Tag Archives: duck

Cack

j-r-practix-with-border-2

Cack: (n) a talkative, gossiping person

I have a new favorite word!

Cack!

How perfect! Does that not describe every single gossiping soul that you have encountered in your life?

They cackle–like poultry. And this stimulated me to realize that there are three types:

There’s the duck cack:

This is the person who tears another individual’s character apart, under the guise of concern and prayerful wishes, ducking away from the responsibility of being a back-biting loser.

This is followed by the chicken cack:

“Cluck, cluck, cluck, cluck” all day long, pecking at the integrity of others, only to turn chicken and deny their involvement when confronted. They’ll even tell you who started the rumor.

And finally, there’s the goose cack:

These are people who are so sure that they’re direct emissaries from the Lord God Almighty that they’ll take their long neck and beak and unapologetically stick it up your ass–goosing you.

After all, when you speak for the heavens, you’re certainly not concerned about earthly criticism.

Here’s the question:

Can I catch myself when I become a cack?

Can I keep myself from barnyard nonsense so I have the right to live in the house with other sensible human beings?

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Blown

Blown: (adj) past participle of blow

Dictionary BYou can’t make a duck bark. It’s a simple statement.

Therefore, it’s virtually impossible to get your dog to quack.

Patterns of behavior are established through choice and genetics, and maintained by stubborn tradition.

So as I listen to people complain about leaders who are causing turmoil and steering the American public into bad decisions, I look on, perplexed.

  • Nobody can make me prejudiced.
  • Nobody can turn me into a bigot.
  • Nobody can suddenly convince me that black people are evil or that people from China are out to get me.

I am the one who is ready to hear the nonsense.

So therefore, it is the responsibility of our citizens to own up to the fact that the transitions which have occurred in our lifetime, which have promoted truth or at least tolerance, have been avoided by many, who have sat by, pretending to be part of the parade, only to whisper complaints to each other as the floats go by.

There is a disgruntled spirit in our country which is blown by every ill wind.

It is unconfronted.

It is denied–as we pretend that everything is alright.

It isn’t.

We are still one of the most bigoted countries in the world, intolerant of the behavior of each other, and willing to become violent if someone takes our parking space.

I don’t think we will change these attitudes by hatching meanness to address the meanness.

But as long as people are blown by every wind of doctrine and every carnival barker, we will suffer under a cloud of uncertainty.

 

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Anthropology

dictionary with letter A

Anthropology: (n) the comparative study of human societies and cultures

There is an abiding, if not persistent, inclination to believe that intelligence invokes individuality.

In other words, because the human race possesses greater brain power than, let’s say, the duck, we are segregated into a multitude of clumps that not only differentiate us from one another, creating chasms of separation, sprouting suspicion.

Anthropology would do a great service to humankind if it pursued the premise that we are much more like the duck. No one sits around and discusses how ducks from the south are different from ducks from the north. (Maybe it’s because they fly south for the winter and north for the summer. Of course, most of our aging human population has similar travel plans.)

It is ironic to me that a scientific community which fastidiously places us within the animal kingdom as brother and sister to our jungle family suddenly decides to separate us from that kingdom when it comes to matters of race and culture.

Is it possible that we would be better off if we punctuated our similarities instead of showcasing our differences?

  • For instance, does someone born in Siberia who is transplanted right after birth to Southern California still prefer to wear parkas?
  • Would a native of Africa, born in the Serengeti, if translated to London-town, constantly find him or herself pining to hunt with a spear?

Can we really continue to take the attributes that are engrained and nearly beaten into us by our families and pretend that they’re a part of our natural desire?

Very few people ever consider the personality profile of an individual chimpanzee. Yet in some sort of “Homo sapien silliness,” we think that each and every one of us is a snowflake falling from the heavens, with our own particular jagged edges.

Yes, I believe anthropology would provide a salvation to humans if the science explained how much we share in common.

We would certainly be more like the duck, and realize that our particular quack … is not that special. 

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A-bomb

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter A

A-bomb: n. short for Atom Bomb.

I was able to duck but not cover.

When they tried to teach our second-grade class what to do in case of an atomic bomb landing somewhere near our school yard, the huskiness of my being permitted me to duck, as required, but I was unable to get UNDER my desk, to cover. My little second-grade desk was unwilling to provide shelter for my large self.

It was rather embarrassing. Matter of fact, my friends, who loved me, were nearly moved to tears, realizing that they would have to continue their school life after the bomb cleared away, with me destroyed by being uncovered. They were SO overwrought that I started to cry, because I did not want to have an atomic bomb eating away at my body, butt first.

It was very real to my eight-year-old mind. Of course, no one explained to us that an atomic bomb had little respect for a small wooden desks, and would not honor them as adequate defense.

But since none of us really knew what an A-bomb was, we were only concerned about our part and responsibility of ducking and covering, which I was only prepared to fulfill half-heartedly.

It was a strange time. And it was a bizarre notion–to think that at any moment the world as you knew it could disintegrate and burn up like onion skin paper in a hot fire, simply because some nation was crazy enough to believe they could conquer someone by disintegrating their environment.

I was so distraught after finding out that I was unable to cover beneath my little desk that my teacher went out into the storage building and found a larger desk for me, which would accommodate the full extent of my duck, as I covered.

I was moved.

The entire class was relieved, and somewhere deep in my heart, I believed that the Soviet Union found out that we had once again foiled their plans by discovering a way to protect ALL of our citizenry–by acquiring larger furniture.

This is my experience with the A-bomb.

Fortunately, I have never had to implement this particular safety procedure, although occasionally, just for old times sake and fun, I will duck.