Saturday, April 13, 2013 ************************************* SERMON ************************** In what way am I morally superior to a cold-blooded killer if I harbor a killer within me? In what way are Americans morally superior to Muslims if they (Americans) have killed more Muslims than Muslims have killed Americans? In what way Muslims are morally superior to Americans if the only reason they have killed fewer Americans is military inferiority? * Closer to home: we have been so busy exposing Turkish criminal conduct that our own moral status has become an alien dimension. As Zarian would say: “Danger, danger, danger!” * There is only one way to feel morally superior and that is (to echo Saroyan) by feeling sorry for the morally inferior. * The Scriptures tell us there is no difference between an adulterer and a man who lusts after another’s wife. Likewise there is no difference between a killer and a man who preaches hatred and revenge which he identifies as justice. * Perhaps what I have been trying to say here is we all swim in the same sh**! # Saturday, April 13, 2013 *********************************** THEOLOGY ********************** The aim of human speech is to say one thing and do the opposite: to say God is love and truth and to worship lies and the Devil; to say “Thou shalt not kill” and to go to war; to call Diasporan Armenians “aghber” (trash) and to behave like trash. Theologians and sermonizers are familiar with this phenomenon but prefer not to speak about it. * THERE WILL BE BLOOD ******************************** As soon as the Kremlin realizes the present regime in Yerevan to be a liability, it will replace it with another. Will anything change? It remains to be seen. “No one gives up power without a bloody fight,” Hegel tells us. Is he right? We may have an answer soon. * DOES POWER CORRUPT? ********************************* Power does not corrupt. It only exposes the corruption that was already there. * AMERICA AND ARMENIA *********************************** Unhappy is the nation whose two most important sources of education are TV ads and state propaganda. # FROM MY NOTEBOOKS ********************************* In life nothing works as planned. An honest autobiography would be a long list of disappointments. * My first book was a best-seller. My second book was banned. That’s when I knew I was on the right track. * We adopt a belief system because we are told all the others don’t make sense. * If you write in defense of dupes, deceivers will conspire against you. # REMEMBER! **************************** Patriotism is the favored word of tyrants. * Political parties need honest men as surely as religions need saints. * “A man of principle is a majority of one.” # Saturday, April 13, 2013 ************************************** SITUATION / SH*TUATION ************************************* In the eyes of the world our regime in Yerevan has lost its virginity. The people are against it. But even if replaced nothing will change. * Believe nothing you are told. There are no good guys in politics. Power prostitutes. * Some of our greatest brains praised Lenin and Stalin. Even our best and brightest are no better than a bunch of dupes. * Where there is too much talk of freedom and independence, oppression is sure to follow. * Throughout our millennial history foreign tyrants have always relied on their Armenian collaborators to moronize the people. # TURCOCENTRISM REVISITED ******************************************* In Turcocentric circles I am know only as someone whom Turks like to quote. All I can say in my defense is that the Devil too can quote the Scriptures. Does that mean the Good Lord is pro-Devil? * I gladly admit to being not a Turcocentric but an Armenocentric writer. So were Baronian and Odian; or for that matter Zarian and Massikian; and before them Naregatsi who in his LAMENTATION blames no one but himself for his many failings and transgressions. * A human being is not a lump of clay at the mercy of forces beyond his control. The Turks did not recreate us in their own image. We consented to be recreated. That is worth repeating and emphasizing. We are what we have become because we chose freely to be who we are. The rest is propaganda and our favorite sport: the blame game. # DIARY ******************** “I enjoy reading you.” I am less interested in your enjoyment and more in your torment. I don’t write to entertain. Flattery is as irrelevant to me as the words of a brainless critics or dupe who believes what he is told especially what he is told flatters his ego. * In Deirdre Bair’s SAUL STEINBERG: A BIOGRAPHY I am informed that if you are depressed you can go to the nearest emergency and ask to see a shrink. This may be common knowledge but it’s news to me. * I remember once when asked by a French friend if I have ever been analyzed I said something to the effect that analysis is for the bourgeoisie and that as a perennial slum-dweller it has never even occurred to me to visit a shrink. I was astonished when he informed me that in France analysis is available to everyone free of charge. * Perhaps deep inside somewhere I continue to be a subject of the Ottoman Empire where the insane were treated like criminals. #