ComfortMyPeople

Never heard it. But I have my doubts only because this same topic came up at Bethel many years ago around mid-1979 during the Bible reading of Job and a morning text comment by Brother Franz regarding the "yearly" feast days for each of Job's sons. The fact that he added the word "yearly" started the unfounded rumor. 
Then, of course, rumors swirled after the following statement made about celebrations with piñatas, allowed at the time only for Witnesses in Mexico but not California when I used to live in Southern California. That changed in 2003:
*** g03 9/22 p. 24 The Piñata—An Ancient Tradition ***
When considering whether to include a piñata at a social gathering, Christians should be sensitive to the consciences of others. (1 Corinthians 10:31-33) A main concern is, not what the practice meant hundreds of years ago, but how it is viewed today in your area. Understandably, opinions may vary from one place to another. Hence, it is wise to avoid turning such matters into big issues. The Bible says: “Let each one keep seeking, not his own advantage, but that of the other person.”—1 Corinthians 10:24.
This was the conclusion of an article that admitted the association between piñatas and Christmas traditions. Curiously, the article also noted that the Mexican piñata was not strictly related to Lent, Christmas, and the struggle against Satan, and blind faith, but had an older origin celebrating the BIRTHDAY of the war god Huitzilopochtli.
*** g03 9/22 pp. 22-24 The Piñata—An Ancient Tradition ***
Breaking the piñata became a custom on the first Sunday of Lent. It seems that at the beginning of the 16th century, Spanish missionaries brought the piñata to Mexico.
However, the missionaries may have been surprised (as we were) to find that the native people of Mexico already had a similar tradition. The Aztecs celebrated the birthday of Huitzilopochtli, their god of the sun and war...
As part of their strategy to evangelize the Indians, the Spanish missionaries ingeniously made use of the piñata to symbolize, among other things, the Christian’s struggle to conquer the Devil and sin. The traditional piñata was a clay pot covered with colored paper and given a star shape with seven tasseled points. These points were said to represent the seven deadly sins: greed, gluttony, sloth, pride, envy, wrath, and lust. Striking the piñata while blindfolded represented blind faith and willpower overcoming temptation or evil. . . .
The Piñata Today
Later, the piñata became part of the festivities of the posadas during the Christmas season and continues as such to this day. (A star-shaped piñata is used to represent the star that guided the astrologers to Bethlehem.) Breaking the piñata is also considered indispensable at birthday parties. . . .
We found that for many people in Mexico, the piñata has lost its religious significance and is considered by most to be just harmless fun. In fact, piñatas are used in Mexico on many festive occasions, not just for the posadas or for birthdays. 

At the mid-week meeting we had the Bible reading that included Psalm 26. We also sang song #34.
It's a very beautiful melody, even though I have other favorites. What I like most about the song is that it follows the Psalm very closely. It's a good reminder that the words of the original Psalm 26 were also sung, even though we don't know the original melody. But the tune and music we use seem very appropriate for the tone of the Psalm itself. 
Last week, of course, we had this for the 23rd Psalm, too. And I think the same about that melody and how appropriate it is to the words of the Psalm. 

It’s amazing how people like Joe Rogan have become better than most modern journalists. I’d listen to him more but his show is too long for me and I need a summary first.  I met Dr Peter McCullough in Tampa when he was staying directly across from my wife and I in our hotel room. My son and I talked to him in the lobby briefly. I am not quite as impressed with him now that he has tried some questionable methods to turn his own work into a money-making machine. But Rogan and McCullough were both very good sources about Covid. 

I am more and more impressed with Tucker on the majority of his current shows: Putin, covid, exposing the idiocy of Christian Zionist supporters, etc  He is going where no man with his popularity has gone before.
Alexander Mercurion is another example of the best news commentary on the Ukraine war but he is too detailed and will give a two hour program on the day's battles and predictions and comment on both sides of the news reports. You get a much better sense of who is doing more spinning and who is doing more straightforward reporting. It's useful, or at least interesting, but who can give 10 hours a week?
Scott Ritter does well with shorter summaries on shows with Danny Haiphong for example. But his own super-pro-Russian biases come through too often. 
There are a couple of excellent resources for Gaza-Israel reporting from people who have lived and worked in both Palestine and Israel. But people tend to defend the indefensible even if they are generally giving correct info. They try to read excuses into bad actions by Hamas. Scott Ritter does this too. 

He even says he drives a Subaru:

I’ve never heard a Tucker excerpt I didn’t like. That said, I haven’t heard too many. None of those other people do I know. In the early days of Covid, however, I forwarded a Joe Rogan interview with Dr. McCullough to HQ, hoping that if they found it as informative as I did, they would overlook Joe’s explosion of profanity towards the end. Probably, I put myself on their radar screen as much as you during your recent visit, during which they said to themselves,  “What is it this politician would like to tell?” Others: “He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign deities.”

The link was excellent. I remember my parents going to pbs and npr but only after Walter Cronkite was no longer THE source. In those days I trusted the NYT the way my doctors still trust the Lancet or the BMJ. 
Rogue reporters have explained a lot about how we were fooled for so long. Tucker Carlson is often the new best source  on several topics and has ditched much or most of his prior ideological baggage from 4 or 5 years ago. 
Clayton Morris from “Redacted,” also a former Fox News commentator, still carries more of that baggage than Tucker I think. I like that Clayton’s wife, Natalie Morris, raised as a Jehovah’s Witness, is consistently anti-war. anti-bigotry, and anti-woke, and neutral where she can be. But for some topics they are spot on. For that matter Fox itself is often the best of the bunch for being less inclined to be influenced by current State propaganda. 

Here was the general conversation, skipping a part where I had just explained how 30,000 Palestinians, largely women and children, had been killed, and the majority of major news outlets were still equivocating about whether Israel had gone too far. But when half-a-dozen mostly "white" aid workers were killed, suddenly Nancy Pelosi (friend of the aid organization founder), Joe Scarborough, Elizabeth Warren, and a bunch of others turn on a dime to stop giving Israel a free pass -- embarrassing their own man Biden. 
THEM: Well, anyway, we don't take sides about literal Israel, and we don't discuss political sides of who supports whom.
ME: But that last part is just information, even history.
THEM: History is one thing but the Bible says don't speak against the King. What's that it says in Ecclesiastes?
(Ecclesiastes 10:20) . . .Even in your thoughts, do not curse the king, and do not curse the rich in your bedroom; for a bird may convey the sound, or a creature with wings may repeat what was said.
ME: Yeah. That's where we get the expression: "a little birdie told me." Basically, it means that someone on Twitter will turn you in. Or all the government agencies will be listening in on Twitter.  
THEM: Very funny. You mean "X."
ME: Yeah, but they still call them "tweets."
THEM: But still we don't take sides, we don't even say anything against any ruler, whether he's good or bad. We only pray that they make decisions that are good for us. 
ME: I don't think it's wrong to say something against a ruler. Don't you think Hitler was a bad ruler?
THEM: But he's not a king now is he? He's dead.
ME: I mean even when he was alive.
THEM: Well, of course, because he was attacking Jehovah's people.
ME: But it would have been wrong to say he was bad while he was attacking millions of Jews?
THEM: [changing subject] But look how respectful Paul was talking to Felix, he never said a word against him.
ME: Maybe not, but Luke tells us he was probably looking for a bribe. That's pretty negative.
ME: continuing . . . And Jesus called Herod a fox.
THEM: Well maybe he was "foxy" -- "crafty" not always a bad thing.
ME: You don't believe that . . . and even if it was a good thing, then Jesus was taking sides.
THEM: Anyway . . . it's wrong.

My overall point is that most Witnesses I know in the United States are very political and don't even know it. Often much more political than their neighbors who vote. There are certain limits to what we will say about our political views, but I think we don't recognize that those political views often come out inadvertently in other ways.
In fact, I've seen strong political views among Witnesses who only use the line "we don't take sides in politics" when they wish to shut down an argument they disagree with.
My parents and many relatives were of the type that said they wouldn't be fooled by all the lies and exaggerations from MS-NBC supposedly on the "progressive left." Nor the lies and exaggerations from FOX News on the supposedly "conservative right." But that didn't stop them from being fooled by thinking that CNN was not mostly "state-sponsored media" that would cherry-pick stories now and then to keep up the ruse that they weren't. As long as they continued to support corporate sponsors, including "Big Pharma" and "Big Military Industrial Complex," it was clear what side they were going to take. And although Trump was golden to all networks for his ability to spout controversy, one of his biggest sins for CNN was the fact that he went 4 years without getting the USA involved in any new wars. 
We were watching CNN once, not on purpose, and although many segments were introduced with "Brought to you by Pfizer" one was introduced "Brought to you by McDonnell-Douglas." As if any of us watching were about to go out and buy McDonnell-Douglas fighter jets and missiles for accessories. Of course, even the segments brought to you by Pfizer weren't really for any of us to be swayed in our pharmacy choices, either. As with all corporate media, those ads are really just payments to CNN; they are all just a way for corporations to PAY (bribe) the news writers and commentators to realize on which side their bread is buttered. They are merely buying influence.
----
All this was probably just my own rationale to excuse my own tendency to throw in opinions about politics, politicians, and the mainstream corporate media. There are no easy answers to how someone should go about getting their news, or how to feed their own opinions. But I would be happy to hear about the various sources people use when trying to find the "truth" about various world events. 

The last time I was here, they were more ambiguous about taking pictures and sharing them with friends, so I literally took a picture of just about everything and I even posted a set of pictures here. But this time they give stricter unambiguous instructions about the personal and family use of pictures taken, even when you can take a still picture vs a video. And the instruction is now explicitly that they cannot be shared on any social media platform. Sorry.
The 4 "museums" at Warwick are still about the same as before. With a few updates and a few older things cut out. The Bible museum is still the best. Probably the best of its kind anywhere. There is a separate segment on the use of the Divine Name in Bible translations, and it's very good.
There are several bits of interactive equipment that were working perfectly in 2018 and 2019 but are now giving trouble. For example, touchscreens that take your input about all kinds of things, such as whether you have worked on a WTS construction project, or which book you studied in preparation for baptism [e.g., Let God Be True, What Does the Bible Really Teach, Truth that Leads to Eternal Life, Paradise ...Regained, etc.] and then it gives statistics on many of these things for everyone to see. [e.g. 68% of all visitors this week have worked on a WTS construction project, etc.]
One thing that bothered me a bit was the reduction of material in a special "Watchtower History" museum that had a lot of pre-1919 information about the persecution mostly starting with the 1917 Finished Mystery book. They changed the name and now start it mostly in 1919. And then cut out a large percentage of interesting stuff. 
Also, they have the big wall-sized "Chart of the Ages" in one of the rooms highlighting Russell's early work. And another wall-sized chart called "Bible Chronology" that Russell's early followers also used in their meeting places. Those charts have the dates on them -- even if some of those dates appear to be embarrassing today.
But now there is a new "Chart of the Ages" I have never seen before in the Patterson museum on a similar historical subject but it seems like the dates have been removed. The chart is still titled "CHART OF THE AGES" and the museum label below it says:
How was the training provided [in Russell's time]? The "Chart of the Ages" was used as the primary basis for practice talks. 
It's evidently a wall sized blow-up of a page from one of the publications, because it still has the pictures of the pyramids on it, but on the chart itself, in says in fine print (on the side):
"For Explanation see The Plan of the Ages published by Bible and Tract Soc'y, Brooklyn N.Y."
Also odd that they left out the word "Watchtower," just Bible and Tract Society. I could be wrong, but it looks like it was edited to remove the embarrassing dates that are on the large one at Warwick.
If I remember, I'll look it up unless someone here already knows if there was a "generic" chart of the ages. 

https://youtu.be/WzunDBINbS4?si=8a9ldj2xNZiWB0Up
MAMRE -- Where God Appeared to Abraham!
 

(Ke·tuʹrah) [from a root meaning “make sacrificial smoke”].
A wife of Abraham and the mother of six of his sons, Zimran, Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishbak, and Shuah, ancestors of various N Arabian peoples dwelling to the S and E of Palestine.—Ge 25:1-4.

As an aside, note that the entire relative timeline from the beginning of  Neo-Babylonian to the Persian empire can easily be figured out without any reference to astronomy or even BCE dates.
The whole reason the WTS makes such a big deal out of our "traditional" date for the destruction of Jerusalem is based on a relative chronology from 539, not an absolute chronology of the time period. So a relative chronology is all one needs to debunk it. You don't even need to know if 539 was correct or not. You don't need BCE dates at all. Just the widely available archaeology without any need for software or assumptions about any potential copyist's errors, eclipses, planetary positions.
The contemporary business documents alone are more than enough to debunk the WTS chronology. And there are tens of thousands of those stone "witnesses" all consistently pointing to the same timeline. That's why the great emphasis in the WTS publications to constantly sow seeds of doubt about those tablets. I think that, as a group, the WTS is the biggest opposer of the tablets -- and the biggest opposer of ALL Neo-Babylonian archaeology.
 

Imagine, then, that approved association with Jehovah's people MUST include acceptance of a mix of secular chronology and "Bible" chronology!!
*** w86 4/1 p. 31 Questions From Readers ***
Approved association with Jehovah’s Witnesses requires accepting the entire range of the true teachings of the Bible, including those Scriptural beliefs that are unique to Jehovah’s Witnesses. What do such beliefs include?
. . .That 1914 marked the end of the Gentile Times and the establishment of the Kingdom of God in the heavens, as well as the time for Christ’s foretold presence.

*** w83 1/1 p. 12 par. 5 The Kingdom Issue to the Fore! ***
Properly, then, the ending of the Gentile Times in the latter half of 1914 still stands on a historical basis as one of the fundamental Kingdom truths to which we must hold today.
 
Rather than:
(2 Timothy 3:15-17) . . .. All Scripture is inspired of God and beneficial for teaching, for reproving, for setting things straight, for disciplining in righteousness, so that the man of God may be fully competent, completely equipped for every good work.

Exactly on each point!!!
Now imagine Jehovah telling a "faitfhul slave" or pre-cursor of that "faithful slave" that the only way Jesus is going to distinguish between the 5 wise virgins and the 5 foolish virgins (in our time period) is based on their acceptance of a specific mix of secular chronology and "Bible" chronology.
And it's a chronology that started out as:
Oh look how great Ptolemy is; all astronomers agree that his dates are perfectly well-established! Which soon turned into:
Look how terrible Ptolemy is; his chronology is suspect because he gives different dates than the ones we need prior to 539. Let's go so far as to highlight a book that calls him a "criminal."  Which turned to:
Oh look how great the Nabonidus Chronicle is; it proves that Cyrus overtook him in his 17th year. Which turned to: 
Oh wait, let's stop mentioning the Nabonidus Chronicle; turns out that the number 17 was added by expert secular authorities, and that the same chronicle links him directly to the full length of Neriglissar's reign, which is the one tiny window of vulnerability we still need to raise suspicion about a possible 20 year gap!! Which turned to:
Oh look how great Strm. Cambyses is, it tells us directly that 539 is the only absolute date in ancient history!! Which turned to:
Whoops! Now we have to admit that this only works if we accept the authority of secular experts to correct numerous known mistakes and copyist errors on that same tablet, the astronomical tablets' understanding, and ancient tablet methods for measurements of two eclipses, and the authority of modern experts to date those eclipses taking into account the slowdown of the earth by about 16,000 seconds, and a non-contemporary King's list (like Ptolemy's) that is assumed to be correct, and some secular business contract tablets that help establish the length of the reign of Cyrus and Cambyses, (and which we reject when used elsewhere) and some [hi]stories by much later Greek historians that we don't really trust on most other matters. Which turned to:
Look how great the Olympiad dating system is; if we accept that it has been properly tied to the current BC/AD eras, it appears to tells us that the dates for Cyrus are accurate. Which turns to:
Oh wait! We reject the same Olympiad dating system even from much more recent times when it conflicts with our theory of Artaxerxes which we would like to say is 10 years off.  

There is a long inscription attributed to (actually in honor of) Nabonidus' mother, which honors her long life of about 102 to 104 years of age. It says about her life:
 From the 20th year of Ashurbanipal, king of Assyria, when I was born, until the 42nd year of Ashurbanipal, the 3rd year of his son Ashur-etil-ili, the 21st year of Nabopolassar, the 43rd year of Nebuchadnezzar, the 2nd year of Awel-Merodach, the 4th year of Neriglissar, during (all) these 95 years in which I visited the temple of the great godhead Sin, king of all the gods in heaven and in the nether world, he looked with favor upon my pious good works and listened to my prayers, accepted my vows. ..  He [the moon god Sin] added (to my life) many days (and) years of happiness and kept me alive from the time of Ashurbanipal, king of Assyria, to the 9th year of Nabonidus, king of Babylon, the son whom I bore, (i.e.) one hundred and four happy years (spent) in that piety which Sin, the king of all gods, has planted in my heart’. . . . The ninth year: . . . On the fifth day of the month Nisan the queen mother died in Dur-karashu which (is on) the bank of the Euphrates upstream from Sippar.
Therefore, the inscription says:
Ashurbanipal reigned 42 years, Ashuretilili reigned 3 years, Nabopolassar reigned 21 years, Awel-Merodach reigned 2 years, Neriglissar reigned 4 years, Nabonidus followed Neriglissar and the queen mother died in his 9th year. This matches the various other contemporary or near-contemporary sources for the lengths of the reign of each king:

It's true that there are tens of thousands of these business tablets, and tablets have been found for every year of the reigns of the Neo-Babylonian kings. And it's usually on the order of hundreds of them for each year of each king. This means that there are thousands of such tablets covering exactly:
21 years for Nabopolassar 43 years for Nebuchadnezzar 2 years for Evil-Merodach 4 years for Neriglissar 2 months for Labashi-Marduk 17 years for Nabonidus But that doesn't necessarily mean they we have put them in the right order. Without any knowledge of the astronomy tablets, how would contemporary documents show which kings ruled before and after each other?
For one thing we have the interlocking dates. The months of the accession year of one king cannot overlap with the last months of the last year of the previous king. But there was an exception to this with those two months of Labashi-Marduk who appears not to have been fully accepted as king in all parts of Babylonia, while Nabonidus was already a contender immediately after Neriglissar's death. There is another exception of a month or so, evidently, when Nebuchadnezzar's son, Evil-Merodach, was already taking over for his father in Nebuchadnezzar's final dying months. It's also conceivable that slight overlaps could happen when the year is already named for the previous king, and the new king is not fully established among royal contenders.  
We also have inscriptions where Nebuchadnezzar more than once calls himself the son of his father Nabopolassar, and inscriptions where Evil-Merodach calls himself the son of Nebuchadnezzar:
*** it-1 p. 773 Evil-merodach ***
There is also archaeological testimony concerning Evil-merodach (Awil-Marduk, Amil-Marduk). For example, an inscription on a vase found near Susa reads: “Palace of Amil-Marduk, King of Babylon, son of Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon.”
And inscriptions where Nabonidus calls himself the "ambassador of Nebuchadnezzar." 
As it turns out, the tablets themselves leave us with many different ways to link from one King to the next. They often reference prior years in contracts regarding loans and interest. The Egibi business entity provides a completely independent link of "presidents" of their banking/real estate company that perfectly matches and supports the order of the kings presented above.
And of course, the surviving portions of the Babylonian Chronicles provide a year by year reference that includes the transitions between most of these kings. 
I'd like to present a few of these "interlocking" tablets that determine the order of the kings, but there is another archaeological discovery that manages the interlocking of these kings in just one inscription . . . next. 

I think it was around 2018 when I read a news report about a meeting of ex-JWs and non-JW relatives of Witnesses. They met somewhere around Seattle. Several of the attendees supposedly gave reports of suicides among disfellowshipped and shunned teenagers. (And I think there were cases of suicides among those who had suffered sexual abuse either in the congregation or from Witness parents.)
I'm sure you are right that it was more than just the shunning that drove them to suicide, but they definitely were presenting a pattern that indicated shunning as a key factor. It was likely exaggerated somewhat, but the report indicated that shunning and suicide became kind of a theme, and there were about a dozen such cases mentioned. It's probably a serious enough problem that the WTS is right now trying to address this issue by making changes to the process of disfellowshipping teenagers.

I try to see both sides of the issue, and both sides and perspectives, so occasionally I think about how the Elders who over 60 years persecuted the brotherhood about the never-ending issue of beards … I myself being called into “the little back room” / “the red room” (some walking out embarresed to tears, with red eyes) / “room 101 (where Winston Smith was tortured with a cage of rats attached to his face) at least five times that I remember, from Virginia to California,Texas, North Carolina, sometimes several times ….. and how these God fearing men of good conscience must NOW feel for having been agents of unwarranted and continuous tyranny that has divided the Congregations, and literally soured the Truth in tens of thousands of Brothers (and their women, girlfriends and wives … destroying, and I do mean DESTROYING the credibility of the Governing Body, and any valuable principles of righteousness they may have tried to impart.
Whew! THAT was a very long sentence…
When I was a young man, I would on Fridays after work to a bar with fellow employees and the Client, ( who expected us to pick up the tab on our overhead account) and we all got thoroughly plastered. No matter how drunk I got I never forgot … in fact I focused on … that I was one of Jehovah’s Witnesses, and it was a great protection , always. After everyone else went home I sat there hyperventilating to burn off alcohol, then took a cab home.
But, I am rambling …..
In over 55 years, because of MANY COMMON SENSE issues like “beards” I can truly say as I worked all over the United States and three foreign countries, the Elders were never an encouragement to me, except in Pittsburgh PA, and Lima Peru.
It will take another 50 years I am afraid, and  soon for me it won’t matter anymore.
But I worry about the young Elders that grew up watching this all , and were either willing or unwilling participants in this and suchlike tyrannies, including “shunning” as it has been practiced since the 1960’s.
I suppose I also worry about the possibility that they are oblivious.

Yes. I was just starting another topic on the content of the update. It's an excellent step, imo, too.
Edited to add: For now I just decided to post it on an already existing 'Updates' topic.
 

So, although the Bible does not say that Nebuchadnezzar reigned for 43 years, we have been able to surmise this by counting back from the first year of Amel-Marduk (Evil-Merodach). It turns out that archaeologists have discovered literally thousands of dated tablets from Nebuchadnezzar's reign with an average of hundreds for each and every year. All of them stop at "Nebuchadnezzar Year 43." The evidence is convincing enough that the Insight book makes the following statement:
*** it-1 pp. 238-239 Babylon ***
One cuneiform tablet has been found referring to a campaign against Egypt in Nebuchadnezzar’s 37th year . . .  Finally, after a 43-year reign, which included both conquest of many nations and a grand building program in Babylonia itself, Nebuchadnezzar II died in October . . . and was succeeded by Awil-Marduk (Evil-merodach). This new ruler showed kindness to captive King Jehoiachin. (2Ki 25:27-30) Little is known about the reigns of Neriglissar, evidently the successor of Evil-merodach, and of Labashi-Marduk.
More complete historical information is available for Nabonidus and his son Belshazzar, who were evidently ruling as coregents at the time of Babylon’s fall.
it's interesting to look at the archaeological evidence and see how it corroborates the Bible account.
(Jeremiah 52:31) . . .Then in the 37th year of the exile of King Je·hoiʹa·chin of Judah, in the 12th month, on the 25th day of the month, King Eʹvil-merʹo·dach of Babylon, in the year he became king, released King Je·hoiʹa·chin . . .
The Bible said it was in the year that Awel-Marduk began to reign (i.e., his accession year, not his "first year") that he released Jehoiachin near the end of the twelfth month of that accession year. If the account had claimed that it happened in the sixth month (September/early October) then the account would not fit with archaeology. But it fits well:
Note some examples given in P&D (Parker and Dubberstein). Here is some of the tablet evidence for the end of Nebuchadnezzar's reign and the start of Amel-Marduk: [VI/14/43 means the sixth month and 14th day of YEAR 43, (September) and a later one was found dated the 26th of that same sixth month (October).] Then the first tablets for Amel-Marduk begin on that same date of the last one for Nebuchadnezzar VI/26/43 (October 7).

Ezekiel counts years from the date of the largest number of exiles taken, in Nebuchadnezzar's 7/8th year, so when Ezekiel mentions the 27th year [of exile] he must be referring to about the 35th year of Nebuchadnezzar. That might be placing this prophecy only about 2 years before the reference to a tablet from his 37th year that refers to a campaign against Egypt. That's the same one that the Insight book mentions (above) for Year 37:
(Ezekiel 29:17-19) . . .Now in the 27th year [of exile], in the first month, on the first day of the month, the word of Jehovah came to me, saying: 18  “Son of man, King Neb·u·chad·nezʹzar of Babylon made his army labor greatly against Tyre. Every head became bald, and every shoulder was rubbed bare. But he and his army received no wages for the labor he expended on Tyre. 19  “Therefore this is what the Sovereign Lord Jehovah says, ‘Here I am giving the land of Egypt to King Neb·u·chad·nezʹzar of Babylon, and he will carry off its wealth and take much spoil and plunder from it; and it will become wages for his army.’
 

Just an aside, but I find it curious that Daniel is praying about the 70 years and he is told that the greater fulfillment is not just 70 years but 70 WEEKS of years. But that 70 weeks is broken up into two pieces. A 49-year piece and a 434-year piece. 
(Daniel 9:24, 25) . . .“There are 70 weeks that have been determined for your people and your holy city, in order to terminate the transgression, to finish off sin, to make atonement for error, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up the vision and the prophecy, and to anoint the Holy of Holies.  You should know and understand that from the issuing of the word to restore and to rebuild Jerusalem until Mes·siʹah the Leader, there will be 7 weeks, also 62 weeks. She will be restored and rebuilt, with a public square and moat, but in times of distress.
I don't read too much into it, but there are some commentators who believe that this is a direct reference to the fact that Daniel recognized the Persians were ruling now, and the Temple had now been destroyed for 49 years (587 BCE to 538 BCE). The 62 weeks or 434 years could start counting after the completion of the rebuilding with a public square and a moat. 
Notice that the Insight book doesn't have anything more than conjecture about the 7 weeks:
*** dp chap. 11 p. 191 par. 21 The Time of Messiah’s Coming Revealed ***
The work was evidently completed to the extent necessary by about 406 B.C.E.—within the “seven weeks,” or 49 years. (Daniel 9:25) A period of 62 weeks, or 434 years, would follow.
Of course, starting from some time within the reign of Artaxerxes for the 434, (443 BCE?) plus the final 7 year week, this way of splitting the numbers can, at best, only reach about as far as the birth of the Messiah 2BCE/4BCE, not his arrival at baptism.
 
But then again, that might explain Herod's agitation and the magi looking for signs about that time.
Then again, someone could apply those 49 years to the completion of Herod's Temple:
(John 2:20) . . .“This temple was built in 46 years (from 18 BCE), and will you raise it up in three days?” 
But then again, what about those missing 3 years?
This is not a real suggestion below (for those 49-46=3 years), but, just for fun, it just shows that the possibilities are endless when you begin playing with chronology and "the mysterious numbers of the Jewish Temple." 
(Revelation 11:1-4) . . .And a reed like a rod was given to me as he said: “Get up and measure the temple sanctuary of God and the altar and those worshipping in it.  But as for the courtyard that is outside the temple sanctuary, leave it out and do not measure it, because it has been given to the nations, and they will trample the holy city underfoot for 42 months.  I will cause my two witnesses to prophesy for 1,260 days dressed in sackcloth.” These are symbolized by the two olive trees and the two lampstands and are standing before the Lord of the earth.
 

I just checked that second eclipse after the 588 eclipse of the fourth month, and I get this:

I caught the picture just a 10 seconds late but it was 4:51 AM and 47 seconds (=4:52) before the umbral eclipse began. 
And the moon sets at 7:14 am (COJ: 7:12) still fully eclipsed. 
The differences of nearly a minute for the eclipse and 2 minutes on the setting below the horizon might be partly because I am in Hallah, Iraq instead of setting exactly for Babylon's coordinates in Iraq. 
So I get 7:14 minus 4:52 for a total of 2 hour and 22 minutes when the tablet says 2 hours and 20 minutes. 
I won't quibble. 
Looks like Furuli and the Watchtower article pointed to an eclipse from 588, but it was definitely the one marked for Nebuchadnezzar's Year 17, not 37.  And it was not the one in VAT 4956.

LOL. Too easy. There are about 25 different ways to check this with Stellarium. The best one is to notice that the eclipse in question (Furuli's eclipse) was not observed, even though they knew it was happening (below the horizon). But the second one just 6 months later in 587 BCE was not only observed but is indicated to have been seen in the early morning watch and set fully eclipsed after 2 hours and 20 minutes.
I have to admit that I wouldn't have thought to check this one if I hadn't recently read a page put up by Carl Olof Jonsson that addresses Furuli's theory here: http://kristenfrihet.se/kf2/review.htm
For that reason, I will just copy what he said, but I'll check out Stellarium right after posting this:
The second eclipse in month X – six months after the first – took place on January 8, 587 BCE. This date, therefore, corresponded to the 13th of month X in the Babylonian calendar. This agrees with Parker & Dubberstein’s tables, which show that the 1st of month X (Tebetu) fell on 26/27 December in 588 BCE. The Babylonians divided the 24-hour day into 12 beru or 360 USH (degrees), so one beru was two hours and 5 USH (= degrees of four minutes each) were 20 minutes. According to the tablet, then, this eclipse began 2 hours and 20 minutes before sunrise. It was total (“All of it was covered”), and it “[set eclips]ed,” i.e., it ended after moonset. What do modern computations of this eclipse show?
My astroprogram shows that the eclipse of January 8, 587 BCE began “in the morning watch” at 04:51, and that sunrise occurred at 07:12. The eclipse, then, began 2 hours and 21 minutes before sunrise – exactly as the tablet says. The difference of one minute is not real, as the USH (time degree of 4 minutes) is the shortest time unit used in this text. [The USH was not the shortest time unit of the Babylonians, of course, as they also divided the USH into 12 “fingers” of 20 seconds each.] The totality began at 05:53 and ended at 07:38. As moonset occurred at 07:17 according to my program, the eclipse was still total at moonset. Thus the moon “set while eclipsed.”
Furuli attempts to dismiss the enormous weight of evidence provided by this tablet in just a few very confusing statements on page 127 of his book. He erroneously claims that the many eclipses recorded “occurred in the month before they were expected, except in one case where the eclipse may have occurred two months before.” There is not the slightest truth in this statement. Both the predicted and the observed eclipses agree with modern computations. The statement seems to be based on the gross mistakes he has made on the previous page, where he has misidentified the months on LBAT 1421 with disastrous results for his calculations.
 

There is a portion you have skipped between these these two paragraphs above, and it looks like a recap of the proof of Babylonian dominion over many nations around them (just as Jeremiah 25 spoke of). In Jeremiah the 70 years are not for Judea and Jerusalem, but they are 70 years for Babylon. In this recap, Josephus says that the initial desolation (overpowering and taking of captives) had already begun under the rule Nebuchadnezzar's father, Nabopolassar. Immediately following the sentence about the 70 years:
He then says, "That this Babylonian king conquered Egypt, and Syria, and Phoenicia, and Arabia, and exceeded in his exploits all that had reigned before him in Babylon and Chaldea." A little after which Berosus subjoins what follows in his History of Ancient Times. I will set down Berosus's own accounts, which are these: "When Nabolassar, father of Nabuchodonosor, heard that the governor whom he had set over Egypt, and over the parts of Celesyria and Phoenicia, had revolted from him, he was not able to bear it any longer; but committing certain parts of his army to his son Nabuchodonosor, who was then but young, he sent him against the rebel: Nabuchodonosor joined battle with him, and conquered him, and reduced the country under his dominion again. Now it so fell out that his father Nabolassar fell into a distemper at this time, and died in the city of Babylon, after he had reigned twenty-nine years. But as he understood, in a little time, that his father Nabolassar was dead, he set the affairs of Egypt and the other countries in order, and committed the captives he had taken from the Jews, and Phoenicians, and Syrians, and of the nations belonging to Egypt, to some of his friends, that they might conduct that part of the forces that had on heavy armor, with the rest of his baggage, to Babylonia; while he went in haste, having but a few with him, over the desert to Babylon; whither, when he was come, he found the public affairs had been managed by the Chaldeans, and that the principal person among them had preserved the kingdom for him.
So he is referring to the year 605, and perhaps even a campaign that started in 606. Josephus also mentions that the temple lay desolate for 50 years until the 2nd year of Cyrus which was 537. That places the actual destruction of the temple itself in 587 BCE. But he apparently thinks of the 70 years from about 606 to about 539 (or possibly even 607 to 537). 
Josephus wrote his first history book much earlier, and at that time seemed to think that the temple had been destroyed 70 years before Cyrus, and this is the easier, more common-sense reading of 2 Chronicles, and a possible way to read Jeremiah and Daniel (but not Zechariah). But this time he doesn't actually say the temple was desolate for 70 years, but that it was desolate 'during the 70 years.' And then he specifically speaks of the Temple as "desolate" for 50 years up until Cyrus. That would fit nicely with Zechariah's mention of the 70 years of the Temple itself nearly 20 years after Cyrus. 
(Zechariah 1:12-16) . . .So the angel of Jehovah said: “O Jehovah of armies, how long will you withhold your mercy from Jerusalem and the cities of Judah, with whom you have been indignant these 70 years?”  . . . ‘This is what Jehovah of armies says: “I am zealous for Jerusalem and for Zion with a great zeal.  . . . “Therefore this is what Jehovah says: ‘“I will return to Jerusalem with mercy, and my own house will be built in her,” declares Jehovah of armies, “and a measuring line will be stretched out over Jerusalem.”’
 
And, nearly 20 years AFTER Cyrus, we also see that the lamentations related to Jerusalem's destruction have now been going on for 70 years:
(Zechariah 7:2-6) . . ., men to beg for the favor of Jehovah, saying to the priests of the house of Jehovah of armies and to the prophets: “Should I weep in the fifth month and abstain from food, as I have done for so many years?” . . . ‘When you fasted and wailed in the fifth month and in the seventh month for 70 years, did you really fast for me?  And when you would eat and drink, were you not eating for yourselves and drinking for yourselves? 
The Insight book admits that these 5th month and 7th month wailings were for the anniversaries of the final destruction of the Temple and assassination of Gedaliah. There had been 70 years of such wailing now that it was nearly 20 years after Cyrus.
(Zechariah 8:18, 19) . . .The word of Jehovah of armies again came to me, saying:  “This is what Jehovah of armies says, ‘The fast of the fourth month, the fast of the fifth month, the fast of the seventh month, and the fast of the tenth month will be occasions for exultation and joy for the house of Judah—festivals of rejoicing. So love truth and peace.. . .
 
*** it-1 p. 812 Fast ***
The Jews established many fasts, and at one time had four annual ones, evidently to mark the calamitous events associated with Jerusalem’s siege and desolation in the seventh century B.C.E. (Zec 8:19) The four annual fasts were: (1) “The fast of the fourth month” apparently commemorated the breaching of Jerusalem’s walls by the Babylonians on Tammuz 9, 607 B.C.E. (2Ki 25:2-4; Jer 52:5-7) (2) It was in the fifth Jewish month Ab that the temple was destroyed, and evidently “the fast of the fifth month” was held as a reminder of this event. (2Ki 25:8, 9; Jer 52:12, 13) (3) “The fast of the seventh month” was apparently held as a sad remembrance of Gedaliah’s death or of the complete desolation of the land following Gedaliah’s assassination when the remaining Jews, out of fear of the Babylonians, went down into Egypt. (2Ki 25:22-26) (4) “The fast of the tenth month” may have been associated with the exiled Jews already in Babylon receiving the sad news that Jerusalem had fallen (compare Eze 33:21), or it may have commemorated the commencement of Nebuchadnezzar’s successful siege against Jerusalem on the tenth day of that month . . .
 
So assuming 539 is right (and I assume it is) then the Bible chronology supports secular chronology, although Bible chronology contradicts WTS chronology here in Zechariah.

This idea that Satan can put Jews in power implies that God doesn't want Jews in power. But that would also imply that God only wants "Christians" including Hitler, Biden, Pol Pot, Chiang Kai-Shek, etc.