Tag Archives: United States

Alienate

Words from Dic(tionary)

dictionary with letter A

Alienate:(v) cause someone to feel isolated or estranged: e.g. an urban environment that would alienate its inhabitants

Some words are symbiotic twins. (Are the words “symbiotic” and “twins” redundant? I’ll have to look that up.) Anyway, they work together to create a good or to create the potential for evil.

You will never need to alienate another human being as long as you’re willing to confront the mediocre in your life.

For instance, if you run across people who are better than you at some task, rather than trying to attack their acumen, you evolve and learn from them. If you accept the mediocre in your life, it becomes necessary to foster a disgruntled attitude and discover something unseemly about your competition.

All prejudice is grounded in a sense of mediocrity. I will tell you, if the white people in the South prior to the Civil War had raised offspring who could work the fields, toiling with the same diligence as the Africans, they wouldn’t have felt the need to alienate the hostages as inferior, but instead, would have joined them, shoulder to shoulder, pursuing their cotton-picking minds.

I know when I start becoming critical of others, it is a warning sign that I’ve accepted mediocre behavior, and because some strangers have dared to be superior to me, I begin to find fault and separate them from my field of play and stable of friends.

We do it in politics. We certainly do it in religion. We do it in corporations, by trying to spread rumors about another company’s hiring practices instead of allowing for the product itself to find place in the market.

Mediocre and alienate are twins.

If you are alienating somebody from your life right now, it’s because you’ve accepted some sort of mediocre attitude as normal. And if you’re mediocre, you will eventually need to alienate people who dare to excel.

It’s why in the United States it is more popular to talk about our uniqueness than it is to review our plans and critique our progress. When the stats and facts about our world placement in education, health care and even personal relationships is measured against other countries, we are not always found at the top. So this demands that we alienate. Some of our favorite terms:

  • third world
  • backward
  • non-Democratic
  • and ignorant

Great people don’t have to criticize anyone. They just evolve towards the new understanding instead of staying entrenched in tradition.

When you get rid of mediocre, you no longer feel the need to alienate other people. When you’re alienating people, it’s always a sign of some mediocre part of you trying to justify … blah.

 

Alien

Words from Dic(tionary)

dictionary with letter A

Alien: (adj.) belonging to a foreign country or nation

People are funny. (But it is a good idea not to laugh at them to their face.)

What I mean is, the boundaries we establish for personal contact and acceptability within the human race are not only bizarre, but always prove to be irrelevant.

Even though people from Africa didn’t decide to emigrate to the United States, but instead were brought over on a “Kidnap Carnival Cruise,” complete with chains and beatings, we still decided to insult them while they picked our cotton by continuing the mistreatment and relegating them to less-than-human status.

We did the same thing with the Chinese when we were building the railroad. We welcomed them to the country so they could lay our tracks, work cheap and receive a good old-fashioned American dose of abuse.

Matter of fact, every nationality which has come to this land has gone through a season of being rejected as tourists, beaten up as neighbors and eventually absorbed due to the passage of time and proving their usefulness to our general welfare.

I think what some Americans would like is to have the Mexicans come in, clean the houses, work the menial jobs, pick the fruit and lettuce–and then somehow or another, be transported back to their homes in Mexico nightly, so as not to interfere with our present “preferred mix.”

Yes, if the Southern plantation owners could have had the black folks pick cotton by day, and then jam them into a space ship to go back to the Dark Continent to sleep at night–only to return at dawn to work, we would have called that the Great American Ideal.

But doggone it, those foreigners who come here and work for us for pennies on the dollar start desiring things like citizenship, consideration and worst of all, equality.

I learned a long time ago in that what betrays me more than anything else are my needs that vary from my wants.

  • America needs cheap labor and souls who have been raised in a culture with a great work ethic.
  • The fact that we don’t want them to live next door to us creates the conflict.

So I guess the only choice is to either lessen our need or change our wants.

Yes … that will truly be an alien concept to us all.

 

Ain’t

Words from Dic(tionary)

dictionary with letter A

Ain’t: contraction of am not, are not, is not, will not: e.g. if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

Every three weeks I experience a ritual. Yes, quite predictable. Every twenty-one days, I get a note from some austere, tight-assed grammarian, commenting on my wording, syntax or style of expressing ideas. These people have three things in common:

  • They’re always sure they’re right.
  • They’re always sure I’m wrong.
  • They are affronted by my lack of understanding of proper writing and suggest that I go back to Hoboken or wherever I last mis-learned my craft.

My thought? The best way to get a pain in the ass is to sit on it too long doing nothing. Thus the critic.

I will tell you this: words are powerful when they communicate and useless when they don’t.

For instance, there are passages from the Good Book, which I am told is divinely inspired, which are incomprehensible. I will wager that most people who teach in English departments and promote the great works of literature have not read those volumes themselves but instead, rely on Cliff notes to summarize the material.

Let’s be honest: “I ain’t gonna study war no more” is the best way to express that sentiment. Other options, like, “I am not going to study war anymore” seem to lose some punch. Or how about this one? “The pursuit of studying war has lost its meaning for me.” I guess at that point it would change from being a Negro spiritual to a Harvard spiritual.

Even though my English teachers told me that the word “ain’t” should never be used and would eventually become obsolete, the truth is, the only thing that became obsolete were my English teachers.

Here are three quick criteria for good writing:

  1. It’s understandable.
  2. It tells a story.
  3. The story lives on.

Anything other than this is just an exercise in futility which doesn’t create muscles anywhere … except in your self-righteous ego.

Afghanistan

Words from Dic(tionary)

dictionary with letter A

Afghanistan: a mountainous, landlocked republic in central Asia, pop. 16,600,000. Capital, Kabul; official languages, Pashto and Dari

We were enraged. (Well, at least involved in an aggressive pout.)

When the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1980, the US took a stand against such aggression, and even boycotted the Olympics in Moscow to express our displeasure.

Equally displeased with the invasion were the Afghans.

But what the Soviet Union did not understand, with all of its blustering bombing and Bolshevism, is that the people of Afghanistan are very adept at being invaded and repelling all would-be conquorers with both resolve and their terrain–which is extremely unfriendly to foreigners.

So candidly, when the United States came up with the notion of invading Afghanistan following the 9/11 tragedy, I was a bit startled and nervous about the conclusions. Of courrse, there was a certain amount of necessary chest-thumping which follows the atrocity of murdering three thousand American citizens on our own soil.

But history does not particularly care whether our cause is noble. It demands respect and observance.

So even though we thought we were more skilled at military causes than the lumbering Soviet Union, we found that our mission into Afghanistan was equally as frustrating, intimidating and foreboding. There are some things that shouldn’t be done because they can’t be done.

It is difficult to understand this particular axiom when we are engorged with patriotism and fueled by rage. It would have been much better to send in twenty specially trained platoons to locate Osama bin Laden and then extract them as quickly as possible when the mission either succeeded or failed.

Foot soldiers on the ground demand a footing, which Afghanistan does not adequately provide.

  • Did we learn?
  • Will we understand that justice and retribution are rarely the same thing?
  • Will we comprehend that people who are constantly invaded become more suited to repelling invaders?

I don’t know–but it is difficult to believe that Afghanistan is any better off today than it was when the American flag was first unfurled on its borders.

(And remember, it is not unpatriotic to question the actions of your nation. It is actually our patriotic duty to find better and more enlightened paths.)

　

 

Affront

Words from Dic(tionary)

dictionary with letter A

Afghanistan: a mountainous, landlocked republic in central Asia, pop. 16,600,000. Capital, Kabul; official languages, Pashto and Dari

We were enraged. (Well, at least involved in an aggressive pout.)

When the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1980, the US took a stand against such aggression, and even boycotted the Olympics in Moscow to express our displeasure.

Equally displeased with the invasion were the Afghans.

But what the Soviet Union did not understand, with all of its blustering bombing and Bolshevism, is that the people of Afghanistan are very adept at being invaded and repelling all would-be conquorers with both resolve and their terrain–which is extremely unfriendly to foreigners.

So candidly, when the United States came up with the notion of invading Afghanistan following the 9/11 tragedy, I was a bit startled and nervous about the conclusions. Of courrse, there was a certain amount of necessary chest-thumping which follows the atrocity of murdering three thousand American citizens on our own soil.

But history does not particularly care whether our cause is noble. It demands respect and observance.

So even though we thought we were more skilled at military causes than the lumbering Soviet Union, we found that our mission into Afghanistan was equally as frustrating, intimidating and foreboding. There are some things that shouldn’t be done because they can’t be done.

It is difficult to understand this particular axiom when we are engorged with patriotism and fueled by rage. It would have been much better to send in twenty specially trained platoons to locate Osama bin Laden and then extract them as quickly as possible when the mission either succeeded or failed.

Foot soldiers on the ground demand a footing, which Afghanistan does not adequately provide.

  • Did we learn?
  • Will we understand that justice and retribution are rarely the same thing?
  • Will we comprehend that people who are constantly invaded become more suited to repelling invaders?

I don’t know–but it is difficult to believe that Afghanistan is any better off today than it was when the American flag was first unfurled on its borders.

(And remember, it is not unpatriotic to question the actions of your nation. It is actually our patriotic duty to find better and more enlightened paths.)

　

Active

Words from Dic(tionary)

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter AActive: (adj.) 1.of a person engaging or ready to engage in physically energetic pursuits 2. working; operative: e.g. the mill was active until 1970

I was so glad s I thought of it.

About nine months ago my knees started bothering me.

I have mistreated them profusely, being very active with my large frame–lifting, traveling, playing tennis and all sorts of physical exertions which my knees never actually signed on for.

When I realized I was no longer going to be able to run and goof around on them anymore without having a surgeon go in to rip my legs apart, disabling me for months, I was glad I saw the young man in Washington, D.C. who served as a courier between the Capitol and the White House. It was his job to get messages written on paper transferred as quickly as possible from one place to another. You know how he decided to do it?

Roller blades.

It was a magnificent sight. Even though he was completely young and healthy, he still realized that walking and running were insufficient to the need, and would result in exhaustion at the end of the day. So he glided along on his wheels, weaving in and out of foot traffic, cruising to his destination.

And it looked like he was having the time of his life, while performing a meaningful duty.

Wheels.

  • They made his life possible.
  • They made his life easier.
  • They allowed him to do his job well.

So my desire to be active, even though my knees have chosen retirement,  was made possible because of the vision of that young Mercury, zooming through the avenues of our nation’s Capital, came to my mind. Therefore I wasn’t nearly as frightened about getting some wheels of my own when I needed to get somewhere quickly.

I haven’t given up on walking. I’ve just given up on being stubborn.

If wheels will get me to where I can deliver the message that needs to be heard, then thank God for remaining active.

And by the way, thank God for the cave man … who discovered the miracle.

 

Across

Words from Dic(tionary)

by J. R. Practixdirtied by bigotry.

dictionary with letter A

Across: (adj.) 1.the motion of moving back and forth; e.g. I moved across the table  2. an expression of location; e.g. the store is across town.

I was trying to count it in my mind.

I think it’s about twenty-five. Yes, I have gone across this nation of the United States about twenty-five times in my life. Somebody asked me if I did all of this “jaunting” because I enjoy traveling.

Absolutely not.

I hate long drives. My butt gets tired sittin’ in my van–and how to stay regular on an irregular schedule has yet to be discovered by any mortal.

I was just never satisfied to believe what I hear.

Case in point: growing up in Ohio, I was taught that people in the south hated blacks. I was informed that folks who lived in California were all hippies. And New York City moved along so fast that if you stopped to catch your breath, you would probably get hit by a bus.

It’s just easy to sit at home and listen to all the tales about humanity and start thinking they’re part of your own experience instead of just rumors floating your way. That’s why we get the notion that “Asian people are good at math” and “Europeans make the best wine.”

Prejudice is not the by-product of an experience. It is the absence of one.

I wasn’t satisfied to listen to the tales of travelers who brought back THEIR rendition of the human race. I guess this is why I like the statement in the Bible where it says that “Jesus passed by.”

After all, you can’t sit your butt down in a carpenter’s shop in Nazareth and spout what you think about the world without going across the land to meet real people in their real situations. If Jesus hadn’t been itinerant, he would have been just another Jewish prophet instead of a friend to the world.

So when I went across this land to the south, I found out that people there didn’t hate blacks any more than folks in Cleveland.

  • Citizens of New York actually DO slow down–because honestly, there’s a lot of traffic jams.
  • And Bakersfield, California, has fewer hippies in it than any place in the world.

But you have to go there to find out. You won’t learn it on CNN or Fox News.

So perhaps my most joyous achievement is that I’ve gone across America, met her people and can truthfully tell you that I love them.

I can recommend getting your information from the horse’s mouth, instead of having it handed down to you from paws that just might be dirtied … by bigotry.

Abroad

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter A

Abroad: (adv.): 1. in or to a foreign country or countries: we usually go abroad for a week in June 2. in different directions; over a wide area: the seeds were scattered abroad.

I always wanted to say “abroad.” Unfortunately, you must have a certain amount of money, clout and look good in an Ascot to be able to mutter the word. I once tried wearing an Ascot, but it ended up looking like I had tied a fancy piece of cloth around my neck to cover up an ugly goiter.

“Abroad” is one of those words people used when I was a kid to refer to countries that were not nearly as freedom-loving as America, but had much prettier stuff. It amazed me that the United States was the greatest nation on earth but you had to go to Greece to see the Parthenon, Paris to check out the Eiffel Tower and London to hear Big Ben ring his chimes.

Maybe that’s the whole problem–we settle for mediocrity in our own lives while maintaining comfort, but yearn to go “abroad” to check out the really cool stuff. I don’t know when “abroad” became “overseas,”  or then changed to specifics like Europe, Africa, Australia.

But I still think if I ever became wealthy, I would be tempted to rub it into people’s noses by telling them I was going to the ambiguous nation of “abroad” so as to make them wonder for a longer period of time, exactly how exotic my destination might be.

I did try it once. I was going on a trip to Toronto, Canada, and informed some friends that I would be out-of-pocket for a few weeks because I would be “abroad.” Looking at me like I had just registered a really loud belch, they inquired exactly where “abroad” was going to be.

I wanted to lie. I really wanted to make up some country that none of them would be familiar with, but frightened to question lest they appeared ignorant. But my nasty penchant for telling the truth, mingled with my lack of creative spontaneity, caused me to blurt out, “Canada.”

They all thought this was hilarious. For after all, EVERYONE knows–Canada is not abroad. It’s attached.

There’s the rule. You can’t say you’re going abroad if where you’re going is hooked to your homeland.  So “abroad” is anything that requires you cross a body of water.

And I think that would mean an ocean instead of a creek.