My Sporting Predictions Lay Pretty, Speckled Eggs

I suppose I must wait no longer to remark on my latest failed prophecy about the Phoenix Mercury. It is painfully obvious that they lost to the Seattle Storm -- who went on to capture the 2010 WNBA title.

I just KNEW the Merc were going to win. Madame Hoopsie's crystal ball was cloudy.

This marks the official end of my career as a prognosticator of basketball results. I don't seem to know who's going to win at all. I can merely persist in patient hope. My girls have won two championships in three years. They seem to go all the way in odd-numbered years: 2007 and 2009 thus far.

All I'll say is that they're on schedule to do it again in 2011. I'm not predicting, mind you...just laying a few pretty, speckled eggs.

Special People Sometimes Act...Well...Special

Most of my progressive friends are really as open-minded as they claim to be. In my gradual metamorphosis from progressive Democrat to Libertarian conservative, I have managed to keep almost all my friends. They may think I've gone nuts, but they still love me.

I especially tip my hat to the editor at Whosoever magazine, for which I frequently write. Candace Chellew-Hodge is everything a progressive should be: bright, open-minded, inquisitive and fair. She understands that religious faith is all about the search for truth. Her magazine exemplifies that conviction -- and I can truly say she also does so in her life.

One local friend, a former fellow church-member I'll call Sandy, has turned out to be the sole objector to my conversion in political faith. She just can't STAND that I no longer agree with her on political matters. She picks at our differences like a child picking at a scab.

I cannot help but notice, in Sandy's almost-daily preachments, that she regurgitates -- almost word-for-word, things the progressive "talking heads" have said. (She doesn't seem to realize that I still make a point of listening to both sides.) They may be her opinions, but she seems utterly incapable of expressing them in her own words.

Statist mind-manipulators on both sides -- Left and Right -- have discovered that if they play on people's insecurities, they can make them feel they must belong to their club. Those on the Right usually put forth the notion one can't be a loyal Amurrican or a godly Christian without being conservative. On the Left, this snake-oil is usually sold under the guise of "This You Must Think to be Smart, Sophisticated, Hip and Evolved."

Sandy wants nothing so much as to be smart, sophisticated, hip and evolved. Thus -- she seems to think -- she must identify as a "progressive." I'm not saying ALL progressives are like this. But hers is the worst case I've ever seen of it.

Regardless of which "club" such a person has signed up for, I call this syndrome "Political Opinion as Fashion Accessory." I made the mistake of finally telling her my diagnosis. This seems to have torn it for us as friends.

She may not understand this, but I did it out of love. Whatever she really and truly believes, she should learn to care enough about herself to hold and express those convictions without shame. I really hope, for her sake, that someday she is able to do just that.

I don't know how soundly she sleeps at night. But she doesn't have to listen to me anymore.

Mercury Vanquishes Storm -- Madame Hoopsie's Latest Prediction

Okay, I'm going to do it again...I can't resist. Surely EVERY prediction I make can't lay a goose egg.

I do hereby predict that my Phoenix Mercury will win the WNBA Western Conference finals over the Seattle Storm.

You saw it here. Take note of this bold and clairvoyant prognostication.

Will we win the championship? Madame will get back to you on that one.

Honor Restored

I wish I could have been at the Restoring Honor rally in Washington D.C. this past weekend. But after nearly two years of "Hope and Change" under Obama, I find myself still without a job.

I have, however, found myself in another sense. What's going on now in this country is what I've hoped for for a long time, but for too long thought would never happen. America is waking up.

Glenn Beck is dismissed, by too many people who should know better, as a weepy crackpot. I admit that I used to think that, myself. Now that I have actually troubled myself to listen to his program, I find hardly any point upon which I don't agree with him. He's a modern-day prophet, and I'm glad more and more people are taking the time to find out what he has to say.

"Progressivism" has shown itself to be nothing but hysteria and lies. Of course the Democrat Party screwed gays again this last election cycle. I know now that they'll do it every time. Republicans and conservatives have come late to accepting us, but slowly and surely, it is beginning to happen at last. And once they come to accept a truth, they do not forget it.

Quite unlike our progressive "friends," who care about nothing but power. They change their minds about what truth is (and even about what "is" is) all the time.

I know many progressive individuals who are fine people. They are very sincere in their convictions, and I still respect them. That makes me even angrier at the Left, which is taking advantage of them and selling them fraudulent goods. They deserve better. So do I -- and so does everyone who ever trusted the progressives and their cause.

My basic values have not changed. Libertarians believe in all the same values most other Americans hold dear: freedom, independence, decency and -- yes -- honor. We differ with other Americans mostly over means, not over the ends we seek.

All too many on the Left have gone too apeshit crazy to understand that. They thought they had their wondrous revolution, only to find out that it has already fallen apart. They couldn't lead this country out of a crapper. They have led us into one, and we'll have to get out of it without them.

When the country has been restored to its former greatness, they will claim the credit for it. They always do. But they and their Dear Leader have been unwilling to accept the blame -- and you can't have one without the other.

Voting for Obama was the biggest mistake this American ever made. It will not be repeated. A whole lot of things are going to be different, for me, from now on.

Hark...the Thunder of Garlic Approaches...

Well, again, later this week, I'm off to the wild North for the Minnesota Garlic Festival. As garlic is, indeed, a flatulent, those roundabout WILL hear the thunder at least afterwards.

This is the fifth annual occurrence of the event. Every year thus far has been terrific fun, with worthy attractions ranging from the educational to the immensely entertaining. I especially enjoy, of course, getting to see my family again. The middle of August has become, for us, a special time.

I have even learned to embrace garlic ice cream. I have always regarded ice cream, in general, as proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy. When it was speckled with tiny chunks of garlic, I was not so certain. However, it has grown on me. Bring on the cones -- I'll eat twelve!

I'll also need to consume at least seven ears of squeaky-fresh, garlic-buttered sweet corn. Seven is my record, but perhaps this year I'll exceed it.

When I have returned from my trip (a working trip this time, as I'm researching an essay on the festival for Liberty magazine), I intend to return this Blog to the consideration of more serious subjects.

But for now, bring on the Maalox, and let the festivities begin!

FESTIVAL FACTS:

Date: Saturday, August 14
Time: 10:00 am to 6:00 pm
Location: McLeod County Fairgrounds, Hutchinson, Minnesota

Admission: Adults $5, kids under 12 $3, stroller/carried babies free
NO PETS, PLEASE!

This is an all-weather event. Unlike those of us in Phoenix, Minnesotans are prepared for even the most surprising and bizarre eruptions of nature.

For only $10, you can catch the Garlic Express from the Mill City Farmer's Market.

...And if you can't make it this year, circle the second Saturday of August on your calendar next year!

Guests Come In Those Boxes?!

Evidently all the comments with the funny little boxes and other symbols are being posted in foreign languages. We are not being invaded by Klingons or assimilated by the Borg.

They ARE from this planet. And I like to think they're saying nice things. The system simply doesn't translate them into English.

Maybe, like Carrie Bradshaw, I'm a hit in Paris.

So, guests come in those little boxes! Who knew?

Use the towels on the rack closest to the sink, guys. In a while I'll go to Wal-Mart and get us some lemonade...

A Wanderer No Longer

Well, this Blog's slogan has had to change. No longer am I a Libertarian Lutheran Lesbian -- today I was received into the Episcopal Church.

I've changed my intro. Now, as soon as I can figure out how to change the heading...

I was raised a Lutheran, and I will always be beholden to the structure and rectitude of my spiritual upbringing. Lutherans are great people. Most of my family are Lutherans, as well as a good many of my friends. But I have been restless for quite some time, looking around for a spiritual home that better fit my beliefs.

In my twenties, I became a Roman Catholic. For many years, I was at home there. When I came out as a lesbian, I realized its rigidity was due not to being "the only true church," but to human stubbornness and pride. So I moved on. For a time, this meant a return to the Lutheran fold of my youth.

Though I do not believe the Church of Rome to be the only true church, at heart I am still a Catholic. My dissatisfaction in the Lutheran Church was due to more than the brouhaha, in my last congregation, over whether one narrow-minded pastor could visualize it being big enough for two different minority groups -- both of which she wanted to patronize and manipulate. The real root of my dissatisfaction was with Protestantism, period.

Protestant churches are run like businesses. They certainly should be run on sound financial principles, but they are NOT businesses -- they are members of the Body of Christ. Catholic churches are also capable of getting off-track because of money -- that's why the Reformation happened in the first place. But essentially, Catholics of every kind belong to the apostolic body Christ intended the Church to be.

Episcopalians are Reformed Catholics. Though they recognize that the Pope is non-essential, and that the "rock" upon which Christ would build His Church was not Peter the individual, but the faith Peter displayed, they do carry on the apostolic faith tradition.

I will always be indebted to the Roman Catholic Church for nurturing my spiritual growth to the point that I was, at last, able to reconcile my sexual orientation with my faith and come out of the closet. For all the sins their hierarchy has committed toward gays, the inescapable fact is that I had been able to do this not in all my previous years as a Protestant, but only after several years of having been a Catholic.

Now I have truly come home. The more I learn about my new church home, the move I love it. Already I can feel my soul expanding, like a flower in the sunshine. Perhaps the full extent of it goes beyond explaining. All I know is that here is where I belong.

The discipline, the structure, the long and numerous centuries of wisdom, unbroken all the way back to the days of the apostles -- it is mine again. I get to refresh myself in it daily, as if in an envigorating ocean surf. And at last, all those years of wandering have come to an end.

This is, primarily, not a religious blog but a political one. I will, nonetheless, have more to say about my new Church later. For right now, I simply want to absorb what has happened to me, put down stronger roots, and continue to grow.