JUPITER RISING, WAGES STUCK. In all innocence, I went on to the Washington Post's home page on Wednesday afternoon to see who voted how in the Senate vote on raising the minimum wage. I found what I was looking for: the eight Republicans (Chafee, Coleman, Collins, DeWine, Lugar, Snowe, Specter, Warner) who voted along with the Democrats to raise the wage. (That gave the forces of good 52 votes, but the Republicans had structured the vote to require 60.) Then I noticed that the Post had the vote broken down not just by party but by state, region, gender, and boomer and pre-boomer (not a very revelatory category: boomers backed the proposal by a 24 to 21 margin; pre-boomers, by a 28 to 25 margin). What to my wondering eyes should then appear but one more category: Astrological sign. Yes, the Post lets you know the vote breakdown among all those Cancers and Geminis. The most pro-raise sign was Sagittarius (6 yes, 3 no); the most anti was Virgo (2 yes, 6 no).
For anyone with a double major in political science and astrology, this is pure gold.
--Harold Meyerson
