“About astrology and palmistry: they are good because they make people vivid and full of possibilities. They are communism at its best. Everybody has a birthday and almost everybody has a palm.”

 

 – Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

 

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EDMUND: This is the excellent foppery of the world,
that, when we are sick in fortune, — often the surfeit
of our own behavior, — we make guilty of our disasters
the sun, the moon, and the stars: as if we were villains by
necessity; fools by heavenly compulsion; knaves,
thieves, and treachers, by spherical predominance;
drunkards, liars, and adulterers, by an enforced obedi-
ence of planetary influence; and all that we are evil in,
by a divine thrusting on: an admirable evasion of
whoremaster man, to lay his goatish disposition to
the charge of a star! My father compounded with my
mother under the dragon’s tail; and my nativity
was under Ursa major; so that it follows, I am rough
and lecherous. Tut, I should have been that I am,
had the maidenliest star in the firmament twinkled
on my bastardizing.

 

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“A physician without a knowledge of Astrology has no right to call himself a physician” – Hippocrates

 

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A reader sends in “12 succinct descriptors for different astrological signs”:

 

1. Aries: wannabe
2. Taurus: loose
3. Gemini: moody airhead
4. Cancer: agoraphobia
5. Leo: narcissist
6. Virgo: obsessive-compulsive
7. Libra: needy
8. Scorpio: jerk
9. Sagittarius: dilettante
10. Capricorn: workaholic doormat
11. Aquarius: hippie
12. Pisces: navel gazer

 

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“We are born at a given moment, in a given place and, like vintage years of wine, we have the qualities of the year and of the season of which we are born. Astrology does not lay claim to anything more.” – Carl Gustav Jung

 

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Sex and Astrology (1971)

 

Zodiac America: The Super Master, released in the US as Zombie vs. Ninja (1987)

 

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“Superstition is to religion what astrology is to astronomy: the mad daughter of a wise mother.” – Voltaire

 

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Astrology Chick demonstrates her wide pointy end

 

Dave Gorman follows his horoscope for 40 days and nights
http://youtube.com/watch?v=EzBYUnSi7eU

 

An exhausting insight into Astrology narrated by Christopher Lee
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6911117032737200933&q=astrology

 

Zodiac Trailer
http://youtube.com/watch?v=xJTC8iMQBGw

 

Scary photo montage of the Zodiac killer
http://youtube.com/watch?v=ttyUPtEagjM

 

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E-Verse Radio Invaluable Facts of the Week, courtesy of AstrologyAlive.com:

 

A 1996 Roper-Starch worldwide survey reported that one out of every four adult Americans, roughly 50 Million people, believes in the efficacy of astrology — and that the fastest-growing class of believers is made up of executives and professionals.

 

Astrologia was the job title for both astronomers and astrologers until 700 AD. Astrology and astronomy were virtually the same until 300 years ago.

 

The Zodiac was originally a natural agricultural calendar that dated the sowing of crops, and all important activities, by the rising and setting of the stars (especially Sirius), and the Pleiades or other recognizable constellations.

 

Astrology came to Greece around 250 BC via the Chaldean astrologer Berosus, who opened a school of astrology on the island of Cos — also the home of the Hippocratic school of medicine. Thus, there have been connections between astrology and medicine since ancient times. Hippocrates, the “Father of Modern Medicine,” advised that no physician be allowed to practice before he had studied the moon, stars, and planets.

 

The Greeks believed in a rational and structured universe, a cosmos (the Greek word for “order”). And since order and beauty were nearly synonymous to the Greek mind, the verb formed from cosmos meant to “make beautiful” — hence our modern word “cosmetic.”

 

Newspaper daily horoscopes were created 70 years ago for the express purpose of selling newspapers: In 1930, the London Sunday Express published an astrological article on the birth of Princess Margaret. The public response was enormous, leading to a commission for astrologer R.H. Naylor to write a series. Circulation soared and newspapers in England, France, Germany, and America began publishing columns of astrological predictions.

 

Winston Churchill and the British High Command employed Louis De Wohl as a one-man astrological agency, giving him the rank of Captain. Throughout WWII De Wohl attempted to advise the High Command on the moves Hitler might make according to astrological interpretation (based on the rumor that Hitler was using Swiss astrologer, K. E. Kraft to help him plot his military strategy).

 

Sources: Jim Tester, The History of Astrology; John Anthony West & Jan G. Toonder, The Case for Astrology; Paul Katzeff, Full Moons; Derek & Julia Parker, The Compleat Astrologer; Michel Gauquelin, Written in the Stars.

 

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The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark by Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan

 

 

Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time by Michael Shermer and Steven Jay Gould:

 

 

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E-Verse News You Can Use from the Un-E-Versity of Life:

 

 

“Plain” Jane Austen covers photoshopped to be more appealing to young book buyers:

 

 

 

“Teaching evaluations have become a permanent fixture in the academic environment. These instruments, through which students express their true feelings about classes and professors, can make or break an instructor. What would students say if they had Socrates as a professor?”:

 

 

There’s the live album, the sophomore effort, the catchy first album, and then there’s . . . the Crazy Album:

 

 

“Superhero comics books, the muscles and melodrama that kids once knew and loved, are in trouble . . .”

 

 

“Out from the shadow of Crumb — Cartoonist’s wife has her own stories to sketch”:

 

 

“‘The chief glory of every people arises from its authors.’ Easy for Samuel Johnson to claim it for his age. Much harder for Susan Sontag to argue it for ours”:

 

 

“Writers can create worlds readers never want to leave. Jane Austen addicts don’t just enjoy the novels, they want to hang out in the living room with the Bennet girls”:

 

 

“High school makes former student pay 30-year-old algebra book fee”:

 

 

How to be a gentleman:

 

 

“Finn is the latest example of a burgeoning — and commercially successful — literary genre: works that appropriate minor characters from major fiction or drama and award them starring roles. For reasons both legal and historical, 19th century American fiction has seemed especially ripe for revision”:

 

 

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“Anyone can be a millionaire, but to become a billionaire you need an astrologer.” – John Pierpont Morgan

 

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Zodiac, TX

 

Fact: The first Mormon temple west of the Mississippi was built at Zodiac, Texas, about three miles from Fredericksburg.

 

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“The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable.” – John Kenneth Galbraith

 

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Band of gypsies.

 

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“I don’t believe in astrology. The only stars I can blame for my failures are those that walk about the stage.” – Noel Coward

 

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“Good episode on the Irish (I love the Freud quote). To your top five Irish exports can be added (1) professional Irishmen. These people were My Irish Grandfather’s pet hate — people whose accent, and sentimental longing for their ancient Celtic homeland, grew with every year that they happily refused to go back to the place, (2) crap pop bands; witness U2, the Cranberries, the Corrs, Westlife, and so many others that I can’t remember, and (3) Terry Wogan (although this may mean nothing to Americans).”

 

 

“Top five contemporary films dealing with the British/Irish conflict”:
 
1. The Wind that Shakes the Barley (2006, directed by the incomparable Ken Loach)
2. Hidden Agenda (1990, another Ken Loach special, starring Frances McDormand)
3. Cal (1984, starring Helen Mirren)
4. Some Mother’s Son (1996, another Helen Mirren special)
5. Love and Rage (1998, with the latest James Bond, Daniel Craig)

 

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Next week’s episode: Trees! Send in all things arboreal.

 

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