Bush Buzzed in Beijing?

You’ve got to love astrology. We’ve got the North Node (mass events), Neptune (alcohol, water, oil), and Chiron (the Wounded Leader, oops, Healer) all traveling together in Aquarius.

With this celestial lineup, it’s not surprising that we’re seeing pictures of a red-faced President George W. Bush apparently so inebriated that he requires assistance to sit down during the swimming competition at the Beijing Olympics.

Where’s the Chirotic wound? Check out the scabs on his elbow. Gastriques, as always, is on the case.

Whether Bush is drunk or not doesn’t really matter. What does matter is that photos are being transmitted by the Associated Press, Reuters, and other wire services around the world of the U.S. President looking very un-Presidential.

Hey, W., this isn’t a Deke party and you’re not a private citizen. Show a little respect for the good ole USA. You’re embarrassing us — and your family — with your sophomoric antics at the Olympics.

Perhaps it was a good thing that our Cancer Sun President used to stay close to home before he got to the White House. Someone needs to get him back to the ranch in Crawford, Tex. — or to rehab, if needed — pretty darn fast.

Interestingly, Bush himself has a broad conjunction between Neptune and Chiron that is trine the North Node.

With a Leo rising, the Sun is the ruler of his chart and it’s in the 12th house of self-undoing and deception. Everything that Bush has ever been involved in has been a failure that was bailed out by friends and family. Why should the Presidency be any different?

Obama, Hawaii, and Mahalo

When I was first getting back into astrology around the time of the Uranus/Neptune conjunction in Capricorn (1993-94), I told my then-husband that I wanted to become a trend-spotter who relied on astro indicators to make my forecasts.

Being a business-oriented Capricorn, I even incorporated a company called Celestial Cycles to help me fulfill my goal. My heroine was trend-watcher Faith Popcorn, and my husband dubbed me “Monica Pizza.”

Well, just the way that Popcorn predicted in the early 1990s that bottled water and SUVs were going to be really big (boy, was she right!), I’m forecasting that Hawaii will go mainstream once again. (I realize Hawaii never goes out of fashion for the folks who live and vacation there and for Old Navy shoppers.)

Why do I think Hawaii will be hot? Because Barack Obama was born there in 1961 and he’s on vacation there right now.

It’s not just Obama who’s upping the ante on Hawaii. Singer/surfer Jack Johnson is helping to raise the state’s profile and promote its laid-back attitude. Johnson is on the last leg of his Sleep Through the Static tour, but I’m still humming his now-classic 2005 song Good People.

Hawaii’s cultural influence was quite strong in the 1960s, not long after it became a state in 1959. Helping to spread the word were the many American soldiers who stopped there for “R&R” on their way home from Vietnam and bought their loved ones Hawaiian shirts and muu muus. After my father finished his second tour of duty in Vietnam and vacationed with my Mom in Hawaii, Don Ho’s Tiny Bubbles became the soundtrack to happy hour in our house.

On TV, we got a taste of the islands by watching Hawaii Five-O, which was on from 1968 to 1980, and was the longest-running crime series until it was surpassed by Law & Order, according to the Wiki. What a great opening Hawaii Five-O had. You can see it and hear the theme song here.

There’s some Sixties nostalgia going on right now because the Saturn-Uranus opposition in Virgo-Pisces, which will be exact on Election Day, is a flip-flop of the Saturn-Uranus opposition in Pisces-Virgo that we had in the 1960s. Don’t believe me about the Sixties? Just look at Amy Winehouse’s beehive hairdo and dramatic eyeliner.

Still not convinced that there are tiny bubbles in the wine? Did you know that one of the new search engines (it’s in beta) on the Web right now is called Mahalo, which means “thank you” in Hawaiian?

Jude’s Threshold has some interesting things to say about Hawaii’s gynocentric culture and America’s occupation of the former Sandwich Islands here.

The Hawaiian statehood chart, set for Aug. 21, 1959 at noon in Honolulu, has a broad Venus/Mars conjunction in Virgo, so it makes sense that the Saturn/Uranus opposition in Virgo/Pisces is stirring up all things Polynesian. Instead of Freaky Friday, get ready for Tiki Friday.

The state’s Sun is at 27 degrees of Leo, not far from the Aug. 16, 2008 eclipse at 24 degrees of Aquarius. This eclipse straddles the MC/IC of the statehood chart, but the cusps of charts set for noon are always a little suspect in my book. Still, it’s worth keeping an eye on Hawaii a few days before and after the eclipse. (That would be now!)

In the meantime, get out your grass skirt, your Don Ho records, and start planning the luau. I’m off to put on my colorful Jams World dress to get in the spirit of things. See you in the Tiki Lounge!

The Huffington Post and Horoscopes

I went to see the underrated Kevin Costner film Swing Vote this weekend, which I think is a much better film for kids than Dark Knight, the latest Batman flick. In addition to great performances by Costner and newcomer Madeline Carroll, Swing Vote features a lot of political talking heads like Chris Matthews, Bill Maher, and Arianna Huffington playing themselves.

When I saw Huffington, it reminded me that I wanted to do her chart and figure out why she is featuring political horoscopes on her online news aggregator, The Huffington Post.

As usual, someone has beat me to the punch on Huffington’s chart. Learning Curve on the Ecliptic did it back in April. I think this analysis is a little tough on Huffington, but I learned a lot about her.

I’ve always wondered how and why someone from Greece became such a leading figure in U.S. political circles. Not that immigrants aren’t entitled to be political players in our melting pot democracy, but I was surprised that Huffington gravitated to politics, as opposed to film, fashion, advertising, and other areas where her Venus in Gemini could be quite influential.

Given’s Huffington’s academic success in Great Britain, where she attended Cambridge, she might have chosen to exercise her considerable talents in London rather than the U.S.

Of course, America is a bigger playing field, but there’s more. The U.S. is a Cancer nation, and Huffington has a slew of planets in Cancer trining a Scorpio Ascendant, which longs to be powerful. The Internet publisher and former political candidate has emerged as a power broker in American politics. Think of her as a modern-day Betsy Ross, but with an accent and doing her handiwork on the Web. Like many immigrants, Huffington is a fierce patriot.

I think Huffington’s success with the Internet and her openness to astrology on her Web site can be traced to her Uranus, which squares the North Node in Libra. Uranus/Node connections are about making innovative, electrical connections with the public.

Having said that, I wanted to link to today’s HuffPo political horoscopes.

It turns out that even though HuffPo’s horoscopes got a lot of buzz last week, thanks to myself and dozens of other astrology bloggers, they first appeared on Jan. 24. Mmm, that was the day that Pluto was moving from Sagittarius into Capricorn for the first time since the American Revolutionary War. George Washington must have been rolling in his grave.

Obama Does the Rickroll

I’m spiritually refreshed after a long weekend in Lily Dale, N.Y. that included a wedding at 8 p.m. on Aug. 8, 2008. More on that later.

Regina at Gastriques, my ever-faithful tipster, has sent me a link to a “rickroll” featuring Democratic Presidential hopeful Barack Obama groovin’ to Liverpool crooner Rick Astley’s Never Gonna Give You Up. It’s here on YouTube.

Unlike most rickrolls, this one isn’t a prank.

I predict that the rickrolling phenomenon will get even stronger over the next month as the North Node in Aquarius moves backward to exactly conjunct Astley’s natal Sun conjunct Mercury at 16 degrees of Aquarius.

In fact, since I first posted on this a few hours ago, the YouTube “Barack Roll” video, which also features Ellen DeGeneres, has gotten 100,000 more views, to 558,000. (Unfortunately, all those viewers didn’t link from Astrology Mundo!)

And while Obama rickrolls, Regina rocks! In addition to being a shrewd political observer and an indefatigable supporter of her friends’ blogs, whether they be about food or astrology, she’s got a new food blog at Epicurious.

Now, let’s see if John McCain can bust a move!

Leaving Iraq in 2010?

Earlier this year, when I posted on the death toll in Iraq and predicted that we wouldn’t be leaving that troubled country until 2010, a few people got upset with me.

Now it looks like there’s something to that 2010 date, which I came up with because of the transits to the invasion chart. The newswires are reporting that the U.S. and Iraqi negotiators are close to a deal that calls for the U.S. to withdraw in October, 2010 (I had predicted May, 2010, by the way), with the last troops out three years later.

Presidential Astrology at HuffPo

I’m going to have put Regina at Gastriques on the payroll here at Astrology Mundo. She was the one who tipped me off to the John McCain Mother’s Day commercial with an 11 a.m. birth time for the candidate and to the post at the Daily Kos with an official birth certificate for Barack Obama.

Here’s Regina’s scoop of the day: The Huffington Post has jumped on the Presidential astrology bandwagon with this column. You read that right, folks: a column dedicated to the candidates based on astrology.

Just the other night before our maiden radio show, my astro-pal Pamela Cucinell from Astro Chatter was predicting that astrology was getting ready to go mainstream. Maybe she’s right.

What’s great about the HuffPo column by astrologer Philip Sedgwick is that it’s funny, it’s smart, it’s accurate, and it’s accessible — all of which are musts for a mainstream astrology column. Kudos to you, Philip!

But back to Regina: How can I ever pay her back for all her scoops? The only way I know how — by clicking on the Google Ads on her Web site. Give it a try. You don’t have to buy anything. All you have to do is click and the money goes into her account at the Googleplex.

I am tempted to go the extra step and buy the Campaign Cola on offer today at Gastriques. I’m not going to link to it here. Check it out yourself. It’s pretty funny. I just hope that the soda is made with sugar, not high-fructose corn syrup, or Regina might boot the ad from her site.

Darn, I should have copied the link for Campaign Cola. Gastriques has been overtaken by a mother lode of kosher food ads in response to one of Regina’s posts. Well, I can always Google Campaign Cola. Where would we be without Google?

All Eyes on the Beijing Olympics

My post “What Will You Be Doing on Aug. 8 at 8:08 p.m.?” is getting a lot of traffic given that the date is approaching. This has prompted me to dig up my astrological analysis of the Beijing Olympics, which I first posted back in May. It’s more timely now.

The opening ceremony of the Beijing Summer Olympics starts at 8:08 local time on Aug. 8, 2008. This time was selected because the Chinese, among others, believe that 8 is a powerful number. In fact, 9,000 Chinese couples are tying the knot on Aug. 8 because they believe it is an auspicious date.

I wonder what astrologer April Elliott Kent would have to say about the stampede to the altar. Let’s hope Aug. 8 is a nice day for a white wedding.

If I had been asked by the mandarins to do an electional chart for the start of the Summer Olympics, this isn’t the time I would have selected, despite the supposed good fortune of 8.

Here’s a link to the opening ceremony chart, courtesy of Astrodienst.

Let’s take a look at the chart. First off, it’s an idealistic Pisces Ascendant, which is ruled by Neptune in Aquarius in the 12th house. Neptune is broadly conjunct Chiron and the North Node. The 12th house governs hidden enemies, self-undoing, hospitals, prisons, and sacrifice.

This group of Aquarius planets, known as a stellium, opposes a theatrical Leo Sun and Mercury, which sit in the sixth house of service. The Aquarius/Leo opposition is part of a T-square with a secretive, power-driven Moon in Scorpio as the center point.

Despite the flamboyant Leo Sun, this show isn’t a labor of love. In fact, it’s a command performance for the government. Given the loss and suffering caused by the recent earthquake in China, I think this opening ceremony has a feeling of “the show must go on.”

Maybe I’m getting carried away here, but it reminds me of how mourners at a funeral go back to the house and entertain guests and relatives because it must be done, but all the time feeling as if they’re sleepwalking.

A loaded sixth house in the chart points to precision and perfectionism. Anyone who has seen a performance of the Cirque du Soleil knows that some of the world’s finest acrobats come from China. Regardless of the political drama surrounding these Olympics, which have become a flashpoint for opposition to China’s continued suppression of Tibet and its tolerance of human rights abuses in Sudan, this will be a performance to remember.

The political controversy is quite evident in the elevated 10th house Pluto in Sagittarius, which is part of a very volatile T-square involving an opposition of Uranus in Pisces and Mars in Virgo, which straddles the first and seventh houses. Translation: This Olympics is unpredictable and fraught with surprising and dangerous eruptions. Indeed, the protests surrounding the Olympic flame’s journey around the globe may be just a hint of what’s to come.

In some cases, the Olympic torch has been carried secretly through different countries to avoid attracting demonstrations. I know that it’s difficult if not impossible to divorce politics from the Olympics, but I find the idea of the flame traveling under wraps heartbreaking.

It makes feel very sad for all the athletes who have worked so hard to compete in this international competition, which is supposed to bring the world together. Perhaps the Olympic organizing committee should have chosen a less controversial venue for the Games.

 Or maybe the number 8 isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

Pamela Does Paris

My radio collaborator Pamela Cucinell has a great post about Paris Hilton’s response to the McCain camp’s diss of her in ad designed to make Barack Obama look like just another celebrity. Pamela’s at the top of her game and Paris is fabulous in the video, which is embedded in Pamela’s post.

Ray Merriman’s prediction that the upcoming Saturn/Uranus opposition, exact on Election Day, will bring back the generation gap, appears to be coming true, if Paris making fun of Old Man McCain is any evidence.

Astro Chatter Radio

Last night, I drove down the Taconic Parkway to Westchester County, where I joined astrologer Pamela Cucinell on her weekly BlogTalkRadio show. After a tasty backyard barbecue with Pamela’s husband and daughter, we retreated to Pam’s office for our maiden journey. We had some technical difficulties at first — an annoying echo — and we didn’t get any callers or folks in the chatroom, save one who didn’t want to chat.

It’s slow going in the beginning of the hour-long show, which you can listen to here, but we eventually hit our stride with some good discussion about Barack Obama’s solar return, opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics, China’s Saturn return, the U.S. Pluto return, and what it all means for Sino-U.S. relations. I really learned a lot from talking with Pamela.

We’ll be back again next week so please call in or join us in the chatroom.

The Horror of Hiroshima

Today is the anniversary of the U.S. nuclear bombing of Hiroshima. I’ll have some stuff to say later on, but in the meantime here’s a fascinating post on this horrific event by Eric Francis at Planet Waves.

Jude’s Threshold also has some interesting thoughts on the anniversary of the day the black rain fell.