Off to Get a Look Outside America

I don't know if anyone will notice, but for my one or two kind readers, I'm taking a research trip to Berlin and Prague over the next two weeks. The first part of the research is to give me the means to finish a short story collection about the Cold War. The second part is to get a perspective on the United States through the eyes of people not under the steady barrage of Michael Jackson coverage and surrounded by religious extremists trying to destroy the world before God summons them to his right hand in the Rapture. And third, perhaps I'm scoping out a home for future exile.

The Rapture Index, by the way, stands at 149, which means, according to Rapture Ready's website:

Rapture Index of 85 and Below: Slow prophetic activity
Rapture Index of 85 to 110: Moderate prophetic activity
Rapture Index of 110 to 145: Heavy prophetic activity
Rapture Index above 145: Fasten your seat belts

So tighten that sucker down, although if God is going to yank you out of your clothes, your toupee, your gold fillings and your pec implants, I don't see the need for a seat belt, but maybe I'm taking that warning too literally. Of course, that's the whole point for these folks, the "literal word of God," right? Well, they're full of shit, to put it bluntly. Here, from Matthew 24:35, they understood this much :

Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.

But they conveniently ignore the next verse, Mattew 24:36, which they also must take literally to be consistent, and of course we all know how consistency is a hallmark of the theofascist right wing, yes?

But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only.

No man and no angel know when God will bring the apocalypse, but please, please don't be a dick and spoil the fun of the Rapture Ready people, or puncture the false piety and pretended belief of the likes of Bill "Cat Killer" Frist, or Tom "Giant Flying Cockroach" DeLay or George "I'm a Lying, Simpering, Costume-Wearing Poser" Bush, who play on the hopes and fears of the ignorant to execute their monstrous plans for our country. The apocalypse they will someday experience, if God is indeed just, will be something beyond their most terrible nightmares. And if it buys me a few more turns on the fiery spit over the eternal flames of Satan's blackest pit, I'm still going to gloat when it happens.

Don't spoil the surprise. Get 'em, God!

I'll be blogging as much as I can from Berlin and Prague whenever an internet cafe with good coffee or excellent beer opens upon my path, provided the money holds out, so look for firsthand reports from the former frontier of the Cold War. Since my time there in the 1970s, I am anxious to see if it is still true that "Berlin bleibt doch Berlin."