Did Bush Lie?

I reluctantly supported the President and the war against Iraq. So far "Iraq has weapons of mass destructions" and "they're trying to buy uranium from Niger" rank right up there with "I won't come in your mouth" as classic lies. I can't say I feel personally betrayed because, well, I have never liked the s.o.b. It was never personal. The whole world opposed us, with the exception of Tony Blair and half a dozen other small countries. I bet if Tony Blair had the ability to do the whole thing over again, he'd choose his side more carefully. Non-RightWingers in the blogosphere are holding the administration's feet to the fire over the deliberate and systematic misrepresentations of the administration as it marched us to war. The RightWingers call any questioning of the administration about its deliberate lying to be partisan. If you're interested in getting the lowdown, I recommend Josh Marshall's take on it. I'll sum it up briefly. The White House was told that the information was weak and possibly not true, so they chose to use it anyway and say "according to the British." That's weak. Thanks a lot, Tony Blair. You stood by them, gave them legitimacy and now they're doing their best to butt-fuck you.

Interesting

I've been out visiting in the Blogosphere. There's a whole bunch of folks I don't know well. Let me introduce you. First is Holden Caulfield's Lover. He's amazingly candid about his life and loves. Today he talks about drugs. Very enlightening. He's not particularly unique in his experience, but his willingness to talk about it is unique. He's also quite articulate.

Which I haven't been of late. Maybe it's cyclical. Maybe I'm out of dope. Maybe, who knows? I've added several new Gay blogs to my list. I've also removed a few who were no longer writing, or whose views took too hard a turn to the right.

Oh, Canada!

Just spent the past week in Canada. Nice geography, nice gene pool. The occasion was a Gay rodeo in Calgary. Most visitors stayed at an RV camp by the rodeo grounds. I was the guest of a delightful young man from Kamloops who is in the process of restoring a 1977 Airstream trailer. It's a little like a yacht in its use of smartly designed hatches that batten down well for travel. I kept imagining us as Lucy and Ricky do trailer camping.

Did I mention how much I like Canadians? They're a great bunch of folk. Okay, maybe it was me. There I was with two or three thousand, goodlooking men (and several hundred handsome women) who thought I was cute and loved my stories. Okay, you just can't beat that. I hope I entertained them as well as they entertained me. And they were so cute in their cowboy clothes. (I did mention that it was a rodeo, right? I LOVE theme parties.)

My thanks to Chris, Rob, Rod, Ron, Rick, (we called ourselves the Terrible R's), William, Dwayne, Cliff and another Chris, Steven, Kevin, Michel, Art, Alain, Donal, and the list goes on and on. I love you guys. You made me feel like I was the best looking, most interesting person on the planet. I hope you'll come visit me in California. I owe you all a big one.

Next year, guys. Same time, same place?

Cheers. eh?

On the Road again

I'm at my sister's house in Grants Pass, Oregon. Can't tell you much about GP, but my sister's house is nice. Maybe a little too Laura Ashley for my tastes, but on my sister it looks good.

The traffic was steady. Interstate 5 is not my favorite highway, at least not the part through northern California. It's narrow, as freeways go, and well worn. Made it here in six and a half hours. And my back is in good shape. Ain't nothing like a Cadillac for a nice ride. Yeah,uh huh. It's me and my car.

But before I go . . .

Did I mention that I'm driving my car? That calls for a whole different level of reasoning when you start to pack. It allows me to postpone decisions about what I need to be away from my fort. Cut to the chase, the result is I look like a gypsy. I could probably sustain myself from my cadillac for a month. Fucking boy scouts ain't got nothin' on me. I'm fucking prepared.

My neighbor downstairs looks at the pile of clothes heading towards the car with a certain disbelief and asks "you taking all of that?"

It's a major Gay event, I exclaim in my own disbelief at his lack of knowledge of Gay megaevents, after all, he's witnessed San Francisco's Gay week-end, along with the equally intense Castro Fair Week-end and week till Folsom Street Fair? I patiently explain to him that I may need as many as 3 changes per day at the heighth of the week-end. And because it's a "themed" week-end, as in Rodeo, the costume of the day is western. And since I'm originally from Texas, I see Western as sort of my native dress, and being a natural born, native "princess" I dress colorfully.

In short, I'm taking a lot of stuff. This is a high maintenance week-end set in the middle of a week of family and a week of me as a grownup getting lost in an imagined world in either Vancouver, Victoria, or Seattle. Outside chance of Portland, but it's way out there.

Now, getting lost in a large major city calls for great subtlety. I like to wander around and absorb interesting aspects of a place. I'm vain enough to want to get noticed by interesting people, and once noticed to be thought interesting, but I also like being an almost invisible spirit, a passing shadow. Leaving a wake but no disturbance. Refreshing several of my inner selves by free floating in a fantasy created by my experiencing the city with complete openness.

It's a great high. I'll report back in later. rlbtzero

Vacation
I'm off to Canada for a couple of weeks. I'm driving my 1990 Cadillac El Dorado to Vancouver, British Columbia. En route, I'll stop and see my sisters in Oregon and a good friend in Bellingham, Washington. But my destination is Canada where I'm joining up with a friend to go to the Gay Rodeo in Calgary. I may blog once or twice before I get back, but chances are you won't be seeing or hearing from me for a couple of weeks.

Have a great 4th of July.

Dear Leon,

I know you're a good and loyal friend of the Bush family. Even though I was personally horrified at his election to the Presidency, I congratulated you because I knew you were very proud of this achievement. I have held back with my opinion of Bush as President. I have always considered him a lightweight, but out of respect for the office of President I have given him the benefit of doubt whenever possible, and out of my respect for you, I have not criticized him to you. That has now changed.

When you called me, you were not interested in my opinion. You wanted to vent against the Democrats who thought his landing on the aircraft carrier to be just too contrived and staged. I thought that a valid criticism and told you so. Our conversation quickly became an argument. You thought my tone with you too strident. I thought your comments to me too stupid. I'm sorry, but that's what I thought of what you had to say.

You were also offended that I told you that sitting alone in the woods watching Fox News was not good for you. You said I called you an extreme Right Winger. I did not. I thought it, but I know I did not say it to you. I'm too polite.

I'm also concerned about the way the administration contrived the evidence about weapons of mass destruction. Yes, Sadam was evil and should have been deposed. But that was not the song to which we marched off to war. This is too serious an issue to lie to the American people and the world about. Lying about a blow job is one thing, this is quite something else.

But you've decided to accept all the lies and bullshit coming from this administration. I think that really does interfere with our relationship. I wish you well. This issue between us will be there for awhile, but not forever.

Dear Robert,

Thanks for the suggestion that I start including my letters in the blog. You're right on the money, though. Letter writing has always been my forte.

Leon called again this evening. I really need to write to her, and soon. She called tonight to let me know that she's sure I would have called and apologized for being such a bitch last month, except she hasn't been home. Yeah, sugah, that's what it is. You haven't been home for me to call and apologize. I told her the truth, once again. And guess what? She wasn't interested in my opinion this time, either. You know I've told you time and time again that that's alright with me. It really is, and I seldom get annoyed when she totally ignores what I'm saying. Do you remember back when we were getting to know each other well for the first time? I told you that my guru said that the truth never hurt anybody, but it might make them mad? That's Leon. But the truth isn't going to hurt her because she's not going to hear it. I told her twice that I wrote about our argument in my blog. Want to bet on whether she comes here to read what I had to say? No, I wouldn't take that bet either.

I will try to be generous in my future dealings with her, but I'm not interested in giving it very much energy. She'll form her own conclusions about what has transpired and lay the blame for the demise of our relationship in my lap. I really am okay with that.

I'm so looking forward to seeing you next week. I told Jim that I would be able to spend a day or so with you on my way up to Calgary, and also a day or so on my way back, unless of course you're dead, and then I'll be able to do a quick memorial service. He acted a little shocked that I would be so brutally honest about the possibility of your death, but I told him that I was relying mostly on your assessment of your possibilities. I think I told you one time that I thought the way to avoid dying was to be totally alive in the moment. If one could, then at the moment of death there would be a glorious exchange of energy with the universe. I owe you much of my soul, so I felt the least I could do would be to see you and bid you face this possibility with strength and awe. Like the Hollywood Indians used to scream on their way t o battle, "It is a good day to die.!"

I don't see you dying on that table, though. I have a vision of you on the other side of this operation. Be bold. It's going to be alright.

All my love and affection,

Raymond Ruth

Standing with Israel

Scott over at AMCGLTD.COM, has a heartfelt essay about standing fast as a friend and ally of Israel. It's a good read, and I recommend it strongly. I agree with Scott, but still I anguish about what's happening in Israel. I do not have a solution.

I doubt that I would have voted for Ariel Sharon, but my life is touched by too many Jews and Israelis to do anything but hope they have the ability to stand fast and not to be changed into monsters because they face monsters, ". . . for what profits a man if he gains the world yet loses his soul?"

Tough times for Israel.

Which is Worse, Bush or the Republican Party?

I say Bush is. He doesn't give a diddly squat about issues. He cynically uses them to consolidate his power. He'd sell his own mother down the river for power. I used to get so mad at the Lefties and Democrats with whom I work because they kept calling him dumb. He's not dumb. His entire political life has been successful because others misjudged his abilities.

The Republicans, on the other hand, burden themselves down with their own ideological stupidity.

The only saving grace in any and all of this is their arrogance which will bring them down. Arrogance sure brought the Democrats down.

I Lied

I didn't remove all of the conservative blogs from my list. I left a couple for reasons which are personal to me, which is another way of saying I'm not sure why they're still there. It's my blog, so I don't have to explain. I will reaffirm all of them as sentient beings with well thought out points of view.

Emma is angry, as am I. I have been unable to enunciate my anger and frustration. She has done it for me.

My anger has translated itself into action, albeit a passive-aggressive kind. I have removed most conservative blogs from my bloglist. They're not interested in dialogue. I have stopped speaking to friends who are Republican, or maybe they've stopped speaking to me. I do not feel especially tolerant of their ignorance and stupidity right now.

I tend to be more optimistic than pessimistic, so I believe that in the long run, good will prevail over evil. But that does not mean there won't be setbacks as humankind marches forwarded. This Bush-Republican Party dominance of our political landscape won't last forever, just longer than I want it to.

We've Changed Our Name

Two people noticed. There are a couple of reasons. On my home planet, rlbtzero, which is pronounced "Ray," means, literally, Raven Watches. On our planet, as on yours, Raven plays an important part of our mythology. Raven is the instigator; the catalyst. He is not a part of the system, prefering to remain on the edge of things, looking for opportunity. Nothing gets past him. He doesn't react to everything, but he notices. He has an opinion, but not many are really interested in the opinion. He knows that and he's cool with it.

I see that as a model for my own observations. No one is really interested in my opinion. I watch. I witness. The world's spiral into hell isn't helped or stopped by my observations and opinions. Or troubled by my judgment ("spiral into hell"). Actually that's more an observation than a judgment. As the competition for resources becomes more intense, the quality of life is diminished. For awhile, the advances in science, medicene, food production technology, etc., kept lifting us up despite the increasing scarcity of resources. When I was born, the population of the U.S. was around 100 million. We're at 260 million now, and the end is nowhere in sight. Houston, Texas had 100,000 people. What's it now, 5, 6 million? Same north-south freeway running through it?

Since we're a democracy (of sorts), who has a vision of how society is supposed to work based on some sort of equitable distribution of our resources? Should the distribution hinge on political organization as it does now, or should there be a more human wide approach to the sharing of resources? Who decides what's equitable?

My co-worker asked me on Monday how things were going. I answered, "I'm sorry the world is going to hell in a handbasket, but I'm doing alright." Can I be doing alright if the world IS going to hell in a handbasket? Are we not all connected?

Monday Morning Ramblings

Whoo, boy, what a week-end, what a week, what a month! I know it looks like I haven't written much lately, but I've lost a couple of posts to the demons of the blogosphere. I was on an incredible roll this past Saturday and lost everything.

Hello out there...

I've been out introducing myself to good looking men. I stumbled onto this personals board called something like Chicago Gay something or another and I thought their gene pool collection better than most I'd seen, so I subscribed. Sort of. It seems they charge twenty-fucking dollars to actually communicate with anyone. That seems a bit rich, now doesn't it.

Anyway, I'm trying to beat their system. I indicated to quite a few interesting looking chaps that I found them interesting. I was all over the fucking world. And they were all very interesting. I was so excited. So if any of you guys stumbles onto this humble site, drop me a note. I'd love to meet you. You can reach me at rlbtzero-at-Louisiana-dot-com.

Monday Morning Ramblings

My friend Leon called last night and got her butt bit. I didn't do it on purpose, of course, but she walked into it blinded by her own lack of awareness. In the course of conversation which she had turned back to herself 3 or 4 times after politely asking about my week-end but not waiting for the answer, she said that she was disgusted with the liberal Democrats who were finding fault with President Bush's arriving on an aircraft carrier aboard a fighter plane which he had not piloted, but still dressed in a flight suit, giving a triumphal speech to the troops. I couldn't believe that she had the audacity to criticize anyone who took exception to it. Especially since I thought it was done in incredibly poor taste and told her so. If he likes the idea of being a fighter pilot, he should have joined others of his generation in Vietnam, rather than ducking by getting into the Texas Air National Guard using family connections and then not doing that honorably, disappearing as it were just when he was supposed to be tested for drugs.

I think Leon was a little shocked by the vehemence of my reaction to her comment. Even though she was backing away from the conflict as she was hanging up, today she'll wake up and be angry with me. She'll tell her friends that we just can't talk politics because of the extremity of my views. She'll take no responsibility for bringing the subject up, or that she was participating in an aggressive campaign against dissent. I'm okay with that. I realized a long time ago that she wasn't interested in my opinion. She probably hasn't visited this blog since I sent out announcements to various friends that I would be coming here to express my feelings and opinions rather than subjecting them to a near constant barage of articles to read. I don't think she even noticed that I had stopped forwarding articles and links. Again, I'm not faulting her for her lack of interest, but I have noticed it.

She demonstrates perfectly why I'm so turned off by what passes for political debate in this country. She has absolutely no interest in any facts that do not support her predetermined view of the situation. Even to the point of personal cost. She did so much better financially during the Clinton years than she has done during the Bush years, either Bush's years. She has given Clinton no credit for anything. She feels she is very balanced in her approach: Everything good that happened during Clinton's years were due to something else. Everything good that happens during Bush's tenure is because Bush is strong and courageous, and all bad is the result of the unAmerican dissent. I don't mind that a good friend has such a simplistic point of view, I'm only offended when they insist I abandon my own knowledge and experience and endorse their simplistic point of view. No thanks, I'd rather not.

Okay, I'm back

I am not reading political blogs, nor do I intend to talk about politics. Okay, I lie. Of course, I'm going to talk about politics. I am going to steer the focus away from politics more towards contemporary culture, whatever that means. I will continue to talk about my life, or at least how this particular personality I channel views my life.

If you're here reading this, it means I've left a calling card. I maintain this blog, not so much because I have great wisdoms to give humankind. It's more like carving your initials into a tree. It's a tiny mark to measure against in an impermanent world. As the world is evolving, so too am I. I've always been a journal writer, so this is really just a continuation. I didn't make this blog private because I enjoy the idea that someone might secretly be watching me and reading over my shoulder. I doubt it, but the idea excites me. Read away. What do I think you should get from reading this? That you are not alone. We are all struggling with issues: some of our making, some from the cosmic hurricane that tosses us about the universe.

rlbtzero (it's pronounced Ray) is one of several personalities through which I write. He's more serious than some of the others. What? You don't have several personalities? That's too bad. It's a lot more fun having conversations with yourself when there's several of you.

I'm Now Leaving this Universe

I'm so turned off by the level of discourse in political conversation right now. Nobody is listening to anybody, although each side takes plenty of time to tear down the other side, using every tool in the arsenal, no matter how petty. "Oh, he used a double negative! You can't trust anyone who uses a double negative!" "Oh, she used her celebrity status to have an opinion different from my own! I'll show her 'freedom of speech'"! And in all of my life, I've never been spoken to as condescendingly as I have on some of the sites. It's a choice between fools and mean people.

I have another blog where my other personalities are presently having more fun than this one is here. I'd invite you over to party with us, but hell, you haven't paid any attention to me here, why should I expect you to do any different there.

I may stop by from time to time, but it may be awhile. Meanwhile, best wishes to all of you.

Bush: Criminalize Fetus Injury in Crime

This is just too stupid. Hey, my Right Wing Libertarian friends, Hey Republicans who are always talking about less government, not every fucking crime committed is a federal offense. This is pandering. State Law takes care of everything well enough. We don't need this. This will come back and bite your fucking ass.

Now the obvious: Back door attack on abortion? If it can be done by simple legislation, those fucking asshole Republicans in Washington will do it. Back off, Assholes. We don't need the Federal fucking government to step in where the States are doing it adequately.

I Yam Not a Drag Queen!

(Although I played one once in a movie about my life.)



So which fairy tale archetype are you? Hmm??
made by Michelle at EmptySpace.