for medicinal use (taking a knee to the FDA I presume) I was done there.
Eric, you are awesome (as always).
RE: the Yes Men – their film showing just seconds away from my former apartment in the west vllage – I find a piece of myself there with you and them dispite being on the other side of the continent.
Perhaps it brings back something of the good’ol’days; “no nukes” rallys and the like.
I will rally Yes in spirit.
Best,
Linda