Category: Review

April 30, 2025 – The Mushroom Hunters: A Hidden World of Food, Money and (Mostly Legal) Adventure

April 30, 2025 /

The Mushroom Hunters by Langdon Cook is the Left Coast Culinary Book Club selection for May 2025. I got a head start compared to my normal pace due to last month being a cookbook and setting our club schedule a little bit in advanced. I started reading this at the beginning of the month and got a good way through it on our back and forth to the east coast.

This is one of those rare books that our club reads that is not fiction, not a memoir and not a cookbook. It is culinary non-fiction. It reminds me a lot of the book Cork Dork by Bianca Bosker that we read in some of our earliest days of the club. It was so early that I didn’t have AltF4.co running yet and I never reviewed it here. But, essentially it is a story about Bianca’s quest to become a sommelier.

I cannot say what the exact motivation for writing this book was but it sure appears that the author Cook is very into mushrooms. The number of miles driven and time spent over the span of the story is significant. I suppose that is a mark of a good journalist to really get into the story, to get it right and not just phone it in.

Cook is from Seattle and most of the story takes place in the Pacific Northwest with a couple main characters. One is a mushroom picker and the other is a buyer/broker. They run up and down from Canada to California and from the ocean to Missoula as the parameters of their picking seemingly on an instant.

I would love to know more about personal mushroom picking. But, to tell you the truth I am scared to death of eating the wrong mushroom. I have have heard too many stories of mistaking the variety and either puking all night or even dying. I had no idea that there were so many varieties of edible mushrooms that grew wild here. According to the book, they happen most of the year.

The thing that I liked the most about the book is that the action was all around me. I kept reading and saying to myself ‘I know that place’ or ‘I had no idea this was going on around me’. In particular, there is a tiny town near the place that we have been deer hunting that turned into an Asian shanty town at the same time deer hunting was going on. The impromptu camp had a popup karaoke bar and pho restaurant. All this and I never even noticed.

Reading the book took me back to my youth. As the primary picker was a former logger, I got to thinking about the impact of the timber drought that began in the early 1990s. Once those mills stopped operating, loggers were out of work too. There was a whole genre of forest literate men but lacking transferable job skills. This in turn gave way to government assistance, poverty and drugs.

There is a 20 mile stretch between the town I grew up in and a reservoir that we water skied. There were at least four mills on that stretch. Now, there is one and it is a Weyerhaeuser mill. The biggest survived. It wasn’t totally an environmental situation as much as it was all the old growth was logged. Combine that with a US policy of conservation rather than production and only the companies that owned vast tracks of their own land survive. The good news for mushrooms is that second growth opened the door for a lot more production.

If you ask me, I would say a lot more of the mushroom harvest (written about) was more gray market. There was a lot of situational ethics in play such as ‘they don’t care about the mushrooms, only the timber’. Or, that No Trespassing sign is the result of equipment damage, sabotage and environmental damage. It doesn’t actually mean me who is not hurting anything. There is a lot of truth to that sentiment.

When timber comprised a significant portion of the economy, companies made a much greater effort to have a symbiotic relationship with the public. It seems like in today’s world that attitude has changed. I don’t remember a single locked gate growing up and now most private timber is access by recreational lease holder only. When you couple that with the vast amount of land owned and the semi-dubious methods by which it was acquired, it does seem like situational ethics are appropriate to a point.

I loved this book and thought it was fantastic. But the reason I did was because I could picture probably a quarter of the book. If you don’t live here, it may not hold some of the same romance. It doesn’t really tell you where to go specifically or how to identify mushrooms but that there is a whole cash based, gray market subculture feeding the finest and trendiest restaurants in New York as well as the Pacific Northwest.

End Your Programming Routine: Cookbooks are fine. The truth for me is that most of them I don’t get a lot out of. I am grateful that we step away and read something else, particularly something as fascinating as this. This late in the game, I won’t get into the storyline but the broker is still in business. I thought about e-mailing him and thanking him for participating even if it left his situation a little vulnerable. Part of me thinks that he won’t reciprocate or care. I don’t know but I sure admire his passion.

April 25, 2025 – Revelations 21-22 and Conclusion

April 25, 2025 /

We have turned a corner here. We past the rapture and now we are onto the reward. Gleaming cities of gold and jasper etc. I wonder if this is where the ‘pearly gates’ descriptor comes from? It is described as the new Jerusalem for a new earth prepared for those that are worthy.

First, God cast out Satan forever. Then He prepared a new city. The tree of life was available for the first time since Adam and Eve. John was explicitly told to proselytize that this is a new world order.

Among the couple of things that I found interesting is that there is talk about no temple in new Jeruasalem. There is no longer a need for priests to act as the mediary between God and the people. For the uninitiated, there was a curtain called a veil in the temple. The priest was the only one that could go behind the veil because supposedly that is where God was.

It was the promise of Jesus, also called the ‘New Covenant’ that was supposed to break that requirement. This was allegedly authorized at the last supper with the bread and wine (what we colloquially call communion to memorialize the event). I guess I don’t totally understand why this is coming up now when I believe it comes up earlier.

I don’t think that you get to pick your truth, even when it is conflicting. That being said I would like to know more about the origins of the Bible. What books were stricken and for what reasons? Since the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John have very similar accounts, your can reasonably assume corroborating facts are true. Revelations was controversial and it seems like for good reason.

Jesus told them to expect his return after crucifixion (remember doubting Thomas) but why this new development? Why a whole new purging of the earth and starting over? It does seem to contradict the whole premise of Christianity provides salvation with free will. The vengeful God was supposed to be replaced with the loving God post Jesus.

It would be very presumptuous of me to say that this book seems a little far fetched. But I am going to say it anyway. We can’t just ignore controversy because it is convenient. It seems pretty likely that John would have communication with God considering how close he was to Jesus. But just like the Fourth Turning, why hasn’t it happened yet? Surely a millennium has passed by now.

For all I know, it happened at or near 1000 AD. It is not as if recorded history was the best it could have been. What if it was the black plague in the 1300s? I don’t think Satan has actually been banished considering the state of the world. But, I would also expect humanity to be gone as well and we would all be living in New Jerusalem.

What that says to me is that there is something up with the interpretation. I don’t know exactly what that is aside from the calculation of time. If one thing is off, what about other aspects of the story? As a result, it is probably best to live as if the rapture could come anytime.

End Your Programming Routine: I always knew it but now I can concretely say what fascinates these doomsday groups. A strong faith and a strong fatalism combined with timing of the Julian calendar and who knows what will happen? This definitely wasn’t my favorite Bible foray, but it leads me to believe that I will do more because I have not read all of it myself. Next week is the introduction to “In the Gravest Extreme” by Massad Ayoob.

April 18, 2025 – Revelations 8-20

April 18, 2025 /

He has risen… again? At least that is what the prophecy of Revelations claims. Since Easter is this weekend, I want to be the first one to wish you a happy Easter. Unlike Christmas, this is a true Christian holiday. A day of salvation and redemption for all that seek it.

Today is actually Good Friday. This is the day of Jesus’s crucifixion. The day that he was nailed to the cross and hung to die. But it is also the day that mankind’s sin died as well. So while it is bittersweet for Jesus, that was his purpose on earth and a victory for eternal salvation.

From what I have gathered reading these chapters, this is the rapture. As soon as the seventh seal is broken, the action begins. One third of the plants, water, animals and sunlight. Then, god sends down the devil and locusts.

Something that I found kind of interesting when I was reading some commentary on Revelations came up. In Chapter 12, it says that Satan was thrown to the earth. What? I thought that he was already condemned to Hell? Yes, but no. Apparently, Satan has the ability to go back to Heaven in order to lobby for his case. Meaning that if he sees some soul go the opposite direction, he can appeal to God.

Remember, this is a vision of the Rapture. This has not really happened yet according to Biblical belief. So if that is really true, then that means that Satan currently has the ability to appeal for souls. Interesting.

Revelations 13 is a good one. This is the chapter that identifies 666 as the mark of the beast. I remember the first time I ever heard this concept back in the early 1990s. My scoutmaster affirmed that if we were ever to get some sort of tattoo that was the mark of the beast. Now, I am not totally sure about just any tattoo but I am a little bit conflicted.

You may have heard of people embedding RFID microchips into their skin so that they can just wave their hand over some sort of scanner to check-out in something like an Amazon store. I am not sure where we are with that experiment at this point but I think that this is coming much closer to the mark of the beast than a tattoo.

I will not make comparisons between Amazon and Satan. But, I do have to say that permanently forfeiting your sovereign humanity at the expense of convenience is starting to tip the scales. I don’t think that Amazon is pure evil but they are surely not benevolent either. RFID implants is definitely a step too far for me.

Much of today’s readings focus on what happens during tribulation, particularly when you have accepted the mark of the beast. Chapters 19 and 20 finish that and see Christ’s second coming. Satan and the False prophet are cast off the earth forever.

I think that there are two things that come to mind reading Revelations that are somewhat puzzling. The first goes back to Revelations 10. John is instructed to eat a scroll of judgement. This has two purposes. One is so that he can ‘ingest’ the real sins and the vision as it is revealed. The second goes hand in hand with not revealing the details of the vision. How is it that John is writing this book of the Bible if he promised God that he would not reveal the vision? That seems in direct violation to something the John holds so personally.

The second is God’s promise of judgement after a millennium. By our time measurement, we have seen at least two since the prophecy. This of course added extra significance to the Y2K hoopla. I have often pondered the Biblical accounting of time. This is particularly true with Noah living 900 years. He wasn’t the only one but he was remarkable at siring children at such an advanced age of 500.

I do believe that miracles are possible through God. I just wonder about some of the accounting. Further more, why? What is the purpose of Noah living 950 years? Did it really take that long to establish a flawed, human civilization? It almost seems like the early Bible was trying to fill in the gaps of known time versus known people because in the New Testament people seem to have more typical lifespans.

This is all to say that I have no idea of what measurement a Millennium really is. I tend to think that because this is New Testament text, it is more similar to our modern calendar. But then again, I don’t understand the rhyme or reason to the Christian calendar either. As a person that is pretty good with patterns and algorithms, how is it that Eater changes every year? You try to understand it so you can explain it to me.

End Your Programming Routine: I am sort of getting the gist of why this book is controversial. From the Jewish standpoint, they are waiting for the first coming and the Muslims have already had the second. The best policy is to be faithful just in case. It might not be the rapture but it might be a sudden car wreck which has the same result as a religious cleansing. Next week we will close the book on Revelations. “He has risen indeed.”

April 16, 2025 – Local Dirt

April 16, 2025 /

Local Dirt by Andrea Bemis is one of several books for the April Left Coast Culinary Book Club meeting. When I say one of several, what I mean is that sometimes we pick an author and it is Sophie’s Choice for what you want to read. Local Dirt is the second of a two book series. The first one is titled Dishing Up the Dirt.

She has a third book called Let Them Eat Dirt which seems to be recipes oriented towards children. I elected to purchase just one because I can always buy the others if it turns out that I like the author. I will say that I do like the author but it is unlikely that I will purchase any more books. There is only so many cookbooks I will use and reference and my shelves are quite full.

Why Bemis resonated with me is that she is from Oregon. If you are going to have a reference for eating locally and seasonally, it is nice to have guidance where there is a shared experience. I talked about this in my podcast last week but it is pretty hard to follow someone eating seasonally that lives in a climate that produces all year long.

That being said, my earliest growing season would be for me early May and would run until late October. So we are realistically talking six months for the most enthusiastic gardener. Our farmers market is just getting started for the year and it will be plant starts and Beanie Babies until about July. I jokingly told my wife that I will be making a dish with Beanie Babies since that is what seems to be abundant in this season.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the Portland Saturday Market has vendors that have some year round produce using artificial methods. The rub there is that no longer becomes local to me. Bemis does reference preserving and using preserved foods. For me, that is going to be the only way to make it from a strict local standpoint.

The book is presented in a way that you would expect for seasonal eating. Hearty meals in the winter give way to heartier greens in the spring to fruity bounty in the summer and moving back into the richer foods of the fall. Because Bemis owns a vegetable farm (for retail sales) there are some interesting ingredient choices. For instance I would wager that 20% of the recipes have kohlrabi in it. I’ve never even seen that.

Despite my aforementioned grievances, I do find it inspirational to consider local and seasonal. I used to spend more effort in steering out diet that way but it has been difficult as the family grows. That comes with strong preferences and busy schedules. It also made me want to keep up with my gardening this year. I had moments where I was disappointed with what germinated. It made me want to give up and just get starts for everything.

The other thing that I appreciate about Bemis is that she recognizes that what is local to me may be exotic to you. Each recipe has some suggested substitutions. For example, this is Hazelnut (filbert) country. They are abundant here but if you live in almond country, use those instead. Think texture and purpose rather than specific ingredient.

Do I recommend this book? The short answer is no. But, if you are part of a Community Supported Agriculture share and don’t know how to use all of the ingredients then this might be the book for you. I think it would be a good reference for trying to keep up with all those weirdos like kohlrabi. I do also wonder what the difference is in book one versus the one that I purchased.

End Your Programming Routine: It is the mark of experience to have an opinion. When I was a kid and saw very few movies, the ones I did see I loved. This is no different. Our group is very eclectic and I appreciate others interest and ideas to get me to try new things and get out of my shell. This is a good book and I respect the author’s attempt, it just doesn’t hit my mark.

April 11, 2025 – Revelations 1-7

April 11, 2025 /

There is a bit of controversy surrounding the book of Revelations. It was allegedly written by John based on some visions that he had. It is the last book of the New Testament and follows a couple letters from John. Apparently, during the Counsel of Nicaea this book was on the chopping block as to whether it belongs or not. There is even controversy that Nicaea actually debated the bible. For simplicity sake, let’s just agree that the Bible is was adopted in its current form at that event just like a lot of other things they adopted.

Revelations is one of those books that is extremely galvanizing. It has often been a focus of Christian splinter groups (or cults) like the Branch Davidians as an example. The colloquial view of the book is that it predicts the second coming of Jesus Christ. As such, those who have been faithful will ascend directly to heaven while those who have not will be damned. At least this is what I have already heard and believed.

One might wonder about it’s placement in the bible. I actually think that it is genius. Scare the Christians into obedience. If you have just read all of this love your neighbor doctrine straight through and then you get obey or else. That seems like a strategic position.

I am certainly no bible scholar. I have read bits and pieces here and there. One time I set off to read it and got into Joshua of the Old Testament and then put it down. There were too many names for me and it is really hard to read the Bible like a novel. I have also read all of the Corinthians I and II as well as the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, John and Luke of the New Testament.

What drove me to want to read Revelations is that attraction of the Doomsday groups to this particular book. I cannot condone the Branch Davidians activity, but I recently watched an accounting of the FBI masacre and I really cannot condone that either. There is something like us tin foil hatters that have to stick together.

Here is a quick synopsis. Chapter 1 is John’s vision of Jesus. Chapters 2 and 3 are about what the churches are doing wrong and what they need to change. Chapters 4-7 are all about the elements in the vision.

Having never read this before, I am not sure what to really expect. One thing that I can say is that Chapters 4-7 read remarkedly like Dante’s Paradiso. Dare I say that maybe this was the template to what Dante used? It kind of makes sense how Dante would come up with the dancing and singing angels. It was all in John’s vision with Jesus.

If this were a sermon, I might start off talking about the the seven churches and the context of each in relation to John and maybe even history in general. Then I would talk about the animals, thrones seals and scrolls. But I wont. Partially because I don’t really know all of that and partially because I think this time we will read all the way through before disecting each little part. There are internet sites that can help with the symbology if you want that.

I have to leave you with something though. So we have some churches gone astray as well as scrolls that contain a list of sins that is getting checked out. It probably indicates that trouble is brewing or at the very least stuff is being accounted for. Better get ready because the rapture could come at any time. We will see what happens next week.

End Your Programming Routine: When I think of the theology, there is probably a reason why Revelations doesn’t get a lot of Sunday air time. I know the bible stories about Noah and starting over but is God going to really empty the earth? I thought that he created it for companionship? Would this be the end of the human experiment? It sure seems likely.

April 4, 2025 – The Fourth Turning, Wrap Up

April 4, 2025 /

Wow, what can I say but just wow. This book has fundamentally changed my thinking about my understanding of right and wrong. Up until now, I have believed in universal and binary thinking originating from sound fundamentals. I have come to change my understanding to think that right and wrong are generational and that is natural.

As we have learned, we are near the end of the sixth full cycle of the American experience. Can you image that just two cycles ago, it was a widely shared belief that slavery was justified? It was actually even biblically sanctioned because people that looked different were lessor. As saecula change, so do right and wrong. I have to believe that if I was alive in that time instead of now, my beliefs would have supported the status quo and not a radical abolition ideals of the time.

It is very hard to say how much our generational identity is truly ordained because of circumstance or other factors. I shared many of the cultural experiences of my generation but I also missed out on many of them as well. Because we lived in the country, because my parents are early boomers and took on less of the boomer characteristics, because we weren’t left home alone until later, because we didn’t have free reign of the TV, I was aware of Gen-X even if I didn’t fully participate.

Other portions of my generation I have exhibited in spades. The part where I am self-reliant and not willing to get involved in other peoples business. I am certainly a reluctant leader that only takes the position when there is no choice. Certainly, we all couldn’t be born this way or there would have been no class presidents or team captains. But when it comes to the real world, my generation is still waiting until they have to step in. I wouldn’t be surprised if we wait long enough that the Millennials just side step us.

After reading this book, I saw an example of how history can help us in real life. We have often heard the phase ‘study history so that we don’t repeat it’. If you follow the turning’s theory that is just plain not true. But, what I took away from it was I never understood how the GI generation could just trample all over the Constitution. I have come to realize that the Constitution had nothing to do with it. It is when the Hero generation is in charge, it is just the way things are going to be, legal or legitimate or not.

The Artists are going to continue the Hero’s lead. The Prophets are going to question everything from the Hero and Artist Generation. Finally, the Nomads are going to ignore it all until it falls apart and the next Hero generation takes charge. If you think about a cycle, this actually makes perfect sense in all aspects of life.

For most of my life, I have always bought into the marketing that the GI generation was the ‘Greatest’ generation. Now that I see that they actually broke the natural cycle of passing the baton to the Silent generation. Feeling emboldened by their success in every aspect, they kept the party going. The Silent’s stayed true to form and never really assumed power and not rock any boats which allowed the Me generation (Baby Boomers) to take over directly. They have brought their awakening and reborn fundamentalism to do the same thing to Generation X.

If I am being honest, it was the GI generation that started the mess our country is in by not following the natural laws even though naturally we were bound for trouble. My fear is that we have artificially influenced the natural cycle to cause a more delayed and catastrophic fourth turning. If there is one thing, there is nothing that I can really do about it but prepare for the eventual hard times.

If I were to prognosticate, I would say that Generation X missed the boat. I think that we may be entering the fourth turning right now. Many of the things that Trump is doing seems a lot like we just entered the Crisis. I don’t think that it is a crisis to eliminate a bunch of government bloat, but it is a dismantling of the system as we have known it. Whatever happens, we have taken a position of no coming back.

When the political winds swing the other way and they will, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a full on ‘Idiocrasy‘. I would imagine that we will have several cycles of this extreme push and pull. The net of Crisis is a diminished America. I do not see any way that a country who a significant portion of the citizens believe that men are women and vice versa are grounded enough in reality to thrive in a way that Americans have typically in the next high.

I have already stated how I feel about the book. I will now add it to my reading list. It is one thing to have books about what the world is doing to you. This book covers the why those things are happening. It doesn’t mean that I agree with what is happening, but I understand it in a way that I have never have before. You might read it and get something completely different but that is the beauty of this endeavor.

I stated last week that the next Friday series is going to be Revelations from the Bible. I think I will take it several chapters at a time. I don’t think that I will have an introduction week but if there is any need for background information, I will include it with Chapter 1. I have never read it but I see that it has 22 chapters. Since it is relatively short, I will probably read ahead and group as I see appropriate.

End Your Programming Routine: I have to say that last year was a struggle between Dante and Sun Tsu. In fact I almost gave up on this. Not reading but writing about it here. This book I thoroughly enjoyed and I am even sad that it is over. It gave me such perspective that I am taking a gamble on Revelations. I would probably read it anyway, but let’s see what we get out of it.

March 28, 2025 – The Fourth Turning, Chapter 12

March 28, 2025 /

This is the last chapter and a very short one at that. With that, I would say that this is all about re-enforcing the totality of the theory. Remember the end of the Mayan Calendar 2012? Remember that there was a component of nut jobs saying that it was going to be the end of the world because that is what the Mayan’s predicted?

What everybody misunderstood was that it was not the end of the world, but the end of the saeculum, however they calculated it. Some people might have next year’s calendar hanging up but there are not many that have the next five hundred years. The Mayan calendar was this. There was no reason to plan beyond what is theoretically in focus.

Indigenous people inherently understood the circular nature of time. Whether it was the Anastazi rock drawings or Mayan calendar time is always measured in circles. I mean the clock is actually circular as well as the seasons and so is the earth. I am not sure how we actually lost track of this idea of beginning, end and begin again when it is so natural.

I have become more aware of native thinking since I have been watching Life Below Zero: First Alaskans. I have heard enough repetitive language that I am almost sure some of the dialog is coached. I don’t think that it makes it untrue. There is an extreme amount reverence for their elders and ancestors. But it also emphasizes the roles people are to play based on the position in life.

These are some of the most hardcore people I have ever seen in my life. They heat their homes with wood and there is not a tree on the island. That means that every bit of wood that they burn has to be found on the beach and drug back to their homes. Not only do they do that for themselves but also for the the people that cannot do the work themselves.

When an animal is killed, the head is removed and placed in alignment to where the animal was going. This is to ensure that they continue their journey into the afterlife. This reverence for life is not just spiritualism but this belief that the Hindus would call karma. It is the right thing to do because they believe in circular time. Do right now so that things will continue to go right in the future.

It is not like the show is some kind of documentary, but the lesson that we can take to heart is that we take from the land to survive. We must not take too much, not just for our future survival but also for all the generations that proceed us. If we manage to be successful for long enough, at some point we will return to the earth. That is circular thinking.

Be it country or kingdom or dynasty or empire, at some point it will end. It has too. The fourth turning could be the end of the world or America, a degraded country or a regeneration. The next conflict has the capability of ending life as we know it. Will it? Hopefully not but it is hard to say. One thing is for sure is that if we want the future to be as good as possible, it requires us to be proactive today. We can just hope that it is enough.

End Your Programming Routine: Next week will be my final reckoning for The Fourth Turning. No spoilers here today. The book ends with the bible scripture Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 (NIV). While it seems like a little bit of a rip-off to end my work with the exact same quote that the book does, I want to re-emphasize that Christianity is also circular even if the ‘church’ is not. We are still waiting for the prophecy of Revelations and the next coming. By no coincidence, this will be the subject of my next Friday series.

1 There is a time for everything,
    and a season for every activity under the heavens: 2    a time to be born and a time to die,
    a time to plant and a time to uproot,
3     a time to kill and a time to heal,
    a time to tear down and a time to build,
4     a time to weep and a time to laugh,
    a time to mourn and a time to dance,
5     a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
    a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
6     a time to search and a time to give up,
    a time to keep and a time to throw away,
7     a time to tear and a time to mend,
    a time to be silent and a time to speak,
8     a time to love and a time to hate,
    a time for war and a time for peace.

March 21, 2025 – The Fourth Turning, Chapter 11

March 21, 2025 /

This chapter is about preparing for the fourth turning. Remember this book was written mid-unravelling. Given that we have not clearly seen the fourth turning, it still may be useful to prepare. Despite the preparation focus, there is some real gold in this chapter.

The one thing that hit me hard in this chapter is that post season behavior is not appropriate in the current season. It doesn’t work and is not effective. The book makes a point to talk about the public perception and reality of Chappaquiddick. In my book it is never appropriate to drunk drive your car into the river, kill your baby sitter fling and still be a US senator for 40 more years.

Because the times were different, drinking and driving didn’t have the same stigma. Many rich an powerful people had affairs. Besides, he was a Kennedy and he was sorry and it was an accident. As a result, he got a pass and didn’t lose his political career. By contrast, think about Monica Lewinsky.

By all accounts, I would say that she was a victim and yet I think that she is still a social pariah. Don’t get me wrong, I am not rooting for another leftest but I do believe that Clinton should have paid more consequences than he did and she should have bourn a fainter scarlet letter. The point being is that both sides had a say and that they both paid consequences as a result of the whole fiasco. Inappropriate action for the Unravelling that was acceptable during the high (JFK/Monroe).

Most of what the chapter was about was how to prepare for the fourth turning in the third (as the book was written). Even that was broken into two sections. The first was what the country could do. Examples that came from the book were things such as roll with the seasons, shore up defenses for coming trouble and don’t make unbinding commitments. The second was what you can personally do. From that section: focus on your network and locally and brace for collapse of traditional systems.

One thing that is particularly troubling was one of the preparing suggestions. That is prepare children for their role as the hero and to take their rightful role in the saeculum. The book makes the point that prior to World War II (the last fourth turning) government was shoring up debt and simplifying things. As a result, when the Heros went into the war, all they had to focus on was winning.

If we were to accept the premise that Millennials are the next Heros, the country has done no such thing. For instance, Social Security is significantly upside down. If we were trying to simplify, some sort of strategy to close it out (or catch up) would be in place. The reason that this is troubling is that either we are not preparing to leave the fourth turning successfully with the same momentum as post World War II or this is going to be a bloody mess. The only other possibility is that this turning is going to break the typical timeline and Gen Z or Gen Alpha is going to be the hero generation.

None of this should actually be surprising given that the Boomers are still running the country. They are the ‘Me’ generation after all. Another aspect to this is that the return to natural order needs to be made. This means that to elevate the child, they have to go from the poorest generation to the richest. By the same token, the eldest generation (which should be the Boomers now) need to move from the richest generation to the poorest, allowing Gen-X to be in charge.

If the fourth turning actually goes to cycle timing, then it is my prediction that America is in decline. We have failed to navigate the cycles successfully to continue to thrive both in the fourth turning and the next first turning. Honestly, I think that it is going to be China’s turn again. We will follow the path of Western Europe, nowhere near what we wore or could have been.

For all of you doubters out there, I have one last swat to take today with political parties. Both parties use linear thinking making them less suitable for ideologues to thrive in the transition. But, even more so than that, this linear thinking makes parties less capable of leading through transition. Make no mistake, I am reasonably sure the parties will survive. Think about this, Democrats were the party of slavery and succession, then they became the party of Jim Crow. Now they are the party of men can have babies and undocumented aliens. From can’t be white enough to can’t be white at all.

End Your Programming Routine: This in an interesting chapter. Even though the timeline says we should be deep into the fourth turning, I just do not see it. If that is true, we still have time to prepare somewhat. What I find more interesting than the preparations is the explanation that old tactics in the new world. I have always thought that we just needed a more or better execution for that to happen. However, after reading this I now see that as times change, we need to adapt according to the season and not the ideology.

March 14, 2025 – The Fourth Turning, Chapter 10

March 14, 2025 /

Last week was all about the fourth turnings that have occurred in history. But as a reminder, this book was published in 1997 before the fourth turning has happened. So, this week is all about what the possible triggers that could occur. I have to say that while I believe we had had all of them since the book was published, I don’t see that they have actually caused the crisis.

One of the revelations in this chapter to me was, what if America did not come out better after the Crisis? There is no guarantee that just because that has been the case that it will continue in the same trajectory. What does that look like exactly? Gen-X will be in charge because they are middle age, The Millennials will be bear the brunt of the situation so that when they come to power in the High, they will create policies and mitigation strategies to move beyond the causes of the last saeculum.

As the GIs created government bureaucracy and the UN to address problems, the Millennials might create something like Artificial Intelligence. This would continue until the next crisis when something better is invented and supplants the status quo. Just because the High is not the best ever or the best in the world doesn’t mean that it still is not a High period. It simply means that it is the best era in the generation (80-100 years).

The reality of post World War II was that America was the best positioned and least damaged country coming out of the war. Sure countries like Spain and Switzerland were neutral and largely unscathed but the population and economy paled in comparison to the United States. The other potential big winner was the USSR but unfortunately, their own policies and beliefs left them short sided when it comes to world dominance.

There is also the concept that you have to play to win. Who do you know that does not gamble but yet hits the jackpot? Nobody because if you do not play you do not lose but you also do not win. Being neutral is a good strategy to not losing a war but it is also not a good strategy to participate in the spoils either. Winning very likely emboldens the winners to do things that they might not otherwise do as well.

The other thing that was interesting about this chapter were the suggested potential catalysts for crisis: financial crisis, terrorist attack, pandemic, Geopolitical war. Do any of these things sound familiar? I would say that since this book was published, every single one of them has occurred. We know about 9/11, the 2008 financial default and Afghanistan. But what about the Pandemic?

The Coronavirus Pandemic was certainly a watershed event. We talk about education and work environments in the Pre and Post pandemic constructs. I would argue that certainly was a crisis for many ‘non-essential’ workers spawning unprecedented policies like no eviction orders, massive economic stimulus and a simmering and seething division of the vaccinated versus the non-vaccinated. GI Generation tactics of getting stuff done at any costs were put into placed to force a subdued population into compliance. Propaganda in the style of censorship and a mass conformity campaign were instituted.

In my mind, 2024 was the first post pandemic election. The 2020 election was in the beginning of the event and the rejection of Trump’s initial handling as well as his propensity to bully and be vulgar. The 2022 mid-terms held a ton of uncertainty about it really being over. I see the 2024 election as a resounding rejection of the previous status quo. If the pandemic is the crisis, we are experiencing the regeneracy, we will see if that works for the economy, etc as we head to the climax and finally resolution.

End Your Programming Routine: I could easily persuaded that the 2020 pandemic is the crisis. I already believe that the saeculum has shifted due to the massively long reigns of the GI generation and the Baby Boomers. To me, the timing works even if Gen-X is not fully in charge, we are at least of age. By the time this is all over, I do believe that Trump and DOGE will fundamentally change how the government operates. The heroes are waiting in the wings to shift how we move into the next cycle.

March 7, 2025 – The Fourth Turning, Chapter 9

March 7, 2025 /

With last week covering the Unravelling and the book being written in 1997, we are moving into speculation territory for the Crisis. Since the book was written, the author Howe has chimed in on some of his observations including the foreword of this book. His speculation is that the crisis was the 2008 financial crisis. That would make the Gray Champion someone like Dr. Ron Paul.

I could probably buy that part of the theory but I don’t know anyone that was directly effected by that event. Because of that, I really do have a hard time completely adopting this event as the actual catalyst. Quite frankly, I feel like 9/11 was more of a galvanizing event that set off a lot of things in the name of fighting terrorism. With that, I am wondering who the Gray Champion is. You are also missing the Nomad generation in charge on both events.

In both 9/11 and the 2008 crisis, you really do not have the Hero generation at the age of majority. Just looking at the year 2008, the Millennials span the age ranges of 12-28. The full generation is hardly in their full summer. While a twelve year old might be effected by the mortgage crisis they were hardly in position to do anything about it. My speculation is that with the delaying of marriage and families have pushed the generational turnings out later.

We will stick to the facts here. For a crisis saeculum, you have the following steps catalyst, regeneracy, climax, resolution. With the sort of sizzle/dud, I don’t know that anyone would agree with the steps being met for 9/11. Lest we talk about the financial problems of 2008. Leaving the crisis is supposed t put us at a generational high. I sure don’t see that either.

Next week, I will write about some of the potential triggers for the crisis, so I will stick to what I have been working with here. It seems like this current cycle is something extraordinary. Because the GI generation left World War II on a rocket ship, the economy was dominant from 1946 to the late 1970’s. The Awakening economy was much better than it was supposed to be.

Minus the late seventies to mid-1980s stagflation, the economy took off again in the 1990s just as the Baby Boomers were coming into mid-life and assuming the power structure. While Strauss and Howe labelled the Unravelling (84-??) the ‘Culture Wars’, that had nothing to do with how the economy was behaving. As a result, there wasn’t much appetite to actually unravel.

Given the extraordinary size and prosperity of both the Hero and Prophet generations, I am not convinced that this is an ordinary cycle. It still seems like we are still in the Culture Wars with the Profits in charge. Just as there was an anomaly during the Civil War saeculum where an entire generation did not exist we may see either an extended cycle. I don’t see us skipping the crisis however because that is necessary for the high.

For the purpose of clarity, the following crisis have occurred during the American historical period. Those would be War of the Roses, Armada Crisis, Glorious Revolution, American Revolution, Civil War and World War II. Please look these up if you are curious for more information. The title of this chapter is actually the Fourth Turning in History making it difficult to really analyze much when it comes to facts.

End Your Programming Routine: Based on what I have outlined above, I am not convinced that we have actually ended the Unravelling. Clearly, that would make that phase over 40 years long. The other alternative would be that the Awakening shift was too short which also might be possible. From my experience, I don’t think the mood shifted until 1992 as the Reagan/Bush years were largely the same. It was the Clinton/Gore years of Christian evangelism, Global Warming, and media labelling.