I notice there is no personal updates type forum like there was on the old site, so I'm putting this here. This is a repost from fb. I just wrote my work history down one day when I had a little spare time and then thought of my own life and the nature of the companies where I worked from a turnings perspective. I found it to be a fun and enlightening exercise you might want to try yourself.
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In my life I've had many jobs and moved around a lot. The Nomad life course. I have a bachelor's degree in computer science and have mostly worked as a contractor. For fun, and because I like categorizing, I wrote down every company I've worked at and the year the company was founded. Some interesting patterns emerged.

The majority of companies where I have worked were founded in the 2T or 3T of this saeculum. Many of these were startups that failed or got bought out. Not surprising since I am a software engineer but too old to be in on the ground floor of any 4T unicorns.

These jobs were all in the first half of my career, pretty much coinciding with the 3T of this saeculum. The other places I worked in this time period were two venerable public institutions founded in the 1T of the Great Power saeculum: Virginia Tech where I went to school and the United States Geological Survey where I interned.

Then in the second half of my career, starting just at the tail end of the 3T, I started getting contracts at more established companies, founded in the 3T or 4T of the Great Power saeculum (IBM for example). This reflects both my increased work experience and a life course related desire for greater work stability. This is my Nomad settling down in the 4T phase.

Sen. Orrin Hatch says he’ll introduce new bill to ban sporting gambling

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/sen-orrin-hatc...52041.html

We're halfway into the Fourth Turning, and I think we're really starting to get a feel for the spirit of the age. The Trump shock has pushed us in certain directions from which there is no return. Even if Trump crashes and burns in the near future, there is no way we will find ourselves in a world as it might have been if Clinton had become POTUS in 2016. What 4T changes are with us for good?

1) The end of the U.S.-led post-WWII international order. We used to be the leaders of the Free World; now we're starting Trade Wars and offending our former allies. It's a new age of every Great Power for itself.

2) The corporation maintains control of the commanding heights. If you don't have a corporate safety net beneath you, too bad for you. You will remain in the underprivleged class because good luck getting a New New Deal going, given that...

3) Democracy remains broken. The will of the majority is stymied by special interests, dark money, and voter suppression. And that's not even counting Russian inteference.

4) The marginalized will continue to suffer. With no way to implement a public safety net, there is no hope for those on the periphery of society - the homeless, the undocumented, and the refugees from global chaos.

Well this just got really interesting. And since this could only happen in a 4T I thought I'd share it here.

My city - Toronto - has municipal elections going on (the elections themselves are in October). The current mayor is rather well respected, altho somewhat begrudgingly. He's basically a manager, keeping things running. We won't get any transformational ideas from him, but the city will run (we of course had Rob Ford as mayor previously).

Just before the 2pm deadline to file today, a legitimate contender filed to run - the former Chief Planner for the city - and it appears may be running on a platform of secession from the province. This would be equivalent to New York City trying to secede from New York state. For a legitimate candidate to take this position, is, well, unprecedented to say the least.

The backstory is very relevant - the provincial government just got elected into power last month - a right wing government led by former mayor Rob Ford's brother, Doug Ford. Completely out of the blue it was reported last night that he will be passing legislation shortly to cut Toronto's city council from 47 to 25.

Of course this has been front page news up here today, with press conferences from all sides. So when, suddenly, the former chief planner - who just happens to be an attractive, relatively young lady - tweeted this am "secession" and just showed up to file her papers to run for mayor - well, a crazy local news day just got a whole lot crazier.

Everyone's reaction in the first hours seems to be a very sarcastic "yeah, sure ..."; but I'm sitting looking at this from a 4T persective ... this could actually happen.

We just finished a very bizarre provincial election - it seems the next couple of months of our municipal election are going to be even crazier!!!

13 red flags of a dominionist church.
Posted on July 22, 2018 by luckyotter
 


I’ve written about Christian dominionism before, especially as it relates to our current political situation here in America, but what exactly is it, and how can you tell if your church has gone dominionist or has dominionist tendencies?
What is dominionism?

First, we need to define dominionism.  What exactly is it anyway?  Basically, it’s a postmillennialist theology that was started by Rousas Rushdoony in the 1960s, with the publication of his tome, Institutes of Biblical Law.  It has its roots in Calvinism, and is in fact Calvinism on steroids.   It’s a form of theonomy, or theological totalitarianism, that teaches that God has mandated humans to prepare the world for Christ’s return by “christianizing” the “7 mountains” of society: government, family, media, education, religion, entertainment/arts, and business.   They seek to do this by installing only Christians (specifically, dominionist evangelicals) into the top echelons of each of these seven “mountains”  who will then work on changing them.   One of the tasks of the people mandated to transform the “government” mountain is replacing the Constitution with Old Testament biblical (Mosaic) law.   In fact, they’re busy doing this right now, which is why there are so many dominionist Christians in the Trump administration.  Dominionists (and many “normal” evangelicals also)  believe that Trump has been “anointed” by God as a “wrecking ball” to help bring about God’s kindgom on earth.   Many people have compared dominionism to ISIS and the Taliban, two extremist factions of Islam that also don’t recognize the separation of religion and government and have made laws based on the Q’uran (sharia law) the law of the land in some Middle Eastern countries.

Dominionism isn’t a denomination.  It’s an authoritarian theology that has infiltrated a variety of Christian denominations in America, mostly evangelical, fundamentalist, or pentecostal (you’re pretty safe from it if you’re in a mainline or liberal Protestant or Catholic church — for now).  Dominionism has flown under the radar for years and has gone under several different names:  New Apostolic Reformation (NAR),  Manifest Sons of God, the Latter Rain movement (an early incarnation from the 1970s), Kingdom Now,  Kingdom Theology, Joel’s Army, and other names.    It’s actually a fascist and nationalist political agenda wrapped up in Christian piety.  As a post-millennialist doctrine, it has a different eschatology from “normal” evangelicalism, which is traditionally pre-millennialist and therefore teaches that the Tribulation and Rapture will occur before Christ returns.   “Normal” evangelicals (and mainline Christians who believe in the Second Coming) adhere to the biblical teaching that we have no way to know when Christ will return, and there is no way to “prepare” for it, since God’s kingdom is not of this world.

Dominionism is heretical for many reasons but mostly because it says Jesus can’t return until the planet is “Christianized.”   For Americans, this means a installing a theocracy based on Old Testament laws.   If that sounds a lot like radical Islam to you, that’s because it is.  Their agenda is eventual world domination (dominion) and a One World Religion.  This is unbiblical.  We were never called to force certain religious beliefs on others, only to spread the Gospel.  To force a religion on society by way of its laws negates the concept of free will.  It also corrupts both the religion and the government.   This is why the Founding Fathers were clear about the separation of church and state.
The Bible also never says that only Man can change the world for Christ.  In fact, we cannot facilitate Christ’s return ourselves because we can’t even know when He is returning (Mark 13:32).

God’s kingdom, according to John 18:36, is not of this world.   But dominionists believe it very much is and to be pleasing to God, the world must be changed to Jesus’ liking.   Dominionism is also extremely authoritarian and very cult-like.    Many survivors of spiritual or religious abuse came from churches that embraced tenets of dominionism and reconstructionism.

Here’s an excellent (and scary) description of dominionism from a political research website:
Dominionism Rising: A Theocratic Movement Hiding in Plain Sight

Dominionism has been working its dark magic within American evangelical churches,  and even some charismatic Catholic churches.  Now that it’s infiltrated our political system, it threatens the integrity of our Constitution and our freedom.  Many of the current GOP in high level positions, and some members of Trump’s staff are actively trying to install dominionist doctrine into our laws.   Here are 13 red flags to look for.

(The rest will be paraphrased).

Comment: Dominionism is American authoritarianism in religious garb. I suspect that you are safe if you are Jewish or Eastern Orthodox, too.

I had a thread on this topic over on the old forum. I couldn't figure out how to retrieve it so I decided to start anew here. Do you all feel as if so many in the dating realm expect idealism and perfection in their relationships? Are both genders equally guilty of this? Are they more reluctant to accept things and people as they are? (Black Lives Matter, LGBTQ rights, etc. notwithstanding). Do we all want to be loved  unconditionally?

I have my own thoughts on this issue, and I often feel that we may have come in the wrong direction since the days when dating had a more genteel approach to it. When I started in the 1970s there was still a certain amount of old-fashionedness left, as it was still customary for the man to make the date, picked the lady up wherever she lived, go out for dinner, movies, dancing, etc., and bring her back at the end of the evening. Contrary to popular belief, sex was seldom on the menu for dessert. That all began to change in the late 1970s when it became much more commonplace for the couples to meet in a public place such as restaurant or park. By the mid-1980s the AIDS scare cut the heart out of the sexual revolution and made dating more complex. But an even bigger factor was the advent of the professional yuppie class and the whole "I don't have time" syndrome which hasn't really led up much to this day. To me the only real "pro" from this trend was that dating services gained respectability and will no longer considered the last resort for losers as had been the case before. They also, however, became ridiculously expensive, sometimes costing a grand or more.

Singles dances may still be around but they are much less numerous today. What do you see ahead to be the dating customs of the future, and might we someday see a return to more genteel approaches?

Hero
Artist
Prophet
Nomad

Please let us discuss why those words were used in order to name the archetypes.

My thoughts generally are:

Heroes arrive in a Crisis to fix structural problems to save us
Artists enjoy the fruit of that fixing and are free to create for us
Prophets arrive in the most optimal time and offer personal revelation to us
Nomads are left with close to nothing when everything unraveled on us
REPEAT

The above is pretty much right from the book The Fourth Turning.  Heroes fix.  Artists create.  Prophets reveal.  Nomads roam.  I would like to see some discussion about those words and their meaning -- in relation to how to describe the archetype.  Those words mean something.  The authors chose those words for a reason.

What are some of the pro and con of the archetypes based on those words?  The authors even went into that.

Hero: strong in structure but lacking in vision
Prophet: strong in vision but lacking in structure

[those are paraphrased but nonetheless]

Those are the two I remember the most.  What does anyone think?

For videos relevant to Turnings/Generations.

I am surprised that we have no thread for Congressional, Senatorial, or Gubernatorial elections of 2018 as late as July 2018. I suggest this for primary results, generic ballots, polls of upcoming elections, and on Election Day and later -- results and analysis.

Many of us know Tribune Media for WGN, KTLA, or WPIX -- at times, superstations from Chicago, Los Angeles, or New York City. Now that most of us no longer get the genuine WGN TV feed (with Chicago-area sports and the excellent news feed -- and living in Michigan, I loved getting Tom Skilling's weather report because it would show our weather forming off to the west as a variant of Chicago weather) it's not so interesting.

Sinclair Broadcasting Company, infamous for propaganda about as blatant as that of the old Soviet Union, if for the Hard Right in America, had been trying to take over Tribune Media (a fairly neutral news source) and transform it into a conduit for its right-wing propaganda. Well. "Stinking Liar" Broadcasting will not be taking over WGN, KTLA, or WPIX -- or 39 other TV stations, some of them bug players in some major TV markets (the biggest markets in which Tribune Broadcasting isn't a local broadcaster are Detroit and San Francisco) -- according to a decision by the FCC:

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/07/1...oom-722423

Quote:FCC Chairman Ajit Pai announced Monday he has "serious concerns" about Sinclair Broadcast Group's acquisition of Tribune Media, saying he would send the transaction through a lengthy administrative process often viewed as a deal-killer.

As originally proposed in May 2017, the $3.9 billion deal would see conservative-leaning Sinclair, already the largest U.S. TV station owner, gobble up 42 Tribune stations in key markets like New York and Chicago, adding to its existing footprint of more than 170 stations and giving the company access to nearly three-quarters of U.S. households.

But the regulatory review dragged on for more than a year, as Sinclair revised the deal several times, offering to sell off 21 stations in an effort to gain government approval. Critics took issue with some of the proposed sales, which were so-called sidecar arrangements that would allow Sinclair to keep a stake in the revenue and programming of the spun-off stations, as POLITICO reported on May 30. Another two of the sales would have been to a company with close ties to Sinclair.

Pai said the divestitures were a sticking point for the agency.

"Based on a thorough review of the record, I have serious concerns about the Sinclair/Tribune transaction," the chairman said in the statement. "The evidence we’ve received suggests that certain station divestitures that have been proposed to the FCC would allow Sinclair to control those stations in practice, even if not in name, in violation of the law."

The FCC's decision is a significant blow for Sinclair, which has been been a frequent target for Democrats and liberal groups disturbed by reports that it favors President Donald Trump in its coverage via "must-run" segments pumped to its network of stations.

It’s also a surprising turn of events for Pai, who was nominated for the agency's top post by Trump. The chairman had earlier revived a regulatory loophole known as the UHF discount seen as critical to the Sinclair deal. It permits broadcasters to count only half the reach of some stations when calculating their national reach — and allowed Sinclair to avoid vastly exceeding federal limits on media ownership with the deal.