this/that

Sunday, May 27, 2012
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…AMONG OTHER THINGS
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As a child I believed everyone who was older
and pretended to know better.
When asked for solutions I am in the habit of saying “Honesty!”
Perhaps henceforth I should expand that to “Grow up!”
*
When dealing with compulsive liars
it is always safer to assume the opposite of what they say.
*
Belief systems in themselves may be harmless.
Men who assert monopoly on truth:
the hangman’s noose is too good for them.
*
In his memoirs, Frank Langella quotes Laurence Olivier
saying the following about Vivien Leigh:
“You know, she was a nymphomaniac!
And I’m a premature ejaculator!
Not a good matchup!”
Elsewhere he quotes an unidentified actress
saying the following about Anthony Quinn:
“I made a picture with Tony, he was a complete pig.
An animal. A rude, dumb peasant.
I will never forgive myself for letting him f*ck me.”
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Wednesday, May 30, 2012
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THE UNSTATED REASON
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For every stated reason there is an unstated one.
The stated reason for World War I was
“the war to end all wars.”
The stated reason of our revolutionaries in the Ottoman Empire,
love of freedom.
The unstated reason: If the Great Powers of the West are on our side,
we can’t lose.
The stated reason of Hai Tahd or Genocide Recognition:
truth and justice.
The unstated reason: history is on our side.
But if history teaches us anything it’s that
it doesn’t choose sides;
and for every one of our historians and diplomats
Turks can produce ten or twenty of them
who are superior liars because they are the offspring of an empire
and they have been in the business of deception and propaganda
much longer than we have.
We may have the world’s sympathy
but not its justice,
assuming of course there is justice in this world,
which is as good as assuming we will have no more wars,
or if the West is on our side we can’t lose,
or if our struggle is for freedom and justice
sooner or later victory will be ours;
and if you believe that,
you will believe anything!
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Tuesday, May 29, 2012
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OBSERVATIONS
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Ignorance is less absence of knowledge
and more a conscious and premeditated decision not to know.
*
The 1% create jobs
and the 99% create the 1%.
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When a belief system acquires a million followers
it ceases to be an abstraction
and it acquires the solidity of a stone wall.
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You cannot reason with a man
who takes money more seriously than ideas.
*
Kingsley Amis: “If you can't annoy somebody with what you write,
I think there is little point in writing.”
*
There is a type of philistine for whom the word culture
is almost synonymous with cuisine.
*
If shish-kebab-and-pilaf Armenians were to read
a single Armenian book every year,
Armenian literature would enjoy another renaissance.
*
Cicero defines freedom as “participation in power.”
If we are free, ours is the freedom
of ants, birds, and herbivores –
free to be stepped on, shot at, and devoured.
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Wednesday, May 30, 2012
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THEOLOGY
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Christ was not crucified to save mankind.
Look around you.
Does anyone look saved?
Do you feel saved?
Christ was crucified for two very pragmatic reasons:
he refused to be
(one) a dupe to rabbis and
(two)a slave to Romans.
The rest is theology.
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