Likewise

Mars loves himself. He's a lean mean bad machine in hot pursuit of all that he desires. He knows what he wants and rarely fails to retrieve it when the dynamic currents are in full force. He wastes no time and the exit is always in view, ahead of the crowd, his own man.
Thrust is his pleasure like a spring seed cracking the earth, moving into life with zest, zeal, and verve. He loves his potency and when in the form of a she, he simply enthralls.

In the Interim

While the question of how to care for squirmy American bodies is debated, it's good to remember that it's going to take time for things to sort themselves out. Some correct mechanism is in charge no matter how confusing it gets, so it will be right.

Pluto opposite Venus is pointing people in the direction of satisfying experiences, if they want them. Wholesome food and healthy pleasures can do wonders in the effort against disease. As far as cost goes, it's also a good time to study what can be done in a personal way.

A physician wrote a letter to my paper about a fellow without insurance who came to him with a boil that needed lancing. The Doc did the job and charged him $60. He told us that had the patient used insurance, the cost would have been $1200.

People might not be aware of the fact that every doctor, hospital, and situation is unique. If you are uninsured you can bargain with them, reducing the prices dramatically, especially the hospitals. Some people are timid about doing this but thousands of dollars can be saved. I was astonished to read the fractions that people ended up with when they made the effort. You have to do the work going through the bills item by item, but it's worth it, and you'd be amazed by the number of mistakes you might find. It's a big boost in solving the problem and the psychological effect results in a vastly improved relationship with the system. I highly recommend this form of creative financing.

Promise and the Gun

The American Dream

It's worth taking time to study this proposed health care reform before being trapped. I don't know where it's headed, but there are serious implications regarding your body and your money. It's important to pay attention to some details, if not for yourself, at least for your children and their children.

"So, it looks like no specific penalties are outlined in the bill, but the 2.5% is designed as a tax and so would fall under IRS rules for non-compliance.

The Republicans are crowing about this but the Democrats seem to have made a "Stupak class" blunder by not shielding people from serious penalties as was done in the Senate.

Letter from Joint Committee on Taxation describing IRS code Sec. 7201 & 7203

I just talked to committee staff and got a confirmation that the letter above is indeed from the committee.
There are, no doubt, many hidden surprises in this bill as well as the odious abortion provisions. The real surprise will come when the rates are announced for those not currently covered."
Michael Collins: from The Agonist

Pluto in Capricorn is really moving in. People would not be buying insurance under this law and would be pressed to avoid filing tax returns for fear of discovery. The penalty is unaffordable for many. Disaster is a possibility but some of you are familiar with Pluto. Can you count how much you would pay for chasing these people over and above your outrageous premiums?
Does the government pursue the plutocratic tax evaders? Is it suddenly going to transform into an ethical being? Taxation would be fine if good care were involved, but left to the insurance companies I have some doubts. I have yet to see how this is going to take care of the health of the American people. Karmic debts need to be paid, however, as well as insurance premiums.

This is taxation without representation once again. Or more accurately, taxation by our representatives. And for nothing. If the money could be collected it might help, but the cost of doing that would erase the gains. The only health reform that's viable is major reduction of costs, and that isn't being addressed, not with profit as the prime motivator. The forced bondage will cause people to avoid treatment altogether, thus negating the gains made by subsidizing some of the uninsured. And how hard will acquiring these subsidies be? I hate to guess. It's a Gordian knot. There's a better way to care for people.
So do the people allow the iron fist to close in further or can they start nipping now? Fate will tell, I suppose.

"Women be Wise," the title of the old blues song goes. I'd add men. I would hazard a wild guess that 250 years account for something. But I'm often wrong.

It's Official

It's Arts Week in Denver and the town is buzzing with creative events. Just in time with Saturn newly in Libra squaring the Capricorn business establishment. The city has Venus at 29 Sagittarius square Neptune at 29 Pisces so the place almost overflows with galleries, studios, theaters, and beautifully kept parks. The arts districts started with First Friday artwalks, then added third Fridays, then second, and now they're just artfully employed all the time. Personal studios grow like mushrooms.

Recently I was walking in one of my favorite neighborhoods when I got stopped in my tracks. I had wandered into some gorgeous music wafting from an Indian restaurant, quiet on a Sunday night. After I listened for awhile, I crossed the street and encountered more delectable sounds spilling from Chipotle. I rounded the corner and from inside Starbuck's, Frank Sinatra was singing One For My Baby, a song I love. Then came an old gospel tune, Peace in the Valley. I absorbed it all and started to think, "Is it just Venus in Libra or is it a coming trend?"

The next night I went downtown and the same thing happened. More exquisite music, including classical sounds in front of MacDonald's.
But last weekend topped it all. In the heart of the city on the pedestrian mall, workers were peacefully hand wrapping the trees in little gold and silver lights, while people sauntered by and pedicabs quietly wheeled through. It was wild to look up and see simian type creatures in the trees at night, even though they say now that we really haven't descended from the great apes. They looked comfortable.

Libra oversees this graceful part of experience and it would be wonderful if the arts took a swing upward and beauty in general increased in the marketplace. Libra-Capricorn creates the potential for that arrangement, and my town does have her moon in elegant Capricorn. I will contribute my share. Saturn is on my Mars in Libra after all square my own Capricorn Midheaven.

The Democrats Have Been Slipped a Mickey

Fair is Fair
Saturn in Libra

As paradise purged completely of Republicans fritters away before glazed Democratic eyes, reality is rearing its interesting head. They're not doing so good. There does seem to be a basic plus-minus balance as Saturn in Libra likes to point out seeking its goal of neutrality.

They actually seemed to believe that the ancient Republican Party was dead, never to be resurrected, while the dashing newcomer led the Good Party into permanent dominance, locking the miscreants into humiliation and imprisonment, unfortunately with progressively mounting glee.

Circumstance is proving otherwise. The intelligence of the system is always at work, no matter how dull humans pretend to be sometimes.

It's inconceivable to me how anyone with even a morsel of intelligence could actually believe that one-half of their fellow countrypeople would be left out of decision-making. Or that they'd really want that. What good does hating half the country do? Just in case a decision really has to be made, Libra notwithstanding.

The truth is, Pluto in Capricorn means restriction. The broad government programs of the Depression can't be created this time along with the staggering expense of two losing wars. The Democrats' high hopes of bailing out the system won't work. The lessons of restraint have to be learned and the more money is spent, the harder that education is. Increasingly, programs will have to be trimmed. The Republicans' aversion to reform and progress is also a hindrance, so neither party is well positioned to succeed currently. They're without a bubble.

I developed an unusual habit recently ... listening to conservative talk radio (not the sick and famous), along with a particular local nonpartisan show that's quite revealing. Ordinary people. I want to know what they're thinking, and it's surprising.

The right used to complain about liberals furiously, but their attention is turning elsewhere, although still concerned about socialism. The common Republicans are mostly talking about government spending and trying to figure out what to do. But then the moderates have always done that. I don't think they see Obama as important. They don't express much hatred, not even the more conservative.
The federal government in general as it stands now is not trusted. The issue that has united collective thinking is the bank bailouts. People of both parties are angry about the dominance of big business from what I hear them say.

The block politicians are after is the Independent one and it's growing. Republicans tell me they used to be "that way" but now they don't know. It coordinates with the Uranus in Aries years ahead when solutions to fit individual problems will be the ones pursued, breaking out of preordained patterns and shifting the puzzle parts in new directions. The 2010 elections are going to be very interesting as things get unpredictable and alignments get out of whack. Or in.

So I think the failure of both parties is a good thing as balance swings in to keep the group from passing out in delirium. The mickey will wear off so Democrats can come to their senses and face the fact that they aren't the ones to fix it quick and keep their omnipotence intact. They're getting knocked about like the Republicans did, while the people scratch their heads and wonder who's going to take care of business. It might very well take an interesting twist in the next few years as the elected ones get used to the changing reality and the partisan breakdown.

Now is a time voters are feeling the urge to disengage from rigid programmed loyalties, with the help of Uranus breaking boundaries in every direction with more to come. They're moving toward policy and maybe less personality attachment, Uranus being unsentimental

Maybe the next Jupiter-Neptune conjunction coupled with the wild Sagittarius season will, in time, lead to a reality potion to replace the mickey the overworked Democrats unwittingly swallowed. Soaring hopes might increase again, but a reasonable amount of that intoxicant would work well as the bread of reality gets a taste, and both political parties accept their limitations.

Where's Daddy?

Out in the workshop? Upstairs? At work? Killing people in a faraway desert? In Ithaca? Who's going to take care of me?

Within the mind bending, body wrenching whirls of the Hellthcare storm are some perplexing puzzles. All year the south node transiting Cancer is around to remind people of the problem of insecurity. Interesting that last Thursday, in the throes of the commotion, the node hit USA Mercury starting its journey across the four needy planets. Pluto is coming in from the other end, and Daddy waits opposite to see how the family fares.

Could it be that the government won't be there for the ordinary as hoped? The tendency might be to perceive the authorities as enemies, but that's also an exaggeration, and chancy, considering that one needs a ruling body.

Is the government trying to help or hurt its charges? Certainly Thursday made the confusion of that question apparent. I think people might not ever figure that out, and so, could ideally be more self reliant. A by-pass at zero cost.

But alternatively.....

Maybe the force of the system pulling people in would influence them to have more stake in fixing it. Pluto in Capricorn is bound to put the squeeze on and could conceivably create a more interested populace, should they get stuck. It could work many ways.

The ruling elites do take care of countless details that allow the ever hungry masses to survive in their large aggregates, unable to suck out their own oil or cut down their trees for dwellings anymore. Their food must be wrapped in plastic and labeled with colorful machine manufactured pictures. Their bodies require automobiles. The governments takes care of shipping most of their goods -- tea from China, cocktail umbrellas from Taiwan, elephant tusks from Africa -- all life's necessities. They pave their roads and mastermind their wars. People depend on them and trust is required to avoid the insanity of terror. All of it hums along until something strikes. Now that economic hard times have arrived, people are naturally worried about how they'll be cared for.

Who's responsible for whom? It seems like parents should be the ones since they made us, but they pass off the job to the authorities, who often are derelict in their fatherly duties. Do they care? Should they?

With whom do we sign the contract that says we'll be seen safely from our births to our deaths? Is it signed in blood or will a peacock's quill dipped in turquoise ink do the job?

Due to the limitations of my artist's budget along with my dislike of the medical industry, I work with my body as it heals itself, and I create and maintain the conditions for it to do that the best I can. I think often about the large task of care-taking, and the necessity of assuming that job myself when life requires it. And the freedom that approach provides. It's interesting how circumstance will bend to that arrangement. Will is plastic, I think.

But who can tell? Maybe the government will kick in and be a good parent. With four planets in Cancer the country could use one. Maybe Pluto in Capricorn has one.

Enter Uranus in Aries.

The puzzle of where Father is always baffles, but some answers might pop up while Pluto, the researcher, goes into the authorities' territory (Capricorn) with ruling Saturn about, and then the biggest Daddy of them all comes in sideways .... Uranus. The daddy of the heavens, and not known for possessing a sympathetic nature. That's a lot of daddy.

At 0 Capricorn, the commoners are being slapped into submission. It can be rough. But the system will eventually get down and get it too. It wants it. Whatever trouble comes riding in would enter anyway, so it really doesn't matter who does what to whom, although a pound of flesh to the pending care-takers of our bodies is pricey. It's no one's fault, deals are two-sided, or more, but raging at the system is sometimes helpful. Standing up to the $^%#F967! It's natural to get mad at a bad dad. If you can locate him.