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Minisode 1: The Newsroom Astrologer · The Steve Harvey Morning Show

• 0:09
  Speaker 1: Warning. The following minniesode includes discussion of Bronto sources, fortune telling,
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Larry King, the Flintstones, and America's first licensed astrologer. It's
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: also conveniently packaged in ay list format for listeners who
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: don't like their information presented in numerical order. Please take care.
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: For anyone who listens. You know, Skyline Drive isn't that political,
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: but there's sometimes a person just has to stand up
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: for what is right. And during the course of our reporting,
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: it occurred to us here that there aren't any famous
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: astrologers honored on US post stamps. There are, however, brought
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: to sources which were famously considered real when I was
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  Speaker 2: a kid, then were declared not real when my cousins
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: were kids, and then maybe they're real again. I really
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  Speaker 2: can't keep track. Also, there are stamps with Confederate generals
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  Speaker 2: on them, which is confusing because why exactly are we
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  Speaker 2: honoring a bunch of people who try to overthrow the government,
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  Speaker 2: mostly because they wanted to keep slaves. But maybe most
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  Speaker 2: confusing of all, we have the Pony Express on stamps.
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  Speaker 2: This was a failed startup. It barely lasted a year
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  Speaker 2: and a half and it was never part of the
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  Speaker 2: US postal system. So it's kind of like Google issuing
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  Speaker 2: a Google Doodle to honor Alta Vista or Ask Jeeves
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  Speaker 2: or some other long dead competitor. So unless you think
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  Speaker 2: astrology is worse than fake dinosaurs, racist generals, and complete
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  Speaker 2: business failures, I think it's okay to put an astrologer
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  Speaker 2: on a stamp. If we're gonna pick just one astrologer,
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  Speaker 2: I nominate Maxine Taylor from Kaleidoscope and iHeart Podcasts. I'm
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  Speaker 2: Mongi's articular welcome to Skyline Drive. Many sewed one three
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  Speaker 2: reasons we should put Maxine Taylor on a stamp already.
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  Speaker 2: To be honest, Maxine Taylor shouldn't have had time for me.
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  Speaker 2: She spends her days writing and collaborating on books and
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  Speaker 2: taping predictions for her YouTube channel, and also filling the
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: extra space in between with zoom consultations for clients. But
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  Speaker 2: I think when she heard I was from Brooklyn and
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  Speaker 2: visiting my parents in Georgia, she just couldn't resist. Maxine
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  Speaker 2: happens to be tethered to those two places too. She
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: was born and raised in Brooklyn and has lived most
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  Speaker 2: of her adult life not too far from where my
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  Speaker 2: folks live, and I'm so glad she made time for me,
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  Speaker 2: because after just an hour with her, I realized how
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  Speaker 2: much she's done for the art and practice of astrology
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  Speaker 2: here in the United States. One Maxine made it legal
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  Speaker 2: to be an astrologer.
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  Speaker 3: I said, listen, I want to legalize astrology and at
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  Speaker 3: some point become an astrologer. Back then, you practiced trology
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  Speaker 3: in hush whispers because we're in the Bible Belt, for
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  Speaker 3: goodness sake.
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  Speaker 2: In nineteen sixty nine, soon after Maxine had moved from
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  Speaker 2: Brooklyn to Atlanta, she realized that you couldn't get a
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  Speaker 2: business license for astrology in Georgia.
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  Speaker 3: It wasn't just Georgia, it was the entire country.
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  Speaker 4: One of the distinctions that seems to be made is
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  Speaker 4: is between fortune telling and astrology, And so what is
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  Speaker 4: it that doesn't sit together with those two ideas.
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  Speaker 3: Oh well, first of all, there's a negative connotation to
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  Speaker 3: fortune telling. It's like a gypsy, is like a rip off, etc.
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  Speaker 3: It's not I think it's a term used to denigrate.
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  Speaker 3: But if you're able to put people's mind at ease,
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  Speaker 3: put their hearts at ease, answer their questions, and if
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  Speaker 3: you come from love. This is a mission. It's a
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  Speaker 3: labor of love, and I think word fortune telling is insulting.
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  Speaker 2: Maxine had a vision that she was meant to bring
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  Speaker 2: astrology to the forefront. It came to her in a
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  Speaker 2: dream that one of her purposes here on earth was
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  Speaker 2: to make people see the worth in astrology and to
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  Speaker 2: legitimize it. So she took her case to the Cobb
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  Speaker 2: County Commissioners. The only problem was no one would give
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  Speaker 2: her an appointment, So for weeks she waited in the
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  Speaker 2: lobby without anyone calling her name, and finally she saw
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  Speaker 2: an open door. So she sneaks into the commissioner's office
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  Speaker 2: and politely asks him herself, and to her surprise, he
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  Speaker 2: invites her to a commission meeting the following week, just
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  Speaker 2: to plead her case in front of a panel. So Maxine,
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  Speaker 2: who's just in her twenties right now, is super nervous
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  Speaker 2: about this.
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  Speaker 3: I was scared to death because it was very imposing.
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  Speaker 3: The commissioners were sitting on a dais upon like judges,
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  Speaker 3: and I didn't know how am I going to convince
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  Speaker 3: these people.
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  Speaker 2: Also, the mood in the room is not great. The
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  Speaker 2: Marietta Daily Journal was there and they covered the event
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  Speaker 2: and they wrote, quote it had been a long Tuesday
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  Speaker 2: afternoon full of sewer angry and water angry and highway
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  Speaker 2: angry people, and the clock on the wall showed nearly
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  Speaker 2: five pm when the girl walked in. Anyway, she finally
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  Speaker 2: gets her turn, and she starts by trying to show
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  Speaker 2: how astrology is prominent in the Bible, but she soon
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  Speaker 2: realizes this tack isn't really working well, so she changes
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  Speaker 2: her strategy.
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  Speaker 3: So what I did was I started talking about each sign,
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  Speaker 3: and I asked each commissioner what their sign was, and
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  Speaker 3: I described them and introduced humor, and the whole nine
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  Speaker 3: yards long story.
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  Speaker 2: Short and Maxine's charm quickly wins them over. She explains
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  Speaker 2: how the charts take real work, like it takes her
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  Speaker 2: nearly twelve hours of study before she presents one to
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  Speaker 2: a client, and she explains how she doesn't want to
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: do this as a hobby out of her house, how
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  Speaker 2: she wants a proper office and a business license to
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  Speaker 2: go with it, and one of the commissioners get so
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  Speaker 2: intrigued that he asked her if she could predict the
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  Speaker 2: best days for going hog hunting. In the end, the
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  Speaker 2: panel was so tickled by the way she sussed out
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  Speaker 2: their personalities and connected the stars to their life stories
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  Speaker 2: that they decide to give her a license and they
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  Speaker 2: only charge her one hundred dollars.
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  Speaker 3: I was able to buy the very first license for astrology,
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  Speaker 3: not entertainment, not miscellaneous, not fortune telling, and so what
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  Speaker 3: I did was historical.
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  Speaker 2: Two Maxine put astrology on TV.
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  Speaker 5: Now.
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  Speaker 2: One of the things I strongly believe is that pop
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  Speaker 2: culture has the ability to sway all culture. So take
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: how we sleep. For example, middle class couples in America
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  Speaker 2: used to sleep in separate twin beds, the way Lucy
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: and Desi did. Until sitcoms of all types from Ozzy
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  Speaker 2: and Harriet I thought you went to bed, well I did,
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  Speaker 2: but I to the Flintstones, to the Brady Bund, Martia,
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  Speaker 2: Marsha and Marcia started depicting couples sharing a bed and
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  Speaker 2: this actually affected American bedrooms and buying habits. But that
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  Speaker 2: isn't the only case. Like when sixteen and Pregnant aired
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: on MTV, the teenage birth rate went down by five
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: point seven percent. Joe Biden claimed Will and Grace I'm
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: Gay did more to pave the way to shift America's
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  Speaker 2: opinion on gay marriage than nearly anything else. So if
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  Speaker 2: any one thing could make astrology more acceptable to Americans,
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  Speaker 2: it's got to be an astrologer on CNN. Can you
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  Speaker 2: tell me how you ended up on the networks?
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  Speaker 3: In the early year, CNN was an experiment. It was
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: like the United States. It was a grand experiment.
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  Speaker 2: At the time. CNN is just a startup and the
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  Speaker 2: channel is throwing ideas at the wall, trying to figure
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  Speaker 2: out what I'll stick. And the truth is, Maxine sticks.
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  Speaker 2: Maxine is kind of built for this. Not only is
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  Speaker 2: she charming and fun and bubbly, but she's also beautiful
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  Speaker 2: and composed. In college, Maxine had been a regular and
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  Speaker 2: beauty pageants and a finalist for Miss University of Florida,
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  Speaker 2: And before she switched to doing astrology full time, she'd
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: been an elementary school teacher, so she kind of knows
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  Speaker 2: how to wrangle outside personalities.
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  Speaker 3: In fact, when I was on Larry kingshow he was
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  Speaker 3: a gentleman and he was wonderful, but they felt they
• 9:46
  Speaker 3: had to present a disclaimer. When I was on, well,
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  Speaker 3: I tend to rebell and you might have figured that
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  Speaker 3: one out, and I really would get irritated with them,
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  Speaker 3: and this was live TV, and I realized I love
• 10:11
  Speaker 3: live TV because whatever you say, you can't take.
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  Speaker 2: Back, and in the way Maxine always does, it wasn't
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  Speaker 2: long before she started winning people over.
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  Speaker 3: What happened was my predictions were accurate, and so they
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  Speaker 3: stopped criticizing, and a couple of them asked me to
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  Speaker 3: do their charts.
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  Speaker 2: She won't reveal who, but big anchors on the network
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  Speaker 2: who would kind of mock astrology or who would publicly
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  Speaker 2: distance themselves from it were regularly asking her to do
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  Speaker 2: their charts.
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  Speaker 3: I loved being on that team, and I did political predictions,
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  Speaker 3: but at that time mangish I was totally non political.
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  Speaker 3: I didn't even watch the news. It was too negative.
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  Speaker 2: Maxine was such a joy that the station still brings
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  Speaker 2: her back to comment on astrology scandals and occasionally to
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  Speaker 2: make sense of the news. What in the world's going on?
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  Speaker 3: Oh honey. Every couple of years, some Yahoo rediscovers the
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  Speaker 3: fact that there are two zodiacs. It's that simple, Really, yes,
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  Speaker 3: it's that simple.
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  Speaker 2: Three she convinced an entire country that things would be okay.
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  Speaker 3: I got a call in nineteen eighty something and it
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  Speaker 3: was from a reporter who also worked for CNN. I
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  Speaker 3: couldn't understand what he was saying, because then we had
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  Speaker 3: and I don't know if we still do what was
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  Speaker 3: called coaxial cable. It was under sea and there was
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  Speaker 3: an echo, was like talking into a tin can. And
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  Speaker 3: he said, I would like you to do the chart
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  Speaker 3: of Hungary.
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  Speaker 2: This is nineteen eighty nine, soon after communism fell in
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  Speaker 2: Poland and a pro democracy revolution was spreading across Eastern Europe.
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  Speaker 2: And as protests were breaking out in Hungary, a CNN
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  Speaker 2: reporter based in Budapest reaches.
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  Speaker 3: Out and I laughed because I'm thinking, well, when was
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  Speaker 3: this country born? So I said, well, if you can
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  Speaker 3: get me their birthtime, because you need an exact birth
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  Speaker 3: time to cast a chart, and the month, day and year,
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  Speaker 3: I'll do the chart. And he said okay, and I
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  Speaker 3: said goodbye and kind of chuckled, thinking I'll never hear
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  Speaker 3: from this guy again. Well, a couple of weeks later
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  Speaker 3: he was back, and he was so excited. He said,
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  Speaker 3: we were born today.
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  Speaker 2: On October twenty third, nineteen eighty nine, the Republic of
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  Speaker 2: Hungary officially came into being, ending communism.
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  Speaker 5: There.
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  Speaker 2: The Berlin Wall would actually fall two weeks later. It
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  Speaker 2: was really an exciting period in history.
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  Speaker 3: He gave me the moment it began and said, okay,
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  Speaker 3: will you do the chart? And I did the chart
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  Speaker 3: for the entire country. A country is an entity, a living,
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  Speaker 3: breathing entity, and we interpret that chart a little bit
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  Speaker 3: differently than we do a birth chart, because we're dealing
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  Speaker 3: with not just say short trips, but transportation, communication, the press, etc.
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  Speaker 2: Maxine's reading was pretty thorough. It addressed different areas of
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  Speaker 2: how Hungary would evolve, and it not only aired on
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  Speaker 2: Radio Budapest, but it was printed in newspapers across the country.
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  Speaker 3: Obviously, there was a rebellion going on. People were fighting
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  Speaker 3: for principles. Hungary wasn't free, and so it was quite
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  Speaker 3: an event, quite an event. I considered that the highest honor,
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  Speaker 3: and that was what I realized I wanted to do
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  Speaker 3: to hug the world.
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  Speaker 2: Maxine Taylor broke all sorts of areas for astrologers in
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  Speaker 2: the US. She created space in this world for professional astrology.
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  Speaker 2: She brought it into the news cycle, and she put
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  Speaker 2: the citizens of Budapest at ease by giving the entire
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  Speaker 2: country or reading. Also, she's a total sweetheart.
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  Speaker 3: I love humanity and I love the diversity the people
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  Speaker 3: who are so bigoted. It's like, can't you see we
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  Speaker 3: are all one. We come in different colored packages, different shapes,
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  Speaker 3: different sizes, different beliefs, and when you touch base with
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  Speaker 3: somebody on that level, to me, that's heaven.
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  Speaker 2: I love how astrology provides a way for us to
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  Speaker 2: connect and how it lets us see people not just
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  Speaker 2: in their instagram perfect lives, but to appreciate them for
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: all their complexity. In twenty twenty three, we're getting new
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  Speaker 2: postage stamps to honor snow globes, sailboats, school buses, and pinatas.
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  Speaker 2: And while I'm very much for those things, astrology figures
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  Speaker 2: into a lot of our daily lives. From the Reagan episode,
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  Speaker 2: we know it's shaped our world and country, and in
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: a strange way, it gives a lot of us comfort
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  Speaker 2: and purpose. Stamps are a symbol of what we value
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  Speaker 2: and what we want to celebrate. So don't you think
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: between all the sailboats and the snow globes and the piatas,
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  Speaker 2: there might be a little room for an astrologer too,
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  Speaker 2: I like to think. So that's it for this week's
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: minisode of Skyline Drive special. Thanks to my team here, Mary, Nitra, Mark,
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: Anna and Drew for cobbling this together over the holidays,
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: and Botany as always for the soundtrack. Also thank you,
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: thank you so much to the lovely Maxim Taylor. To
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: see her predictions for America or to book a consult
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: with America's first licensed astrologer, just visit Maxinetaylor dot com.
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: Also a big thank you to my good pal Ben
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: Bolan for doing this episode's warning. Ben used to sit
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: across from me at How Stuff Works.
• 17:18
  Speaker 5: He's the co host of Ridiculous History and Stuff they
• 17:21
  Speaker 5: Don't Want You To Know to excellent programs, and he
• 17:24
  Speaker 5: just put out a phenomenal new book by the same name,
• 17:27
  Speaker 5: Stuff they Don't Want You to Know.
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: Go pick one up immediately.
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  Speaker 5: We'll be back with more full episodes very very soon.
• 17:35
  Speaker 5: I know you have so many shows to choose from,
• 17:37
  Speaker 5: but I want to.
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  Speaker 2: Thank you from the bottom of my heart for spending
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: your time with us. See you soon.