BAH-HUMBUG ********************************* Where would the 1% be without the full cooperation, dedication, and hard work of the 99%? * To be a good Armenian it is not necessary to be a bad human being with a closed mind. * Crooks have their uses: they make us appreciate the importance of honesty. * Being smart also means not repeating idiotlc blunders like dividing the community and abusing children by brainwashing them to brag about our genius for survival. # MEMO TO A WRITER ******************************* If you say the opposite of what your average reader wants to hear you can’t go wrong. * ON POPULARITY *********************** Popularity is an American aberration and best-sellers the surest symptoms of mediocrity. * A CRITIC SPEAKS *************************** “You have been writing for thirty years now and you have changed nothing,” a reader writes implying either shut up or change your tune. Change begins in the heart and what happens there doesn’t make headlines, neither does it penetrate the hick skulls of those in a position to change things, especially if the status quo has been good to them. * WHY ENGLISH? ******************************* I write in English because 99% of what I write would be considered unprintable by our 1%. # My greatest liability: I never mastered the art of flattering the powerful and the rich -- i.e. the scum of the earth. # Was Santa good to you? * Both capitalism and communism have been good to their 1%. What does that tell you about ideologies and belief systems? * My own answer: They introduce meaningless divisions even when they know the result may be the slaughter of countless innocent victims; even when they have been warned “a house divided against itself cannot stand.” # TO MY CRITICS ****************************** Gentle reader: Unlike you, I don’t pretend to speak the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Think of me only as the voice of another school of thought. * Knowledge and understanding are not your enemies. There is no need for you to defend yourself against them. * To think that you can speak the truth and be popular is an American fallacy. * So many first-class literary works have been rejected by publishers or ignored by the public that one is tempted to define writing as composing music for the deaf. # A HISTORY OF DECEPTION *********************************** Turks have been successful in convincing the Yanks (a) we are their Red Indians, and (b) whenever we don’t get our way we engage in acts of terrorists; which is what happened in the Ottoman Empire at the turn of the last century and more recently all over the world including America. * DUPES **************** We are born dupes. First we believe in the friendly disposition of the Young Turks and now we believe our own leaders when they tell us with our financial support they will have the Genocide recognized by the Yanks. * DUPES (II) ****************** Where would tyrants be without cowardly dupes? * Q ******************* “Melonsmellonous osculations.” Can you guess what’s being said and the identity of the author? # LESSONS ***************** If history teaches us anything it is this: we can be wrong; we can be wrong even when we are right; we can be dead wrong even when God and the Great Powers are on our side. * The #1 concern of our 1% is not to solve our problems but to defend and protect their powers and privileges, which means Plan B only for themselves. * My ideal reader is one who hates to read; which means he has been at the mercy of speechifiers and sermonizers and is thus virgin territory easily impregnated with new ideas. * When I was young, unemployed and unemployable, two senior members of the Party came to see me. Someone had told them I love books and reading. “We are willing to subsidize your university education,” they said, “provided you agree to work for us.” Meaning: We have no use for your garbage; we have our own. Which may explain my present status as an abominable no man. Mart bidi ch’ellank! #