Well, you knew it was only a matter of time before the Rapturistas started praying for the bird flu. We all are, aren’t we? Secretly, I mean. (Check out Bob’s bird flu fantasy HERE.)

So we here at T-Rage, in conjunction with Back Bay Bob, have developed the sticker above to, in Bob’s words (not mine), “slap on these sadsacks schlubbing around everywhere, sucking up air. Something to indicate to infected birds who to dive-bomb first.”

What Bob means is: we hope Rapturistas will wear this badge with pride. It may even become a way for them to meet, date, and spread the deadly virus without having to resort to costly and inefficient internet services like adammeetsteve.com. It won’t be long before we hear inspirational stories from First-Wavers who found true love via avian influenza.

For others, some of them not Rapturistas at all (phlegm-spewing T-commuters who sneeze and cough without covering their pox-laden snot-holes, for example–a full list will be available soon at your local Bird Flu HQ) it will be a badge of shame. But that can’t be helped. It’s much too late for niceties: we are at war, people, and it is the End of Days.

We’re trying to get federal funding (from the Faith-based Initiatives till) to print up roughly 150 million stickers, as Doctor Tim LeHaye, author of the Left Behind series of books on the Rapture says we should not be surprised if “well over fifty percent” of the population of the US is raptured, possibly by avian influenza.

“Think about it,” he writes in his newsletter, Pre-Trib Perspectives (and, no, I am NOT making this shit up). “If 50 or more percent of the doctors, nurses, teachers, craftsmen and workers from all walks of life including military personnel from every branch of service were suddenly missing - that would be a devastating blow to the American economy and way of life. Into that leadership vacuum that the rapture may cause, the world would be vulnerable to domination by Germany and France, both socialist forms of government with weak leaders or a globalist organization that would propose equality of nations. A perfect setup for the Man of Sin to move in and take over.” Or the WOman of Sin (hint: initials HRC).

Some, like Reverend George Zeller, of the Middletown Bible Church, think Dr. LeHaye’s estimates are much too generous, pointing out that “it’s one thing to profess Christ and it’s quite another thing to possess Christ.” Reverend Zeller reminds us that “God is not saving the world.” God is grabbing up his favorites and then destroying the world.

Bird Flu is only the beginning of His glorious plan.

I refuse to applaud the MBTA for finally–FINALLY–coming into compliance with THE LAW, as regards their new PA system. As The Globe reports, “with the system, the T will finally comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act, a federal law [passed in 1990] that calls for both audio and visual announcements for passengers who are visually- or hearing-impaired.” They have, as usual, done the minimum, and then tooted their own horns as loud as they can, about what a big-ass favor they’re doing us all.

But the media is aiding and abetting them. Even the article in The Globe buried the fact that this was a requirement for the T in paragraph 18 of 22.

At least The Globe mentions that “other newer major transit systems are well ahead of the T on announcing train arrivals. On the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, for instance, multicolored displays show the number of minutes remaining until trains pull into the station. In Europe, train announcements are a tradition, and at some stations, a digital clock counts down the seconds until a train arrives.”

The qualifier “newer” is key here. Even The Globe is making excuses for the T. But it’s mostly meaningless. We all know there’s scarcely an underground system older in the world. And it’s a mistake to think that older systems are of necessity poorly adapted to modern riders. The Budapest Metro, the oldest subway system in Continental Europe, and the second oldest—after London’s—in the world, and one with which I am way too intimately familiar, was inaugurated in 1896, a year before Boston’s. Yet, for decades they’ve had displays in the stations that tell you how much time has elapsed between trains, and clearly-posted, easy-to-read schedules that they’re fairly good at sticking to. I mean, at a minimum.

Please, please, please, no more excuses for the MBTA, and no more of this cynical pomp and circumstance for their shamefully slow implementation of federal law.

I was watching the news at four on four this afternoon, and they had a little story about Mayor Menino unloosing the swans in the Public Garden. They showed them waddling out of their cages, and into the water.

As a sort of postscript, the newscaster said something to the effect of, last year it was discovered that Romeo and Juilet were both females, but authorities decided not to separate them. I thought she was going to say “…to rename them,” actually. But it points out how utterly ridiculous people are, doesn’t it? I mean, why on earth would you separate them? What’s the point?

Sometimes I marvel at how Victorian we still are in our pretensions, even when we live in an unabashedly liberal-permissive society. Other times I’m sure we’re backsliding into Medievalism. I suppose we should be grateful our gay swans weren’t plucked and thrown in the pot at a public boiling. Or sent to gay recovery.

At any rate, the overheated interest in the sexuality of swans is a sign of the times. I mean, it’s adolescent on all sides, isn’t it?