We were having our usual Saturday morning breakfast, my dad and I, and talking about the war, something we often did. He fought through a (Continue Reading)
Pat’s Polemics
On-going brilliance
Unlikely Heroes for a life-long liberal Democrat (think FDR)
02/15/2025 Pat Barrett Add CommentTwo of the most conservative people you could imagine have emerged as heroes (heroines would emphasize that both are female and further emphasize that an (Continue Reading)
This from a cartoonist, Oliver Markus Malloy
02/14/2025 Pat Barrett Add Comment“MAGA dumbfucks think America turned to shit in the 1960s, when women, gays, and black people got equal rights. In reality, America turned to shit (Continue Reading)
New Way To Categorize Conservatives
02/14/2025 Pat Barrett Add CommentThis from David Brooks: you can tell what kind of conservative a conservative is by what era he wants to go back to. He says (Continue Reading)
Maybe someone could correct me on this………
02/10/2025 Pat Barrett Add CommentEverywhere pundits and observers of the American scene decry the fall in trust of institutions. Larger and larger swathes of us feel a growing loss (Continue Reading)
They’re catching up to me
02/09/2025 Pat Barrett Add CommentRecently I’ve heard Francis Fukuyama refer to the Libertarian underpinnings of the Project 2025 movement and even mention Integralism. Others are now seeing the involvement (Continue Reading)
The Judge, the Bishop, and Phyllis Fong
01/31/2025 Pat Barrett Add CommentTwo high profile people and a civil servant – a trio of heroes.Judge Howell wrote a scathing decision on Trump’s illegal moves as president; Bishop (Continue Reading)
These irk me…..
01/29/2025 Pat Barrett Add CommentI want to give free rein to some of my less accountable and self-indulgent thoughts. In the coterie of my friends there arises an impatience (Continue Reading)
A Conservative Hit List
01/29/2025 Pat Barrett Add CommentInternational aid groups that depend on U.S. funding appeared shocked. “The recent stop-work cable from the State Department suspends programs that support America’s global leadership (Continue Reading)
What Democrats, liberals and progressives have to stop doing
01/29/2025 Pat Barrett Add CommentStop using words like ‘quite.’ Quite is a mollifier, and softener, a ameliorator, and it smoothes over harsh, true statements. Susan Collins has made the (Continue Reading)
Is this gas lighting on the left?
12/01/2024 Pat Barrett Add Comment“The American people didn’t vote for all this ridiculous bullshit, and we need to keep fighting.” Gas lighting is defined in my entry To Start (Continue Reading)
How You Teach Reading Tells A Lot About You
11/29/2024 Pat Barrett Add CommentIf you look through my categories or just search ‘reading’ you’ll find a lot of passionate entries on the topic. But I’ve neglected that for (Continue Reading)
Stress yourself then test
11/24/2024 Pat Barrett Add CommentFor over a month I’ve been coming back from a month-long hiatus in exercise. Not quite true if you count lugging luggage over an unfamiliar (Continue Reading)
In Response to Pundits
11/15/2024 Pat Barrett Add CommentI will have toreturn to this entry often. I am perturbed by comments from people who know better. Example1: Richard Haas saying that Trump’s allocation (Continue Reading)
A retrospective
11/12/2024 Pat Barrett Add CommentAfter being married into a Black American family for about ten years and so in the decade of the 70s, the scene was changing in (Continue Reading)
Time to shift to a new paradigm
11/11/2024 Pat Barrett Add CommentThat sounds pretty erudite, doesn’t it. What the fuck is a paradigm and will it fit into my pick-up (almost forgot the hyphen) with all (Continue Reading)
To Start Anew
11/09/2024 Pat Barrett Add CommentFailure to blog. Since I started campaigning I’ve done very little blogging. My thoughts and energies have gone instead to TikTok of all things. At (Continue Reading)
When cultures come together…. along with other things.
09/02/2024 Pat Barrett Add CommentYou can be fooled when you assume a White person has an intimate relationship with Black people simply because they can actually clap in time (Continue Reading)
Lose? Are You Crazy?
08/21/2024 Pat Barrett Add CommentHere is the essence of why the democratic principle that says you must be willing to lose does not work for conservatives: they believe they (Continue Reading)
Who(m) do you choose?
07/03/2024 Pat Barrett Add CommentFirst consideration: is there anyone they love? If you need a definition of love you are out of this conversation. Think of Trump: who does (Continue Reading)
Time to hit the books and learn Italian
06/29/2024 Pat Barrett Add CommentNo joke, as Biden would say. Between the calls for Biden to move aside (for who[m]?) and finishing Stuart Steven’s new book, The Conspiracy to (Continue Reading)
Alito Tears His Britches
06/10/2024 Pat Barrett Add CommentIn response to a person declaring that as a faithful Catholic she doesn’t see how the Left can be worked with, read compromised with, and (Continue Reading)
The real shift
03/27/2024 Pat Barrett Add CommentFor all my life I and my friends have gently ridiculed conservatives and their “bible based” crack-pot ideas about lost tribes and the naked greed (Continue Reading)