Thank you, Clay Bennett.

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To those of you who are here due to the gracious and oh so kind story Robert Leleux did about me in The Texas Observer, I thank you for taking the time to come.  I hope you find the good stuff and forgive me for the rest.

All of my life I have searched for the perfect dress that would make me look taller, more imposing and important than my 5 foot 3 allows.  I have been though hundreds of dresses in my many years of trying to look taller.  Little did I know that I didn’t need a dress – I needed Robert Leleux.

Thank you, Robert, for making me look taller than I am.

(As far as I know, The Observer doesn’t have the review online.  If they do, I’ll let you know, but shame on you for not subscribing. )

And, yes, Robert is just as funny, smart, and generous in person as he is on paper. And he quoted me to Gloria Steinem.  So, what’s not to love?

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“I love Sweet Jesus.  I do.  I think about Sweet Jesus every day and how he told me to try to live.  Honey, I have  backsliding blisters all over my butt, but Sweet Jesus loves me anyway,” Juanita said this morning leading up to the latest insanity by so-called Christians.

“But Sweet Jesus never once told me to be obnoxious.  He never once told me to slam him over people’s head or to act like I’m all special because I know him,” she continues.

“I have a theory that the Super DeLux Brand Christians have to force their beliefs on other people because they’re not sure that they’re right.  And so they think if everybody else agrees with them, they have to be right,” she ponders.  “I think that those with real faith are far more content people.”

“So on the heels of the Texas State Board of Education forcing their so-called religion on every single school child in Texas, I was feeling a little down this weekend.”

“So, I took a drive through Cabo San Rosenberg, my neighboring city.  Right there on the main drag, on US Highway 90A, which goes from Florida to California, we are treated to this —

“A Rosenberg lawyer has put a 12 foot Jesus in a really bad wig on US Highway 90A.”

“You have no idea how gosh-awful this sucker is.  It’s wearing a poorly styled real-life wig that blows in the wind and it appears that Jesus was a hemophiliac because there’s blood everywhere.  It scares the hell outta little children and caused three pizza parlors to go out of business.”

You can click on the little one to get the big one but I don’t know why you’d want to.

“However, it is good to know that all the zealots haven’t been secretly relocating to Texas in some kind of crackpot revolution,” Juanita says reassuringly.  “We know that because a crazy woman in Virginia was handing out little fetus dolls to elementary school children.”

“Now there’s a clear case of a fetus being far more important than walking, living, breathing children,” Juanita says.  “What was this woman thinking and why is she allowed around children?”

“The only upside to this is that at least we know they’re not all coming to Texas to establish their own nation.  But, if Mrs. Sheila Tillett Holas ever leaves Virgina and comes to Texas with her doll collection, I’m outta here because they’re all coming.”

“We’ve got enough of them already to fill the Greater Mount Hypocrisy and Ostentatiousness Sanctuary.”

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In case you haven’t heard, the State Board of Education in Texas has made a determination to keep Texas youngsters oddly and unamusingly out of step with reality.  Which would make them match the State Board of Education.

Newsweek, has a pretty good run down of what they did right here, but amid all the insanity of making Joe McCarthy a hero, and abolishing the mention of slavery, comes Juanita’s pet peeve – Thomas Kincade.

“For folks who haven’t visited the trailer park lately, Thomas Kincade is a painter.  Not an artist; a painter.  He paints “light.”  Apparently to match his talent.  He’s a half click above painting Elvis on velvet, but only because he uses canvas instead of velvet,” Juanita explains.

Our new stateBoard of Education wants —

McLeroy instead wants students to “contrast the tone” of such people “versus the optimism of immigrants including Jean Pierre Godet as told in Thomas Kinkade’s The Spirit of America.” Kinkade is the schlocky, sentimental painter popular in malls everywhere.

Juanita sums up her position, “Thomas Kincade paints what heaven would look like if it was in Italy decorated by people with really bad taste, while drunk, with shovels and an astigmatism, while there was a clearance on yellow umber paint.”

“People who have never been to art museum just love Thomas Kincade,” she admits.  “Introducing it to innocent little children is borderline child abuse.  Making them write about it insures that the only college they can get in is Jerry Falwall University, which, of course, seems to be the whole point of the new textbooks.”

“Let it now be known that the State Board of Education has all their taste in their mouth,” Juanita says.  “Along with all all their brains being proudly held in trust at a mail order diploma mill in California.”

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Juanita is just a tad concerned.

It seems that Texas law is requiring a lingerie store in San Antonio to get a food permit because they sell edible underwear.  No, I am not kidding.

Although she is not certain which food group edible underwear falls into, Juanita is almost positive that it does meet standards for a balanced diet.  You know, food, fun, and underwear.

“I am concerned that the health department will show up here because we chew the fat,” Juanita says, “and I’ve never gotten the proper permit for that.  And, sometimes we drink it all in when I do an especially nice job on a updo, and I’m sure there’s a permit required for that.”

The owner says —

Benitez rebuked the health departments claim, saying “Everything in the box says ‘novelty item’ only… It’s not something you sit down and actually eat.

“I think that every now and then, someone with a pencil, a pad, and the ability to make your life miserable gets carried away” Juanita says.

State Board of education member and gay divorcee Cynthia Dunbar lectures God about history as she led the prayer at today’s State Board of Education meeting.

And one more thing for Ms. Dunbar —

And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.   Matthew 6:5-6

There is a very special place in hell for those who would lecture God on political beliefs.  I’m just certain of it.