In interviews with Eliot Cohen, the authors, Saldin and Teles (terrific book so far) quote him referring to Obama’s “cultural condescension” and to how furious (Continue Reading)
Pat’s Polemics
On-going brilliance
Why do they have to keep talking about it?
06/01/2021 Pat Barrett 5 CommentsListening to and watching the coverage of the commemoration of the Tulsa 1921 massacre, I recalled the number of times I’ve heard people express impatience (Continue Reading)
Cultural holdovers
05/25/2021 Pat Barrett Add CommentCustoms remain embedded with us after the initial raison-d’etre is gone. The other day my wife said she did not like to sit out on (Continue Reading)
Why Do Certain Things?
05/23/2021 Pat Barrett Add CommentOver several decades on foreign language teacher listservs, a debate could be found over whether teaching the language should focus just on the language, not (Continue Reading)
What I’m proud of
05/23/2021 Pat Barrett Add CommentA number of things plus some I’m not so proud of. But one thing these days that stands out is the way I insisted my (Continue Reading)
Current Health of Me
05/22/2021 Pat Barrett Add CommentSince my last post to this topic I have been on a very steady exercise program, actually two programs, one CORE I do at home (Continue Reading)
Double consciousness – we all possess it now
05/11/2021 Pat Barrett Add CommentFor decades, going back to W.E.B. Dubois, African-Americans have told of the double consciousness they carry within: who they are and who they really are. (Continue Reading)
(Re)Starting Harry Potter
05/11/2021 Pat Barrett Add CommentSo I’ve started. I’ve read the first page of Harry Potter book the first first in English, then in Spanish, then in Russian, then in (Continue Reading)
1619, Roadmap to Democracy, teaching history
05/09/2021 Pat Barrett Add CommentNo doubt this is well-trod ground, going by the name no doubt of the inquiry method or some such. It is frequently used by teachers (Continue Reading)
Tapping Into the Sacred Force
05/02/2021 Pat Barrett Add CommentThe title of a 2013 blog item here dealt with that sense that musicians may be “plugging in” to a force field for the energy (Continue Reading)
The role of morphology
04/29/2021 Pat Barrett Add CommentReading Matthew’s Morphology inspires observations such as the following: The -s of 3rd p. sg. present is deleted or not present in the subjunctive. However, (Continue Reading)
Whence the anger?
02/21/2021 Pat Barrett Add CommentAmericans carry beneath their Hail Fellow Well Met exterior a lot of anger. You can see it when you are out driving. But where does (Continue Reading)
Pick up Ladder anew Feb. 4
02/07/2021 Pat Barrett Add CommentAs I picked up my Reading Ladder after neglecting it since January 2, I noted that each page I read contained a gem. Here are (Continue Reading)
What there is pattern, there is intention
02/01/2021 Pat Barrett 1 CommentWhen artists bypass rules and structures, their work can sound chaotic to anyone expecting the traditional patterns of rhyme, harmony, rhythm, tone, pitch, scale, mode, (Continue Reading)
How are those leeches workin’ for ya?
01/29/2021 Pat Barrett Add CommentWe need to revamp our concepts of just desserts. For example, when Todd Aikens said, “Doctors tell me that women have a way of shutting (Continue Reading)
Calling the moves
01/26/2021 Pat Barrett Add CommentSquare dancing is directed by a “caller,” a person who calls out the next move: do-si-do, swing your partner, etc. I thought of that when (Continue Reading)
Anne Applebaum hits a new note
01/25/2021 Pat Barrett Add CommentThis never occurred to me, that we might just change the subject. That is Anne Applebaum’s suggestion. Why change the subject? Because we will never (Continue Reading)
Common expressions I don’t use
01/23/2021 Pat Barrett Add CommentThe first one is ‘come with,’ as in ‘are you going to come with?’ or ‘decide whether you want to come with or not’. I (Continue Reading)
A dirty grammar story
01/23/2021 Pat Barrett Add CommentThere is a simple dirty joke that work in Spanish but not in English based on differences in grammar. The story goes like this: a (Continue Reading)
Back to school……?
01/18/2021 Pat Barrett 1 CommentOur district has voted – the Board – to go back to a choice between in class an on-line program or classroom program. It sounds (Continue Reading)
Another What if….?
01/17/2021 Pat Barrett Add CommentWhat if we had hanged the leaders of the Confederacy? Would Reconstruction have continued? Would Blacks in the South continue living under “slavery by another (Continue Reading)
Up to here
01/16/2021 Pat Barrett 8 CommentsMaybe we felt bad about Trump supporters and Trump voters being ridiculed by the leading-lights of the major culture, esp for thinking they are the (Continue Reading)
Pink
01/16/2021 Pat Barrett Add Comment“What I’ve been going toward is this idea that pink is the inverse of black, or kind of the flip side—it’s part of it. Black (Continue Reading)