LIVE, from the House of Reps, It’s Saturday Night!!
Health Care Reform Passes with 220-215 Vote
Saturn Square Pluto and the Texas Massacre;
Killeen, Texas: What’s in a Name?

By Shelley L. Ackerman © 2009

SHELLEY ACKERMAN
Photo: Rich Press

Mars in Leo Rising in the 12th House, Venus in Scorpio as Health Care Bill Passes House

Nancy Pelosi

It was 11:07 pm on Saturday night, Nov 7th when the 218 votes needed came in, but the gavel wasn’t dropped until 11:15 pm by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

219 democrats voted “yay,” 39 voted “nay” and the stodgy and heartless GOP banded together against the bill but for one lone brave republican congressman from the 2nd district in Louisiana who broke rank and voted his conscience:

Joseph Cao

My new hero is Vietnamese-born Ahn ‘Joseph’ Cao who fled Saigon as an eight year old when the city fell in 1975. Cao was born on March 13, 1967. Transiting Uranus is on his Sun now. God bless him. He is worthy of all of the attention he is about to receive.

The 1990 page bill has a way to go: it must be passed by the Senate and signed into law. I am still unclear as to what “affordable” means, at least there is a public option and one thing is for sure: No American will be denied coverage based on a pre-existing condition. And until this bill is in fact signed into law, I stand by my belief that ALL members of the HOUSE and SENATE as well as ALL governors, mayors, and high-level US Govt. officials should forfeit THEIR health coverage until ALL Americans are insured!!

From her "Capitalist' column on Politico.com, Patricia Murphy offered the 3962 bill's overview:

The $1.3 trillion-dollar bill would require individuals to buy health insurance, and would also require medium and large businesses to provide it to their employees. Consumers would be able to buy their insurance on an exchange, which would include a public insurance option for people who do not have access to insurance through their jobs. Low- and middle-income families would receive government subsidies to purchase insurance, which would be be paid for through tax increases on individuals making more than $500,000 per year, as well as fees on medical providers. Finally, the bill would prohibit insurance companies from dropping or denying coverage based on pre-existing conditions or cost of care.

Committed to seeing his baby through, President Obama appeared in the House on Saturday to urge on-the-fence democrats to do the right thing and vote to make insurance available to an additional 36 million Americans. And though the 220-215 vote on Saturday night was euphoric (for me), it was bittersweet: The Stupak Bill, passed an hour or so earlier, prohibits gov’t subsidy of abortions. It was a necessary concession I suppose.

How can the GOP sleep at night?

Let us not lose sight of the fact that 44% of members of the House are millionaires compared to 1% of general population, and here’s another sobering number to contemplate: Contrary to the 10% figures quoted, the broader measure of US unemployment is at 17.5%.

Venus in Secretive Scorpio

If it were visible to the naked eye, the celestial symbolism this week is so complex and so thick you could cut it with a knife! The trio of the Sun, Mercury, and Venus in Scorpio, may create an ambiance of intrigue and a feeling of being placed in a Hitchcock plot with directions to face our deepest demons-or else!

Saturn entered Libra on October 29th, and since the sign of the scales is ruled by Venus, Saturn’s influence is closely linked to Venus’ clandestine moves in Scorpio through December 1st.

Quoting what Bette Davis (an Aries with Scorpio rising) said about old age, the 8th sign of the zodiac “ain’t for sissies”. And whether you have any planets in Scorpio or not, we all have Scorpio somewhere in our horoscope, and we all have an 8th house.

The sign of Scorpio is widely feared and deeply misunderstood: Granted, there’s nothing easy or comfy about death, rebirth, resurrection, and fate. But the fact that the fixed water sign ‘rules’ buried treasure, renewable energy, shared resources and hidden power cannot be denied. Neither can the crazy contradiction that Scorpio is where we ultimately harness the fullness of our being and our power by surrendering to that which we cannot control.

Fort Hood, Killeen, Texas: What’s in a Name?
Guns Rule in Lone Star State, Home of the NRA

Killeen, TX

Well, that didn’t take long.

Within a week of Saturn’s entrance into Libra and within a degree of a perfect square to Pluto (exact for the first time on Nov 15 in this 10 month sequence), we’ve already had a display of the worst of that square: All that was needed was a distraught army psychiatrist who wanted out (but was not listened to), an army base in a town named “Killeen”, (the powers that be must consider renaming that place, as all words and names carry a vibration and a destiny), and the rest is now history.

As more on the horrific Nov 5th mass shooting emerges, details about Fort Hood, Killeen, Texas’s bloody history of violent outbursts didn’t surprise me one bit:

Beginning with the killing of 23 in a cafeteria in Fort Hood (by a 35 year-old civilian driver of a pick-up truck) in October 1991, and incidents in September 2008 and July 2009, Thursday’s massacre was by no means a ‘first’.

Astrologically, it was the first major manifestation of the 2009/10 explosive Saturn/Pluto energy that will characterize the next 10 months or so.

Whenever the planetary ‘power-brokers’ Saturn and Pluto are in hard aspect to one other (as they were in 1993 at the time of the WACO, Texas travesty, and on 9-11-2001), explosive energy abounds.

The alleged gunman, an army psychiatrist named Nidal Malik Hasan did ask for help. He wanted to repay the US Army for his years of training and get out of the military all together (Check out “When Soldiers Minds Snap” by Erica Goode). After giving away his earthly possessions to friends and neighbors on the morning, and with guns in both hands, he shouted “Allahu Akbar” which in Arabic means “God is great” as he began shooting at everyone in sight on Thurs. Nov 5, 2009 @ 1:30 pm CST. “Allahu Akbar” were the very words uttered by the relief pilot of Egypt Air Flight 990 when he deliberately crashed the plane into the icy Nantucket waters killing all 217 on board on October 31, 1999, 10 years and one week before this latest incident in Texas.

Major Hasan

Ironically, Major Nidal Malik Hasan graduated from Virginia Tech in 1997, the scene of the April 16, 2008 massacre perpetrated by Seung-Hui Cho. On ZabaSearch, Hasan’s listed Virginia address (in Vinton, VA) was 666 Ramada Road.

Reports say that the 39 year old Hasan was born September 8, 1970 in Virginia of Jordanian parents. Perhaps a birth time will come forth and when we know his midheaven or ascendant a sensitive early cardinal degree (or midpoint), that was triggered by the Saturn/Pluto square, will be visible. He had been complaining about his upcoming deployment to Afghanistan. Other signals of his political/religious ‘conflicts’ were picked up by the FBI but not responded to in any concrete way that we know of.

I asked Eric Francis of planetwaves.net about why he thought President Obama is still (publicly) planning to escalate in Afghanistan when thinking people know that he knows better. Francis replied: “I think he’s struggling with the decision..The president is usually wholly owned by the military industrial complex. Kennedy went against the joint chiefs and look where it got him. So he has to be sly. Also, he did promise to escalate Afghanistan when a candidate. I voted for him knowing that. This being said, in order for Obama to get out of these wars, there has to be a wide public consensus, which will go a long way toward protecting him.”

KarmicRelief® on BlogTalk Radio:
Off to a Good Start

We’re off and running, on blogtalkradio that is. And though I haven’t yet settled on a weekly date and time (I will shortly), please check out these two archived shows:

Monday’s debut show with astrology’s star blogger Elsa Panizzon and UK astrologer Debbie Frank who is in the process of moving to NYC. And Friday, Nov 6th’s show with guest Madalyn Hillis-Dineen, astrologer extraordinaire and chair of the NCGR.

And we wish to especially thank About.com astrologer Molly Hall for her generous shout out for our new blogtalkradio show.

Please watch for our announcements regarding showtimes and guests.

Art D'Lugoff

Another Fond Farewell

This time, we say goodbye to Art D’Lugoff, beloved Village Gate Empresario, and a true New York great. I sang there at age 17 when I was just beginning to make the rounds. I had a lovely conversation with his daughter Sharon a couple of years ago when I ran into her with Jim Rado late one night on East 12th Street outside of Angelica. I send her and the family my sincerest condolences.

Charles Pierce

The Village Gate was home to “Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris” (I starred in the 20th anniversary production in 1988), and the spot where my dear late friend Charles Pierce had a tremendous amount of success. The former hot spot now sits above a CVS pharmacy.

Chart: Venus in Scorpio
Click for larger view

Bonus: 2009 Astro Crib Sheet

Weekly Horoscope: