As I type on my blog, I hear my wife singing in the kitchen. She seldom sings. But the strains of her song are clearly (Continue Reading)
Pat’s Polemics
My new Web site
If you cannot show it, is it real?
06/26/2019 Pat Barrett 2 Comments“Show” is not the best word. Thinking about African Diasporic music and the issue of the pulse, I was reminded of the issue of acquisition (Continue Reading)
mishegoss alert
06/24/2019 Pat Barrett Add CommentUsually Yiddishisms don’t find their way into this blog since only the German element of the language is known to me at all (except ‘balabusta’). (Continue Reading)
Breaking point
06/14/2019 Pat Barrett 2 CommentsNow that the President has told us in a recorded interview that he sought foreign assistance in his election in 2015-16 and is doing so (Continue Reading)
Essence of clear thinking based on science
06/07/2019 Pat Barrett Add CommentFrom Nadine Burke-Harris’ The Deepest Well, p. 171: “Toxic stress is a result of a disruption to the stress response. This is a fundamental biological (Continue Reading)
Metaphorical tropes
06/07/2019 Pat Barrett Add CommentI think I have the terms right. Listening to Admiral Stavridis on Morning Joe I noted his extensive use of these. I always thought expressions (Continue Reading)
Not exactly synonyms
05/26/2019 Pat Barrett Add CommentRut and groove in their most basic referent are the same thing, but as Wikipedia says: disambiguate. OK. When I was young I was in (Continue Reading)
An interesting crossing of mind related concepts
05/24/2019 Pat Barrett Add CommentI read this in a psych report: “…. distinction between capacity to learn i.e. intellectual capacity to learn discrete bits of information and his ability (Continue Reading)
Lost your legs in combat? 2 solutions:
05/17/2019 Pat Barrett Add CommentRed State: you don’t get a wheel chair; it’ll just make you weak Blue State: don’t go to war The real world: use diplomacy until (Continue Reading)
Plans for upcoming lessons
05/16/2019 Pat Barrett Add CommentAt the end of the month, my granddaughter will begin putting in more than the 5 day a week schedule for her French lessons. She (Continue Reading)
Fighting the state
05/16/2019 Pat Barrett Add CommentNo, not The State, as in The Deep State, but the state of Arizona, determined to preserve the life of the unborn but adopting the (Continue Reading)
Three big things going on now that don’t involve subpoenas
05/16/2019 Pat Barrett Add CommentIt is May 16, 2019 and do you know where your country is headed? We have a task force in the Persian Gulf and John (Continue Reading)
the pursuit of happiness
05/16/2019 Pat Barrett 2 CommentsI’ve been looking up this phrase and trying to remember where I heard, on TV recently, that it substituted for “property.” According to an article (Continue Reading)
Highs and lows of recent times
05/15/2019 Pat Barrett Add CommentThis is in lieu of a Christmas letter. Off the top of my head, some highlights. I got my knees replaced and you can read (Continue Reading)
Nyah’s lessons
05/14/2019 Pat Barrett Add CommentAt this point Nyah has put in 64 hours of instruction. That is a bit over one third of an academic year. Ben Slavic says (Continue Reading)
A routine with a long run
05/14/2019 Pat Barrett Add CommentIt seems a routine has been set, one night of yoga, one of body pump, two days in the gym lifting weights and two to (Continue Reading)
What Conservatives Think
05/12/2019 Pat Barrett Add CommentHere’s how conservatives see the country. Minorities of color vote for Democrats b/c they give them free stuff – that’s the conservatives’ term for it: (Continue Reading)
From self-deportation to self-impeachment
05/09/2019 Pat Barrett Add CommentRomney wanted “Mesicans” to self-deport; now Nancy says Trump is “self-impeaching”. News to Trumpsters panicked over Mexican rapists: huge numbers of undocumented and documented workers (Continue Reading)
Who’s left or whose left?
05/09/2019 Pat Barrett Add CommentA pundit said the Congresspeople pushing for impeachment are to the left of Pelosi, but could they not also be said to be to the (Continue Reading)
What do you mean, “being destroyed?”
05/07/2019 Pat Barrett Add CommentLiberals often cry that the institutions of this country are being destroyed, our justice system, our economy, our immigration heritage, religion, education, even art. They (Continue Reading)
No gummit hepped me….
05/02/2019 Pat Barrett Add CommentRick Perlstein in Before the Storm cites the ferociously conservative center, Orange County, and how its residents decried government help of shiftless people. As a (Continue Reading)
Nyah’s requests on April 22, 2019
04/22/2019 Pat Barrett Add CommentIn today’s lesson (to be written up later), Nyah came up with some encouraging requests. One was to begin reading. I had already scouted out (Continue Reading)
Drum Beat
04/22/2019 Pat Barrett Add CommentYou probably expect this to be found in the category Music of the African Diaspora but it is in Running Commentary b/c it refers to (Continue Reading)