explanation

Sunday, April 22, 2012
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DOUBLE-TALK
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All our great writers,
from Khorenatsi to Raffi,
and from Abovian to Zarian,
have been sources of embarrassment to our leaders
(in the sense that they have exposed their shortcomings)
who must now pretend to be on the side of our literature.
*
In the parable of the camel and the eye of the needle,
Jesus equates financial success with moral failure.
I am not implying our benefactors are liars and degenerates,
only suggesting that they too,
like the rest of us poor moprtals,
are not beyond engaging in occasional double-talk.
*
To love a harmless enemy – nothing easier.
To love an enemy who slashes burns, and rapes?
When asked that question, Tolstoy is said to have replied:
“Things like that don’t happen every day.”
I know better because I read my morning paper.
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It is the mightiest of this world who take ideas seriously,
but only ideas that are against them.
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Indifference is the best revenge.
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Monday, April 23, 2012
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DECLINE AND FALL
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No one can be as ungodly as men who speak in His name –
and I am not thinking only of imams…
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An adult who repeats what he was taught as a child:
that to me is one of the surest and most unmistakable symptoms of retardation.
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Everything has been explained by far better men than myself.
What I have written so far might as well be footnotes to a footnote.
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Even the mightiest empires decline and fall.
Even the most creative cultures stagnate and degenerate.
We call our degeneration survival and we brag about it.
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If being against organized religions means
rejecting Gregorian chant, Bach’s Cantatas, Mozart’s REQUIEM,
Negro spirituals, and our sharagans,
then I am more Catholic than the Pope.
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Wednesday, April 25, 2012
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AN EXPLANATION
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Turks say the Genocide never happened.
It’s a figment of our collective imagination.
Americans are afraid to use the G word.
What’s happening here?
To those who don’t understand, allow me to explain.
*
Both Turks and Americans are guilty of massacres.
Very probably they have killed an equal number of innocent civilians:
the first to preserve their empire,
the second to raise it.
As imperial powers they speak the language of top dogs
which might as well be incomprehensible to underdogs.
They have neither friends nor enemies, only interests.
Arguing with them is a waste of time.
They will never see the world as we see it.
We may be successful in convincing isolated voices
here and there, now and then,
but we don’t have enough money to convince the majority.
In politics and international diplomacy,
right and wrong might as well be irrelevant commodities.
*
There is only one way out of this impasse:
to vote as a block.
On the day American candidates realize
We have the power to make or break them,
we may have a better chance to be heard.
Until then we might as well be a voice in the wilderness.
*
The Jewish vote is a deciding factor in American politics
because Jews are better at presenting a united front.
I feel justified therefore in suggesting that
our leadership – our lord and masters,
or bosses, bishops and benefactors,
or the gang that can’t shoot straight …call them what you will –
are as guilty as denialists because
instead of uniting the community
they have polarized and paralized it.
Very much like Turks and Yanks
they have allowed their interests, or powers and privileges,
to speak louder than the interests of the nation.
That indeed is the root of our status as perennial losers.
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Dostoevsky is right:
“You can’t imagine how powerful a single man can be.”
Or, for that matter, a single community or nation,
when it speaks with one voice.
#
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
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DIARY
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Two new books that I look forward to reading:
ANTON CHEKHOV: A BROTHER’S MEMOIR by Mikhail Chekhov, and
MEMORIES OF CHEKHOV: ACCOUNTS OF THE WRITER FROM HIS FAMILY, FRIENDS AND CONTEMPORARIES, edited by Peter Sekirin.
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Watched a lovely French film titled SEQUINS in which one of the central characters is named Mrs. Melkonian whose son Ishkhan dies in a car accident.
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My definition of hell: to be dependent on the charity of swine.
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Obese people dig their own grave with a fork; writers with their pen.
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In our environment patriotism is sometimes confused with shish-kebabism.
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Brahms used prostitutes. In his old age Gandhi was obsessed with his sexuality and slept with naked teenagers to test his resistance to temptation.
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Cats hate the water but love fish: hence their tolerance of man.
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During World War II READER’S DIGEST rejected contributions by Thomas Mann and Bertolt Brecht.
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Thomas Mann loved Walt Disney. So do I but I prefer Warner Brothers’ Bugs Bunny.
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The disagreement of fools: depressing rather than irritating.
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