Columns Aug 12, 2015 at 4:00 am
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Comments

103
I'm team Robb, long time reader, even if.I didn't know what the fuck he was.going on about half the time, he is a pleasure to read, a consummate sylist.

The Stranger is the loser here.
105
So glad you got rid of the astrology column. Astrology is completely bogus and, despite what some of the comments here, has absolutely no basis in reality.
107
@76 is more interesting than 99% of these comments. Get over yourselves and read Rob's shit online like everyone else. There's an app for that.
108
I like FWA. Postal mail this survey? Joke, no? I feel old.
109
But why?
110
Ironically, after 20 years of reading the stranger, I never once paid any attention to this column, but reading this thread made me want to check it out. Too bad they don't publish it in my local paper.
111
I'm never paying for this paper ever again! Or maybe, I'll buy it every week but then SCAN all the pages and put them on FACEBOOK so everyone can read the paper for FREE! Take THAT!
112
Great! Astrology, and this is a fact in the same way the earth is not flat is a fact, is stupid. The whole thing is based on the idea that planets have crystal balls attached to them and are pushed along by angels, which is a very stupid idea, and it is necessary to believe that in order to believe in astrology. So believing in astrology is stupid, pretending to believe in it is stupid, asking people what sign they are is stupid, all of it. In a country where science is something people selectively believe based on what conversation they are in it is not only very, very stupid, it is also dangerous. Now replace it with a weekly science column, thanks.
113
This is a tremendously disappointing decision.
114
Way to go The Stranger, you must be low on billy goats. Of course astrology isn't real, that's not why I read FWA. I read it because Brezny has wonderful insights and interesting trivia. I often read the other signs, not just my own. This survey is obviously a joke but I think it's mean. If I were Brezny and I read this I probably wouldn't want The Stranger publishing my column anymore.
115
Frankly the article reads as one last click bait to get every last drop of response out of FWA.

Slog used to be my homepage and I would frantically refresh multiple times an hour. Within the last one to two years, I have found it to be lacking significantly. It really too bad as I have discovered a lot of wonderful things about Seattle thanks to the Stranger. Things like smashputt, slog Christmas gift exchanges (fnarf I still have your comode and was hoping to regift it!), interesting one off events I would have otherwise missed, and getting to meet members of the slog community.

Now, it just feels like they've lost their way and they are throwing shit against the wall to find something that sticks.
116
@115: You're right about this article and about Slog in general. It's gone downhill. The Stranger relies too heavily on Savage Love to draw readers. Half the letters in that column are fake and Dan Savage's advice is condescending if not stupid. Wake up Slog, you're getting boring!
117
Really? FWA is gone? What a bunch of black hearted f#*k tards you've all become. Thanks for pissing in my Cheerios.
119
Back when I had a Lovelab account I listed FWA as the first thing I would read in the Stranger.
As for my belief in astrology, it's half hearted, tongue planted firmly in cheek, and read the details. Although my history with dating Sagittarius girls tells me I should consider taking it a little more seriously by not dating Sagittarius girls.
120
but seriously -- disappointed that free will astrology is gone, and extra disappointed in how snarky the send-out is here. i mean, the stranger's had it's hand in the snark pocket for a long time, but always tethered to some point, an intelligent thing that gives it roots. this is just snark for snark sake, which i've been noticing more and more. and sure, other things to read than FWA, but i always looked forward to it and have been reading it for years. boo.
121
You may not realize it but quantum entanglement has been demonstrated over and over again since 2002. As above, so below, has a possible (if very general) theoretical basis.
122
Having been a FWA reader since I lived in Santa Cruz CA in the 80s, where Rob first started writing FWA, I have to say its great to see all the FWA love being expressed above. And yes it is sad to see FWA go away, but everything has an end, and sometimes the end has to come before the new beginning can happen. So lets all wish Rob the best in the next phase of his life and give The Stranger a big ol' Fuck You for the less-than-stellar way they handled this parting of ways.
123
Astrology is mystical, mumbo-jumbo claptrap, pure-and-simple. Might as well be "reading" sticks tossed on the ground or bird entrails for all it's worth. And I don't buy into that "but, it's ENTERTAINING!" crap, either. You want entertainment, read legitimate fiction; but stop lending credence to anti-rational, anti-science drivel.
128
It would seem that this attempt to lure Fnarf back into the fold hasn't worked.

Rockie Horoscope was a lot more interesting - she would say stuff that would make you wonder if there wasn't something to it all (in particular, I recall her predicting a possible terrorist event on ... dun-dun-DUN - 9/11), but she wasn't carried in either Seattle weekly and she died a few years later. Rob, who used to be in Seattle Weekly, always struck me as very twee. A lot of people see positivity in that and I don't mean to discourage them, but it wasn't my cup o' noodles.

Yeah, no need for horoscopes with me. But given the precipitous decline in The Stranger and Slog's quality over the last couple of years (so soon after Eli's Pulitzer), you should have kept something that was popular with your readers. You can't afford to keep alienating them.
129
Don't give a shit about astrology, but I've always enjoyed FWA. This sendoff isn't clever at all, just kinda dickish.
135
@propaghandi Dr. Sbaitso was more Turing test capable than you. Please tell your grad student he's got a ways to go.
136
@135, sanotehu: Oh my God, THAT'S IT!!!! It's clearly a trolling program/experiment. They need to program in a few typos, maybe some more personal anecdotes and interactions... that sort of thing.
138
Nobody likes to be mocked, but from this comment thread we learn that astrology fans *really* don't like to be mocked.
139
Wow, people who believe in astrology are not a force to be reckoned with.
140
OMG! 140 comments!
I really liked Brezney's book Pronoia, FreeWillAstrology is like tiny little capsule doses of pronoia. Like a weekly vaccine against this fear-based culture of ours. He, like, gets me.
141
I don't believe in Astrology but always liked reading Rob's column. I don't expect an apologies from the Stranger, but this is particularly tone-deaf.
142
I am not a believer in astrology - but I love good, creative writing and am a faithful reader of RB. It fit in The Stranger. I understand that times have to change - but am completely confused by the hateful fake survery. Shit on RB and you shit on me. - Long time Stranger reader
143
Not a believer in astrology, but always found this column interesting. Also, The Stranger is just becoming less and less...good. You've lost a lot of great talent and diversity in content. I actually checked Seattle Weekly out this week and they have more going on, news-wise, even if the writing is more pedestrian. If you're having trouble with the monies, be mindful of what is actually bringing in the monies. It ain't just Dan Savage.
144
I always found FWA intensely uninteresting and wondered why you bothered to run it. For fuck's sake, now I guess I know: if you remove it, people go massively fucking apeshit.
145
The issue here isn't whether you believe in astrology or not. The issue is with how this announcement has been made… With no consideration for someone whose column has been printed here for 24 years, and no respect or consideration for its own readers. I used to deliver the Stranger around Portland. I started reading Rob's writings because everyone I delivered to around town told me how much they loved it and to check it out. I soon found it wasn't about planets and stars and predictions. It was about creatively, entertainingly, and poetically posing questions to get me thinking about my life in different ways. Thank you, Rob. I look forward to sticking with you. I'm sorry you've been treated so poorly the end of a good long run.
146
I don't understand this "poor treatment" people are talking about. Unless there's something somewhere besides this article, we have no idea how he was treated. All we know is that they decided to drop the column, then they asked what the readers thought about it. So exactly what poor treatment has Rob Brezny suffered? A breaking of the implicit promise to carry his column forever? I don't get it.
147
Wow. New low for the staffing at The Stranger. Your loss, not his. I concur with every other criticism that this is a Just Plain Stupid Move for your "Seattle's Only Newspaper". Überlame.

At least I can still pick up huge stacks of your paper and run them through the shredder for rodent bedding. That's really all its fit for unless/until you bring Rob back.
148
rob brezny's horoscopes are fantastic... your readers will be missing out on one of our planet's greatest visionary voices <3 lucky for them, they will be able to read that voice elsewhere

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