At 11:24 AM EDT on March 21, 2023, in Nazareth, PA, my dear girl Ashes passed peacefully into eternity. We had been together 15 years, with never a cross word between us, a wonderfully close and affectionate relationship. I brought Ashes in off the West Philly streets in 2007, along with two of her kittens, one of the first beneficiaries of Leo’s Cat Rescue, which I ran with my friend John Mignone for over ten years.
On Thursday, 2 March 2023, a South Carolina jury convicted lawyer Alex Murdaugh of the murders of his wife and younger son, after just three hours’ deliberation. The trial which began January 25th lasted five weeks, and had become a cause celebre, with national news organizations running live coverage during Murdaugh’s testimony and final arguments, then breaking into primetime programming to cover the verdict live. The sentencing came a day later, with Murdaugh receiving two consecutive life sentences without possibility of parole.
On 6 February 2023 at approximately 4:17 AM local time, the border region between Turkey and Syria was rocked by a massive 7.8 magnitude earthquake, estimated to be one of the deadliest of the decade. As of this writing (Feb 12), more than 34,000 are confirmed dead, with much of the debris yet to be excavated for survivors or remains. Known as the Kahramanmaras quake, for the nearest large city, the epicenter is closer to Nurdagi, a smaller town on the outskirts.
They say karma is a bitch, and that may be especially true now, with asteroid Karma in a protracted conjunction with Pluto. Evildoers beware! For two months, from mid-January through mid-March 2023, this powerhouse duo will be out for payback, settling old accounts and teeing up retribution via devastating transformation of circumstances. Karma is the principle of being called to account for prior bad acts, while Pluto counts among the denizens of its bailiwick things like sex and scandal, criminality and resurrection. Two souls currently dealing with the resurrection of past transgressions, and the high probability that the time has come to pay for them, are actor Alec Baldwin and former US president Donald Trump.
On 7 January 2023, another traffic stop gone horribly wrong claimed the life of Tyre Nichols, when Memphis police pulled over the 29-year-old for “reckless driving.” After an initial confrontation involving pepper spray and a taser, Nichols broke free and fled on foot. When apprehended by five officers, he was beaten so badly that he died three days later. Body cam footage release by Memphis PD after the officers themselves had been arrested on January 26th and charged with second degree murder, among other offenses, reveals a shocking level of brutality and escalation of a situation that had never placed any officer in danger.
On 18 January 2022, music fans across the globe were saddened to hear of the death of singer/songwriter David Crosby, a leading light of the American music scene in the 1960s and ‘70s. As a founding member of popular groups, the Byrds and Crosby, Stills and Nash, David Crosby’s music became the soundtrack of many peoples’ lives during the turbulent period, with such mega-hits as “Mr. Tambourine Man” and “Turn! Turn! Turn!” Crosby passed at the age of 81 after a long illness, with cause of death undisclosed as of this writing.
