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Well here it is... (134340) Pluto in the Minor Planet Catalogue. (134340) Pluto -- 29.667 49.901 -0.7 -- 20060922 -- 24.0 114.2 110.3 17.1 0.254 39.784 -- 78 -- MPO102381 (134340) Pluto -- 1930 01 23 690 C. W. Tombaugh http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/lists/TNOs.html Heyo, So here's the funny thing about living in Belgium. Before you get dressed, you look out the window to see how the weather is, and then you go get dressed appropriately. When you're done, you look out the window and the weather has changed. It's suddenly cloudy -- I really hope there's a view to the East this evening, I would love to see this eclipse of the Moon. Thinking of you!!!! Love, e This is cool. http://www.samtsai.com/p318 From Political Waves by Jude On a Labor Day with little or nothing <On a Labor Day with little or nothing in that category to celebrate, we're poised on the big push toward the mid-terms, a tsunami of political hijinks and hype ... this day marks the official opening of the campaigns, although they've been going on for mo> in that category to celebrate, we're poised on the big push toward the mid-terms, a tsunami of political hijinks and hype ... this day marks the official opening of the campaigns, although they've been going on for months. The Dem's are leading by default but now the war chests will open, the rhetoric will amp, the accusations fly, the mud-slinging ad's begin and the Pub Congress will be focusing exclusively on security to attempt to scare the nation into compliance. It's apt to be down-'n-dirty ugly this year, the first time since '92 when so much was at stake. If the vote were taken today, we'd reap the spoils ... we'll see how much fear and "terrorist activity" can be packed into the next 65 days ... how much the Pub "targeted" phone calls and personal visits impact a lethargic and embarrassed Republican base. These next two months will produce a blunderstorm of poor behavior, judging by what's already been misspoken, and a lot of high camp for those of us who follow the in's and out's of political theatre -- I've included a front page article on the Dem edge in the House from WaPo ... and added a link on the same topic from NYT. It's interesting that they don't agree on who's got the best shot -- WP calls Arizona [one of the toss-up races] for the Dem's, NYT's says it's a long shot. Time will tell. To sweeten the pot today, for the 39th time <On a Labor Day with little or nothing in that category to celebrate, we're poised on the big push toward the mid-terms, a tsunami of political hijinks and hype ... this day marks the official opening of the campaigns, although they've been going on for mo> , we've caught another Big Qaeda Fish*, a Number Two this time, with the usual [ho hum!] Pub spin that this will quell the horrific violence in Iraq. That is increasingly unlikely, with Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani <On a Labor Day with little or nothing in that category to celebrate, we're poised on the big push toward the mid-terms, a tsunami of political hijinks and hype ... this day marks the official opening of the campaigns, although they've been going on for mo> ** pulling out of political life in a snit [on the same day, his senior aide was assassinated in an escalation of Shiite on Shiite violence,] taking his moderate voice with him. Day by day, Iraq becomes more dire -- the Dem's, with a handful of Pub support, will be sending a vote of No Confidence Rummy's way very soon [here <On a Labor Day with little or nothing in that category to celebrate, we're poised on the big push toward the mid-terms, a tsunami of political hijinks and hype ... this day marks the official opening of the campaigns, although they've been going on for mo> and here <On a Labor Day with little or nothing in that category to celebrate, we're poised on the big push toward the mid-terms, a tsunami of political hijinks and hype ... this day marks the official opening of the campaigns, although they've been going on for mo> ] ... although, as George Will pointed out yesterday, since Donny "serves at the pleasure of..." the Little Twit, it will likely produce no change. But "change" is the name of the current game -- the public craves it ... we'll see if it decides to demand it, and the ride should prove Very Interesting Indeed. This is your only post of the day -- I trust you're engaged in much more pleasant amusements, anyhow; if you aren't, this intro is packed with links to follow. And the last two articles are Excellent Labor Day reads [the Roy Orbison piece especially, I thought] and appropriate to a holiday that seems to be dancing on the edge of irrelevancy, now that we've shipped away our jobs and cut the legs out from under job protections and unions; begs the question ... what if you gave a holiday, and nobody knew what the hell it was for except the end of warm weather and one final outdoor weenie roast? Jude * Clearly, anyone who disagrees with the Bushies is Al Qaeda -- AQ is a catch-all buzzword like WOT [War on Terror,] an illusion within a conundrum issued in a cloud of smoke like a fart-attack from the Decider, and designed to keep the public fretful. Who knows HOW many actual Al Qaeda members there are ... or where! ** As I was reading through Juan Cole's <On a Labor Day with little or nothing in that category to celebrate, we're poised on the big push toward the mid-terms, a tsunami of political hijinks and hype ... this day marks the official opening of the campaigns, although they've been going on for mo> posts about Sistani, I came across this paragraph -- I'm highlighting the sentence I had to go back and read several times: Sistani's theory of the guardianship of the jurisprudent is much more limited than that of Khomeini and his tradition in Iran. Sistani believes that the supreme jurisprudent should only intervene in structural matters affecting the "order of society," not in everyday politics. (Thus, he did intervene to ensure one person, one vote elections in Iraq in the face of Bush administration opposition). But he believes that even this structural role can only be played by a Shiite cleric who has gained the allegiance of the people and is popular among them. I take it he is saying that it is his perception that he is no longer in a position to play that pivotal role because Iraq's Shiites have been turning to leaders such as Muqtada al-Sadr. (Since al-Sadr is sort of an all-but-dissertation Ph.D. student and Sistani is the most eminent professor in the system, this desertion of the old man for the younger one in the street is a real slap in the face to the Najaf establishment.) What the hell? With all the Bushy bluff and bluster about "purple fingers" and "Iraqi voters" and "democratic Iraq," what DID he want if he didn't want one man, one vote??? See -- this is the ramification of living with a lazy and cowardly mainstream media. http://planetwaves.info/polwaves.php ============ What's right and good doesn't come naturally. You have to stand up and fight for it - as if the cause depends on you, because it does. Allow yourself that conceit - to believe that the flame of Democracy will never go out as long as there's one candle in your hand. ~ Bill Moyers (In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.) This Week's Lunar Eclipse Thursday, Sept. 7 at 7:51 pm British Summer time and 2:51 pm Eastern Daylight Time, there is a partial eclipse of the Moon at 15 degrees of Pisces. Note that some ephemerides and chart services will list this time as being about 10 minutes earlier -- the time of the Full Moon and that of the eclipse differing by about that much. The eclipse is concurrent the Pisces Full Moon, but the moment of exactitude of the eclipse and the associated lunation often differ by a few minutes. This lunation is remarkable for at least three reasons: one is that it squares the Great Attractor in mid-Sagittarius to one degree of exactitude. The Great Attractor is different than the Galactic Core, though located about 12 degrees away (see link for explanation of the Great Attractor). Anything involving the Great Attractor tends to have a polarizing effect, where two sides of a situation are seen; where people tend to choose sides; and where dualism is strongly emphasized. This is a distinct characteristic of the mutable signs, beginning with Gemini and with the dualistic property being just as strong in Virgo, Sagittarius and Pisces. The mutables are signs where you can petty much count on an "equal and opposite reaction" at any time. << http://ericfrancis.com/sagittarius/sagittarius10.html >> Next, the eclipse sets off the core 1960s astrology, in particular, the Uranus/Pluto in Virgo, opposite Chiron and/or Saturn in Pisces. This configuration lasted in many forms from around 1963 through 1968, and a much wider range of years (about 1960 through 1970) is being activated by unusual activity in both Virgo and Pisces. For example at the time of the eclipse, there are three points in Pisces (Uranus, North Node and the Moon) and five in Virgo. Eclipses tend to peel back layers, and I think this will reveal some true colors of how people relate with their 1960s astrology. The Sixties configurations are a rather diverse mix of Abbey Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, John Lennon and Hitler Youth. Or, as you wish, Kennedy and Nixon. In other words, there are qualities that are genuinely liberating and refreshing, and others that are the very essence of conservatism, fear and contracted awareness. All together, it's an interesting mix, and I've been learning about it in Rick Tarnas's book Cosmos and Psyche; he devotes about a third of the book to this one setup, tracing it back in different forms through the long cycles of history. I have covered this astrology -- with a bias that I now can see, since I did not really understand the potential impact of the Saturn-Pluto opposition that occurred in the mid-Sixties -- in a series of articles called Born in the Sixties. << http://ericfrancis.com/planetwaves/sixties.html >> Last, this is the lunar eclipse just prior to the annular (not "annual" solar eclipse) at 30 Virgo on Sept. 22 -- just hours before Equinox and the Libra ingress of the Sun. Among the many parallels between 2001 and today, we have an eclipse of the Sun on the Aries Point. Now, if it's at 30 Virgo, how is that the Aries Point? Because it's less than one degree from Libra, and that is opposite Aries. The entire cardinal cross -- the cardinal point -- acts with equal intensity as the Aries Point. << http://www.planetwaves.net/cainer/archive/003790.php >> It's worth mentioning that in this chart, the Lunar Nodes have worked their way into a square with Pluto, and Mars occupies the degree of the solar eclipse that happens in two weeks. So the two eclipses are intimately related by these facts. I think the Pisces lunar eclipse will give a good indication of what is up with the solar eclipse two weeks later. We are also experiencing the exact opposition of an outer planet (Neptune) with Saturn for the first time since the Saturn-Pluto opposition of 2001-2002. While Saturn-Neptune does not have the friendliest reputation in the world, I think it's something of a breather compared to the hellfire and brimstone of Saturn-Pluto. But as we've seen, this configuration is associated with flooding and levees breaking, and a flood is just a very slow kind of fire. Still, the astrology of summer 2006 is considerably mellower than that of summer 2001. For one thing, the June 21, 2001 total solar eclipse, just four hours into summer, was more exact and focused, even a menacing eclipse: a total eclipse on the longest day. Here we have a partial eclipse on the day of balancing. In the current astrology, we get two "almosts" -- one being the eclipse in the last degree of Virgo and the other being the fact that this is an annular eclipse, distinguished from total by the Moon being too distant from the Earth to fully cover the Sun. However, we have all lived through annular eclipses and they do move energy, only a bit more gently and in way sometimes unexpected. Or so we can pray. Still, we do have an echo to 2001, only in a time when a much larger segment of the population is both enlightened and literate, and hip to the bullshit that's been dished out for five years. I'll have more on Friday's Planet Waves Weekly, which will cover the Sept. 11, 2001 chart and look ahead at the Sept 22 annular eclipse. More discussion in the Astrology Secrets Revealed Forum and the Planet Waves Community Forum. << http://asr.planetwaves.net/ >> << http://planetwaves.net/forum/ >> Brussels, Sept. 2, 2006 Dear Friend and Reader: We are rearranging some of the features on Planet Waves, and this includes discontinuing my daily blog as it's existed since October 2004, right before the presidential "election." For me as a writer, this is part of a project of pulling in a little bit and removing seven scheduled articles from my schedule each week. Outrageous as it is, for the past couple of years I've been doing about 15 articles a week, covering between 15,000 and 25,000 words of content production in a single week many times. From my end, this is an integrity issue: I need to make a few decisions that help me get a little more of my time, space and creative life to myself. However, I'd much prefer to do this in a way that keeps things interesting and creates involvement. So here is the new arrangement. The front page blog will now be the Quote of the Day edition, which has been running for a month over on the Horoscope Homepage. This is edited by Tracy Sullivan. I'll add links to interesting articles that come my way. Second is that we've introduced the Astrology Secrets Revealed Forum, with a few different writers home. This will mostly cover personal themes but when a news chart is up for discussion, we'll take it there. Next, I'm leaving the original blog programming up at http://ericfrancis.com/ -- but this will be updated on a different tempo and I will feel free to write about the sewer excavation project happening on my street on the day of Dick Cheney's resignation. Last, I'll be using the Café Blog (on the subscriber homepage) to give astrology updates -- but in a format that I or another writer can do, so it will be possible to have stand-ins. Now let's give up a big round of applause for decisions to help me get a handle on my life and creative energy!! And thank you everyone who is helping support these changes -- particularly the other astrologers, some people I truly love, who are getting their feet wet handing ASR questions. Meanwhile, I play a hot show every Friday in Planet Waves Weekly. Learn about that here. Thanks for your time. Yours & truly, Eric Francis Saturday, September 2, 2006 | Moon enters Capricorn. Sun squares Ixion. Mercury is biquintile Chiron. "Chiron's function is to raise awareness. Or rather, to raise awareness at all costs. This is why it gets a bad reputation; quite often we don't like to have our awareness raised, we don't like what we see when this happens, and most of all we don't like what sometimes must occur in order to get our attention. Too often we deny what is calling for our attention until we get sick or hurt. But Chiron is persistent. Under the influence of Chiron, anything necessary will happen, in graduating degrees of extreme, until we offer our attention to something." -- Eric Francis, Planet Waves Weekly, June 18, 2004 http://planetwavesweekly.com/drdc8/current/040618.html Friday, September 1, 2006 | Moon is in Sagittarius. Sun squares Chaos, and is conjunct Mercury. Venus makes a trine to Pluto. "When Pluto says it's time to get moving, we do it because that's just what happens; the concrete falls away; steel melts; one is free, or a little more free, anyway. But sometimes, in actual fact, the prison walls fall down and you escape walking, not even running. " -- Eric Francis, Planet Waves Weekly, Monday, Sept. 9, 2005 http://planetwavesweekly.com/drdc8/Monday/bdRept/050919.html Friday, Sept. 1, 2006 | Astrology Questions & Answers IT IS Friday morning here in Brussels and my routine for this time of the week is to enter corrections into the new edition of Planet Waves that have come in from Rachael in LA, give the piece one last edit, write the birthday report and work with Anatoly in the Ukraine doing the layout -- and then get it out to our readers. So I'm going to keep my comments here short today, except for one thing. Because I read my mail and am generally an aware person, I know the role that Planet Waves plays in many people's lives. The letters that come in -- posted at our Feedback link above -- are so passionate and grateful that I am aware of a not only large, but deep and sincere base of support out in the world (no, I did not post the "who cares about Pluto" hate mail, we can only pity the fools). My impression why that energy comes back to us is because it's clear that Planet Waves is working for a better world, in a time when doing just that is so necessary. And it's clear that we're encouraging everyone else to do the same. Those of us involved with the project have somehow been spared the sour cynicism that grips both media and much of our society, and we feel, correctly or not, that we can make a difference. Before I introduce a new area of Planet Waves, really, the continuation of one of our most successful projects in a new and exciting format, I'm here to ask you to put your money where your love is and subscribe to Planet Waves. It's not like subscriptions cost a lot (they're free, if you need, and even a short-term subscription is just two dollars a week) -- and it's not like you don't get a lot back; you and everyone else, that is, because our subscribers support the whole project, including the open access side of the site. There's nobody working on this project, which is truly a global community service project, who holds back on the gifts they feel then can offer. Yes, sometimes I have to do a little encouraging that they really have something worth sharing, and usually it's obvious once they begin. I was talking last evening with someone named Nicola in Switzerland, who will be assisting with the 2007 annual edition, to which I will soon be devoting my attention. She's been a longtime subscriber; I did her chart a year ago; and now she's going to help coordinate the writing of those besides myself for the annual -- coordinating the work of some of my dearest friends. She recalled a recent conversation with a co-worker whom she had pointed to Planet Waves but who did not understand why she should subscribe, because so much is available free. "It's about integrity," was the answer she got. Good response, really. Integrity says you don't just take from an ecological system: you do your part to support it back. One thing I do all day is coordinate the efforts of kind and talented people, so that you will have the benefit of the work. So, while we think nothing of supporting the ecological systems of your personal world and the wider community, I am aware that these days that's a revolutionary idea. Integrity also means integration -- including yourself in something you care about, weaving together a stronger world with you as part of it, keeping loving ideas moving across the communication networks, and making help available where it's needed. For us, your subscription is only partly about the money -- because our scholarship program (comp subscriptions) is, in our minds, an important part of what we do: make sure that economic concerns don't break the fragile threads of communication. Making sure that everyone feels included who wants to be. This is our affirmation that people are worth more than their money. Trust me: if doing this were about the money, I would do something else. If it were about the money, I would plaster Planet Waves with ads. Or I would dump 2,000 of my articles into a database and sell them back to you. Then there was the person who said to me, in all sincerity, that she held off on subscribing because doing so would mean committing to her own personal truth -- and she was not ready to do that. She said it would mean giving up the last vestige of the lie she had been living, and she just did not have it in her, until, eventually, one day she clicked and signed up. She could read Planet Waves, but signing up meant she was really serious about the ideas here. My old therapist Joe Trussso once told me to treat everyone as if they were in a life or death struggle -- now I know what he meant. So there you have it. If you're a regular visitor to this site, please click on the subscribe link and sign up. Do your part, and then take another step and participate in the world of ideas you see here, even if just a little. Today, without my prompting, two to four people would sign up -- let's add you and make it three to five. If you don't have the cash, call our toll-free number and ask for a comp; it's simple. As for the new project: Astrology Secrets Revealed, the Q & A originally started on Cainer.com, has taken up residence of here, as a forum. Readers are invited to submit astrology questions and other concerns and there are five of us who will be responding: Chelsea, Paloma, Ursula, Deirdre and myself. Someone named Rachael (who also goes by Phred) will be proofreading the site (she'd worked on Astrology Secrets Revealed for almost its entire duration), so if you see name in "last edited by" -- that’s why. The page link is here and the email address is on the homepage. It's easy to remember the site: http://asr.planetwaves.net/ Skip the www and just use "asr." Note, our direct participation community forum, where anyone can discuss astrology or anything else, can be found at the bottom of the site index, on the main homepage. My friends -- we are here for you. Please do your little part and be here for us. Thank you. e From the Horoscope Archives Thursday, Aug. 31, 2006 | Reality Checkpoint Dear Friend and Reader: Well today is the big day: Saturn opposite Neptune for the first time since Watergate. Having written quite a lot about this the past year -- the Saturn-Neptune era really came in with a splash one year ago during Hurricane Katrina -- at this point all I can really say is, the planets are saying it's time to sum up. About our lives, about the state of reality or lack thereof, the state of the world, and our motivation to participate in any of the above. Saturn opposite Neptune is what's called a world transit. It affects everyone, and is also a turning point in history. We're halfway into that turning point now -- it will last another year, and also come with effects that ripple out about two years on either side. This one leads to the next big phase, Uranus square Pluto which begins to come into orb next year and carries through the 2012 era. Praise the gods and goddesses above. But for right now, the first actual contact between two major planets in a world transit is always an important day. We may not know why for a while; we may have a clue in a few weeks or a month; we may have the truth staring us right in the face; but -- we are in the exact alignment and something is re-aligning. The history of Saturn and Neptune is fascinating from a collective or individual perspective. Speaking in the individual sense, this one takes us back to 1988-1989, when we were, quite potentially, living through something distinctly related to today. What was it? For me, it was quitting my last "real job" and starting my first business -- the Student Leader News Service in New Paltz, New York. That was the time when I recognized that independent publishing was my calling, and began working on building my first independent organization. Before that, I was the senior editor of Kane's Beverage Week, covering liquor regulation and marketing. The big stories were warning labels on liquor bottles, the acquisition of Tropicana by Seagram's for nearly $1 billion, and a marketing campaign for Tanqueray Tequila (they don't make tequila, only gin and vodka). You can tell I was a huge drinker in college. Our clients got a big laugh out of that. The next thing I did was quit and start a news service that covered student activism and the state government in New York. We didn't make money but we did bang-up journalism. Hello to Sean Springer, Ian McGowan and Sabine Ferandou-Kleopas if you're out there reading. Curiously enough, 17 years later, I am still at it, devoted as I was the day I tossed the first edition of Student Leader into a mailbox in downtown New Paltz to 30 subscribers one afternoon in September 1989 and thought, well, this is the beginning of something! And indeed, it's time for a reality check. And while I'm still sitting in front of a Macintosh doing citizen media, I feel like I've come a long way since that day. But I'm very much still me. e PS, ah yes it all comes back to me now...we were in business a couple of months when the Associated Press sent a reporter named David Bauder to interview us, and an article about Student Leader appeared in the newsroom of every newspaper in the State of New York -- a good introduction. That paved the way to being taken seriously from the get-go as a news agency. (Bauder is now one of AP's most trusted writers on the subject of rock music, as well as a few other topics.) 'Us' means me, Ernesto 'Che' Guzman (our campus organizing director), and Steve Bergstein, who had just graduated from delivering pizza for My Hero, and had recently been the editor of The Oracle, then the best student newspaper for 100 miles around. He was about to enter CUNY Law School and is now a civil rights lawyer, contributing editor to Planet Waves, and author of the excellent blog Psychsound that is linked from our front page. Sean Springer, Ian McGowan and Sabine arrived a moment later. PPS, here's what I looked like that summer... http://planetwaves.net/chart.php?c=efc_fac_id_web Wednesday, August 30, 2006 | Planet, house, sign... Dear Friend and Reader: ONE comment on yesterday's entry suggested that I tend to link the themes of houses, signs and planets -- in particular, the 8th, Scorpio and Pluto. This is a mistaken impression that I owe to a few shortcuts I've had to take in summarizing recent events involving Pluto. Houses, signs and planets are related, but they come from different levels of the game of astrology, if you can call it that, and it's a helpful meditation studying the differences. If you look, you'll see that any house and its corresponding sign are like two siblings: exactly the same, and totally different. Houses are more worldly, grounded in the environment. Signs, while also representing things and environments, tend to be more cosmic and biological. An example of a Scorpio theme is DNA. An example of an 8th house theme is decoding the DNA, cutting it up and selling it for billions of dollars. In any case, when we look at the current revision of the world, "all the things that seem to matter most" tend to be 8th house themes, derived from Scorpio in a more organic form, and associated with Pluto processes as Pluto makes its way around the solar system. In the current astrological climate, we tend to forget that Mars is also a driving force in the whole experience: desire, pushed to the limits -- or in many cases, made subservient to a "higher power" -- the company one works for. The 8th house begins with the themes "death, dowry and the substance of the bride" (this is from the first astrology book in English). Karl Marx summed it up as commodification -- in a capitalist society, everything you need becomes a commodity. However, the idea of bride-price (buying a bride) or dowry (buying or financing a groom) were around long before Marx was ever a gleam in his daddy's eye. Yet his prediction has come true; we must buy very nearly everything we need; we share and trade very little; most of life comes back to an agreement or a contract of some kind, with a capitalist entity. As well, the kind of relationship we tend to want the most is marriage. The expressions, "banks run everything," "everything is about money," "nothing is certain in life except death and taxes," and "all is fair in love and war" are the reasoning processes of the 8th house as we know it. And they are pretty difficult to escape. How do you get sex? Lots of guys will tell you take a woman out and spend money. How do you get a wife? Of course, dress well, drive a nice car, and make a lot of money. How do you get a guy? Be very sexy, which usually involves spending a lot of money. Whether this is true, or a belief, it's a thought-form that tends to dominate our ideas about life, and we live in a world where sex (8th house theme, as it relates to bonding, orgasm and reproduction) is nearly entirely a commodity. Prostitutes know this better than anyone, not because they charge for sex, but they are not blind to the ways everyone else does the same thing. And I observe that prostitutes are controversial because they are not hypocrites. They state their price openly, and you know what you're getting in the arrangement; nothing is implied. What pushes this whole complex system of economics along is the idea of death, which is one thing that the 8th house and Pluto definitely have in common. Survival (desperately needing money or sex) is a sub-topic of death, and is well taken advantage of by those who see the opportunity and set up a system to either meet a need, or exploit one. Then there is the growth aspect of the 8th house and Pluto -- what comes from these confrontations with "the bottom line." Everyone knows that in the metaphorical world of humans, death and change are nearly interchangeable; and that people tend to fear change the more. And the resistance of so many people to change tends to push things in to an 8th house context (crisis), and make them vulnerable to Pluto-type upheavals. So given all this, it's all very interesting what has happened with Pluto -- for example, the best fact I can think of, he's been put on an equal plane with Ceres, the goddess of fertility and food. Fertility and food are the perfect answers to the distorted themes of the 8th house. Because when fertility and food are focused on, and received lovingly, we don't have all those 8th house problems. We recognize our common needs (instead of just fearing our common fates). The suggestion (Ceres theme) is that we learn as much from abundance as we do from lack; we can just as easily create passion, fertility and wealth as we can create our gun-to-the-head kinds of situations we love to get out of; and we had best start considering how to do that better, because we are in a global resource crisis that is calling for a new approach. And we do have the ability to create a different reality, if we will work together. There is plenty to go around, if we cooperate. Ah, well, that's a big one. Here is how Swami Beyondananda sums it up: "Of course, if you're looking for signs [of an up-wising] in the news, you won't find them. At least, not yet. The news might as well be called the 'olds', because the world still seems stuck in greedlock, ruled by fossilized fools fueled by fossil fuels. But I have been receiving encouraging intelligence reports that say indeed, humans are becoming more intelligent. Yes, people everywhere are wising up. And that's great, because we could sure use an up-wising! The evolution has begun." Yours & truly, -- Eric Francis Tuesday, August 29, 2006 | Bring on the night... THIS HAS BEEN one of those days when I have nothing to say, but I feel better now that it's dark out in this part of the world. What a month it's been -- and yet what's wild is the extent to which so many of the events are conceptual: in particular, Non-11 and the reclassing of Pluto. Both the big turning points of northern summer 2006, and both purely in the realm of ideas. I guess it's good to count your revolutions. Of the two, Pluto's the more apropos of our moment, luring us into another realm of myth and an entirely rearranged psychology. It's interesting, Pluto had a respectable role in its prior slot, as king of the Kuiper Belt and also sitting at the table of the planets. What a majestic little antiworld, out there in the blackness of the edge. It's funny, as [seemingly] stupid of a 'scientific' move as that was, many astrologers are greeting the news with some relief. I don't blame them. The point is this world is ruled by all things we consider Plutonian, that is, which by the rules of astrology fall under the purview of Pluto, Scorpio, and the 8th house. True: the soul-quest and that curious thing known as regeneration are among the principal factors in this house. But generally, when you look at the world in some objective sense, just counting the things of influence, most of them show up in the 8th. Let's see: credit cards. Sex and/or the lack thereof. Banks, warmongering investment banking conglomerates, thoughts and notions of personal death and/or spousal death, inheritances, insurance policies...and the like. And we do seem to have this wavelength pretty much jam all the other frequencies. Also, death looming around every corner is a distraction from living. So part of the message is that we need to live like we're not afraid of death. I guess if you want a definition of Spiritual that I could get with, that would be one. Pluto is a Planet!! Eric, Surprisingly, a now defunct rap/rock group, the 2 Skinnee J's, wrote a fun little song about the Pluto controversy in the mid '90s, appropriately titled, "Pluto" It's streaming here: http://www.2sj.com/ Lyrics here: http://www.2sj.com/lyrics/supermercado/pluto.html Enjoy, Sally Monday, August 28, 2006 | Everyone please stay calm Dear Friend and Reader: It would be entertaining that planetariums around the world are trying to budget for how to reconfigure their displays and get rid of Pluto, were it not so sad. Like most of New York, the Hayden Planetarium was ahead of the curve and put Pluto down in the basement, away from impressionable school kids, a few years back; the men of science there could not handle that somebody was calling a Kuiper Belt Object (KBO) a planet. Just because some guys with Ph.D.s take a vote and change the definition of a word, you have a lot of other people basically scrambling to respond. It would be nice, instead of budgeting to flush Pluto down to the underworld, if they invested some of that money into explaining about some other KBOs, which are a very interesting lot. There is so much to reflect on here. And it is all so interesting. But let's start with two pretty basic ideas. Just because the International Astronomical Union voted to take away Pluto's status as a planet (like the Boy Scouts revoking the Eagle rank of a scout who later in life comes out as gay, hmm) does not mean we can erase the history of science. As Mike Brown, the discoverer of Xena and many other "dwarf planets" was find of saying before last week, Pluto is a cultural planet -- it is accepted by society, school kids, and apparently NASA (which is spending billions on a space probe now en route to Pluto). The technical definition is something else. As for astrology, we have a situation that calls for greater perspective than the meaning of Pluto in individual or world horoscopes. We need to look at this as a comment on the Pluto archetype. As for Pluto in astrology, the cycles of this planet are documented going back long before the discovery in 1930. In other words, when you study the cycles of history, going back thousands of years (which could be made once Pluto was discovered), you see a most definite effect. Pluto shows up in the charts for many of what we think of as the greatest events of history. Just to give two modern examples, Pluto is powerfully configured when the Moon landing occurred in 1969 (the very peak of the scientific revolution practically the same chart as the Woodstock festival, a social event of equal importance). And Pluto was they key player in the events of Sept. 11, 2001. And events of this magnitude are visible as concurrent with the Pluto cycle going back as long as history is recorded. If you want proof of astrology, whether in the historical context or in an individual context, study Pluto. And because this began long before Pluto was discovered (despite my two relatively recent examples), we have an effect that will continue. And -- as anyone who has worked with Pluto as a personal factor knows, this planet gets results; it is the thing that compels change and growth when nothing else will. And whatever a bunch of stuffy old astronomers, politically driven and wishing to seize their particular definition of 'planet' want to say, we have an effect that will last, because it's always been there. Yet at the same time, this development adds something to astrology: it will hopefully guide many practitioners to look at the minor planets. By changing its definition to "dwarf planet," this puts it on equal footing with Ceres, Xena (2003 UB313) and a diversity of other bodies that some astrologers have been using for some years now. True, this is not a particularly popular field. As Vanity Fair astrologer Michael Lutin said in the Wall Street Journal on Friday, UB313 won't tell you whether you're going to get a date. But how does he know? Has he studied Xena that carefully? Maybe when Venus or Mars is conjunct Xena, you'll be come the irresistible sex magnet. Astrologers were slow -- excruciatingly, disappointingly slow -- to accept Pluto. Coherent writing in English was not available till the 1970s, nearly 40 years after the discovery. (The Germans were a bit quicker, but the one book out of Germany has not, to my knowledge, been translated.) Raphael's Ephemeris left Pluto out of its main longitude tables until the mid 1970s, sticking it in the back in a little table that gave the position once a month. So on the one hand, it's funny that we astrologers would be the ones coming to the defense of Pluto more than anyone; and that at the same time, new planets always meet resistance by astrologers. In any event, on the biggest level -- society itself -- we have a comment being made. As I explained in my article "The Foggy New Edge of Neptune," in pretending Pluto is not a planet, we have yet another an example of a big denial trip associated with the darkness of the world. We are saying that the bottom line of reality (whatever is represented by the official planet most distant) is not Pluto: all matters of survival, life and death; sex; shared resources; and social and personal transformation; but rather, that it is Neptune: whatever you want it to be. It is about what you believe. This is a great, humorous metaphor for an era in history when the truth is whatever you want it to be. This is the astronomical symbol of the Faith Based Initiative. We Western folks have always lived by, and with, more than a bit of this. The world was flat for a long time after there was proof that it was round, and went around the Sun. But never has it been more true than it is today. Everything is great, as long as there are a few burgers and a little potato salad left over from the barbecue, no matter what darkness we may be wreaking in other countries. Oh, in the name of saving them from that very darkness. So it is true, the bottom line of reality is not Pluto: that is, the humbly shared acceptance of our several common fates, as humans and humanity; rather, the bottom line is whatever image of ourselves that we choose to accept. Reality is what comes out in the movie, and what the PR department says it is. But as one who is in the business knows well, Pluto is a difficult publicity client to represent. It is a fitting irony that Prague, where some astronomers did the equivalent of voting to declare the Earth flat, is the same city where Kepler published his Sidereus Nuncius , his scientific proof that the heliocentric model was accurate, nearly 400 years ago. It was Kepler who proved in his paper that planets have elliptical orbits; it was astronomers meeting in the same city four centuries later who decided that something was "not a planet" largely because it has an elliptical orbit. Eric Francis Rotterdam Saturday, August 26, 2006 | Minor Planets & Pluto (Media contact information below!) Dear Readers: If you're new to Planet Waves, I would like to welcome you and point you to a few areas of the site that may provide some information you're looking for. I've been specializing in minor planets since I got into astrology. Since so little is written in books, this field inevitably makes you a researcher; you have to ask questions. I've long taken this approach with Pluto, which is one of the most fun planets to write about because its effects are so distinct. Here is my favorite [old] article on the Pluto, called "Planet Why" (a pun on Planet X). This addresses some of the earlier controversy surrounding Pluto -- such as astrologers not recognizing it as a planet until four decades after its discovery: Planet Why: The History of Pluto http://ericfrancis.com/articles/plutohistory.html Over the years, I've collected some of my findings into several resource areas, one of which addresses Chiron -- but also has a lot on Pluto. So, you have both in this area: Chiron Resource Area http://planetwaves.net/chiron/ I've also collected my newer material into a minor planet resource area, which has material on many of the later discoveries: Minor Planet Resource Area http://www.planetwaves.net/minor_planet_astrology/ Finally, my favorite book on Pluto is something new: Cosmos & Psyche by Richard Tarnas. Tarnas is author of The Passion of the Western Mind and has just brought out this book, after 30 years of research. It's quite good, really, and you learn a lot about Pluto cycles. Cosmos & Psyche http://snipurl.com/vhsn And -- since you've got this far, to learn about our awesome Planet Waves subscriber service, visit this link: http://www.planetwavesweekly.com/why/ Bon weekend, Yours truly, Eric Francis Brussels Note: For media contact this weekend, please write to: chelsea@planetwaves.net for additional instructions, or call our USA office at (206) 567-4455. You may also use my UK cell phone +44 7837 718 756. Friday, Aug. 25, 2006 | A new era for astrology Welcome Wall Street Journal Readers! And for Planet Waves readers, I was interviewed by the Wall Street Journal; today's front page article is reproduced here: http://www.planetwaves.net/contents/wsj.html While I'm sharing clippings, below is a really interesting, comprehensive BBC News piece on what happened in Prague. Just looking at the basic facts, like how few people voted, and how bad the final proposal is from a scientific standpoint, it seems a bit odd at best. I have been marveling all day at the idea that something has been declared "not a planet" when a space probe has never even been there. Ah yes, but one is on the way. What if they show up and find little green men? Who just voted Earth out of Planet status! Haha, it's not even our planet, and we decide it's not a planet! Wait a rock pickin' minute! Oh wait -- we didn't decide! Someone else did! And I wonder: do we have a shade of truth in my one-time hero and Xena discoverer Mike Brown saying he might go down in history as the guy who killed Pluto? It's weird, he's been lobbying for Pluto in the press and on his web page incessantly. Then he changes his mind...I suggest Mike Brown get himself some mythology books and read a little -- he would measure his words more carefully. Anyway -- I'll catch you Monday. It's time for this tempest in the cosmic teapot to settle down, and I do need a couple of days off. Thanks to everyone who has been SO MUCH HELP this week. Shabbat Shalom. e And here's that BBC piece...perk up your ears... http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/5283956.stm And PS, here is a device that is tracking the Pluto story, anything that gets on the Web as "news" will turn up here: http://artofwebdesign.net/astrology/plutonews.php From earlier Friday... Dear Friend and Reader: IT'S NOT like this kind of thing happens every day. There have been no significant changes to the agreed structure to the solar system for 76 years, when Pluto was discovered in 1930. While on the one hand, we 'lose' Pluto as an official major planet, we gain a new category of planets, that is, a designation for minor planets (dwarf planets) and thus we gain Ceres and Xena/2003 UB313 -- two rather excellent goddess figures, and there are many more planets in this category on the way -- as many as 50 are already known, and will be added in the next few years. This is going to make a difference to astrology because it's going to prompt a lot of people to do things differently, guiding people to consider planets they never would have considered. And we need Ceres. We need the planet of compassion, mother, food, and agriculture; the goddess of fertility; and hey, why not, the patron of Sicily, from which my entire family hails (Ceres Ferdinandea was the original name, given by the discoverer, Piazzi). It's perfectly appropriate that Ceres should gain recognition during the Virgo New Moon, and when she is so prominently placed in the sky. I'll be working on Planet Waves Weekly this morning, which will cover some of these events in much greater detail. There is some coverage in Astrology Secrets Revealed, in the article Before and After Pluto, and a sample of the newest Planet Waves Weekly is posted to the front page. This will be the last in our series of samples through the Pluto renaming era -- so come along and sign up! To find out how, and why, click away: http://www.planetwavesweekly.com/why/ -- Eric Francis From Galactic Times - always worth reading - http://snipurl.com/vf1k From Daily Kos: Pluto's Concession Speech AP has a transcript of Pluto's concession speech: Just before coming down to speak with you, I called Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Saturn, Jupiter, Neptune and Uranus and congratulated them on their success today. As I see it, in this campaign, we've just finished the first half and the Classical Planet team is ahead, but in the second half, our team -- Team Pluto -- is going to surge forward to victory. I am, of course, disappointed by the results, but I am not discouraged. I am not disappointed because I lost my planetary status, but because the old politics of scholarship and intellectual integrity won today. I expect my opponents will continue to do in the future what they have done today: Belittle me instead of coming up with ideas to avoid having to rewrite science textbooks. I will continue to offer the astronomers a different path forward to make my Solar system and orbit a better place to live and work, and that's what I want to do for another six million more years. I know a lot of people in this system, and not just "classical planets", are angry about the direction in which the Solar system is moving, and so am I. Tomorrow morning, our campaign will file the necessary petition with the International Astronomical Union so that we can continue this campaign for a new astronomy of unity and purpose. I will always do what is right for my orbit and Solar system regardless of what the political consequences may be. Tomorrow is a brand new day. Tomorrow we launch a new campaign -- Team Pluto -- Asteroids, non-conforming celestial objects and planets. UPDATE: Dick Cheney has issued a statement: "Pluto's demotion today is a victory for the terra-ists." http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/8/24/102112/777 Pluto loses status as a planet Pluto's status has been contested for many years Link to Original: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/5282440.stm BBC -- Astronomers meeting in the Czech capital have voted to strip Pluto of its status as a planet. About 2,500 experts were in Prague for the International Astronomical Union's (IAU) general assembly. Astronomers rejected a proposal that would have retained Pluto as a planet and brought three other objects into the cosmic club. Pluto has been considered a planet since its discovery in 1930 by the American Clyde Tombaugh. The vote effectively means the ninth planet will now be airbrushed out of school and university textbooks. The decision was made at a meeting of the International Astronomical Union (IAU) in the Czech capital Prague. Pluto's status has been contested for many years as it is further away and considerably smaller than the eight other planets in our Solar System. Since the early 1990s, astronomers have found several other objects of comparable size to Pluto in an outer region of the Solar System called the Kuiper Belt. Some astronomers believe Pluto belongs with this population of small, icy "Trans-Neptunians", not with the objects we call planets. Allowances were once made for Pluto on account of its size. At just 2,360km (1,467 miles) across, Pluto is significantly smaller than the other planets. But until recently, it was still the biggest known object in the Kuiper Belt. That changed with the discovery of 2003 UB313 by Professor Mike Brown and colleagues at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). After being measured with the Hubble Space Telescope, it was shown to be some 3,000km (1,864 miles) in diameter, making it larger than the ninth planet. Thursday, August 24, 2006 | Final wording on IAU Planet Resolution The Final IAU Resolution on the definition of "planet" is ready for voting; the meeting starts in a couple of hours. Here is the chart: http://planetwaves.net/chart.php?c=pluto_vote The significator for Pluto are, appropriately, the rulers of the ascendant sign, Scorpio. Note the heavy emphasis on passion (Leo) and technicality (Virgo). This really has been the essence of the discussion. Note how much is contained in the 9th house -- a spiritual question, in one aspect, and an academic one, in another. The two rulers of Scorpio are indeed locked in a kind of internal struggle: Mars is square Pluto, and the lunar nodes are involved -- magnifying the issue greatly, drawing in many millions of people. Pluto itself is exactly square the lunar nodes. For people who wonder, "what do the lunar nodes mean" and "what does a square to the nodes mean," consider that Pluto is now square the nodes; that is a description of the turning point. It would appear from the text below that Pluto will be called a dwarf planet, which will be a fairly wide ranging category, eight bodies will retain the title "planet." So, I guess the American Museum of Natural History will have to open up a Dwarf Planetarium. However, I object to their use of the word "planet" in their title at all; most of what you see in shows about at the 'planet'-tarium are stars. Anyway, here is more semantical technobabble for you, actually not so hard to sort out. 24. August 2006, Prague (pretty old city where Kepler drank a few mugs) At the second session of the 2006 International Astronomical Union (IAU) General Assembly, which will be held 14:00 Thursday 24 August, members of the IAU will vote on the Resolutions presented below. There will be separate sequential votes on Resolution 5A and Resolution 5B. Similarly, there will be separate votes on Resolutions 6A and 6B. Following active discussion among IAU scientists at the IAU 2006 General Assembly in Prague, draft Resolution 6b (issued 16 August 2006) has been updated and amended. IAU President Ron Ekers says: "IAU's rules for proposing resolutions are based on an open democratic process and it is a great pleasure for the IAU Executive Committee to see the level of engagement of so many astronomers here. We want to engage as broad a part of the IAU community as possible in the decision-making process to give this Resolution the best chance to be passed." Below are the full texts of "IAU Resolution 5a for GA-XXVI", "IAU Resolution 5b for GA-XXVI" and "IAU Resolution 6a for GA-XXVI" and "IAU Resolution 6b for GA-XXVI". The voting will take place in four steps. The voting on these Resolutions is expected to end today (Thursday 24 August) between 15:30 and 16:00 CEST. This is a rough estimate. According to the revised Statutes approved at the First Session of the General Assembly last week, scientific issues such as Resolutions are decided by majority of those IAU members present and voting at the business meeting. Thus the scientific resolutions, including those on the definition of solar system bodies, will be presented and decided by voting of the individual members. Yellow ballots will be handed out to all IAU members at the entrance. Members will vote by raising these ballots in the air; the number of raised ballots will be counted. The result of the vote should be known shortly thereafter and will be communicated in a public statement. Notes for editors A press conference about the Closing Ceremony of the General Assembly, including the results of the planet-definition vote, will be held at 18:00, in Meeting Room 3.3 of the Prague Congress Center. (It will NOT be possible for journalists to ring in to this conference: they must be there in person.) The panel for the press conference will be: * Ron Ekers (outgoing IAU President) * Catherine Cesarsky (incoming IAU President, Member of the Planet Definition Committee) * Jan Palous (Chair of the National Organising Committee) * Richard Binzel (Member of the Planet Definition Committee) * Karel van der Hucht (incoming Secretary General) This press conference will conclude around 18:30 CEST. The IAU is the international astronomical organisation that brings together distinguished astronomers from all nations of the world. Its mission is to promote and safeguard the science of astronomy in all its aspects through international cooperation. Founded in 1919, the IAU is the world's largest professional body for astronomers. The IAU General Assembly is held every three years and is one of the largest and most diverse meetings on the astronomical community's calendar. Contacts Following the vote, some of the members of the planet definition committee will be available for interviews (after the final vote): Richard Binzel Member of the Planet Definition Committee Prague Conference Center, Meeting Room 3.1 Tel: +420-261-177-075 Cell: +420-776-806-297 (during the General Assembly) Junichi Watanabe Member of the Planet Definition Committee Prague Conference Center, Meeting Room 3.3 Tel: +420-261-177-081 Cell: +420-776-806-265 (during the General Assembly) Iwan Williams President, IAU Division III Planetary Systems Sciences Prague Conference Center, Meeting Room 244 Tel: +420-261-177-064 Cell: +420-776-175-769 (during the General Assembly) Owen Gingerich Chair of the IAU Planet Definition Committee Tel: via the Press Room +420-261-177-075 Professor Ron Ekers IAU President Tel: via the Press Room +420-261-177-075 Catherine Cesarsky IAU President-Elect and member of the Planet Definition Committee Tel: via the Press Room +420-261-177-075 PIO contact Lars Lindberg Christensen IAU Press Officer IAU GA 2006 Press office, Meeting Room 3.2 Prague Congress Center Tel: +420-261-177-075/+420-261-222-130 Cellular: +49-173-3872-621 E-mail: lars@eso.org Links * Programme for the Closing Ceremony: http://www.astronomy2006.com/second-session-and-closing-ceremony.php * Live public webcast of the Closing Ceremony: http://astronomy2006.com/tv/ * The IAU Web page: http://www.iau.org * IAU News during the 2006 General Assembly: http://www.iau2006.org * IAU General Assembly: http://www.astronomy2006.com * Free registration for the media: http://www.astronomy2006.com/media-accreditation.php RESOLUTIONS Resolution 5A is the principal definition for the IAU usage of "planet" and related terms. Resolution 5B adds the word "classical" to the collective name of the eight planets Mercury through Neptune. Resolution 6A creates for IAU usage a new class of objects, for which Pluto is the prototype. Resolution 6B introduces the name "plutonian objects" for this class. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines "plutonian" as: Main Entry: plu • to • ni • an Pronunciation: plü-'tO-nE-&n Function: adjective Usage: often capitalized : of, relating to, or characteristic of Pluto or the lower world After having received inputs from many sides -- especially the geological community -- the term "Pluton" is no longer being considered. IAU Resolution: Definition of a Planet in the Solar System Contemporary observations are changing our understanding of planetary systems, and it is important that our nomenclature for objects reflect our current understanding. This applies, in particular, to the designation 'planets'. The word 'planet' originally described 'wanderers' that were known only as moving lights in the sky. Recent discoveries lead us to create a new definition, which we can make using currently available scientific information. RESOLUTION 5A The IAU therefore resolves that planets and other bodies in our Solar System be defined into three distinct categories in the following way: (1) A planet1 is a celestial body that (a) is in orbit around the Sun, (b) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape, and (c) has cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit. (2) A dwarf planet is a celestial body that (a) is in orbit around the Sun, (b) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape2, (c) has not cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit, and (d) is not a satellite. (3) All other objects3 orbiting the Sun shall be referred to collectively as "Small Solar System Bodies". 1The eight planets are: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. 2An IAU process will be established to assign borderline objects into either dwarf planet and other categories. 3These currently include most of the Solar System asteroids, most Trans-Neptunian Objects (TNOs), comets, and other small bodies. RESOLUTION 5B Insert the word "classical" before the word "planet" in Resolution 5A, Section (1), and footnote 1. Thus reading: (1) A classical planet1 is a celestial body . . . and 1The eight classical planets are: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. IAU Resolution: Pluto RESOLUTION 6A The IAU further resolves: Pluto is a dwarf planet by the above definition and is recognized as the prototype of a new category of trans-Neptunian objects. RESOLUTION 6B The following sentence is added to Resolution 6A: This category is to be called "plutonian objects." Astronomers divided over "planet" definition Deutsche Presse Agentur Published: Tuesday August 22, 2006 Prague -- The world's astronomers on Tuesday passionately debated a plan to use roundness as the criteria for defining a "planet," with some experts calling the proposal "reasonable" but others declaring it "bound to fail." Pluto would qualify as a "dwarf planet" distinct from the solar system's eight "classical planets" under the definition presented by a panel at the International Astronomical Union (IAU) conference in Prague. Yet the special panel also recommended the eight bodies from Mercury to Neptune share the general term "planet" with Pluto and other "trans-Neptunian objects" because they orbit a star and meet gravitational criteria for "hydrostatic equilibrium," which makes them "nearly round." Moreover, the panel suggested calling Pluto and its space companion Charon a "double planet." In a non-binding show of hands after a 90-minute debate, IAU members voted "about 50-50" in favour of the proposal's main resolution, said IAU spokesman Lars Christensen. But "a clear majority" opposed two other resolutions. "But this was just a gauge" before a final conference vote Thursday, Christensen said. Pluto has been honoured as the ninth planet since its discovery in 1930. Scientists were forced to reconsider its status - and the very definition of a planet - after the 2003 discovery of a larger and more distant object circling the sun called UB313. Although Pluto's future has captured public attention since the IAU started working on the issue two years ago, most scientists commenting from the conference floor Tuesday focused on technical issues. Some spoke passionately about the proposed definition's impact on scientists searching for star-orbiting objects outside our solar system. One astronomer packed his comment with technical jargon and blasted the panel for "committing an offence." Others saw the proposal as "not even premature but dangerous" or "honourable but bound to fail." At one point, a scientist angrily shouted from his chair and drew applause when the debate moderator, panel member Richard Binzel of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, cut off discussion to move to another topic. Implored one astronomer, "We must have a definition that is not politically correct but scientifically accurate." Defending the plan was panel member Junichi Watanabe, a Japanese astronomer who said "no political or emotional" factors were involved when the panel decided that any star-orbiting body with "a lovely, round shape" should be called a planet. "It was purely a scientific affair," Watanabe said. Some critics called for delaying the decision for up to three years, claiming the panel jumped the gun. Binzel replied that "a diverse community" outside the astronomy field is "asking for things to happen." The panel has already modified the proposal since the conference began last week. Some experts grumbled that the final draft had emerged just an hour before the debate began. A key modification was to drop a plan to call Pluto and similar objects "plutons." The change came after geologists around the world criticized IAU last week for neglecting the traditional use of the word "pluton" as the name for an igneous rock. One panel member quipped that geologists should attack software- maker Microsoft, not astronomers, for the "pluton" oversight because the word did not appear in the panel's spellchecker. Tuesday's debate ended with the straw poll but was expected to continue in private groups until Thursday, when the conference's 2,300 astronomers were scheduled to vote. The debate "is still open," Christensen said. Tuesday, Aug. 22, 2006 | Uranus 'Not a Planet', Some Astronomers Say IN A stunning surprise move at the International Astronomical Union general assembly in Prague last night, some astronomers will seek to have Uranus stripped of planetary status, Planet Waves has learned. If accepted later in the week by the full assembly, this would be akin to a revolution in astronomy, overthrowing most scientific findings in the past two and a half centuries. "We're making headway on chucking Pluto, so we thought we would keep going," said one of the scientists, who spoke from his bunker in the hotel basement, on the condition of anonymity. "Before long, we'll be back to the solar system of Ptolemy. We would go after Neptune, but we can never find the damned thing," he added. "In fact, we're not even sure it exists, so no bother." "You cannot see Uranus without an artificial telescope, which is cheating," one scientist said. "These people had no clue what they were doing back in 1781 when Uranus was 'discovered' using this despicable method of 'seeing' things. If God wanted us to use telescopes, we would have been born with them sticking out of our eyes." In addition, Uranus is believed to be smaller than Jupiter and Saturn, the two well established and fully accepted traditional 'gas giants' in our solar system -- which came as a shock to most astronomers, and led to the rebellion. It was previously believed that planets got larger as they extended further out from the Sun. "There are other problems with maintaining planetary status for Uranus, it's not just about the size. For one thing, Uranus is green, and no other planet is green. Clearly it does not belong in our solar system." However, the most troubling facts include Uranus's peculiar quality of rotating backwards, and the extremely problematic bit about its polar caps being closer to the Sun than the equator. "But it's still warmer at the equator. Nobody knows why, and I'm tired of not being able to answer this question from my Astronomy 101 students at the community college where I moonlight," the astronomer said. "If we don't count it as a planet, I can avoid the issue." He continued, "It's also too far from the ecliptic to be considered a planet, and besides which, it's orbit is elliptical. We no longer accept this theory about elliptical orbits because Kepler, who came up with it, was an astrologer." The proposal to get rid of Uranus will be attached as an amendment to the plan to get rid of Pluto, to be voted on later in the week. "We're going to get rid of both," said Dr. Melvin Peabody of Yale's Bush Observatory. "When these two things get together, they cause nothing but trouble. We heard enough from them back during the French Revolution and the Sixties," he said. "He's right, Uranus is a naughty planet and doesn't really deserve the name," said Mrs. Prager, a 4th grade teacher from the Leery Elementary School in Topeka, Kansas. Another, much less popular proposal would preserve planetary status for Uranus but demote it to a 'juton', because in some ways it's similar to Jupiter. But it's not that similar, and most astronomers feel that seven planets is more than enough. "It was like that for a long time and there's no reason it shouldn't be like that forever," Peabody, from Yale, added. Planet Waves will have more details as they become available. In other news, Michael Brown, the discoverer of Xena/2003 UB 313 and an entire motel ice bucket of other objects, has claimed discovery of the Moon. "I checked the catalog and amazingly, nobody claimed the discovery, he said." He has named it Malloy, after rookie Los Angeles cop Pete Malloy in the famous TV series Adam-12. Link to this article: http://planetwavesweekly.com/dadatemp/149341343.html Real-Life Statement from Mike Brown in Prague http://www.gps.caltech.edu/~mbrown/whatsaplanet/revolt.html Monday, Aug. 21, 2006 | The Pluto Files I HAVE been marveling all weekend about the fact that some astronomers want to take the definition of a planet back to 1846, the year Neptune was discovered. That, basically, would be the effect of declaring Pluto "not a planet." It would mean that the last thing that was a planet dates to before Abe Lincoln. But more than that, I've been tripping out on the jackass editorial from The New York Times last week. Here is what the Voice of God had to say: "Pluto, discovered in 1930, never deserved to be called a planet. It is far smaller than first thought, smaller in fact than our own moon. Its orbit is more elliptical and tilted in a different plane than those of the other planets, and its icy, rocky body is more like a comet’s core. If Pluto were discovered today, it seems highly unlikely that anyone would consider it a planet. But Pluto has emotional partisans who resent anyone picking on the puniest planet, so efforts to demote it invariably meet resistance." Ah yes, it would appear that a Times editorial writer just happens to be an expert on planetary science. I am sure if he has a map of Africa for the days when he's a geography expert, it's the kind that says "unexplored" across half of it. Then the piece goes on about how ridiculous it is for astronomers to be going through the bother of making new classifications and categories (something that you really need to do when you find out, after lots of work, that we have half a million things orbiting the Sun): "When the astronomical union votes on the matter next week, it ought to reject the new definition and summon the courage to scratch Pluto from the list of planets." I mean, gee whiz guys. Go get an astrology reading! You will get the picture -- you don't fuck with Pluto! You will find out that Pluto is the planet of evolution, and what you are doing, basically, is denying just precisely that. (By the way, I just checked and Pluto is exactly square the natal Sun of The New York Times, to the degree.) It's the equivalent of fundamentalist Christians claiming the dinosaurs lived 7,000 years ago (right around when the Grand Canyon was formed) to match the creation myth in the Bible. What next? We should dump the "theory" of evolution because it has too many contradictions and suggests that Adolph Ochs, your great publisher from the turn of the century, descended from the apes? I have been a loyal reader of your newspaper since I was a teenager. I've read some bad editorials on your pages and I've read really some good ones. My Aunt Josie, who never got out of grade school, learned to read, I mean really read, by studying the Times every day. I still love you for publishing the Pentagon Papers. I deeply appreciate that you put my journalism career on the map. Hey, you guys even did an editorial about one of my articles! We go back a heck of a long way. So pardon me for calling names, it's not my usual style, but I never dreamed in all my life that the anonymous, esteemed writers of your editorials, who come from places like Harvard and Columbia universities and NYU would come up with something so boldly asinine...so witlessly ignorant...so astronomically arrogant...so lost on the 44th floor behind 12 security checkpoints...as this. Here's another quote, it's just so damned precious, I can't get over it: "Under the new definition, a planet would be any celestial body that orbits around a star and is large enough for its own gravity to pull it into a spherical shape. That definition would produce an ugly porridge of 12 old and new planets, with dozens more on the way." An ugly porridge? Ummm...porridge? Don't you mean plum pudding? Even if we just go out to Neptune, we're still left with a toasted, crater-pitted chunk of stone, an ammonia bomb with a rock in the middle, a water-covered rock with the rest covered by 7-Elevens, a big desert where something horrid went down a few eons ago, a blob of gas with 93 moons buzzing around it that wobbles the Sun, and three more blobs of gas that you couldn't walk around on if you were Apollo himself. Talk about a bunch of choices that would blow the mind of any kid playing "one of these things doesn't belong here" on Sesame Street. Given all this, the cute little Pluto/Charon system is a nice addition to the collection. They conclude: "All this just to keep Pluto as a planet. Whatever merit the new definition may have scientifically, it is an abomination culturally." An abomination? Oy God. You must mean...like Jackie Robinson. So, yes, the solution is...we not only go back to the horse and buggy days, when astronomers peered into one end of the telescope and out the other, scribbling with a quill pen, donning mutton chops, eating mutton chops for that matter, and puffing on pipes...when they would have laughed hysterically at you if, visiting from the future, you described the Hubble Space Telescope...no, not just that...we stop progress altogether. I'll have more to say as the week moves along, and we'll be watching developments in Prague closely with Google News Alerts perked up as the vote on the status of Pluto approaches. But for now, I leave it to you: Saturn and Neptune are mere days away from exact opposition. What does that say for the established order? Saturday, Aug. 19, 2006 | Plutophiles and Plutagonists... Today from Space.com http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/060818_planet_newprop.html The effort to define the term "planet" took a fresh twist today as two competing proposals were put forth at a meeting of astronomers in Prague. In one case, Pluto would be demoted to "dwarf planet" status, which would mean it would not be a real planet at all. Astronomers are split down the middle on the issue. Eight planets or hundreds On Wednesday, officials with the International Astronomical Union (IAU) proposed a planet definition that would make Pluto's moon Charon a planet. Several astronomers criticized the overall proposal as being vague and the Charon aspect specifically for going too far in essentially recasting too many small round objects as full-fledged planets. Eventually, with new discoveries, there would likely be hundreds. They also were critical of the proposed term "pluton" to describe Pluto, Charon and other small round objects in the outer solar system that would be planets under the new definition. Today, a subgroup of the IAU met to discuss the proposal. A straw vote was held in which only about 18 astronomers favored the proposal, according to Alan Boss, a planet-formation theorist at the Carnegie Institution of Washington. Another 20 or so said it should be reworked. And about 50 favored an alternate proposal put forth by Julio Angel Fernandez, an astronomer from Uruguay. "Most of the speakers during the discussion favored the competing proposal, which inserts the criterion that a planet must be 'by far the largest body in its population of bodies,'" Boss told SPACE.com. That means Pluto and Charon, being no larger than other objects in the sea of rocks beyond Neptune, would not be planets. Pluto would be called a "dwarf planet" rather than a pluton. That would be in keeping with terminology used to describe small stars. For example, brown dwarfs are low-mass stars that fail to produce the thermonuclear fusion that powers real stars. "The group loudly applauded that description of Pluto," said Boss, who has been critical of the original IAU proposal. But some astronomers—perhaps about half of those at the meeting—are still rallying for Pluto to remain a planet. 50-50 split "There is a very large community out there defending keeping Pluto in the list," said Owen Gingerich, an historian and astronomer emeritus at Harvard who led the seven-member IAU committee that generated the original definition. Gingerich said correspondence on the issue has been half in favor of the original definition and half against. In a telephone interview from Prague, Gingerich acknowledged that in today's meeting astronomers "seemed to be overwhelmingly opposed" to the term plutons, but said "it's not clear why." Gingerich said calling Pluto a dwarf planet but having it not really be a planet is "almost self-contradictory and linguistically objectionable." Calling Pluto a dwarf would be a demotion that makes sense to many astronomers who say it was a mistake in the first place to call Pluto a planet when it was discovered in 1930. The dwarf category would essentially give higher status to the eight other planets in our solar system, and it would open up a new category to be populated by dozens of round objects already discovered out beyond Neptune and hundreds more that are expected to be found. Friday, August 18, 2006 | Big news... Dear Friends, Readers and Subscribers: The cover has been updated with all our latest coverage of the new planet proposal. We feel this news is so important that everyone should be able to have access to it -- so we're posting it to the open side of the Web site. Now can anyone guess what I'm going to say next?
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Friday, August 18, 2006 | The discoverer says... Michael Brown, the discover of Xena/2003 UB313 and numerous other potential planets, had this to say on the name for Xena-UB313, what is in truth the 10th planet: "Interestingly, there are no actual rules for how to name a planet (presumably because no one expected there to be more). All of the other planets are named for Greek or Roman gods, so an obvious suggestion is to attempt to find such a name for the new planet. Unfortunately, most of the Greek or Roman god names (particularly those associated with creation, which tend to be the major gods) were used back when the first asteroids were being discovered. If a name is already taken by an asteroid, the IAU would not allow that name to be used again. One such particularly apt name would have been. In Greek mythology Persephone is the (forcibly abducted) wife of Hades (Roman Pluto) who spends six months each year underground close to Hades. The new planet is on an orbit that could be described in similar terms; half of the time it is in the vicinity of Pluto and half of the time much further away. Sadly, the name Persephone was used in 1895 as a name for the 399th known asteroid. The perhaps more appropriate Roman version of the name, Proserpina, was used even earlier for the 26th known asteroid. The same story can be told for almost any other Greek or Roman god of any consequence. One exception to this name depletion is the Roman god Vulcan (Greek Haphaestus), the god of fire. Astronomers have long reserved that term, however, for a once hypothetical (now known to be nonexistent) planet closer to the Sun than Mercury (god of fire, near the sun, good name). We would not want to use such a name to describe such a cold body as our new planet!"
Coverage continues today on Planet Waves and in Planet Waves Weekly.
Thursday, August 17, 2006 | Goddess Power Dear Friend and Reader: Okay -- with a whole bunch of help*, I think I've got to the bottom of, and actually comprehend, the IAU proposal for the inclusion of Ceres, Charon and Xena (2003 UB 313). It seems that these are indeed official planets, and that the category "dwarf planet" is descriptive rather than official term (kind of like gas giant, such as Saturn or Neptune). "Pluton" is an official classification of planet, that includes any object with an orbit of 200 or more years, an eccentric (highly elliptical) orbit and a steep inclination to the ecliptic (it orbits at a steep angle, in other words). It is not a descriptive term, but rather a new category. Charon is being considered twin planet to Pluto and hence, for the first time, we will have two planets in one point in the astrological chart -- this is very big news, and will be compelling us to take a whole new look at Pluto, and to search out the "other side of Pluto." This is a big day for both astrology and astronomy. To me, what is most remarkable is the presence of female energy in this development. Ceres has long deserved recognition merely for what she represents: mothers, food, processing grief and loss, and nourishment. Xena, though an unofficial name, is powerful, outrageous female warrior figure and who was not only overtly sexual, but bisexual. And Charon was described a generation ago as Minerva, a kind of feminine counterpart to Pluto -- the wisdom aspect of Pluto. I have to say, this is very impressive indeed. If the archetypal world is speaking through these astronomer-priests, who are all at heart mystics gazing toward the heavens, we are getting a truly encouraging message that something on the planet is balancing out. More details in Thursday night's Astrology Secrets Revealed. Thanks for tuning in. Yours & truly, Eric Francis *That would be from Melanie Andrews, who has been patiently wading through and assembling the bits of IAU documents all day. And -- welcome -- here is a table listing the members of the new solar system. http://www.planetwavesweekly.com/resources/table.html Wednesday, August 16, 2006 | Dwarf Planets Dear Friend and Reader: I am following the International Astronomical Union's proposal to reclassify the solar system -- which preserves Pluto's status as a "planet" but creates the category of "dwarf planet" -- which will include Ceres, Pluto, Pluto's biggest satellite Charon, and 2003 UB 313 "Xena." This is an interesting proposition and one that has not, so far, been on the list of possibilities for reclassifying the planets -- at least that any of us watching the issue at Planet Waves have seen. It appears to be a kind of compromise position, putting Pluto in a separate class, but not officially denying it's a planet. Let's put it this way. The first book I reached for from my astrology bookshelf in response to this was The Little Prince. I'm also googling "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs." I'll have more on the subject in Astrology Secrets Revealed tomorrow night, as well as in Planet Waves Weekly on Friday. Catch you then, and here is a link to a Times of London article send by Mandy. Note that the vote is next week. Feel free to tell me what you think -- francis@planetwaves.net is the place and please add "Pluto" in the subject header so I can sort the mail. Thanks! http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2314926,00.html - Eric Francis Tuesday, August 15, 2006 | Well I'll be a monkey's uncle... Dear Friend and Reader: This is a follow up to story posted below, about the Arab guys with the cell phones accused of "terrorism" because they had phones "that terrorists might use." This is good -- a very good sign, and it makes it safe to wear sneakers. You know, if a terrorist needs to run, he might wear running shoes...more to come on this issue. Cheers for the clear light of day -- I was very happy to see AP writing about this. When the press works, it's the clear light of day. Note, this just in, charges will be dropped against Ali Houssaiky and Osama Abulhassan, the two other cell phone guys from Michigan, article in blue below. The wire services will have it in a few minutes. e FBI: No Terror Groups in Cell Phone Case (08-14) 11:45 PDT Caro, Mich. (AP) -- The FBI said Monday it had no information to indicate that the three Texas men arrested with about 1,000 cell phones in their van had any direct connection to known terrorist groups. Authorities had increased patrols on Michigan's 5-mile-long Mackinac Bridge after local prosecutors said investigators believed the men were targeting the span. Local authorities didn't say what they believed the men intended to do with the phones, most of which were prepaid TracFones, but Caro's police chief noted that cell phones can be untraceable and used as detonators. The FBI issued a news release Monday saying there is no imminent threat to the bridge linking Michigan's upper and lower peninsulas. The release also said the FBI had no information indicating that the men, Palestinian-Americans living in Texas, had any direct links to any known terrorist groups or to the alleged plot to bomb trans-Atlantic jetliners that was announced in London last week. William Kowalski, assistant special agent in charge of the FBI's Detroit field office, said authorities believe concern about the bridge was connected to images of the Mackinac Bridge found on a digital camera belonging to the men. Kowalski said there was nothing illegal about buying cell phones in bulk, but that profits from that kind of activity can be suspicious. Adham Abdelhamid Othman, 21, of Dallas, and Maruan Awad Muhareb, 18, and Louai Abdelhamied Othman, 23, both of Mesquite, Texas, were stopped by police Friday outside a Wal-Mart store in Caro, about 80 miles north of Detroit after employees became suspicious when they purchased about 80 cell phones. Local prosecutors charged them with collecting or providing materials for terrorist acts and surveillance of a vulnerable target for terrorist purposes. The men told a magistrate Saturday that they were buying the phones for resale. Louai Othman's wife, Lina Odeh, told The Associated Press on Saturday that she thought her husband and relatives were targeted because of their Arab descent. She said the men's families come from Jerusalem. Tuscola County Prosecutor Mark E. Reene said Monday that representatives of his office and Caro police had met with Sunday with officials from the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. attorney's office. He said all the agencies were working together on the investigation. Messages seeking further comment from Reene were not immediately returned. Monday, August 14, 2006 | Become the Media Dear Friend and Reader: WELL, yes, this has been an interesting Mercury retrograde. The echo phase, or shadow phase, ended Sunday, concurrent with the Mars-Uranus opposition. Mercury is now in new territory; we are all in new territory. This has been one of the most interesting times I can ever remember for news watching -- and the most diverse. The bad news has been grim, the good news at least mildly encouraging, all of it in many ways astonishing. These next three weeks, as Saturn approaches exact opposition to Neptune, will be very telling. We are wrapping up the Mercury Retrograde news timeline for this era -- our news staff, particularly Melanie Andrews in the UK and Paloma Todd in France (with input and assistance from others) -- have gathered headlines, leads and links on hundreds of the most important developments of the past six weeks -- the long count of Mercury retrograde including the echo phases before and after. This is linked from the PlanetWaves.net front page. It is a case study of a turning point, and some very impressive work; we have devoted our time and energy to this in order to keep a record of history and to make the same available to you, in case you want to understand what is happening now, or even show your kids someday. We have indeed reached a bend in the river. It's going to last a couple of years. But it's worth remembering that Saturn-Neptune is not exactly a positive influence on presidents who play games. Nixon went down under the influence of the last Saturn-Neptune opposition; they tried to do the Watergate break-in under its influence. When Saturn and Neptune made a square in 1998-1999, Clinton was impeached. He survived (and he could have done a lot better for himself if he had told the country the truth), but that impeachment paved the way for Gore getting the election stolen from under his feet. True, the American people abdicated their right to vote by not demanding that the winner take office, and it's possible we will have learned something when the results of that shake out. When the Cheney Bush years are over, everyone but the most dogmatic fools will look back in disgust. Those who were fat and happy and voted their wallets or their religion at the time will likely be somewhat leaner and more contemplative. We have yet to make a real decision about whether we want to base our whole society on fear. Politicians always ramble on about freedom. How can you be free when you're scared all the time? If you're scared to go out, how can you take a walk? Bu$hCo came up on the heels of fire and air -- Saturn and Pluto in a fiery show, full of moral brimstone. They're going to go down and out on the graces of water, and Pluto conjunct the Galactic Core. The question is how much damage they will do on the way down, and how much we will let them do. The People could step in at any time right now. It would take very little to make a very big difference. Every modicum of awareness counts. Every tatter or fragment of the message of love and truth that we send along our communication networks. We all need to be journalists now. We need to push the vigilance level through the roof. We need to learn how to organize information and get it to other people. We need to learn how to have informed opinions, and to let those opinions evolve as new information becomes available. We need to be able to distinguish self-interest from community interest. It's not that hard -- you just need to keep a clear head, be methodical, and stick to what your senses and intuition tell you. To be a journalist, you need to know when you're basing your thoughts on somebody else's beliefs, and when you're rubbing your brain cells together for yourself. You need to know what influences you, and watch it. In other words you need to be versed in your own values, and watch how they influence you. Most of all, you need to not be lazy. And that feels good. Laziness gets really boring. The reason that a bunch of scammers, in truth, the top guys from the College Republicans of the 1970s, have taken over the world, is 1. Because the professional media is scared and lazy; and 2. Because it's controlled by the companies that profit from war. Of the pair, the first is the worse. I'll tell you something I believe from the depths of my heart: the Internet is the one thing that's standing between us and the complete loss of our freedoms. Many take it for granted; many go just shopping; Mapquest is cool; I've heard that only 1 percent of email addresses can be considered legitimate and Postini.com reports that in the past 24 hours, 185 million spam emails were sent. It's true that only a minority of people are connected to the Internet, and most people have no idea where to get good information. The core who are connected, versed, literate, and even agile on the Net are holding a torch. We are able to get a diversity of viewpoints, and most important, we know how to READ. So, I suggest you keep reading, keep getting familiar with how information is made available on the Internet, scope out sources you trust, learn to use Wikipedia, learn to find things in Google in less than two minutes, and teach your friends how to do the same thing. To the extent that time allows this week, I'll blog on this subject -- the basic rules of the road for citizen journalism, and why it's so vital now. One suggestion I can make straight away is, pick the issue that's most important to you, and go digging. Is it food? Is it politics? Is it kids? Is it the war? Is it sports? Find the one thing that is at the top of your list, heart and soul, set some Google news alerts, find a few pages in Wiki that relate to the subject, and get yourself going. Then, go into active mode and start writing about it. Don't worry about where to publish; that is pretty easy in the Net environment. Meanwhile, carry a notebook and pen everywhere, and keep your camera in your bag. You never know when you're going to need it. Become the media. And remember: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." If you don't know where that comes from -- I suggest you find out. Yours & truly, ERIC FRANCIS PS, if you have something you think is vital that our news staff hear about, send it to news@planetwaves.net -- remember, we do follow all major worldwide sources, so the best stuff you can send is what is local, or which you personally witness. The date, place and exact time could be helpful for astrology research, and photographs of local events are always welcome. Thank you. 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