Victor D. Infante's Blog, page 205

Everybody's Working for the Weekend ...

Power went out at about 8:30 or so last night, and didn't come back on until just past 1 a.m. Which was annoying,a s we were cooking dinner at that moment. Thankfully, it looks like managed to salvage it for tonight. Ended up eating leftover odds and ends. The bad news? It appears Lea's monitor got fried in the shortage. Bah. Not fun in the least.

Shame, too, as otherwise we had a very nice, fairly social weekend. Our friend Dorinda came down from New Hampshire Saturday, and accompanied us to ...

Not questioning your sentiment, simply your diction ...

Was reading Andrew Sullivan's blog, when he re-posted this bit about a catholic priest who's speaking out about the ongoing child-abuse scandal in the Catholic Church:

To listen to Bill Donohue of the Catholic League this morning on the John Gambling show as he went on his usual tirade about the New York Times and its attempt to depose the Pope (his opinion) as it exposed the truth of what has been taking place in our Church was another example of how easy it is to shoot the messenger.

Naturall...

Political Science

I think, from the vantage point that most Americans are watching the burgeoning, often violent or violence-inferring outbreaks of free-floating social anxiety, the whole mess might be a little hard to understand. They look at the shooting at the Pentagon, a person crashing their plane into an IRS building, Tea Party activists cutting the gas line to the brother of US Congressman's house, the Rev. Wiley Drake telling people to pray for the death of Congressmen, Glenn Beck telling listener's...

Things my iPod reminded me of ...

You are about to be told you're a valuable natural resource. Have you seen what they do to valuable natural resources?" -- Utah Phillips, speaking to a group of students.

This, that and the Internet ...

"As far as possible, without surrender,
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even to the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons;
they are vexatious to the spirit."
-- from "Desiderata," by Max Ehrmann

Yes, I'm quoting freaking "Desiderata." Deal with it.

I have managed to remain un-entangled in at least two thorny arts-related Internet discussions in this past week when I realized, in both i...

The Hard Truth About the GOP's "Repeal Healthcare" Rallying Cry

Alex Koppelman nails it in one:

Simply put, repeal is all but impossible, at least until 2013, and probably beyond. Even if the GOP manages to take back both houses of Congress this year, as long as Obama is president, he's sure to veto any repeal bill, and it's mathematically impossible for the GOP to win a veto-proof majority this cycle. If Republicans run on repeal, and then fail to deliver, they run the risk of alienating all those energized conservatives out there right now.

Well ... That was bracing ...

So the House has passed the Healthcare Reform Bill, which may well be the hardest political fight ever fought for so little. It was a battle of scorched-earth politics, and only time will tell if any side battling it out (and there were more than two) actually accomplished anything.

The good: Nowhere near where I wanted to go, obviously -- If I had my way, we'd have a National Health like England's, as opposed to having 95% of the population on private insurance by 2014  -- but there are brigh...

Secret-Ninja Poetry at the Comic Book Store!

Haven't had a lot of time to publicize this, but the talented Dave Macpherson will be hosting a reading of haiku and other poems inspired by the artwork of Irving Phillips at 2 p.m. today, at That's Entertainment Comics in Worcester.

Thoughts on "American Idol" --- No. Really.

My running joke of the past few weeks -- spurred by my almost judging the singer-songwriter competition that almost happened at the Q -- has been that I want to take Simon Cowell's post as a judge on "American Idol" when he leaves the show. My other running joke has been that I don't watch "Idol," because I actually love music.

But I took a few minutes to watch the "confrontation" between Cowell and Ryan Seacrest the other day, and I realized something: as much as I don't care for what comes o...

Morning Thoughts

Evidently, Lea and I will be doing a reading of haiku inspired by the Irving Phillips illustrations being displayed at That's Entertainment at 2 p.m. March 20. The show's being put together by Dave Macpherson. So last night, we and a few other poets doing the reading decided to meet at the Q and sit down with pictures of the artwork and write some haiku.

Of course, all of us had forgotten that Shane Hall hosts an open mic there on Tuesdays. So after some hellos, we went to Jumpin' Juice and J...