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Thich Nhat Hanh: spiritual warrior
Thich Nhat Hanh, after a lifetime of service to Buddhism, died recently at age 95. Born 11 October 1926 in central Vietnam, he entered a monastery at age 16, where his primary teacher was a Zen master. He received training in the Vietnamese tradition of Mahayana Buddhism, and was ordained as a Bhikkhu in…...
Will & Jada: doing it in public
A month ago, a petition began making headway on the website change.org, asking for the media to please stop interviewing Will and Jada Pinkett Smith about their sex life. To date, the site has gathered input from over 23,000 digital signatories, who expressed their collective frustration at the celebrity couple’s tendency to disclose intimate details…...
Elon Musk: Martian mogul
Nature abhors a vacuum, Aristotle is alleged to have said. So, when I realized that one of the world’s wealthiest men did not have a known birth time, I felt compelled to address this void. The multi-billionaire in question is Elon Musk, for whom Astrodienst (astro.com) provides only birth date and place. I won’t…...
Leonardo da Vinci: polymath for the ages
Leonardo da Vinci was an Italian polymath of the Renaissance, a highly-skilled architect, draughtsman, engineer, painter, scientist, sculptor, and theorist. Although he initially acquired fame as a painter, he later became known for his notebooks, in which he made drawings and notes on a wide range of topics, including anatomy, astronomy, botany, cartography, painting, and…...
Randy Andy and the Dungeon of Crumpet
Although he later became a helicopter pilot, Prince Andrew in his youth was never able to fly below the radar of the British tabloids because he was such an obvious target. Before getting married, he was relentlessly tracked by the paparazzi for the sheer number and diversity of his dates – college girls, actresses, models,…...
Jackie Collins: wild child does Hollywood
Although her sister Joan achieved fame first, Jackie Collins found her own path and ultimately worked her niche as romance novelist to achieve blockbuster status. Along the way, many of her highly popular novels, eg, The Stud, The Bitch, Hollywood Wives, and many more, were made into movies and TV series, for most of which…...
Halston: the birth of urban chic
When the biopic series on American fashion designer Roy Halston appeared on Netflix, it presented the ideal binge-watching experience – urbane, provocative, and poignant but over all too soon – like a wild weekend whose escapades linger on in the memory. Halston was an interesting subject for such a series, being one of the…...
Paul Gauguin: painter in paradise
Paul Gauguin (7 June 1848 – 8 May 1903) was a French post-Impressionist artist, unappreciated until after his death, now recognized for his style and experimental use of color. He was an important figure in the Symbolist movement as a painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramist, and writer. His work influenced French avant-garde artists such as…...
Kala Sarpa and the Beatles
Although the Kala Sarpa pattern appears in only one out of eight horoscopes, or 12.5% of the general population, it turns up with surprising frequency among the Beatles and their immediate entourage. Not only do Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr have Kala Sarpa horoscopes, but so too did manager Brian Epstein, producer George Martin, and…...
Ricardo Ramirez, the Night Stalker
Throughout the spring and summer of 1985, a lone killer terrorized Los Angeles. People bought guns and double-locked their doors and windows at night. The frightening thing about the murders was that they were all over the map, not only vis-à-vis district, but in terms of their victimology. They were random and opportunistic, seemingly without…...
