this/that

Thursday, October 14, 2010
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WOUNDED ANIMALS
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To the gentle reader who described me as “a wounded animal,” I say:
If centuries of abject subservience to brutal regimes have not left permanent scars on your soul (if you will forgive the overstatement) you must be a superman.
And if you claim to have at no time been mortally wounded by your fellow Armenians, you must be a habitual liar.
Since I have never met a superman and I have met many liars, I have no choice but to assume you are one of those liars who will say anything to assert their superiority over their fellow Armenians.
*
In this morning's paper there is a long article on Armenian criminals in America. Its first paragraph reads:
“A vast network of Armenian gangsters and their associates used phantom health care clinics and other means to try to cheat the government medical insurance program Medicare out of $163 million US, the largest fraud by one criminal enterprise in the program's history, U.S. Authorities said Wednesday.”
We are further informed that an Armenian criminal boss is known as a “vor,” probably because all he does is sit on his fat posterior and let his underlings do the dirty work.
*
The questions to be asked at this point are:
Is there a single former Soviet citizen today who does not bear permanent scars inflicted on his soul by the Stalinist system?
How many “vors” are there in the Yerevan bureaucracy today?
What are the chances that an honest Armenian will emerge from the swamp and reach the top? -- or is that a utopian daydream on my part?
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Friday, October 15, 2010
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NOTES ON OBJECTIVITY
AND DISSENT
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Objectivity is an asset, not a liability.
*
Where there is an absence of objectivity,
blunders are sure to follow.
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To see things as they are
is better than to think of them as we would like them to be.
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A Christian can't be objective about Christianity
in the same way that a Taliban mullah
can't be objective about Islam.
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To say that in matters of faith objectivity is irrelevant
is to surrender reason to the forces of darkness
– the source of all violence.
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Dissent does not have to be infallible in order to be necessary.
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Power without dissent digs its own grave.
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Our intolerance of dissent is a legacy
of our Ottoman and Stalinist past.
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Only the brain-dead are against dissent and free speech.
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When the brain-dead lead the brain-dead
they don't fall into the ditch
because their skeletons are already buried there.
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Men of power do not welcome dissidents;
they prefer dupes with a negative IQ
whose favorite expression is “Yes, sir!”
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Saturday, October 16, 2010
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FUND-RAISERS
& RELATED ATROCITIES
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No activity has been more abused among us
than fund-raising.
*
To say of someone that he has the integrity of a fund-raiser
amount to calling him white trash.
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The greatest beneficiaries of fun-raising
are the fund-raisers themselves.
*
I have yet to meet a fund-raiser
who placed the welfare of the people
above his own fat income.
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I loathe fund-raisers as much as I loathe pimps --
and I say this with the full awareness
that I am being unfair to pimps.
*
Which reminds me of the line:
“Please, don't tell my mother I am a lawyer:
she thinks I am a pimp.”
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Shakespeare: “Let's begin by killing all the lawyers.”
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Dante: If he didn't dedicate an entire circle
in his INFERNO to lawyers, he should have.
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To the lawyers and fund-raisers on this forum
(if there are any) I say:
“Present company suspected.”
*
I rest my case.
Nothing further, your Honor.
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