Chinese Year of the Rabbit and Egypt

Amber Dorrian (Wisdom Quarterly)

Child touches rabbit-shaped souvenirs for sale during Chinese Lunar New Year celebrations in Chinatown in Manila, Philippines (Romeo Ranoco/Reuters).

The Chinese New Year of the Rabbit
Elizabeth Flock (Washington Post)

Happy Chinese New Year of the Rabbit! The fifteen-day spring festival celebration based on the lunisolar calendar kicks off today with the promise of dragon dances, firecrackers, and couplets hung in windows. The Chinese New Year Parade will take over D.C.'s Chinatown in all its red glory on Sunday.

The New Year is at hand. So is the opportunity to learn about an alternative astrological chart: Which animal sign are you? Compare that to the old Sun sign horoscopes.

(WQ) The world operates with many calendars. The best is the lunar calendar, which accords with the regular phases of the Moon. But the most popular is of course the common Gregorian solar calendar. It awkwardly denies its lunar origins and tries to reorient towards the Sun for the sake of Christian hegemony.

Sun signs -- all 13 of them, including Ophiuchus the snake holder between Scorpio and Sagittarius, like the number of "Moonths" in a year -- replaced the older Chinese system. The zodiac behind the Great Wall assigned signs according to birth year, in 12 year cycles, rather than birth months.

The more ancient Egyptian system of astrology, provided by extraterrestrial sky beings as were most systems around the world such as the even older Indian Vedic system, was overtaken by the Babylonian system that came from the Greeks during the Ptolemiac period. That earlier system might have foreseen the revolt against a foreign-supported tyrant:

Egypt attacks protesters (video)

Officials offer a surprising apology and promise that Dictator Mubarak's son will not seek power. Police arrest journalists - Israel slams U.S. partner's response - "Day of Rage" in Yemen

Real News

• 300 reported dead in Egyptian protests: U.N. human rights chief Navi Pillay said Tuesday up to 300 people may have been killed and over 3,000 injured in Egypt. Pillay urged investigations into why security forces suddenly disappeared from the streets of Cairo, leaving a "security vacuum." Pillay said: "The population appears to be clearly rejecting a system that has deprived people of fundamental rights, and has committed a range of serious abuses, including widespread acts of torture."
• US weapons manufacturers get lucrative contracts from Egypt's dictator Mubarak: Egypt has for decades been the second largest recipient of US military aid. But most of that money ends up in the hands of US corporations in the form of lucrative contracts for fighter jets, missiles, teargas, and tanks. Lockheed Martin has received contracts worth $3.8 billion in the last ten years, General Dynamics $2.5 billion, and Boeing $1.7 billion.
• Human Rights Watch unveils systematic torture in Iraq: A Human Rights Watch report says elite security forces attached to the military office of Iraqi PM Nouri Maliki are torturing Iraqi detainees in a secret prison. The report adds these Special Forces are torturing with total impunity. Human Rights said it received official documents proving such prisons were under the authority of Maliki’s office and detainees were subject to the most brutal forms of torture.
• Astronaut's choice: Fly to Moon or stay with wife?
• Protests rock Jordan [Israeli military trembling in its jack boots]
• People demand Jordan PM step down [thanks to Tunisia]
• Journalists attacked, arrested in Egypt as crackdown intensifies
• Massive Australia cyclone brings terror, ruin (PHOTOS)