Apartheid

dictionary with letter A

Apartheid: (n) in South Africa, a policy and system of segregation or discrimination based on the grounds of race.

If you’re an American citizen, you had little to no chance of having an understanding of Apartheid unless you allowed yourself the blessing of reading up on it and discovering all the subtleties.

In the 1980’s, when the issue was inflamed with turmoil, the communique in our country was to stay out of it or to side with the South African government by offering some sort of lame excuse for the existence of such prejudice.

Matter of fact, there were religious leaders in this country who insisted that Apartheid was necessary because without it, the natives (who just happened to be black) would tear one another apart because of their tribal conflicts. There were actually people who accepted this reasoning as being reasonable.

It is similar to those in the North and South during the Civil War, who feared that freeing the slaves would unleash an unholy terror of massacre and mayhem on the white population.

Matter of fact, throughout history we have decided to keep a bad system in place rather than risk bettering it. Of course, every time we’ve done this, the proponents of such foolishness have ended up looking like idiots–as those religious leaders of the 1980’s do today with regard to Apartheid.

I do not really care what tenets of philosophy and religion you adhere to, as long as you will agree with me that even though progress often takes time, the energy of the universe is always moving towards freedom.

There are countries in the world today which subjugate their population and terrorize their brothers and sisters with all sorts of rules and regulations, which will soon be as extinct as the dinosaurs and viewed by history as oppressive lunacy.

You can’t take freedom away from people without being viewed a tyrant.

So when I heard about Apartheid in the 1980’s and listened to both sides of the issue, I realized that it is a God-given right (of course, by God) for people to be as foolish or intelligent as they want to be, as long as they are free to do so.

We cannot control the actions of human beings. What we can do is provide the liberty, without question, for them to play out their philosophy quickly.

Anything written on paper that proclaims a truth will surely need to be amended … by the spirit of liberty.

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Thank you for enjoying Words from Dic(tionary) —  J.R. Practix

Anti-static

dictionary with letter A

Anti-static: (adj) of preventing the presence of static electricity or reducing its effect.

I will ask you in the forefront to please forgive this pensman for taking liberties with this word in order to climb up on my soapbox and postulate.

I know the word “anti-static” refers to electrical currents and the elimination of such activity, but I would like to transfer that notion to the general climate of static which is aggravating the potential sweet hum of peacefulness in our world today.

The Middle East is bound and determined to draw us into a premature Armageddon, so like little brats, we can once and for all prove there is a God by throwing such a severe tantrum that He must come and punish all of His children.

Not for me.

My message to President Obama, Congress and all those who would feel that they can live by the sword without suffering the curse of its blade, is very simple:

We should create a giant box for the Middle East and let them fight it out amongst each other until they grow tired of burying their children.

If we do not do this, the allure of war to please what can only be considered a damnable god, will prompt them, season upon season, to skirmish and hatch new rumors of mayhem.

For after all, we don’t discipline our children by entering into the scuffle and punching it out alongside them. And since we are all children of Earth, it stands to reason that it is ridiculous to try to correct our brothers and sisters by rolling in the dirt with them and trying to lay a haymaker.

So let me present this to you very succinctly:

Since we Americans have the military might and power to bomb the Middle East, might we have the same capability to surround them, refusing anything to go in or come out, and squeeze them with a gigantic world-wide siege, forcing them to the bargaining table, or causing them to no longer to provide food for their dinner table?

That’s right.

Nothing in or out.

Let them fight.

After all, they won’t kill any more than they already have, and if they do, let us realize that their motivation is not nearly as strong to destroy America and Europe as it is to punish their own religious families who don’t submit to every single precept of Koran law.

To do this, of course, we must quickly and intelligently wean ourselves off of the dastardly need for oil which trickles from such scoundrel surroundings.

I cannot honor my country for joining a war that is prophesied to be at the center of the end of the world. Even if you have no interest in the Bible, just consider it bad luck to pursue a faulty logic that places us anywhere near the epicenter of the superstitious conclusion of our planet.

Don’t go there.

We are not going to be able to stop the senseless slaughter because that execution is willed by the leadership of the people we are trying to save.

It is not in our best interest.

Dammit, it’s not in any interest, other than the spiritual ego of maniacs who have forgotten that God looks like people.

The best anti-static for this world is to refuse to leap, hop and jump in the direction of everything that goes bump in the night.

 

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Thank you for enjoying Words from Dic(tionary) —  J.R. Practix

Aghast

Words from Dic(tionary)

dictionary with letter AAghast: (adj.) filled with horror or shock: e.g. when the news came out they were aghast

I was trying to figure out what horrifies me.

Like most human beings, I think I’m horrified by violence, destruction, death and mayhem. That’s good. (I mean, it’s bad. But it’s good that I think it’s bad.)

But there are other things that horrify me. I’m talking about that shock that startles your heart and makes your bowels tingle.

  • As I’ve gotten older, I’ve become horrified by the notion of performing activities I am not presently suited for in any way, shape or form.
  • I’m a little bit horrified when I watch television and realize that we have sunk to an era of fantasy, presumption, silliness and self-involvement.
  • I’m horrified by killing. I think I already said that.
  • I’m horrified by pornography. I think what horrifies me about that subject is the notion that women, who consist of half of the population on the planet, can so easily be trivialized and brutalized through a medium which is gaining more acceptance every day.
  • I’m aghast at prejudice–so much so that I’m willing to root it out in myself.
  • I’m aghast when I get around people who are overly confident in their abilities because it shows that improvement is so far from their minds.
  • I don’t think I’ve ever been horrified by a horror movie. That’s rather bizarre.
  • Yet I am truly horrified by death–my own in particular. I know as a person of faith, I should welcome the experience, or at least not be terrified of the journey, but that isn’t really my sensation. I enjoy life and I’m just not relishing the idea of seeing it end, especially since I am fully cognizant that things will be able to continue without me.

I guess what leaves me aghast is the notion of how easy it would be for us to be kinder to one another, yet we make the more difficult choice to conjure evil.

The thing I know above all else is that human beings don’t need any help from the dark regions of hell in order to come up with a way to destroy one another. Yes, I guess that makes me aghast.

For the truly horrifying part of life is realizing how easy it would be to create peace … as we blithely purchase more weapons for war.

Adolescence

Words from Dic(tionary)

dictionary with letter AAdolescence: (adj) period of time of a young person in the process of developing from a child into an adult

I think we have to make up our minds.

We have to decide if we worship youth, teenage years and schoolhouse memories, or whether we freely admit those years were the terror of our lives, a dangerous time when we were constantly threatening ourselves with mayhem, murder and decaptitation.

Here’s the truth, (I feel I can speak this because I raised six teenage sons.)

There is nothing redeemable about human beings between the ages of twelve and twenty-five.

Now, it’s not that we hate them–and of course,  the human race can’t progress without going through this bizarre transformation. We just can’t project a maturity on them which does not exist, while simultaneously expressing disapproval when they fail to measure up.

Adolescence is a form of insanity.

Although it’s not clinically diagnosed, it is universally accepted by those who have experience in this arena as a struggle to the death to survive the amphitheater of hormones and bad decisions, to escape the gladiatorial battle and become a real citizen.

You may think I’m overstating it, but actually, there’s a much greater danger in understating how the decisions made by young humans, with their limited experience, social consciousness and spiritual insight, are frightening and make me want to crawl under the covers.

For instance, God, for some reason, thought it was funny to give sexual desire to thirteen-year-olds. Even though I am sure there is some humor mingled in to that mix, it also is further complicated by the fact that girls of that age are extraordinarily fertile and able to procreate at an amazing rate which would make rabbits blush.

We also expect them to decide what to do with the rest of their lives, at this season when picking out what they’re going to wear to school seems to stupefy them.

So what is the best thing to do with an adolescent?

1. Treat them as mental patients, without ever letting them know that you’ve privately had them committed.

2. Try to get them to reason out their decisions even though the process may seem a bit befuddling to you.

3. Never assume they’re going to do the right thing and always know the wrong thing will be available–and the amount of pressure they get will determine their level of purity.

4. Never be afraid to converse or confront until you’re satisfied with some sort of mutual conclusion.

Of course, due to space and time, I will not even address how adolescence continues to plague us into our fifties and sixties … if we don’t address the real blemishes in our lives.