When I saw the faces of the young people caught up in the police dragnet in Belarus, I saw the future of our children and (Continue Reading)
Pat’s Polemics
My new Web site
Reason in, Reason out
01/05/2022 Pat Barrett 3 CommentsMichael Steele, former RNC chair, said a friend asked him a good question concerning the Trump/Insurrection supporters: how do you reason someone out of a (Continue Reading)
What I Am Most Proud Of
12/10/2021 Pat Barrett 3 CommentsIn his Atlantic article, “Are We Doomed?” George Packer has two lines that went to something I’ve been saying ever since the rise of Trump. (Continue Reading)
The Fascists Among Us
11/14/2021 Pat Barrett 6 CommentsHaven’t you met natural fascists? Don’t give me the salesman b.s. about “I’ve never met a man I didn’t like.” You know who they are, (Continue Reading)
Oops!
10/27/2021 Pat Barrett 2 CommentsOops could be the name of a category. It is when a point or fact is evidenced as the product of another topic entirely. Here’s (Continue Reading)
The Cicadas
08/15/2021 Pat Barrett Add CommentWe are not surprised when the cicadas emerge. Why are we when the Taliban emerge? What a shock! American troops start their precipitous withdrawal and (Continue Reading)
My Wife, the Genius
08/08/2021 Pat Barrett 1 CommentSomewhere in this blog there may be a mention of my wife’s uncanny ability to size up a room full of people and indicate if (Continue Reading)
Two-tiered thinking
07/29/2021 Pat Barrett 1 CommentAdvanced Republicans (one step above Australopithecines) can speak on two tiers: one is to their base and the other comes from that one eye on (Continue Reading)
Whence sprang Liz Cheney?
07/29/2021 Pat Barrett Add CommentLuke Skywalker sprang from the loins of Darth Vader; Liz Cheney sprang from the loins of Dr. Evil. How does one explain this?Cheney is a (Continue Reading)
MSNBC DEADLINE WHITE HOUSE JULY 27, 2021
07/27/2021 Pat Barrett 4 CommentsNicolle Wallace, host, moderates as Matt Dowd and Eddie Glaude reflect on the testimony of Capitol Police Officer during the Jan. 6 Insurrection hearings. Nothing (Continue Reading)
The Trump Presidential Library
07/25/2021 Pat Barrett 2 CommentsThe Trump Presidential Library is not yet in the offing but it might be on the horizon and what will it look like?A long wall (Continue Reading)
Why voter suppression now?
06/26/2021 Pat Barrett Add CommentAnti-Black laws and ordinances depriving Blacks of their civil rights were passed in the ante-bellum North once slavery was outlawed in many states of the (Continue Reading)
Juneteenth
06/17/2021 Pat Barrett Add CommentSigned into law today is a new federal holiday celebrating the time in June, 1865, that slaves in Texas found out they had been freed (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)
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)
In Their Bosom
01/01/2021 Pat Barrett Add CommentThe Old South (there is no new South) kept in its bosom the seeds of its own destruction. Fifty-five percent of African-Americans live in the (Continue Reading)
His niece nailed it
12/29/2020 Pat Barrett Add CommentMary Trump said Trump will bypass the inauguration of Biden not because he hates he lost or because he hates Biden or because he wants (Continue Reading)
Listen To Donny Deutsch!
12/08/2020 Pat Barrett Add CommentOn Morning Joe on Dec. 7, 2020, Donny Deutsch made an extremely clear statement. Joe passed over it because I believe he still has trouble (Continue Reading)
Symbols are important
12/02/2020 Pat Barrett Add CommentOur language sometimes scrunches word meaning down into what is commonly heard. Symbolism is one of those words, as in “It’s only symbolic.” That takes (Continue Reading)
Slicing carefullly what commentators say
11/13/2020 Pat Barrett Add CommentA while back, around 2018, I took Tucker Carlson to task (I hear he was devastated on reading my blog) for saying that demographic change (Continue Reading)
Role Reversal
10/26/2020 Pat Barrett Add CommentWith the election upon us, I’ll post this list of reversals, things the conservatives accused liberals of that have proved to be true of them, (Continue Reading)
Many voices make one think
10/24/2020 Pat Barrett Add CommentBack when I worked as a therapist in a mental health center, a psychiatric clinic, we charted our contacts with our patients. The medical model (Continue Reading)