…or not…

that some basic things have changed over at the otherwhirled—that other meta-incarnation of Dawnne that keeps him from going crazy.

as a result of coming out of the closet in terms of my atheism over there, some things are going to change over here, just probably not at the same level. one reason for the difference between the two is that functionally, in my personal life, my agnostic atheism is of no tangible import. in other words, between myself and my family, who share my worldview, it’s “eh, big deal”, and rarely ever discussed.

on the other hand, my agnostic atheism is exactly what drives my quest—my philosophical investigation, in truth—for better self-understanding. and that’s largely because i recognize the need for self-understanding before one can feasibly attempt to understand others. but you could also exchange the word “philosophical” above for “spiritual”, and that sentence would basically read the same, in my eyes.

and i’m tired of not including that quest here. it has only partly been because of the inherent juxtaposition between time allocated to blogging and time allocated to work. but the reality is, my work life isn’t very likely to get any less time-consuming within the next decade or more, so i might as well just schedule some time in and devote it accordingly.

which, i have done.

the snarkery side of it will remain on the otherwhirled, but given the diverse readership and the gross amount of visitors on the otherwhirled compared to perpetual dawnne, the otherwhirled was the proper place for a formal announcement of the matter. however, as i begin sharing my path to this point, such posts will be here on perpetual dawnne, because of their relevance to who i am, and their general lack of cathartic expression.

make sense? i hope so.

i imagine, because of the depth of time involved (a near-eternity in comparison to her normal communications when i have managed to contrive a what-the-fuck moment), that i have managed to offend at least one long-time reader and friend of these blogs. sadly, all i can offer in that regard: please try to think beyond what you’ve accepted as truth, because you know there’s little basis for it as “truth”.

seriously.

but i will continue to love, admire, and respect you regardless of how you ingest what i wrote over there.

If there was any doubt in your mind about the power of the media, even when it is collectively ultimately but the lackey of the current Administration, think again. This whole New York Times-published McCain/Iseman issue should make it clear to anyone. And in a way, this might well have been the most well-crafted endeavor to get out from under the thumb of this Administration. If so, I may even have to start rethinking my cynicism in their regard.

These posts from earlier today were cute and all, but I was intentionally side-stepping the real issue at hand, which is not infidelity—an incredibly predictable trademark of persons in power in general—but which is about the accepting of favors in return for votes. If the story turns out to be true, nay, if the story turns out to be so much as incredibly likely, what happens?

Well, what happens is, McCain should step out of the race. Because most Americans are sick to death of Buy-Your-Vote-Here politicians. As well, the idea behind intellectual duplicity is that you’re not supposed to get caught at it until after you’re already in office, from which position of power you can disdainfully deny the very premise of the indictment, filibuster any dialogue on the matter by claiming Executive Privilege, and shred, shred, shred when you’re relatively confident that you have enough power to keep the Department of Justice from doing anything worthwhile about it. Even better, ensure that you own the Department of Justice. But I digress.

So, McCain should step out of the race, leaving the Huckabee as the sole-remaining candidate, or possibly Romney steps back in, pulls the boys out of the dog-carrier on the roof of his car, and sets back to work. At which point, every remaining moderate conservative either refuses to vote or votes for the Democratic candidate in November.

In other words, what the New York Times has effectively done here, should everything pan out, is ensure a Democratic President.

Brilliant.

Of course, the problem with it is that it’s all written up in this big huge news piece, that as it makes its way down the wire to the smaller newspapers with much less room to print it in, it’s going to get cut. And what’s it going to get cut to? In essence, the two posts I cite above.

Which actually strengthens the public perception of McCain from rural America.

“Whassat? McCain gotsa woody for some lady? Now that’s the kind o’ man Ah’m talkin’ ’bout!”

Not attractive, but luckily, the rural vote isn’t going to outweigh the inner-city vote, per capita. And that would be the first time that yours truly is pleased with the reality of that fact, for what it’s worth.

But luckily, McCain’s already given his Bill Clinton-esque denial:

“At no time have I ever done anything that would betray the public trust or make a decision which in any way would not be in the public interest or would favor anyone or organization.”

Right. As if his voting record, when he bothers to take the time to contribute positively towards it, doesn’t make that lie incredibly clear. Okay, somebody who can figure out how to use the Senate website for polling voting records will no doubt make that clear. But at the risk of being one of those people who repeats the pundits without fact-checking, it’s apparently already clear. Especially when even the conservative ones are going, “Oh, so THAT’s why he kept voting that way….”

At any rate, given the apparently-obvious flaccidity of that statement, we can hopefully consider McCain on his way out the door, provided the rest of the media manages not to ignore the bigger story (vote-selling) for the smaller one (sex).

And with any luck, we just witnessed the rebirth of the Fourth Branch of Government. At the very least, it’s a big step in the right direction.

{cross-posted on the otherwhirled}

…is what i look like when i’m incredibly thrilled about taking a photo of myself after i’ve not shaved for a day and had other things to do.

so in the apparent interest of making myself look as old as i can….{sigh}

only for you, Sherri. only for you….

earlier this week, i got glasses. just a very slight astigmatism in my left eye: not even enough of a prescription to warrant contacts, and really not so bad given that i’m over forty and have put my eyes through a lot of stuff over the years. anyway, yesterday, i took a self-portrait with my cell phone, and sent the pic to Daughter the First and my friend Sherri. Sherri’s mobile phone, from which she has sent me a pic in the past, apparently could not handle receiving photos. which makes sense, because Sherri’s kind of one of those gals who can dish stuff out, but not take it.

ooops. did i say that out loud? sorry, Sherri. i guess it’s not really fair for me to call ‘em like i see ‘em.

anyway, in the hopes of keeping Sherri from apoplexy because she hasn’t been able to see a stupid photo of me in my new glasses, i offer the following. click the thumbnail to see it full-size.

hey, look. i got Transitions lenses! woo-hoo!

so, there you go, Sherri. don’t say i never gave you anything.

now, go get a freakin’ cell-phone that accepts pic messages. eesh!

{UPDATE: hey, look! check it out! I’m Hairy Potter!}

breaking through the end of last year and pushing forward into this year has been one of the most difficult challenges i’ve faced thus far. as petty as it is, i am also surprised by the level of unhappiness the prospect of this upcoming move has brought to me. and it’s not just the having to keep everything constantly clean, or being the most-available idiot to drop everything and clean up after everyone else when a realtor calls from ten minutes away, or knowing that the hardest part is still ahead of us: the moving itself. no, it’s just the seriously-not-wanting-to-move that’s got me down, in a far more pervasively general way than i thought possible. literally everything about it annoys the living crap out of me. eventually, i’ll get over it, i’m sure. and it doesn’t help that my soccer team isn’t having a very good indoor season, either. what was once a pleasurable weekly exercise is rapidly becoming an angst-filled hour of watching the other teams run circles around us every week.

okay, enough of that. i’m not as depressed as i sound, and that’s not denial talking. sure, the minor annoyances pile up, but they’re still just minor annoyances. i’ll survive, no doubt.

we’re getting more traffic through the house: a mixed bag, but basically a good thing. of course, no one will be coming out today; the weather has seen to that. which is also good because i’ll be able to get some work done. my realtor did a stupid thing: went to synthaetica.com and decided to use some of those images in one of the local home-selling rags to promote the sale of the house. that was a bit of a catch-22 for me: weighing the value of the copyright on certain pieces of fine art (along with the way in which allowing them to do that technically undermines the value of those pieces of art that i’ve sold), versus the need to sell the house. the realtor claims their office assistant didn’t know that was illegal. that is, she supposedly didn’t know that taking images off a website and manipulating the watermarks was illegal. that is, she supposedly didn’t know that copying images off a website that clearly states the intent to sell the images as fine art was illegal. well, wherever she got her graphics design training, she can shove her diploma up her ass, but i licensed them use of the images for the express purpose of selling our house.

i haven’t let on to the Spouse Unit just how much that torqued me, but if a realtor pretends to that level of incompetence in advertising practices, how trustworthy can they really be in terms of how the rest of their business is run? i suppose this is the karmic payback for using a realtor found through a system to get points on our time-share instead of using the professional contacts we built through the local Chamber of Commerce and other business contacts. ultimately, i guess it’s not that big of a deal: one of those little real estate pubs is a temporary flash in the pan, anyway.

completely unrelatedly: i added several blog-friends to the blogroll on the left this morning. please visit their sites. they’re in better moods than i am today.