Bishop Desmond Tutu led his country into an era he called Truth and Reconciliation. South Africa had been as bad as the American South; worse, (Continue Reading)
Pat’s Polemics
My new Web site
Why We’re Polarized
04/14/2020 Pat Barrett Add CommentI dropped my 22 books I’m reading every day to spend 3 days reading Ezra Klein’s Why We’re Polarized. As a life-long liberal Democrat, I (Continue Reading)
Ups and Downs with TPRS and the Virus
04/14/2020 Pat Barrett Add CommentJust as my granddaughter was getting back into the swing of things with French, the virus hit. She has stayed away for a week or (Continue Reading)
have to vs have first to
04/09/2020 Pat Barrett 2 CommentsI’ve always wondered where the devoicing of the v in ‘have to’ came from. I assumed it was assimilation to the unvoiced following t. Just (Continue Reading)
Empty of mind and soul
04/07/2020 Pat Barrett Add CommentDavid Remnick, speaking on Morning Joe, used those words this morning referring to Donald Trump. Why empty? Trump as a clinical object was so severely (Continue Reading)
States with no lockdown as of April 4
04/04/2020 Pat Barrett Add CommentFour states, all Republican governors. Arkansas, Nebraska, Iowa, North and South Dakota. Iowa really surprises me.
Insults
04/04/2020 Pat Barrett 2 CommentsConservatives complain that liberals insult them, calling them uneducated, rubes, fly-over country residents, red-necks and say they vote against their own interests. This is supposed (Continue Reading)
Take his whistle away
04/02/2020 Pat Barrett Add CommentWhat is the point in finding out the identity of a whistle blower? To punish him, of course. But why punish him what the whistle (Continue Reading)
Anthropological pitfalls
03/31/2020 Pat Barrett 1 CommentTrying to understand another culture is an amazing adventure. I have never lived in another culture other than my adjustment to African-American culture coming from (Continue Reading)
Why the Right Hates Cultural Relativity
03/29/2020 Pat Barrett Add CommentIt’s really simple: people who gravitate to the right are authoritarians. Cultural relativity undermines that. Cultural relativity states that all societies face the same basic (Continue Reading)
cowbell as cultural memory
03/28/2020 Pat Barrett Add CommentReading Sam Floyd, my suspicions rise over terms like “cultural memory.” I recall a disturbing conversation with a Prof. Woods, chairperson of the art department (Continue Reading)
The contentious issue of aspect
03/27/2020 Pat Barrett Add CommentI have finished reading Aspect and have observations to make. Aspect has been called one of the most disputed notions in linguistics. Elsewhere on this (Continue Reading)
A 1959 remark on acquisition via reading
03/27/2020 Pat Barrett Add CommentIn 1959 the author of Hausa Literature and the Hausa Sound System, R.C. Abraham, wrote this: (the Hausa are what is traditionally called in the (Continue Reading)
Reading for March 21, 2020 the year of COVID 19
03/21/2020 Pat Barrett Add CommentOnce before I wrote up what I’d read in my reading ladder on one particular day. Things have changed around here, especially two: my grandson (Continue Reading)
Nyah lesson 3/17/20
03/18/2020 Pat Barrett Add CommentLong time since I’ve transcribed these lessons but I’ll start with yesterday’s in part because it was amazing. Then I’ll backtrack and catch up. I (Continue Reading)
The virus is real
03/12/2020 Pat Barrett Add CommentContrary to the usual reactionary b.s., the Corona Virus is here. Three cases found in people working in our corner of Maricopa County, AZ. Therefore, (Continue Reading)
Vindication
03/09/2020 Pat Barrett 7 CommentsThis morning on Morning Joe I heard two statements vindicating what I’ve been saying for several years. Trump is seeing his prime device for dealing (Continue Reading)
A body
03/07/2020 Pat Barrett Add Comment“What could a body do?” That use of the word body was the norm for my grandmother, an Appalachian person born in 1876. In current (Continue Reading)
Amy Chua on Tribal World
03/06/2020 Pat Barrett Add CommentForeign Affairs put out an issue in July/Aug 2018 that featured an article on each division of our divided world: Realist, Liberal, Tribal, Marxist, Tech (Continue Reading)
Why no Black love for Bernie?
03/06/2020 Pat Barrett 3 CommentsIt’ simple. Bernie wants to change the society Blacks have been trying to get into. March 6, 2020 Addendum on watching Rachel interview Bernie Sanders: (Continue Reading)
A Maxim to remember
03/05/2020 Pat Barrett 2 CommentsSkidelsky writes of the Rothschilds in the 19th century that “profts came before peace” despite their resistance to financing wars. And now profits come before (Continue Reading)
There’s a taco in my polling booth
03/05/2020 Pat Barrett Add CommentRemember the Trump surrogate who warned us that Mexicans were so entrepreneurial that if we didn’t curtail immigration, there’d soon be a taco truck on (Continue Reading)
Who Will Rule
02/26/2020 Pat Barrett Add CommentIn a boomerang effect, the GOP’s successful campaign to delegitimize and reduce government has strengthened the hand of mayors. Rahm Emmanuel has written a book (Continue Reading)