Kentucky Now to be Even More Hellish Than Before

Maybe it’s just me, but two observations about the comic version of the Rapture .

a) The people are too thin.

b) I guess the Aramaic Shepard god hates non white people.

@ManchuCandidate: Jesus is white, remember?

Getting back to the topic at hand. Hate to break it to you Kentucky, but why would AQ even think about Kentucky?
Both times I’ve been, it was when my dad drove us through the Smokey Mountains on the way to Mickey Rat’s special compound in Orlando at the heart of US America’s wang. Certain places there scared the shit out of me and I hadn’t even heard of Deliverance then.

@redmanlaw:
Never really bought into the whole Jesus as a white swimmer hippie dude.

@ManchuCandidate: The Smoky Mountains are in Tennessee, though I won’t begrudge you the trash talking about Eastern Kentucky.

@mellbell:
My bad. In my faded memories, the mountains all seemed smokey to me.

@ManchuCandidate: Smoky Mountains, Appalachians (pronounced “apple-atchens”), same diff. If you ever go back, be sure to hit up Louisville. That’s where it’s at.

In all my dealings with the fundamental wingnuts who inhabit my family and the region where I grew up, never have I run across the idea that the rapture would be orgasmic. Who knew? Also, only the perky-breasted women will be saved, apparently. Sorry, saggers–enjoy the 1000-year time of tribulation.

@mellbell: Buddy of mine teaches at Morehead State or as they affectionately call it “Más felacio U“.

Kentucky should, on this anniversary of Katrina, ask Lousianans how the god thing worked out for them.

Feh. The worst thing fundies ever did to actual real Christians is foist this non-biblical, completely bogus belief in dispensationalism. Look, in case you’re interested, which I know most of you are not, there’s no such thing as the rapture, and Christ has returned already to dwell in us.

Fucking wingnuts screw everything up.

Have we used “Godlesslessness” before? I salute the author of my newest Top Ten Tag.

@flippin eck: Looks like the rest of us need to fear the Rain of Clothing that immediately follows.

@redmanlaw: Not only is he white – he’s southern. Come on.

I’m thinking about doing a post on the America I’ve come home to after almost 4 years. It’s a different, scary place. And it’s WEIRD.

@RomeGirl: It’s weird to us who live here. You must duck below the windows as you drive through town, shield your eyes from the tv, plug your ears against the electronic noise and wear blinders to the store. Get out to where there’s no one and watch the grass bend in the wind, hear the leaves in the trees and see the sky and water.

@RomeGirl: Having enjoyed your Homecoming Tweets, I’d love to read it.

@RomeGirl:

I’m trying to imagine what bizarre cultural minutiae you were missing in Europe is freaking you out right now. Is it Jon and Kate? The weird, desaturated in color in the TV commercials? The fact that you no longer see images of musicians or singers unless you go out of your way to do it, while actors and politicians are pictured everywhere? The macrame shawls that have somehow come back in style? The frenzied, yet oddly glazed look on the faces of some of the more methed-out homeless? The passionate defense of selfishness and greed, coming not from the usual suspects on the right but from housewives and plumbers and washed-up actors? The recent vogue for racism and thinly veiled assassination threats?

I could go on and on here.

@RomeGirl: Yes, please do. I’d love to get your perspective. I know it’s gone from bad to worse, but I can’t imagine returning after spending several years in a civilization where actual rational thought is valued rather than mocked.
@Tommmcatt Floats: I honestly do care, and feel bad for those of you, like my friends here, who really try to live Christ’s actual teachings (for which I have great respect) and get smeared by these complete nutcases in the same way Muslims are tainted by the extremists in their religion. I want a new designation for these freaks so people like you and flippin aren’t on the receiving end of outrage towards Christians.

@Mistress Cynica: Sully, loyal if cranky Catholic, calls them “Christianists.”

@Tommmcatt Floats: A few weeks back, someone tried to open a Jon & Kate story with “Unless you’ve been living under a rock…”

I do, it’s very cool in the summer, and you get used to the worms.

@nojo: “Christianists”. Bit large in the mouth. All those Tttts and Ssss at the end. I think “Christers” is better. Unless the word sounds derisive of real faith, which I don’t intend it to be.

@Tommmcatt Floats: Hey. Washed-up actors need love too, buddy. But I’m entirely enthralled by the rapture. Srsly. I’ve read a great deal about its evolution and even know something about the pre-trib, post-trib schism. I suspect that Schofield got a very frosty reception at the Pearly Gates and that his annotated Bible is not on the coffee-tables of heaven.

@Benedick: George Plimpton’s Edie Sedgwick book — the model for oral history that everyone else perverts — opens with a scene at the family graveyard: Everyone’s buried in a circle, feet in, so when the Rapture comes, they can all look at each other.

This of course presumes God calls in everybody head-first, for which there is no Biblical authority.

@RomeGirl:

Matt Taibbi calls it The Great Derangement. I’d call it “lack-of-culture shock.”

Which reminds me, I’ve been meaning to leave the country, like permanently.

“Dear United States, you said you’d change but obviously it’s not working out. It’s not me, it’s you. Au revoir.”

So how does one of modest means, some (barely) passable español and a handful of français lessons begin enjoying la vida dulce del expatriate, te pregunto?

Whatever country I end up in can tax the caca outta me, no me importa.

However! Starting over in a new country could be rough, like what if I ended up as a nanny (manny?) or giving handjobs or–FSM forbid–both!

Quel un travail, mon dieu!

A How-To guide, link or post would be greatly appreciated, s’il vous plait.

They like the Rapture for the upskirt potential.

@nojo: The Sedgwick Pie. Seen it. In Lenox. Fab book, too. I don’t think they were talking rapture. I think they were planning for the resurrection, ie. Judgement Day. A very different event, although the two have become conflated. The rapture was not part of Episcopal thinking then or now. No, they were planning how best to rise from their graves. I daresay they had it planned which of them should fix the martinis. One is raptured before one’s death: which is kind of the point. You go bodily to heaven and never ever die. It’s from that verse about Jesus returning and meeting his Church in the air.

@nojo: Or just pulls the fuckers straight down through the earth and out the other side.

@nojo:

I prefer Xtianists, ’cause those neo-fascist authoritarians wouldn’t recognize the commie, hippie, free-luv Jeebus from the New Testament if He smacked them upside the head with Heaven’s very own official photo ID.

@Benedick: You’re right — Bodily Resurrection, not Rapture. Although they’d be staring at each other nekkid all the way up.

@Original Andrew: Actually, from what I understand of their attitude, it might be better to call them (drum roll) Pilates.

@nojo:

But who’s America’s King Herod?

@nojo: I think that’s kind of harsh on Pilate. I vote for Pharisees.

@Original Andrew: I can’t go there, lest Benedick nail me to the cross with another ALW reference.

@RomeGirl: Please do. I considered something when I returned after fifteen years abroad – to Bush’s Amerikkka, mind you – but (a) didn’t have the strength and (b) thought Bill Bryson had already tackled it for me.

To be perfectly honest, it was finding this pack of cynical stinquers (stinquey cynics?) that helped me through the rough patches. But it is no accident that I’m about to take up work that will put me at very real risk of getting blown up or at least sick with giardia.

Whatever we end up calling them, they’d be more than happy to take turns cracking the whip.

@Original Andrew: One suspects that you’d look dashing in a white hat. Bon chance!

@The Nabisco Quiver:

Surely there’s a safer option? Some friends of mine from college have spent the last ten years since graduation as teaching-english-vagabonds throughout southeast Asia and couldn’t be happier.

@The Nabisco Quiver:

They take homos and I’d never really have to fight anyone, oui? Just march around in those silly suits? I can handle that, but there could be trouble if a fight escalates beyond a pimp slap.

P.S. Hey, free French lessons!

@Original Andrew: @nojo: MY EYES! MY EYES!

@Original Andrew: I’m told that Brussels is the place to go. Personally I hanker after Iceland.

@Original Andrew:

There are worse jobs than giving out handjobs. For example, giving out blowjobs. Or rimjobs.

@Mistress Cynica: Second that. Pilate was just a Roman middle-manager…and a good one at that, as he realized that one more crucifiction for a blasphemer was preferable to open rebellion by the Jews.

@The Nabisco Quiver: The disease risk was so low in my PC country that our poor PCMO nearly got herself laughed out of one of their medical conventions. But despite that, I still managed to get giardia at least 3-4 times. Not. fun. It did help when I realized I could get the meds to treat it over the counter at the local pharmacy instead of sitting on a minibus for a few hours to get it from the PC office.

@Benedick:

Big problem with Iceland is it’s all very Great Depressiony now, what with their total financial and currency collapse. Also, Icelandic simply defies my comprehension.

@Tommmcatt Floats:

A blowjob is better than no job, verdad?

And you don’t give them out. Hell, if Leaving Las Vegas taught us anything, it’s get the money first.

@nojo: @Mistress Cynica: @Benedick:

I say we go with Pharisees, as in a verse I quote often

Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness. Matt. 23:27

Suits them.

@Original Andrew: I knew a lot of kids who did the teaching-English-in-Asia thing. Good gig, especially if you are able to take on private students and charge market rates. The schools in Korea, at least, took a hefty cut of what they charged for themselves.

@Benedick: Iceland would be cool. Rather than the ark, we should establish our expat community in Iceland. Daily thermals! Herring! Bjork!

@Original Andrew:

How about America lite to the north? If you have the right profession they’ll sign you right up. Plus, actual Healthcare!

@flippin eck: We’ve had this chat before, I think. “Minibus”, *snicker* – I had an eight hour ride, on the top of a Blue Bird school bus (1972 model), just to get to the nearest place with electricity! Giardia was okay but for the sulphur burps. Typhoid, now that’s where the big payoff was. We need to get together and compare notes (yours are probably all on a “blog” or something, I have actual journals!).

@Tommmcatt Floats:

It’s under serious consideration, mon ami.

(You get beaucoup bonus points on the citizenship application if you know français.)

@Original Andrew: I’ve always suspected that my soul (such as it is) is Icelandic.

@Tommmcatt Floats: Pharisees it is.

We nearly moved north. Got quite far on. Can’t remember now why we didn’t. If I ever move to another country again I would take nothing with me. When we came here we shipped all kinds of furniture, books, paintings. I’d never do it again. I’d sell what I could and start from scratch. I don’t suppose you have an Irish grandfather? Nothing to be ashamed of if you do – it’s not as if it’s nojo’s ALW obsession – but if you did you could get citizenship and then Europe is your tofuburger.

@Benedick: There was some book that was celebrated awhile back for suggesting God manipulated Judas to snitch — as if Tim Rice hadn’t gotten there first.

@nojo: Yes, darling, it’s okay, we still love you.

@Original Andrew: I don’t if this is still the case (Manchu, help me out), but when two lesbian friends were considering the move after the 2004 election, they were told they could receive bonus points (in BC, anyway) for being gay and unable to marry in the US.
@nojo: Oh please, M*A*S*H covered that whole Judas theory in the episode about the shell-shocked soldier who thought he was Jesus.

@Mistress Cynica:
Not familiar with the immigration process, but I suspect that has changed since the Tories took over in 2006. They banned “dancer” visas (aka Stripper visas) at the urging of their Jeebus squad. And the immigration panels are usually political appointees.

@Mistress Cynica:

Paradoxically, that reason holds less weight now that WA, OR, CA, and several others have the segregationist domestic partnerships (pending the outcome of Referendum 71 in WA) which offer many similar marital benefits.

What really gets you into Canadia is a degree in nursing or medicine, then you can write your own ticket. Also, if you have $$$$ that they can soak for taxes, and/or if you’re willing to live outside the major population centers of Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal and Ottowa.

Manitoba here we come!

@Mistress Cynica: Costa Ricans were getting asylum upon claims of persecution. Harder case to make in the US, despite Prop 8 etc.

@Mistress Cynica:

Here’s the Canadian Skilled Worker Test.

Add: I scored 71. The minimum needed is 67.

If I learn some basic French, my score would jump to 79.

@flippin eck: Yeah, oh, yeah. In another life in a perfect land in the W Pacific I ended up gushing from both ends for about 6 weeks. Lived on tomato juice. Went to two daktaris and both said it presented almost exactly like a kids’ flu that was going around about that time. It passed and I remember with swooning recall the first square meal I had after the onset – a steak as big as my head. I’d never been so high in my life, really, I was stoned on blood rush until the next afternoon. I would occasionally get dizzy a year or so afterward but no lasting scars though I never realized what I had until one of my operations people phoned up from Hong Kong a year ago. Laid out prior to an important presentation describing the same symptoms and the aroma of rotten eggs, the essential tell tale. Told him to get Immodium and a nap to give me a few minutes on the Web. Had an answer in a minute. He was still a mess for the meeting but at least had the comfort of feeling on the mend after he got the meds for it. Gosh, what did we do before the Web?

@Original Andrew: I thought it was a joke about beer, hockey and permafrost.

TJ/ butts in seats for Inglorious Bastids in 5,4,3,2 and…

@FlyingChainSaw: Arent sulfur burps the best? Farting out the mouth, y’all…

/previews on now/

@The Nabisco Quiver: Terrifying. They came back every so often for a couple of years – but very low level, just a hint of sulfer. I’d freak out for days and all but stop eating entirely.

@Benedick:

There is something kinda “go-berserk-and-club-my-enemies-to-death-with-their-own-shins” about you. Part of your charm.

@Tommmcatt Floats:

Speaking of, I’m testing for my yellow belt in Hapkido tomorrow.

Time to channel those Buffy moves.

@Original Andrew: They’re deployed all over the world – but they do have non-combat assignments: http://www.legion-recrute.com/en/musique.php

@flippin eck: Also, only the perky-breasted women will be saved, apparently. Sorry, saggers–enjoy the 1000-year time of tribulation.

You mean we’re not already there? Huh.

@Tommmcatt Floats: I do love me some sagas with the axes on the skulls. I love that their gods die. That is awesome.

@FlyingChainSaw: The most anti-social of all GI disorders.

BTW absolutely LURVD Inglorious Basterds. Classic Tarantino. Mr. Jolie was phenomenal. Spoiler alert: Hitler gets it in the end…

@Original Andrew: 67 on the nose!

@Rome Girl – please do a post on your culture shock. I had culture shock after 9 months in Spain and Europe, I can’t imagine yours.

@Original Andrew: 83 for Canada baby! It helps that Mr. SFL and I have a ridiculous number of degrees between us. I drove the Trans-Canadian Highway (actually almost four years ago to the day) and Regina, Manitoba was great. I also liked Moose Jaw, and I could also live the rest of my life outside the Banff National Park selling tchotchkes at the national park…although it snowed in early September when we were camping there. If you finally caved and got on FB you could see the pictures of me and my puppeh in Calgary and Banff.

@Original Andrew: 70. Thank god for that master’s.

@Original Andrew:
I was kinda curious to see if I could qualify to immigrate to Canada City.

Scored 79. Lost 10 points because I don’t want to relocate to Moose Jaw and didn’t claim a job to immigrate to.

Being something beyond illiterate in French is what boosted the score.

@Tommmcatt Floats: I think I love you. This dispensationalism, its so far out there, beyond the pale, beyond the respected theology of any christian tradition.

Its another, and seldom remarked upon aspect of USA anti-intellectualism. These christtards don’t hate elites and science and liberalism because they are christtards, they are christtards because they come from a tradition which rejects all formal intellectual activity. Yes, they reject science and philosophy and learning and all that, but in their fucktarded religion, they also reject any notion of formal, intellectual theology.

Their deep, fundamental anti-intellectualism produced their religion, not vice-versa.

You may be a committed atheist, you may reject christianity as myth, thats fine, but the fact is that traditional christian sects all share to some extent a formal, systematized, and intellectually rigorous theology. Biblical exegesis is the most intense, rigorous, and very very intelligent, intellectual, variety of literary criticism I have ever studied, it uses all the standard tools of literary criticism, textual, historical, anthropological, its not for dummies.

These american christtards reject the intellectual and formal and institutional edifices of their own faith just as firmly as they reject science.

There are no credentials, there is no course of study, nothing at all, required, to start a bible-believin’ church among the fucktards. They believe “All I need to know is here in the Good Book,” and they reject the idea that really understanding the meaning of the words and stories in the bible requires an immense amount of study of history, sociology, philology, in order to understand what was written in the context of who wrote it and the society they wrote it for. Mainstream protestant and catholics have to learn all this shit before their churches let them up on a pulpit and start spewing. These christtards, they believe that any damn fool is as qualified as anyone else, to come up with his own crazy-ass interpretations.

And thus we have dispensationalism. Its a monstrosity, with no basis in anything, made up, craziness, even within the context of those who believe in christianity.

Its an advanced, pathological, formalized variety of adolescent revenge fantasy, they spend their lives hoping for the day they get swooped up in the air and get to watch the ‘elites” who looked down on them get tortured for their pleasure.

But make no mistake, they are not retards because of their religion; their religion is retarded because they are retarded to begin with.

Anti-Intellectualism in American Life is required reading for anyone who wants to understand this phenomenon, who wants to understand the fucktards.

Their religion is not christianity, it is an anti-intellectual rebellion against the formal, intellectual theology of traditional christianity.

And its all the result of an ignorant peasant knee-jerk resentment of thinking and thought and knowledge, its an expression of that ultimate reaction of the belligerent and ignorant hick, pure resentment, a culture with a chip on its shoulder that regards anything intellectual as an implied criticism of their ignorance. “You think you’re smart, college boy, I’ll show you smart, lets see if you are smarter than my fist.” I heard that, often.

@SanFranLefty: I have a case up at the Fort Peck reservation, which is about an hour south of Moose Jaw in eastern Montana.

@redmanlaw: I liked Moose Jaw. Beautiful country up there. We stayed at a dog-friendly motel run by Punjabi .immigrants from India who directed us to the best vegan/locaavore/beer-pub place in Moose Jaw. Gorgeous Victorian houses with good bones. I’m sure all for a fraction of the cost of homes in Cali.

@Original Andrew: 80, in part because I can read and understand French at a higher level than I can speak it. My grandfather did emigrate from the Old World through Canady, getting citizenship along the way. Wonder if that would help out….?

@redmanlaw: I’m actually in an idyllic place, at my parents’ house on the Jersey shore, our little barrier island, America’s Greatest Family Resort – named as such back when families meant good things, not OMG SAVE TEH FETISIS.

@Tommmcatt Floats: Well, being as how my first mistake upon arriving was not being able to find the flusher on the toilet, you can imagine how everything else has been overwhelming.

@Original Andrew: Just do it. Choose a place, even if you have to throw a dart at a map.

@RomeGirl: It took me a few months to remember to put used tp in the bowl rather than in the trash bin next to it upon my return from a few years in Central America. Narrow pipes, dontcha know.

@RomeGirl: You need to go have a meal at Cafe Prom on the Shore.