Dear Friend and Reader: Our friendly little robot flew through the Pluto-Charon system on Tuesday morning, and people are talking about it. It’s beautiful how much everyone seems to care. Mike Brown, the discoverer of Eris and the demoter of Pluto, was right the first time around — Pluto is a cultural planet. Regardless of … Read more
Dear Friend and Reader: Wednesday, July 8, was a strange day in world news. It was also the day that Mercury changed signs, ingressing Cancer after spending more than two months in Gemini due to the recent retrograde. (Normally, Mercury goes through a sign in about three weeks.) Remember that whole thing? That crazy psychic … Read more
Dear Friend and Reader: This week, timed with the solstice and Mars entering Cancer, we are launching a membership and fundraising drive for Planet Waves. All of our work here is sponsored exclusively by you, our readers. For many reasons we remain free from corporate sponsorship and outside advertising. We create the work that we … Read more
Dear Friend and Reader: Edward Snowden, the former NSA contractor now living in exile in Moscow, has done something that few people have done: he made the American government and much of American society let out a little squeak. Compared to the roar of the national security state, it was a modest sound. Yet it has … Read more
Dear Friend and Reader: Back in January 2003, during a Sun-Mercury conjunction, George Ryan, the outgoing governor of Illinois, commuted the death sentences of 167 people, clearing out death row. Illinois had an infamous reputation: by that day, 17 convicted murderers, all of them sentenced to death and having exhausted their appeals, had been exonerated of … Read more