This one is not a fill-in-the-blank question. It is very serious. Serious because William Barr is a serious guy who had immense education, training, and (Continue Reading)
Pat’s Polemics
My new Web site
I think Trump may have got this one wrong
10/10/2019 Pat Barrett Add CommentWhen he said the Kurds weren’t with us at Normandie, he may have been right but his intent was to say the Kurds did not (Continue Reading)
Where Are We Now?
10/08/2019 Pat Barrett Add CommentAs long as Trump was smearing the reputations of Black leaders, tearing Hispanic toddlers from their parents’ arms, denying entry to the country based on (Continue Reading)
Umbrage taken
10/05/2019 Pat Barrett Add CommentI’ve been meaning to take umbrage for some time, a sort of general umbrage derived from poor thinking, usually other people’s. How about that Charles (Continue Reading)
Reading Babel, the author not the tower
10/03/2019 Pat Barrett Add CommentOut of frustration at not being able to continue my language reading project of Harry Potter in several languages, I grabbed a copy of Isaac (Continue Reading)
President Pelosi
09/30/2019 Pat Barrett Add CommentAs my wife reminded me, if Trump goes and if Pence is compromised and cannot step in, then the Speaker of the House becomes president (Continue Reading)
You like my daughter?
09/29/2019 Pat Barrett Add CommentWhen they break into the top top top top tippy top secret server and find records of Trump’s phone calls, it is possible we may (Continue Reading)
What Would a Trumper Do?
09/27/2019 Pat Barrett Add CommentFill in. ____________________ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ………………………………………………………..
Hypermasculinity
09/25/2019 Pat Barrett 1 CommentMacho man. Stud. A real man. Tough guy. My attention has been recently drawn to a type of pick-up truck by the name of Ram, (Continue Reading)
What concerned the Framers concerning Trump
09/24/2019 Pat Barrett Add CommentEx-Republican, former Congressman from Florida David Jolly laid out on Nicolle Wallace’s MSNBC show Deadline White House just who the Framers of the Constitution had (Continue Reading)
From The Onion
09/24/2019 Pat Barrett Add CommentThe president of the United States cancelled a diplomatic trip to Denmark because the Danes would not sell Greenland to him. Note: To those of (Continue Reading)
Prescriptivism: How It Works… or doesn’t
09/23/2019 Pat Barrett Add CommentSome societies have a tense relationship with the language that bears them. My French neighbor exclaimed, when I told him our new French teacher was (Continue Reading)
Hoo Boy!
09/23/2019 Pat Barrett Add CommentNo, that’s not my Word of the Day. It is my reaction to reading a discussion on some sort of Bible study site, UE Using (Continue Reading)
The Obverse
09/20/2019 Pat Barrett Add CommentMaybe I’m not using this word right but I’ve written a lot on the conservative pov and the counterpart to that, the obverse, is what (Continue Reading)
Which California would you rather live in?
09/19/2019 Pat Barrett Add Comment“When I asked her what she made of the college admissions scandal, she expressed some puzzlement. Didn’t those rich parents know that everyone would have (Continue Reading)
Dukes of Hazard Redux
09/18/2019 Pat Barrett Add CommentComedians make jokes about Red Necks. Black comedians make jokes about Black people and White comedians do so very carefully. As ethnic groups integrate into (Continue Reading)
Finding the mot juste to translate a tense
09/17/2019 Pat Barrett Add CommentTalking with my Urdu-speaking friend, I showed him a sentence that used what we would call a preterit form. The sentence read in my first (Continue Reading)
Gun Control: third step
09/14/2019 Pat Barrett Add CommentLaws concerning the ownership, purchase, licensing, and selling of guns, including advertising, have the status of a third rail of politics, like Social Security. There (Continue Reading)
Gun Control Fourth step: road blocks to massacre
09/14/2019 Pat Barrett Add CommentOnce we have dispelled the notion that we can identify mentally ill people who are dangerous and the notion that we can erect bunkers and (Continue Reading)
Gun Control: second step is higher security
09/14/2019 Pat Barrett Add CommentArmed teachers. I love the concept, thinking back on all those macho coaches swaggering down the hallways. Remember Joe Clark carrying his baseball bat around (Continue Reading)
Nexus
09/14/2019 Pat Barrett Add CommentDefinition of nexus (from on-line Merriam-Webster) 1 : CONNECTION, LINK the nexus between teachers and students also : a causal link the nexus between poverty (Continue Reading)
All liberals are communists and all conservatives are fascists
09/13/2019 Pat Barrett Add CommentOr at least that seems to be the way our political arguments go. If you do not support Black Lives Matter you must be a (Continue Reading)
News on the Nyah front
09/11/2019 Pat Barrett Add CommentThis summer proved a bust. What was supposed to be between 5 and 7 visits a week turned out to be more like three. Too (Continue Reading)