Alex's Asteroid Astrology |

December 21st, 2022 at 10:07am by Alex Miller

A Simple Yule

[Above, a slender crescent moon hangs like an ornament in a striated, pre-dawn solstice sky.]

Well, I suppose “simple” is in the eye of the beholder. But after the exhaustion that was Halloween for me this year (three weeks to put it up, two weeks to take it down), I felt I needed a rest. Late November to early December is always “hell month” for me, with so much de-decorating, redecorating and seasonal switch-ups going on; it seemed like the perfect opportunity to take a break with a streamlined Yule.

December 16th, 2022 at 08:17am by Alex Miller

Eighty Years of White Christmas

The most enduring of Christmas carols just might be Bing Crosby’s 1942 version of Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas”, celebrating its eightieth year this holiday season. Even in this day of flash-in-the-pan one-hit-wonders, streaming and digital downloads, Crosby’s classic retains its lofty perch as the world’s best-selling single, with global sales exceeding fifty million. But it’s not just Crosby – add in the sales figures of the hundreds of artists who have covered the tune, and total sales of “White Christmas” double to over 100 million! Perhaps writer/composer Irving Berlin’s post-creation assessment of the tune for his secretary was correct: “I want you to take down a song I wrote over the weekend. Not only is it the best song I ever wrote, it’s the best song anybody ever wrote.”

December 12th, 2022 at 07:45am by Alex Miller

Home for the Holidays: Brittney Griner’s Harrowing Russian Adventure

WNBA star Brittney Griner’s unexpected release from Russian custody on December 8^th, after almost ten months in detention for a drug trafficking violation, sent waves of relief through family, friends and fandom. Griner had been arrested February 17, 2022 on smuggling charges after customs authorities found vaporizer cartridges containing less than a gram of hash oil in her luggage. Griner had a prescription for medical marijuana use from the state of Arizona, but all forms of the drug are illegal in Russia.

December 9th, 2022 at 08:32am by Alex Miller

Trump’s Dilemma: The White House or the Big House?

Donald Trump, the twice-impeached former president facing multiple criminal investigations, chose the week after a disappointing finish for Republicans in the Midterm Elections to announce his candidacy for the presidency in 2024. With criminal indictments against him already issued and more pending, the act may be more a bid for resuming the specious immunity conferred by the office of the presidency, than any true desire to pick up the tattered threads of his political career.

December 1st, 2022 at 08:36am by Alex Miller

Same-Sex Marriage in the US: From Defense to Respect

The US is poised to formally enshrine marriage equality in law, as opposed to allowing the practice via Supreme Court fiat. Same sex marriage, first legalized in Massachusetts in 2003, was validated in all fifty states by the Obergefell v Hodges decision in 2015. But recent events with the overturning of Roe v Wade and its abandonment of federally guaranteed reproductive freedoms have shown just how fragile governance by judicial rulings can be, and advocates have been pushing hard for legal codification of the right to same-sex unions.

November 25th, 2022 at 04:07pm by Alex Miller

The Colorado Springs Drag Show Shooting

Just before midnight on Saturday, 19 November 2022, a man clad in body armor with an AR-15-style long rifle entered Club Q, an LGBTQ+ watering hole in a strip mall on the outskirts of Colorado Springs, Colorado, which was hosting a drag show that evening. He began shooting into the crowd, but was tackled two minutes later by two patrons and subdued until police arrived. In those two minutes, he had killed five and wounded 18 others.