Rights

 

The Roberts Court, April 23, 2021
Seated from left to right: Justices Samuel A. Alito, Jr. and Clarence Thomas, Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., and Justices Stephen G. Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor
Standing from left to right: Justices Brett M. Kavanaugh, Elena Kagan, Neil M. Gorsuch, and Amy Coney Barrett.
Photograph by Fred Schilling, Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States

 

When I was a kid, I was taught that the supreme court of the U.S. was the highest court in the country. What I’ve learned in the years since is that nine people who have lifetime appointments can end one of our rights – to privacy. It overturns the right to abortion, the right to marry who you want, perhaps even interracial marriage. And no telling how far all that can be turned back.

Just look at them. Of the 4 at the back, only the shortest woman is a dem – Ellen Kagan.The other 3 are helping to overturn abortion. In the front row, the middle dude is the chief justice, looking rather smug. On his right is Clarence Thomas, whose wife Ginnie was texting Mark Meadows before and during the insurrection on Jan. 6. Has she been called in to testify before the committee? And oh, how come Mark Meadows hasn’t been indicted? Also in the front row, the woman at the end is a Dem, Sotomayor. Thanks to trump appointing 3 of these judges, the court is stacked against rights of any kind.

Will women soon find that they can’t open a bank account without their husband’s consent? Will they find themselves banned from driving, like Saudi women, without a man beside them? Will they be banned from holding jobs? Just how far will the supremes try to go? Will they try to revoke the 19th amendment that guaranteed women the right to vote?

Will they end up like Salvadorian women, charged with homicide for a miscarriage? Don’t believe me? Read this article from The Guardian.

This evening, I read that Florida senator Marco Rubio is proposing a bill that could prohibit employers from deducting expenses related to their employees; abortion travel costs or “gender affirming care” for young children of their employees. From Rubio’s website:

“Our tax code should be pro-family and promote a culture of life. Instead, too often our corporations find loopholes to subsidize the murder of unborn babies or horrific “medical” treatments on kids. My bill would make sure this does not happen.” His bill is called
No Tax Breaks for Radical Corporate Activism Act.

Some name, huh? Radical Corporate Activism Act.

“Rubio’s bill responds to recent announcements from several large corporations, including Amazon, Disney, Citigroup, Lyft, Yelp, Uber, Bumble, and Salesforce. “ You know, the corporations that have already come out and said they would support their employees travel and medical expenses.

Rubio is up for re-election in 2022. Because I’ve written him scathing emails in the past that are never read, I’m on his office mailing list. The either day I received an email saying his team would be at our public library to talk about “our concerns.” My reply? The only time I wanted to see him was when he was defeated by Val Demmings, the Democrat running against him.

Val Demings. She was Orlando’s first black female police chief and was a cop for 27 years. She was appointed to serve as an impeachment manager in the first senate trial of trump. She was on Biden’s short list of potential running mates. Florida desperately needs politicians like this.

Right now, the state is run by Ronnie boy DeSantis, a trump wannabe who may be more dangerous to democracy than trump was. His mantra? C’mon down here to sunny Florida, trumpies with money. But not you, Elon Musk. You might take the spotlight off me. No state taxes. No Covid mandates. Pretty soon, all you cowboys and cowgirls can carry concealed – or unconcealed – weapons without licenses. And oh, I’ve taken on Disney, did you hear? Even trump didn’t do that!

Yeah, that’s our gov.

Welcome to Florida.

 

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Down Under…

…and upside down. Or so Australian politics seem from here. Not that the situation here is any better.  The Aussies have an election today, Saturday, May 21, and I’ve been working on a project with a man from Melbourne who has given me an ‘earful,’ though we’ve only communicated through the Internet.

While considering his political comments, I realized that there was a synchronicity involved with the country down under doing things politically in a somewhat topsy-turfy manner. For instance, listen to this: Australia’s conservative party is called the Liberal Party. What?

Beyond that oddity, if  my correspondent is correct, the country also has some extremely restrictive rules about who can run for office. For example, if you’re a teacher, forget it. You can’t run. In fact, one candidate, I was told, had raised $800,000 in campaign contributions only to find out she wasn’t eligible to run even though she had not been a teacher for 18 months. Apparently, she was getting a government pension and that disqualified her.

My correspondent, Mike,said he’s hoping for the best.  He noted that after some of the worst fires and floods ever to hit Australia, a new cohort of climate-conscious independents and moderate and left leaning  parties are threatening to shake up the federal election and could reshape the country’s political landscape.

However, he said the opposition is treacherous and the country is in deep trouble politically. “Your Jan. 6th incident looks like a picnic compared to what’s going on here.”

But Mike may not know the extent of the disfunction her  and theimpending atrocities that are awaiting us. It’s hard to imagine – yet true – that  one of our two parties is intent on overthrowing democracy and they’re not even hiding their efforts. If the Republicans don’t like the results of an election in states where they control the legislature and governorships,  they are set to game the system making it possible to overturn the results. It’s all about power, money and control. Definitely not about helping people.

Comments from down under are welcome.

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Tech Nightmare: a Lesson About Astrology

 

Recently, I experienced about a week of a technological nightmare. At least, for me, it was a nightmare.

We had just received our latest bill from Xfinity – Comcast – for the month’s TV and Internet. It was nearly 200 bucks. We don’t watch 200 bucks worth of TV. We watch the news – usually MSNBC – and on alternate nights watch an hour of whatever series has captured our interest. So on March 21, I dropped into an ATT office to find out what they charged for just Internet. We figured our TV would be through Firestick and bought one through Amazon for $25, on sale.

I’m not a great fan of ATT or of any of these companies. BUT. I wanted a lower price. ATT offered just Internet for  $55 a month. It included HBO Max. I signed up. I asked if they could install their equipment before March 23, the last day of the billing cycle for Xfinity. ATT scheduled a technician to come out on March 23. Perfect.

The tech was here for several hours, had to come back the next day, and as soon as he’d left, and we had our new Internet, I returned Xfinity’s equipment.

We spent the next few days fiddling around with Firestick. There are all sort of services to which you can subscribe, but none of them included live streaming MSNBC or CNN. All you got were 10-minute clips. So back to ATT I went and asked what kind of basic TV service they had.

They have something new – at least new to me – DirectTV Streaming. 70 bucks. It provides what we watch. We’re paying  less than we were paying to Xfinity. Great. We were set.

On March 26, I decided it was time to update the operating system on my iMac to Monterrey. Well, my update got stuck with less than a minute remaining and I spent 5 hours trying to fix it. I finally gave up and the next day, took it to Pro PCs, a computer place that has been recommended by several friends. Allen the owner and whiz kid, is my new hero. He put in a new hard drive that’s much faster. My Mac runs like a new computer. He was able to save all my files.

But because it’s a new drive, I’ve had to re-enter – i.e., find – all my passwords, app programs, bookmarks. Also, initially, I couldn’t get the computer to connect to the internet. This required 2 hours on the phone with an ATT tech. He eventually figured out that the problem was my password. I had used a capital letter where a lower case letter was needed.

Fantastic! I tried to print something from this new hard drive and discovered that my Canon printer had died. I just ordered a new one from Amazon. The past week has felt like a major Mercury retrograde, but Mercury doesn’t go retro until May 10. (You can see how far back I wrote this!)

So I tried to look at the transits to my birth chart, but the astrology program on my new drive asked for my license number. It took me more than an hour to find an email from 2016 that provided it.

For me, the transits provided a major clue. Durjng this period, Uranus in Taurus was conjunct my natal Mars in Taurus, 7th house. I think of Uranus as the planet that shakes stuff up, the great awakener that brings on innovation and sudden, unexpected change. Mars governs our physicality, sexuality, motivation. It’s what moves us forward. The 7th house of partnerships represents the people I dealt with throughout – technicians, computer whizzes, salesmen and women, corporate entities.

Tonight, April 3, that conjunction is just 4 minutes from exact.  In essence,when it comes to a handful of minutes rather than degrees, it’s a conjunction. Once my printer arrives and I don’t have to return it, then I think I’m in the clear.

For now.

PS. My printer is NOT working right. Not in the clear. But there’s a remedy: Rob’s Brother computer is on our network, so I just print my charts and stuff on his computer. Today, May 19, Uranus is  two degrees past my natal Mars.

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Atomic Habits

I had an odd synchronicity tonight. I read a proposal from a man who is writing a non-fiction book that would qualify as self-improvement. One of the books he referenced in the competitive titles section of his proposal is Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear.

I’d never heard of it.

But an hour or so later, I ran across an article on GQ about Justin H. Min, the guy who played a ghost in The Umbrella Academy. Now he’s going to be playing an android in After Yang. In the interview, he mentioned Atomic Habits. So, okay, I laughed at the weirdness of it, then immediately off to Amazon I went.

It turns out that the book has more than 73,000 five star reviews, was published in 2018, and is #1 on Amazon. So I clicked on it to read a preview. The first paragraph seized me, just like the first paragraph in T.J. Newton’s Falling. I immediately wanted to know more.

Here’s Clear’s opening paragraph:

“On the final day of my sophomore year of high school, I was hit in the face with a baseball bat. As my classmate took a full swing, the bat slipped out of his hands and came flying toward me before striking me directly between the eyes. I have no memory of the moment of impact.”

And I realized this kind of personal story/experience was what was lacking from the proposal I’d read. I also realized I should buy and read the book!

 

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HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ROB

Rob & Megan at a cigar factory in Cuba, 2017

Rob & Hemingway in Old Havana, 2017

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The first time I looked at Rob’s natal chart and saw Jupiter in his 8th house, the loner planet placed above the horizon, I knew we had a lot in common.

The 8th house represents everything paranormal – life after death, reincarnation, spirit contact, and synchronicity, all the stuff that has fascinated me for most of my life. That Jupiter placement also meant that if the relationship became anything, he probably would outlive me.

In my 8th house, I have  the  sun, Uranus, and the North Node. Uranus there means – at least to  me – a sudden unexpected death. You know, you’re out walking your dog and are struck by some wacko driver who doesn’t like the color of the shirt you’re wearing. Or doesn’t see you at all.

We were in a Fort Lauderdale bar when I looked at his chart. It was our first “date,” November 1981. I was teaching English to Cuban refugees  who had come over in the Mariel boat lift and he was a journalist writing for the Hollywood Sun Tattler. He had been assigned to our center to find out if Cubans were really learning English.

I don’t remember when we started living together, but we got married July 16, 1983. When I do the math, I’m shocked. That’s 39 years.

The only people  alive who have known Rob longer are his sister  Sandy, and her son, Guy.

39 years is a LONG time. But Rob isn’t just my husband. He’s also my creative writing partner. We’ve co-authored a number of non-fiction books. We bounce ideas off each other. We pursue our separate paths with fiction and have both won the Edgar Allan Poe Award given by the Mystery Writers of America. Rob won for his YA novel Prophecy Rock and Trish won for her paperback original Out of Sight. Yet,  we don’t compete against each other.

I’m pretty sure we had a life together in Scotland, but I don’t know the details. What I know is that when I was in Edinburgh in the summer of 1975, Rob was also there. A psychic later told us that in this life we had several opportunities to meet and Edinburgh was one of them.

I’m not sure about other opportunities. In past lives, maybe Salem, during the witch trials. I’ve used that era in my fiction. Another possibility? Maybe Cuba when Hemingway lived there, another period I’ve used in fiction.

Regardless, in  this life, we had a daughter, Megan, and have enjoyed 39 years together. & I still don’t know this guy. Nine of 10 planets in his chart fall beneath the horizon, the signature of a very private individual. Eight of my 10 planets are above the horizon, so what you see and hear is pretty much what you get.

I do have a filter – although I knew people who say otherwise – but it’s borderline. I fill the silences. He brings the wisdom. Eventually, we arrive at the same place.

Me: Hey, did you read those pages I sent you?

Rob: They’re good, but I think you need to change…

Me: Let’s go back to Costa Rica…

Rob: The west coast this time…

Happy birthday, Rob!

And happy lunar eclipse in Scorpio!

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The Mystical Underground: Sharon-Elizabeth James: The Divine Goddess

A new episode of The Mystical Underground is live! “Sharon-Elizabeth James: The Divine Goddess”:

Join Trish and Rob for a conversation with…

Reverend Sharon-Elizabeth James, who ten years ago founded the Cosmic Center of Spiritual Light in Sarasota, Florida. She underwent four years of intense metaphysical and spiritual training in Theosophy, New Thought, Spiritualism and Ancient and Contemporary Religious Beliefs at the Spiritual Science Center of New York. She was ordained in June 1989, the same year she made Florida her new home.

https://www.ccosl.com

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What a birth chart reveals

 

Once upon a time (many times), I was asked what a birth chart could possible reveal since astrology is, so, well, you know, bogus. Sometimes, remarks like this irritate and piss me off. Other times, I think, Yeah? Let’s see what your birth chart tells me.

Astrology is a symbolic language, what with all these symbols in a circle divided into unequal 12 slices. How can any of it possibly mean anything? But 3 days after our daughter Megan was born, our friend Renie and my astrology mentor, read Megan’s birth chart. I remember we were sitting at our dining room table at our condo in Fort Lauderdale, and Renie was studying the chart I’d had printed at a New Age bookstore. Astrology software programs back then were rare and personal astrology programs on phones and computers didn’t exist. Then again, Smart Phones didn’t exist, either.

The highlights of her chart: she was born the day after a solar eclipse in Virgo, so both her sun and moon are in Virgo, 6th house. She has Pisces rising, Sagittarius at the Midheaven – career area. Some of what Renie said has unfolded. Imagination, compassionate, a huge heart, artistic. Art would be a big thing in her life. Picky eater, Self-critical. Detailed, a master at details. Would work with animals in some capacity, perhaps as a veterinarian. Intuitive, perhaps even psychic.

What Renie got wrong: Megan’s not a vet.

But she works with animals – dolphins at an internship in the Florida keys, then later at Disney, where she worked with dolphins. She has a dog walking business, majored in art, has an Etsy store and a secondary business painting pet portraits. I remember Renie saying that she might be a writer, too. But since Rob and I are writers, that made sense. Sure enough, she finished her first novel – Dystopian – and is looking for an agent. We’ve read the novel in its various incarnations and although we’re biased parents, we think the story is terrific and salable.

I later reealized the writing possibilities Renie saw had to do with the Virgo mind – a master of details, an excellent communicator ruled by Mercury, the planet of communication. When I became more proficient at reading charts, I understood her Sagittarius Midheaven is ruled by Jupiter, the planet that governs-  among other things – publishing.

So Renie’s reading was accurate in terms of archetypes and possibilities. But a birth chart is only a blueprint, the soul’s blueprint of intentions. Our  free will – our choices – determines how the possibilities manifest themselves.

One thing is for sure. The night that Renie was studying Megan’s chart, I never imagined that we would be texting and talking about our respective books, ideas for books, or the finer points of writing. I LOVE IT.

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The Lincoln Project

No introduction needed!

 

 

 

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UPDATE ON THE PLUTO RETURN

On 2-22-22, we published a post about the Pluto return of the U.S., which has never happened before. A Pluto return is when a natal planet returns to where it was when the U.S. was born. It happens every 248 years.

Two days after that return was exact – on Feb 24 2022, Russian invaded Ukraine. On April 18, a Trump appointed federal judge tossed out the CDC mandate about wearing masks on public transport. Around the same time, Florida’s nutcase governor signed the “Don’t say gay” bill into law. Disney took a stance against the law so  Ronnie boy, in a vendetta move, abolished their special status as a soverign “kingdom.” The move  eventually will cost taxpayers in Orange and Osceloa counties between $2,200-$2800.

I remember when Disney moved to the wilds of Central Florida in 1967. Florida granted them a special status for the 25,000 acres they purchased and Disney was responsible for the city of Orlando expanding from a dot on the map to the sprawling hub it is now. And Disney burgeoned from an idea in the Florida wilds to the largest private employer in the state.

Back in 1967, there wasn’t any way to get power to the wilds, so Disney built its own nuclear power plant, water and sewage plant, has its own fire department, EMT services – it’s own infrastructure – and the right to govern its kingdom as it sees fit.  Orlando went democratic in the last election, so perhaps DeSantis hopes to impoverish those dems.

The good ole mini trump also did away with tenures at universities. Why? Did someone in the university system piss him off? And, oh, yeah, he’s also redistricting to make sure that it’s more difficult for blacks and people of color to vote.

What I find so interesting about all this is that DeSantis claims to be making Florida the freest state in the country. And the hidden undercurrent here isn’t so hidden – if you disagree with him or go against him, he gets even, just like trump does.  With DeSantis, though, this revenge isn’t just a nasty tweet. He hits you financially.

I hope Disney takes him on. They have the money and resources.

 

 

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Mercury Retrograde Blowbacks

 

Today, May 10, Mercury turns retrograde in Gemini.

Sometimes when I mention Mercury retrograde – and describe its effects – I get odd looks that scream, Yeah, sure. So here are some examples of the kinds of snafus the trickster planet has stirred up. Unfortunately, we’ve experienced most of them when we didn’t follow the advice for these retrogrades:

Don’t start anything new. Instead, revise, reconsider, review.

Don’t sign a contract.

Don’t submit anything – ideas, products, a manuscript or screenplay, a query or synopsis.

Don’t buy a car or anything else with moving parts – including computers and electronics.

Don’t make irrevocable decisions.

Don’t have surgery.

Don’t take anything for granted – appointments, guarantees. Communicate clearly.

Don’t make travel plans during a retrograde unless you don’t mind changing the plans later.

If you travel somewhere during a Mercury retrograde, it’s likely that you’ll return to that place.

Old friends show up.

Here are some examples.

A friend told me her husband was due to have cataract surgery. When she told me the date – during a retrograde – I advised her against it. “If he has the surgery then, he may have to have it redone.” But his date was set and he didn’t want to change it. Sure enough, something got botched and the surgery had to be redone.

When Rob and I were writing the Sydney Omarr series of astrology books,we signed a contract during a Mercury retrograde – a big no-no since Mercury rules contracts. Sure enough, everything that could go wrong, did go wrong for the year that contract was in effect. The project started with one editor, then she was replaced with another and by the end of the contract, we were on our third editor. Payments got screwed up. Galleys were filled with errors.

We once bought a used car during a Mercury retrograde. One of the Do Nots for these retros is not to buy anything with moving parts – a car, computer, a merry-go-round! You get the idea. This car was a disaster right from the beginning, a lemon with multiple mechanical problems. I sometimes felt like I was driving Christine, you know, from the Stephen King book by the same name. It seemed to have a consciousness all its own. We got rid of it less than a year later.

Recently, a friend’s dog – Abby, an American bulldog- was limping and Lloyd took her to the vet. Turned out she had an ACL tear and surgery was recommended to repair it. The surgery was scheduled a week or so before the retrograde but was postponed when several of the vets were out with Covid. It was rescheduled for the day before Mercury turned retro. That made me uneasy. But later that day, Lloyd texted and said she’d come through the surgery fine. Then, the next day, with Mercury now retro, Lloyd texted to say the surgeon had operated on the wrong leg.

Some years ago, Phyllis Vega, my co-author for Power Tarot, and I attended a book festival in northern Florida where our book was going to be featured. Mercury was retrograde. Shortly after we checked into our room, a bee stung Phyllis on the hand and we knew it meant we were going to get stung. Sure enough, copies of our book hadn’t arrived and never showed up during the entire book festival. It meant no signings, no PR, no sales.

Our daughter, Megan, recently bought a house and it was all happening during the most recent Mercury retrograde from Jan 14 to Feb 3.

Whatever could go wrong, did go wrong.

The woman who owned the house where she was living was unwilling to extend her contract by two weeks so she could move directly into the new place when she closed. Instead, we moved her out of her place the weekend Mercury turned retro and stayed with us.  The move was a nightmare. Then we entered a Merc retro waiting period to find out if her loan had been approved. It was, after 2 delays, which brought us out of the retrograde.

Before that closing, we discovered the place needed a new septic tank and the owner refused to discount the price of it from the sales price of the house.

The lender was a liar and incompetent and kept asking for more and more papers and forms, probably 70 or 80 in all. Jan 31, the date of the first closing, flew by. On Feb 7, the second date for the closing, the battery in my car died as we were pulling out of the driveway. We crammed everything in Rob’s car, and during the entire 3-hour drive, the lender was calling for more forms, more papers. The closing was pushed to Feb 15, well out of the Merc retro period and we finally closed.

The lender actually had the gall to asked Megan for a 5 star review. But it was the Realtor who got the 5 stars. He was an absolute prince and actually put $1000 of his commission toward the closing because of the septic tank issue.

Mercury is a trickster even under the best conditions. But when it’s retro, the trickster has a blast and delights in messing up things that should otherwise be simple and straightforward. Don’t take my word for it, though. If you’re skeptical, test it on your own.

The next Mercury retro begins on May 10 7:47 a.m.ET and 4:47 a.m PT. It ends on June 3 at 4 a.m. EST and 1 a.m. PT. Let me know how yours unfolds!

 

 

 

 

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