Sunday, September 26, 2010
**********************************************
CONFESSION
***************************************
We don't always say what we think, seldom what we really think, and never what we suspect to be the truth.
As a boy, I remember, what fascinated me about Dostoevsky was the daring of his characters to go to the limit, to hold nothing back, to say what they think.
*
The Pope never says he doubts his faith “seven time every day,” as the popular Italian saying has it; and Mother Teresa confessed her loss of faith only to her confessor and no one else.
Some readers resent me for saying what everyone almost knows and understand but is reluctant to say it because it may not be socially acceptable or patriotic.
*
Larry Terzian (God bless his soul) who edited several of my books once said to me: “You have written enough about Armenians. Now write about something else.”
I write about Armenians not as an Armenian but as a human being, and I write to expose that which is universal in them.
*
My Armenian readers hate me when I write about Turks not as Turks but as human beings. A smart Armenian knows instinctively that honesty and truth are not appreciated by the average Armenian reader. He also knows that objectivity has no cash value. He treats Armenians as angels and Turks as devils. He may know better but he also knows there are limits to what a man in his position can say publicly.
*
Saroyan's image was that of a good fellow who loved everyone, especially Armenians. Privately however he hated even his own children, who may or may not have been lovable. But then who is? A good friend of his, who has published a book about him, once said to me: “Saroyan cared only for Saroyan.” Later when I got to know this man, he turned out to be no better.
What about me?
The only positive thing I can say about myself is that I am not an insider or an organization man. I think of nationalism and patriotism not as assets but as liabitilies. And I don't feel the need to conform and to say only that which is generally held to be true or popular.
Can I prove that?
I am not sure. My only evidence is the Socratic dictum, “My poverty is proof of my honesty.”
#
Monday, September 27, 2010
**********************************************
IN PRAISE OF DOUBT
***************************************
Sometimes between the obvious and the false, it is the obvious that will be misunderstood and rejected. That's because we all operate under the influence of an ideology or religion whose aim is to obstruct and distort our perception of reality.
*
We are brought up to believe the end is a new beginning because the alternative – that is to say, the obvious – is unbearable.
*
Faith is hope and hope is good provided it is not motivated by wishful thinking and divorced from common sense and logic.
Faith is a mighty force; it is also the most frequently abused.
Science cannot explain the visible, but faith claims to have explained the invisible.
*
Faith is wrong when it convinces us we can know and understand that which we have no way of knowing and understanding.
Faith is dangerous when it creates a bureaucracy with its own laws and dogmas.
Faith becomes a scandal when it falls under the control of popes, imams, televangelists, and witch doctors who make a comfortable living by legitimizing superstition, prejudice, and intolerance.
Faith is criminal when it uses education as an instrument of intimidation, oppression, exploitations, persecution, and violence.
*
Faith tries to convince us that the invisible and incomprehensible power that created the cosmos owes us not only a life but also a better one.
And if the majority of mankind has adopted a belief system it may be because in a crowded room it is not the most reasonable that is heard but the loudest.
#
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
**********************************************
A QUESTION OF PERSPECTIVE
***************************************
Both Turks and Armenians share one thing in common: both see themselves as victims -- Turks as victims of the Great Powers, Russia, the Balkans, the Middle East, and Kurds, Greeks, and Armenians within Turkey itself; and Armenians see themselves as victims of Turks.
In Turkish eyes what happened to the Armenians was not a crime against humanity but a desperate self-defensive move against a mosaic of enemies bent on the total ruin and destruction of their Empire. They did what any David would have done when confronting Goliath; and because they couldn't cut off Goliath's head or, for that matter, his right arm, they cut off his nose.
In any case that's their story or, in modern parlance, their narrative, and they are sticking to it.
Their perspective is global, ours is tribal. Hence the semantic vacillations of the United States.
And speaking of Yanks: How do you think they will react on the day the Islamic world, with the tacit support of former enemies and present rivals, Russia and China, rises against them and threatens to wipe America off the map? Do you think they will send a diplomatic delegation to negotiate peace terms with them? Hell no! They will do what they did to the Japs at the end of World War II.
They will “teach them (Jihadists) a lesson they will never forget!”
They will do so even if it means killing innocent civilians by the million; even if it means to be accused forever after of unspeakable crimes against humanity.
#
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
**********************************************
FROM MY NOTEBOOKS
***************************************
They want me silenced because I threaten to demolish their comfortable view of reality by exposing their status as dupes.
*
Whether I go on writing or fall silent makes no difference in the long run because everything I say has either been said before by better men than myself or it will be said in the future by someone with a minimum of common sense.
*
Sometimes people pretend not to know to catch you in the act of exploiting their ignorance.
*
The secret ambition of all liberators is to be oppressors.
*
After every line I write, I ask myself: Am I boring the reader? Am I fooling myself into thinking I am saying something he doesn't already know?
*
A tolerant religion? A contradiction in terms. Consider the fate of Untouchables under Hinduism (identified as the most tolerant religion). There are Untouchables in all organized religions.
*
Where there are dogmas there will be heretics.
*
It is easier to identify ourselves as victims than as victimizers. We experience our pain, we can only imagine someone else's.
*
Armenians cannot engage in dialogue with Turks because Armenians cannot engage in dialogue with fellow Armenians. The same applies to Turks. Consider the way they treat their dissidents.
*
Whenever I try to reason with a partisan I end up being insulted. In an intolerant environment reason is treated like a hostile witness.
*
Those who think truth or God is on their side can do no wrong for the same reason that in matters of faith the Pope is infallible.
*
Religions have their saints and ideologies their heroes. Also their heretics and traitors. In the eyes of brainwashed dupes, dissidents are either heretics or traitors.
*
A good Armenian is taught to believe his most important duty as an Armenian is to learn saying “Yes sir!” in the same way that once upon a time all Germans were taught to say “Heil Hitler!” and all Italians were taught to say “Mussolini ha sempre ragione!” (Mussolini is always right).
#
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Saturday, September 25, 2010
q/s
Thursday, September 23, 2010
**********************************************
ON CHARITY
***************************************
Had I been a contemporary of Baronian and Odian, I wouldn't have written a single line. Either that or I would have written love stories. Which is what I did at first. For nearly a decade I wrote nothing but love stories.
*
When I think of my past blunders I feel like digging a hole and burying myself in it.
I am always a little surprised when I see an adult laughing.
I suspect Alzheimer's can't be all bad.
*
I write as I do because no one dares to say what must be said.
Those who say we need solutions imply that when it comes to our problems our writers have been of no use. Zarian is right: they say that to cover up their own uselessness and fear of free speech.
Not only do they say we need solutions, they also teach children to view critics as unpatriotic witnesses.
When they don't like what you say -- because what you say may threaten to expose their own uselessness – they say: “We don't need critics. We need solutions.” That's their way of saying “Shut up!”
*
This morning on the radio: “How can you tell if, instead of supporting charities, your charity money supports fund-raisers?”
Canadians dare to ask such questions because they believe in free speech. Once upon a time we did too.
A hundred years ago Odian made savage fun of our fund-raisers.
Who dares to question the ethics of our charitable organizations today?
Next time you make a contribution to a charity, don't be afraid to ask questions. Remember, it is your right to know. Asking questions may well be the most important contribution you can make.
*
Ask questions but don't believe everything you are told.
Honesty has never been a priority in our culture.
What culture?
If you want culture, get a tub of yogurt. You will find more culture there than in all our cultural foundations combined.
#
Friday, September 24, 2010
**********************************************
DEAD END
***************************************
Because I was critical of Armenians, I acquired several Turkish friends.
And because I became critical of Turks, I lost them.
Easy come, easy go.
*
That's another thing Armenians share with Turks: intolerance of criticism.
As long as they remain intolerant, reason will find no opening in their negotiations, and without reason there can be no dialogue, no compromise, and no consensus.
*
After saying they are for democracy and human rights, both Turks and Armenians suppress dissent.
Both delude themselves when they assert moral superiority.
Who believes them?
Only themselves.
*
Asserting the reality of the Genocide and denying it has become an industry among them. Both sides refuse to see the obvious, namely that, they were so blinded by hatred of the other that they slaughtered indiscriminately whenever they had the upper hand. But because Turks were a majority, Armenian victims outnumbered Turkish victims.
*
How to live in peace with their history?
They can't.
Hence their tendency to rewrite it.
*
Free speech is a meaningless commodity to those who don't know what freedom is and whose conception of speech consists in saying “Yes, sir!”
*
Armenians and Turks may reach a consensus only on the day they see reflection of themselves in the other. Until then their history will stand still.
*
For an Armenian, the idea that he may be as bad as a Turk is so repellent that it might as well be treason and blasphemy.
The same applies to Turks.
You may now draw your own conclusions.
#
Saturday, September 25, 2010
**********************************************
QUOTATIONS
***************************************
Fidel Castro: “Obama is not Nixon who was a cynic. Neither is he Reagan who was an imbecile.”
*
A Vatican insider: “Half of the Vatican is homosexual. So is the Pope, I think.”
*
Ingrid Betancourt: “There are things you do because you have to. You don't always calculate the consequences. And sometimes you do very stupid things because of that.”
*
John Adams: “Neither philosophy, nor religion, nor morality, nor wisdom, nor interest will ever govern nations or parties against their vanity, their pride, their resentment or revenge, or their avarice or ambition.”
#
**********************************************
ON CHARITY
***************************************
Had I been a contemporary of Baronian and Odian, I wouldn't have written a single line. Either that or I would have written love stories. Which is what I did at first. For nearly a decade I wrote nothing but love stories.
*
When I think of my past blunders I feel like digging a hole and burying myself in it.
I am always a little surprised when I see an adult laughing.
I suspect Alzheimer's can't be all bad.
*
I write as I do because no one dares to say what must be said.
Those who say we need solutions imply that when it comes to our problems our writers have been of no use. Zarian is right: they say that to cover up their own uselessness and fear of free speech.
Not only do they say we need solutions, they also teach children to view critics as unpatriotic witnesses.
When they don't like what you say -- because what you say may threaten to expose their own uselessness – they say: “We don't need critics. We need solutions.” That's their way of saying “Shut up!”
*
This morning on the radio: “How can you tell if, instead of supporting charities, your charity money supports fund-raisers?”
Canadians dare to ask such questions because they believe in free speech. Once upon a time we did too.
A hundred years ago Odian made savage fun of our fund-raisers.
Who dares to question the ethics of our charitable organizations today?
Next time you make a contribution to a charity, don't be afraid to ask questions. Remember, it is your right to know. Asking questions may well be the most important contribution you can make.
*
Ask questions but don't believe everything you are told.
Honesty has never been a priority in our culture.
What culture?
If you want culture, get a tub of yogurt. You will find more culture there than in all our cultural foundations combined.
#
Friday, September 24, 2010
**********************************************
DEAD END
***************************************
Because I was critical of Armenians, I acquired several Turkish friends.
And because I became critical of Turks, I lost them.
Easy come, easy go.
*
That's another thing Armenians share with Turks: intolerance of criticism.
As long as they remain intolerant, reason will find no opening in their negotiations, and without reason there can be no dialogue, no compromise, and no consensus.
*
After saying they are for democracy and human rights, both Turks and Armenians suppress dissent.
Both delude themselves when they assert moral superiority.
Who believes them?
Only themselves.
*
Asserting the reality of the Genocide and denying it has become an industry among them. Both sides refuse to see the obvious, namely that, they were so blinded by hatred of the other that they slaughtered indiscriminately whenever they had the upper hand. But because Turks were a majority, Armenian victims outnumbered Turkish victims.
*
How to live in peace with their history?
They can't.
Hence their tendency to rewrite it.
*
Free speech is a meaningless commodity to those who don't know what freedom is and whose conception of speech consists in saying “Yes, sir!”
*
Armenians and Turks may reach a consensus only on the day they see reflection of themselves in the other. Until then their history will stand still.
*
For an Armenian, the idea that he may be as bad as a Turk is so repellent that it might as well be treason and blasphemy.
The same applies to Turks.
You may now draw your own conclusions.
#
Saturday, September 25, 2010
**********************************************
QUOTATIONS
***************************************
Fidel Castro: “Obama is not Nixon who was a cynic. Neither is he Reagan who was an imbecile.”
*
A Vatican insider: “Half of the Vatican is homosexual. So is the Pope, I think.”
*
Ingrid Betancourt: “There are things you do because you have to. You don't always calculate the consequences. And sometimes you do very stupid things because of that.”
*
John Adams: “Neither philosophy, nor religion, nor morality, nor wisdom, nor interest will ever govern nations or parties against their vanity, their pride, their resentment or revenge, or their avarice or ambition.”
#
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
from my notebooks
Sunday, September 19, 2010
**********************************************
JUDGE AND JURY
***************************************
Don't believe anything I say until and unless you see it with your own eyes and experience it on your own skin.
*
It seems what I say matters only to those of my readers who disagree with me and would like to see me silenced. To the rest, I repeat that which is obvious.
*
No one in the history of mankind has ever been all things to all men. Naregatsi had his critics, Gandhi his assassin, and Christ his Judas.
*
I hold a mirror up to them and when they don't like what they see, they blame it on me instead of themselves.
*
Our religion teaches us to love our enemies, including fellow Armenians who may not agree with us. I wonder if any one of our speechifiers and sermonizers has ever expanded on this theme.
*
One of my gentle readers accused me the other day of trying to advance a “personal agenda.” I suggest speaking in defense of free speech is not a personal but a human agenda. But I don't expect my dehumanized readers to see this.
*
Why is it that a dehumanized Armenian allows the Turk within to assume the role of both judge and jury?
*
Remember, even what you think is not what you really think but only the echo of a shadow. A thousand invisible forces stand between you and reality which is as elusive as an incomprehensible metaphysical abstraction.
*
Because we don't know everything, we operate on partial evidence. Only fascists silence dissenting voices to cover up that part of the evidence that is against them. As a result their verdict is bound to be overturned by a higher court.
#
Monday, September 20, 2010
**********************************************
NO MAN IS AN ISLAND
***************************************
Because a few non-representative Armenians challenged the might of the Ottoman Empire at the turn of the last century, countless Armenians were slaughtered, starved, and deported.
If I have a problem, you have a problem.
None of us is an island.
No one can say “Your problem is not my problem. Go and peddle your wares elsewhere.”
*
It has been said of China that it is a country of “a million truths.”
It could be said of us that we are a people of a thousand and one half-truths, and sometimes a half-truth can be as dangerous as a big lie.
*
It is a mistake to ascribe the slaughter of two generations of our ablest writers to Turks and Russians because on both occasions Armenian traitors played a key role. Raffi is right: in all our defeats and catastrophes search for the Armenian traitor. The only thing that has remained constant in our culture is our propensity for treason.
Because I say this, am I a hostile witness whose testimony should be dismissed because it is based on inadmissible evidence?
We can learn from history only if we know it.
*
The chances are those who pretend to know better know nothing because they allow their little knowledge to blind them; and when the blind lead the blind...
*
Toynbee on Russians:
“As heir of an Orthodox Christian cultural heritage, they could not find the practice of totalitarianism either unfamiliar or shocking.”
I see parallels where others pretend to see nothing.
When the blind...
*
Armenian fascism is the elephant in the room.
#
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
**********************************************
HOW DO I KNOW I AM RIGHT?
***************************************
I don't!
Mine is not an open and shut case.
My evidence is circumstantial and based on hearsay.
What I know with some degree of certainty is that
(one) where there is a power structure,
there will be propaganda,
and where there is propaganda,
there will be dupes;
(two) where there is an authority figure
there will be subservient subjects
who cannot think for themselves ;
(three) between dupes and dissidents
I will always be on the side of dissidents;
(four) where there are victims and victimizers,
I will refuse to join the ranks of the victimizers.
*
And now from the general to the specific:
when it comes to our political bosses
I choose to be on the side of Hagop Baronian
(in whose eyes they are no better than
loud-mouth irresponsible charlatans);
Yervant Odian (who portrayed them
as sh*t-disturbers forever in need of financial support);
and Gostan Zarian (who described them
as useless mediocrities whose greatest enemy is free speech).
*
When it comes to our historians,
I agree with Naregatsi who consistently and stubbornly refused
to play the blame-game and focused instead
on his own failings and shortcomings.
When it comes to nationalism
I am on the side of many 20th-century eminent thinkers,
among them Arnold Toynbee and Roland Barthes
(who described it as one of the three pillars of fascism
(the other two being anti-intellectualism and anti-semitism).
*
Judges pronounce a man guilty
based on the evidence. And yet, again and again
innocent men have been found guilty and condemned to death.
This is especially true in case of political prisoners
under totalitarian regimes.
*
I have read books written by Turkish scholars
that assert Armenians are liars, traitors, and terrorists
who killed many innocent civilians,
and more recently, equally innocent diplomats
who were not even born before World War I
and cannot thus be held responsible
of any crimes against humanity.
I have also read books by Armenian scholars
who portray Turks as bloodthirsty Asiatic barbarians
guilty of countless atrocities
against unarmed and innocent women and children.
*
What is an outsider to think?
My guess is, he will trust neither side and
he will dismiss both Turks and Armenians
biased and unreliable witnesses.
After which he will conclude
he has better things to do than waste his time
getting involved in a controversy
that has lasted almost a century
with no prospect of consensus in sight.
His final verdict may well be
“A plague on both your houses!”
and once more the Turks will win.
#
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
**********************************************
FROM MY NOTEBOOKS
***************************************
The best way not to solve a problem is to say more research is needed.
*
To be part of a power structure means to be prepared to do anything to advance your position in it, knowing that if you don't do it someone else will.
*
What is the significance of the cosmos with its countless stars, planets and vast distances if not to remind us of our insignificance?
*
We like to say power corrupts. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that only the corrupt seek it.
*
Whenever during a walk I see an ant on the sidewalk, I am careful not to step on it. But sometimes I get tired of being careful. In the eyes of the powerful we are no better than ants. And in the eyeds of God...
*
Only propaganda has all the answers.
*
A cheerful thought: Any day now, and in cosmic time, in less than a fraction of a second, we will all be dead and all our problems will be buried with us.
#
**********************************************
JUDGE AND JURY
***************************************
Don't believe anything I say until and unless you see it with your own eyes and experience it on your own skin.
*
It seems what I say matters only to those of my readers who disagree with me and would like to see me silenced. To the rest, I repeat that which is obvious.
*
No one in the history of mankind has ever been all things to all men. Naregatsi had his critics, Gandhi his assassin, and Christ his Judas.
*
I hold a mirror up to them and when they don't like what they see, they blame it on me instead of themselves.
*
Our religion teaches us to love our enemies, including fellow Armenians who may not agree with us. I wonder if any one of our speechifiers and sermonizers has ever expanded on this theme.
*
One of my gentle readers accused me the other day of trying to advance a “personal agenda.” I suggest speaking in defense of free speech is not a personal but a human agenda. But I don't expect my dehumanized readers to see this.
*
Why is it that a dehumanized Armenian allows the Turk within to assume the role of both judge and jury?
*
Remember, even what you think is not what you really think but only the echo of a shadow. A thousand invisible forces stand between you and reality which is as elusive as an incomprehensible metaphysical abstraction.
*
Because we don't know everything, we operate on partial evidence. Only fascists silence dissenting voices to cover up that part of the evidence that is against them. As a result their verdict is bound to be overturned by a higher court.
#
Monday, September 20, 2010
**********************************************
NO MAN IS AN ISLAND
***************************************
Because a few non-representative Armenians challenged the might of the Ottoman Empire at the turn of the last century, countless Armenians were slaughtered, starved, and deported.
If I have a problem, you have a problem.
None of us is an island.
No one can say “Your problem is not my problem. Go and peddle your wares elsewhere.”
*
It has been said of China that it is a country of “a million truths.”
It could be said of us that we are a people of a thousand and one half-truths, and sometimes a half-truth can be as dangerous as a big lie.
*
It is a mistake to ascribe the slaughter of two generations of our ablest writers to Turks and Russians because on both occasions Armenian traitors played a key role. Raffi is right: in all our defeats and catastrophes search for the Armenian traitor. The only thing that has remained constant in our culture is our propensity for treason.
Because I say this, am I a hostile witness whose testimony should be dismissed because it is based on inadmissible evidence?
We can learn from history only if we know it.
*
The chances are those who pretend to know better know nothing because they allow their little knowledge to blind them; and when the blind lead the blind...
*
Toynbee on Russians:
“As heir of an Orthodox Christian cultural heritage, they could not find the practice of totalitarianism either unfamiliar or shocking.”
I see parallels where others pretend to see nothing.
When the blind...
*
Armenian fascism is the elephant in the room.
#
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
**********************************************
HOW DO I KNOW I AM RIGHT?
***************************************
I don't!
Mine is not an open and shut case.
My evidence is circumstantial and based on hearsay.
What I know with some degree of certainty is that
(one) where there is a power structure,
there will be propaganda,
and where there is propaganda,
there will be dupes;
(two) where there is an authority figure
there will be subservient subjects
who cannot think for themselves ;
(three) between dupes and dissidents
I will always be on the side of dissidents;
(four) where there are victims and victimizers,
I will refuse to join the ranks of the victimizers.
*
And now from the general to the specific:
when it comes to our political bosses
I choose to be on the side of Hagop Baronian
(in whose eyes they are no better than
loud-mouth irresponsible charlatans);
Yervant Odian (who portrayed them
as sh*t-disturbers forever in need of financial support);
and Gostan Zarian (who described them
as useless mediocrities whose greatest enemy is free speech).
*
When it comes to our historians,
I agree with Naregatsi who consistently and stubbornly refused
to play the blame-game and focused instead
on his own failings and shortcomings.
When it comes to nationalism
I am on the side of many 20th-century eminent thinkers,
among them Arnold Toynbee and Roland Barthes
(who described it as one of the three pillars of fascism
(the other two being anti-intellectualism and anti-semitism).
*
Judges pronounce a man guilty
based on the evidence. And yet, again and again
innocent men have been found guilty and condemned to death.
This is especially true in case of political prisoners
under totalitarian regimes.
*
I have read books written by Turkish scholars
that assert Armenians are liars, traitors, and terrorists
who killed many innocent civilians,
and more recently, equally innocent diplomats
who were not even born before World War I
and cannot thus be held responsible
of any crimes against humanity.
I have also read books by Armenian scholars
who portray Turks as bloodthirsty Asiatic barbarians
guilty of countless atrocities
against unarmed and innocent women and children.
*
What is an outsider to think?
My guess is, he will trust neither side and
he will dismiss both Turks and Armenians
biased and unreliable witnesses.
After which he will conclude
he has better things to do than waste his time
getting involved in a controversy
that has lasted almost a century
with no prospect of consensus in sight.
His final verdict may well be
“A plague on both your houses!”
and once more the Turks will win.
#
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
**********************************************
FROM MY NOTEBOOKS
***************************************
The best way not to solve a problem is to say more research is needed.
*
To be part of a power structure means to be prepared to do anything to advance your position in it, knowing that if you don't do it someone else will.
*
What is the significance of the cosmos with its countless stars, planets and vast distances if not to remind us of our insignificance?
*
We like to say power corrupts. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that only the corrupt seek it.
*
Whenever during a walk I see an ant on the sidewalk, I am careful not to step on it. But sometimes I get tired of being careful. In the eyes of the powerful we are no better than ants. And in the eyeds of God...
*
Only propaganda has all the answers.
*
A cheerful thought: Any day now, and in cosmic time, in less than a fraction of a second, we will all be dead and all our problems will be buried with us.
#
Saturday, September 18, 2010
comments
Thursday, September 16, 2010
**********************************************
THE BLIND LEADING THE BLIND
***************************************
When a religion, or any movement for that matter, acquires a leader, it becomes authoritarian, which means, the authority of the leader becomes an issue of paramount importance, and those who dare to challenge it face death – either spiritual (by excommunication or expulsion) or literal (by fatwa).
*
One of the curses of authoritarian belief systems is their ruthless exploitation of fear. A God of love, compassion, and mercy does not rule by intimidation and blackmail. This may suggest that organized religions are inventions not of God but of the Devil.
*
When imams and popes preach love, they speak with a forked tongue. That's why only the naïve and the ignorant take them seriously. As in all organizations whose central concern is power, only unprincipled mediocrities, and ultimately bloodsuckers, killers, and child molesters are promoted.
*
We need rules and we need enforcers of rules, true, but history tells us some of the worst offenders and abusers of law and order have been the police.
*
Those who speak of another world are charlatans because we know nothing about it and what we pretend to know is nothing but a figment of our imagination.
As for the world in which we live: we know very little about it, and the only thing we know with some degree of certainty is that it is occupied by “weeds, rubble and vermin” (Nietzsche).
*
If a member of a party or organization were to tell me 1+1=2, I would immediately reach for my calculator to make sure I was not being bamboozled, hoodwinked, and flimflammed.
*
Herbert Butterfield: “The blindest of all the blind are those who are unable to examine their own presuppositions, and blithely imagine therefore that they do not posses them.”
#
Friday, September 17, 2010
**********************************************
SUCCESS
***************************************
At the age of thirty-one he was charged with sedition, arrested, tried, found guilty, condemned to death, and executed.
Was he a success or a failure?
More recently, as a teenager he joined a quartet of singers who composed their own songs, eventually achieved fame and fortune, and became, in his own words, “more popular that Jesus Christ.”
Was he a success or a failure?
*
To define success as achieving fame and fortune is the surest recipe for promoting failures. If failures outnumber successes a thousand to one today it's because children are brainwashed to believe their options are limited, and their options are defined by the inflexible laws of demand and supply. As a result, a less than mediocre lawyer, accountant, or dentist is equipped to make more money (the surest index of success, we are told) than say, a prophet who may alter our perception of reality for centuries to come.
*
Gulbenkian probably spent more money in a single day than J.S. Bach made throughout his life. If asked whether he would like to be Gulbenkian or Bach, my guess is, the average American (who may pronounce Bach Batch) will choose to be Gulbenkian.
*
Ask a mother, any mother, whether she would like to see her only son crucified at the age of thirty-one, my guess is, she will say she would much rather see him live to a ripe old age as a mediocre carpenter.
*
Early this morning, in Nabokov's INVITATION TO A BEHEADING, I read the following passage in which an executioner delivers the following line to a condemned man: “...you must not be childish. The public, and all of us, as representatives of the public, are interested only in your welfare – that must be obvious by now.”
It's always the same story: the very same people who urge you to follow a path that is not your own, pretend to have your best interest at heart.
*
To those who say not everybody can be a genius, allow me to recount the following anecdote. About fifty years ago, a little girl by the name of Minou Drouet published a book of poems that was immediately hailed as the work of a prodigy. Jean Cocteau's comment on this prodigy: “Every child is a genius except Minou Drouet.”
*
Every child is a genius because the Kingdom of God is within us.
#
Saturday, September 18, 2010
**********************************************
TWO ENEMIES
***************************************
To trust someone means to make yourself vulnerable to betrayal.
*
I have had some sinister experiences in the hands of authority figures who pretended to know better.
I have earned the right to trust no one.
*
If I am proud of anything it's the fact that what I write has no cash value – or so I am told by individuals who deal in cash.
*
Dealing with people who deal in cash:
I can't imagine anything more carcinogenic.
*
My guess is, in the next world – if there is one – money will be abolished. Which means the annual income of a prince and a pauper, or a benefactor and a poet will be the same.
*
I have written two kinds of books: propaganda and anti-propaganda, and of the two, the propaganda books have sold many more copies.
*
I did not set out to write propaganda books. I wrote such books at a time when I was led to believe it was my duty to lie in the name of patriotism; and when I lied I did not think of it as lying but as speaking a self-evident truth.
*
We are told, in science to be right means to be slightly wrong, because in science, as in many other disciplines, there are no final answers, and if there are, they are known only to God who so far has consistently refused to share them with us.
According to Karl Popper, scientific as well as political solutions “can never be more than provisional and are always open to improvement.”
There is no such thing as history, only historic interpretation.
And according to Sartre, “history must be constantly rewritten.”
*
What does it mean to be an Armenian?
First and foremost it means demanding justice for past injustices.
Let's demand justice by all means, but in the process let us not commit a greater injustice.
There is more to life than past crimes against humanity.
Let us not allow our obsession with Turks to turn us into pillars of salt.
We have enemies, no doubt about that. But we also have an enemy within, and of the two, the second can inflict more damage.
#
**********************************************
THE BLIND LEADING THE BLIND
***************************************
When a religion, or any movement for that matter, acquires a leader, it becomes authoritarian, which means, the authority of the leader becomes an issue of paramount importance, and those who dare to challenge it face death – either spiritual (by excommunication or expulsion) or literal (by fatwa).
*
One of the curses of authoritarian belief systems is their ruthless exploitation of fear. A God of love, compassion, and mercy does not rule by intimidation and blackmail. This may suggest that organized religions are inventions not of God but of the Devil.
*
When imams and popes preach love, they speak with a forked tongue. That's why only the naïve and the ignorant take them seriously. As in all organizations whose central concern is power, only unprincipled mediocrities, and ultimately bloodsuckers, killers, and child molesters are promoted.
*
We need rules and we need enforcers of rules, true, but history tells us some of the worst offenders and abusers of law and order have been the police.
*
Those who speak of another world are charlatans because we know nothing about it and what we pretend to know is nothing but a figment of our imagination.
As for the world in which we live: we know very little about it, and the only thing we know with some degree of certainty is that it is occupied by “weeds, rubble and vermin” (Nietzsche).
*
If a member of a party or organization were to tell me 1+1=2, I would immediately reach for my calculator to make sure I was not being bamboozled, hoodwinked, and flimflammed.
*
Herbert Butterfield: “The blindest of all the blind are those who are unable to examine their own presuppositions, and blithely imagine therefore that they do not posses them.”
#
Friday, September 17, 2010
**********************************************
SUCCESS
***************************************
At the age of thirty-one he was charged with sedition, arrested, tried, found guilty, condemned to death, and executed.
Was he a success or a failure?
More recently, as a teenager he joined a quartet of singers who composed their own songs, eventually achieved fame and fortune, and became, in his own words, “more popular that Jesus Christ.”
Was he a success or a failure?
*
To define success as achieving fame and fortune is the surest recipe for promoting failures. If failures outnumber successes a thousand to one today it's because children are brainwashed to believe their options are limited, and their options are defined by the inflexible laws of demand and supply. As a result, a less than mediocre lawyer, accountant, or dentist is equipped to make more money (the surest index of success, we are told) than say, a prophet who may alter our perception of reality for centuries to come.
*
Gulbenkian probably spent more money in a single day than J.S. Bach made throughout his life. If asked whether he would like to be Gulbenkian or Bach, my guess is, the average American (who may pronounce Bach Batch) will choose to be Gulbenkian.
*
Ask a mother, any mother, whether she would like to see her only son crucified at the age of thirty-one, my guess is, she will say she would much rather see him live to a ripe old age as a mediocre carpenter.
*
Early this morning, in Nabokov's INVITATION TO A BEHEADING, I read the following passage in which an executioner delivers the following line to a condemned man: “...you must not be childish. The public, and all of us, as representatives of the public, are interested only in your welfare – that must be obvious by now.”
It's always the same story: the very same people who urge you to follow a path that is not your own, pretend to have your best interest at heart.
*
To those who say not everybody can be a genius, allow me to recount the following anecdote. About fifty years ago, a little girl by the name of Minou Drouet published a book of poems that was immediately hailed as the work of a prodigy. Jean Cocteau's comment on this prodigy: “Every child is a genius except Minou Drouet.”
*
Every child is a genius because the Kingdom of God is within us.
#
Saturday, September 18, 2010
**********************************************
TWO ENEMIES
***************************************
To trust someone means to make yourself vulnerable to betrayal.
*
I have had some sinister experiences in the hands of authority figures who pretended to know better.
I have earned the right to trust no one.
*
If I am proud of anything it's the fact that what I write has no cash value – or so I am told by individuals who deal in cash.
*
Dealing with people who deal in cash:
I can't imagine anything more carcinogenic.
*
My guess is, in the next world – if there is one – money will be abolished. Which means the annual income of a prince and a pauper, or a benefactor and a poet will be the same.
*
I have written two kinds of books: propaganda and anti-propaganda, and of the two, the propaganda books have sold many more copies.
*
I did not set out to write propaganda books. I wrote such books at a time when I was led to believe it was my duty to lie in the name of patriotism; and when I lied I did not think of it as lying but as speaking a self-evident truth.
*
We are told, in science to be right means to be slightly wrong, because in science, as in many other disciplines, there are no final answers, and if there are, they are known only to God who so far has consistently refused to share them with us.
According to Karl Popper, scientific as well as political solutions “can never be more than provisional and are always open to improvement.”
There is no such thing as history, only historic interpretation.
And according to Sartre, “history must be constantly rewritten.”
*
What does it mean to be an Armenian?
First and foremost it means demanding justice for past injustices.
Let's demand justice by all means, but in the process let us not commit a greater injustice.
There is more to life than past crimes against humanity.
Let us not allow our obsession with Turks to turn us into pillars of salt.
We have enemies, no doubt about that. But we also have an enemy within, and of the two, the second can inflict more damage.
#
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
scorpions
Sunday, September 12, 2010
************************************
SCORPIONS
*************************************************
Whenever I hear an Armenian bragging about survival, I consider it my duty to remind him that scorpions and spiders have survived too, you don't hear them bragging about it.
Our brainwashed phony patriots consider me unpatriotic because I dare to point out failings visible to everyone but themselves.
I don't like braggarts. No one does! And yet, we are taught to brag.
*
To be a slave of former slaves means to be paralyzed with fear not only of the master's shadow (who may well be dead and buried to begin with) but also of any idea that may be remotely connected with reality.
*
For almost a century now we have been clamoring for justice, and what have we accomplished?
We pretend to be for dialogue but only from a fixed position, which is an oxymoronic position visible to all except morons.
*
One of my gentle readers once described me as a “self-appointed critic,” as if critics qualify as such only when appointed by God or a representative of His on earth, say, like the Pope, the Sultan, or some other source of authority.
Because I dare to speak for no one but myself, they think I can safely be dismissed as an undesirable and unqualified interloper whose testimony should be ignored.
*
The problem with braggarts is that they are too satisfied with their own lies to be useful to anyone but themselves. Their unspoken motto seems to be, “Don't fix that which ain't broken,” or “One should not mess with perfection.”
*
Once, when I was accused of comparing Armenians to scorpions, I said I had no desire to insult scorpions who can always plead not guilty by reason of the fact that evolution had failed to endow them with a brain -- a plea which is not available to us.
#
Monday, September 13, 2010
************************************
DOGMAS
*************************************************
Taliban slogan: “Throw reason to the dogs.”
*
Taliban come in all sizes and shapes and there is a Taliban in all of us.
*
The higher you climb on the tree of knowledge,
the greater the area if ignorance that comes into view.
*
When they run out of arguments, they insult you. In a different time and place they would have you arrested on charges of treason. Let us therefore count our blessings.
*
Speaking as a layman, I find some scientific theories as incomprehensible as religious dogmas. The Big Bang is to me as unbelievable as the pandemonium and paraphernalia of fornicating Greek gods in whose name Socrates was arrested, tried, found guilty, and executed.
*
The Koran-burning controversy and the protests in Muslim countries have proved one thing beyond a shadow of a doubt: the true aim of Islamists everywhere is to intimidate and control the West the way they intimidate and control their women. And since in order to survive their women adopt a passive stance, they expect the West to do likewise. And they are outraged to the point of hysteria when it doesn't.
*
As for moderate Muslims: consider the case of the imam in New York who keeps saying, if he is not allowed to build a mosque near Ground Zero, Americans will make themselves vulnerable to a billion Muslims around the world bent on revenge.
#
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
************************************
IS GOD AN ARMENIAN?
*************************************************
They adopted the role of masters, which they assumed to be their manifest destiny, to the same degree that we adopted the role of slaves (and more recently, that of slaves of former slaves).
*
In reference to the Watergate scandals, Nixon once stated: “When the President does it, it's not illegal.”
The Turks now expect us to believe we are in no position to question or doubt the legality of their actions performed at a time when they were masters and we their slaves.
*
Some people are so addicted to brag that they will brag even about the fact that they massacred innocent and unarmed civilians (“We taught the Armenians a lesson they will never forget!”) and we brag about the fact that we are the first nation in the 20th century to be targeted for extermination.
*
The final act of this tragedy of illusions and lies has not yet played itself out. We are now told by our leaders they will see to it that justice is done, notwithstanding the fact that so far, and after a hundred years of trying, we have not seen a single red cent in reparations, or a single square inch of soil annexed, or a single victim resurrected.
*
Instead of doing what must be done or what is within their power to do (such as enhancing our solidarity, shedding their tribalism, or respecting our human rights) they promise to do what only God Almighty can do but so far has consistently refused to do.
*
Does God recognize the Genocide?
I for one cannot claim to read His mind.
I can only say that He allowed it to happen and it was done in His name.
*
To those who say I repeat myself, I say, I see nothing wrong in repeating my truths as often as they repeat their lies.
#
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
**********************************************
FAITH AND KNOWLEDGE
***************************************
Religions are popular not because they are true
but because they make sense
the way Leonardo's Mona Lisa makes sense to lovers of art,
Beethoven's 6th Symphony makes sense to lovers of music,
and algebra and trigonometry make sense to mathematicians.
The Greek myths made sense to the Greeks
to the same degree that Islam makes sense to Muslims,
Christianity to Christians, and atheism to atheists –
with one difference:
whereas there is only one trigonometry,
there are many religions that contradict one another.
*
It's astonishing how little men know
about the world around them and themselves.
A man's area of ignorance is infinitely greater
than his area of knowledge.
Men like Beethoven and Einstein may have know
everything there is to know about music and physics respectively
but little or nothing about many other subjects,
including, say, Armenian history and culture.
Even though I have myself written several books on the subject,
my own knowledge of our history and culture
may be said to be less than 0.01% of the total.
Which may explain why dupes outnumber the wise,
and even the wise are no better dupes.
Hence the number of great 20th-century
philosophers, writers, and Nobel-Prize winners
who were Catholics, atheists, Stalinists,
and members of the Nazi Party.
#
__._,_.___
************************************
SCORPIONS
*************************************************
Whenever I hear an Armenian bragging about survival, I consider it my duty to remind him that scorpions and spiders have survived too, you don't hear them bragging about it.
Our brainwashed phony patriots consider me unpatriotic because I dare to point out failings visible to everyone but themselves.
I don't like braggarts. No one does! And yet, we are taught to brag.
*
To be a slave of former slaves means to be paralyzed with fear not only of the master's shadow (who may well be dead and buried to begin with) but also of any idea that may be remotely connected with reality.
*
For almost a century now we have been clamoring for justice, and what have we accomplished?
We pretend to be for dialogue but only from a fixed position, which is an oxymoronic position visible to all except morons.
*
One of my gentle readers once described me as a “self-appointed critic,” as if critics qualify as such only when appointed by God or a representative of His on earth, say, like the Pope, the Sultan, or some other source of authority.
Because I dare to speak for no one but myself, they think I can safely be dismissed as an undesirable and unqualified interloper whose testimony should be ignored.
*
The problem with braggarts is that they are too satisfied with their own lies to be useful to anyone but themselves. Their unspoken motto seems to be, “Don't fix that which ain't broken,” or “One should not mess with perfection.”
*
Once, when I was accused of comparing Armenians to scorpions, I said I had no desire to insult scorpions who can always plead not guilty by reason of the fact that evolution had failed to endow them with a brain -- a plea which is not available to us.
#
Monday, September 13, 2010
************************************
DOGMAS
*************************************************
Taliban slogan: “Throw reason to the dogs.”
*
Taliban come in all sizes and shapes and there is a Taliban in all of us.
*
The higher you climb on the tree of knowledge,
the greater the area if ignorance that comes into view.
*
When they run out of arguments, they insult you. In a different time and place they would have you arrested on charges of treason. Let us therefore count our blessings.
*
Speaking as a layman, I find some scientific theories as incomprehensible as religious dogmas. The Big Bang is to me as unbelievable as the pandemonium and paraphernalia of fornicating Greek gods in whose name Socrates was arrested, tried, found guilty, and executed.
*
The Koran-burning controversy and the protests in Muslim countries have proved one thing beyond a shadow of a doubt: the true aim of Islamists everywhere is to intimidate and control the West the way they intimidate and control their women. And since in order to survive their women adopt a passive stance, they expect the West to do likewise. And they are outraged to the point of hysteria when it doesn't.
*
As for moderate Muslims: consider the case of the imam in New York who keeps saying, if he is not allowed to build a mosque near Ground Zero, Americans will make themselves vulnerable to a billion Muslims around the world bent on revenge.
#
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
************************************
IS GOD AN ARMENIAN?
*************************************************
They adopted the role of masters, which they assumed to be their manifest destiny, to the same degree that we adopted the role of slaves (and more recently, that of slaves of former slaves).
*
In reference to the Watergate scandals, Nixon once stated: “When the President does it, it's not illegal.”
The Turks now expect us to believe we are in no position to question or doubt the legality of their actions performed at a time when they were masters and we their slaves.
*
Some people are so addicted to brag that they will brag even about the fact that they massacred innocent and unarmed civilians (“We taught the Armenians a lesson they will never forget!”) and we brag about the fact that we are the first nation in the 20th century to be targeted for extermination.
*
The final act of this tragedy of illusions and lies has not yet played itself out. We are now told by our leaders they will see to it that justice is done, notwithstanding the fact that so far, and after a hundred years of trying, we have not seen a single red cent in reparations, or a single square inch of soil annexed, or a single victim resurrected.
*
Instead of doing what must be done or what is within their power to do (such as enhancing our solidarity, shedding their tribalism, or respecting our human rights) they promise to do what only God Almighty can do but so far has consistently refused to do.
*
Does God recognize the Genocide?
I for one cannot claim to read His mind.
I can only say that He allowed it to happen and it was done in His name.
*
To those who say I repeat myself, I say, I see nothing wrong in repeating my truths as often as they repeat their lies.
#
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
**********************************************
FAITH AND KNOWLEDGE
***************************************
Religions are popular not because they are true
but because they make sense
the way Leonardo's Mona Lisa makes sense to lovers of art,
Beethoven's 6th Symphony makes sense to lovers of music,
and algebra and trigonometry make sense to mathematicians.
The Greek myths made sense to the Greeks
to the same degree that Islam makes sense to Muslims,
Christianity to Christians, and atheism to atheists –
with one difference:
whereas there is only one trigonometry,
there are many religions that contradict one another.
*
It's astonishing how little men know
about the world around them and themselves.
A man's area of ignorance is infinitely greater
than his area of knowledge.
Men like Beethoven and Einstein may have know
everything there is to know about music and physics respectively
but little or nothing about many other subjects,
including, say, Armenian history and culture.
Even though I have myself written several books on the subject,
my own knowledge of our history and culture
may be said to be less than 0.01% of the total.
Which may explain why dupes outnumber the wise,
and even the wise are no better dupes.
Hence the number of great 20th-century
philosophers, writers, and Nobel-Prize winners
who were Catholics, atheists, Stalinists,
and members of the Nazi Party.
#
__._,_.___
Saturday, September 11, 2010
dogmas
Thursday, September 9, 2010
************************************
THEM AND US
*************************************************
“Plan to burn Qur'an is offensive,” reads the headline of a commentary in the Op-Ed page of my morning paper.
Maybe so, but what about another headline that says, “They [Muslims] burn the Qur'an every day with their actions.”
And sure enough, in the fourth paragraph of this commentary, our pundit writes: “There are Muslims who pervert their religion, literally called the path of peace, into a call to armed suppression of women and acts of terrorism.”
*
God may be great indeed, but He seems powerless against those who terrorize and kill in His name.
Are Christians better than Muslims?
No comment!
*
Toynbee: “It is always easier, both intellectually and morally, to debit one's ills to the account of some outside agency than to ascribe the responsibility to oneself.”
In other words, to play the blame-game and to paint ourselves all white and the opposition all black.
*
I thought I knew better when I knew nothing.
It takes knowledge and understanding to see the depths of evil that resides in our hearts. This may explain the popularity of ignorance.
#
Friday, September 10, 2010
************************************
CONSOLATION
*************************************************
Toynbee: “Death limits life's liabilities. This boon that death confers is supremely valuable, and ought to be immensely consoling.”
*
There is no evidence to suggest that life will make sense after death. If to die means to enter the realm of nothingness, then nothingness is the only perfection we will ever know.
*
A little learning is the source of all prejudice, conspiracy theories, and xenophobia.
Here is Toynbee's masterful explanation of this phenomenon:
“The danger lay in the opening which a rudimentary universal education gave for propaganda, and in the skill and unscrupousness with which this opportunity had been seized by salesmen for advertising their wares and by news agencies, pressure groups, political parties, and the public relations departments of firms and governments for selling their policies.”
*
The importance of education is constantly stressed to unsuspecting children. What is ignored is the fact that no matter how many degrees you acquire, the chances are you will end up working for an assh*le.”
#
Saturday, September 11, 2010
************************************
BOOKS
*************************************************
There are two kinds of writers: those whose ideas shape the future (not always for the better), and those whose ideas are buried and forgotten with them. To the first category belong Rousseau, Voltaire, Thoreau, and Marx; to the second category, our writers.
*
There are no new ideas. Everything we say has been said before. When told the Bible was written by the Holy Spirit, Shaw replied: “All books are written by the Holy Spirit.”
*
I for one don't believe in the holiness of holy books -- regardless of denomination – when I think of all the wars and massacres perpetrated in their name, not to mention the intolerance, the persecution of heretics, and the countless abuses... More often than not, it seems to me, a holy book is used as a license to kill.
*
Holy books might as well be synonymous with holy wars.
*
Sometimes serial killers plead not guilty by reason of insanity – they say it was God or Satan who ordered them to do what they did. Now then, if you count the victims of serial killers and the victims of religious leaders, you may conclude that the latter are far more dangerous.
*
To those who say we no longer live in the Middle Ages, I ask: Who ordered 9/11? Where does an imam get his authority?
*
I see a direct link between the overpopulation, poverty, and drug wars in Mexico and the Pope's dogmatic interdiction of birth control devices.
*
All religions have dogmas, and all dogmas legitimize intolerance, and ultimately the murder of innocent victims.
#
************************************
THEM AND US
*************************************************
“Plan to burn Qur'an is offensive,” reads the headline of a commentary in the Op-Ed page of my morning paper.
Maybe so, but what about another headline that says, “They [Muslims] burn the Qur'an every day with their actions.”
And sure enough, in the fourth paragraph of this commentary, our pundit writes: “There are Muslims who pervert their religion, literally called the path of peace, into a call to armed suppression of women and acts of terrorism.”
*
God may be great indeed, but He seems powerless against those who terrorize and kill in His name.
Are Christians better than Muslims?
No comment!
*
Toynbee: “It is always easier, both intellectually and morally, to debit one's ills to the account of some outside agency than to ascribe the responsibility to oneself.”
In other words, to play the blame-game and to paint ourselves all white and the opposition all black.
*
I thought I knew better when I knew nothing.
It takes knowledge and understanding to see the depths of evil that resides in our hearts. This may explain the popularity of ignorance.
#
Friday, September 10, 2010
************************************
CONSOLATION
*************************************************
Toynbee: “Death limits life's liabilities. This boon that death confers is supremely valuable, and ought to be immensely consoling.”
*
There is no evidence to suggest that life will make sense after death. If to die means to enter the realm of nothingness, then nothingness is the only perfection we will ever know.
*
A little learning is the source of all prejudice, conspiracy theories, and xenophobia.
Here is Toynbee's masterful explanation of this phenomenon:
“The danger lay in the opening which a rudimentary universal education gave for propaganda, and in the skill and unscrupousness with which this opportunity had been seized by salesmen for advertising their wares and by news agencies, pressure groups, political parties, and the public relations departments of firms and governments for selling their policies.”
*
The importance of education is constantly stressed to unsuspecting children. What is ignored is the fact that no matter how many degrees you acquire, the chances are you will end up working for an assh*le.”
#
Saturday, September 11, 2010
************************************
BOOKS
*************************************************
There are two kinds of writers: those whose ideas shape the future (not always for the better), and those whose ideas are buried and forgotten with them. To the first category belong Rousseau, Voltaire, Thoreau, and Marx; to the second category, our writers.
*
There are no new ideas. Everything we say has been said before. When told the Bible was written by the Holy Spirit, Shaw replied: “All books are written by the Holy Spirit.”
*
I for one don't believe in the holiness of holy books -- regardless of denomination – when I think of all the wars and massacres perpetrated in their name, not to mention the intolerance, the persecution of heretics, and the countless abuses... More often than not, it seems to me, a holy book is used as a license to kill.
*
Holy books might as well be synonymous with holy wars.
*
Sometimes serial killers plead not guilty by reason of insanity – they say it was God or Satan who ordered them to do what they did. Now then, if you count the victims of serial killers and the victims of religious leaders, you may conclude that the latter are far more dangerous.
*
To those who say we no longer live in the Middle Ages, I ask: Who ordered 9/11? Where does an imam get his authority?
*
I see a direct link between the overpopulation, poverty, and drug wars in Mexico and the Pope's dogmatic interdiction of birth control devices.
*
All religions have dogmas, and all dogmas legitimize intolerance, and ultimately the murder of innocent victims.
#
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
satan
Sunday, September 5, 2010
************************************
POWER
*************************************************
The need to believe is universal.
So is the need to manufacture evidence
in order to stress the truth of a specific belief system
that is in competition with many others.
To put it bluntly:
all religions and ideologies lie.
Likewise, all children are taught
to expose the lies of alien belief systems
and to cover up their own.
The first reaction of an organized society
to all alien or new belief systems is to reject them
not because they are lies
but because they threaten the legitimacy
of the status quo.
Regardless of what they profess to believe in,
all men of power are committed to only one thing, their power.
Even a belief system whose central tenet is love
will practice hatred in defense of the status quo.
To say that power corrupts
is to place the cart before the horse,
the effect before the cause,
the headline before the crime,
and not just “b” before “a”
but omega before alpha.
Power is cancer – make it,
terminal cancer of the soul.
#
Monday, September 6, 2010
************************************
MORE SPECULATIONS...
*************************************************
They believe God will provide them with seventy-three virgins.
They say “God is great!” and they mean “God is a pimp.”
When I think of all the things that are said and done in His name,
I have no choice but to conclude
He must be just about the most abused Being in the universe
and the crucifixion is not an isolated incident
but an ongoing process with no end in sight.
Is God a masochist?
Judging by the suffering that is inflicted on the innocent,
one could also conclude that He is sadist.
Do you really want to know what I really think?
I think as long as we are human beings,
even if endowed with the best human brain,
we will never know,
we will never understand,
and it is a waste of time to speculate.
#
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
************************************
THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM
*************************************************
If I ever meet Atom Egoyan I will ask him so far how many Armenians have submitted screenplays to him. I remember to have read somewhere that Mamoulian went out of his way to avoid helping Armenians. And I once met an Armenian conductor who swore to me he would never again invite an Armenian soloist to play with his orchestra.
*
When dealing with Armenians, it helps to have one eye shut -- both would be preferable of course.
*
I write not to change things but to understand them. Call me an addict of explanations. The harder the nut to crack the sweeter the kernel. To ignore our problems would be like pretending the elephant in the room is a French poodle.
*
May I suggest dividing the nation is not the only way to solve our problems.
*
Compulsive liars are believed only by perennial dupes and retards.
Armenians are smart?
Don't make me laugh!
*
Hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunamis, wars, massacres, incurable diseases, floods, serial killers and a thousand other misfortunes are God's way of saying “I refuse to get involved!”
#
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
************************************
GOD AND SATAN
*************************************************
One man's God is another's Satan.
*
The God of an American fundamentalist is as alien to me as a Muslim's Allah. Both share more features with Nazis and Bolsheviks than with decent human beings. There are moderate Muslims but they are not the ones who are making history today. They might as well be absentee landlords.
*
The aim of stoning a woman convicted of adultery is less to punish the guilty and more to terrorize the innocent. And they terrorize the innocent because they are themselves terrorized by the prospect of infidelity.
*
Muslims hate one another more than they hate the West. This has been said before and it bears repeating. Muslims have victimized more Muslims in wars, civil wars, and act of terrorism than the West.
*
Not all propagandists speak with a forked tongue. Some believe in their own lies. They are like murderers who not only plead insanity but are in fact insane.
#
************************************
POWER
*************************************************
The need to believe is universal.
So is the need to manufacture evidence
in order to stress the truth of a specific belief system
that is in competition with many others.
To put it bluntly:
all religions and ideologies lie.
Likewise, all children are taught
to expose the lies of alien belief systems
and to cover up their own.
The first reaction of an organized society
to all alien or new belief systems is to reject them
not because they are lies
but because they threaten the legitimacy
of the status quo.
Regardless of what they profess to believe in,
all men of power are committed to only one thing, their power.
Even a belief system whose central tenet is love
will practice hatred in defense of the status quo.
To say that power corrupts
is to place the cart before the horse,
the effect before the cause,
the headline before the crime,
and not just “b” before “a”
but omega before alpha.
Power is cancer – make it,
terminal cancer of the soul.
#
Monday, September 6, 2010
************************************
MORE SPECULATIONS...
*************************************************
They believe God will provide them with seventy-three virgins.
They say “God is great!” and they mean “God is a pimp.”
When I think of all the things that are said and done in His name,
I have no choice but to conclude
He must be just about the most abused Being in the universe
and the crucifixion is not an isolated incident
but an ongoing process with no end in sight.
Is God a masochist?
Judging by the suffering that is inflicted on the innocent,
one could also conclude that He is sadist.
Do you really want to know what I really think?
I think as long as we are human beings,
even if endowed with the best human brain,
we will never know,
we will never understand,
and it is a waste of time to speculate.
#
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
************************************
THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM
*************************************************
If I ever meet Atom Egoyan I will ask him so far how many Armenians have submitted screenplays to him. I remember to have read somewhere that Mamoulian went out of his way to avoid helping Armenians. And I once met an Armenian conductor who swore to me he would never again invite an Armenian soloist to play with his orchestra.
*
When dealing with Armenians, it helps to have one eye shut -- both would be preferable of course.
*
I write not to change things but to understand them. Call me an addict of explanations. The harder the nut to crack the sweeter the kernel. To ignore our problems would be like pretending the elephant in the room is a French poodle.
*
May I suggest dividing the nation is not the only way to solve our problems.
*
Compulsive liars are believed only by perennial dupes and retards.
Armenians are smart?
Don't make me laugh!
*
Hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunamis, wars, massacres, incurable diseases, floods, serial killers and a thousand other misfortunes are God's way of saying “I refuse to get involved!”
#
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
************************************
GOD AND SATAN
*************************************************
One man's God is another's Satan.
*
The God of an American fundamentalist is as alien to me as a Muslim's Allah. Both share more features with Nazis and Bolsheviks than with decent human beings. There are moderate Muslims but they are not the ones who are making history today. They might as well be absentee landlords.
*
The aim of stoning a woman convicted of adultery is less to punish the guilty and more to terrorize the innocent. And they terrorize the innocent because they are themselves terrorized by the prospect of infidelity.
*
Muslims hate one another more than they hate the West. This has been said before and it bears repeating. Muslims have victimized more Muslims in wars, civil wars, and act of terrorism than the West.
*
Not all propagandists speak with a forked tongue. Some believe in their own lies. They are like murderers who not only plead insanity but are in fact insane.
#
Saturday, September 4, 2010
comments
Thursday, September 2, 2010
************************************
FROM MY NOTEBOOKS
*************************************************
They say “God is great!” and they imply “He is on our side.”
To believe the unbelievable is the source of all fanaticism.
*
The dinosaurs are the Titanics of evolution.
*
Sympathy is seldom extended to those who demand it.
*
Don't write what you think but what you really think,
especially if it is the opposite of what you think.
*
On the day my critics begin to agree with me,
I will start wondering if I have succumbed to senility.
*
Have I said this before? No matter.
If something is worth saying, it is worth repeating.
*
Whenever an adult delivers a cliché, I am tempted to ask:
How old were you when you first heard that line, five or seven?
*
Vanity, it has been said, has a voracious appetite,
which is why I dismiss as a lie any statement that flatters our collective ego.
*
A nationalist historian who believes in his own version of history
has a dupe for a reader.
*
"Makers of idols don't believe in them," says an old Chinese proverb,
and if Italians are to be believed, "Even the Pope doubts his faith
seven times every day."
#
Friday, September 3, 2010
************************************
SPECULATIONS
*************************************************
The number of atoms in the universe is constant.
Birth and death neither add nor subtract from the total.
In birth atoms are assembled and in death they are disassembled.
This cycle is repeated endlessly.
Life moves not from being to nothingness and vice versa
but from organization to disintegration and back to organization again.
*
The dead enter a timeless realm
in which a fraction of a second is as long as a million years.
The time before we were born or even before the universe existed
(or what cosmologists call the Big Bang)
is the realm of timelessness.
*
God exists not in the cosmos that is accessible to telescopes and microscopes
but in a different realm and dimension.
Examples of different dimensions are
the realms of such abstractions as numbers, dreams, or music.
*
In dreams being and nothingness are no longer contradictions
but parallel realms in which the dead live.
An infinite number of organisms also means
an infinite number of realms some of which may become accessible to us
only after we die.
#
Saturday, September 4, 2010
************************************
FROM MY NOTEBOOKS
*************************************************
If you do the right thing they will laugh at you and say, “That fool doesn't know what's good for himself.”
*
The worst pretend to be better because that's the only way they know how to live with themselves.
*
If you don't know what I mean when I speak of “Ottomanized Armenians,” I suggest you take a good look at yourself in the mirror.
*
For the man who is tormented by painful memories, Alzheimer's must be bliss.
*
We are never told everything. We always get a carefully edited version of events, sentiments, ideas, and speculations.
*
To how many of my critics I could say, “I have at no time claimed to be a genius like you.”
*
Among the many signs held by opponents of the construction of a mosque near ground zero in New York City, I notice one that says “BOYCOTT TURKISH GOODS & PRODUCE.” (TIME, August 16, 2010, page 17.)
*
There is a tendency in all bullies and victimizers to choose the defenseless as their targets because it is less labor intensive.
#
************************************
FROM MY NOTEBOOKS
*************************************************
They say “God is great!” and they imply “He is on our side.”
To believe the unbelievable is the source of all fanaticism.
*
The dinosaurs are the Titanics of evolution.
*
Sympathy is seldom extended to those who demand it.
*
Don't write what you think but what you really think,
especially if it is the opposite of what you think.
*
On the day my critics begin to agree with me,
I will start wondering if I have succumbed to senility.
*
Have I said this before? No matter.
If something is worth saying, it is worth repeating.
*
Whenever an adult delivers a cliché, I am tempted to ask:
How old were you when you first heard that line, five or seven?
*
Vanity, it has been said, has a voracious appetite,
which is why I dismiss as a lie any statement that flatters our collective ego.
*
A nationalist historian who believes in his own version of history
has a dupe for a reader.
*
"Makers of idols don't believe in them," says an old Chinese proverb,
and if Italians are to be believed, "Even the Pope doubts his faith
seven times every day."
#
Friday, September 3, 2010
************************************
SPECULATIONS
*************************************************
The number of atoms in the universe is constant.
Birth and death neither add nor subtract from the total.
In birth atoms are assembled and in death they are disassembled.
This cycle is repeated endlessly.
Life moves not from being to nothingness and vice versa
but from organization to disintegration and back to organization again.
*
The dead enter a timeless realm
in which a fraction of a second is as long as a million years.
The time before we were born or even before the universe existed
(or what cosmologists call the Big Bang)
is the realm of timelessness.
*
God exists not in the cosmos that is accessible to telescopes and microscopes
but in a different realm and dimension.
Examples of different dimensions are
the realms of such abstractions as numbers, dreams, or music.
*
In dreams being and nothingness are no longer contradictions
but parallel realms in which the dead live.
An infinite number of organisms also means
an infinite number of realms some of which may become accessible to us
only after we die.
#
Saturday, September 4, 2010
************************************
FROM MY NOTEBOOKS
*************************************************
If you do the right thing they will laugh at you and say, “That fool doesn't know what's good for himself.”
*
The worst pretend to be better because that's the only way they know how to live with themselves.
*
If you don't know what I mean when I speak of “Ottomanized Armenians,” I suggest you take a good look at yourself in the mirror.
*
For the man who is tormented by painful memories, Alzheimer's must be bliss.
*
We are never told everything. We always get a carefully edited version of events, sentiments, ideas, and speculations.
*
To how many of my critics I could say, “I have at no time claimed to be a genius like you.”
*
Among the many signs held by opponents of the construction of a mosque near ground zero in New York City, I notice one that says “BOYCOTT TURKISH GOODS & PRODUCE.” (TIME, August 16, 2010, page 17.)
*
There is a tendency in all bullies and victimizers to choose the defenseless as their targets because it is less labor intensive.
#
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
right?
Sunday, August 29, 2010
************************************
AM I RIGHT OR WRONG?
***********************************************
That's up to the reader to decide.
I am not in the business of proving myself right
and my adversaries wrong.
All I am interested in doing is sharing my understanding.
If I were interested in proving myself right
I would write a thesis with footnotes and a bibliography.
But I leave that to academics
who tend to choose a subject and stick to it
to the end of their career.
No one in his right mind
would call writing for Armenians a career
or even a job. If I were to place it somewhere
it would have to be between a hobby
and a complete waste of time.
As a victim, what motivates me is less love of victims
and more hatred of victimizers,
especially the kind that begin by deceiving children
and end by sodomizing them – sometimes literally.
And if you think Armenians are morally superior
to Catholic priests, ask yourself:
Who drilled that nonsense into your head?
What motivates you to believe him, beside wishful thinking?
If some readers disagree with me,
it may be because so far they have failed
to deprogram themselves, which means
they continue to believe everything that happened to us
was someone else's fault
and our sole contribution to history
has been providing victims to alien tyrants.
#
Monday, August 30, 2010
************************************
ONE OR TWO THINGS ABOUT MYSELF
*************************************************
I have a phobia of boring the reader.
My secret ambition:
to write three-line essays as in a haiku.
*
The best Armenian joke I know:
bosses, bishops, benefactors.
*
Books I consider necessities, everything else a luxury.
Books I get free of charge from the public library;
luxuries from the dollar store.
*
Something to brag about:
I have never delivered a speech in my life;
and I have never heard a speech that didn't bore me.
*
I am beginning to think of death as liberation.
Writing for Armenians may have something to do with this.
*
The first time I met an honest Armenian,
I thought he was crazy.
*
Who will disagree with me if I say
to have an Armenian friend is to harbor a potential enemy?
*
I neither preach nor teach. I share.
There is an element of coercion in both preaching and teaching.
A preacher relies on a captive audience,
and a teacher on his own authority.
Sharing is between equals; it does not exploit or violate anyone's freedom.
*
Because Negro spirituals touch my soul
as deeply as our sharagans, my patriotism may well be suspect.
*
To be misunderstood is almost to suffer an injustice.
#
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
************************************
GREED
*************************************************
“We defeated fascism and communism,” American like to brag.
Maybe. But it is equally true that both fascism and communism helped them by committing suicide.
And Americans may be next.
*
According to a British pundit, “The banks lost money but the bankers made a fortune and now live in big mansions.”
But according to an American observer: “The salaries and bonuses of chief executive officers are less than 1% of the total."
Whom to believe?
Statistics can lie, of course. The average citizen can't afford to make his own statistics and must therefore rely on statisticians. What matters here – what needs to be carefully and objectively analyzed – is the mindset of the men at the top who focus on their welfare so much that every other consideration is ignored.
So what if millions lose their jobs?
So what if some losers commit suicide?
So what if it's bad public relations?
Bankers pay millions to their PR men: let them earn their keep and bury the problem in statistics, sophistries, and legalities.
*
If Obama loses it will be because he helped top dogs and ignored the plight of underdogs – the very same mindset that toppled fascism and communism.
Even assuming Obama is doing what must be done: his failure consists in his inability to convince the people; and when a politician failes in that department, nothing and no one can save him.
*
A headline in the Op-Ed page of my morning paper today reads: “Billionaires bankrolling U.S. Conservative movement.”
They are saved with taxpayers' money and they demand tax cuts for themselves.
They make so much money that they don't know what to do with it, and they want more! -- more for themselves and less for everyone else.
And they call Obama a communist and a fascist.
Toynbee is right: “Empires and nations are not killed: they commit suicide.”
#
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
************************************
REPUTATION AND SELF-ESTEEM
*************************************************
Whenever I exercise my critical faculties and my fundamental human right of free speech, I am told I besmirch our reputation in the eyes of the world.
Allow me to quote two eminent witness on the subject of reputation:
Saint-Simon: “My self-esteem has always increased in direct proportion to the damage I was doing to my reputation.”
Tolstoy: “The higher I rise in the opinion of others, the lower I sink in my own.”
*
It was during the Watergate hearings that I discovered the greatness of democracy.
*
We have swallowed the poison of murderous alien tyrants for such a long time that we confuse their absence with freedom, and our rotten paternalism as a mandate from heaven.
*
Who benefits when we cover up our contradictions? Surely not the people.
#
************************************
AM I RIGHT OR WRONG?
***********************************************
That's up to the reader to decide.
I am not in the business of proving myself right
and my adversaries wrong.
All I am interested in doing is sharing my understanding.
If I were interested in proving myself right
I would write a thesis with footnotes and a bibliography.
But I leave that to academics
who tend to choose a subject and stick to it
to the end of their career.
No one in his right mind
would call writing for Armenians a career
or even a job. If I were to place it somewhere
it would have to be between a hobby
and a complete waste of time.
As a victim, what motivates me is less love of victims
and more hatred of victimizers,
especially the kind that begin by deceiving children
and end by sodomizing them – sometimes literally.
And if you think Armenians are morally superior
to Catholic priests, ask yourself:
Who drilled that nonsense into your head?
What motivates you to believe him, beside wishful thinking?
If some readers disagree with me,
it may be because so far they have failed
to deprogram themselves, which means
they continue to believe everything that happened to us
was someone else's fault
and our sole contribution to history
has been providing victims to alien tyrants.
#
Monday, August 30, 2010
************************************
ONE OR TWO THINGS ABOUT MYSELF
*************************************************
I have a phobia of boring the reader.
My secret ambition:
to write three-line essays as in a haiku.
*
The best Armenian joke I know:
bosses, bishops, benefactors.
*
Books I consider necessities, everything else a luxury.
Books I get free of charge from the public library;
luxuries from the dollar store.
*
Something to brag about:
I have never delivered a speech in my life;
and I have never heard a speech that didn't bore me.
*
I am beginning to think of death as liberation.
Writing for Armenians may have something to do with this.
*
The first time I met an honest Armenian,
I thought he was crazy.
*
Who will disagree with me if I say
to have an Armenian friend is to harbor a potential enemy?
*
I neither preach nor teach. I share.
There is an element of coercion in both preaching and teaching.
A preacher relies on a captive audience,
and a teacher on his own authority.
Sharing is between equals; it does not exploit or violate anyone's freedom.
*
Because Negro spirituals touch my soul
as deeply as our sharagans, my patriotism may well be suspect.
*
To be misunderstood is almost to suffer an injustice.
#
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
************************************
GREED
*************************************************
“We defeated fascism and communism,” American like to brag.
Maybe. But it is equally true that both fascism and communism helped them by committing suicide.
And Americans may be next.
*
According to a British pundit, “The banks lost money but the bankers made a fortune and now live in big mansions.”
But according to an American observer: “The salaries and bonuses of chief executive officers are less than 1% of the total."
Whom to believe?
Statistics can lie, of course. The average citizen can't afford to make his own statistics and must therefore rely on statisticians. What matters here – what needs to be carefully and objectively analyzed – is the mindset of the men at the top who focus on their welfare so much that every other consideration is ignored.
So what if millions lose their jobs?
So what if some losers commit suicide?
So what if it's bad public relations?
Bankers pay millions to their PR men: let them earn their keep and bury the problem in statistics, sophistries, and legalities.
*
If Obama loses it will be because he helped top dogs and ignored the plight of underdogs – the very same mindset that toppled fascism and communism.
Even assuming Obama is doing what must be done: his failure consists in his inability to convince the people; and when a politician failes in that department, nothing and no one can save him.
*
A headline in the Op-Ed page of my morning paper today reads: “Billionaires bankrolling U.S. Conservative movement.”
They are saved with taxpayers' money and they demand tax cuts for themselves.
They make so much money that they don't know what to do with it, and they want more! -- more for themselves and less for everyone else.
And they call Obama a communist and a fascist.
Toynbee is right: “Empires and nations are not killed: they commit suicide.”
#
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
************************************
REPUTATION AND SELF-ESTEEM
*************************************************
Whenever I exercise my critical faculties and my fundamental human right of free speech, I am told I besmirch our reputation in the eyes of the world.
Allow me to quote two eminent witness on the subject of reputation:
Saint-Simon: “My self-esteem has always increased in direct proportion to the damage I was doing to my reputation.”
Tolstoy: “The higher I rise in the opinion of others, the lower I sink in my own.”
*
It was during the Watergate hearings that I discovered the greatness of democracy.
*
We have swallowed the poison of murderous alien tyrants for such a long time that we confuse their absence with freedom, and our rotten paternalism as a mandate from heaven.
*
Who benefits when we cover up our contradictions? Surely not the people.
#
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