from my notebooks

Sunday, September 28, 2008
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An American pundit on chief executive officers: “The government cannot place limitations on the salaries and bonuses of CEO's. These are smart people. They know how to handle money. If they don't make it one way, they will find other ways.”
In other words, the net of our justice system can catch sardines but not sharks, because it was designed by sharks.
Or, if you are going to steal, go into banking and leave petty larceny to criminals.
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If we ever let loose a forensic accountant into our organizations, I suspect he will suffocate in a pile of manure as big as Mount Ararat.
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Capitalism: socialism for the rich, free enterprise for the poor.
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If I am against everything that I believed thirty years ago, it only means that I did not waste my last thirty years because I learned things I didn't know.
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What makes a loser think he is morally superior is a psychological maneuver known as compensation. But there is compensation and there is overcompensation, as when an inbred moron assesses himself as a genius.
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If I repeat myself it's because when I am misunderstood, I don't mind trying again.
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Think of a dissident as someone who says “I refuse to be brainwashed.”
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Monday, September 29, 2008
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REFLECTIONS OF A FORMER DUPE
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If I am as bad a writer as some of my readers are eager to inform me, why even bother reading me when there are so many good ones, among them patriotic academics, historians, pundits, and poets?
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Why is it that believers persecute non-believers? Is it because believers may believe they believe but they don't really believe, and in silencing infidels they hope to silence their own doubts?
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During the Soviet era dissidents were persecuted, exiled, and shot. Did that prolong the existence of the USSR by even a fraction of a second?
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Great nations produce great writers. Shakespeare wrote for kings and queens, not brainwashed fools and fishwives.
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An Armenian could never have said “You can't fool all the people all the time,” because Armenians have been successfully fooled for more than 1500 years now.
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What happened to our Bagratunis who denied their Armenian identity and claimed to be Jews descended from the Biblical King David? What happened to our Mamikonians (of Chinese descent) who claimed to have fought the heroic Battle of Avarair, which, according to some historians, not all of them odar, never took place?
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Nations need myths. Only deceivers need lies.
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The more brainwashed they are the lower their IQ, the higher their intolerance, the deeper their ignorance, the greater their fanaticism.
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I can recognize a brainwashed dupe when I see one. I was one myself most of my life.
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Harry Truman on Richard Nixon: “I don't think the son of a bitch knows the difference between telling the truth and lying.”
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Tuesday, September 30, 2008
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They are calling it a tsunami. It's nothing of the kind. Tsunamis are natural phenomena. The present economic crisis is man-made – a result of deregulation, mismanagement, and greed. The greedy should be exposed, named, tried, and penalized, not rewarded, promoted, or trusted to solve the problem.
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There is an Armenian forum on the Internet in which Turks outnumber the Armenians and which consists mostly in exchanges of insults and profanities. Turks verbally abuse Armenians, Armenians abuse Turks, and – you guessed – Armenians abuse Armenians. After a while you can't tell who's who because they all sound alike, which reminds me of what Granian once told me: “Scratch an Armenian and find a Turk.”
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Call someone ignorant and condemn yourself to learn nothing from him.
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The smaller the country, the greater the number of its self-assessed geniuses.
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I know how to write for idiots. As for writing for lesser idiots: I leave that to far better men than myself.
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Driving half an hour to a golf course, playing golf for an hour, having a drink afterwards with the boys, or watching a hockey game on TV – that's my idea of hell.
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Whenever I have been exploited, abused, and insulted, it's been with my consent and cooperation. To realize this is to be born again.
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Winston Churchill (on being told several of his fly-buttons were undone): “No matter. The dead bird does not leave the nest.”
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Wednesday, October 1, 2008
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FROM MY NOTEBOOKS
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I believe there is a special place in hell reserved for people who think what they know is good enough for them and no one and nothing can change that.
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Freedom and patriotism are weasel words: they can be defined in a number of contradictory ways. Freedom could also mean the freedom to exploit and enslave. And what could be more absurd than to say my patriotism is good but my enemy’s patriotism is bad?
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How much of what we know today would be reduced to ignorance if we were to see reality through the eyes of God?
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My ambition as an Armenian is to be a human being.
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Patriotism does not mean joining our leaders in covering up their blunders.
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As slaves of former slaves, we are double underdogs, and we need a double revolution to emerge from our cage within a cage.
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What is the value of an insult delivered anonymously and from a safe distance? To put it more bluntly: Why should anyone give a damn what a garbage-mouth cowardly nonentity thinks?
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When I went into this business, it never occurred to me that some day I would be wasting most of my time trying to teach manners to hoodlums.
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Johnson on Gerald Ford: “So dumb he can't fart and chew gum at the same time.”
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