Tantalus Archives - Alex's Asteroid Astrology

June 13th, 2025 at 08:17am by Alex Miller

Donald Trump’s 79th Solar Return

US President Kim Jong Don will be celebrating his 79^th birthday on Saturday, 14 June, 2025, with a North-Korean-style military parade in the nation’s capital, while simultaneously, 3000 miles away, US National Guard and Marines patrol the country’s largest city, ostensibly to quell “insurrectionists” protesting his administration’s immigration policies. The dual displays of military power, both unprecedented and controversial, well encapsulate the leading feature of Dear Leader’s Solar Return, which occurs the day before: a square between Mars, planet of the military, violence and war, and Uranus, planet of shocks, upsets, controversy, volatility, and extreme reactions.

May 30th, 2025 at 08:25am by Alex Miller

A Decade of The Donald

Hard to believe, but on June 16^th, it will be ten years since Donald J. Trump rolled down that golden escalator in Trump Tower to announce his candidacy for US president, setting in motion a disruption in our political life as a nation the likes of which we’ve never seen before (to use one of Trump’s favorite catch phrases). As always, the moment encapsulates the future, crystalizing latent potential into manifestation.

December 23rd, 2024 at 07:57am by Alex Miller

Death at Abundant Life

On Monday, 16 December 2024, shooting suspect Natalie “Samantha” Rupnow, 15, discharged a 9mm handgun in a study hall at the Abundant Life Christian School in Madison, Wisconsin, killing two and wounding six others, before turning the gun on herself. The incident, sadly, is hardly isolated, but it is unusual. The vast number of mass shootings are perpetrated by males, using assault-style rifles; women constitute only 5% of mass shooters, and with both victims also female, this becomes an “all-female” cast of characters.

November 16th, 2024 at 12:53pm by Alex Miller

Scandal in the Cathedral: The Resignation of Justin Welby

On 12 November, 2024 Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury and spiritual leader of the 85-million souls in the global Anglican Communion, resigned after a Church of England investigation report was released, which found that he failed in his duty to tell police about serial physical, psychological and sexual abuse by a staff member at the Iwerne Christian summer camps, as soon as he was made aware of it. The scandal had been building for nearly a week after the report’s release, with calls for accountability from Welby increasing daily.

October 28th, 2024 at 09:43am by Alex Miller

Halloween Horror: The Candy Man Murder Turns Fifty

It was half a century ago, on 31 October 1974, that eight-year-old Timothy O’Bryan died in agony after eating a Halloween treat laced with cyanide. The family and friends had been trick-or-treating in Pasadena, Texas, when they came across a house which did not respond to their knocks. Thinking no one was home, the group proceeded down the street, but Timothy’s father Ronald hung back awhile. In a couple minutes he rejoined the group, offering five 21” Pixy Stix to his son, daughter, and three other children, claiming that his repeated knocking had finally elicited an answer, and these were the treats he was given.

September 7th, 2024 at 10:09am by Alex Miller

The Georgia School Shooting

Ah, back to school! I remember it well – the bookbags and lunchpails that had to conform to what was currently “cool” to avoid merciless taunting; catching up with what friends did over the summer break; the new pens, pencils, notepads and markers; readjusting to subpar school cuisine; the new clothes that were another potential pitfall of derision; and of course, the mass shootings.

No, wait – that one’s new. Well, new-ish; it’s been a quarter century since Columbine inaugurated a whole new rite-of-passage for American schoolchildren, replacing dodgeball with dodgebullet, and each year since, it seems we just keep upping the ante.