A planetary pirouette

Well, you know what time it is, at least if you are of an astrological bent.  Me, I had to have it pointed out by a friend and loyal reader of Skeptophilia.  Now that I know, I'm all in a tizzy.

Mercury is in retrograde.  Time to head for the hills.

Of course, the whole thing is a completely natural occurrence that happens because the planets are moving with a different angular velocity than the Earth is.  The phenomenon has been known since the time of the ancient Greeks, and is in fact what gave rise to the name "planet" ("planetes" means "wanderer" in Greek).  The planets are all actually traveling in nice, neat ellipses; the whole thing is a trick of perspective because we're also in motion.  The outer planets go into retrograde when the (faster moving) Earth "overtakes" them in orbit; the inner ones, when they go around the outer curve of their orbit and appear to go into reverse as they curve back in toward the Sun.  (For an excellent discussion of why this happens, with diagrams, go here.)

The apparent retrograde motion of Mars [image courtesy of NASA and the Wikimedia Commons]

So we've moved one step past the astrological silliness of our lives and fates being controlled by the positions of the planets relative to the stars; now we have to factor an optical illusion of backwards motion that isn't even actually happening.

The complete wackiness of this claim is, apparently, not evident to the astrologers, who consider a Mercury retrograde to be a calamity of the first water.  Consider the article that appeared over at Elephant called "13 Ways to Avoid Getting 'Mercury Retrograded,'" wherein we find out that at least we'll have almost a month's worth of excuses for fucking up everything we try:

How Mercury functions in our birth charts explains a great deal about how we formulate ideas and how we share them. It indicates how we make sense of the everyday world we live in. During these three weeks when Mercury is retrograde, our mental faculties are not functioning well; in fact they go on vacation.

When this unique event happens (three times this year), communications of all types go haywire!

Suddenly, normal communication becomes unreliable, filled with misinformation where important data is missing or misunderstood. The passage of information from one person to the other seems to be unintentionally cloudy or confused in some way.

Well, this sounds like the way my life usually is, but that may be because I'm a high school teacher.

Then we hear some guidelines regarding how to avoid the problems implicit in this event, which include:

• Don't argue with your spouse.  My wife will be glad of that one.
• Don't purchase computers or install software.  I'm afraid that's a rule that may have to be broken, because my computer is on its last legs, and I get the Spinning Beachball of Death whenever I expect it to do anything complicated, such as loading a website, scrolling down a page, or typing at a rate of more than three characters per minute.
• Don't make changes to your appearance.  Well, it's not like I was considering dyeing my hair green, or anything, so I think I can manage that one.

Other than that, we have prohibitions against buying new cars, a new home, or starting a new job, all of which I wasn't planning to do in any case.

But then, we find out the much more alarming news that this time, Mercury is traveling retrograde in Pisces.  *gasp of horror*  Think I'm being sarcastic?  You'll be gasping, too, when you read the article called, "The Return of Past Lovers as Mercury Retrogrades in Pisces," wherein we find out the following:

All Mercury retrograde periods tend to stir up people from your past. You'll perhaps run into an old colleague on the street, get a call from a friend you haven't heard from in years or suddenly get an email from someone you met but never fully connected with, many Moons ago. Retrogrades are all about returning, going back to something that we started but never quite finished. And when you factor in the magical Pisces energy, it's all about the return of past lovers.

Whether you're single or attached, you can bet that "the one who got away" will pop up in your mind in the coming weeks. And he/she is probably thinking of you too, perhaps at the exact same moment. Will your lost love call you? Will your amazing lover from last year suddenly reappear with a middle-of-the-night sext? Mercury Retrograde in Pisces will stir your emotions and make you question romantic decisions made long ago. What's done is not necessarily done -- yet.

All of which makes me respond as follows:  AAAAAAUUUUGGGGGHHH *hides under coffee table*

Can I just say that the lion's share of my former romantic entanglements are "former" for a reason?  I actually want what's done to be done.  I'm perfectly happy with my wife, and can think of one former girlfriend, in particular, a call from whom would make me hop the next plane to Madagascar.  Not to imply that I had a knack for dating wackos, exactly; but let's just say when I see those Facebook things that ask you to describe your love life using a book title, the one that always comes to mind is All's Well That Ends Well.

What I find funny about all of this is that the starry-eyed types are wiggling their eyebrows significantly about something that happens for weeks at a time, three times a year.  So, basically, what we have here is a giant blob of confirmation bias, wherein we are encouraged to attribute any weirdness during twelve weeks of 2014 -- almost a quarter of the year -- to the fact that one of the planets appears to be doing a little pirouette in the sky.

Me, I think life is just weird, and it's got bugger-all to do with the stars.  But if any of my former girlfriends thinks that this would be a fine excuse to look me up, allow me to state, for the record, that I have an unlisted phone number and live in Madagascar.  So sorry I missed you.

The rising stars of politics

If you're a Democrat, I have good news for you: President Obama is going to win reelection in November.

I'm not saying this because of any sort of expertise in politics.  In fact, saying that I am ignorant about political science is a little like saying my dog is ignorant of differential calculus.  I find politics baffling and frustrating to the extent that when I read political editorials (seldom), I usually come away feeling like I've been trying to comprehend something that my brain simply isn't built for.

So, no, the above prognostication is not based upon any kind of sophisticated political punditry.  It is based upon something that is baffling for an entirely different reason: astrology.

Yes, the astrologers have weighed in on the presidential race, and what they have come up with is going to be cheering news to any Democrats who are dumb enough to believe in astrology.  Last weekend there was a conference of "top astrologers" in New Orleans, and a panel of them put their heads together and drew lots of abstruse-looking charts, and they were unanimous in concluding that Obama would win.

Nina Gryphon, a Chicago astrologer who also has a practice as a corporate lawyer, said her conclusion was based upon the timing of the Aries ingress, the moment that the Sun enters the constellation Aries.  "It's obvious," she said. "Obama stays where he is without a change in status."

Denver astrologer Chris Brennan agreed.  He said that both Obama and Romney "are entering into peak periods of eminence in the next few months."   However, his chart-drawing turned up a difference that he said will turn the tide in Obama's favor.  "Obama's peak period stays consistent throughout the election, whereas Romney's seems to falter a few weeks before the election."

Brennan did go on to say that even though the stars are of the opinion that Obama will win, they do contain a warning that things might not stay smooth for the incumbent.  "The ingress of Saturn into Scorpio may trouble him," Brennan said to reporters.  "It won't cost him the election, but it may indicate difficulties in the first half of his second term."

Brennan hedged a little, though, when asked how sure he was about his results.  There was one other factor that could play a role, he said; "We should all be aware of the Mercury retrograde that will occur on election day.  Most astrologers are pretty certain that this could cause problems similar to what happened in the 2000 election."  The retrograde, Brennan said, "seems to imply that there's something up in the air about the election until sometime later in the month."

Oh.  Okay.  Saturn ingressing into Scorpio and Mercury retrograde means trouble.  This last one I find particularly bizarre -- not that the whole idea of thinking that there's some significance to the apparent motion of planets relative to random groupings of stars that are actually nowhere near each other, and that this motion could possibly have any bearing on a political election, is exactly sensible.  But the retrograde motion of Mercury (and Venus) are just optical illusions -- caused by the fact that they move in closer circles around the Sun than the Earth does, so at times (because the Earth is "overtaking" them in orbit) they spend a short while appearing to move backwards.  They're not actually moving backwards -- it's a total trick of perspective, similar to the apparent backwards motion of a slower-moving car relative to a distant mountain as you pass it on the highway.  So now we've moved into the realm of attributing events on Earth to a motion of a planet that isn't even happening.

Not, of course, that any astrological claim is within hailing distance of scientific validity.  Astrology makes about as much sense as thinking that a person's future could be foretold by the random patterns of lines on their hands.  Oh, wait!  People believe that, too, don't they?

I mean, come on.  How could astrology possibly work?  And don't start babbling to me about forces and energies unless you have the equations from physics to back you up.  If you think astrology is science, explain to me how the science works.

I know I'm engaging in a futile exercise, here.  It's not like my feeble attempts are going to convince the die-hard astrologers -- they are too invested in it (both philosophically and financially) to be willing to give it up.  So I suppose I should go back to doing something marginally more likely to meet with success, like teaching my dog differential calculus.