Thursday, January 24, 2013 ************************************** WHY DO I GO ON WRITING? ************************************ That’s a question I ask myself again and again and I always come up with an answer that may make sense to me but no one else. * I write to settle a score, beginning with myself. I feel partly responsible for our leadership. I supported it for a number of years. I kissed its ass when I should have kicked it. * Our divisions go so far back in history that they have become invulnerable to dissent and criticism. It is also true that if a system is rotten it will fall if not tomorrow than the day after. Isn’t that what happened to monarchy, fascism, and Stalinism? * The reason our divisions have survived is that we have lived on the margins of history; and they have not so much survived as they have become, in Toynbee’s classification, fossilized. They are dead men walking. Case in point: by failing to unite the Armenian vote in America, our leadership has condemned itself to be a silent scream. No American presidential candidate will ever take us seriously so long as we divide our vote evenly between Republicans and Democrats. * As for our Turcocentric ghazetajis who pretend to be defenders of the Cause: so far all they have succeeded in doing is drive the Cause to a dead end. Their unspoken or real aim is not to get justice but to cover up the incompetence of the empty suits they work for. * A final note on Turks: they are not all butchers and murderers; they have their share of both as surely as we have our share of traitors, collaborators, and cover-up artists, # Friday, January 25, 2013 ***************************************** PARADOX *********************** We think with someone else’s thoughts and we believe by adopting someone else’s belief system. When it comes to the two most important things in life – thinking and believing, or that which makes us human -- we are more like apes than men. I think therefore I am not. * Our disagreements and conflicts are not ours but someone else’s. Neither are our wars. Only our victims may be said to be ours. * Absurdity is not a philosophical abstraction; it is embedded in our daily existence. * Question all certainties. Reject all dogmatic assertions. And never forget that what you borrow is not yours. # Saturday, January 26, 2013 *************************************** AS I SEE IT *************************** Our most popular school of criticism consists in slinging mud (such as pro-Turkish) hoping some of it will stick. * Identifying blunders in others can be useful only if it may help us identify our own. * Thirst for fame is the surest symptom of mediocrity. * Only pathological liars with political ambitions rewrite history in order to project a positive image. * A book is called bad or dangerous if it proves what you believe to be true is a lie. #