Challenges to Trump: what do the stars foretell? - by "Twilight"

Sackerson has suggested that I contribute a post which might "test" astrology, perhaps in relation to remarks of J.H. Kunstler in a piece here http://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/he-is-risen-but-for-how-long/ :

"If the first forty-eight hours are any measure of the alleged Trumptopia-to-come, the leading man in this national melodrama appears to be meshuga. A more charitable view might be that his behavior does not comport with the job description: president. If he keeps it up, I stick to my call that we will see him removed by extraordinary action within a few months. It might be a lawful continuity-of-government procedure according to the 25th Amendment — various high officials declaring him “incapacitated” — or it might be a straight-up old school coup d’état (“You’re fired”).

"I believe the trigger for that may be an overwhelming financial crisis in the early second quarter of the year."

DONALD TRUMP was born in Jamaica, Queens, New York on 14 June 1946 at 10.54 AM. Below is his natal chart.

Donald Trump's natal chart, by "Twilight" 

A brief run-down of personality characteristics indicated by his natal chart:

Positions of Sun, Moon and rising sign (sign coming over horizon at exact time of birth) are the "big three" items thought by astrologers to reflect most clearly in the native's personality. Trump's Sun (core self) in Gemini - the most communicative and one of the most flexible signs of the zodiac, perhaps reflects his love of Tweeting and generally making his opinions widely known. Conjunct (within a few degrees of) his Sun is Uranus, planet known for the unexpected, eccentricity, and change.

Trump's Moon (inner self) was in Sagittarius, sign known for exaggeration, expansiveness, publication, among other things. That's a good fit!

Rising sign was Leo, and at 29 degrees where we also find Royal Fixed Star Regulus. This is the part of his chart that first impressed me as a sign that, though my brain was telling me he couldn't, and wouldn't ever be President of the USA - he darn well could be and would have leadership essentials to be such, according to his chart. I pushed the thought away, deciding that this could be simply a reflection of successes he had already realised. I should mention here that Mars sits just 3 degrees from his rising degree, and Mars reflects dynamism and aggressive tendencies.

So, we have Gemini, Sagittarius and Leo - I'm keeping this down to absolute basics, these three are underpinnings to his personality: communication, over-expansiveness, leadership potential.

There's something more to mention to fill out the picture: Mercury, Saturn and Venus are all in Cancer.

Cancer has a very different flavour from the signs already mentioned. Cancer (symbol is the crab) is, first and foremost ultra-sensitive; also home and family loving, tends to withdraw when threatened. We've seen Trump's sensitivity to criticism many times. He draws on that natal Mars on his ascendant sign, combined with Gemini Sun's communication skills, exaggerated by Sagittarius Moon, to produce his frequent counter-punches when attacked. Deep inside, though, he will be feeling genuinely hurt. He will, I'm confident in saying, be a quite, quite different guy at home surrounded by family, than the one he presents to his voters and opponents.

There's lots more in the chart, via aspects and cycles, but the above elements are key.

Since 1946, the year Trump was born, the planets have been moving along in their respective orbits at varying speeds; faster moving planets will have frequently joined Trump's natal planets - this isn't particularly significant; but the slower-moving outer planets, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto when they, in course of their transits, meet up with a Trump natal planet, they sit close to it for much longer periods, and that is what needs to be noted if a prediction of near future events is required.

In this case Saturn, Uranus and Pluto are going to be the planetary transits most involved.

Saturn, planet of restriction and limitation, in its transit, was exactly conjunct Trump's natal Moon from late December 2016 to early January this year, signifying some inner feelings of tension no doubt, during the time up to inauguration day. Saturn is slowly moving away now, degree by degree. However, come this summer Saturn will appear to backtrack (retrograde) and "hit" his Moon again, and from late June to October it'll be within a few degrees of his Moon again. So there's more extra tension to come. Exactly what form it will take can't be known, perhaps it's the financial crisis expected by Mr Kunstler. Will it be enough to bring on the "coup" event Mr Kunstler mentioned?

Uranus, planet of change and the unexpected, currently sits at around 20 to 21 Aries, will travel from there to the end of that sign between now and May 2018, with a retrograde motion or two. Though transiting Uranus is currently in friendly aspect (angle) to Trump's Sun and Moon, it's also in challenging angle to Venus and Saturn in Cancer - possibly a reflection of the arguments about his conflicting business and presidential interests.

Pluto is transiting the mid-to-late teens of Capricorn right now, and will until around this time next year. Pluto represents needed transformations preceded by some chaos and difficult times. While Pluto will not be conjoining any of Trump's natal planets in the near future, it will be in awkward aspect (at a significantly challenging angle) to some of them, namely Jupiter in Libra, Uranus in Gemini and later even his Sun in Gemini - at times later on this year and next year.

One doesn't need to be an astrologer to foresee what astrology is telling us - i.e. that there are tough times and challenges ahead for the new President. Whether these times will be tough enough for J.H. Kunstler's prediction to be fulfilled is another matter. Personally, I doubt it.

Another way to investigate this would be to look at the Vice-President's chart, for he would become President should any kind of "coup" occur. A very quick look - it has to be a 12 noon chart because Pence's exact time of birth isn't known.

MIKE PENCE was born on 7 June 1959 in Columbus, Indiana. Time of birth unknown. Chart set for 12 noon.

Mike Pence's  natal chart (approximation), by "Twilight"

Moon position and rising sign will not be as shown here as time of birth isn't known. Moon could have been either in late Gemini or early Cancer - impossible to guess which. It's interesting that Trump chose a fellow-Gemini as his VP. Pence, though, is a very different Gemini-type. He doesn't have Uranus conjunct his Sun for a start, though Uranus is in a friendly angle to it, he's not averse to change, just not an innate change-maker. Pence is a very smooth communicator, as was shown during the VP's debate when his skills in that area were undeniable contrasted with Clinton's VP, Tim Kaine's bluster.

Pluto will be (and has already been) at a similarly challenging angle to Pence's Sun , 16 Gemini and to his Mercury (planet of communication) at 21 Gemini as to Trump's Sun and Uranus. They'll both be dealing with multiple challenges from "We the People" as well as their peers in congress . What affects one will affect t'other, whether in dealing with every day difficulties, or, I guess, even via one taking over the position of the other.

But, in general, from the information here, I do not see any clear indication of future significant change of actual career status or position for Mike Pence.

________________________________________________
Sackerson comments: "Faites vos jeux, Mesdames et Messieurs." Let us see how the chips fall. 

Many thanks to Twilight, whose blog can be found here: http://twilightstarsong.blogspot.co.uk/

"Burns Nicht", by JD

So now you want to try the national dish of Haggis?
This is how to make it-

Haggis Ingredients:

1 sheep's stomach bag
1 sheep's pluck - liver, lungs and heart
3 onions
8 ounces of beef Suet
4 ounces of oatmeal
salt and black pepper
about 10 tablespoons of stock/gravy (quarter of a pint approx)

1. Clean the stomach bag thoroughly and soak overnight. In the morning turn it inside out.
2. Wash the pluck and boil for 1.5 hours, ensuring the windpipe hangs over the pot allowing drainage of the impurities.
3. Mince the heart and lungs and grate half the liver.
4. Chop up the onions and suet.
5. Warm the oatmeal in the oven.
6. Mix all the above together and season with the salt and pepper.
7. Pour over enough of the pluck boiled water to make the mixture watery.
8. Fill the bag with the mixture until it's half full.
9. Press out the air and sew the bag up.
10. Boil for 3 hours (you may need to prick the bag with a wee needle if it looks like blowing up!) without the lid on.
11. Serve with neeps and tatties. (neeps = turnips)

If that has put you off then take refuge in a wee dram. I would recommend Ardbeg or Cardhu among the malt whiskies and the best blended whiskies are The Antiquary or Cream Of The Barley!
Slàinte mhath!

Burns wrote many love songs and none finer than 'Ae Fond Kiss'. This is a beautiful version by Eddi Reader. In her introduction she mentions 'Nancy' who was Agnes Craig for whom the song was written-
http://robertburns.org/encyclopedia/MLehoseAgnesCraigClarinda1759-1841.555.shtml

The Ladies Of Jazz, by Wiggia

I always for non-too-obvious reasons thought that the singing of the ladies in the jazz era outshone the equivalent male; maybe it was simply that there were more of them, certainly the big band era had a whole bevy of great singers fronting these bands and many were launched into their solo careers after many years of “learning the ropes” in front of some great musicians and bandleaders.

Ella was of course the stand out performer and it is easy to forget she started recording in 1935 first with Chick Webb Orchestra and in the same year Billie Holiday with Teddy Wilson's Orchestra , so both had been around a long time when I first heard them in the sixties.

For me Ella became such a big star her music became somewhat “as expected” in later years. Her early work is not easy to find but this example is exquisite. I vowed to only put up items with videos but with the older material it is not always possible and the later Ella works don’t have this purity.

Of course with Ella the output was enormous and several articles on her alone would not be enough to cover her work.



Billie Holiday falls into a completely different category: an appalling life of prostitution as a youngster and drugs finished her in the end but not before such from-the-heart numbers as this - the words in this number were indeed so much her.



Sarah Vaughan was always my favourite female artist. The Divine Sarah was indeed just that in her youth and the voice matched, she later had a pop interlude and a big success with Billie Eckstein and “Passing Strangers” before returning to her roots later, a lot bigger in person but having lost none of ability. This again is an earlier number with video, not the best of her catalogue but the best I could find with video; not only is she sublime in this but the diction is nigh perfect.



A lady who is often overlooked but was a huge star of the time is June Christy or “cool” Christy as she was known. She sang with one the great bands of the time, Stan Kenton and had this clean cut style she made her own. Again videos with Kenton are few and quality poor but this whilst not my favourite Christy number shows her where she was at her best fronting Kenton's Orchestra.



I have tried and will keep this short intro to the ladies of the time and will put together another item with some later additions, many of course who cross over.

But I will include this slightly off topic June Christy number for one reason that having Nat King Cole on the piano which is where he started out and Mel Torme, my favorite male singer on drums is something of a coup and shows that at the time she was a huge star, indulge me on this one.



Helen Humes was an early singer with Basie and here she is with the man and a small group, she came from a blues gospel background and much of her later work was in that context, but here she is enjoying herself.



Smooth is how I would describe Julie London and in this ‘64 rendering of Cry Me a River she certainly is. There are several versions available of this but I wanted to keep it as of the time.



I always felt that Dinah Washington was a lot better than a lot of the schmaltz and strings numbers she punched out in later life; this number she made her own though not the first to record it. I finish with another videoless offering, despite several versions of this none are ‘live’, so you will have to just suffer the glorious tones of Dinah's voice on its own.



And another non video to finish, Helen Merrill, a lady much respected at the time but not so well known now. Here she is singing with the trumpeter Clifford Brown whose own career sadly ended at the age of 25 in a car crash.



There were of course many others from this “Golden Age “ of jazz but these ladies were a big part of a wonderful era.

_____________________

Many thanks for the above piece by guest contributor Wiggia, who also posts on Nourishing Obscurity http://www.nourishingobscurity.com/about-wiggia/ and AKHaart (e.g. http://akhaart.blogspot.co.uk/2017/01/wiggia-on-wine.html)

Friday Night Is Music Night: Skye's The Limit (JD's Runrig selection)

Runrig are more or less completely unknown in England but they have been performing for more than 40 years. They are from Skye and are hugely popular in northern European countries and in the US and Canada as well as at home of course.

http://www.runrig.co.uk/

Can the poor be helped?

Last week, Jeremy Clarke recounted how he met a City trader friend who tried to help the poor:

"Ivan told me a story about a Brazilian girlfriend who took him home to a shack in the favela to meet the family... The mother, father, brother and sister were sunk in inertia, booze and daytime television. Ivan bought the brother an 18-wheel truck to start a haulage business; he paid for the sister to go to college; and he bought the father a Chevrolet. 

"One year later the haulage business was bankrupt and the truck confiscated, the sister had dropped out of college, and the Chevy was written off. All three were back boozing in front of the TV... 

"He drew no firm conclusion from his Brazilian experience and told other stories illustrating how a small piece of timely luck or support had transformed people’s lives, including his own."

Online discussions are often not very pleasant - wearing a persona tempts us to let our ignoble side off the leash - and so I suppose there will be those who laugh at the story, saying it was inevitable and let the poor stew in their own juices. But as Clarke says, even the trader drew no firm conclusion from this.

My feeling is it was just too much all at once. Windfalls - gambling wins, handouts - come and go, have no connection to our essential selves.You have to get people to grow by stretching just a bit beyond their comfort zone - what they envision as currently, realistically possible for them. It's the self-sabotaging gremlins you have to fight.



We all have that challenge, and it's very real - if JK Rowling hadn't faced down her personal "dementors" she could not have gone from sitting in an Edinburgh cafe to billionairess. [Her fiction is successful because it contains solid psychic fact - "imaginary gardens with real toads in them", as Marianne Moore said. Who can fail to recognise the wrenching longing when Harry looks in the Mirror of Erised?]

Most of us do not have to go from rags to riches. We can't all be rich anyhow - who would wash our cars?

A job would do - reasonably paid, secure, with defined hours (half the country does little or nothing now, the other half loses its life in overwork) and a sense that one is doing something useful. Comradeship at work, respect at home for your contribution.

Can it be done?

____________________
Links:

Jeremy Clarke: http://www.spectator.co.uk/2017/01/the-therapeutic-effects-of-modafinil-and-a-mob-doctor/
Dementors: http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Dementor
Marianne Moore: http://www.poetrybyheart.org.uk/poems/poetry/
The Mirror of Erised: http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Mirror_of_Erised
Adult literacy advert: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8JHeIS5Lo8

"Quantum Cubism", by JD

This recent post ended with an image of Georges Braque's painting 'Bottles and Fishes' and the conclusion - "Rather than individual historians arguing from differing standpoints, maybe modern history should be Cubist, offering many-faceted perspectives in the same composition."

That is a very astute observation and it is a viewpoint which could be applied to many other things.

A few months ago I was reading about quantum fragmentation as well as something else on consciousness and the fragmentation of memory and the quantum nature of our neural network. Can't remember exactly where I read it but it also mentioned how the visual cortex 'constructs' images from photons striking the rods and cones in the eyes etc etc (complicated thing to explain) and I had a 'light bulb' moment. I thought - that's a description of cubism! So I went searching in the almighty Google and, sure enough, others had been struck by the same idea. One of the things I found was this about the painter Jean Metzinger-

"For Metzinger, the classical vision had been an incomplete representation of real things, based on an incomplete set of laws, postulates and theorems. He believed the world was dynamic and changing in time, that it appeared different depending on the point of view of the observer. Each of these viewpoints were equally valid according to underlying symmetries inherent in nature. For inspiration, Niels Bohr, the Danish physicist and one of the principle founders of quantum mechanics, hung in his office a large painting by Metzinger, La Femme au Cheval,[7] a conspicuous early example of 'mobile perspective' implementation (also called simultaneity).[8]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Metzinger

And this is the painting-

https://www.wikiart.org/en/jean-metzinger/la-femme-au-cheval-1912

Clearly Niels Bohr had seen the connection between his own thinking on the nature of reality as described by his work in the field quantum mechanics and Metzinger's thinking on how to represent reality using the medium of paint, how to represent time and movement as well as different viewpoints all within a single painting.

It is popularly assumed cubist and abstract painting was a response to photography and how the camera could portray the world just as well as or better than painters could. But that is not true. David Hockney has suggested that the invention of photography was a logical consequence of the invention of perspective in art. "The photograph is the ultimate Renaissance picture. It is the mechanical formulation of the theories of perspective of the Renaissance."

As I have explained previously in these pages, perspective is an aberration in the history of art. Look to Chinese scroll painting or Japanese art or even the Bayeux Tapestry and at no other time in history was verisimilitude considered important for the representation of the world.

Just as scientists at the end of the 19th century were dissatisfied with the orthodox view of physics so artists at the same time were also dissatisfied with the constraints of the rigidities of perspective. In both cases, scientists and artists 'knew' the world did not conform to previously held theories.

Before cubism appeared Claude Monet was increasingly preoccupied with the depiction of light. He would paint the same subject again and again trying to catch the subtleties of light at different times of day or different times of year. Think of his many depictions of haystacks. There is a series of paintings of Rouen Cathedral hanging side by side in the Musée d'Orsay (they may have been moved since I saw them there) and the effect is impressive.

"The cathedral paintings allowed him to highlight the paradox between a seemingly permanent, solid structure and the ever-changing light which constantly plays with our perception of it."

What Monet was doing was exploring the effects of what science calls quantum electrodynamics -

"QED mathematically describes all phenomena involving electrically charged particles interacting by means of exchange of photons and represents the quantum counterpart of classical electromagnetism giving a complete account of matter and light interaction."

The study of QED has its roots, believe it or not, in the scientific investigations of two Arab philosophers - Al Kindi (801 - 873 AD) and Ibn Al Haytham (965 - 1040 AD). Their theories were examined and expanded upon by Roger Bacon (c.1219/20 – c.1292) and by Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln (c.1175 – 1253) But with the arrival of the Renaissance (and the reconquista in Spain) interest in Arabian philosophers and scientists faded and such studies were forgotten until the 20th century.

The painter who really fused science with art was Salvador Dali.

"A symposium titled ‘Culture and Science: Determinism and Freedom’, held at the Dalí Teatre- Museu in 1985 was a fitting realisation of Dalí’s contemporary Renaissance belief ‘that artists should have some notions of science in order to tread a different terrain, which is that of unity’ (quotation in response to a journalist from Le Figaro newspaper, Salvador Dalí and Science, Carme Ruiz, Dalí Study Centre, Newspaper El Punt, 18 October 2000).

Attended by scientists, including some Nobel prize winners, philosophers, artists, writers and musicians, the conference sought to explore the role of chance in nature. Dalí, too weak to attend, but fascinated by the ideas and arguments expressed, watched from a television monitor in his bedroom, He later invited some of the key speakers, including René Thom and the Nobel Laureate chemist Ilya Prigogine, to meet him personally in order to engage in further discussion.

Dalí’s level of understanding of modern science is debated, but it is clear that his deep intuition allowed him to feel totally at ease in the company of scientists whose language was a constant source of inspiration to him. When Dalí died in 1989, books by Matila Ghyka, Erwin Schrödinger and Stephen Hawking were found by his bed."

A study of his paintings reveals a subtle incorporation of scientific ideas; "The persistence of memory" with its melting watches, "Leda Atomica" and especially "Corpus Hypercubus" which he described as a four dimensional representation of the Crucifixion. Even his elaborate signature was inspired by the liquid crown visible in a stroboscopic image of a milk-drop splash photographed by engineer Harold Edgerton in 1926.

Here is one of Dali's more interesting cubist pictures which plays games with our perception -Lincoln in Dalivision: This is a lithograph based on a painting by Dali. There are two versions of the original painting, one is in the Dalí Theatre and Museum in Figueres, Spain and the other is in the permanent collection of The Salvador Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida.

http://www.artencounter.com/product/lincoln-in-dalivision-by-salvador-dali/

Recently David Hackney has been exploring similar ideas and this painting is a wonderful portrayal of spatial illusion as well as time, because of the time involved in looking at each part in relation to the whole and to other parts.

Hockney: A Walk Around the Hotel Courtyard, Acatlan, 1985 oil on 2 canvases, 72x240 in.
http://www.hockneypictures.com/works_paintings_80_09_large.php

==========================================
I have come to the reluctant conclusion that after the Renaissance, the scientific revolution begun by Robert Boyle and others, the Enlightenment, 'the age of reason', the industrial revolution, political revolutions in France the Americas and Russia and all culminating in the modern dream of artificial intelligence, it seems as though western 'civilisation' has lost its soul, has denied the existence of anything other than the material world.

Scientists delved deeper and deeper into matter looking to find the 'building blocks' of our existence and eventually found........ nothing. There are no building blocks, there is only energy. Einstein concluded that matter was nothing more than 'congealed electricity' and the Indian philosopher, Sri Aurobindo Ghose, describes the material world as being composed of 'frozen light'.

Over the past 500 years or so, all of western philosophical and scientific thought has been driven by logic and the error of that can be summed up by one of Niels Bohr's more famous quotes - "You're not thinking; you're merely being logical."

If one is only using logic, then no real thinking is taking place. Thinking requires logic along with critical analysis to form an evaluation. Or in other words, love of logic has superseded love of humanity. And AI, in particular, is an expression of the negation of humanity and a denial of the spirit within man.

It comes as no surprise then that the leading figures in sub-atomic enquiry were confounded by what they had discovered and, in order to make sense of it all they turned to to the east. Robert Oppenheimer went back to studying the Bhagavad Gita. David Bohm's book 'Wholeness and the Implicate Order' begins by looking at the differences between western and eastern ways of thinking.

This is all getting very complicated! But it is good to have our imagination teased and stretched, to continue to try to make sense of the world. And the only way to do that is to close your books (burn them as Michael Maier suggested?) and switch off all of your electronic distractions and go out and look at the world as if you had never seen it before. Look at it as being 'cubist' in appearance. See it in the way Dali 'saw' both Lincoln and his wife Gala within the same space. The fragments of reality you see depend on how you see them, whether they are close up or at a distance, in light or shade, static or moving etc. The mind must assemble and re-assemble these constantly changing fragments to come close to understanding what it is that we perceive.

To rephrase the quote at the beginning of this short essay, "Rather than individuals arguing from differing standpoints, maybe the world is Cubist, offering many-faceted perspectives in the same composition."

======================================
References:

David Hockney- http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/812376.That_s_the_Way_I_See_It

Monet; Rouen Cathedral https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rouen_Cathedral_(Monet_series)

quantum electrodynamics https://www.britannica.com/science/quantum-electrodynamics-physics

Al Kindi and Ibn Al Haytham http://grouporigin.com/clients/qatarfoundation/chapter2_4.htm

Roger Bacon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Bacon

Robert Grosseteste https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Grosseteste

the observer effect- http://www.radha-krishnaism.org/2009/12/the-observer-effect/

Dali and science https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/illusion-chasers/dali-masterpieces-inspired-by-scientific-american/

Dali and science http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/dali/salvador/resources/daliandscience.pdf

The dream of reason http://www.nourishingobscurity.com/2011/06/the-dream-of-reason/

Sri Aurobindo Ghose http://www.poetseers.org/the-poetseers/sri-aurobindo/index.html

Robert Oppenheimer and the Bhagavad-Gita https://amphilsoc.org/sites/default/files/proceedings/Hijiya.pdf

David Bohm, 'Wholeness and the Implicate Order' http://gci.org.uk/Documents/DavidBohm-WholenessAndTheImplicateOrder.pdf

Sexicographers

It's odd, but just as Western society is becoming very laid-back on sexuality, we are seeing the rise of a class of linguistic law-makers battling prejudices that are ceasing to exist.

I'd have thought that this modern nonsense started with "Ms", but Wikipedia tells us that the first proposal for this marital-status-neutral honorific goes back to 1901:

"The earliest known proposal for the modern revival of "Ms." as a title appeared in The Republican of Springfield, Massachusetts on November 10, 1901:

There is a void in the English language which, with some diffidence, we undertake to fill. Every one has been put in an embarrassing position by ignorance of the status of some woman. To call a maiden Mrs is only a shade worse than to insult a matron with the inferior title Miss. Yet it is not always easy to know the facts... 

Now, clearly, what is needed is a more comprehensive term which does homage to the sex without expressing any views as to their domestic situation, and what could be simpler or more logical than the retention of what the two doubtful terms have in common. The abbreviation "Ms" is simple, it is easy to write, and the person concerned can translate it properly according to circumstances. For oral use it might be rendered as "Mizz," which would be a close parallel to the practice long universal in many bucolic regions, where a slurred Mis' does duty for Miss and Mrs alike." 

Before then, as Shakespeare readers will know, "Mistress" ("Ms" for short) merely indicated an adult female. In an age when gays can marry and nearly half of British children are born out of wedlock, the issue is dead anyhow.

Although the Académie Française-like attempt to regulate our language is associated with the Left, this week the Archdruid says that prejudice against gays sometimes came from that side, not from the Right:

"The crusade against the “lavender menace” (I’m not making that phrase up, by the way) was one of the pet causes of the same Progressive movement responsible for winning women the right to vote and breaking up the fabulously corrupt machine politics of late nineteenth century America. Unpalatable as that fact is in today’s political terms, gay men and lesbians weren’t forced into the closet in the 1930s by the right. They were driven there by the left."

There are serious dangers in skewing the coding of our thought-processes. Words are so fundamental to the way we perceive and communicate; we don't need yahoos pissing in our mental swimming-pool. But on they will go - here is one try at gender-neutral pronouns:

HE/SHE	HIM/HER	HIS/HER	HIS/HERS	HIMSELF/HERSELF
zie	zim	zir	zis	zieself
sie	sie	hir	hirs	hirself
ey	em	eir	eirs	eirself
ve	ver	vis	vers	verself
tey	ter	tem	ters	terself
e	em	eir	eirs	emself

The above - somehow reminiscent of the dialect-poetry of William Barnes - is reproduced from the University of Wisconsin's website. I'm glad I'm not at college now. When did universities turn from the free exchange of ideas to the suppression of them? This isn't about liberation; it's about power.

Still, after the ant-lion comes the ant-lion wasp, and I follow Milo Yiannopoulos with interest as he explodes the intolerance of those who claim to represent tolerance; it's mischievously delicious. UC Davis in California is the latest example (and to be consistent, now I have to reconsider my intense dislike of pharmaceutical profiteer Martin Shkreli, who was also scheduled to speak).

Come to England, dear children. We have been a conquered nation for almost a thousand years, and despite many changes of axe-handle and blade the structure of exploitation and oppression remains the same - how else could we explain the deep, systematic treachery of our elite? Little wonder that we pretty much taught the world principled civil war and revolution, and those experiences taught us a lesson, too. One positive consequence for us grunts is that we have a don't-give-a-damn attitude to most attempts at whipping us into some fresh Puritan frenzy. "We don't need no re-education," to misquote the [college-educated] boys of Pink Floyd.

Thirty-some years ago, a teaching colleague met one of her ex-pupils, a burly lad who had decided to "come out" and made, she said, a most peculiar-looking woman (though of course he was not attempting impersonation). She wished him well, calling him by his name, Bill, to which he replied, "Billette, if you don't mind." Very sweet; so polite.

And no problems with assertion there.