Looking at newborn Tripp Easton Mitchell Johnston’s astrological chart, all I can say is whoa–this kid is gonna be heavy and a handful. His Sun, Moon, Mercury, Mars, Jupiter and Pluto are all in Capricorn, which is his 3nd house, making him focused on communicating, with some bossiness. With Jupiter and Mercury conjunct he’ll be able to hopefully communicate ideas to make money. He needs to be careful though, as his first house indicates a vibe of drugginess–and not just from his name, though the ascendent like our name is how we present ourselves to the world.

His Moon, Sun and Mars are conjunct, making him a leader, though his masculine energy could overwhelm his sensitivity at times, making him headstrong stubborn and at times defeinsive, with an easily hurt ego that could cause him to lash out.
 

Scorpio ascendent, the first house, indicates hedonism and sultry good looks, a tendency toward sexual acting out and excesses of all sort, while Venus and Neptune in Aquarius give an unconventional outlook on sex and relationships, not always grounded in reality. With Saturn in Virgo, there could be severe restrictions in the work place and necessity to learn "how" to work. This position may also impact his ability to have long term loving relationships, making him cold or disinclined to have children.

Uranus is Pisces has a generational effect–towards rollicking good times and a devil may care attitude. In the fourth house, it shows again that relationships and home life could be unusual, especially as this planet directly opposes Saturn, causing tensions and secrets. By participating in groups inclined towards social welfare, Uranus can be brought to the forefront and help mitigate the difficulties of this aspect, while Saturn in Virgo could be energized to strive towards cleanliness and order.

Thanks to Gram Johnston’s arrest on six felony drug charges, the price of Bristol Palin’s baby pics of Tripp have trebled. Bidding for the first snaps of Tripp Easton Mitchell Johnston began at $100,000, but have rumored to have jumped in price to $300,000  when the not-born’s paternal Gram Sherry was popped last week for peddling Oxycontin, aka hillbilly heroin, to state troopers.

MSNBC reports:

“The bidding started well before the baby was born, but once Levi’s mom was arrested — well, then you had a story,” says one editor.

People magazine scored the snap-rights.  No word if the couple will donate the money to charity as is done by many celeb couples. Bristol Palin is currently living in Wasilla, completing her high-school diploma through correspondence courses, and Tripp’s daddy, Levi Johnston, is studying to become an electrician. Gram Sherry is out on $5000 bail.  Gov GILF’s office issued this chilly statement:

This office will not be issuing any statements on [Bristol's baby]. We’re here to talk about state government and that matter falls outside of that.

Oh heck: Some anagrams:

A Henchmen Joints Pill Sport Tot
A Henchmen Instill Jots Prop Tot
A Henchmen Pistils Jolt Porn Tot
A Henchmen Spirit Jolts Plot Not
A Henchmen Jilts Nostril Pop Tot
A Henchmen Jilts Pilots Porn Tot
A Henchmen Jilts Prison Plot Tot

New Mexico–one of five states that does not have laws or a constitution that defines marriage–also has no domestic partnership law. Domestic partnership bills have passed the House of Representatives three times in the past, and two years ago, the Senate came within one vote of passing the bill.

Conservative Republican Sen. Bill Sharer said in a recent legislative session he tried to craft a bill with language that

would have given couples who live together — including homosexual couples — virtually all the rights that married couples have, including hospital visits, inheritance rights and other legal and financial rights.

But Sharer’s legislation would have also defined marriage as being between a man and a woman, something which gay rights advocates protested. That bill died.

Now the Democratic chairman of the state Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Cisco McSorley, has introduced new legislation minus the definition of marriage, and is "optimistic" it will pass, telling the Santa Fe New Mexican:

It has a great chance of passing. There’s a lot of new legislators who are for it who have replaced legislators who were against it.

Sharer though sees the McSorley’s legislation as a way to open the door to civil marriage equality:

Supreme courts in California and Connecticut ruled that banning gay marriage was unconstitutional

adding that those decisions were based on domestic partnership laws, and predicting a battle over the proposed legislation. Supporters of the new bill deny trying to use domestic partnership as a gateway to civil marriage equality. Explains McSorley:

There’s lots of people in New Mexico who need, for whatever reason, to live together and share finances. This bill provides a device, virtually free, to allow couples to share financial and legal responsibilities.

And how do those affected feel about it? In an interview with the New Mexican, Linda Siegle, a lobbyist with Equality New Mexico, emphasized that McSorley’s bill is not a marriage bill, and allowing legal domestic partnership arrangements still is a "separate and unequal" situation for same-sex couples. The federal government does not recognize a domestic partner relationship as a married couple and 1130 federal rights granted married couples are denied to those in domestic partnerships.

But a domestic partnership law would be far better than the status quo.

Which right now is nothing.

Singer Annie Lennox writes on her blog:

I have to say that I feel deeply upset and affected by the recent bombings on Gaza. The Israeli army says they are justified by taking this action, in retaliation for the shelling by Hamas, but it just seems to me that this level of violence will only escalate into more horror and killings….How can it not???
It’s utterly atrocious to see people suffering like this…. A pornography of destruction.

More than 600 Palestinians have been wounded in the one day attack; 225 are dead, making the highest one-day death toll in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in decades.

[H/T Undercover]

offensive…shocking and saddening in the extreme.

Saltsman, former chair of the Tennessee Republican Party, managed Mike Huckabee’s presidential campaign. Now running for head of the Republican National Committee, Saltsman included the parody on a CD, We Hate the USA,  which was his Christmas gift to RNC members. Super-classy. 

Songs on the CD, which is receiving mixed reviews from other RNC chair candidates include “John Edwards’ Poverty Tour,” “Wright Place, Wrong Pastor,” “Love Client #9,” “Ivory and Ebony” and “The Star Spanglish Banner.” Copies have yet to appear on eBay.

Yarrow wrote in a statement sent to CNN:

It is almost unimaginable to me [that Saltsman] would seriously be considered for the top post of the Republican National Committee. Puff, himself, if asked, would certainly agree.

Michigan Republican Party Chairman Saul Anuzis certainly agrees:

In my opinion, this isn’t funny and it’s in bad taste. Just as important, anything that paints the GOP as being motivated in our criticism of President-elect Obama by anything other than a difference in philosophy does a disservice to our party. 

Yarrow–a member of the 1960s folk group Peter, Paul and Mary–contributed to Obama’s presidential campaign. A fixture of the civil rights and anti-war movements, Peter, Paul and Mary stood with Dr. Martin Luther King in Selma and performed their version of Pete Seger’s "If I Had a Hammer" during the Civil Rights March on Washington, where King delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech.

In the liner notes for their 2004 Carry It On boxed set, Coretta Scott King wrote of the trio:

Peter, Paul and Mary are not only three of the greatest folk artists ever, but also three of the performing arts’ most outstanding champions of social justice and peace. They have lent their time and talents to the Civil Rights Movement, labor struggles, and countless campaigns for human rights for decades, and their compassion and commitment remain as strong as their extraordinary artistry.

A couple weeks after the election, my Los Angeles-based credit union which serves folks in entertainment industry instituted a brand new security policy which involves answering three questions. One is was

What is your spouse’s first name?

WTF?! Millions of Californians had just lost the right to marry, while the marriages of thousands others hung in balance. Then there was the absurdity  of asking that question in a town famous for its divorces. (Maybe the question should have been "What was your first spouse’s name?" At least then I would have laughed before going "Uh, hey heterocentric bank, how many of my friends–and your clients– can’t get married today?")

Actually it could be a pretty hurtful question for the newly widowed or divorced to see as well. Even though we’re on good terms, I wouldn’t want to have to type my ex’s name anytime I need to access my online services. I mean, really!

So I called and said something to the customer representative about Prop 8 and how that question was discriminatory. She said she would speak to her manager about it, and today while checking my balance I saw the list of security questions. The spouse query had been removed.

But instead of having to force that tiny change, I wish Prop 8 hadn’t passed. 

Life is indeed a box of chocolates for Academy Award winning screenwriter Eric Roth–sometimes you get the really good ganache, and other times you can crack your tooth on a disgusting nut-filled pink fruit goo thing.

Roth, who won an Oscar in 1995 for Forrest Gump, got some great new on December 11: His screenplay for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button was nominated for a Golden Globe. A few hours later, the writer heard the worse news unimaginable–he’d lost his entire retirement savings in Bernie Madoff’s mega-Ponzi scheme. Roth told the LA Times last week:

I’m the biggest sucker who ever walked the face of the Earth. But the tragedy is the people who lost their life savings and their dreams.

Roth is one of many in Hollywood whose money became entangled in Madoff’s schemes. The LA Times reports that Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg’s Wunderkinder Foundation

both had investments with Madoff that were made on their behalf by their business manager, Gerald Breslauer, according to people familiar with the situation.

A number of long term investors wiped out by Madoff include "niche workers" in Hollywood who had placed their funds with firms who in turn funneled them to Madoff, taking a cut along the way.

The New York Post reports Roth filed suit this week against his "trusted" investment manager, Stanley Chais, alleging that

Chais collected "enormous fees" for managing hundreds of millions of dollars for his clients but "simply handed over the entirety of these funds" to Madoff’s investment firm. 

 Chais’ firm Brighton Investments is also being sued by  Michael Chaleff of Arlington, Va., who  said he and other investors had lost about $250 million on investment partnerships that Brighton placed with Madoff.  Chaleff’s attorney has filed papers to have the suit certified as a class action on behalf of all the investors who entrusted their money to Chais and Madoff.

According to the LA Times, spokesmen for the Securities and Exchange Commission and the California Department of Corporations said they could find no record of Chais–a philanthropist who had served on charitable boards with Madoff and who now describes himself as a victim of the money manager– registering as an investment advisor or a broker.  

Okay this is sorta creepy: John Lennon, who was shot and killed 28 years ago, has been resurrected to speak out for the first time since his death. And the subject: One Laptop per Child, a campaign to deliver solar-powered XO laptop computers to the world’s poorest children (no word yet whether internet accessibility will be filtered). The ad which digitally synthesized Lennon’s voice and face, was approved by Yoko Ono.

The reconstituted Lennon, whose image is seen briefly speaking, says:

Imagine every child no matter where in the world they were could access a universe of knowledge. They would have a chance to learn, to dream, to achieve anything they want. I tried to do it through my music, but now you can do it in a very different way. You can give a child a laptop and more than imagine, you can change the world .

A spinoff from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the One Laptop per Child Foundation started producing the XO laptop late last year at a manufacturing cost per machine of less than $200.  They’d like folks to donate to provide kids everywhere with a computer. Which is real nice, except potable water, food and vaccines are a more pressing concern for kids in under-developed and developing nations.

Eartha Kitt (Jan 17, 1927-December 25, 2008), who is beautifully remembered by Teddy Partridge, was blacklisted for these remarks, made in 1968 to First Lady Johnson at the White House, when asked what she thought of the Vietnam War:

You send the best of this country off to be shot and maimed. They rebel in the street. They will take pot, and they will get high. They don’t want to go to school because they’re going to be snatched off from their mothers to be shot in Vietnam . . . 

On January 20, Barack Obama will be sworn into office on Abraham Lincoln’s bible, an act fraught with much symbolism.  There’s more to Lincoln than "Civil War, freed the slaves, assassinated by John Wilkes Booth during Our American Cousin," stuff even deeper than the weird Lincoln-Kennedy coincidence poster (Oh, you remember that one: Lincoln had a secretary named Kennedy, Kennedy had a secretary named Lincoln, etc.)

So in honor of the Presidents from Illinois, I’ll be randomly posting about Honest Abe until the inauguration.

The following quotes are from letters by William Herndon collected as Abraham Lincoln’s Religious Views in Religious Views Of Our Presidents by Franklin Steiner. William Herndon was Lincoln’s longtime friend, law partner and biographer. The whole text can be read by clicking the link provided.

From what I know of Mr. Lincoln, and from what I have heard and verily believe, I can say, first, that he did not believe in special creation, his idea being that all creation was an evolution under law; secondly, that he did not believe that the Bible was a special revelation from God, as the Christian world contends; thirdly, he did not believe in miracles as understood by Christians; fourthly, he believed in universal inspiration and miracles under law; fifthly, he did not believe that Jesus was the Christ, the son of God, as the Christian church contends; sixthly, he believed that all things, both matter and mind, were governed by laws, universal, absolute and eternal. All his speeches and remarks in Washington conclusively prove this. Law was to Lincoln everything, and special interferences, shams and delusions.

While Lincoln frequently, in a conventional way, appeals to God, he never appeals to Christ nor mentions him. I know that he at first maintained that Jesus was a bastard, and later that he was the son of Joseph and not of God.

And from Herndon’s biography, The Life of Lincoln:

Lincoln was not a Christian in any sense other than that he lived a good life and was a noble man. If a good life constitutes one a Christian, then Mill and a million other men who repudiated and denied Christianity were Christians, for they lived good and noble lives.

[H/T Dennis diClaudio]