Pat’s Polemics

This message came from Wes, our guru: >I once heard someone say “People really are basically good. It’s society >that makes them bad.” I thought, (Continue Reading)

Have you ever watched big kids throw around an object like a ball that a little kid is trying to get? They throw it just (Continue Reading)

There’s a guy on the Latin lists who regularly defends the validity of IQ score as a reflection of ability. The fact is, IQ does (Continue Reading)

Let’s see how divisive I can get. Journalists applied the labels ’divisive’ and ’hate-filled’ to the Rev. Wright’s sermons. While I didn’t hear any of (Continue Reading)

On CNN, a spokesperson for an organization called Citizens for Community Values piqued my interest. Going to their website, I discovered it is a James (Continue Reading)

Stanley Fish wrote a column in the NYT on Monday’s website: In it he says that norms are set by society and those who fall (Continue Reading)

Tonight offered an interesting contrast in social change. I checked this out with my wife and she agreed with me (miracle!). Her niece’s mother got (Continue Reading)

I wonder where this phrase started. I’ve tried googling it with some help from flteach members but I still have a lot of work to (Continue Reading)

Bunny’s post hit a nerve. She says exactly what I’ve said in the teeth of massive denial on the part of some List members: kids (Continue Reading)

A poster wrote, concerning the Sarkozy divorce: “I wanted to check out the latest on the Sarkozy divorce and was surprised that my google query (Continue Reading)

“OMG, they’re coming for us!” The upsurge in discussions of school violence stemming from two incidents in two days reveals the lack of knowledge that (Continue Reading)

Wes gave flteach members a website to go to on Amazon. The book is about how to advertise in various cultures based on the author’s (Continue Reading)

I read the following post on a Latin list: “I tell my students, as some of you have heard me say, that language does not (Continue Reading)

Look at the dates of the “assignments” listed here (this is from a List I am on that deals with slavery): The court records of (Continue Reading)

Today there was a piece on npr about the Jackson (Mississippi) Advocate, a newspaper renowned for its strong civil rights stand. What is germane to (Continue Reading)

Despite being a modest sort, I am forced to admit that I live in a tony, up-scale neighborhood. I found it interesting that one of (Continue Reading)

Just to encourage those of you who are trying to hold on to some values and standards in a new America where both have been (Continue Reading)