french

Thursday, September 25, 2008
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A LAND OF 1001 WATERGATES
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A Watergate-style scandal is unthinkable in Armenia. When told the President had lied to the people, an Armenian is quoted as having said: “So what? They lie to us all the time.”
*
MEMOS TO A YOUNG WRITER
************************************************
Never insult readers who insult you. Analyze them. No insult can be as lethal as a good analysis.
*
Once about ten years ago I called one of my borodakhos and anpardavan detractors “an inbred moron.” Ever since then he has been trying to get even by reading and contradicting everything I say even when doing so means proving me right.
*
Early success means early death. Mozart, Schubert, Chopin – dead in their thirties. Shakespeare, Beethoven, Dostoevsky – dead in their fifties. Another disadvantage of dying young is that you will never have a chance to read the obituaries of your detractors. Aim therefore at posthumous immortality.
*
ON BELIEF SYSTEMS
************************************
They are all alike in the sense that they teach the brain to be a useless organ and thinking for oneself a dangerous enterprise that may lead to heresy and eternal hellfire. In that sense fundamentalist fanatics of all religions are more vegetable than animal, and more mineral than vegetable.
*
ON GENOCIDE RECOGNITION
*****************************************
We have a better chance of achieving our goal if we appeal to the conscience of civilized Turks. To do so, however, we must first civilize ourselves.
*
ON BEING POLITICALLY CORRECT
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The only reason we have not yet become a recognizable object of ridicule is that we keep talking about massacres, and massacres, as everyone knows, are no joke.
*
QUOTATION OF THE DAY
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Noel Coward: “How would I like to be remembered? By my charm, you silly bugger.”
#
Friday, September 26, 2008
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UN HOMBRE CON COJONES
****************************************
During the Soviet era, I remember, one of our brilliant academics, and no doubt a proud descendant of David of Sassoun, visited the Homeland and upon his return published a ferocious attack on lazy hotel waiters who, it seems, responded to his commands with the blinding speed of Slow Poke Rodriguez. This gentleman, it appears, was accustomed to dealing with waiters who moved with the alacrity of Speedy Gonzelez. And to think that we trust the education of our boys and girls to this type of elitist riffraff and crème de la scum.
*
MEDIOCRITIES AND PLAGIARISTS
**********************************************
If a writer is Armenian and is not internationally known, like say, Arlen and Saroyan, he is generally dismissed as a mediocrity. If, one the other hand, he is good, he is accused of plagiarism. Even Zarian was dismissed as a plagiarist by both Oshagan pere et fils. And worse! I once heard one of our academics assert that Zarian was a hireling of the KGB. Since I have myself been accused of being an agent of the KGB, the CIA, the Mossad, and the Grey Wolves, I feel justified in adopting a skeptical stance towards all such charges.
*
SWAN SONG
************************
If I ever write an autobiography I will title it THE SWAN SONG OF A JACKASS: THE MEMOIRS OF AN ARMENIAN WRITER.
*
QUOTATION OF THE DAY
****************************************
Charles Dickens: “It's over, and can't be helped, and that's one consolation, as they always say in Turkey, when they cut the wrong man's head off.”
#
Saturday, September 27, 2008
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FORGIVE MY FRENCH
************************************
Even senile old men who can't get it up refuse to die. How does one go about convincing boys and girls in their teens and twenties to go to war, to kill and die? Leave it to the elites, the educated classes, the leaders – the true creative forces in human history. Beside them writers, poets, and philosophers are nothing but hopeless mediocrities who deal in empty verbiage.
*
By ridiculing our elites, I am told, I alienate the young, the naïve, and the innocent, thus threatening the survival of the nation. To which I can only say, a nation that has survived centuries of corruption, incompetence, ruthless oppression, wars, massacres, dispersion, and subhuman existence in foreign slums should not have any trouble surviving the opinions of a minor scribbler.
*
When asked why he drank so much, Odian, an alcoholic, is quoted as having said, “To drown my sorrows.” Was he successful in drowning them?” he was asked next. “No,” he replied,”the buggers are excellent swimmers.” So are our bosses, bishops, and benefactors. For over a thousand years our writers from Khorenatsi, Raffi, Baronian and Odian to Shahnour, Zarian, and Massikian have exposed their dirt to no effect.
*
And consider what's happening today in America. We are expected to trust the judgment of a bunch of millionaires telling us -- including slum-dwellers like myself -- that the economy is in deep shit and unless something is done pronto we may be in deeper shit.
*
Dupes have no use for their brains because they believe everything they are told by someone with a beard, a title, and a degree. Somewhere Shakespeare writes “life is a tale told by an idiot.” It would be more accurate to say that it is a tale told by smart operators to a bunch of retards.
#

vampires

Sunday, September 21, 2008
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ARARAT
************************
About Frank Westerman's ARARAT, we read the following in THE SPECTATOR (London, August 30, 2008): “...a book of stupendous richness and complexity, a cornucopia or jumbled facts about geology, history, and since, woven into personal memoirs and travelogue that combines stories with information about religious belief, academic rivalry, portraits of fellow travellers, mountaineering history, politics, personalities and an abundance of lesser uncategorisable side-detail.” The author is described as “a clever, talented 43-year-old Dutchman of Puritan stock, [who] from his early twenties ceased to pray...and [whose] books have won important literary prizes.”
On the genesis of the book: “He first saw Ararat, the great mountain-volcano, from the Soviet side. It seemed to pull him.”
#
Monday, September 22, 2008
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CONSENSUS?
*******************************
Our Turcocentric ghazetajis, international lawyers, eminent historians, and statesmen tell us we have a very strong case against the Turks, provided the necessary amount of funds is forthcoming. Deep in a dark corner of my mind however I cannot help suspecting that the nation is being victimized for the second time. Consider some of the relevant facts in the matter. Our politicians have been of no political use to us. Lawyers will be on the side of anyone who pays them for their services. No one trusts in the judgment of nationalist historians except their brainwashed dupes. As for ghazetajis, the less said about them the better. And now a question: Why is it that the only time these gentlemen develop a consensus is when they want to raise funds?
*
ON TRADITIONS
************************************
Whenever I hear talk of tradition or traditional values, I think of Winston Churchill's retort to an English admiral: “Don't talk to me about naval tradition. It's nothing but rum, sodomy, and the lash.” And Mahler's dictum: “There is no such thing as tradition. There is only stupidity and genius.”
*
WHERE I STAND
********************************
I am not pro-Turkish. Neither am I anti-Armenian. I am for human beings regardless of race, color and creed, and against hoodlums, ditto.
*
SCHOOLS OF ARMENIAN CRITICISM
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There are two main schools of Armenian literary criticism: the first consists in calling the writer a damn fool, and the second in stating that what he says is a lot of crap.
#

Tuesday, September 23, 2008
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COMPASS QUOTATIONS
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I call them that because they tell us where we were, where we are, and where we are heading. And I for one never get tired of rereading them.
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“What kind of people are we? What kind of leadership is this? Instead of compassion, mutual contempt. Instead of reason blind instinct. Instead of common sense, fanaticism. They speak of the cross and nail us to it again as they speak.”

ANTRANIK ZAROUKIAN
(1912-1989)
Poet, novelist, critic, editor.

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“All our religious, political, and cultural institutions share a single aim, the survival of the nation. If the nation perishes, neither Echmiadzin nor Antelias, not even God in his heaven, can be of any help to us.”

SIMON VRATSIAN
(1882-1969)
Statesman. Last Prime Minister of the Republic of
Armenia
(1918-1920).
***********************************************

“We Armenians are products of the tribal mentality of Turks and Kurds, and this tribal mentality remains stubbornly rooted even among our leaders and elites.”

NIGOL AGHBALIAN
(1873-1947)
Statesman, literary scholar, educator.

***************************************************
“A familiar figure in our collective existence is the prosperous and arrogant community leader who, by obstructing the path of all those who wish to reform
and improve our conditions, perpetuates a status quo whose sole aim is his own personal profit and aggrandizement.”

LEVON PASHALIAN
(1868-1943)
Athor, editor.

**************************************************
“The Armenian Diaspora is losing its character. Our language, our literature, and our traditions are degenerating. Even our religious leaders have abandoned their calling and turned into cunning wheeler-dealers. Our publications thrive on meaningless controversies. I see charlatanism and cheap chauvinism everywhere
but not a single trace of self-sacrifice and dedication to principles and ideals. What's happening to us? Where are we heading? Quo vadis, O Armenian people?

SHAVARSH MISSAKIAN
(1884-1957)
Author, editor, critic.

#

Wednesday, September 24, 2008
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ON HONESTY
****************************
Because some Turks enjoy reading me, I am accused of anti-Armenianism; and because some Armenians enjoy reading Akcam and Pamuk, they are accused of insulting Turkishness. And this according to bureaucrats who take their marching orders from politicians, for whom honesty is a hostile concepts and truth enemy propaganda.
*
ON PRAISE
***********************
Praise I suspect because it makes me blind to my own failings. Criticism, even when motivated by prejudice, ignorance, or revenge, I welcome because it makes me stop and think, even if the interruption lasts no more than a fraction of a second.
*
MONEY TALKS
***************************
A publisher once sent me a review copy of an Armenian WHO'S WHO in which the average entry on benefactors was seven times longer than the entries on writers. I did not review it. Let the benefactors review it, I thought, with their calculating machines.
*
ON JUSTICE
*************************
Is there such a thing as a Supreme Court in Armenia? Who are the Justices? Does anyone know their names? Why is it that they never make headlines in our press? As things stand, not only are they anonymous but also invisible, and they might as well be non-existent.
*
VAMPIRES
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There is a type of Turcocentric Armenian who judges his fellow Armenians by how much they hate Turks. To him the ideal Armenian is he whose favorite breakfast drink is neither coffee nor orange juice but Turkish blood.
#

friends?

Thursday, September 18, 2008
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YOU WANT A FRIEND?
*********************************
You have a far better chance with a dog than with Homo sapiens.
*
YOU CANNOT ARGUE WITH A BISHOP
*************************************************
Church unity has become a Utopian illusion because so far no one has been successful in convincing two bishops that one of them owes his position of eminence to the KGB and the other to the CIA.
*
YES, SIR! (I)
****************************
Everything a man says to a tyrant is driven by cunning and hypocrisy. Tyrants know this and they are flattered. They prefer dishonest brown-nosers to honest critics.
*
YES, SIR! (II)
************************************
The two most hateful words in my dictionary. To those who say “Yes, sir!” are fine words because they stand for respect for authority, I say, maybe so, but you cannot solve problems by dropping your pants and bending over.
*
MUCHO MACHO
****************************
They believe God to be on their side and, as long as they follow the Guidance and regardless of what happens in this life, they will spend the next deflowering virgins, and no one speaks in defense of defenseless virgins.
*
NOT GUILTY BY REASON OF INSANTIY
*************************************************
Once upon a time there was a fearless driver who, when warned to avoid certain neighborhoods and to drive more defensively, would say, “As long as I follow traffic rules I have nothing to worry about.” And now, after the inevitable, all he does is stare into space with expressionless eyes and say, “It wasn't my fault. It wasn't my fault.”
*
SITUATION/SHITUATION
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To be a posthumous success means to be a living failure, and for every writer that fails there are at least a dozen bishops who succeed.
In the Ottoman period, if it wasn't the Turks, it was TB.
In the Soviet period, if it wasn't a bullet in the neck, it was the Gulag.
In the Diaspora today, if it's not being dependent on the charity of swine it's the death of a thousand cuts.
#
Friday, September 19, 2008
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Only crooks and barbarians fight. Sooner or later all civilized men reach a consensus through compromise.
*
An Armenian with a highly developed spirit of contradiction doesn't feel the need to think. He contradicts first and comes up with reasons next, even if these reasons convince no one but himself.
*
You may have noticed that people who screw other people, unlike their victims, always have good reasons for doing what they do.
*
As soon as rules and criteria are established, there will always be those who will exploit them to their advantage, and in time assume key positions. In human affairs evil always triumphs – from commissars in the USSR, and televangelists in America, to holier-than-thou sanctimonious child-molesting pricks everywhere.
*
On their way back from the Homeland my mother and sister were approached by one of their elderly travel companions, who said to them: “Please, don't mention our bad experiences to Ara, he may write about them.” It is beyond me why some people think covering up misconduct or abuses is patriotic, when obviously it is the exact opposite. Who after all benefits from filthy washrooms and unsanitary hospitals? Surely, not our tourist industry.
*
What I do is a waste of time, I know that now. Even if I were to succeed I would fail. Consider the life, work, and influence of even the greatest reformers like Luther and Marx. What have they accomplished? They simply replaced one form of exploitation, abuse, and corruption with another. Which is why I have lowered my sights. My aim now is to give our riffraff insomnia, even if the insomnia lasts no more than a fraction of a second.
*
In the biography of an English writer (Simon Gray, 1936-2008) I read that he deplored “the ugliness and bad manners of his contemporaries,” he thought “we live in exceptionally stupid times,” and “State education was controlled by savages who should be strung from lampposts.” Nothing further, Your Honor!
#
Saturday, September 20, 2008
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THEM AND US
******************************
One of the obscenties about our genocide is the average Turcocentric ghazetaji who has convinced himself and his dupes that our welfare as a nation depends on bloodthirsty subhuman savages. He at no time is willing to consider the possibility that not all Turks are savages, and that some of them may even be more civilized than he.
*
Like most Armenians, I have followed many controversies in our media,
but I have at no time heard an Armenian say: “I was wrong!” or, even better, “I was dead wrong because I placed my own ego, interests, family, political party, church, or tribe above the interests of the nation or, for that matter, humanity as a whole.”
*
“Hatred,” Gandhi said, “injures the haters, never the hated.”
Marx said capital dehumanizes not only the worker but also the capitalist himself.
And now listen to Pope Pius XI: “Dead matter leaves the factory ennobled and transformed, whereas men are corrupted and degraded.”
It is safe to assume that by “men” the Pope didn’t think of the workers only but also their exploiters and society as a whole.
All this to suggest that we dehumanize the Turk at the cost of dehumanizing not only ourselves, and our communities, but also our relationships with one another.
To see evidence of this all one has to do is follow any intramural controversy in our press or discussion forum on the internet, including this one.
*
Assessing oneself as infallible may well be the surest symptom of terminal cretinism.
#

remarks

Sunday, September 14, 2008
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ON LEADERSHIP
*********************************
Arthur Schlesinger in a 1967 entry: “It is depressing to think that three of the great world leaders of 1967 – Mao, de Gaulle, and Johnson – are slightly crazy (and most of the rest are mediocrities).
*
On Nixon: “He was the greatest shit – probably the only shit – ever elected President of the United States.”
*
If I were to write a text on our recent history, a good working title would be “A regime of shits.” In all fairness to our leaders, I should add that some of them were well-meaning shits. The fact remains however that none of them was equal to the task. I say this to warn all our politically ambitious upstarts that not everyone is cut out for the job. To surround oneself with like-minded yes-men is easy. To seduce an audience with rhetoric is also easy. But reality is a cold bitch. The rest is bull and bias, and I for one happen to be a born-again anti-bias fanatic.
*
The chances are he who believes in God will also believe in the existence of honest politicians.
*
Our genocide happened as surely as World War I and World War II; but its reasons, like the reasons of both world wars are not as one-sided as Turks and Armenians assert them to be.
*
An atheist who thinks is closer to God than a believer who doesn't.
#
Monday, September 15, 2008
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JOHNSON SPEAKS
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President Johnson to Henry Kissinger as quoted by Arthur Schlesinger in his JOURNALS: “Okay, we will do it the professor's [Kissinger's] way. But (glaring at Kissinger) if it doesn't work, I will personally cut your balls off.”
*
HOMELAND
***********************
When our patriotic writers in the Ottoman Empire spoke of “homeland” they meant Istanbul. Does anyone know how many of them actually set foot in Armenia?
In the 19th century, even writers born and raised on Armenian soil, preferred to live and work in Tiflis.
In the 20th century, anyone who was someone in Armenian literature in Armenia was betrayed to the authorities and was either shot or exiled to Siberia.
Zarian was the only major writer from the Diaspora who repatriated after Khrushchev's Thaw, and after being treated as a leper, he was either murdered or died as a result of an accidental fall.
The fate of another writer, Navasartian by name, the son of an eminent Tashnak leader in Egypt, was even more tragic if only because he was much younger than Zarian. He either committed suicide, was pushed, or (according to Zaroukian who wrote a book about him) got drunk, lost his balance, and fell to his death from a hotel balcony in Yerevan.
I met Navasartian twice: first time in Greece in the 1940s or early '50s, second time, about ten years later, in Canada. He was a mesmerizing speechifier.
As for writers after Independence, since they are alive and active on the Internet, I will let them speak for themselves.
*
FINAL REMARKS
******************************
The Irish say, “Ireland is a good place to die.”
Something similar could be said of our own beloved homeland.
*
American political leaders may speak like thugs but ours live as thugs. So please, let's cut out the b.s. when we speak of our homeland.
#
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
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TENTATIVE ANSWERS
***********************************
There are no final answers. Final answers are only for popes, ayatollahs, and fascists. If an answer does not raise two more questions, it cannot be right.
*
To be slaves of former slaves (our case) also means to allow ourselves to be brainwashed by brain-damaged dupes.
*
We like to say that nations that question the reality of our genocide are motivated by self-interest, thus implying nations that are on our side are morally superior. As for our own moral superiority: we take that for granted and we expect everyone else to do so.
*
You cannot judge the conduct of a war by authorized press releases. Neither can you judge the past by authorized textbooks. For the very simple reason that those in authority care much more about their image than the truth.
*
To silence dissent means to prepare the ground for a generation of executioners.
*
There is a type of charlatan (Bush and Chaney come to mind) who will always be against compromise and for war, provided of course someone else does the killing and dying.
#
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
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POLITICS AND LITERATURE
**********************************************
All politically motivated assertions contain a fraction of bias and bull. If a politician tells you the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, or two plus two makes four, ask yourself, “What's in it for him?” and if he shakes your hand, make sure there are no missing digits.
*
There is a type of charlatan who not only pretends to know all he needs to know but also what's good for the rest of us, even though he has at no time even bothered to ask what is it that we or any one of us wants.
*
What could be more naïve for a Turk than to believe Turkish politicians on the grounds that they are Turks. Likewise, what could be more naïve for an Armenian to believe Armenian politicians on the grounds that if they are Armenians they must be honest.
*
They resent me because I speak of reality. What they want me to do is sing a lullaby. Literature to them is nothing but variations on “Yes im anoush Hayastani,” which is itself a variation on a poem by Pushkin; which, by the way and in passing, is an excellent proof of the literary theory that says, the greatest source of inspiration for poets is not reality but other poets. But then, this is true of all literary activity. Aristotle is unthinkable without Plato, or Plato without Socrates; or Marx without Hegel; or Dostoevsky without Dickens and Gogol.
*
I remember once many years ago reviewing a collection of poems by one of our bishops. It was such a transparent imitation of Verlaine that it qualified as a clear-cut case of plagiarism and I said as much in my review, which was published in an American literary periodical. As far as I know, the good bishops never published another bad poem after that.
*
I also remember to have reviewed a volume of poems by one of our political bosses. It was incomprehensible avant-garde trash, but to my eternal shame I praised it highly on the chauvinist theory – yes, I was once a dealer in chauvinist crapola – if it's Armenian it's bound to be good.
*
Speaking of politicians and poets: If Zarian is right, Ottoman sultans have inspired more poetic tributes by Armenian poets in Istanbul than Armenian politicians in Yerevan.
#

questions

Thursday, September 11, 2008
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ENCOUNTERS WITH WRITERS
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He was a veteran of World War II and the best-selling author of a battle, which was made into a TV documentary. I no longer remember how we met but I remember him saying there are 42 (may have been 44) ways in which a publisher can screw a writer. I remember that because around the same time I read another writer, an attractive blonde, who said, “Just when you think you have been screwed every possible way, you run into a publisher who has read the KAMA SUTRA.”
*
“I write constantly, I write non-stop,” another writer told me. “I may be talking to you now but on another level I am writing. I write more than I read. I hope you do too.” No, I don't. I may write or rewrite for 30 or 45 minutes every morning but the rest of the time I read.
*
For three decades he was one of our most popular writers in the Diaspora and he was popular with everyone, including bosses, bishops, and benefactors (who subsidized the publication of his books). He wrote mostly fiction and he disapproved of my increasingly critical stance. So much so that he left my last letters unanswered. When he died, he is quoted as having said, “I die alone and friendless.”
*
After reading some of my commentaries and book reviews, Saroyan asked me if I do any “creative” writing, meaning fiction. I sent him my most recent novella published in an American literary periodical but never heard from him again. Another writer who knew him well, once said to me: “Saroyan cares only for Saroyan.” That's the way it is with all established writers. They view the work of other writers as deviations from their own. Faulkner didn't like Hemingway, and vice versa. Nabokov was contemptuous of Mann and Sartre. But then, Nabokov didn't care for many other writers, including Dostoevsky. Dostoevsky himself loathed Turgenev, and whenever Turgenev saw anything that was morbid, strange, and repellent, he would say, “C'est du Dostoevsky.” Another great writer who didn't care for Dostoevsky was Tolstoy, but it is said that the last book he read, or did not finish reading, was THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV.
#
Friday, September 12, 2008
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LIMITATIONS
********************************
Since I have spent most of my life in the company of books, I don't mind admitting that I know very little or nothing about life, reality, and the world at large. As a result, I have many more doubts than certainties. But one of the very few certainties I feel qualified to profess is that we are not a race apart. We should be judged as human beings and not as Armenians, whatever that may mean to our chauvinists and holier-than-thou charlatans. I refuse to be taken in by academics and pundits who expect me to believe that, since they know more about our history and culture, ordinary standards do not apply to us. Neither am I easily taken in by ayatollahs, popes, bishops, and the verbiage of so-called charismatic politicians. To those who quote Holy Books and speak in the name of the Almighty, I say: Only if you reach a consensus among yourselves, may I consider listening to what you have to say. Until then I question your authority to hang a label on me as a heretic, an infidel, or an atheist. If I am an atheist, it's because I am against all theists who speak in the name of God and do the Devil's work. And to those who speak in the name of patriotism, I say: If your patriotism justifies the murder of innocent civilians, the hangman's rope is too good for you.
#
Saturday, September 13, 2008
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BURNING QUESTIONS
*********************************
Was Jesus the son of God, a prophet, or a blasphemer?
This is not exactly a burning question for me. As far as I can remember, I have not wasted a single moment of my adult life worrying over it.
The burning question for me is how can Christian, Muslim, and Jewish religious leaders go on brainwashing and propagandizing entire continents and get away with it? How can reasonable men allow themselves to be manipulated to the point of killing and dying with the unshakable conviction that they will be rewarded in an afterlife? How can decent and law-abiding citizens surrender their minds and souls to these charlatans who are no better than moral morons or intellectual midgets, and probably both, simply because they quote from a so-called Holy Book which they say it's the Word of God?
#

da Vinci code

Sunday, September 7, 2008
***************************************
THE DA VINCI CODE
*********************************
In still another book written by an American theologian, we are informed that the assumptions and conclusions of the DA VINCI CODE are without foundation. Maybe so, but the book raises two very important questions that so far no theologian or historian of Christianity has even attempted to answer: (a) How to explain the universal oppression of women by men? and (b) After making a mess of the world, how dare men think they can do a better job than women?
*
SCHLESINGER'S JOURNALS
*****************************************
Notwithstanding his annoying habit of name-dropping – there are at least a dozen celebrities mentioned on almost every other page – I am enjoying this gossipy book, perhaps because Schlesinger has a wonderful gift for biting politically incorrect one-liners, which happens to be my favorite genre of writing. Three random samples follow.
On Dan Quayle: “a rich jerk from Indiana.”
On homosexuals: “the crime that dare not speak its name now won't shut up.”
On Newt Gingrich: “a puppy frisking about hoping to be patted.”
He speaks often of the importance books have played in his life but he seldom mention specific titles except his own.
*
FORUM
***************************
The other day someone by the name of Mustafa or Ali wrote something to the effect that he was in the mood for screwing Armenians, and for some reason or other the Armenian moderator saw nothing objectionable in it. But when I raised the issue of anonymity promoting irresponsible conduct, he deleted it immediately. Figure that one out if you can. Increasingly now our reality is being defined by a generation without an intellectual center and without a moral compass. An environment in which the brainless is leading the blind. A generation that preaches a phony brand of patriotism but promotes cowardice, verbal abuse, and cannibalism. I am reminded of the e-mail I once received that said: “I am a proud Armenian.” Signed “Anonymous.”
There should be a clear line separating the lowest common denominator (inevitable in a democracy or wherever the majority rules) from the scum of the earth. When this line is blurred, anarchy is bound to follow.
#
Monday, September 8, 2008
********************************************
Schlesinger on John McCain in a 1998 entry: “Speaking at a Republican dinner, he told the following so-called joke: Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly? Because she is the illegitimate child of Hillary Clinton and Janet Reno. This plus his reputedly wayward sex life will surely destroy his evident presidential aspirations.”
*
If you have eyes only for your visible assets, others will see only your hidden liabilities.
*
Churchill once said something to the effect that courage is the greatest virtue because it defines all other virtues. Something similar could be said of honesty.
*
The brainwashed don't think. They are only brainwashed to believe they do. That's why when a brainwashed Armenian meets a brainwashed Turk, they can communicate only by means of verbal abuse.
*
There are two kinds of Armenians: those who think and those who recycle propaganda. Those who recycle propaganda speak louder and they are never wrong; and armed with that conviction, they persecute and silence anyone who dares to think for himself. Examples from the past: writers from Abovian to Zarian.
*
Sociological studies reveal that if a man is prejudiced against one group, he will be
prejudiced against others too. Which is why, in our case, prejudice against the Turks is very easily modulated to prejudice against fellow Armenians.
*
You can always rely on an Armenian to justify his selfish interests with a verbal avalanche of noble principles and ideals. In the words of a friend: "After fattening themselves on the blood of the innocent and the helpless, our Count Draculas are good at delivering lectures on the virtues of vegetarianism."
#
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
**********************************************
TWO VERY SHORT STORIES
WITH UNHAPPY ENDINGS
*****************************************
Once upon a time two men met on a deserted road in the middle of nowhere. One of them was an Armenian and the other a Turk.
*
Once upon a time two men met on a deserted road in the middle of nowhere. Both of them were Armenian.*
*
ANOTHER ARMENIAN STORY
**************************************
When he was young, he wanted to be a writer but became instead an Oriental carpet dealer and made a million. Now he looks down on writers and thinks of them as naïve daydreamers and contemptible parasites.
*
QUESTIONS
************************************
When we speak of our culture and identity, can we really say our Oriental carpet dealers are not faithful manifestations of Armenianism?
What about the Armenian who hates Turks or anyone else who dares to be objective and honest?
What if by making a long list of his failings, Naregatsi was revealing our own?
What is the relative value of our cultural achievements if we bury them?
*
PATRIOTISM EXPLAINED
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If it's ours, it's bound to be good even when it's bad. If it's theirs it's bound to be bad even when it's good. Our fanatics are better than their moderates. Our crooks are classier crooks. Patriotism is a contest whose rules are fixed to favor only one side.
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Wednesday, September 10, 2008
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REFLECTIONS ON FASCISM AND DEMOCRACY
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It is widely known among citizens of a democracy that politics is the second oldest profession and that in many ways it resembles the first. Fascists agree but they think this does not apply to them. Which amounts to saying, “Our bordello madams, unlike yours, are virgins.”
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The trouble with some of my fascist critics is that they don’t consider me worthy of criticism. Instead, they insist that I either give up writing or change my views in such a manner as to jibe with theirs. In short, they demand that I become a disciple and an echo. Their disciple and their echo! My critics are not literary critics in the usual sense of these words, but messianic figures whose message is “Abandon your ways and follow me, for I am the only path to wisdom and salvation.” To such an Armenian to say anything but “Yes, master!” would be apostasy leading to eternal damnation and hellfir
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Memmi: “Every colonial nation carries the seeds of fascist temptation in its bosom.”

Observations

Thursday, September 4, 2008
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DIARY
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When after Independence 1,500,000 Armenians chose to emigrate, did anyone ever utter the word genosuicide or see the statistical connection?
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I once received a letter from a descendant of Raffi that said, among other things, “If Raffi were alive today, he would agree with you.” The memory of that letter means more to me than the 1001 insultS hurled at me by faceless, nameless, cowardly riffraff.
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After silencing and alienating all dissenters, they say Armenians are unanimous on this point, when the only time we have achieved unanimity is in our passive acceptance of our status as perennial underdogs.
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Americans speak of spin doctors. We don't have them. Ours are all quacks.
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A Russian intellectual as quoted by Schlesinger in his JOURNALS: “I would die for democracy. But I know my people. They do not want democracy. They have never known democracy. The czars? Lenin? Stalin? Khrushchev? Brezhnev? They fear democracy. They want to be told what to do.”
If, to the above list of authoritarian rulers we add a succession of sultans that ruled us for 600 years, the picture becomes more depressing and our prospects more grim. I will never forget the university student from the Homeland who once demanded of me: “What's so great about democracy anyway?”
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Friday, September 5, 2008
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DIARY / III
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At least in one specific endeavor I can declare myself an unqualified success – that of alienating everyone who is someone in our communities. What Zarian confided to his diary and notebooks (published only posthumously) I have posted on discussion forums and websites on the Internet accessible to the whole world.
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Since God is the Great Unknown and Unknowable, all my efforts are now concentrated in placing as great a distance as possible between myself and the Devil, whose kingdom is within us as well as without – because someone else's within is my without.
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When they didn't like what I wrote, they wanted to hire me. Once, I was even asked to write the biography of a national benefactor, to which I said I did not consider myself equal to the task. And they say I lack diplomacy....
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When an Armenian is good, he is good like everyone else. But when he is bad, he is bad like a Turk – or rather, his conception of a Turk: a fat mustachioed slob in shalvars wielding a yataghan dripping with blood.
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To die in the name of an ideal is heroic, but not if the enemy does it.
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To humanize the dehumanized is a job not for intellectuals but for prophets and messiahs.
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With fools, pretend to be a fool, if that is, you want to live longer.
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At the turn of the last century in the Ottoman Empire Armenian writers wrote mostly about Armenians. In the 21st century in America they write mostly about Turks.
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Saturday, September 6, 2008
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OBSERVATIONS
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Freedom and patriotism are weasel words: they can be defined in a number of contradictory ways. Freedom could also mean the freedom to exploit and enslave; and what could be more absurd than to say my patriotism is good but my enemy’s patriotism is bad?
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How much of what we know today would be reduced to ignorance if we were to see reality through the eyes of God?
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It is not enough to voice lofty principles. One must earn the right. For myself, I shall always be grateful to Judas for not writing an ode to loyalty. But as an Armenian, I am used to reading editorials on tolerance by fanatics and listening to sermons on chastity by fornicators.
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Mountain people think their mountain is the center of the world. They view other mountains with suspicion and the valley below with contempt. They develop their own ways and consider all others as deviations. We are mountain people who refuse to give up their mountain ways even when they live on flatlands.
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Greed makes a man more cunning as well as stupid: more cunning in his employment of means to achieve his end, and more stupid in thinking he can hide his greed.
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contradictions

Sunday, August 31, 2008
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MEMO TO A YOUNG WRITER
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If a reader insults you publicly and apologizes privately, he will insult you again – publicly.
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If he believes to be right and you wrong, he will also believe to be morally superior. The words of such an intramural racist have as much weight as the words of an inbred moron and a skinhead. Ignore him. And never tell such a one to shut up. His mouth may well be his worst enemy, and your enemy's enemy is your friend.
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If they never ask themselves “What if I am wrong?” it may be because they are too afraid of being wrong and because being wrong even once would be a blemish on their record as infallible thinkers and observers.
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If a reader tells you he is disappointed in what you write, tell him cheerfully that a refund check is in the mail.
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If Jihadists act in the name of Allah and our superpatriots speak in the name of the Fatherland (which in their mouths sounds more like Fartland), it's because they are brothers under the skin.
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To think that if the ideology is right, the leadership must also be right is known as “Sartre's fallacy,” because Sartre was taken in by the likes of Stalin, Castro, and Mao. Ideology defines nothing. Power does. The more non-representative the power, the more perverse the leadership.
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If he has the disposition of a crocodile, the memory of an elephant, the venom of a Turkish viper, the compassion of Genghis Khan, and if his profanities are sandwiched between a cliché and a platitude, he must be an Armenian superpatriot. Avoid him.
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Remember, the rarest of all Armenians is he who speaks about the past without contaminating it with an ideological or racist propaganda line.
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Monday, September 1, 2008
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SCOUNDRELS
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All nations generate their share of scoundrels and we are no exception, with one important difference however: we take ours seriously. How to explain this scandal? Even after 600 years of brutal oppression in the Ottoman Empire we knew how to laugh at ourselves and our “betters.” At the turn of the last century in Istanbul our writers made merciless fun of our political agitators, religious leaders, and wealthy merchants. Zabel Yessayan, not exactly a humorist, wrote a savage satirical novel titled PHONY GENIUSES in which she excoriated our vodanavorjis.
Things are different today. As a result, we find ourselves at the mercy of inbred morons and wheeler-dealers who parade as geniuses and statesmen, fornicating bishops who advertise the sale of Oriental rugs in cathedrals, and dime-a-dozen pundits and academics whose unspoken slogan seems to be “whose bread I eat his song I sing.”
Is it conceivable that the Turks slaughtered not only our bodies but also our spirit? Why is it that the Holocaust has had the exact opposite effect on the Jews who now have a virtual monopoly on American comedy?
After violating our human right of free speech, has our leadership succeeded in brainwashing us into believing that laughter is un-Armenian, perhaps even pro-Turkish? What's next? Will they outlaw breathing? But perhaps on some level they have done that already and as a community we are no better than an assemblage of living corpses.
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In Arthur Schlesinger's JOURNALS: 1952-2000 (New York, 2007), I read the following amusing passage: “I recall Churchill explaining how it was possible for him to go to sleep every night when he was being vehemently criticized -- 'I simply say God damn them all, and then I sleep like a baby.'”
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Tuesday, September 2, 2008
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DIARY
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One reason I no longer write fiction is that I find reality more fantastic than anything I could imagine.
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Schlesinger, himself an establishment figure, writes in his JOURNALS: “Why can no one understand that the establishment is more likely to be wrong than to be right?” Our establishment figures are too insecure to admit as much. Why assume responsibility if they can blame all their blunders on Turks, the international community, the opposition, and the Good Lord Himself? There are no limits to their self-righteousness.
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As for the insults that are hurled in my direction: it seems to me they are motivated less by genuine disagreement and more by fear – fear of being exposed not as statesmen of vision but the blind leading the blind. And then there is the kind of idiot who think if he succeeds in silencing me or stops reading me, he will be the winner and I the loser.
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All they talk about is Turks and massacres, and their only message to the people is “mi kich pogh,” and because I point that out to them, they say I repeat myself.
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Schlesinger on academics: “Why does the academic environment seem to bring out the worst in otherwise decent individuals?”
I am surprised to note that, writing in the 1980s, he refers to some of his American contemporaries as “Stalinist” and “neo-Stalinist.”
Speaking of Nixon, Ford is quoted as having said, “Sometimes I wish I had never pardoned that son of a bitch.” An unfair remark that, when one remembers a tearful Nixon in his farewell speech to the White House staff saying, “My mother was a saint.”
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Wednesday, August 3, 2008
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CONTRADICTIONS
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When I had enough of their steady barrage of insults, I said something to the effect that the greatest insult for a writer is to be ignored. And sure enough, the insults stopped. They are as predictable as Pavlov's dogs but think they are smart because they were brainwashed to believe all Armenians are smart, including the Mongoloids among them. My guess is, after reading this they will start insulting me all over again and say they don't have to read me to insult me. And after reading this they will be torn.
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They don't write with their underdeveloped brain but with their overdeveloped intestines.
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In the same way that Armenians are brainwashed to believe they are smart, Hindus believe theirs is the most tolerant of all religions, provided of course one ignores their treatment of Untouchables. Seen from the perspective of Untouchables, Hinduism is probably the least tolerant of all religions. Hence the popularity of Islam in India and the countless intramural massacres.
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Everybody makes mistakes, except religious leaders, and Armenian political wheeler-dealers; and they don't make mistakes because they speak in the name of God, Truth, and Patriotism.
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For many centuries kings were successful in convincing the people that their power derives from God. The first and most important project of all men with power is to bankrupt common sense.
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Ignorance is a luxury only the very lucky can afford.
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The very same people who abuse free speech violate someone else's free speech.
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