Please remember that this Salon article is supposed to be fun. But please take it easy, and see that there is some deep thought in astrology, if you want to go there... just as their is deep truth in The Iliad, even though the mythological mode of thought is long out of fashion.

Astrology is like music maybe. Musicians practice scales and modes and paradiddles the way astrologers learn the nature of Libra and the Seventh House and Venus. Then the musicians go on to create music, and the astrologers go on to create understanding.

In music, Duke Ellington said, "If it sounds good, it is good." In the realm of understanding, if it is true, it does not matter how you get there. And have fun with it, for cryin out loud. Music is fun. So is astrology. So is life, if you do it right.

Chrstn - Looks as if it's just you and I left here. Here's what I think:

1. Astrologers advising Nancy Reagan and influencing US government: NO!!! YIKES!!! HELP!!!

2. Believing your kids' astro charts form birth, and stifling them: NO! NO! NO!

3. (but) Letting some of this system of thinking into your mind, paying attention to these categories to gain some insight into human nature, making up your own mind based on this input, and NOT reflexively condemning anybody who brings up oddball notions: Okay.

Cheers! Peace!

Before this discussion started, I already knew something about astrology, from the hippie era. And I know more about the Roman and Greek and other pagan religion that underlies astrology, from school and so on. And I know a very few other things... So I have this one thing to say:

A very good thing about those old pagan stories and myths was that people were allowed to change them, in order to suit their own points, their own experience, the truth as it appeared. That is why we have so many versions of the great old fairy tales about Pluto and Venus and Jupiter and all the rest. It was okay for Ovid to conflict with Homer, with Sophocles, with me, with you.

Astrology is the last bastion of that old wisdom, and that old flexible attitude. Scientifically, forget it if you wish. You can say, "Today is a great day to die." Or you can take the same stars and say, "Today we triumph over death."

Philosophically, psychologically, it still has something to offer. It is a framework for thinking and deciding. It can be a method, a discipline. And it is better than the simple minds of our 21st century CE fundamentalists.

In Motown, we have: Arguably the best women's basketball team in the world, arguably the best men's basketball team in the world, arguably the best hockey team in the world, currently the best baseball team in the world.

And we have high hopes for our football team! Come on Lions! Step up!

You can't get into the dustbin of kooky former presidential contenders without a slight Delaware accent.

Ms. Harris probably thought nobody outside the Christianist world would read her interview in the Florida Baptist magazine.

She may be a victim of her own right wing's propaganda. My local Christianist radio guy constantly quotes little stories that illustrate something he thinks important. And then he asks, "Why didn't the Liberal Mainstream Media cover this?!" He says, "The Liberals are covering up the facts! There's no other explanation!"

These people live in their own perverted little world, and they speak their own dopey patois, and they get away with it, usually, because usually it does not matter. But here, it matters. Good job Tim Grieve!

Dear King,

Good topic, and good take on the topic. When print newspapers die out, and Salon finally takes over as The Journal of Record for Western Civilization, you will be Global Sports Executive Managing Editor DeLuxe, and you will hire a vast staff. The staff will include a least one full-time person to write about whatever Pear-Lu wants to read about.

Until then, though, please keep on with the 5 good topics + 5 interesting slants per week.

Timbuktom

P.S. I know a guy who might write about race horses for you. Do you want to talk to him? Do you have room for a turf column? Serious!

Good coaches would, and often do, coach for nothing. People with passion and talent just do their things no matter what. The people who make the most money are just the lucky ones, not the best. $106.004K for football in Texas sounds like a lot. How much for archery in Archansas? How much for bowling in Bowston?

How much for drumming in Dretroit? Slide Guitar in Slacramento? How much for scribbling in Scralon, King? Those Texans do not deserve all that dough, but they can keep it. If I ever get it, I will keep it. You should too.

I just remembered: The head football coach when I was a freshman at Lutheran East H.S., Cleveland Heights, Ohio, was the Latin teacher! And he was the best teacher I had. He appeared to be the smartest person in a school full of smart people.

That was Mr. Craig Bester. Long may he wave! My family moved away, to a place where the head coach taught American History for a while, and then quit to became a guitar player. So I cannot tell you much about Mr. Bester, back in Cleveland, except that I am sure he did not make a hundred grand.