{"id":33610,"date":"2011-01-22T12:29:16","date_gmt":"2011-01-22T17:29:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/?p=33610"},"modified":"2011-01-22T17:06:41","modified_gmt":"2011-01-22T22:06:41","slug":"olbermann-fired-astrology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/daily-astrology\/olbermann-fired-astrology\/","title":{"rendered":"Olbermann fired from MSNBC"},"content":{"rendered":"

For an American journalist, or perhaps just speaking for myself, the loss of Keith Olberman on the nightly news is the equivalent of the Beatles breaking up. What is amazing is in part that an Olbermann, whose analysis not only critiqued the global power system but dismantled it for everyone to see, existed; what is more amazing is that he could be the top-rated show on a major cable network. If there were about a million a night watching him, that tells you there are a heck of a lot of wide-awake people and many more on the way. That’s what he meant when he said he was more amazed by his audience than they were by him.<\/p>\n

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Olbermann announces the end of Countdown.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Olbermann announced last night that it was his last edition of Countdown<\/em>, after a nearly eight-year run. NBC ended the contract; that’s basically how Keith put it in a brief farewell to his viewers. The decision coincides with the recent federal approval of Comcast partnering with NBC-Universal. Its current and transitioning-out parent company is General Electric, purveyors of light bulbs, missile parts and toxic global misery (radiation, dioxin, PCBs, yadda). I was impressed that a bastion of integrity grew up in its house, but sometimes that’s how it is: narrow, conservative parents producing a great artist for a child.<\/p>\n

Comcast has issued a stark denial that it had nothing to do with the decision, and that it had promised not to influence the news divisions of NBC. Perhaps that may be true — but what other statement would its publicists approve? So when there is just one possibility given, it’s a good idea to look at the others.<\/p>\n

One thing to consider is that NBC is notoriously bad to its top talent, whether we’re talking Conan or Phil Donohue. They don’t seem to care about popularity; you have to hand it to them for being so boldly individualistic, or perhaps stupid.<\/p>\n

Looking at just one chart — the announcement that Friday’s was the last program — one of the main clues that a relationship is about to change is that Jupiter (the ruler of the 7th house of relationships) is about to change signs, from Pisces to Aries. By whole sign houses, it goes from the 7th house of relationships to the 8th house of transformation. So a relationship is on the brink of change. The thing about the 7th is that it would be the ruler of the corporate parents (the ‘other’ in the relationship) and the ingress into the 8th has a feeling of corporations and lots of resources changing hands, which is an inherent meaning of the 8th.<\/p>\n

Right near the cusp (properly, the peak) of that 8th house, in late Aries, is Eris — which in mythology is about the unleashing of chaos and to me is about the chaos of the Western identity crisis, so profoundly mingled with corporate memes. How many people proudly wear Nike hats and shirts not only to be part of the club but to provide themselves with some sense of identity in the world? There are nightclubs in Paris you can’t get into without the right brands of apparel. The brand becomes the product and the identity. This is an unexamined sickness, with its roots in tribalism, that we really need to look at, so we can take back that energy and do something creative with it.<\/p>\n

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The ascendant being Virgo, its ruler is Mercury in Capricorn — that’s a perfect depiction of Keith. This is in the 5th house (that is, the 5th sign from the ascendant), conjunct Pallas: creative, dynamic (both 5th house matters), deeply traditional (Capricorn) and strongly inclined to politics, protection and justice (conjunct Pallas). Mercury is strong in this chart, and it’s trine the ascendant. It describes someone at his creative and intellectual peak. Indeed, that 5th house into the 6th (factoring all of Aquarius as the 6th sign from the ascendant) are packed with potential, ideas and the willingness to take risks. There is an Aquarian-styled passion in this chart that is emblematic of Olbermann himself, who incarnates Aquarius at its most dynamic, open-minded and gutsy.<\/p>\n

What is most ominous about this chart is an aspect that’s invisible in most astrology programs: it starts with Pholus, that energy of popping the cork and letting the genie out of the bottle, on the 4th house cusp: the homeland, the security base, the end of the matter; about to be conjoined by Venus. Pholus, if you recall, also showed up angular in the chart of the mass shooting in Tucson two weeks ago today. It’s not always a negative influence; it’s a structural one, representing something that changes and cannot change back — it can only change forward, and that process has to be carefully watched, felt and understood for what it is.<\/p>\n

Part of what we need to see and understand and indeed feel is what it means to have physical and in many ways psychic reality colonized by corporate entities, branding, imagery and ideas that are merely designed to sell more at the expense of everything else. This is not the loss of ‘reality’ but rather the consumption of self.<\/em> Olbermann’s fans were the awake and the awakening; you had to be, to tolerate the stark, gutsy view of the world he presented, though often with a sense of humor, and always with style and historical grounding. <\/p>\n

Part of our problem in the world now is that we neither appreciate, nor know much about, even the recent past. That meeting of Venus and Pholus, in the 4th house of past matters, says something really weird — the past is changing faster than we know. That is, perhaps, an opportunity to let go of a lot that we don’t need and don’t want. But it’s a warning to stay grounded, literally to keep our feet on the Earth and remember we live on a planet and not in cyberspace or a fantasy game. Being grounded leaves plenty of room for creativity and imagination. Those things are not the problems. Our society’s delusions are.<\/p>\n

As a friend wrote on my Facebook page last night, Olbermann’s “often acerbic attitude would grind even the most tolerant of corporate heads but, I always took it as an expression of how ‘over’ he was with all the manipulations, skewings, political lip service B.S. from what we used to know as news has become. He stood for what couldn’t be spoon fed to mainstream America. You listened to Keith because you were ready to wake up and pay attention.”<\/p>\n

From what I have read, the terms of his exit bar him from being on a competing channel for a while; that’s more or less normal. But we have not heard the last of Keith Olbermann. I will leave you with one of his messages, from about a year ago, that must have sent chills down the spines of those corporate chiefs, and the members of our corporatist political machine. It involves the Citizens United vs FEC <\/em>decision that was handed down by the Roberts Supreme Court last winter.
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