It all started with Dateline.
[Keith Morrison voice for the Dateline initiated]: It was a Friday. A Friday of a very long work week of the usual, and some extra, corporate drama that left our astrology blogger both physically tired and mentally fatigued.
Many corporate workers know the feeling – the mental wear and tear of a work week fuels a desire on Friday for something relaxing – a drink, a movie, a nap on the couch. Even preparing dinner is too challenging hence the common Friday pizza night.
This particular Friday our astrology blogger may or may not have gotten pizza – that part of the story is fuzzy – but it’s on the record that she chose to watch antenna TV, crappy as it is, and discovered the mental stimulation and recharge of Dateline.
In that Friday’s episode – a full two-hour detailed and drawn-out affair – we learned that a woman lifting weights had dropped the weights which fell on her neck and killed her. At least, that’s what her husband claimed.
After a full twenty minutes of medical and health experts discussing whether or not this type of death by weights was possible, we learned that there was critical information to know after the commercial.
And what was that information?
That the women didn’t like to lift weights; she liked to run.
This blogger was hooked!
If anything recharges a corporately-drained brain, it’s a show that consists almost entirely of red herrings meant to pique interest by stringing you along with breadcrumbs of facts both relevant and irrelevant. It’s mental magic, a cognitive slot machine, and explains why Dateline has been on the air for over 30 years with three thousand episodes.
Crime Junkie
Like all addictions, one leads to another.
Until the pandemic, Dateline on Friday was adequate when needed. Then came the pandemic which sent corporate workers home and allowed more leisure time with nothing open for leisure.
Which brings us back to antenna TV which I rebrand “Pharmaceutical Crime” television. If you like pharmaceutical commercials or crime shows (real and unreal), antenna TV can meet your needs at very low cost.
Dateline has a nice formula of sympathetic victims, lots of husbands and wives and boyfriends and girlfriends – so it’s not the kind of show that keeps you up at night. These are the crazy people out that you’d never marry . . . you hope.
Unlike Dateline, other true crime consists of unsympathetic characters, more gruesome ways of killing each other, much more disgusting detail and situations that will keep you up at night or at least prevent you from talking to a stranger for the rest of your life.
With pandemic time on my hands, I’d gone from the crime ivory tower of Dateline to the crime gutter of channels that simply call themselves “crime programming.” Now there’s an interesting term.
Court TV
In the highs and lows of crime junkie hood, Court TV belongs right in the middle. While Dateline sticks to mostly sympathetic characters murdered by known killers, Court TV reminds you that there’s a court drama playing out every one or two minutes and that people on earth are just . . . weird.
The host of Court TV is Vinnie Politan, a former New Jersey prosecutor. Like crime stories themselves, I have a hate-love relationship with this guy. At first glance he’s so bombastic that I need to remember (as with Dateline) that there are real people, real victims, involved in these stories and many who loved them and would be hurt by their stories becoming cheesy entertainment.
Yes, yes, like Politan I’m viewing others’ tragedies as mental stimulation (aka entertainment). But Politan can dish it out so aggressively and with such mockery, I sometimes have to turn him off. Unless he’s caught me in one of his crazy, but very accurate, perceptions or mockery that makes me laugh out loud.
In a recent conversation with his guests (who appear to sign an agreement stating they will try to be as goofy as possible), Politan pointed out that Alec Baldwin may be innocent in the shooting death of a movie set employee, but yet if you or I took a gun we believed was not real and did the same thing we would not be exonerated.
Good point!
And I will admit to agreeing with Politan when all his guests disagreed – when Idaho murder suspect Bryan Kohberger was stopped twice in Indiana for tailgating there must have been an alert on him.
Who gets stopped for tailgating?
In Ohio, no one. I assure you.
Vinnie Politan Horoscope
Astrologically, who is Vinnie Politan?
Without knowing time of birth, we can’t know Politan’s rising sign. The rising sign is the first appearance we give to others. We may be shy but give the appearance of confidence. Or we may appear quiet but when comfortable become a chatterbox. Or appearance may be aligned with the personality we will see if we get to know someone in depth.
The rising sign can also describe appearance. From this deep set eyes, Politan might have Scorpio rising or Pluto in the first house (the rising sign is the start of the first house). Scorpio rising would describe an “intense” personality.
Politan’s outspoken, aggressive, and flippant approach to many stories is reminiscent of fire sign behavior (Aries, Leo, Sagittarius). Yet in Politan’s chart there is no fire.
With three planets in earth, three planets in water and two planets in air, Politan will have a natural lack of confidence and force of personality. Without fire, it’s easy to lack enthusiasm or competitive spirit when life has blockages. When lacking fire, we may not stand up for ourselves when we need to.
Yet Politan nightly displays a fire energy of a person fighting for his rights in an oppressive state. Possibly because it’s not natural to his personality, it appears overdone. It’s TV so nothing is real and Politan’s angst is along the lines of soap opera acting.
In contrast, the mental energy Politan puts into his assessments is very real – two planets in air-sign Aquarius and three in earth-sign Virgo. Five planets in thinking signs represents half of his entire horoscope. This man thinks, and thinks, and thinks. It’s difficult for him to stop thinking if the answer doesn’t appear perfect. And with crime, you may never know exactly what occurred.
Politan’s other three planets are in water signs. In Chinese astrology, water is associated with intelligence but a different type than our air-sign rationality. Water understands emotional and psychological motivation. Watching crime drama, you will find rationality isn’t common in murder. “Motive” is always sought as we need to know why.
Crime – Horoscope 8th House
In a horoscope, the sky is split up into 12 houses. Without time of birth we won’t know Politan’s house placements but by sign there is indication of his interest in crime and human psychology.
Law as justice, fairness and balance is in the domain of Libra and the 7th house. There are no planets in Libra in Politan’s chart although he may have some 7th house placements.
Crime, in contrast, is an 8th house concern ruled by Scorpio. Why?
Eighth house is traditionally sex, death and taxes. What do these areas of life have in common?
They are a crossing of physical or emotional boundaries. The government takes money out of our paychecks before we get it. It’s a crossing of boundary. We are intimate with another. It’s a crossing of a boundary. We die. We’ve “crossed over.”
The opposite of the 8th house is the 2nd house which rules our self with boundaries – my money, my body and my values. The door to your house, the unshared bank account, the physical body – these are boundaries.
How much crime comes from 2nd and 8th house concerns? Lots of it.
Or all of it?
Politan has Jupiter in Taurus opposite Neptune in Scorpio which drives his interest in both prosecution and crime. As prosecutor, you are arguing to control the outcome of another’s life based on their actions. If successful, you might even send them to prison for the rest of their lives. That’s a lot of power and responsibility.
When money (Taurus) is a motivation, it’s a clear, unquestioned motive. Anything other than the tangible is in the realm of Scorpio and the “why” is much more difficult to explain.
Take, for example, the four-person southern Ohio family (Wagners) who murdered eight members of another family (Rhodens) over custody of a child in 2016. In the end, the child in question now has lost 12 family members including both sets of grandparents (death and prison) as well as mother (death), father (prison) and several aunts and uncles to death and prison.
Explain that!
Scorpio and Pisces can explain. Politan has Saturn and moon in Pisces so can understand motivation which is non-rational. There are motivations – in the case of the Wagners it was about control – but it’s not rational so led to the opposite of all they were trying to achieve. They no longer have control over anything, including their own movements.
Politan’s perceptive nature (Scorpio and Pisces) combined with rational nature (Virgo and Aquarius) makes for a thorough understanding of complex situations. Oh yeah, Politan has Mercury in Capricorn – that’s earth and probably contributes to his authoritative voice on Court TV.
Crime Diet
Going to the gutter of true crime, I attempted to crime “diet” and even convinced a friend to attempt it with me. We’ve both fallen off the wagon.
The lure of true crime is that it’s not rational and provides mental stimulation in possibility. Because so much of it makes no sense, the mind can turn it over in the same way we savor a piece of hard candy. The more you think about it, the more it provides stimulation. And when the candy has dissolved, you need another piece, another fascinating story.
Researching obsession with true crime provides several theories that may align with the elements:
Fire – the adrenaline rush of calamity and the human instinct to see what’s going on around us
Earth – in contrast to the criminals, we feel grounded and sane
Air – the mystery and suspense of discovery is engaging to the mind
Water – it’s a safe way to process fear
Of the several major learnings from astrology, one is that we all do the same things but in different ways. Crime junkies like the criminals themselves have many motivations. And Crime Dealers like Vinnie Politan will serve them.
Ohio Astrology 