It’s time for another installment of Cosmic Grab Bag, AAA’s catchall collection of smaller stories that were skipped in real time, but deserve honorable celestial mention. In this issue we deal with a royal “first” in religion, a World Series outcome, a royal demotion, and a Supreme Court hearing.
On the last weekend of September 2025, two mass shootings unfolded, within 13 hours of each other, on the East Coast and in the Heartland, both allegedly perpetrated by 40-year-old former marines, and both employing unorthodox means to enact their crimes. On Saturday, 27 September, at about 9:30 PM EDT, Nigel Max Edge approached a popular waterfront bar in Southport, North Carolina by boat, and fired indiscriminately into the business, killing 3 and wounding 5 more. The following morning at 10:25 AM EDT Thomas Jacob Sanford drove his truck, huge American flags waving, straight into a Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints sanctuary in Grand Blanc, Michigan, leaping from the vehicle to spray the attendees with bullets, and tossing accelerant into the church, then lighting it, causing a massive fire. Four were killed, 10 injured.
Donald Trump’s 2025 Retribution Tour kicked into hyperdrive on September 25th, with the two-count indictment of former FBI Director James Comey, a frequent Trump critic whom the thin-skinned president blames for the “Russia hoax” investigations in 2017. Out on the stump in 2024, Trump was fond of stating that retribution would come in the form of his success in office. Perhaps, with Americans’ cost of living on the rise, his tariffs adding to consumer burdens, and his failure to end, or even ameliorate, the wars in Gaza and Ukraine, he figures, ‘Screw it, I’ll just do payback.’
Stories frequently cross the digital transom that catch my eye, but don’t necessarily merit a full article on their own. But the celestial correspondences are worthy of notice, so from time to time I compile these unrelated stories into an asteroid omnibus bill, if you will. In this edition, we’ll tackle a challenge to same-sex marriage, a disturbing melding of government with the private sector, a Senate grilling for a Cabinet Secretary, and a record-making Royal visit.
The Lunar Eclipse of September 7, 2025 in Pisces brought out the best and worst of mankind, in the elevation of a gifted youth to the hierarchy of Catholic Saints, and the assassination of a popular conservative activist by a troubled underachiever. AAA does a double dip into the cosmic whys and wherefores during this extreme eclipse season.
On 10 September 2025, Charlie Kirk, conservative activist, podcaster and founder of Turning Point USA, was killed with a single shot to the neck at an open-air appearance on the campus of Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah, attended by some 3000 people. Close to President Trump, JD Vance, and the next generation of the Trump family, Kirk was instrumental in rallying young men to support Trump in his 2024 electoral victory. He is survived by his wife Erika and two young children.
