Sunday, October 26, 2008
***********************************************
DZOUR NESDINK
SHIDAG KHOSINK
*****************************************
We were deceived by the corrupt and degenerate West, we are told by way of justification. But that's not a justification. Only an unrepentant dupe and a damn fool would think of it as one. That's more like a confession and an admission of inadequacy and incompetence.
All politics and diplomacy is based on deception. The difference between a politician and a statesman is that a statesman sees what's on the other side of the hill.
The question we should ask ourselves is, Did we ever have a statesman as a leader? And even more to the point: Do we have one today? We have speechifiers and sermonizers by the dozen. But a statesman? And what is a speechifier if not a dealer in empty verbiage? What is a sermonizer if not a sanctimonious prick whose favorite motto is, “Do as I say not as I do” -- the words of a fornicator and a holier-than-thou windbag.
Speaking of dupes and confessions: allow me to confess that I too am a dupe -- a dupe of the illusion that words make a difference.
We are told “At the beginning was the word.” But we are no longer at the beginning. If anything we are closer to the end. And at the end, my friends, the word is garbage.
#
Monday, October 27, 2008
***********************************************
ANIMAL HOUSE
*****************************************
Topix is the name of an Armenian discussion forum that is Armenian and a forum in name only. The Turks on this forum outnumber the Armenians and the discussion consists of a constant, endless, and monotonous barrage of insults, verbal abuse, and profanities; and when I say profanities I mean the kind that couples motherhood with prostitution and fornication; and the worst profanities are reserved not by Armenians for Turks, or vice versa, but by Armenians for Armenians.
*
The moderator of this forum identifies himself as an Armenian and I believe him because he leaves the profanities in and deletes my things on the grounds that he agrees with me only 80% of the time.
And speaking of motherhood: one of the regular contributors to this forum identifies herself as a “mom” and she is one of my most dedicated readers and severest critics. I suspect she subscribes to the excrementalist school of criticism because her favorite descriptive term is “crap.”
*
Describe someone as objectively as you can and he will consider it the worst insult that anyone has ever inflicted on him.
*
When the majority of one group believes in one thing and the majority of another group believes the exact opposite, you can be sure of one thing: the brainwashers on both sides have been busy.
*
How do you convince someone who thinks he is smart that he may not be as smart as he thinks he is? It can't be done. Even if you reach the apex of your profession you can be taken in by an operator in some other line of work. Cases in point: both Hegel and Beethoven were taken in by Napoleon. That's because music, philosophy, and politics do not share the same values, vocabulary, and principles.
#
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
***********************************************
A TURNING POINT OR A DEAD END?
*****************************************
During the Soviet era dissidents were labeled “enemies of the people” by commissars, to cover up the fact that they (commissars) were the true enemies. When the Soviet Union disintegrated, Stalinists put the blame on dissidents. Catholics said the credit must go to the Polish Pope, and American said it was all Reagan's doing. I say it was Stalin's doing for the obvious reason that he systematically eliminated the best minds and promoted mediocrities without vision. Where there is no vision the people perish, and one cannot speak of vision where the blind lead the blind.
What about us? Where do we stand? Has anything changed? Once upon a time our political leaders were intellectuals. They may have been daydreamers and losers but they were also men of principle. They believed in what they said. Today instead of intellectuals we have merchants and bureaucrats – anonymous, faceless, interchangeable nonentities whose number one concern is number one. In the Homeland they speechify like programmed zombies, and in the Diaspora they speak of fund-raising, never of accounting. But even if they spoke with the eloquence of Demosthenes and Cicero combined I wouldn't believe a word they said. What I believe instead are the silent masses who vote with their feet. On the day the rate of immigration exceeds that of emigration I will feel justified in thinking we have been successful in arresting the downward spiral towards oblivion. Until then I will only say, I loathe deceivers, and I loathe their dupes even more because I was one of them. As for a renaissance of our arts and letters: if it happens, it will happen only after our Ottomanized, Sovietized, and Levantinized wheeler-dealers are exposed for what they really are – the gravediggers of the nation.
#
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
***********************************************
CONFESSIONS OF A FOOL
*****************************************
“Excellent speech is not fitting for a fool.” PROVERBS 17:7
*
“Let a man meet a bear robbed of her cubs, rather than a fool in his folly.” PROVERBS 17:12
*
“A rebuke goes deeper into one who has understanding than a hundred blows into a fool.” PROVERBS 17:10
*
Yesterday, while waiting at the emergency room (a wait that lasted seven hours) and after exhausting the available printed matter, I found a copy of the Gideon Bible, and again I was fascinated by the number of verses dedicated to fools.
I like reading about fools for a number of reasons, one of them being that I was one most of my life, and I continue to be one today because I sometimes go as far as thinking that what I write matters.
*
Reading about fools amounts to reading about myself and about human nature in general. I suspect some day psychology will be known as foolology.
*
To be insulted by a fool is not an insult because that's what fools do when they don't understand something. To be praised by a fool – now, that's what I call a true insult.
*
Just because fools enjoy freedom of thought it doesn't mean they can think freely.
*
If a fool disagrees with you, you may be justified in suspecting you are on the right path.
*
When two fools agree, they think that have achieved wisdom.
*
The greatest comfort of a fool is the animal warmth of another fool.
#
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Saturday, October 25, 2008
reflections
Thursday, October 23, 2008
***********************************************
ON GOD
*****************************************
I don't believe in the God of priests, mullahs, and holy scriptures, but I also believe you may let go of God ( whoever he may or may not be) but God will never let you go.
*
ON STYLE
***********************
Hit and run. Make your point and move to the next. If you make sense they will get the message. If you don't make sense, at least you haven't wasted their time and yours.
*
ON CRITICS
*************************
To how many of my critics I could say, Anyone who thinks as you do, does not deserve Naregatsi, Raffi, Baronian, Odian, Zarian, and Massikian. These gentlemen dedicated their lives in an effort to expand your horizons and you have deliberately chosen to live as though they never wrote a single line.
*
ON RECYCLING ENEMY PROPAGANDA
******************************************************
The ignorance of some Armenians is such that some of them go as far as recycling enemy propaganda in the name of patriotism. As when they say, “Our literature and culture flourished during the Soviet era,” which amounts to saying Russian literature flourished under Stalin, and German culture reached its apex under Hitler, Goebbels, and Himmler.
*
QUESTION
************************
Why anyone in his right mind would read me if he can read Shakespeare and Tolstoy? -- unless it is for the pleasure of verbally abusing a fellow Armenian simply because he refuses to flatter his colossal ego.
*
ON SUPERPATRIOTS
**********************************
A good Armenian superpatriot hates not only all Turks but also the whole world including and above all fellow Armenians who don't share his limitations and prejudices.
#
Friday, October 24, 2008
***********************************************
THE CREAM OF THE CRAP
*****************************************
With the right camera angle and lighting, fragments in the life of the most pious and respectable married couple in the world could be made into a pornographic movie. That's what my critics do with my ideas.
*
Ignored, misunderstood, insulted, rejected, silenced, starved, exiled, shot – at long last Armenian writers are now for all practical purposes extinct. Where Talaat and Stalin failed, our bosses, bishops, benefactors and their assorted hirelings succeeded. Nothing succeeds like perseverance.
*
Heaven or hell – I don't care where I end up as long as it's where my friends are. I can't imagine happiness surrounded by dupes and charlatans.
*
Anonymous does not mean faceless. No degree of anonymity can hide the ego of a loud-mouth phony with the guts of a mouse and the memory of an elephant.
*
It happens to me all the time. After they find out what I am against, they accuse me of being for it. It makes sense, no?
*
If you speak the truth to a liar, he will come up with a bigger lie; and the bigger the better. And what could be bigger than choosing one's own tribe as God's Chosen, or one's own race as the Superior Race. And it came to pass that the Superior almost exterminated the Chosen, and the dumbest did the same to the smartest (self-assessed, of course).
#
Saturday, October 25, 2008
***********************************************
LIARS
*****************************************
Sooner or later reality will step in and let you know in no uncertain terms that you are on the wrong track – as when after 600 years of subservience....
*
If I repeat myself it's because there are ten thousand lies but only one truth.
*
I am an easy target. I can be silenced and buried as easily as a dog. But who can bury Socrates, Voltaire, and Gandhi whose ideas I have been paraphrasing?
*
Immortality? I have already achieved it in the minds of our liars.
*
Plato says somewhere that an honest man can never be as wealthy as a crook because, he explains, an honest man will employ only honest means to acquire his wealth, whereas a crook will employ honest as well as dishonest means. This may explain why you will never hear one of our benefactors say that he is an avid reader of Plato's dialogs.
*
Hirelings are not in the habit of questioning the competence and integrity of their bosses. To the publishers, editors, and moderators who have silenced me, I say: If a nation cannot survive the opinions of a minor scribbler, can it be worth saving?
*
When it comes to preserving their power, our bosses are more than willing to sacrifice the demands of justice and fundamental human rights. But when justice and human rights are denied to a single man, everyone should feel threatened.
*
A prophet is any man who speak about what he sees as opposed to what he is told to see.
#
***********************************************
ON GOD
*****************************************
I don't believe in the God of priests, mullahs, and holy scriptures, but I also believe you may let go of God ( whoever he may or may not be) but God will never let you go.
*
ON STYLE
***********************
Hit and run. Make your point and move to the next. If you make sense they will get the message. If you don't make sense, at least you haven't wasted their time and yours.
*
ON CRITICS
*************************
To how many of my critics I could say, Anyone who thinks as you do, does not deserve Naregatsi, Raffi, Baronian, Odian, Zarian, and Massikian. These gentlemen dedicated their lives in an effort to expand your horizons and you have deliberately chosen to live as though they never wrote a single line.
*
ON RECYCLING ENEMY PROPAGANDA
******************************************************
The ignorance of some Armenians is such that some of them go as far as recycling enemy propaganda in the name of patriotism. As when they say, “Our literature and culture flourished during the Soviet era,” which amounts to saying Russian literature flourished under Stalin, and German culture reached its apex under Hitler, Goebbels, and Himmler.
*
QUESTION
************************
Why anyone in his right mind would read me if he can read Shakespeare and Tolstoy? -- unless it is for the pleasure of verbally abusing a fellow Armenian simply because he refuses to flatter his colossal ego.
*
ON SUPERPATRIOTS
**********************************
A good Armenian superpatriot hates not only all Turks but also the whole world including and above all fellow Armenians who don't share his limitations and prejudices.
#
Friday, October 24, 2008
***********************************************
THE CREAM OF THE CRAP
*****************************************
With the right camera angle and lighting, fragments in the life of the most pious and respectable married couple in the world could be made into a pornographic movie. That's what my critics do with my ideas.
*
Ignored, misunderstood, insulted, rejected, silenced, starved, exiled, shot – at long last Armenian writers are now for all practical purposes extinct. Where Talaat and Stalin failed, our bosses, bishops, benefactors and their assorted hirelings succeeded. Nothing succeeds like perseverance.
*
Heaven or hell – I don't care where I end up as long as it's where my friends are. I can't imagine happiness surrounded by dupes and charlatans.
*
Anonymous does not mean faceless. No degree of anonymity can hide the ego of a loud-mouth phony with the guts of a mouse and the memory of an elephant.
*
It happens to me all the time. After they find out what I am against, they accuse me of being for it. It makes sense, no?
*
If you speak the truth to a liar, he will come up with a bigger lie; and the bigger the better. And what could be bigger than choosing one's own tribe as God's Chosen, or one's own race as the Superior Race. And it came to pass that the Superior almost exterminated the Chosen, and the dumbest did the same to the smartest (self-assessed, of course).
#
Saturday, October 25, 2008
***********************************************
LIARS
*****************************************
Sooner or later reality will step in and let you know in no uncertain terms that you are on the wrong track – as when after 600 years of subservience....
*
If I repeat myself it's because there are ten thousand lies but only one truth.
*
I am an easy target. I can be silenced and buried as easily as a dog. But who can bury Socrates, Voltaire, and Gandhi whose ideas I have been paraphrasing?
*
Immortality? I have already achieved it in the minds of our liars.
*
Plato says somewhere that an honest man can never be as wealthy as a crook because, he explains, an honest man will employ only honest means to acquire his wealth, whereas a crook will employ honest as well as dishonest means. This may explain why you will never hear one of our benefactors say that he is an avid reader of Plato's dialogs.
*
Hirelings are not in the habit of questioning the competence and integrity of their bosses. To the publishers, editors, and moderators who have silenced me, I say: If a nation cannot survive the opinions of a minor scribbler, can it be worth saving?
*
When it comes to preserving their power, our bosses are more than willing to sacrifice the demands of justice and fundamental human rights. But when justice and human rights are denied to a single man, everyone should feel threatened.
*
A prophet is any man who speak about what he sees as opposed to what he is told to see.
#
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Q/s
Sunday, October 19, 2008
***********************************************
A WOMAN AFTER MY OWN HEART
****************************************************
In the introduction to her biography of the celebrated Italian novelist, Elsa Morante, Lily Tuck writes: “A truth teller, she tended to say hurtful things...She detested any sort of artifice, posturing, falsehood, she detested the misuse of power.”
*
THEY NEVER LEARN
**************************************
Some Armenians are so hedamenats and aboosh that they think one way of defending the national badiv is by insulting Turks, and they stubbornly refuse to see that not only Turks outnumber us, but when it comes to delivering profanities and insults, they are pros and we don't even qualify as rank amateurs beside them. To Armenians who are addicts of profanities and insults, I suggest they stick to insulting their fellow Armenians, because then they have a better chance to come out on top.
*
MART BIDI CH'ELLANK
***************************************
Whenever someone would recount a story about a fellow Armenian who had behaved badly, someone would say, “mart bidi ch'ellank!” meaning (freely translated) “once a jackass, always a jackass," or “we are a hopeless bunch!” I must have heard that line a thousand times, but never by those engaged in fund raising. These gentlemen know that if they flatter the dupes they plan to milk, they will be rewarded with more generous contributions. Hence the popular propaganda lines first nation this, first nation that, which may also be interpreted as first nation to be brainwashed and first nation to be taken in by foreign propaganda. As for the propaganda line that asserts we are just about the smartest people on earth, that was obviously designed to cover up the fact that we may well be be just about the dumbest.
#
Monday, October 20, 2008
***********************************************
ON SOLUTIONS
*********************************
Never ask for solutions to our problems because all solutions begin with honesty, and since no one has yet discovered a verbal formula that can convert a crook to an honest man, all talk of solutions is a waste of time.
*
DEDICATION
*******************************
The dedication to my next book will read: “For my critics and detractors – my most faithful muses.”
*
HEADLINES
*************************
A headline in our paper reads: “Hour of death should be 'chosen by God' Pope says,” the implication being, the Pope can read God's mind like an open book.
*
Another headline: “Anglicans owe Darwin apology, bishop says.” But how does one go about apologizing to a skeleton?
*
GREED
************************
About the present financial crisis, I wonder how many CEOs said or thought “If things go wrong and the whole structure collapses, the government is bound to step in and fix it. We are too big to fail.”
*
A CEO at a hearing: “I take full responsibility.” He also took home $240,000,000 we are told.
*
ON REASON
******************************
You can reason only with the reasonable. With the unreasonable you can only go down on your knees and beseech the assistance of the Holy Spirit, if, that is, you believe in that mumbo jumbo.
*
ON LOVE
********************
Our religion teaches us to love our enemies. It says nothing about loving our fellow Armenians. Have I said that before? No matter. Some things are worth repeating.
*
WORDS OF WISDOM
**********************************
Albert Einstein: “It's not that I am so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer.”
#
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
***********************************************
EASIER SAID THAN DONE
*****************************************
Speaking of Obama's favorite word: change means introducing new legislation, and “new laws,” according to an old German saying, “are followed by new tricks.”
*
WHAT'S DONE IS DONE
**********************************
The very same readers who accuse me of living in the past whenever I quote an Armenian writer, never get tired of speaking or reading about the massacres in the Ottoman Empire.
*
CANNIBALS
**************************
When they bite me and I refuse to bite back, they resent it as if to say, “What's the matter, am I not good enough to be eaten?”
*
ONE-UPMANSHIP
*****************************
The ease with which they assume to know better even when the subject under discussion is a new one to them.
*
CONFESSION
****************************
Speaking of dupes: in my youth when I heard a speechifier say something, I believed he meant it. And then I met some of them...
*
PROGRESS
***********************
Some of my readers are getting better at dishing out insults. With a little more effort, practice, and discipline they may be as good as Turks.
*
AN OLD TRICK
***************************
When the men at the top are corrupt, they emphasize the importance of patriotism, after which they stigmatize dissidents as unpatriotic.
*
MEMO
**********************
To those who recycle chauvinist crapola, I say, Leave it to the professionals of which we have more than our share. I assure you, they don't need your two cents' worth.
*
SOPHISTS
**************************
Those who want to get away with lies, rape, and murder, will tell you, these things existed since the beginning of time and no nation on earth is without them, in the same way that today they say corruption is universal and we might as well grin and bear it.
#
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
***********************************************
QUESTIONS
*****************************************
If they sling mud anonymously, is it because deep down somewhere they are ashamed of what they do?
*
If our Turcocentric ghazetajis keep writing about Turks, is it because they have nothing good to say about their fellow Armenians?
*
If we are proud of our multi-millionaires, shouldn't we be humble of our slum-dwellers?
*
Is it humanly possible to ignore or forget the truth after hearing it?
*
I may react to an honest disagreement but not to an insult. How does one react to an insult without going down into the gutter where the other has the advantage?
*
ASSERTIONS
*************************
No one can be as dangerous as a fool who is manipulated by another fool.
*
If you say to a bunch of crooks, “Gentlemen, let's be honest!” don't expect a mass conversion.
*
One cannot speak of vision where "the blind leads the blind."
*
There is a big difference between “he thinks,” and “he thinks he thinks.” To think, to really think, means to go beyond the boundaries of the already thought.
*
Who benefits when we cover up that which is negative? Surely not the victims. It follows, to cover up is to support and legitimize the victimizers among us.
*
Some of the dumbest people I know are Armenians who think they are smarter than Turks.
*
Communism has been defined as capitalism of the state, and capitalism as free enterprise for the poor.
*
Cowardice in the Ottoman Empire among Turks – it's understandable.
But cowardice in America among fellow Armenians – it's not.
#
***********************************************
A WOMAN AFTER MY OWN HEART
****************************************************
In the introduction to her biography of the celebrated Italian novelist, Elsa Morante, Lily Tuck writes: “A truth teller, she tended to say hurtful things...She detested any sort of artifice, posturing, falsehood, she detested the misuse of power.”
*
THEY NEVER LEARN
**************************************
Some Armenians are so hedamenats and aboosh that they think one way of defending the national badiv is by insulting Turks, and they stubbornly refuse to see that not only Turks outnumber us, but when it comes to delivering profanities and insults, they are pros and we don't even qualify as rank amateurs beside them. To Armenians who are addicts of profanities and insults, I suggest they stick to insulting their fellow Armenians, because then they have a better chance to come out on top.
*
MART BIDI CH'ELLANK
***************************************
Whenever someone would recount a story about a fellow Armenian who had behaved badly, someone would say, “mart bidi ch'ellank!” meaning (freely translated) “once a jackass, always a jackass," or “we are a hopeless bunch!” I must have heard that line a thousand times, but never by those engaged in fund raising. These gentlemen know that if they flatter the dupes they plan to milk, they will be rewarded with more generous contributions. Hence the popular propaganda lines first nation this, first nation that, which may also be interpreted as first nation to be brainwashed and first nation to be taken in by foreign propaganda. As for the propaganda line that asserts we are just about the smartest people on earth, that was obviously designed to cover up the fact that we may well be be just about the dumbest.
#
Monday, October 20, 2008
***********************************************
ON SOLUTIONS
*********************************
Never ask for solutions to our problems because all solutions begin with honesty, and since no one has yet discovered a verbal formula that can convert a crook to an honest man, all talk of solutions is a waste of time.
*
DEDICATION
*******************************
The dedication to my next book will read: “For my critics and detractors – my most faithful muses.”
*
HEADLINES
*************************
A headline in our paper reads: “Hour of death should be 'chosen by God' Pope says,” the implication being, the Pope can read God's mind like an open book.
*
Another headline: “Anglicans owe Darwin apology, bishop says.” But how does one go about apologizing to a skeleton?
*
GREED
************************
About the present financial crisis, I wonder how many CEOs said or thought “If things go wrong and the whole structure collapses, the government is bound to step in and fix it. We are too big to fail.”
*
A CEO at a hearing: “I take full responsibility.” He also took home $240,000,000 we are told.
*
ON REASON
******************************
You can reason only with the reasonable. With the unreasonable you can only go down on your knees and beseech the assistance of the Holy Spirit, if, that is, you believe in that mumbo jumbo.
*
ON LOVE
********************
Our religion teaches us to love our enemies. It says nothing about loving our fellow Armenians. Have I said that before? No matter. Some things are worth repeating.
*
WORDS OF WISDOM
**********************************
Albert Einstein: “It's not that I am so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer.”
#
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
***********************************************
EASIER SAID THAN DONE
*****************************************
Speaking of Obama's favorite word: change means introducing new legislation, and “new laws,” according to an old German saying, “are followed by new tricks.”
*
WHAT'S DONE IS DONE
**********************************
The very same readers who accuse me of living in the past whenever I quote an Armenian writer, never get tired of speaking or reading about the massacres in the Ottoman Empire.
*
CANNIBALS
**************************
When they bite me and I refuse to bite back, they resent it as if to say, “What's the matter, am I not good enough to be eaten?”
*
ONE-UPMANSHIP
*****************************
The ease with which they assume to know better even when the subject under discussion is a new one to them.
*
CONFESSION
****************************
Speaking of dupes: in my youth when I heard a speechifier say something, I believed he meant it. And then I met some of them...
*
PROGRESS
***********************
Some of my readers are getting better at dishing out insults. With a little more effort, practice, and discipline they may be as good as Turks.
*
AN OLD TRICK
***************************
When the men at the top are corrupt, they emphasize the importance of patriotism, after which they stigmatize dissidents as unpatriotic.
*
MEMO
**********************
To those who recycle chauvinist crapola, I say, Leave it to the professionals of which we have more than our share. I assure you, they don't need your two cents' worth.
*
SOPHISTS
**************************
Those who want to get away with lies, rape, and murder, will tell you, these things existed since the beginning of time and no nation on earth is without them, in the same way that today they say corruption is universal and we might as well grin and bear it.
#
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
***********************************************
QUESTIONS
*****************************************
If they sling mud anonymously, is it because deep down somewhere they are ashamed of what they do?
*
If our Turcocentric ghazetajis keep writing about Turks, is it because they have nothing good to say about their fellow Armenians?
*
If we are proud of our multi-millionaires, shouldn't we be humble of our slum-dwellers?
*
Is it humanly possible to ignore or forget the truth after hearing it?
*
I may react to an honest disagreement but not to an insult. How does one react to an insult without going down into the gutter where the other has the advantage?
*
ASSERTIONS
*************************
No one can be as dangerous as a fool who is manipulated by another fool.
*
If you say to a bunch of crooks, “Gentlemen, let's be honest!” don't expect a mass conversion.
*
One cannot speak of vision where "the blind leads the blind."
*
There is a big difference between “he thinks,” and “he thinks he thinks.” To think, to really think, means to go beyond the boundaries of the already thought.
*
Who benefits when we cover up that which is negative? Surely not the victims. It follows, to cover up is to support and legitimize the victimizers among us.
*
Some of the dumbest people I know are Armenians who think they are smarter than Turks.
*
Communism has been defined as capitalism of the state, and capitalism as free enterprise for the poor.
*
Cowardice in the Ottoman Empire among Turks – it's understandable.
But cowardice in America among fellow Armenians – it's not.
#
Saturday, October 18, 2008
fear
Thursday, October 16, 2008
***********************************************
BELLS RINGING
*******************************
Albert Camus in the latest volume of his NOTEBOOKS: “Our literary society whose principle is second-rate spite, where offense takes the place of critical method.”
After reading Dostoevsky's CRIME AND PUNISHMENT: “I seriously consider the possibility of giving up.”
As a diarist Camus is disappointing. Unlike Gide and Jules Renard he makes no effort to be accessible. One entry simply reads: “The truth. The truth!” And another: “Thoughts of death.”
He quotes a French historian saying: “The Russians rotted before they were ripe.” And we were ripe 1500 years ago.
“Buddhism is atheism that became religion.”
I am reminded of Gandhi's observation that even atheists are believers because they believe the non-existence of God to be the Truth, and God is Truth.
*
NOTES & COMMENTS
*******************************************
We converted to Christianity as readily and passively as we converted to atheism under the Soviets.
*
Historians study the past in the same way that psychologists study the unconscious. History as mankind's unconscious drives made visible. We are prisoners of our past as surely as a man is a prisoner of his unconscious drives.
*
As in all fascist regimes, we have replaced intellectuals with propagandists. Hence the popularity of our Turcocentric ghazetajis.
*
After we have seen and experienced what hatred does to people, we live as though hatred were the only answer.
*
When they can't stand the heat, they drive you out of the kitchen.
#
Friday, October 17, 2008
***********************************************
FEAR
*******************************
To the faceless cowards who insult me anonymously and from a safe distance I say: One does not have to be a prophet to predict that your big mouth will be your undoing. And if you say, What about your big mouth? I will inform you that my undoing, if it comes, will have two sources, (one) being honest among phonies, and (two) writing for Armenians, which, in case you didn't know, happens to be a capital offense in our environment. You want proof? Read a text on the history of Armenian literature or the biography of any Armenian writer chosen at random. And if you are too lazy to do that, consider the fact that our history has been shaped by ruthless foreign tyrants and their collaborators among us. Allow me to remind you that two of the most notorious executioners of writers – Talaat and Stalin – earned their reputation with the full support and assistance of our traitors.
*
Nothing comes easier to an Armenian than to assert a superior brand of patriotism. And it goes without saying that he who has a high opinion of himself, will also have a correspondingly low opinion of his fellow men, so low in fact that he will assume none of them to be smart enough to see through him. A truly superior man does not feel the need to assert superiority. Only the inferior (“storin” or “varnots” in Armenian) do that to cover up their inferiority.
*
In an environment where propagandists are rated above intellectuals, not only the intellectuals but also the people will be at the mercy of executioners. For more on this subject, read a text on our history, provided of course it is not written by a hireling.
*
What are liars afraid of? The truth, of course, which they try to bury with their lies. But truth, which has a life all its own, refuses to remain buried forever. Its resurrection, which may happen in three or thirty three days or years, is inevitable. It is the awareness of this inevitability that liars fear.
#
Saturday, October 18, 2008
***********************************************
ON BIAS
*******************************
If you classify your fellow men as Black and White, or Muslim and Christian, or Turk and Armenian, you introduce bias. Think of them as human beings and you will be surprised what happens next. What I am saying has nothing to do with Christian or any other kind of morality. Turning the other is an alien concept to me. So is loving my enemy or forgiving those who trespass against me. True, I was brought up as a Christian but my ethics remain pagan. If someone slaps me, my first instinct is to want to kill him. I think of both Turks and Armenians as human beings because that's what they are, and I have discovered that some Armenians are more Turk than Armenian, and some Turks are more civilized than some Armenians.
*
In a democratic environment a disagreement is just a disagreement. In a fascist environment a disagreement can be a capital offense or provoke verbal abuse.
*
In a civilized environment, if you speak honestly, even those who disagree with you will respect you.
*
I believe in the Turkish version of our past as much as I believe in our own. I question the honesty of Turkish politicians as much as I question the honesty of all politicians, including our own. Nothing can be more naïve and foolish than to say our enemies are pathological liars but we speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
#
***********************************************
BELLS RINGING
*******************************
Albert Camus in the latest volume of his NOTEBOOKS: “Our literary society whose principle is second-rate spite, where offense takes the place of critical method.”
After reading Dostoevsky's CRIME AND PUNISHMENT: “I seriously consider the possibility of giving up.”
As a diarist Camus is disappointing. Unlike Gide and Jules Renard he makes no effort to be accessible. One entry simply reads: “The truth. The truth!” And another: “Thoughts of death.”
He quotes a French historian saying: “The Russians rotted before they were ripe.” And we were ripe 1500 years ago.
“Buddhism is atheism that became religion.”
I am reminded of Gandhi's observation that even atheists are believers because they believe the non-existence of God to be the Truth, and God is Truth.
*
NOTES & COMMENTS
*******************************************
We converted to Christianity as readily and passively as we converted to atheism under the Soviets.
*
Historians study the past in the same way that psychologists study the unconscious. History as mankind's unconscious drives made visible. We are prisoners of our past as surely as a man is a prisoner of his unconscious drives.
*
As in all fascist regimes, we have replaced intellectuals with propagandists. Hence the popularity of our Turcocentric ghazetajis.
*
After we have seen and experienced what hatred does to people, we live as though hatred were the only answer.
*
When they can't stand the heat, they drive you out of the kitchen.
#
Friday, October 17, 2008
***********************************************
FEAR
*******************************
To the faceless cowards who insult me anonymously and from a safe distance I say: One does not have to be a prophet to predict that your big mouth will be your undoing. And if you say, What about your big mouth? I will inform you that my undoing, if it comes, will have two sources, (one) being honest among phonies, and (two) writing for Armenians, which, in case you didn't know, happens to be a capital offense in our environment. You want proof? Read a text on the history of Armenian literature or the biography of any Armenian writer chosen at random. And if you are too lazy to do that, consider the fact that our history has been shaped by ruthless foreign tyrants and their collaborators among us. Allow me to remind you that two of the most notorious executioners of writers – Talaat and Stalin – earned their reputation with the full support and assistance of our traitors.
*
Nothing comes easier to an Armenian than to assert a superior brand of patriotism. And it goes without saying that he who has a high opinion of himself, will also have a correspondingly low opinion of his fellow men, so low in fact that he will assume none of them to be smart enough to see through him. A truly superior man does not feel the need to assert superiority. Only the inferior (“storin” or “varnots” in Armenian) do that to cover up their inferiority.
*
In an environment where propagandists are rated above intellectuals, not only the intellectuals but also the people will be at the mercy of executioners. For more on this subject, read a text on our history, provided of course it is not written by a hireling.
*
What are liars afraid of? The truth, of course, which they try to bury with their lies. But truth, which has a life all its own, refuses to remain buried forever. Its resurrection, which may happen in three or thirty three days or years, is inevitable. It is the awareness of this inevitability that liars fear.
#
Saturday, October 18, 2008
***********************************************
ON BIAS
*******************************
If you classify your fellow men as Black and White, or Muslim and Christian, or Turk and Armenian, you introduce bias. Think of them as human beings and you will be surprised what happens next. What I am saying has nothing to do with Christian or any other kind of morality. Turning the other is an alien concept to me. So is loving my enemy or forgiving those who trespass against me. True, I was brought up as a Christian but my ethics remain pagan. If someone slaps me, my first instinct is to want to kill him. I think of both Turks and Armenians as human beings because that's what they are, and I have discovered that some Armenians are more Turk than Armenian, and some Turks are more civilized than some Armenians.
*
In a democratic environment a disagreement is just a disagreement. In a fascist environment a disagreement can be a capital offense or provoke verbal abuse.
*
In a civilized environment, if you speak honestly, even those who disagree with you will respect you.
*
I believe in the Turkish version of our past as much as I believe in our own. I question the honesty of Turkish politicians as much as I question the honesty of all politicians, including our own. Nothing can be more naïve and foolish than to say our enemies are pathological liars but we speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
#
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
this and that
Sunday, October 12, 2008
***********************************************
ON WRITING
********************************
Kingsley Amis: “If you can't annoy somebody with what you write, I think there is little point in writing.”
*
If I fail to answer some questions or arguments it may be because I am too busy answering my perennial adversary – my former self.
*
There is a type of philistine for whom the word culture is almost synonymous with cuisine.
*
If shish-kebab and pilaf Armenians were to read a single Armenian book every year, Armenian literature would enjoy another renaissance.
*
I am accused of hanging out the nation's dirty linen by the dirty linen.
*
Cicero defines freedom as “participation in power.” If we are free, ours is the freedom of ants, birds, and herbivores – free to be stepped on, shot at, and devoured.
*
In one of his essays Sartre says that never had French intellectuals been so free as they were under the German occupation during World War II. Something similar could be said of Armenian intellectuals at the turn of the last century in Istanbul under the sultans. A 21st -century Baronian and Odian are unthinkable because they would be immediately and unanimously silenced by editors who are no better than hirelings of our bosses and benefactors.
#
Monday, October 13, 2008
***********************************************
VARIETIES OF PATRIOTIC EXPERIENCE
******************************************************
If Mother Teresa lost her faith, can any believer be safe in his own? And if I, a thoroughly brainwashed hater of all Turks, can realize that they are human beings like the rest of us, can any Armenian be safe in his hatred of Turks, and by extension, hatred of fellow Armenians who dare to disagree with him?
*
Ignorance of history allows a fool to think of himself as wise, a fanatic to be a moderate, and an executioner to be on the side of the angels.
*
When I speak of free speech, I speak in defense of all writers who at one time or another were permanently silenced by fascist regimes in the name of patriotism. I speak with the strength of many.
*
If you join a club of like-minded idiots and you assess yourself as wise, have at least the common sense and decency not to assess yourself as infallible.
*
Because I refuse to believe to be Armenian means to hate Turks in theory and to hate Armenians in practice, am I then an enemy of the people whose tongue should be cut off?
*
Diasporan patriotism: they pretend to love the country in order to hate fellow countrymen with a clear conscience.
*
Patriotism: which comes first, love of country or hatred of the enemy?
*
Solidarity in hatred, divisiveness in love: some may call that patriotism, I call it insanity.
*
Those who preach patriotism and violate the human rights of their fellow countrymen are liars, cowards, and partisans of subservience.
*
Love of country: mountains, rivers, and valleys are easy to love – they don't reason, neither do they judge. Love of fellow countrymen: a far more demanding enterprise.
#
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
***********************************************
TEN YEARS LATER
******************************************************
When a reader reacts with insults and profanities it may be because he has run out of arguments, or rather he never had any to begin with.
*
To meet two old detractors after ten years and to realize they haven't advanced an inch and they are the same horse's arses is a sensation akin to revenge without the guilt.
*
If a man's income is forty times your own, it doesn't necessarily follow that he is forty times smarter, though he may think so.
*
Sarah Palin claiming to be an expert in foreign affairs because she can see Russia from her porch has a counterpart among Armenians who think they are patriotic because they know “Yes im anoush Hayastani” by heart.
*
Let us not confuse hatred of Turks with love of the Homeland, or being slaves of former slaves with freedom.
*
St. John: “The one who says that he loves God and does not love his brother is a liar.” So is the Armenian who loves his Homeland but hates his fellow Armenian.
*
The contempt of the nouveau riche for the intellectual who can't make ends meet, the loathing of the bourgeois for the white trash, and the scorn of the aristocracy for the bourgeois – Turgenev's of Dostoevsky, Tolstoy's of Shakespeare, Nabokov's of Freud and Sartre....
*
St. Paul: “If any man among you seems to be wise in this world, let him become a fool that he may be wise.”
#
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
***********************************************
VIPERS
*****************
Some share their thoughts, others their venom. But in order to share their venom, they must store it somewhere, that is to say, they must make themselves venomous. Unlike vipers that are not harmed by their own venom, however,human venom is stored in the heart and circulates throughout the entire organism. It follows, those who share their venom become its most generous recipients. Hence Gandhi's dictum, “Hatred injures us more than those we hate.”
*
PROBLEMS
***********************
Life is an endless succession of problems. Some problems can be solved, others, like death, taxes, and the voice of one's conscience, cannot.
*
QUESTIONS
*******************
Can anyone name a single Armenian who has freely relinquished even a tiny fraction of his income, prestige, or power for the sake of solidarity -- that is to say, that which makes of us a nation as opposed to a collection of tribes?
*
Sometimes I am asked:
“Why are you so consistently negative?”
My reply: Negative is in the eye of the beholder. To be against lies is positive;
but not to the liar, of course.
#
***********************************************
ON WRITING
********************************
Kingsley Amis: “If you can't annoy somebody with what you write, I think there is little point in writing.”
*
If I fail to answer some questions or arguments it may be because I am too busy answering my perennial adversary – my former self.
*
There is a type of philistine for whom the word culture is almost synonymous with cuisine.
*
If shish-kebab and pilaf Armenians were to read a single Armenian book every year, Armenian literature would enjoy another renaissance.
*
I am accused of hanging out the nation's dirty linen by the dirty linen.
*
Cicero defines freedom as “participation in power.” If we are free, ours is the freedom of ants, birds, and herbivores – free to be stepped on, shot at, and devoured.
*
In one of his essays Sartre says that never had French intellectuals been so free as they were under the German occupation during World War II. Something similar could be said of Armenian intellectuals at the turn of the last century in Istanbul under the sultans. A 21st -century Baronian and Odian are unthinkable because they would be immediately and unanimously silenced by editors who are no better than hirelings of our bosses and benefactors.
#
Monday, October 13, 2008
***********************************************
VARIETIES OF PATRIOTIC EXPERIENCE
******************************************************
If Mother Teresa lost her faith, can any believer be safe in his own? And if I, a thoroughly brainwashed hater of all Turks, can realize that they are human beings like the rest of us, can any Armenian be safe in his hatred of Turks, and by extension, hatred of fellow Armenians who dare to disagree with him?
*
Ignorance of history allows a fool to think of himself as wise, a fanatic to be a moderate, and an executioner to be on the side of the angels.
*
When I speak of free speech, I speak in defense of all writers who at one time or another were permanently silenced by fascist regimes in the name of patriotism. I speak with the strength of many.
*
If you join a club of like-minded idiots and you assess yourself as wise, have at least the common sense and decency not to assess yourself as infallible.
*
Because I refuse to believe to be Armenian means to hate Turks in theory and to hate Armenians in practice, am I then an enemy of the people whose tongue should be cut off?
*
Diasporan patriotism: they pretend to love the country in order to hate fellow countrymen with a clear conscience.
*
Patriotism: which comes first, love of country or hatred of the enemy?
*
Solidarity in hatred, divisiveness in love: some may call that patriotism, I call it insanity.
*
Those who preach patriotism and violate the human rights of their fellow countrymen are liars, cowards, and partisans of subservience.
*
Love of country: mountains, rivers, and valleys are easy to love – they don't reason, neither do they judge. Love of fellow countrymen: a far more demanding enterprise.
#
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
***********************************************
TEN YEARS LATER
******************************************************
When a reader reacts with insults and profanities it may be because he has run out of arguments, or rather he never had any to begin with.
*
To meet two old detractors after ten years and to realize they haven't advanced an inch and they are the same horse's arses is a sensation akin to revenge without the guilt.
*
If a man's income is forty times your own, it doesn't necessarily follow that he is forty times smarter, though he may think so.
*
Sarah Palin claiming to be an expert in foreign affairs because she can see Russia from her porch has a counterpart among Armenians who think they are patriotic because they know “Yes im anoush Hayastani” by heart.
*
Let us not confuse hatred of Turks with love of the Homeland, or being slaves of former slaves with freedom.
*
St. John: “The one who says that he loves God and does not love his brother is a liar.” So is the Armenian who loves his Homeland but hates his fellow Armenian.
*
The contempt of the nouveau riche for the intellectual who can't make ends meet, the loathing of the bourgeois for the white trash, and the scorn of the aristocracy for the bourgeois – Turgenev's of Dostoevsky, Tolstoy's of Shakespeare, Nabokov's of Freud and Sartre....
*
St. Paul: “If any man among you seems to be wise in this world, let him become a fool that he may be wise.”
#
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
***********************************************
VIPERS
*****************
Some share their thoughts, others their venom. But in order to share their venom, they must store it somewhere, that is to say, they must make themselves venomous. Unlike vipers that are not harmed by their own venom, however,human venom is stored in the heart and circulates throughout the entire organism. It follows, those who share their venom become its most generous recipients. Hence Gandhi's dictum, “Hatred injures us more than those we hate.”
*
PROBLEMS
***********************
Life is an endless succession of problems. Some problems can be solved, others, like death, taxes, and the voice of one's conscience, cannot.
*
QUESTIONS
*******************
Can anyone name a single Armenian who has freely relinquished even a tiny fraction of his income, prestige, or power for the sake of solidarity -- that is to say, that which makes of us a nation as opposed to a collection of tribes?
*
Sometimes I am asked:
“Why are you so consistently negative?”
My reply: Negative is in the eye of the beholder. To be against lies is positive;
but not to the liar, of course.
#
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Marx
Thursday, October 9, 2008
***********************************************
GENIUS KHANS
******************************
There are some Armenians so dumb that not only do they believe in their own assessment of themselves that they are offended when no one else does.
*
SUSPICION
***********************
Whenever a reader insults me anonymously, I always assume him to be either a bishop, the son of a bishop, or someone equally disreputable.
*
DECLINE AND FALL
*****************************
One way to explain the decline and fall of Armenian literature is by saying that first-rate writers and fourth-rate readers are mutually exclusive concepts.
*
THE BUSH DOCTRINE
*******************************
It has been pointed out to me on several occasions that it is wrong being rude to my critics.
Rude to my critics? Never!
As far as I can remember, I have at no time been rude to them.
Rude to kibitzers the purpose of whose oneupmanship is to take better aim when they piss on me – that's different. I don't call that being rude. I call it preemptive strike.
*
PHILISTINES
**************************
There is a familiar type of odar philistine who connects Parisians to pissoirs, Italians to pizza, and Armenians to pilaf and shish-kebab. To be fair, in this connection I should make mention of the efforts of our Turcocentric pundits who have been doing their utmost to change that false impression.
*
HUNGARIAN RHAPSODY
***********************************
Zsa Zsa Gabor: “My dad told me, 'Anything worth having is worth waiting for,' so I waited until I was fifteen.”
At which point she fell for Atatürk. That's what I call a brilliant debut.
#
Saturday, October 11, 2008
***********************************************
CONFESSIONS
**********************************
Lord Byron: “Who would write who had anything better to do?”
*
There are days when flipping hamburgers sounds like a more useful occupation to me. What could be more satisfying than feeding the hungry? It may not be as good as the miracle of the loaves and the fishes, granted. But it comes damn close to it. My only consolation: any writer who is unanimously rejected by partisan as well as non-partisan editors and reviled by garbage-mouth readers can't be all bad.
*
BEAN-COUNTERS
***************************
I can understand laymen not reading the small print and being taken in by predatory lenders. What about chief executive officers and their small armies of advisers, assistants, accountants, and lawyers? What were they up to beside counting beans and pulling their dicks? If they too were taken in by cunning operators, how to explain the fact that they came out on top? The stench of conspiracy is so powerful that it would make a Bolshevik out of Senator McCarthy if he were alive.
*
THE REALITY PRINCIPLE
*******************************************
Some people are so outrageously wrong that they don’t have to be corrected. Sooner or later life, facts, the reality principle will speak to them much louder than any logical argument or appeal to common sense and decency.
#
***********************************************
GENIUS KHANS
******************************
There are some Armenians so dumb that not only do they believe in their own assessment of themselves that they are offended when no one else does.
*
SUSPICION
***********************
Whenever a reader insults me anonymously, I always assume him to be either a bishop, the son of a bishop, or someone equally disreputable.
*
DECLINE AND FALL
*****************************
One way to explain the decline and fall of Armenian literature is by saying that first-rate writers and fourth-rate readers are mutually exclusive concepts.
*
THE BUSH DOCTRINE
*******************************
It has been pointed out to me on several occasions that it is wrong being rude to my critics.
Rude to my critics? Never!
As far as I can remember, I have at no time been rude to them.
Rude to kibitzers the purpose of whose oneupmanship is to take better aim when they piss on me – that's different. I don't call that being rude. I call it preemptive strike.
*
PHILISTINES
**************************
There is a familiar type of odar philistine who connects Parisians to pissoirs, Italians to pizza, and Armenians to pilaf and shish-kebab. To be fair, in this connection I should make mention of the efforts of our Turcocentric pundits who have been doing their utmost to change that false impression.
*
HUNGARIAN RHAPSODY
***********************************
Zsa Zsa Gabor: “My dad told me, 'Anything worth having is worth waiting for,' so I waited until I was fifteen.”
At which point she fell for Atatürk. That's what I call a brilliant debut.
#
Saturday, October 11, 2008
***********************************************
CONFESSIONS
**********************************
Lord Byron: “Who would write who had anything better to do?”
*
There are days when flipping hamburgers sounds like a more useful occupation to me. What could be more satisfying than feeding the hungry? It may not be as good as the miracle of the loaves and the fishes, granted. But it comes damn close to it. My only consolation: any writer who is unanimously rejected by partisan as well as non-partisan editors and reviled by garbage-mouth readers can't be all bad.
*
BEAN-COUNTERS
***************************
I can understand laymen not reading the small print and being taken in by predatory lenders. What about chief executive officers and their small armies of advisers, assistants, accountants, and lawyers? What were they up to beside counting beans and pulling their dicks? If they too were taken in by cunning operators, how to explain the fact that they came out on top? The stench of conspiracy is so powerful that it would make a Bolshevik out of Senator McCarthy if he were alive.
*
THE REALITY PRINCIPLE
*******************************************
Some people are so outrageously wrong that they don’t have to be corrected. Sooner or later life, facts, the reality principle will speak to them much louder than any logical argument or appeal to common sense and decency.
#
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Marx
Sunday, October 5, 2008
***********************************************
CONTROVERSIAL REFLECTIONS
******************************************************
If a big mouth were a sign of intelligence, courage, and initiative, every other Armenian would be another Napoleon, and probably he is in his own mind.
*
Sometimes I am described as controversial. If I am, it is only with the naïve, the uninformed, the ignorant, and the unaware.
*
According to some psychologists, the compulsion to speak the truth is neurotic. By contrast, the compulsion to lie is a survival tactic and as such in no need of psychiatric treatment.
*
I realized I was growing old when old men treated me as if I were one of them.
*
After I die I will be remembered by those I have insulted. This may not be an ideal form of immortality but, as the saying goes, beggars can't be choosers.
*
If you think I repeat myself, you can reduce the repetitions by 50% if you read me every other day, and 100% if you quit reading me.
*
Yanks have talking heads. We have snarling snouts, and if some readers are right, I am one of them.
*
We tend to forget that our propaganda has as much effect on them as theirs on us.
*
Woody Allen: “I can't listen to too much Wagner, ya know? I start to get the urge to conquer Poland.”
#
Monday, October 6, 2008
***********************************************
ALL FASCISTS ARE PATHOLOGICAL LIARS
******************************************************
That's because fascism and truth are mutually exclusive concepts. Even when they speak the truth they lie because their little truths serve to prop up Big Lies.
When in power, they silence all dissent because they are afraid to be exposed as liars to their blind followers. When not in power, they verbally abuse anyone who dares to speak in defense of human rights and free speech.
*
Fascism cannot be defeated with arguments. It took a world war to defeat fascism and even then it was only a temporary victory. There are more fascist regimes today than there are democracies, and there are fascists even in democracies. They may not call themselves fascists but they are as fascist as the fascists under Mussolini who was said to be “always right” (“Mussolini ha sempre ragione.”)
Who do you think brainwashes teenage boys and girls to blow themselves up in crowded places and kill as many innocent civilians as possible – all in the name of God, Of course: fascists!
What are skinheads, nationalists, and racists who are brainwashed to believe they know better because they are better?
*
And in case you think we are too smart or civilized to be fascists: I just finished reading an article in an American magazine in which it is stated that sixteen journalists have been beaten up recently in Yerevan and so far no arrests have been made. (See “Caucasus Diary” by John O'Sullivan in NATIONAL REVIEW, September 15, 2008, page 28.)
*
Our fascists are not only pathological liars but also unspeakable cowards because more often than not they don't identify themselves in discussion forums on the Internet. They adopt instead such revealing pseudonyms as “Twilight Snarl,” “Midnight Growl,” and “Morning Phlegm,” when Jack S. Avanakian would be the most appropriate designation.
When asked why he is afraid to write under his own name, one of these heroic specimens explained, “To avoid being the target of Turkish retaliation.” Which of course is utter nonsense because they hide themselves even when abusing their fellow Armenians. They hide themselves even when they write against me, as if I were some kind of mafia don with a gang of hit men at my disposal. To these gutless mice I say: Even if I were a mafia don I wouldn't waste a bullet on them because they are too contemptible to deserve anything but the words “lying cowards.”
#
P.S. Gentle reader: If you recognized yourself in what I just said, you are probably right, which is a good beginning because you are probably right for the first time in your life, and according to an old Macedonian saying (which I just made up): “He who is right once has an average chance of being right again,” -- though I wouldn't bet on it.
*
P.P.S. Tomorrow I plan to discuss about a subject that is seldom or never mentioned in Armenian forums: Turks.
#
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
***********************************************
AS I SEE IT
*****************
It is the easiest thing in the world to discriminate a reader with a genuine difference of opinion from one who likes to make a nuisance of himself. Most words in the English language have more than one dictionary definition. It is the context that determines their meaning. By deliberating choosing a definition outside the context, one may disagree with any statement, and this is exactly what smartalecks do.
*
Writing became a pleasure on the day I gave up not only all hope of popularity, fame, and fortune, but also of minimum wage.
*
One reason I suspect the motives of our academics is that they owe their position and income to “chairs” endowed by our benefactors, that is to say, the very rich, who look down at the very poor as lazy, inferior beings who will never amount to anything.
*
Speaking of blood-sucking exploiters and white trash: According to a Canadian pundit, if the McCain-Palin ticket wins, it will be the triumph of the very rich and the white trash – a clear-cut case of politics making strange bedfellows. That's the dark side of the situation. And now the Pollyanna side: If McCain and Palin win, they will usher in a golden age of political satire, the White House will become the stage of a perpetual sitcom, and they will be an endless source of inspiration to stand-up comedians.
*
All Armenian political parties are alike in at least two important respects: (one) none of them represents the majority, and (two) all of them are more like clubs of mutual admiration on the outside and a vipers' nest on the inside.
*
I promised to write about Turks and I kept my promise because there is a Turk in all of us.
#
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
***********************************************
MARX
*****************
Many nasty things have been said against philosophy by philomorons. But consider the case of Karl Marx who single-handed (with a little help from Plato, Hegel, and Engels) reshaped the worldview of billions of people from China to Cuba, and with it, the political map of the world.
And Marx was wrong.
Now then, imagine if you can the damage a philosopher who is right can inflict on mankind and tremble.
*
NAREGATSI
****************************
Only Armenians who have not read a single line by Naregatsi think of me as anti-Armenian, or too self-critical or analytical. There is more self-criticism in a single page by Naregatsi than in everything I have written so far.
Sartre said “Hell is other people.”
Naregatsi could have echoed Flaubert's “Bovary c'est moi,” by saying “L'enfer c'est moi.”
To Dante, hell is an operatic horror show.
To Naregatsi, it's an invisible place deep within us.
Jesus said, “The Kingdom of God is within you.”
Naregatsi says, “So is the Devil's Empire.”
*
DEFINITION
******************************
Literature: Art irritating life.
*
SHAKESPEAREA & CO.
****************************************
In Shakespeare, we have the confident voice of a rising empire;
in Milton, one of the most eloquent defenders of free speech;
in Narekatsi, the moans and ululations of a disintegrating kingdom;
in Sylva Kaputikian, a political opportunist and dupe
who operated on the assumption that Sovietism was the universal religion of the future;
in Gostan Zarian, the whole gamut of Armenianism:
from intense nationalism bordering on chauvinism
to disenchantment, resignation, rage, and the silence of despair and disgust.
#
***********************************************
CONTROVERSIAL REFLECTIONS
******************************************************
If a big mouth were a sign of intelligence, courage, and initiative, every other Armenian would be another Napoleon, and probably he is in his own mind.
*
Sometimes I am described as controversial. If I am, it is only with the naïve, the uninformed, the ignorant, and the unaware.
*
According to some psychologists, the compulsion to speak the truth is neurotic. By contrast, the compulsion to lie is a survival tactic and as such in no need of psychiatric treatment.
*
I realized I was growing old when old men treated me as if I were one of them.
*
After I die I will be remembered by those I have insulted. This may not be an ideal form of immortality but, as the saying goes, beggars can't be choosers.
*
If you think I repeat myself, you can reduce the repetitions by 50% if you read me every other day, and 100% if you quit reading me.
*
Yanks have talking heads. We have snarling snouts, and if some readers are right, I am one of them.
*
We tend to forget that our propaganda has as much effect on them as theirs on us.
*
Woody Allen: “I can't listen to too much Wagner, ya know? I start to get the urge to conquer Poland.”
#
Monday, October 6, 2008
***********************************************
ALL FASCISTS ARE PATHOLOGICAL LIARS
******************************************************
That's because fascism and truth are mutually exclusive concepts. Even when they speak the truth they lie because their little truths serve to prop up Big Lies.
When in power, they silence all dissent because they are afraid to be exposed as liars to their blind followers. When not in power, they verbally abuse anyone who dares to speak in defense of human rights and free speech.
*
Fascism cannot be defeated with arguments. It took a world war to defeat fascism and even then it was only a temporary victory. There are more fascist regimes today than there are democracies, and there are fascists even in democracies. They may not call themselves fascists but they are as fascist as the fascists under Mussolini who was said to be “always right” (“Mussolini ha sempre ragione.”)
Who do you think brainwashes teenage boys and girls to blow themselves up in crowded places and kill as many innocent civilians as possible – all in the name of God, Of course: fascists!
What are skinheads, nationalists, and racists who are brainwashed to believe they know better because they are better?
*
And in case you think we are too smart or civilized to be fascists: I just finished reading an article in an American magazine in which it is stated that sixteen journalists have been beaten up recently in Yerevan and so far no arrests have been made. (See “Caucasus Diary” by John O'Sullivan in NATIONAL REVIEW, September 15, 2008, page 28.)
*
Our fascists are not only pathological liars but also unspeakable cowards because more often than not they don't identify themselves in discussion forums on the Internet. They adopt instead such revealing pseudonyms as “Twilight Snarl,” “Midnight Growl,” and “Morning Phlegm,” when Jack S. Avanakian would be the most appropriate designation.
When asked why he is afraid to write under his own name, one of these heroic specimens explained, “To avoid being the target of Turkish retaliation.” Which of course is utter nonsense because they hide themselves even when abusing their fellow Armenians. They hide themselves even when they write against me, as if I were some kind of mafia don with a gang of hit men at my disposal. To these gutless mice I say: Even if I were a mafia don I wouldn't waste a bullet on them because they are too contemptible to deserve anything but the words “lying cowards.”
#
P.S. Gentle reader: If you recognized yourself in what I just said, you are probably right, which is a good beginning because you are probably right for the first time in your life, and according to an old Macedonian saying (which I just made up): “He who is right once has an average chance of being right again,” -- though I wouldn't bet on it.
*
P.P.S. Tomorrow I plan to discuss about a subject that is seldom or never mentioned in Armenian forums: Turks.
#
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
***********************************************
AS I SEE IT
*****************
It is the easiest thing in the world to discriminate a reader with a genuine difference of opinion from one who likes to make a nuisance of himself. Most words in the English language have more than one dictionary definition. It is the context that determines their meaning. By deliberating choosing a definition outside the context, one may disagree with any statement, and this is exactly what smartalecks do.
*
Writing became a pleasure on the day I gave up not only all hope of popularity, fame, and fortune, but also of minimum wage.
*
One reason I suspect the motives of our academics is that they owe their position and income to “chairs” endowed by our benefactors, that is to say, the very rich, who look down at the very poor as lazy, inferior beings who will never amount to anything.
*
Speaking of blood-sucking exploiters and white trash: According to a Canadian pundit, if the McCain-Palin ticket wins, it will be the triumph of the very rich and the white trash – a clear-cut case of politics making strange bedfellows. That's the dark side of the situation. And now the Pollyanna side: If McCain and Palin win, they will usher in a golden age of political satire, the White House will become the stage of a perpetual sitcom, and they will be an endless source of inspiration to stand-up comedians.
*
All Armenian political parties are alike in at least two important respects: (one) none of them represents the majority, and (two) all of them are more like clubs of mutual admiration on the outside and a vipers' nest on the inside.
*
I promised to write about Turks and I kept my promise because there is a Turk in all of us.
#
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
***********************************************
MARX
*****************
Many nasty things have been said against philosophy by philomorons. But consider the case of Karl Marx who single-handed (with a little help from Plato, Hegel, and Engels) reshaped the worldview of billions of people from China to Cuba, and with it, the political map of the world.
And Marx was wrong.
Now then, imagine if you can the damage a philosopher who is right can inflict on mankind and tremble.
*
NAREGATSI
****************************
Only Armenians who have not read a single line by Naregatsi think of me as anti-Armenian, or too self-critical or analytical. There is more self-criticism in a single page by Naregatsi than in everything I have written so far.
Sartre said “Hell is other people.”
Naregatsi could have echoed Flaubert's “Bovary c'est moi,” by saying “L'enfer c'est moi.”
To Dante, hell is an operatic horror show.
To Naregatsi, it's an invisible place deep within us.
Jesus said, “The Kingdom of God is within you.”
Naregatsi says, “So is the Devil's Empire.”
*
DEFINITION
******************************
Literature: Art irritating life.
*
SHAKESPEAREA & CO.
****************************************
In Shakespeare, we have the confident voice of a rising empire;
in Milton, one of the most eloquent defenders of free speech;
in Narekatsi, the moans and ululations of a disintegrating kingdom;
in Sylva Kaputikian, a political opportunist and dupe
who operated on the assumption that Sovietism was the universal religion of the future;
in Gostan Zarian, the whole gamut of Armenianism:
from intense nationalism bordering on chauvinism
to disenchantment, resignation, rage, and the silence of despair and disgust.
#
Saturday, October 4, 2008
survival
Thursday, October 2, 2008
***********************************************
ON SURVIVAL
********************************
If we are survivors, what would you call cockroaches – an endangered species? Am I comparing Armenians to cockroaches. No, of course not! I have never heard a cockroach brag.
*
If our destiny was to be extinct, we are a success story. But if our destiny was to be an empire, we are a miserable failure.
I remember once when I said as much, one of my most combative, sriga detractors said: “We are a civilized, peace-loving people; we are not bloodthirsty imperialists.”
If that's what we are, why is it that we are taught to brag about our empire under Dikran the Great, and our political and military leaders in the Byzantine Empire?
As far as I know, there has never been a nation that voluntarily gave up its imperial ambitions and chose to be subservient to ruthless foreign despots. Neither have I heard of a pack of wolves that converted to vegetarianism and adopted the lifestyle of sheep.
*
One reason I don't always reply to my garbage-mouth critics is that in their efforts to silence me they make themselves so repulsive that arguing with them would be like killing someone who is committing suicide.
*
In a previous entry I mentioned an Armenian forum in which Turks outnumber Armenians. Some damn fool on this forum has been deleting my things probably because he recognizes himself in what I write. If this anonymous and cowardly fool is an Armenian, I say, shame on him. If he is a Turk, he must be a direct descendant of Sultan Mahomet “whose Turkish troops took Constantinople in 1453 and paused in the butchery long enough to burn most of the library books and toss 120,000 manuscripts into the sea. (See Fernando Baez, A UNIVERSAL HISTORY OF THE DESTRUCTION OF BOOKS.)
#
Friday, October 3, 2008
***********************************************
TO MY READERS
********************************
If we ever experience a Renaissance, I would like it to be a renaissance not of Michelangelos and da Vincis but of common sense and decency.
*
A suggestion to readers who tell me I hate my fellow Armenians. Next time you find yourself in front of a mirror, take a good look and ask yourself, “Am I lovable?”
*
They tell me I should be more friendly to my readers, including those who disagree with me. Honey attracts more flies than vinegar? So does crap. I have been a fool too long and I have dealt with fools too many times to have any illusions about them, and one thing I have learned is that it never pays to encourage them into thinking they belong to the human race.
*
In my business it is very important to have “an unerring eye for humbug” (Kant), or a gadget known as “a reliable shit-detector” (Hemingway).
*
If you repeat what someone has told you, you are not expressing your views but his, in which case to say nothing would be preferable.
*
Science tells us men and beasts are different in many respects. What it doesn't tell us is that in one very important respect they are alike: they are both ruled by the law of the jungle.
*
And speaking of cannibalism, listen to Henry Fielding's definition of love: “The desire of satisfying a voracious appetite with a certain quantity of delicate white human flesh.”
#
Saturday, October 4, 2008
***********************************************
ON LOYALTY, AMONG OTHER THINGS
******************************************************
Everything I write is an answer to a specific question. I must have answered over a thousand questions by now. The only questions I refuse to answer are the ones whose implication is “You are either with me or against me.” These are not questions as demands for a loyalty oath. Loyalty to men is a fascist concept and as such loathsome. There is no merit in being loyal to swine. Loyalty to principles and truth, yes, by all means: I am all for it.
*
A mediocre book about mediocre people by a mediocre writer would be a best-seller because everyone would like to know what others are really like.
*
Even as we brag we expose our failings, and we do this with almost primitive unawareness. Because our best and brightest did not survive, our worthless and worst brag about their genius for survival.
#
***********************************************
ON SURVIVAL
********************************
If we are survivors, what would you call cockroaches – an endangered species? Am I comparing Armenians to cockroaches. No, of course not! I have never heard a cockroach brag.
*
If our destiny was to be extinct, we are a success story. But if our destiny was to be an empire, we are a miserable failure.
I remember once when I said as much, one of my most combative, sriga detractors said: “We are a civilized, peace-loving people; we are not bloodthirsty imperialists.”
If that's what we are, why is it that we are taught to brag about our empire under Dikran the Great, and our political and military leaders in the Byzantine Empire?
As far as I know, there has never been a nation that voluntarily gave up its imperial ambitions and chose to be subservient to ruthless foreign despots. Neither have I heard of a pack of wolves that converted to vegetarianism and adopted the lifestyle of sheep.
*
One reason I don't always reply to my garbage-mouth critics is that in their efforts to silence me they make themselves so repulsive that arguing with them would be like killing someone who is committing suicide.
*
In a previous entry I mentioned an Armenian forum in which Turks outnumber Armenians. Some damn fool on this forum has been deleting my things probably because he recognizes himself in what I write. If this anonymous and cowardly fool is an Armenian, I say, shame on him. If he is a Turk, he must be a direct descendant of Sultan Mahomet “whose Turkish troops took Constantinople in 1453 and paused in the butchery long enough to burn most of the library books and toss 120,000 manuscripts into the sea. (See Fernando Baez, A UNIVERSAL HISTORY OF THE DESTRUCTION OF BOOKS.)
#
Friday, October 3, 2008
***********************************************
TO MY READERS
********************************
If we ever experience a Renaissance, I would like it to be a renaissance not of Michelangelos and da Vincis but of common sense and decency.
*
A suggestion to readers who tell me I hate my fellow Armenians. Next time you find yourself in front of a mirror, take a good look and ask yourself, “Am I lovable?”
*
They tell me I should be more friendly to my readers, including those who disagree with me. Honey attracts more flies than vinegar? So does crap. I have been a fool too long and I have dealt with fools too many times to have any illusions about them, and one thing I have learned is that it never pays to encourage them into thinking they belong to the human race.
*
In my business it is very important to have “an unerring eye for humbug” (Kant), or a gadget known as “a reliable shit-detector” (Hemingway).
*
If you repeat what someone has told you, you are not expressing your views but his, in which case to say nothing would be preferable.
*
Science tells us men and beasts are different in many respects. What it doesn't tell us is that in one very important respect they are alike: they are both ruled by the law of the jungle.
*
And speaking of cannibalism, listen to Henry Fielding's definition of love: “The desire of satisfying a voracious appetite with a certain quantity of delicate white human flesh.”
#
Saturday, October 4, 2008
***********************************************
ON LOYALTY, AMONG OTHER THINGS
******************************************************
Everything I write is an answer to a specific question. I must have answered over a thousand questions by now. The only questions I refuse to answer are the ones whose implication is “You are either with me or against me.” These are not questions as demands for a loyalty oath. Loyalty to men is a fascist concept and as such loathsome. There is no merit in being loyal to swine. Loyalty to principles and truth, yes, by all means: I am all for it.
*
A mediocre book about mediocre people by a mediocre writer would be a best-seller because everyone would like to know what others are really like.
*
Even as we brag we expose our failings, and we do this with almost primitive unawareness. Because our best and brightest did not survive, our worthless and worst brag about their genius for survival.
#
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
from my notebooks
Sunday, September 28, 2008
***********************************************
An American pundit on chief executive officers: “The government cannot place limitations on the salaries and bonuses of CEO's. These are smart people. They know how to handle money. If they don't make it one way, they will find other ways.”
In other words, the net of our justice system can catch sardines but not sharks, because it was designed by sharks.
Or, if you are going to steal, go into banking and leave petty larceny to criminals.
*
If we ever let loose a forensic accountant into our organizations, I suspect he will suffocate in a pile of manure as big as Mount Ararat.
*
Capitalism: socialism for the rich, free enterprise for the poor.
*
If I am against everything that I believed thirty years ago, it only means that I did not waste my last thirty years because I learned things I didn't know.
*
What makes a loser think he is morally superior is a psychological maneuver known as compensation. But there is compensation and there is overcompensation, as when an inbred moron assesses himself as a genius.
*
If I repeat myself it's because when I am misunderstood, I don't mind trying again.
*
Think of a dissident as someone who says “I refuse to be brainwashed.”
#
Monday, September 29, 2008
***********************************************
REFLECTIONS OF A FORMER DUPE
****************************************************
If I am as bad a writer as some of my readers are eager to inform me, why even bother reading me when there are so many good ones, among them patriotic academics, historians, pundits, and poets?
*
Why is it that believers persecute non-believers? Is it because believers may believe they believe but they don't really believe, and in silencing infidels they hope to silence their own doubts?
*
During the Soviet era dissidents were persecuted, exiled, and shot. Did that prolong the existence of the USSR by even a fraction of a second?
*
Great nations produce great writers. Shakespeare wrote for kings and queens, not brainwashed fools and fishwives.
*
An Armenian could never have said “You can't fool all the people all the time,” because Armenians have been successfully fooled for more than 1500 years now.
*
What happened to our Bagratunis who denied their Armenian identity and claimed to be Jews descended from the Biblical King David? What happened to our Mamikonians (of Chinese descent) who claimed to have fought the heroic Battle of Avarair, which, according to some historians, not all of them odar, never took place?
*
Nations need myths. Only deceivers need lies.
*
The more brainwashed they are the lower their IQ, the higher their intolerance, the deeper their ignorance, the greater their fanaticism.
*
I can recognize a brainwashed dupe when I see one. I was one myself most of my life.
*
Harry Truman on Richard Nixon: “I don't think the son of a bitch knows the difference between telling the truth and lying.”
#
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
***********************************************
They are calling it a tsunami. It's nothing of the kind. Tsunamis are natural phenomena. The present economic crisis is man-made – a result of deregulation, mismanagement, and greed. The greedy should be exposed, named, tried, and penalized, not rewarded, promoted, or trusted to solve the problem.
*
There is an Armenian forum on the Internet in which Turks outnumber the Armenians and which consists mostly in exchanges of insults and profanities. Turks verbally abuse Armenians, Armenians abuse Turks, and – you guessed – Armenians abuse Armenians. After a while you can't tell who's who because they all sound alike, which reminds me of what Granian once told me: “Scratch an Armenian and find a Turk.”
*
Call someone ignorant and condemn yourself to learn nothing from him.
*
The smaller the country, the greater the number of its self-assessed geniuses.
*
I know how to write for idiots. As for writing for lesser idiots: I leave that to far better men than myself.
*
Driving half an hour to a golf course, playing golf for an hour, having a drink afterwards with the boys, or watching a hockey game on TV – that's my idea of hell.
*
Whenever I have been exploited, abused, and insulted, it's been with my consent and cooperation. To realize this is to be born again.
*
Winston Churchill (on being told several of his fly-buttons were undone): “No matter. The dead bird does not leave the nest.”
#
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
***********************************************
FROM MY NOTEBOOKS
****************************************
I believe there is a special place in hell reserved for people who think what they know is good enough for them and no one and nothing can change that.
*
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?
*
How much of what we know today would be reduced to ignorance if we were to see reality through the eyes of God?
*
My ambition as an Armenian is to be a human being.
*
Patriotism does not mean joining our leaders in covering up their blunders.
*
As slaves of former slaves, we are double underdogs, and we need a double revolution to emerge from our cage within a cage.
*
What is the value of an insult delivered anonymously and from a safe distance? To put it more bluntly: Why should anyone give a damn what a garbage-mouth cowardly nonentity thinks?
*
When I went into this business, it never occurred to me that some day I would be wasting most of my time trying to teach manners to hoodlums.
*
Johnson on Gerald Ford: “So dumb he can't fart and chew gum at the same time.”
#
***********************************************
An American pundit on chief executive officers: “The government cannot place limitations on the salaries and bonuses of CEO's. These are smart people. They know how to handle money. If they don't make it one way, they will find other ways.”
In other words, the net of our justice system can catch sardines but not sharks, because it was designed by sharks.
Or, if you are going to steal, go into banking and leave petty larceny to criminals.
*
If we ever let loose a forensic accountant into our organizations, I suspect he will suffocate in a pile of manure as big as Mount Ararat.
*
Capitalism: socialism for the rich, free enterprise for the poor.
*
If I am against everything that I believed thirty years ago, it only means that I did not waste my last thirty years because I learned things I didn't know.
*
What makes a loser think he is morally superior is a psychological maneuver known as compensation. But there is compensation and there is overcompensation, as when an inbred moron assesses himself as a genius.
*
If I repeat myself it's because when I am misunderstood, I don't mind trying again.
*
Think of a dissident as someone who says “I refuse to be brainwashed.”
#
Monday, September 29, 2008
***********************************************
REFLECTIONS OF A FORMER DUPE
****************************************************
If I am as bad a writer as some of my readers are eager to inform me, why even bother reading me when there are so many good ones, among them patriotic academics, historians, pundits, and poets?
*
Why is it that believers persecute non-believers? Is it because believers may believe they believe but they don't really believe, and in silencing infidels they hope to silence their own doubts?
*
During the Soviet era dissidents were persecuted, exiled, and shot. Did that prolong the existence of the USSR by even a fraction of a second?
*
Great nations produce great writers. Shakespeare wrote for kings and queens, not brainwashed fools and fishwives.
*
An Armenian could never have said “You can't fool all the people all the time,” because Armenians have been successfully fooled for more than 1500 years now.
*
What happened to our Bagratunis who denied their Armenian identity and claimed to be Jews descended from the Biblical King David? What happened to our Mamikonians (of Chinese descent) who claimed to have fought the heroic Battle of Avarair, which, according to some historians, not all of them odar, never took place?
*
Nations need myths. Only deceivers need lies.
*
The more brainwashed they are the lower their IQ, the higher their intolerance, the deeper their ignorance, the greater their fanaticism.
*
I can recognize a brainwashed dupe when I see one. I was one myself most of my life.
*
Harry Truman on Richard Nixon: “I don't think the son of a bitch knows the difference between telling the truth and lying.”
#
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
***********************************************
They are calling it a tsunami. It's nothing of the kind. Tsunamis are natural phenomena. The present economic crisis is man-made – a result of deregulation, mismanagement, and greed. The greedy should be exposed, named, tried, and penalized, not rewarded, promoted, or trusted to solve the problem.
*
There is an Armenian forum on the Internet in which Turks outnumber the Armenians and which consists mostly in exchanges of insults and profanities. Turks verbally abuse Armenians, Armenians abuse Turks, and – you guessed – Armenians abuse Armenians. After a while you can't tell who's who because they all sound alike, which reminds me of what Granian once told me: “Scratch an Armenian and find a Turk.”
*
Call someone ignorant and condemn yourself to learn nothing from him.
*
The smaller the country, the greater the number of its self-assessed geniuses.
*
I know how to write for idiots. As for writing for lesser idiots: I leave that to far better men than myself.
*
Driving half an hour to a golf course, playing golf for an hour, having a drink afterwards with the boys, or watching a hockey game on TV – that's my idea of hell.
*
Whenever I have been exploited, abused, and insulted, it's been with my consent and cooperation. To realize this is to be born again.
*
Winston Churchill (on being told several of his fly-buttons were undone): “No matter. The dead bird does not leave the nest.”
#
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
***********************************************
FROM MY NOTEBOOKS
****************************************
I believe there is a special place in hell reserved for people who think what they know is good enough for them and no one and nothing can change that.
*
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?
*
How much of what we know today would be reduced to ignorance if we were to see reality through the eyes of God?
*
My ambition as an Armenian is to be a human being.
*
Patriotism does not mean joining our leaders in covering up their blunders.
*
As slaves of former slaves, we are double underdogs, and we need a double revolution to emerge from our cage within a cage.
*
What is the value of an insult delivered anonymously and from a safe distance? To put it more bluntly: Why should anyone give a damn what a garbage-mouth cowardly nonentity thinks?
*
When I went into this business, it never occurred to me that some day I would be wasting most of my time trying to teach manners to hoodlums.
*
Johnson on Gerald Ford: “So dumb he can't fart and chew gum at the same time.”
#
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