After about four decades of hearing people declare diversity to be our greatest strength, I have to ask how that works out. What are the (Continue Reading)
Pat’s Polemics
My new Web site
Do we have to hold together?
09/22/2020 Pat Barrett Add CommentI usually don’t combine Basics and Politics but a book just came out surveying empires across the world and suggesting the collaps of the Roman (Continue Reading)
We the Who?
07/10/2020 Pat Barrett Add Comment“It was we, the people, not we, the white male citizens; nor yet we, the male citizens; but we, the whole people, who formed the (Continue Reading)
Building blocks of society
11/24/2019 Pat Barrett Add CommentRather than a death by a thousand cuts, the sabre is better. You can either dodge, deflect, or be quicker with your saber. Or, you (Continue Reading)
A historian describes my city in the 1950s
07/20/2019 Pat Barrett Add CommentLike many emerging American cities at the time, Phoenix’s spectacular growth did not occur evenly. It largely took place on the city’s north side, a (Continue Reading)
Start with the basics – a history lesson
07/14/2019 Pat Barrett Add CommentU.S. History, First Semester, first day of class We start with documents, the stuff of history. We have foundational documents. One is the Declaration of (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)
So you think you’re not prejudiced?
04/10/2019 Pat Barrett Add CommentBeing married to a Black woman for 55 years about often gains me a pass on racial prejudice as a White man. Wrong. Just today (Continue Reading)
Down to basics, KIng
01/11/2019 Pat Barrett Add CommentOnce in a while, a public figure makes a bold statement that tears away the veil of gentility and exposes what one might call “deep (Continue Reading)
How history class dumbs us down
10/21/2018 Pat Barrett Add CommentLies My Teacher Told Me is filled with eye-opening vignettes of how textbooks for high school students distort the history of our country. Faced with (Continue Reading)
The Grand Theory
10/05/2018 Pat Barrett Add CommentFrancis Fukuyama was on C-SPAN the other day talking about his book on identity politics and I started reading an article by him on the (Continue Reading)
How Our Government Works
09/11/2018 Pat Barrett Add CommentThis title sounds like the title of a high school civics textbook. It should because a basic civics lesson is missing in the minds of (Continue Reading)
Here’s what I wanted to write……
08/09/2018 Pat Barrett Add CommentMy friend who is knowledgeable about international politics gave me his copy of May/June Foreign Affairs. It’s Board of Advisors has one of my favorite (Continue Reading)
I’m struggling with something
08/06/2018 Pat Barrett 2 CommentsI’ve started reading Lies My Teacher Told Me. I’ve experienced a perspective shift. Others, according to the preface to the book, experienced the same sort (Continue Reading)
Limited thinking
08/02/2018 Pat Barrett Add CommentHere’s an example of limited thinking on the part of educated people. Supposedly “uncivilized” people were barbaric and given to violent warfare. The evidence is (Continue Reading)
What are we dealing with? Why counselors for kids?
07/23/2018 Pat Barrett Add CommentThe local newspaper has an article on services for students as they return to school. Some are new and some are extensions of existing programs (Continue Reading)
Is there even a trace of Russian left in you?
07/07/2018 Pat Barrett Add CommentAn ancient human conceit is that we inherit our behaviors from our forebearers, including language. There is a belief that if someone has Greek heritage, (Continue Reading)
Difference = disorder
07/04/2018 Pat Barrett Add CommentReading Chris Hayes’ book, A Colony in a Nation, my attention was drawn to his formulation of the disturbance generated by disorder. For some people, (Continue Reading)
Magnum Opus Secundum
06/16/2018 Pat Barrett Add CommentSo many themes, they get scattered and lose impact. It seems time to pull some threads together and knit a rope, or rather a hawser. (Continue Reading)
Why Didn’t the American colonists pay the f**** tariff?
05/12/2018 Pat Barrett 2 CommentsChris Hayes writes about how the common slogan regarding police violence against Blacks is, “Why don’t they just do what the cop says?” The tariff (Continue Reading)
Who learns what how?
04/15/2018 Pat Barrett Add CommentI’ve written about my wife’s cousin’s experiences learning Italian and Japanese. Tonight he revealed that in English he never could comprehend what he reads. He (Continue Reading)
To post in every courthouse and school room in the country
04/10/2018 Pat Barrett Add CommentFrom Steve Schmidt, the McCain-Palin campaign chairman, on what it means to be a fidelitist (new word for me). [on the MSNBC show The Eleventh (Continue Reading)
What looms ahead?
02/28/2018 Pat Barrett Add CommentThe entry Hate and Special Status discusses a little of Pankaj Mishra’s talk at A.S.U. The rise of anger (his talk and book are Global (Continue Reading)