Pluto fallout
Wall Street Journal - August 25, 2006
Pluto’s Demotion Divides Astrologers, Troubles Scorpios
The Minor-Planet Faction Takes the News in Stride; Astrolabe Adjusts Charts
By JANE SPENCER
The ruling by the world’s top astronomers to boot Pluto from the
planet category is sending shock waves through another set of
dedicated stargazers: the world of astrologers, who are already
mulling how this turn of events will affect our moods, our lucky
numbers and our chances of getting a date on Saturday night.
For weeks, astrologers have been buzzing about the proposal approved
yesterday at the International Astronomical Union general assembly in
Prague that will recast the map of the solar system for the first
time since 1930. After days of impassioned debate, the astronomers
voted to demote Pluto, the smallest of the nine planets, to a new
class of solar-system bodies called dwarf planets.
Astrologers believe that the positions of the moon, sun and stars
affect human affairs and that people born under the 12 signs of the
Zodiac tend to pick up qualities of the planets associated with those
signs. Some astrologers, including leaders of the American Federation
of Astrologers and the Astrological Association of Great Britain, are
standing firmly by Pluto. They say they will continue to regard the
icy orb as a full-blown planet with a powerful pull on our psyche,
despite the astronomers’ decision.
“Whether he’s a planet, an asteroid, or a radioactive matzo ball,
Pluto has proven himself worthy of a permanent place in all
horoscopes,” says Shelley Ackerman, columnist for the spirituality
Web site Beliefnet.com. Ms. Ackerman criticized the IAU for not
including astrologers in its decision.
Others warned that Scorpios — people born between Oct. 23 and Nov.
21 — should be especially cautious in the coming days because the
sign is closely associated with Pluto.
“Scorpios can be extremely explosive, and very direct, and this could
be the trigger that makes them explode,” says Milton Black, an
Australian astrologer who claims to have more than 580,000 clients.
Laura Bush, Hillary Clinton and Condoleezza Rice, take note. All
three are Scorpios.
THE NUMBERS GUY
How a group of astronomers decided that diorama you built in grade
school has one too many planets.
Yesterday’s ruling in Prague brought good news to some. The
astronomers indicated that several planet-like bodies — including
the asteroid Ceres and the newly discovered UB313, sometimes known as
Xena — will also be classified as dwarf planets. That has generated
excitement among a small group of practitioners known as “minor-
planet astrologers” who have long contended that outer-lying
asteroids and ice balls exert a powerful tug on our psychological
makeup. Some astrologers believe that officially introducing new
dwarf planets to the charts might give astrologers additional
information about people, by providing more planetary bodies and
forces to study in the charts.
“This is a moment that I’ve been waiting for a long time,” says Eric
Francis, a minor-planet astrologer who edits the Web site
Planetwaves.net. “People are finally talking about Charon.” Charon is
Pluto’s largest moon, which astronomers briefly considered granting
official planet status at the IAU meeting.
Mr. Francis and many other minor-planet enthusiasts are interested in
raising awareness about Charon and the new dwarf planets, Ceres and
UB313, in part because they consider them female planets that would
symbolize a rush of new maternal energy into the cosmos.
“Most of our clients are women, and we need stories women can relate
to,” says Mr. Francis. (A planet’s sex is determined largely by the
name given to it by astronomers.)
StarIQ.com astrologer Michael Wolfstar suggests that the asteroid
Ceres is a humanitarian, compassionate force “associated with relief
operations, the food industry, and parent-child relationships.”
According to the site, she is currently pushing for “the return of
refugees to southern Lebanon” and “reforms in the organic-milk
industry.”
Even before the vote, some astrology Web sites were welcoming the
potential new arrivals to the planetary fold and buzzing about how
they might affect current world events, including the future of
JonBenet Ramsey murder suspect John Mark Karr. “As Ceres goes on to
oppose realistic Saturn, the astrologer might reasonably expect that
the DNA evidence won’t match,” wrote Mr. Wolfstar earlier this week.
Mr. Wolfstar says Ceres’s association with the parent-child
relationship connects her to the Ramsey case. At the time of Mr.
Karr’s arrest, Ceres was opposing Neptune, a planet involved with
imagination and fantasy. Mr. Wolfstar says that opposition may imply
that the confession wasn’t reliable.
The IAU decision had less impact on some older branches of astrology
that already ignore the influence of more recently discovered
planets, such as Uranus (discovered in 1781) and Neptune (discovered
in 1846). In the Indian tradition of Vedic astrology, for example,
astrologers generally use only the first five planets. A small group
of classical astrologers in the West use only the first seven. Modern
astrologers, who account for an estimated 90% of American
practitioners, have long worked with a nine-planet system.
This is also not the first time a new discovery has rocked the
astrology world. In 1977, astronomer Charles Kowal discovered Chiron,
a comet located between Saturn and Uranus. Some astrologers welcomed
Chiron into the planetary fold, and many still use it today.
Companies that make chart-reading software for astrologers currently
are adjusting their products to include more information on dwarf
planets. Astrolabe, an astrology software company in Brewster, Mass.,
released a software patch this week for users that provides
additional information on the asteroid Ceres.
“As soon as the orbital elements are released, we can incorporate new
asteroids into the software,” says Madalyn Hillis-Dineen, marketing
director for the company. But, she adds, the company isn’t about to
turn its back on Pluto.
Horoscope columnists are wrestling with whether to incorporate the
new crop of dwarf planets into their chart readings. Michael Lutin,
columnist for Vanity Fair, says he will consider the newcomers. But
he notes that they aren’t likely to have massive impact on our
personal lives because of their location at the outer reaches of the
solar system: “UB313 is never going to tell you whether Wednesday is
good for romance.”
September 16th, 2006 at 2:18 pm
Dr. Condoleezza Rice entered the room wearing only a red satin bra and panties. On her feet wasa pair of black stiletto sandles. I immediately drop to my knees and began to grovel at herfeet.” I love you Condi ” , I whimper. While kissing her toes. I caught her musty scent mixed with Aimez Moi perfume by Caron. I become aroused . I attempt to run my hand up the back of her calf. but Condi instructed me to go to the black leather couch. Condi sat down and I laid face down across her lap andshe began to spank me. At first the slaps were light but after a few moments they came harder and more rhythmic . Her fingers left red welts in my pasty white ass. After a few minutes my ass checks became sore and I began to anticipate the slap before it came. The pain was becoming unbearable and Condi was showing no signs of letting up, she was clearly enjoying inflicting this pain on me. In her slapping frenzy her long red finger nails removed bits of skin from the inside of my ass cheeks making the pain exquisite. About three minutes later the slaps began to waver, clearly Condi’s right arm was getting tired. It was good for me as the pain was becoming almost unbearable . Now my ass cheeks felt red hot and although I felt like crying out, I did not. I could not let Condi see my pain . If she sensed I was in agony this would provoke her to hit me harder and I couldn’t take much more . Shortly after that the spanking stopped altogether, she was exhausted . I looked over my shoulder to see her beautiful black skin covered with sweat and could hear her heavy breathing. I became aroused even further. I sat up and we embraced. I kissed her forehead and could taste the saltiness of her skin. I repeated again ” I love you so much Condi “. We then traded positions , now it was my turn to spank her. “Condi lowered her panties and lay across my lap.”Condi ” I said, “you have been a very bad girl and now I’m going to give that sweetass a properspanking.” I feel Condi’s wetness on my legs. Now she is aroused