Tuesday, June 13, 2006 | This Week in History "Former Defence Secretary Caspar Weinberger was indicted on felony charges in the Iran-Contra affair, charged with four counts of lying to Congress and prosecutors. He concealed the secret arrangement to provide funds to the Nicaraguan contra rebels with profits from selling arms to Iran. The Reagan administration was circumventing the legal ban on material support for the terrorist activities of the contras. Iran had needed the weapons for its war with Iraq, and it was hoped that Iran would respond by encouraging the release of hostages being held by Islamist groups in Lebanon. "Weinberger and five others charged were pardoned by President George H. W. Bush six months later, days before the trial was to start." --- Dear Eric: Fourteen years later, at the Saturn-Saturn opposition from that point in 1992, and what is in the news? Iran/Iraq and the US...Saturn was at 17 degrees of Aquarius...close to where Neptune is today, and about to reach that same degree of Leo in midsummer at the Saturn-Neptune opposition.   Along with this huge show of financial support from the US towards the so-called Iraqi infrastructure clean up and "moral support" from none less than the President himself showing up in person. As for the Solstice astrology you've been reporting on, I am leaning toward a financial surprise, or a rather dippy day on the stock market, maybe something electronic, Internet goofiness. There's too much of an orchestration going on with Iraq right now to spoil it with a disaster. I think its all about resources -- oil and currency and lots of deception. have a look at the NY Stock exchange chart. That's not to say that the slide in the middle east won't continue - by all means they are on one nasty roll. They have a particular agenda that stands apart from Iraq right now, though - and they could easily be the place a wrong turn can happen in.    I can see this huge mood swing happening. Are "things good or bad?"   In his new book, Beyond the Spectacle of Terrorism: Global Uncertainty and the Challenge of the New Media by Henry Giroux, the writer says, "In our cold new world, the language of politics is increasingly mediated through a spectacle of terrorism in which fear and violence become central modalities through which to grasp the meaning of self in society."   So that the grip that "this is the little cousin of a religion with a more authoritative name" [terrorism] has on us -- we have to pull loose from it. Or maybe the out is surrender to tenderness and love.    I found a way that works for me just the other night. I have up in the kitchen, on a small blackboard, the phrase "Try a Little Tenderness" and since Friday - remarkable things have gone on. (Thank Victoria for that one!)   Wear lots of pink. (Solstice could be think and wear pink day) Choose to love. There has got to be a way to have it turn out differently. To paraphrase Einstein - the thinking that got us into this, is not the thinking that will get us out.   Ursula