memos

Thursday, June 14, 2012
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MEMORANDA
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Historians are first and foremost
propagandists of state-sponsored lies.
With them presumption of guilt or innocence comes first,
selection of evidence after.
*
Writing is easy.
Deleting – that’s where creativity and originality move in.
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To know when to shut up:
birthplace of all masterpieces.
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All organized religions have failed.
If they continue to have followers
it's because any meaning,
even when meaningless,
is better than no meaning.
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Strong convictions are the surest symptoms
of weak minds.
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Friday, June 15, 2012
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IDIOTS
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Canadians and Americans appear to be obsessed
with their unemployment rates,
not to say corruption and incompetence in high places.
I have been watching Armenian news on TV
for more than ten years now
and I don’t remember a single mention
of unemployment, corruption, and incompetence.
All I see is a bunch of bureaucrats or “suits”
(also identified as “kheyars,” meaning cucumbers)
in official ceremonies,
children and teenagers singing and dancing,
and the rich variety of delicacies served at banquets.
Idiots!
*
Turks are so busy being proud of their Turkishness
that they pretend to be offended
when massacres are mentioned.
And we are so proud of our Armenishness
that we consider unemployment, corruption, and incompetence
alien concept not worth mentioning.
Idiots!
*
We are not so much a divided nation
as a broken one – a broken one, moreover,
that refuses to mend itself
though it has all the means to do so.
Idiots!
#
Saturday, June 16, 2012
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DZOUR NESDINK,
SHIDAG KHOSSINK
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Burma has its San Suu Kyi,
Tibet its Dalai Lama,
Tunisia its Buazizi,
Egypt its Muslim Brotherhood,
and once upon a time we had Khrimian Hairik
who dared to say No to the Czar.
Whom do we have today?
Only empty suits, brown-nosing wheeler-dealers,
and gutless nonentities whose #1 concern is #1.
This is true not only of the Homeland
but also the Diaspora.
That’s what a thousand years of subservience has done to us.
We lament our million-and-half every year on April 24.
We should lament our loss of manhood every day.
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