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Thursday, January 20, 2011
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FROM MY NOTEBOOKS
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Some of the most progressive and civilized democracies in the West
share the same problem in common:
corruption in high places.
But if we are to believe our Turcocentric ghazetajis,
Turks are our only problem – a problem
they think they can solve by barking at them – a solution
that after one hundred years
has not generated a single red cent or a single inch of soil.
*
Insults are my most reliable source of inspiration.
Anger is my favorite muse.
*
Imagine a blind man trying to enlighten an audience with 20/20 vision:
that's what it feels like writing for Armenians.
*
The central concern of our leadership is not to lead
but to shield their fraction of the community from reality.
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Born and raised as a subservient underdog,
I don't have any sympathy or respect for top dogs or leaders.
To me they are no better than white trash.
Dealing with them is almost like experiencing
what it must have been like living in the USSR and the Ottoman Empire.
*
I've had it with diplomatic double-talk.
Since I have nothing,
what can I possibly lose?
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More lines from Mann's DIARY:
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“Read Brecht with increasing distaste.”
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“Young American men not particularly appealing.”
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“Impotent hatred must not consume me.”
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Friday, January 21, 2011
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FROM MY NOTEBOOKS
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Where money enters, temptation is sure to follow;
and where there is temptation, sooner or later someone is sure to give in to it;
and when someone gives in, others are sure to follow.
This is as true of financial institution on Wall Street as of the Vatican.
I would like to be part of a movement
in which not only money does not change hands,
but also money-changers are unceremoniously driven out.
*
Claims of uniqueness are suspect
because they are invariably made to advertise assets,
and where assets are advertised, liabilities are sure to be covered up.
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Never underestimate the ruthless cunning of top dogs.
What makes them who they are is not love of truth
but a propensity to lie and deceive.
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Intolerance of dissent means tolerance of lies.
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Where there is no free speech,
speech will contaminated with lies.
Where there is freedom to lie,
there will be no freedom to speak the truth.
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More lines from Mann's DIARY:
“Some music. Charmed by pieces by Rossini and Chopin.”
“The blindness of these people [Germans] is monstrous.”
“The fifteen or sixteen capitalist arch-villains in the world who call the tune.”
In a 1939 entry: “Einstein visited.”
Not a word on what was said. Was it small talk? Somehow I have trouble imagining Mann and Einstein engaged in nothing but small talk at a time when the world was on the brink of another war.
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Saturday, January 22, 2011
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FROM MY NOTEBOOKS
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How to recognize a killer?
If he speaks like a commissar, he qualifies.
*
How to recognize a Turcocentric ghazetaji?
If he quotes Talaat and Hitler more often than Naregatsi and Hitler,
he is one.
*
Whenever I am accused of negativity, I am tempted to ask:
Are you a fund-raiser?
Do you have political ambitions?
If no, who brainwashed you?
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Our problem is not (in Donald Rumsfeld's words)
“known unknowns” and “unknown unknowns,”
but “knowns” whose existence we refuse to acknowledge.
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If Armenia had been an American-style democracy,
immediately after the Genocide there would have been hearings
in search for answers to the question:
What went wrong?
Who miscalculated?
Who, beside Talaat, must be held responsible?
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