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> we reached the point of having an astrologist in the loop for international decisions. I'm a little bit curious, did you mean to say astronomer or does the U
by haukur 12y ago
> we reached the point of having an astrologist in the loop for international decisions.
I'm a little bit curious, did you mean to say astronomer or does the US government have an astrologist advisor?
- arethuza 12y agoReagan got advice from an astrologer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_Quigley http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_Quigley
- adrianhoward 12y agoMeet Joan Quigley. White House astrologer to the Reagan White House. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_Quigley http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_Quigley
- pavel_lishin 12y agoThis makes me realize that there is probably a lot more that I missed in "Stranger in a Strange Land", just by virtue of my age and not having been born in the USA.
- dmckeon 12y ago"Stranger" was published in 1961, 20 years before Reagan, but still has many good insights on social and political patterns in the US. For a more dated, but more detailed and insightful view by a stranger, try: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_in_America https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_in_America
- pmoriarty 12y agoAlso see Philip K Dick's books from the 50's and 60's, which include actors as American Presidents.
- pavel_lishin 12y agoHuh, I didn't realize that. That's oddly prescient, then.
- denova 12y agoThere's a novel like this... Oh yes, Stranger in a Strange Land. I am pleased to find that this Joan Quigley character "was called on by First Lady Nancy Reagan in 1981", twenty years after Heinlein's book was published. > [Alice Douglas][1] — (sometimes called "Agnes"), wife of Joe Douglas. As the First Lady, she controls her husband, making major economic, political, and staffing decisions. She frequently consults an astrologer, Becky Vesant [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stranger_in_a_Strange_Land#Characters https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stranger_in_a_Strange_Land#Cha... edit: Oh, I see other people have posted about this already. Well that's the character's name, anyway.
- blhack 12y agoIf you read the article, this wasn't a white house staffer, this was somebody that Nancy Reagan, Ronald Reagan's wife, would talk to sometimes.
- acdha 12y agoSorry, that was a bit terse – adrianhoward already provided the link to Joan Quigley's bio. I'm not particularly upset by it – Reagan certainly received far worse advice from Very Serious People – but but the idea that “every major move and decision the Reagans made … was cleared in advance with a woman in San Francisco who drew up horoscopes to make certain that the planets were in a favorable alignment” seems like the kind of thing people would reject in a movie as too implausible.