You know Dasher and Dancer, and Prancer and Vixen, but do you recall that there are asteroids named Rudolf, Santa and Yule? Though none of these were designated for the holiday they have come to represent, they function very well as markers of its importance in the lives of those who have made Christmas a central focus of their biographies.
‘Twas the night before Solstice,
and all through the house,
what the cats had to play with
was just one worn-out mouse.
Two competitions of gargantuan proportions reached simultaneous apogees on October 22, 2019, as the World Series of Baseball kicked off in Houston, while in the nation’s capital the House Impeachment inquiry garnered the testimony of a key diplomat involved in the Ukraine “arms for dirt” scandal. While the outcome of both contests is still in doubt as of this writing, it’s beginning to look more and more like the underdogs may emerge the winners.
Roosters crow. It’s what they do. But if you’re a wealthy retired French couple with a vacation home on the sleepy isle of Oleron off France’s Atlantic coast, and you have a local neighbor who owns one, you get perturbed at losing your beauty rest. So, what to do? Why, sue, of course!
That was the case with Jean-Louis Birom and Joelle Andrieux, who accused resident cock-of-the-walk Maurice of noise pollution in a suit brought against owner Corinne Fesseau in 2017. The acrimonious two year legal wrangle ended on September 5th 2019 when a judge in Rochefort ruled in favor of Maurice’s right to sing, awarding 1000 euros in damages against the plaintiffs.
Recently I watched a documentary on TCM which reminded me just how unusual 1939 was for the US film industry. So many classics were released that year, including “Gone With the Wind”, “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” and “The Wizard of Oz”. Eighty years later now, I wondered why that should have been, so of course as an astrologer, for greater understanding, I reached for the ephemeris.
On the night of August 8-9, 1969, four members of the notorious Manson Family invaded a rented home in Los Angeles and brutally murdered five people. Not much by today’s standards, is it? But at the time, the crime created a sensation.
Part of the impact was generated by the celebrity of one of the victims, actress Sharon Tate, who had rented the home with her husband, director Roman Polanski, out of the country on a movie shoot at the time. Tate was eight and a half months pregnant with their child, who also lost its life. Cult leader Charles Manson had earlier instructed Tex Watson to go to the house and “totally destroy everyone in [it], as gruesome as you can”.
