Q/s

Sunday, October 19, 2008
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A WOMAN AFTER MY OWN HEART
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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.”
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THEY NEVER LEARN
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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.
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MART BIDI CH'ELLANK
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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.
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Monday, October 20, 2008
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ON SOLUTIONS
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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.
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DEDICATION
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The dedication to my next book will read: “For my critics and detractors – my most faithful muses.”
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HEADLINES
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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.
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Another headline: “Anglicans owe Darwin apology, bishop says.” But how does one go about apologizing to a skeleton?
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GREED
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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.”
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A CEO at a hearing: “I take full responsibility.” He also took home $240,000,000 we are told.
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ON REASON
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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.
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ON LOVE
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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.
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WORDS OF WISDOM
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Albert Einstein: “It's not that I am so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer.”
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Tuesday, October 21, 2008
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EASIER SAID THAN DONE
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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.”
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WHAT'S DONE IS DONE
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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.
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CANNIBALS
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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?”
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ONE-UPMANSHIP
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The ease with which they assume to know better even when the subject under discussion is a new one to them.
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CONFESSION
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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...
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PROGRESS
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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.
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AN OLD TRICK
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When the men at the top are corrupt, they emphasize the importance of patriotism, after which they stigmatize dissidents as unpatriotic.
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MEMO
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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.
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SOPHISTS
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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.
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Wednesday, October 22, 2008
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QUESTIONS
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If they sling mud anonymously, is it because deep down somewhere they are ashamed of what they do?
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If our Turcocentric ghazetajis keep writing about Turks, is it because they have nothing good to say about their fellow Armenians?
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If we are proud of our multi-millionaires, shouldn't we be humble of our slum-dwellers?
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Is it humanly possible to ignore or forget the truth after hearing it?
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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?
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ASSERTIONS
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No one can be as dangerous as a fool who is manipulated by another fool.
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If you say to a bunch of crooks, “Gentlemen, let's be honest!” don't expect a mass conversion.
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One cannot speak of vision where "the blind leads the blind."
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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.
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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.
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Some of the dumbest people I know are Armenians who think they are smarter than Turks.
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Communism has been defined as capitalism of the state, and capitalism as free enterprise for the poor.
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Cowardice in the Ottoman Empire among Turks – it's understandable.
But cowardice in America among fellow Armenians – it's not.
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