I no longer feel obligated to listen to or speak to anyone with their cell phone out. If they have an important message, they can (Continue Reading)
Pat’s Polemics
My new Web site
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)
Fruits of consistency
04/16/2019 Pat Barrett Add CommentSince my surgery in December and my week off in Februrary, I have surged in the consistency with which I get to the gym. I (Continue Reading)
Run for the border
11/26/2018 Pat Barrett Add CommentTrump has created another crisis that he is milking to gin up his base. By sending troops to the border in violation of the Constitution (Continue Reading)
Quotes from Corey Robin’s The Reactionary Mind
11/09/2018 Pat Barrett Add CommentI just finished Corey Robin’s The Reactionary Mind. He says all conservatives are reactionaries b/c they don’t arise until something changes. People who just live (Continue Reading)
Nyah’s lesson #54 [33 on VR] Oct. 12
10/21/2018 Pat Barrett Add CommentComment c’est que vous arrivez ici a douze heures quand vous suivez six cours? (I showed 12 with fingures and translated hours) Because I take (Continue Reading)
Mark Lilla encounters my wife
10/10/2018 Pat Barrett Add CommentMark Lilla encounters my wife We went to hear Mark Lilla tell us Liberals how our widening up of the Democratic Party by taking up (Continue Reading)
Jesus or Trump?
09/23/2018 Pat Barrett 2 CommentsFrank Schaeffer, recovering evangelist (still evangelical, just not spreading hate and poison like the current movement), pointed out on A.M. Joy yesterday that Trump’s followers (Continue Reading)
The Appeal of Autocracy
08/25/2018 Pat Barrett 2 CommentsFrom Foreign Affairs magazine, May-June 2018, Malaysian Prime Minister speaking in 1992 said, “Authoritarian stability has enabled prosperity whereas democracy has brought chaos and increased (Continue Reading)
What gets tested and why in foreign language classes
08/15/2018 Pat Barrett Add CommentIf I am speaking English as a second language or foreign language and I say, “My car breaked down, can you help me,” no English (Continue Reading)
I hereby demand……….the total misunderstanding of our government by Trumpsters
07/04/2018 Pat Barrett Add CommentJuly 4. Happy Fourth. I guess I was saving this for today; all I had was the title. When I was young, American history did (Continue Reading)
What do balls refer to?
04/13/2018 Pat Barrett Add CommentWhen Trump supporters declare, “Finally, someone with balls!” what do they mean? This is closely tied to the Right’s notion of political correctness. They mean (Continue Reading)
Hate and Special Status
02/27/2018 Pat Barrett Add CommentLast year a friend related to me how people in an activist group he’s in wanted to deal with hate. Big order. Hate comes from (Continue Reading)
What Trump supporters hate about Liberals
02/24/2018 Pat Barrett Add CommentI was just watching for the second time the interview of Chris Hayes by Heather McGee of Demos regarding his book A Colony in a (Continue Reading)
chinese food
02/23/2018 Pat Barrett Add CommentA big point in selling fl classes to students and their parents is the way culture ties into language and vice versa. However, detailed examples (Continue Reading)
How they did it….. and now they complain?
02/11/2018 Pat Barrett 3 CommentsNo one likes to be type cast, to lumped in with everyone else. Any time you paint a whole people with a broad brush you (Continue Reading)
Who’s telling the truth?
11/29/2017 Pat Barrett Add CommentWhen prominent conservatives get accused of bad behavior like sexual harassment, the reporters and witnesses as well as the accusers are labeled liars by conservatives, (Continue Reading)
Fun with old language
11/03/2017 Pat Barrett Add CommentEspecially when you read poetry, editors frequently have to explain usages as archaic, regional, dialectal, poetic, idiosyncratic, jargon or just plain odd. When I read (Continue Reading)
Response to MovieRead – New Idea
11/08/2016 Pat Barrett 3 CommentsI read Kyle’s response to Lance’s admonition. If Kyle is indeed giving students reading that is at i and not i+1, then there should be (Continue Reading)
Annotating our culture
07/30/2016 Pat Barrett Add CommentAnnotated literature draws me. I love reading it, esp in another language, where notes accompany the text to explain references. There are those who insist (Continue Reading)
employee is to employer as volunteer is to voluntee
06/01/2016 Pat Barrett Add CommentGrowing up I heard the word employer and employee. I took French and realized employee was the past participle of the Fr. verb employer, to (Continue Reading)
gender = sex? No.
05/09/2016 Pat Barrett Add CommentOne of my pet peeves has been the gradual shift in meaning of “gender” to mean the same as “sex”. Gender means “kind”, “sort”, while (Continue Reading)
National Identity & National Consciousness
05/07/2016 Pat Barrett Add CommentMy book on Greek diglossia just came and I’ve been reading it. Interestingly, Greek national identity came from religion rather than common descent or language, (Continue Reading)