Sturm und Drang

The End of Sturm und Drang,
Je suis Miss Universe,
Mrs Clinton's Birth Certificate,
&
The Hillary-Haterd Derangement Syndrome

I tremble for my country when I reflect that Mr Trump was not brought down through reasoned argument about matters of state, but by waves of  sympathy for a former Miss Universe whom he had disrespected.

On the other hand, I trembled for my country when Trump was nominated, too.  Thank goodness the Strum und Drang is finally over.

Mrs Clinton did what she had to do.  We all should be grateful that she eviscerated him so completely.  It is all over except for the cheering.  When the cheers turn into tears, let us all remember that it could have been worse.

Trump never had a chance, but it is sobering to imagine that such a man was actually nominated for the presidency.  The unchecked power of the modern presidency is dangerous enough in the hands of a well meaning intellectual.  In the hands of an irrational buffoon the danger would be beyond imagination.  

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Baffled Astrologers Demand to

See Hillary Clinton’s Birth Certificate

To make charts, they need the exact time candidates were born; Trump's "Mars vibe"

BY YOGITA PATEL

Wall Street Journal

There is one crucial detail Hillary Clinton hasn't divulged to the American people, and it's driving Michael O'Reilly bonkers.  Mr. O'Reilly of Bend, Ore., is an astrologer. He knows Donald Trump was born at 10:54 a.m. in Jamaica Hospital in Queens on June 14,1946.  From that, it's possible to divine that the GOP candidate "has a very strong Mars vibe going on," he says.

The red planet's position in Mr. Trump's natal chart—the precise layout of the heavens at the moment of birth —resonates with Americans fed up with Washington, says Mr. O'Reilly.  Mars exudes the Roman war god's temperament, and Mr. Trump is "basically channeling that energy."

Mrs. Clinton was born Oct. 26,1947, at Edgewater Hospital in Chicago, Ill., according to the Cook County Clerk. After that, astrologers must play gumshoe to get any closer. There's decent historical evidence for two times at either end of the day.  The Clinton campaign declined to answer questions, ensuring the mystery will continue.

"The craft of forecasting is really impossible unless we have a birth time," says Mr. O'Reilly. "But the public demands it."

Astrologers agree candidates' birth charts are critical to understand their personalities, foresee how they may respond to adversities, and perhaps forecast who will win.

Natal charts are usually circular, inscribed with numbers, astrological symbols and lines representing the relationships of of heavenly bodies.

At a political event in Concord, N.H., in the 1980s, New Hampshire astrologer Celeste Longacre said she approached Mrs. Clinton, who told her she was born at 8 p.m.

The resulting evening chart, astrologers say, shows strong Gemini-Uranus influences, suggesting an erratic or unpredictable nature. Yet fast-forward the chart to 47 seconds after 8:00, and that could indicate a nurturing disposition.

New York astrologer Arlene Nimark got a different answer in 2003 at a Manhattan Barnes & Noble where the former first lady was signing her book "Living History." Others in line were asking "Are you going to run?" says Ms. Nimark. When Ms. Nimark got to the front, she asked Mrs. Clinton for her birth time.

"Her aura was so large, and she was laughing so hard," says Ms. Nimark, "and it just rolled off her tongue, “8 a.m."

That time jibes with a quote astrologers often attribute to Mrs. Clinton's mother, that her daughter was born "in time for breakfast." The morning time astrologers often use for Mrs. Clinton, 8:02, which a now deceased seer once claimed to have confirmed, legend has it, shows Mars in the sector that rules her career along with influences from Mercury, indicating a politically ambitious individual with a strong public presence and could also suggest she is scandal-prone. It would make her a double Scorpio, indicating extra secretiveness.

To hedge her bets, Ms. Nimark also uses a 12-noon chart, a common practice when birth time isn't known. She expects Mrs. Clinton to prevail based on positive indicators in her charts and the planetary conditions on inauguration day.

Many celestial soothsayers suspect she is deliberately withholding records to throw people off. "She may herself not want to give out the exact time of birth." says Ms. Nimark. "There's always something a Scorpio is hiding. They play things close to the chest."

Mr. Trump divulged his birth certificate, including birth time, to ABC News in 2011 while demanding President Barack Obama produce his own, as part of Mr. Trump's campaign to sow doubt about the president's American status. A Trump-campaign spokeswoman didn't respond to inquiries.

Astrologers have been into politics for as long as politicians have been into astrology.  In the 1980 presidential campaign. Nancy Reagan consulted astrologer Joan Quigley and passed advice-to her husband's aides, Mrs. Reagan wrote in her 1989 memoir, "My Turn”.

During the 1992 campaign, Shelley Ackerman, a New York astrologer, created Bill Clinton's natal chart, she says, after getting his birth time on a handwritten postcard from his mother. Ms. Ackerman saw the markings of a president and a period of change centered on growth in business.

She could see his outlook wasn't completely rosy, she says, and predicted back then that "he was going to run into some very rough waters in 1997." That year, former Pentagon worker Linda Tripp began secretly taping her conversations with Monica Lewinsky.

In 2012, Phoenix astrologer Patrick Watson predicted the re-election of Mr. Obama — born 7:24 p.m. Aug. 4,1961, according to his birth certificate posted on whitehouse.gov —after noting his chart prominently featured positive vibes from Venus, known for charm and unification, and good-fortune planet Jupiter.

Those vibes were similar to patterns in his other periods of success, including his 2008 victory over Arizona Sen. John McCain‚ born at 6:25 p.m. Aug, 29,1936, according to an unverified birth document astrologers use. A McCain spokeswoman declined to comment.

Astropolitical prognosticators can go as awry as other political pundits. This March, Mr. O'Reilly forecast a brokered July GOP convention with the eventual nominee as House Speaker Paul Ryan (R., Wis.), born 2:37 a.m. on Jan. 29, 1970, according to an uncertified copy of his birth certificate astrologers use. A Ryan spokesman confirmed his birth date but couldn't verify the time.

Whoever wins Nov. 8th, Ms. Ackerman predicts early tumult for the next president, pointing to celestial alignments beginning around inauguration time. "The honeymoon," she says, "is over before it begins."

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This chart was based on a 12 AM time of birth and may not be completely accurate.
From Astrotheme.com. 

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Hillary-Haterd Derangement Syndrome

By Dorothy Rabinowitz

   

Wall Street Journal   Sept 30, 2016

There were cheers when Donald Trump assured his Virginia audience last weekend that the wall will be built and, yes, that Mexico would pay for it. But the cheers lacked the roaring ecstasy his promise used to evoke at rallies. No one has the heart, by now, to pretend that such a wall will actually be built, but that's all right with Mr. Trump's dauntless fans, who can find plenty of other reasons for their faith in him. The NeverTrump forces, appalled at the prospect of a Trump presidency, are no less passionate.

The NeverHillary forces are another matter entirely--citizens well aware of the darker aspects of Donald Trump's character but who have nonetheless concluded that they should give him their vote. They are aware of his casual disregard for truth, his self-obsessi0n, his ignorance, his ingrained vindictiveness. Not even the first presidential debate, which saw him erupt into a snarling aside about Rosie O'Donnell, could loosen his hold on that visceral drive to inflict payback, in this case over a feud 10 years old.

The NeverHillary forces are aware, too, of his grandiosity - his announcement that he knows more about Islamic State than any of America's generals will long be remembered - his impulse-driven character, his insatiable need for applause, the head-turning effect on him of an approving word from Vladimir Putin. The Russian leader's compliment late last year was of the mildest kind--he referred to Mr. Trump as "talented" and "colorful"--but it was enough to make the candidate's heart go pitter-patter with gratitude and engender instant expressions of his faith in Mr. Putin's integrity and leadership. As Mr. Trump himself has explained, "if he says nice things about me, I'm going to say nice things about him."

Such are the values that drive the Republican candidate's judgment--a fact interesting to contemplate as one imagines a President Trump dealing with international conflict and rogue heads of state. Still Mr. Trump is now the choice of voters who have concluded that of the two flawed contenders running, he would be far preferable.

Yes, he may be rough around the edges, but he's a fresh force, the argument goes, unlike the establishment war horse, Mrs. Clinton, with her history of scandal and rumors thereof, and her decades in politics. Mr. Trump is the dynamo who will blow up the old order.  He's authentic, a man with the courage of his convictions.

Mr. Trump has not, of course, shown himself notably reliable as regards the courage of his convictions. It's by now impossible to count the number of times and ways in which he's sidled away from his grand plans on immigration, that promise to deport everyone here illegally, not to mention his proposal to institute a total block on Muslim immigration "till we figure things out." He's proffered no less than three different views on abortion, one of which called, for "at least some punishment" for the woman involved--quickly changed to wait, no, it should be the doctor.

Still, it was the view of Donald Trump as a fearless foe of liberal piety, that image of him as an outsider, untainted by experience in government-itself one of the more remarkable boasts of any presidential campaign in memory - that persuaded so many Americans he is the leader the country needs.

As opposed, that is, to Mrs. Clinton - the educated former secretary of state, with lengthy experience in government.     '

Equally remarkable, even for a change election, that experience, those years of education in national security somehow rank high on the list of defects the anti-Hillary brigades find so objectionable. Here is a flaw apparently even more rankling than her email server history, the questions about Benghazi, or the Clinton Foundation: She offers nothing of Trump's aura of freeswinging dynamism, not to mention a mind blissfully uncluttered by facts, knowledge of geopolitical realities, and the like.

Mrs. Clinton hasn't failed to provide, on her own, cause for concern about her own proclivities and never more~intolerably than in that debate Monday when she chose to ramble on, familiarly, about institutional racism, which invariably emerges in her responses on conflagration involving police action.  Americans have a right to cringe at this reflexive, factually distorted, and inflammatory sermonizing. The accompanying, deep felt tribute to the police and their heroism, invariably added, can never offset the insidiousness of these messages.

Even so, such proclivities pale next to the occasion for cringing that would come with a Trump presidency. No one witnessing Mr.Trump's primary race--his accumlation of Alt-Right cheerleaders, white supremacists and swastika devotees--could fail to notice the menacing tone and the bitterness that came with it.

Not for nothing did the Democrats bring off a triumph of a convention, alive with cheer, not to mention its two visitors whose story would lift countless American hearts. They were, of course, the Muslim couple Khizr and Ghazala ~ Khan, whose son, Capt. Humayun Khan--brought here as a child--died in Iraq in 2004, saving his men from an explosive-rigged car. 

His countrymen now go streaming to his grave at Arlington National Cemetery to leave notes and flowers. He reminded us of who we are--the nation that takes its newcomers and transforms them into Americans. After 9/11, Capt. Khan, American, could scarcely wait to serve his country. The national response to the Khans injected a sense of unity and affirmation, however brief, into an atmosphere of embittering divisiveness.

The end of the election is now in sight. Some among the anti-Hillary brigades have decided, in deference to their exquisite sensibilities, to stay at home on Election Day, rather than vote for Mrs. Clinton. But most Americans will soon make their choice. It will be either Mr. Trump or Mrs. Clinton--experienced, forwardlooking, indomitably determined and eminently sane. Her election alone is what stands between the American nation and the reign of the most unstable, proudly uninformed, psychologically unfit president ever to enter the White House.

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Sturm und Drang

Noun

1.  a German literary movement of the latter half of the 18^th century, characterized by a reaction against the rationalism of the Enlightenment, impetuosity of manner, exaltation of individual sensibility and intuitive perception, opposition to established forms of society and thought, emotion, violence, and extreme nationalism.  The movement lasted about 10 years; it ended when its major protagonists, all male, either grew up or died.

2.  translated from the German into British English as storm and urges. 
3.  translated from the German into American English as testosterone poisoning.

Note

1.  like Wagner’s music, it’s not as bad as it sounds.

2.  for an extended discussion, follow this link.

3.  finally,  "If another and later species comes to reconstruct the human being from the evidence of our sentimental writings, they will conclude it to have been a heart with testicles."  Georg Christoph Lichtenberg ca 1780.  (He also said, "Change may not make things better, but without change things will not get better."