Posts by Alex Miller

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Holy Smoke!  An American Pope!

They said it couldn’t be done, but on May 8th, 2025, a conclave of 133 Catholic Cardinals, largest in history, elected an American as Pope!  80% of those qualified to vote (only Cardinals under age 80 were eligible) had been elevated by Pope Francis, including the Vatican sweepstakes winner, Cardinal Robert Prevost.  The conclave was also the most international in composition, with roughly two-thirds drawn from nations outside Europe, and 71 countries represented in total.

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Aussies & Canucks Go to the Polls

Late April and early May 2025 witnessed two vital democracies elect new governments, in the teeth of a tense Mars/Pluto opposition, as Canadians and Australians lined up to cast ballots for the candidates of their choice.  Both countries saw foundering incumbents, once thought to be sure losers, given new life and rescued from defeat to retain power.  This was, at least in part, aided and abetted by a series of poorly chosen acts and statements from US President Donald Trump, whose trade war tariffs and belligerent rhetoric aimed at these erstwhile allies tarred his fellow conservatives with a brush so toxic that voters fled into the arms of their progressive rivals.  Donald Trump, Making Democracy Great Again – everywhere but in America.

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Garden Glimpses:  Spring 2025 – Better Late Than Never

It was a long time coming, but Spring finally got here.  And by and large, it did not disappoint.  True, some of the plantings were inexplicably reduced in size over last year, but many flourished, and new plantings in the west bed did very well.  A climatic push-me/pull-you combination of short bursts of extreme heat and long spells of below-average temps contrived to bring things on quickly, then preserve them longer than normal.

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Aster-Obit:  Pope Francis

At 7:35 AM CEST on Monday, 21 April 2025, Pope Francis passed away, apparently from a stroke, in his apartment at the St Martha House in Vatican City.  The notoriously down-to-earth pontiff eschewed the luxurious papal penthouse in the Apostolic Palace, preferring the humbler surroundings of the Vatican’s adjacent guest house.  Francis had recently battled bilateral pneumonia and other respiratory complaints during a weeks-long hospital stay, but returned to the Vatican a month ago, where he resumed some of his papal duties.  On the day before his death, Francis went out to greet the Easter Sunday crowds in St Peter’s Square, also meeting with US Vice President JD Vance, so, although he was still in ill health, his passing just hours later was unexpected. 

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Stations of the Trump Cross

Or maybe we should call this “stations that make Trump cross.”  This Holy Week the passion of The Donald was on full view, as the Resistance began to come into focus, resulting in Five Wounds that must, at a minimum, sting.  As the political pressure ramps up to return “accidental” deportee Kilmar Abrego Garcia from his Salvadoran prison, visited by a US Senator, with union leaders also publicly taking up Garcia’s cause, Harvard University digs in its heels and refuses to give in to financial blackmail, and multiple judges issue judicial smackdowns on various administration overreaches.  All these situations can be related directly to celestial points which are coming to station this month, and already inhabit the zodiacal degrees where they make their turns.

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Arson at PA Governor’s Residence

In the wee hours of Sunday, 13 April 2025, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro and his family were awakened by state troopers pounding on the door of the official Governor’s Residence in Harrisburg, PA.  An intruder had been spotted scaling the iron security fence surrounding the property, smashing a window with a small sledgehammer to gain entry, and starting a fire.  The south wing of the residence was badly damaged, but fortunately the governor, his wife, four children, and several houseguests who had been celebrating the Passover seder there a few hours earlier, escaped without injury.

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