(In)Justice Monday

The audacity of those terrorists in black robes never ceases to amaze Sister Nancy Beth. I am glad to know I am not alone. Today I read (via Agape Press) that Concerned Person for America, Bob Knight, shares my contempt for their judicial overreach:

The Kansas Supreme Court recently ruled unanimously that the State must impose the same penalties for statutory rape regardless of whether the sex was heterosexual or homosexual. Writing for the court, Justice Marla Luckert stated, "The moral disapproval of a group cannot be a legitimate state interest."

However, the director of the Culture and Family Institute (CFI), Bob Knight, feels the ruling is a classic example of what he calls "group identity politics." Moreover, he says the decision "runs roughshod" over the rights of a state to determine its own moral climate.

The Kansas Supreme Court's ability to interpret Kansas state law is nothing short of a judicial coup d'etat. I can only hope that the supreme court of one of Kansas' neighboring states determines that this statute is in fact constitutional, so the rule of law can once again be restored.

Liberal trolls will be banned!

Sister Nancy Beth is the willing subject of God, as well as her readers. In response to loyal reader Jake's request, comments will be enabled from here on out. Please keep in mind that if something like this happens, Hugh Hewitt will never add me to his list of Godbloggers. It rests on your shoulders, my friends.

Sister Nancy Beth's virtual tissue

I figured I'd put this surplus of emotion to good use by giving out virtual tissues to those most in need of Sister Nancy Beth's consolation. I'm toying with the idea of awarding these on a weekly basis, since my compassion, much like Christ's, is infinite. But that seems to commit me to blogging on weekends, so expect to see these given out as circumstances warrant -- just be sure you're wearing waterproof mascara.

The first virtual tissue goes to Michael Steele, who was the victim of an internet hate crime by Whore of Heresy Steve Gilliard. Mr. Gilliard operates under the misconception that black people can call out their fellow blacks for their craven acts of racism, when the truth of the matter is that, today, racism is something most acutely experienced by white conservatives; ultimately they are the best judges of these matters. There, there, Michael, Sister Nancy Beth hands you this virtual tissue to dry your eyes.

[Sunday afternoon tinkering, for those of you who pay attention to these matters]

There's got to be a morning after

No wonder I was so weepy yesterday -- the Lord decided to bless me with an extra large helping of the Curse of Eve. Even the cruel taunts of leftists and homosexuals, which I usually consider the highest form of honor, turned me into a river of tears. "This must be how it feels to be Michelle Malkin," I thought. A few puffs of ceremonial frankincense helped unclench Satan's grip on my ladyparts, so I figured a few more would expel him from me completely. That worked all too well, but unfortunately Sister Chandrika and I had chosen last night to work on our anti-Halloween protest costumes, since Jesus was going to be at His second job until 11.

A few weeks ago I helped myself to an acid-washed denim jacket in the donations box at Our Lady of the Denunciation -- it was far too nice to go the poor. I had planned to use my trusty hot-glue gun and some sequins to turn it into an elaborate Bosch-like vision of hellfire and damnation, but after all that frankincense, it looked more like a Mondrian. It also weighed nearly 30 pounds, and I think I may have herniated a disk trying it on in front of the mirror and striking various poses. I'm hoping to offset my unintentional foray into America-hating Modernism by getting this spectacular rhinestone rosary at a religious supply store in Chatsworth, but first I have to figure out where Chatsworth is. Sister Chandrika graciously offered to navigate, but I'm going to decline.

Sister Chandrika is certainly a "love," as they say in her native Sri Lanka, but the ceremonial frankincense made her unbearably loquacious, and she prattled on and on and on about her girlhood on her uncle's teakwood plantation in innermost outer Sri Lanka proper, or someplace like that, and the fruitbats dwelling therein. Listening to this was worse than a slow, agonizing death, because death, I knew, was never going to come. Jesus finally made it home and started undressing for bed, a signal that any sentient creature would have known meant to call it a night. Mercifully, this sign is universal.

This is turning into another weekend of endless lists of chores, but only for me. Jesus announced His intention last Sunday to spend all of the coming weekend on the couch, watching tv and working on His grad school applications. I wish I could take this more relaxed approach, but I've got souls to save. OK, gotta run, Jesus wants breakfast...

Prayer circle jamboree

What a horrible week this has been for me personally, as well as for my Party. There's only one thing to do in situations like this -- check in with my Prayer Warriors, whom I've come to see as cuticle cream for Sister Nancy Beth's soul.

• Gay Patriot West wishes today's band of Hollywood treason merchants could be more like those of yesteryear. They may have been wrong, but by golly, they did it with heart.


• Hugh Hewitt surveys the wreckage of the Miers nomination and sounds out those who are ultimately responsible for this debacle: the left. I hope you're proud of yourselves, moonbats.


• Little Green Footballs mourns the passing of Rosa Parks, as well as the fact that they just don't make Negroes the way they used to.


• Wizbang wonders what violates the spirit of justice more: White House officials disclosing the identity of some insignificant Langley tile-scuffer, or journalists reporting leaks from some "investigation" that would be more at home in Salem or 15th Century Spain?

Here's hoping for brighter days, Christians.

Bolsheviks with crucifixes

My register has been off for the past two days and I forgot to reschedule a client's appointment, so I've been trying to look especially busy here to get Conchita off my back. This meant another write-up, and the attendant lecture went something like, "Maybe if you paid more attention to your job and less attention to that computer, your till would balance." Oh yeah? Well maybe if you'd let the Lord into your heart, you wouldn't be such a hateful cow, you fat ugly bitch. I've seen less obvious dye jobs on skeins of yarn. All told, my drawer was less than $40.00 short, and that client was a lousy tipper, so good riddance. Just expect a low profile from me until common sense prevails around here.

Anyway, over the past couple of days, two articles about the Left's attempts to poison the institutions of the Right have popped up on my radar screen and deserve some airtime. The first concerns, unsurprisingly, Harriet Miers, and her attempted infiltration of the Supreme Court. As Concerned Women For America puts it:

“Harriet Miers has shown respect for Christian values by attending an Evangelical church. But her professional and civic life leaves us questioning whether she chooses to reflect and advance the views of the group she’s with at the moment. Though she attends an Evangelical church known for its pro-life position, during the same time period she advanced radical feminists and organizations that promote agendas that undermine respect for life and family,” said Wendy Wright. “This drives us to rely upon her actions, her deeds, her words as opposed to the endorsements of those who have worked with and known her.

Personally, I think the ladies at CWFA give Miers too much credit. My suspicion is that her passport has been stamped "Lesbos" a few times, if you catch my drift, and she and Ruth Bader Ginsburg would have spent their days playing footsy under the bench. Fortunately Miers has withdrawn her nomination, and with any luck we'll get a nominee whose use of eye makeup is more in sync with our nation's Christian values.

The other article comes from Agape Press and addresses the worldwide Communist takeover of the Catholic Church, with its dire effects here in our country:

One of these Leftist pet causes Kupelian describes as being among the liberals' biggest frauds. He refers to liberation theology, a controversial school of socialistic Roman Catholic religious thought that emphasizes social justice, human rights, political activism, and identification with the poor and oppressed. But the managing editor for WorldNetDaily says liberation theology, as he defines it, "basically is Marxism that's been dressed up as Christianity."

One result of this left-ward tendency in the Church, Kupelian suggests, is the moral corruption and decline of culture, with adverse fallout affecting law and public mores. For instance, he observes, "We keep electing non-Christian people, and we keep allowing all kinds of death-affirming rather than life-affirming laws and policies."

I had never made the connection between some misguided Jesuits harboring Communists from death squad-style justice in El Salvador and the rising demand for access to abortion on demand here in the US, but now that I think about it, it makes perfect sense: They're all planks in Satan's master plan. Hear me out, moonbats: Sister Nancy Beth is onto you. I don't think there are that many cultural institutions left that you haven't tainted, but I intend to defend them vigorously.

Thou shalt be glamorous

Whore of heresy PSoTD has been found guilty of being an unwitting accessory -- to stunningness! The hallmark of any truly great holiday is that it enables its observers to wear decorative garb themed to the occasion. Thanks to these darling little pins, I can safely say Ten Commandments Day joins the ranks of Christmas, Easter, and the Fourth of July. Thank heavens they're available in bulk. Everyone here at Conchita's Unisex Beauty Palace is going to get one, whether they want it or not.

Something I would like to see for the 2007 Ten Commandments Day is to have rings for each Commandment -- one for each digit. Mix and match those Commandments to fit your mood. Feeling especially covetous of your neighbor's wife? Just pop on an extra Tenth Commandment ring and watch that temptation disappear. And thanks to that Third Commandment ring, you're not flipping your fellow driver off, you're reminding her to keep holy on the Sabbath.

As one of the greatest theological works of our present era says, "The only thing that separates us from the animals is our ability to accessorize." So why waste your time arguing about Intelligent Design if throwing on a few baubles makes a more convincing argument for Creationism? The more you wear, the stronger your case. Sister Nancy Beth urges all of you to adorn yourselves with costume jewelry; it's the closest thing to God's Glory.

An open letter to David Horowitz

Dear Mr. Horowitz:

It cleaves my heart in two to learn of the cruel mistreatment you experienced in my hometown of West Hollywood. As you are probably aware, West Hollywood is a bastion of homosexuality, and intolerant gay leftists, out there in the non-virtual world as well as right here on the internets, are the cossacks of our age. I wish you a speedy recovery from that terrifying ordeal.

Unfortunately, that is not my primary reason for writing to you. I have long admired your campaign to bring free speech to the campus, and I share in the jubilant sense of liberation your followers must feel once they no longer need to pay attention to socialist claptrap like the theory of evolution or Keynesian economics. But I have often wished you would focus some of your attention on those other hothouses of world communism: beauty schools.

I myself attended Martinelli's School of Beauty, a prestigious chain of glamour academies operating in some of America's finest shopping centers, until the stifling effects of dreaded political correctness made it impossible for me to complete my coursework there. While a comprehensive accounting of all the humiliation inflicted upon me would be too voluminous to document, I do offer the following three incidents as evidence of their unchecked danger to America.

During the Nail Care module, I vociferously objected to the use of the term "French Manicure." I explained to the instructor, S'Tar, that given the unwillingness of our fairweather friends to defend liberty, the name should be changed to Freedom Manicure. I then stated what a slap in the face of all veterans it would be if, once Iraq was liberated, for Iraqi women to be giving themselves French Manicures, when the French had absolutely nothing to do with their liberation. S'Tar said that French Manicure is what it said in the textbook, and that would be the term the class would continue to use.

I persisted and asked, "Doesn't anyone review these textbooks to make sure they're clear of blatant political biases like this? This is outrageous."

"Nancy Beth, please see me after class."

"That's Sister Nancy Beth. I am a bride of Christ."

S'Tar responded with an icy stare.

After class, S'Tar ignored the issue at hand and went off on some pointless digression about how I was wasting the class' valuable instruction time with all my interruptions. I'm sorry my classmates are willing to swallow liberal dogma like this, S'Tar, but not Sister Nancy Beth! I agreed to drop it -- for now -- and bring it up in Nail Care Module 2, where I hoped to achieve some resolution to my concerns. (I'll spare you the details, but my efforts to rename French Braids during the Braiding and Extensions module met similar resistance. )

Martinelli's offered (and continues to offer) an Ethnic Hairstyling module, which I did not enroll in out of principle. I did, however, alert the school director, Mrs. Mendoza, that this sort of preferential treatment was a clear violation of Ward Connerly's Proposition 209, and if Mr. Connerly was willing to forego a decent haircut in the name of racial harmony, equal sacrifice on the part of other African-Americans would only help them achieve the American dream that much sooner. We are, after all, living in a color-blind society, and holding onto past grievances like this just keeps us mired in divisive racial politics. Mrs. Mendoza was unmoved, and started with all that Clintonian legalese that moonbats love so much, about what the statute truly says, etc. I don't know if her response was true, because it left my head reeling, but it sounds like there may be a loophole the size of Utah in the law that allows for this sort of special-rights pandering. I was so upset I could have shanked the bitch with my rat-tailed comb -- Ward, how could you do this to me?

The Intro to Tinting and Waving Module is the one class in which I truly excelled, and I distinguished myself from my classmates with my innovative Halo hairdo, a combination hair lightening and tightly rolled permanent. I never felt closer to God than when I was giving the dollheads their Halos, and I'm sure they must have felt like they were little decapitated cherubs. Mr. Lerner, the militant homosexual instructor, said that using that much peroxide and neutralizer could burn somebody's scalp. I stated my belief that God would prevent that from happening, and went about my business. He let fly some comment about seeing me in court, and I elaborated on my beliefs further: "I think we should try to revere God with our hairdos, and not those godless trial lawyers." Mr. Lerner said that he was flunking me right then and there. He then had to humiliate me further in front of my classmates by saying that all the teachers said I was trouble. I fled from the classroom in tears and have never been back.

My three months in beauty school really opened my eyes to the stranglehold liberals have on the higher education system in this country. Please, Mr. Horowitz, turn your critical gaze to ivory towers like Martinelli's, so that eager young minds needn't hide their loves of God and Country to finish their education and take their rightful place as gears in America's great economic motor. I look forward to the financial and social flowering your efforts will bring America, so that we can truly be One Nation Under God.

Yours in Christ,

Sister Nancy Beth Eczema

Sister Nancy Beth's open thread of righteousness & beauty supplies

Sister Nancy Beth is going to try an experiment in feedback with my hordes of readers here with this "open thread" business. One possible topic for discussion is, "What is your favorite line of hair care products?" Sister Nancy Beth wants to know!

Prayer circle jamboree

It's time to once again see what's shaking with my Prayer Warriors.

• La Shawn Barber alerts us to another of the guises Satan takes: AP reporters falsely promising to interview bloggers.


• Boi From Troy compares the anguish of his appendectomy to getting an abortion, and decides that those teen harlots should have to wait 48 hours after parental notification to get their abortions.


• Michelle Malkin tips us off to the genocidal rants of prominent liberal academic Kamau Kambon (who, if memory serves, sat with Jimmy Carter at the Democrats' 2004 convention). She quips, "If there were such thing as a truly fair and balanced media, you'd have already seen as many stories about Kambon's comments as there were about Bill Bennett's comments, which were taken wildly out of context." Amen, Sister Michelle!


• Andrew Sullivan may oppose torturing prisoners, but syntax is clearly fair game.

Handsome boy modeling school

One of the schools I was considering for my higher education was the Barbizon Modeling Center, which instructs its young charges in such disciplines as poise, runway technique, and projecting self confidence. Tom DeLay must have gotten his Master's there! Way to go, Tom - you're an inspiration to all of us Christians who seek a better America through glamour.

MSM does it again

Leave it to our good friends at MSM to get only half the story, to get it wrong, and then to get it years after the fact. Making news today is a study about women in higher education:

There are more men than women ages 18-24 in the USA — 15 million vs. 14.2 million, according to a Census Bureau estimate last year. But nationally, the male/female ratio on campus today is 43/57, a reversal from the late 1960s and well beyond the nearly even splits of the mid-1970s.

Hell-O! I found this out years ago. When I was in beauty school, it was 90% women. And of those men, 95% of them were gay! So when you do the math, that means... 185% of the average beauty school student body is made up of "special rights" admissions. No wonder straight white men are so incensed -- and rightfully so, I might add. They don't have a snowball's chance in hell of getting admitted to a cosmetology program.

This, of course, doesn't even address the relentless persecution that awaits a Christian at his or her local beauty college. I'd go into it in more detail, but that will have to be either a long blog entry here or a special feature at one of David Horowitz's websites.

The news that shapes your tresses

Sister Nancy Beth is always intrigued to see the intersection of cosmetology and politics. Take, for instance, the recent announcement that Al Qaeda's hairdresser had finally been caught. Some of you may scoff at the reports, but that shows a tremendous lack of understanding of the fundamental power of glamour. Nothing reinforces my belief that all Americans employed in the cosmetological arts should takes vows to uphold the Ten Commandments and most of the Constitution more than the fact that this person was possibly using rhinestone hairclips for evildoing. I only wish I were the President's own stylist, so he could nominate me as National Beauty Czar, and I could finally implement my vision for America.

Sister Nancy Beth is also excited to read that an unnamed White House official has adopted a timeless hairstyle. I'm on pins & needles until I get a gander at his or her new look.

(I got tired of stocking setting lotion, so I did some afternoon editing.)

Sister Nancy Beth's ears are burning...

... which is far better than my urinary tract. Sister Nancy Beth wants whores of heresy Rox Populi and The Sean Show to know she's got eyes on the back of her head and can see them.

Christian housewives in bondage

Well thank God that's finally over. I never thought I'd be so glad to see the eight month old copies of Us Weekly and Family Circle here behind the register at Conchita's Unisex Beauty Palace, but they were like old friends welcoming me: "Hi, Britney. Hi, Angelina," I could feel myself saying. Now that I'm back at work, I can tend to all the moving-related duties that the very act of moving kept me from accomplishing. I've finally been able to contact my creditors and their collection agencies with my new phone number (it's easier than having them call you at work), and I went through four days worth of mail. I also filled out my absentee ballot for Governor Arnold's special election. Don't think I'm going soft on you people, but I've decided to buck the party line and vote no on all the propositions. My line of thought is that the Rapture will come far sooner if teens don't have to wait 48 hours for their abortions and California's utilties aren't subjected to additional regulatory oversight.

I hope the hectic schedule for past few days is on account of the move and not a taste of what being a devoted bride and housewife of Christ has in store for me. Is this what I've been groomed to want since girlhood? Another few days of this will turn me into a bra-burner for sure. I could give you a laundry list of all my chores, because since the last time you heard from me I've turned into one of those people whose life is so complicated I need to keep lists, but that would bore you silly. On second thought, fuck you all, welcome to Sister Nancy Beth's world:

A. Take recyclables to dumpters at old place; I filled the ones at my new address.
B. Get misc. curling irons & styling products from old place
C. Bundle up items from final wardrobe purge to take to Goodwill.
D. Load Praisemobile (3 trips up & down the steps)
E. Sell unwanted cds at Amoeba (more about this later).
F. Drop off Goodwill items.
G. Hang Franklin Mint collectors plates on walls.
H. Trim the Christcat's nails (at the special request of Jesus).
I. Do six loads of laundry at the laundromat.
J. Put laundry away at home before Jesus' shirts wrinkle.
K. Walk to Whole Foods for groceries for dinner.
L. Cook dinner.
M. Wash dishes.
N. Sweep and mop bathroom and kitchen floors.
O. Scour tub.

Conspicuously absent from this list, you might have noticed, are any references to Mommy's mid-day valium and vodka tonic.

What's especially horrible is that this had been the fourth day in a row like this. I worked from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. Friday, arguably the hottest day of the year, packing stuff up and taking it to Jesus'. Saturday we started at 7 in the morning. I have no idea what time we finished, because at a certain point I took my watch off; keeping track of how long I had been at it was too discouraging. The only bright point Saturday was when Jesus revealed a bit of His divinity by speculating about some sort of Trinity maneuver with Victor, the cuter of the two movers.

***

Back in my days of selfish hedonism, I amassed quite a collection of cds & lps. Today my tastes lean towards wholesome Christian pop and pre-whoredom Amy Grant. But after a few puffs of ceremonial frankincense, there's nothing like some glorious, earth-shaking sound, so I'll give glorifying God a momentary rest and dip into my trove of Satan's melodies. While Jesus & I are of one mind on many things, music isn't really among them. One of the many chores for Saturday was incorporating His cds into my collection, in effect violating its pristine, Nancy Beth-esque beauty. If anything proved my committment to Jesus, this was it. Sometimes it was fun to see where things would end up, like when Abba got filed between A Certain Ration and Able Tasmans. Esquivel found a happy home nestled among Espers and Etant Donnes. It wasn't always so serendipitous, however, and the cruelest twist of fate was when the Vengaboys ended up between the Velvet Underground and the Verlaines. Sorry, guys.

My approach to cd organization has changed with the size of my collection. I presently keep the stuff with goofy packaging in shoeboxes and the ones in standard jewel cases on media shelving. Those shelves accomodate 1200 cds. With Jesus's additions, we experienced the Feast of Maximal Capacity (I've asked the Vatican for a novena), so a thinning of the herd was clearly in order. The primary criteria for this purge was, "Am I ever going to want to listen to this again?" So while I may like Swans and Sonic Youth, I don't necessarily like Swans & Sonic Youth-related side projects: so long, Bewitched, Of Cabbages and Kings, Ritual Tension, and Two Dollar Guitar. I also figured this was the time to get rid of all those horrifically tedious Knitting Factory cds, since I came to the realization that improvised music should only be experienced live. Also fair game for selling back were all the cds that I bought with the hope that someday, someone attending one of those many parties I can never manage to throw would be impressed by my having... I can't even remember what I held on to for this reason, that's how little it stuck in my mind. The extra space is great, and that $325 can go to great use, like buying Buff Puffs for the poor.

Prayer circle jamboree

This is coming to you a wee bit earlier than I planned, since I need the next two days off for moving, and Conchita graciously gave them to me. But enough about that. Let's see what Sister Nancy Beth's Prayer Warriors are up to.

• Agape Press informs us that the ministry named in honor of Clare Boothe Luce (authoress of sacred text The Women!) objects to the Harriet Miers' nomination, presumably because she isn't as well groomed as their board of directors. Harriet, get those raggedy cuticles to Sidneys, and ask for Olga.


• BoiFromTroy is surprised to learn not all selfish hedonists are as eager to fellate Governor Schwarzenegger as he is.


• Over at National Review, Michael Ledeen explains how you can do your part to stamp out Islamofascism: Play soccer. Sister Nancy Beth would add this caveat, which must have been edited out of Michael's piece: Don't wear Adidas when you play, because that's the favored garb of European homos and Harlem pimps.


• Also at National Review, Katherine Jean Lopez laments what a setback for women it is that President Bush nominated Geena Davis to the Supreme Court.

Something tells me that blogging, while sitting chest-deep in boxes, will be a low priority, so that's it from me until Monday. At that time, I will be reporting back to you not only as a devoted bride of Christ, but also a genuine housewife of Christ. I sure hope Jesus likes tuna-noodle casserole.

We've got the neutron bomb

Sister Nancy Beth generally regards homosexuality as practiced by the likes of prime-time sitcom characters a moral cancer. However, in particular, I consider the actual man-on-man buttsex that happens in real life nothing short of moral ebola. To tolerate this vile practice is to risk having grandmothers, school children, babies, and even kittens suffer a horrific death of hemorrhaging from the eyes and anus. Something tells me Prayer Warrior Gay Patriot shares my beliefs on this point, and is even cooking up his own plan using homosexuality as a weapon to win the GWOT. Compare his past campaign to subjugate the fate of American homosexuals to the whims of the RNC with his ongoing campaign to promote homosexuality in the Muslim world:

From the annals of Another Gay Republican comes this look at being gay in Arab countries.

Arab Gays - AGR

)From AP article) “But more Arabs are coming out as gays, or at least coming to terms with their sexuality, even though in some countries they face laws that can land them in jail and extremists who beat them up because Islam condemns homosexuality.

On top of that, homosexuality is widely seen as a disease spread by the U.S. and Israel to corrupt Arabs and undermine their religious faith.”

AGR wonders if we as gay Americans can be recognized for our contribution.

Sister Nancy Beth supports this line of thought: Nation-decaying rights for them Muslim homos, second class citizenship for America's homos. Praise Him, Brother Bruce!

She's got her mother's shoulders, unfortunately

It should probably go without saying, but ladies, if you're going to have your picture taken for your Pajamas Media profile, please consider some form of depilatory cream or wear a shawl. And to let you know that I practice what I preach: Sister Nancy Beth bought her trusty Epilady an adapter to plug into the cigarette lighter of the Praisemobile.

I'll keep holy on the Sabbath next weekend

Too much activity on the moving front kept Sister Nancy Beth from slaying the blogosphere & spreading the gospel of glamour. Thank God I'm back here at the Beauty Palace and can recoup. I've got less than a week until the moving truck comes and takes the heavy furniture from my old pad to either Jesus' apartment or our storage place. In the meantime, the Praisemobile made countless trips between the new place, my old place, the storage facility, and Goodwill, plus I've been making an ever growing list of chores (get spackle, fill nail holes with spackle, remove overly decorative window treatments installed during my days of selfish hedonism, box up non-perishable foodstuffs, etc) with seemingly nothing being scratched off of this. I've done nothing but live & breath moving for the past two months, with the hopes that that would make this process easier and less stressful. As far as I can tell, it hasn't.

The pressure finally got to Jesus on Saturday. We agreed that we would pare down our houseplants, and a few of mine ended up in the green waste mulching bin Thursday night. Jesus had been dragging his sandals on this one, first looking into this informal houseplant adoption program he had heard about that happens on the sidewalk outside a not-so-local nursery, then asking co-workers if they'd be interested in taking them in, and then an eleventh-hour effort of having me check on the internet to see if there was some sort of plant rescue here in LA: no dice. So Saturday, we're back at his place after having bought some plastic bags to bundle them up at the roots; we finally decided we were going to drop them off at this nursery. I can't recall what I was doing in the living room, but Jesus walks out of his kitchen with his face all red and tears in his eyes, saying "I don't want to kill them."

Is he joking? He's walked out of his kitchen with watery eyes before, but he had been cutting onions, and he said something comical like, "He beats me." Nope, he's not joking. Think, Nancy Beth - you're obviously in a situation here, and your reaction to this one will go a long way in determining how you handle each other's difficult emotions. The thing to do was to hold him and console him, obviously, and of course the plants could stay (Sister Nancy Beth's sap-thirsty impulses had been sated by offing her own ficus & asparagus fern two days earlier). As I held him, I knew someday these roles will be reversed: when my aged cat finally has to be put to sleep, when my sister's cancer finally takes her away, or when one of my parents goes (mine have got a decade on Jesus'). Rough going, but definitely an emotional milestone of sorts for our relationship. Anyway, I bet most people never knew Jesus was such a sensitive guy.

We talked about this later, and it was only superficially about the plants. It was really about the speedball of nostalgia that my moving in had delivered to him intravenuously, with those plants being a bridge that spanned Jesus' 15 years in LA, seeing him through deaths of friends and changes and the comings and goings people have in their lives, and now my moving in was going to be another one, a major one. I see that in their own quiet way, they're going to be a witness to our time together, so I can make room for them. But I really need to dust their leaves.

Sunday was just as busy. I had to rush off to church, and was disappointed to see Jesus lying on the couch at 9:50 in his robe. "What do I have to go to church for?" he asked.

"Because I said so," I replied, but it was all for naught. Given how rough the previous day had been, I wasn't even going to push him, so he spent the day enjoying his ceremonial frankincense and Sex in the City dvds.

I got to Our Lady of the Denunciation 15 minutes late, but since I have to stay after mass for my missionary work, I figured it all evens out. I'm spearheading an effort to collect skin care products for the women of Iraq, which we're then going to airdrop - hopefully this will be put to better use than the results of Operation Enduring Eyeshadow, which ended up on their thumbs. The parish ladies are going a bang-up job with their donations, but you can be rest assured that every time the Sunday LA Times includes a sample of Eucerin, there are 15 packets of the shit in my collection box. I'm going to ask Father Joe to see if he can't somehow get the ladies thinking about toners & astringents, like maybe by giving a sermon about a mustard seed falling into somebody's enlarged pores. The rest, as they say, is up to God.

Hail Nancy, full of grace

Sister Nancy Beth extends her thanks to whores of heresy 42 and Waremouse for adding me to their blogrolls. While I am admittedly out of place there, I do hope my presence will help their readers accept Christ through cosmetics.

Monday Update: Thanks, NTodd. Why not consider using your foxiness for good instead of evil?

Prayer circle jamboree

Sister Nancy Beth feels the urge to check in with some of her prayer warriors to see what they're up to.

• La Shawn Barber has joined Pajamas Media, the news outlet set up to counter MSM's biased & inaccurate reporting. She says of PM's profile of her, "I asked the editor to make two corrections."


• GayPatriot holds the feet of American gay rights groups to the flames for not doing enough on behalf of Iranian homosexuals. Why stop with them? I've heard nary a peep from NARAL about securing the rights of Iranian women to have abortions, and Sierra Club's efforts to restore the wetlands of Iraq haven't exactly impressed. Hypocrites!


• Watch out, perverts, there's a new sheriff in town. Cathy Seipp keeps us abreast of the tireless efforts of California apartment managers to stamp out degeneracy.


• Friar Andrew Sullivan sees his dreams of priesthood once again within grasp. Mmm, Andy, I can practically taste that Eucharist!

I hope to make this a regular feature, so if any prayer warrior feels slighted for not being included, check back next week.

The lady varnishes

Katherine Harris has had a pronounced influence on both my political beliefs and my approach to cosmetics, assuming I can even speak of these as two distinct philosophies. While I had certainly seen women of faith go where few others dared to tread, their eye makeup usually ended up smeared all over their blouses. Katherine, however, was a completely different animal. Here was an elected official whose bold application of eyeshadow was just as unapologetic as Katherine herself. So it was with a heavy heart I read the following:

Katherine Harris has been a fund-raising dynamo since the 2000 presidential election, capable of raising large sums of money anywhere in the nation.

But during the first three months of her U.S. Senate campaign, Harris has uncharacteristically struggled to keep pace financially with Sen. Bill Nelson, the Democrat she is hoping to unseat in 2006. ...

Campaign workers for Harris, R-Longboat Key, say they don’t know yet how much she has raised but acknowledge she has had trouble.

They blame the slowdown on hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Harris campaign workers would only say that her financial reports, when released next week, will show she has raised more than the $500,000 cited in one published report.

I realize I've only been blogging for a short while, but now seems to be the time to cash out what little good will I've cultivated among my readers to come to Katherine's aid. A lot of noble causes are competing for your contributions, so how about some sort of donations-in-kind for Katherine? I've cleaned out my vanity and have a huge box of frosted lipsticks and false eyelashes headed her way. I urge you all to do the same.

The waves we were

I have been avoiding bringing this up, perhaps it is because it involves speaking less than favorably of my President and my Party, but Sister Nancy Beth, like many of her fellow conservatives, has been deeply disappointed by the nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court. Tending to one's appearance has always been a passion of mine, and Ms. Miers, despite her loyalty to the President and obvious enthusiasm for giving glamour a go, is sadly not up to the task. And that, according to Sister Nancy Beth, is grounds enough for disqualification. Princess Sparkle Pony offers a loving retrospective of Harriet's hairdos, showing that it wasn't always this way, and I can't help but think that each passing 'do represents the fortunes of the party, starting with the promise of youth but ending up in the dire straits in which we presently find ourselves.

Let's begin with 1983, when Harriet's locks have all the bounce and promise of those early Reagan years. "Gee, the present Republican administration smells terrific," the man next to her seems to be saying, and Harriet can only blush at this undeniable truth: How wonderful it is to be alive during Morning in America. But winning a cold war is hard work for the Republicans, and it requires sacrifice from its members. Signaling her committment to the Party, she even adopted the somewhat less flattering Nancy Reagan-inspired cut. Take that, Evil Empire!

The first Bush administration and the Clinton years were obviously time spent wandering in the wilderness for true conservatives, and Harriet's mane shows this holding pattern. But here comes 1998 and George W. Bush's landslide victory in the Texas governor's race! Harriet's locks are newly invigorated, and she's even adopted his fondness for all things Mexican, as evidenced by her wearing the sort of gown normally seen on cocktail waitresses at Don Jose's.

It's all smooth sailing through the first term, as the blazer and power-pearls clearly have Osama on the run. But somehow, things have gone terribly wrong. Declining support for war in Iraq, indictments for Tom DeLay, investigations of Frist & Rove, Hurricane Katrina -- is this how it's going to end for us Republicans?

Sister Nancy Beth says no. My thinking is to let glamour be our guide, and it's high time for the Republicans' Extreme Makeover -- desperate times call for etc., etc. I fervently hope that someone of as unquestionable masculinity as Ken Mehlman will be receptive to my advice. My unceremonious departure from beauty school was hastened by my innovative approach to beauty, and it would be a squandered opportunity if The Man, once again, didn't hear me out. I know liberals happen upon this blog, so I won't provide the details, but RNC, you have my email address, so get in touch.

Sister Nancy Beth's WAC-attack

Sister Nancy Beth can't help but think that the devout Christians at WorldNetDaily have figured out how to keep the GWOT chugging along with a steady stream of fresh patriots. First we read this:

Joel Henry Hinrichs III, 21, an engineering major at the school blew himself up outside OU's football stadium during Saturday night's game against Kansas State. Doug Hagmann, a seasoned investigator, told WND he was informed by multiple reliable law-enforcement sources familiar with the investigation into the incident that authorities recovered a "significant amount" of "jihad" materials, as well as Hinrichs' computer.

And then there's this:

The Miami Herald reports that Army Secretary Noel Harvey, as well as Gen. Richard Cody, the vice chief of staff, announced yesterday at the annual convention of the Association of the U.S. Army the service will adopt less stringent Department of Defense rules so it can sign up more high-school dropouts and others who scored lower on mental qualification tests.

... Cody said the Army planned to try to enlist more recruits with General Education Diplomas, or GEDs – granted instead of high school diplomas to those who pass an examination – but denied the move was a lowering of standards.

Obviously, MSM & its sympathizers will go off on another of their baseless tangents in which they speculate that President Bush's bold conquest in Iraq is somehow deterring America's best & brightest from entering the armed forces. However, it's quite evident from the first story that even venerable institutions like OU can't keep their impressionable young charges from turning into self-immolating jihadis after listening to all that poisonous anti-American rhetoric coming from the country's engineering departments. The security of America necessitates that we get our recruits from a different pool.

I am working towards my GED and only have 8 more tapes to listen to before I take and mail in the self-test and become (fingers crossed!) the equivalent of a high school graduate. Recruiters, please feel free to woo me with your best offers.

My triumphant return to the blogosphere!

Well, the excruciating sinus infection I was predicting never came to pass, but the local fires have had Sister Nancy Beth coughing like she was back to two packs a day. The last time we had fires like this, the doc put me on on inhalable steroids for the lung irritation I developed, and all I had to do was smell food to gain weight. Now that I am a bride of Christ, I don't inhale anything -- save for the occasional bit of ceremonial frankincense from Jesus' sacred water pipe -- so my girlish figure should remain waifishly petite (though that frankincense, to be honest, does increase my appetite).

Illness hasn't been the only thing that kept me from my mission of slaying the blogosphere. As I said, I am a bride of Christ, and while maintaining separate residences has allowed us to live sinlessly for the first fourteen months of our relationship, Jesus and I have decided that my moving in would allow us to do more of our missionary work. The moving process seems to have kicked into high gear over the past few weeks, with endless cycles of emptying out cabinets, putting what I want to keep but don't have room for at JC's into storage, donating what I don't want to charities that do the Lord's business, and sending the rest off to my local landfill. How gratifying it is to know that someday, future generations will unearth Sister Nancy Beth's menstrual belt and revere it as a holy relic.

Since I'm setting up housekeeping with Jesus, we're getting rid of our duplicate items, which has had its share of battles. I really don't look forward to getting into a pissing match with the Son of God over who's got a better frying pan, but while he was busy tomcatting around with those no-account apostles, resurrecting and whatnot, and biding his time until the Second Coming, Sister Nancy Beth gave beauty school a go and tried making something out of her life, working my way all the way up from shampoo girl to receptionist at Conchita's Unisex Beauty Palace, and consequently my possessions show it. Once the good state of California rethinks its discriminatory policies about faith-based cosmetology and grants me my manicurist's license, Jesus & I expect to see our standard of living improve exponentially.

But why am I offering excuses for not blogging? Sister Nancy Beth, slayer of the blogsphere, blogs about what she wants, when she wants. So be grateful for even this much, my fellow Christians. Until next time...

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Oh, and it pains me to have to report this, but I've attracted some attention during my absence, and not from one of my fellow prayer warriors offering up an Our Father for my troublesome sinuses. The drunken clods at Martini Republic have taken a break from picking fights with honorary Christian Cathy Seipp (Cathy, let's talk, I could do wonders with those tresses) and presumed atheist Kevin Roderick long enough to leer at my breasts -- metaphorically speaking, of course. Sorry, fellas, but these melons will be metaphorically balled by another.