Tag archive: Victoria

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Oscars 2022: And the Smackdown Goes to…

In the aftermath of the slap seen ‘round the world, will anyone remember who actually won Oscars at the 94th annual Academy Awards?  Will anyone care?  Moments after presenter Chris Rock uttered a rather tasteless joke about Jada Pinkett Smith appearing in “G.I. Jane 2” (based on her shaved scalp due to alopecia hair loss), hubby Will Smith, nominated as Best Actor, strode to the stage and smacked the comedian full on the face, then returned to his seat, and yelled at Rock to “Keep my wife’s name out your fuckin’ mouth!”  Minutes later Smith accepted his Oscar, tearfully apologizing to everyone except Chris Rock for his violent outburst.

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2022 Oscar Preview

On February 8th, 2022, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences released its nominees for the upcoming Oscars, to be presented at 5 PM PDT in Hollywood, California on March 27th.  With the Academy agreeing to expand eligibility into films made for streaming platforms, there are a record eleven Best Picture nominations, though acting and directing categories have been maintained at the traditional five nominees per.  From an asteroid perspective, Best Picture nominations are a wasteland – just three have exact matches for any portion of their titles (“Nightmare Alley”, “West Side Story” and “King Richard”), though “Drive My Car” weighs in with an alternate spelling (asteroid Carr).

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The 2022 Winter Olympics

As the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing begin to wind down, let’s take a quick look back at memorable moments from the competition.  A chart set for the opening ceremonies (8 PM local time, 4 February 2022, Beijing, China) shows an exact conjunction of the Sun with Saturn at 15 Aquarius, pulling focus (Sun) to acknowledged masters and top achievers (Saturn) in their fields, in a quest for professional (Saturn again) recognition (Sun).

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The Virginia Governor’s Race: Bellwether or Outlier?

All politico eyes were turned to the “Old Dominion State” on Election Day 2021, where former Democratic governor Terry McAuliffe sought to regain his old job and beat back a challenge from Republican Glenn Youngkin, a businessman with no prior political experience.  Virginia’s increasingly blue tint, and a 10-point Biden victory margin just last year, not to mention McAuliffe’s earlier tenure of the office, all argued for a stately procession to victory, but in practice, the outcome was far from assured.  Polls tightened in the weeks leading up to the election, with Youngkin showing significant leads in some, but a statistical dead heat in most.

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The California Recall Election

For the second time in twenty years, California is holding a recall election for its governor.  Like Gray Davis in 2003, the at-risk chief executive is a Democrat, Gavin Newsom, less than two years into his first term, former mayor of San Francisco.  Unlike the successful challenge mounted by Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2003, there is no high-profile Republican candidate running to unseat Newsom in 2021.  Rather, upwards of 40 little-known candidates have ponied-up to the electoral bar, from across the political spectrum, but Newsom is not among them, as the current governor is not allowed to run to replace himself.

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Georgia On My Mind

“Door-knock for Warnock, and vote your Ossoff!”  – Democratic slogan for the runoff campaign

Lost in the mishigas and melee at the Capitol on Wednesday was a political revolution of another sort, this one successful.  Even as Trump supporters vainly stormed Congress to prevent certification of Biden’s victory, the last race of the 2020 election cycle was being called in Georgia.  Against all odds, both Democratic candidates in two runoff races won, bringing the Dems to parity with the GOP in the US Senate.  For the first time since 2009, Democrats control both houses of Congress and the presidency.

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