Los Angeles, California
July 8, 2000

Dear Readers,

Today’s conversation is between me and Todd Strandberg, the keeper of the Rapture Index.

I first read about the index in Wired magazine, back in the mid-1990s, and I’ve been checking it periodically ever since, as it’s risen and fallen, as signs of the end of the world – at least as Todd sees them – have waxed and waned.

What’s always fascinated me about the index is that it seems to me to embody a contradiction: it is an attempt to bring the tools and methods of scientific measurement and analysis to bear on a subject that is, by definition, beyond human comprehension: the mind of God.

Todd disagrees with me, of course: he believes that God is providing signs about the future to those who watch, and that if that’s true, then the best way for us to spend our time here on earth is, precisely, to watch.

And watch he does. I went and visited Todd once, in the suburb of Omaha, Nebraska, where he lives, to write a story about him for Mother Jones magazine. He showed me the incredible array of web sites he has bookmarked on his computer, sites dedicated to weather phenomena and satanism and global economics.

I can’t say I agree with Todd about much. I like South Park; he thinks it’s a sign of the end of the world. But I liked hanging out with him, and I admire the care and devotion that he puts into the index. He is in many ways a pure scientist: he spends all of his free time gathering information that he thinks is drastically important, and he shares it with the world, with no remuneration for his labor. No material remuneration, anyway.

If you want to check out the index, you can go here to see where things stand this week, and here for an explanation of what the 45 categories represent.

In other Open Letters news: on Sunday the third issue of Open Letters, the weekly, will go out to subscribers via PDF. If you’d like to see why I think you should subscribe, click here. To subscribe (it’s free), send a blank email to weekly@openletters.net.

Next week: the return of Chana Shvonne Williford (here’s Chana’s first letter), a third letter from X. to Mike (here’sthe first and the second), as well as some more letters from first-time correspondents.

Thanks for reading.

Yours truly,

Paul Tough