2422 replies to this topic

[ara baliozian]

"Within you" doesn't mean your brain only.
You speak in the name of money and I don't trust you.

yes, of course, within you also means within your heart, stomach, intestines, throat and nose....

and how can i speak in the name of money if as an armenian writer i am the underdog of underdogs? -- unpaid, unread...and when read,
misunderstoood!

i have been accused of all kinds of nefarious things but never, NEVER, of speaking in the name of money. but leave it to an armenian to see things that are not there.../ ara

Edited by ara baliozian, 09 December 2004 - 12:29 PM.

[ara baliozian]

Thursday, December 09, 2004
************************************
A DISGRACE TO THE NATION
*************************************
Because I speak of tolerance and the brotherhood of all men, some of my readers accuse me of all kinds of nefarious and un-Armenian sentiments, as if tolerance and brotherhood were incompatible with Armenianism.
*
“You are a disgrace to the Armenian nation,” a gentle reader writes, as if our nation had been a role model among nations.
*
“Unlike you,” writes another, “some of us refuse to forget 3000 years of history.” What’s 3000 years of history to millions of years of evolution? And what if our history has been a catalogue of dynastic rivalries, tribal divisions, internecine feuds, defeats, subservience to foreign tyrants, collaboration with enemies, treason, betrayal, and the persecution of our ablest men?
*
What about the voice of the people? Why is it that it has been an absent factor in our history? Why is it that the only time we hear about them is when they are victimized by the thousand and the million?
*
Who speaks for the alienated, the unemployed and the hungry who prefer to emigrate to Turkey and to engage in prostitution in foreign lands in order to make ends meet?
*
These questions must be raised because fear of confronting reality and fear of free speech are the worst kind of cowardice.
*
What about our masters of the blame game who assert all our problems must be ascribed to the bloodthirsty disposition of Asiatic barbarians, the double-talk of the so-called civilized West, our geography, and to the obvious fact that we are a peace-loving people? May I reminded these holier-than-thou charlatans that during the 20th century alone we fought both for Stalin and Hitler, and some of the most warlike emperors and generals of the Byzantine Empire were Armenian.
*
Speaking of forked tongues: what if the version of history we are taught in our schools is not history but propaganda whose aim is to soothe bruised egos?
*
Where are our intellectuals? Do we have them? Are they too busy writing books about the Middle Ages and the massacres to have any time left to raise their voices against the kleptocracy in the Homeland and the tyranny of mini-sultans and pseudo-imams in the Diaspora? What happened to their kind after they were systematically exterminated by Talaat and Stalin? Did they stay exterminated or were they followed by successive generations of brown-nosers, charlatans, sleazy liars, and a proliferation of phony pundits and commissars of culture?
#

[nairi]

Happy birthday Ara! Hope you make it the best!

[ED]

Happy Birthday Ara jan.

[ara baliozian]

Friday, December 10, 2004
**********************************
IN TODAY’S PAPER
************************************
According to an international watchdog group, political parties and the media are two of the most corrupt institutions in the world. To put it more bluntly: our “betters” are the worst scum on earth and anyone who defends them is either a brown-nosing dupe or a brainwashed pervert.
*
ON GOD
**********************
At age 81, a British philosopher and confirmed atheist by the name of Antony Flew, has seen the light and he now believes in the existence of god. But his god, he tells us, has nothing to do with the god of bishops, televangelists, and imams, who depict him as an “omnipotent Oriental despot,” or a “cosmic Saddam Hussein.” His proof of god’s existence? The complexities of the DNA (the material in the nucleus of a living cell that determines heredity) which must be the creation of a highly developed intelligence. Flew may now believe in god, we are further informed, but “he does not believe in an afterlife.”
*
ON THE DEADLY SERIOUS BUSINESS OF ARMENIAN HUMOR
**************************************************
Some of my readers have a sense of humor so delicately tuned and balanced, it seems, that whenever I fail to amuse them they call me a sick racist and a disgrace to the nation.
In a movie today I heard Woody Allen deliver the following line: “My grandmother left me nothing: she was too busy being raped by Cossacks.”
If an Armenian comedian were to say as much (changing Cossacks to Turks or Kurds) I suspect, he would be lynched by his audience. I have myself received death threats for far lesser transgressions.
No wonder Armenian comedians, like Armenian writers, are on the list of endangered (perhaps even extinct) species.
*
UNDERSTANDING REALITY
**********************************
Reality is not pretty; neither is it fair. Reality supports the mighty and allows the massacre of the weak. I don’t support reality; but I want to understand its secret intentions. I want to know its schedule and where it will strike next. Organized religions and closed systems of thought are popular because they promise a better reality, sometimes even a utopian heaven on earth, thus legitimizing our wishful thinking. The weak shall inherit the earth, they tell us, the oppressed shall be liberated, and the lamb shall lie down with the lion. Maybe so. But for the time being, I have no desire to make friends with carnivorous beasts, unless their teeth and claws are pulled out or they are converted to vegetarianism. And if I cannot be a dragon in a world of lions, then I want to know all I can about his territory, feeding habits, and schedule so that I may avoid being his lunch.
#

[ara baliozian]

thank you both --dear Nairi and Edward -- for remembering my birthday!
such a pleasant surprise!!!!!!!!!!!!/ ara

[ED]

Ara I just want to say this
You’re the voice some people will oppose vigorously in public, but admire and agree with you in private when no one can hear them but themselves

[Armat]

Ara I just want to say this
You’re the voice some people will oppose vigorously in public, but admire and agree with you in private when no one can hear them but themselves

Ed well said!
Ara jan happy tsnundet shnorhavor lini.

[ara baliozian]

Saturday, December 11, 2004
*************************************
BLIND SPOTS
************************
We all have them, and they are called blind because we can't see them. The blind spot of a self-assessed genius: his mediocrity.
*
MY POLLYANNA LIST
*******************************
Captains go down with the ship,
kings and presidents are assassinated,
femmes fatales and sexy stars grow old,
New Yorkers and cab drivers are mugged,
businessmen go bankrupts,
chief executive officers go to jail,
televangelists are exposed as fornicators
and clergymen as pedophiles,
and writers are insulted by hoodlums
parading as self-assessed role models.
It all comes with the territory.
*
AS I SEE IT
******************
There are intelligent and semi-intelligent readers, but they are in the minority. There are also self-assessed geniuses and role models. After reading one of my critical comments dealing with the Homeland, one such specimen writes: "Anyone who does not love his country does not deserve to live," or words to that effect.
My questions to him: "Do you also love the charlatans, bloodsuckers and gravediggers in your country? What about the pimps and the assassins? Is it conceivable for anyone who is neither a pimp nor an assassin to be on their side?"
*
The problem with assessing oneself is that one is bound to stress the ass in assessing.
*
Traitors have also assessed themselves as patriots.
*
JULES RENARD TO ONE OF HIS CRITICS
********************************************
"Yes, yes, you may be right, but it seems to me, you are tougher on me than on yourself."
#

[ara baliozian]

Ed well said!
Ara jan happy tsnundet shnorhavor lini.  

dear friends:

i appreiate your generous sentiments and thoughts.
many thanks!!!!!!!!!!! / ara

[DominO]

Ara I just want to say this
You’re the voice some people will oppose vigorously in public, but admire and agree with you in private when no one can hear them but themselves

I'm not sure. Again, I've seen no concrete solution comming from Ara, for all the problems he think exist.

[Twilight Bark]

Dear Mr. Baliozian,

Yerchanig daretarts. May you have happy and productive years.

This is as good a time as any to say a few concluding remarks before I wrap up my presence on this board. Yes, I have been among your critics, and I probably said harsh things when criticising the flaws in your thinking. Let me repeat, if not for you, then for the intelligent little crowd here, that the majority of what you write has merit, and should have been obvious to thinking Armenians, however few they may be. But you also have serious deficiencies in your thinking. For instance, you give the example of warlike Byzantine emperors of Armenian background to counteract the idea that the Armenian culture is peace-loving. You don't seem to ask yourself why it was that a warlike leader had to enter the Byzantine hierarchy in order to fulfill his aggressive instincts. Perhaps Armenian culture was too docile for them? Many other points that you make, hardly justified by a rational and cool-headed analysis, basically advocate how pointless it is to be or to remain Armenian, the occasional lip service via a short lamentation to the contrary notwithstanding. Being among the most erudite Armenian scholars, you have the responsibility to think and write more carefully.

However, I want you to know that I sympathize with you fully, when I see you insulted for no reason other than a wish to disagree with what you write. Having been called a "wise-ass", a "liar", and being promised to have another disgruntled brute insert a candle into me, just for having the audacity to question a set of beliefs or convictions, it would be hard not to.

So, Mr. Baliozian, while I count myself among your critics, I would like to assure you that I am even harder on myself. And I certainly hope that criticizing you or what you write does not necessarily mean that the critique is a self-absorbed hoodlum that thinks of himself as a genius. Lucky is the writer whose only critics are such.

Take care, and good luck in navigating the maze of thoughts.

TB

[Arpa]

You guys are barking up the wrong tree.
Wishing happy birthday to someone who hates, among others the day he was born.
Maybe we should start a fund drive to buy him this;

http://www.powells.c...62-0689854757-3

And have Lucy the perennial peanuts psychiatrist analyze his broken psyche.
It is cheap. Only 5 cents a session. At that rate he can afford a thousand sessions and leave us at our miseries without having to listen to his miserable effluum.

Edited by Arpa, 11 December 2004 - 02:04 PM.

[ara baliozian]

Sunday, December 12, 2004
************************************
QUOTATIONS FROM RAFFI (1835-1888)
************************************************
“Self-satisfied people are, as a rule, unaware of their failings. Progressive and enlightened people are far more critical of themselves. As for us: we live in a world of lies and illusions.”
*
“Our values are rotten and our traditions have been obliterated. From the West we have appropriated not the best but the worst. Our literature is less than mediocre and our people intellectually starved. We want them to read but we don’t give them books. Our schools have become toys in the hands of mediocrities and pedants. Our churches have lost their ancestral integrity and have degenerated into commercial enterprises of unbelief. Its hierarchy is dominated by venal speculators. The deserving are shunned and the undeserving promoted.”
*
TRANSLATIONS FROM JULES RENARD (1887-1910)
********************************************************
“There are friends; there are no true friends.”
*
“To be clear is a writer’s way of being polite.”
*
“As a man, Christ is admirable.
But as God, one can’t help thinking that he could have done much better!”
*
“The sleep of the just? But who says the just can sleep?”
*
THREE PROVERBS
***************************
Arab proverb: “There are no faults in a thing we want badly.”

Estonian proverb: “What you are afraid of overtakes you.”

German proverb: “Luck sometimes visits a fool, but never sits down with him.”
#

[ara baliozian]

i thank those who have kind sentiments.

about solutions: i think it was chekhov who said, "My solution: gentlemen, let's behave more like gentlemen!"

about warlike byzantine emperors of armenian descent: they were the offspring of losers, refugees, and survivors -- beginning with the greatest of them, basil I the macedonian, so-called because his father took refuge there...

[ara baliozian]

i forgot to thank those of my unfriendly readers who continue to read me faithfully. i don't have too many readers and those i do, i cherish...regardless of how hostile they may be..../ ara

[ara baliozian]

December 13, 2004
***********************************
ABOUT SOLUTIONS
************************************
One of the worst obstacles in finding a solution to our problems are people who think there exists somewhere between heaven and earth a realm that contains solutions and all we have to do is pluck the right one for us. These individuals refuse to accept the fact that you cannot change bad men to good men by means of a verbal formula.
Socrates tried to reason with them and was arrested, tried, found guilty, and condemned to death.
Jesus tried to preach to them and he was crucified.
More recently Gandhi tried it and he was assassinated.
Closer to home, Khachatur Abovian did his utmost to enlighten them and he disappeared without a trace.
More recently, Gostan Zarian, a truly messianic figure, was silenced, ignored, and buried alive.
*
If far better men than myself have failed, what are my own chances of success?
None!
Why do I go on?
Or rather what are my options?
To fall silent and accept defeat?
To entertain the bourgeoisie by writing fiction about “the mutual torments of love” (Sartre)?
*
Perhaps I go on writing not to change things but to make friends.
What if in the process I make enemies?
One can always hope that they will see the light on the grounds that “no man is beyond redemption” (Gandhi).
*
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
***********************************
In his Dec. 13 Insight article, “Europe divided over letting Turkey into club,” H.D.S. Greenway fails to mention that one of the major obstacles for membership is Turkey’s refusal to acknowledge the genocide of the Armenians before, during and after World War I (1894-1922). Eminent historians and scholars like Arnold J. Toynbee and Elie Wiesel, a Nobel Prize winner, have asserted the reality of the Genocide with no uncertain terms, but Turkish politicians continue to maintain it was not genocide but war and in war “bad things happen.” Which is an absurd claim in view of the fact that (one) Armenians were a minority within Turkey, (two) they were not allowed to bear arms and (three) the majority of the two million victims were women, children, and old men.
#

[ara baliozian]

Tuesday, December 14, 2004
***********************************
TRANSLATION FROM RAFFI
***********************************
“Vartan didn’t know how to lie. He spoke the truth to everyone. He was even incapable of covering up his own blunders. Generally speaking, this type of individual is thought of as eccentric by ordinary folk, who are used to dealing with people who say one thing and mean another, and they hate anyone who insists on speaking the truth.”
*
THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE STATE
******************************************
It is against the law for individuals to steal and kill. But throughout history states have behaved as though they had a license to plunder and massacre with impunity.
*
I MAY HAVE SAID THIS BEFORE
****************************************
I have never been as wrong as when the possibility of being wrong did not even enter my head, or when I trusted the judgment of others only because they were older or in a position of power.
*
Holier-than-though is a mindset suitable only for those who have taken permanent residence in the gutter.
*
ARMENIAN HAIKU
***************************
Sacred cows
make delicious
shish kebab.
*
MY FAVORITE HOJA STORY
***********************************
It was common knowledge that in his youth Nasreddin Hoja made a comfortable living as a smuggler. So that whenever he crossed the border with his donkey (and he did so frequently) he was searched thoroughly by border guards, who found nothing. Years later, when one of these guards met the Hoja, he wanted to know what was it that he was smuggling. “Donkeys,” replied the Hoja.
*
A LOSE/LOSE SITUATION
*******************************
Edward Dahlberg: “It is hideous and coarse to assume that we can do something for others – it is vile not to endeavor to do it.”
#

[ara baliozian]

Wednesday, December 15, 2004
************************************
UNSEEN PHOTOS AND UNWRITTEN BOOKS
*************************************************
When asked in his old age whether he had stopped taking pictures, the celebrated French photographer, Cartier Bresson, is said to have replied: "Oh no, I'm still taking them, I just don't need a camera any more."
I wouldn't be surprised if some writers do their best "writing" after they stop publishing.
*
SUBLIMATION
************************
Revenge is the only thing that will settle the score between Armenians and Turks, a reader writes. Apologies, reparations and territorial concessions will not do it. Only an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. And as he waits for the showdown, this Armenian takes it out on his fellow Armenians by engaging in verbal massacre.
*
PERSEVERANCE
*********************************************
I would have given up writing long ago were it not for the fact that those of my readers who despise me are also my most faithful readers, which may suggest that I must have something going for me. What is even more curious is that even readers who complain that I bore the hell out of them keep on reading everything I write - judging by the frequency of their insults. As for those who would like to see me silenced: it is they who eventually give up and fall silent.
*
FREUD, SPENGLER, TOYNBEE
*************************************
All major thinkers have had their share of critics who have called them irrelevant pedants or even frauds and charlatans. And then there are lazy laymen who think they are justified in accepting the judgment of these critics as irrevocable verdicts. Speaking for myself and as a layman, may I confess that I have found in the works of all major thinkers many pearls of wisdom and unforgettable lines that are totally absent from the writings of their critics. Consider the following quotations as cases in point:
*
Freud: "Repression proceeds from the ego; we might say with greater precision: from the self-respect of the ego."
*
Spengler: "All genuine historical work is philosophy, unless it is mere ant-industry."
*
Toynbee: "The Jews, the Japanese, the British 'sahibs', the Nazis…all seem to me to have been chosen by no one except themselves."
#

[ara baliozian]

Thursday, December 16, 2004
****************************************
TRANSLATION FROM RAFFI
***************************************
“Subservience has become second nature with us. We are brought up to believe it is useless to resist tyranny and it is God’s will that we accept our fate as an inevitable and unalterable fact of life. As for our priests: they were successful in convincing us that life is ephemeral and that the more we suffer in this world, the greater the rewards in the next one.”
*
ON BEING UNDERSTOOD
***********************************
How difficult it is to be understood by people you don’t understand! It’s like trying to communicate in Latin (which you don’t speak) with someone who speaks only Chinese (which you don’t understand).
*
A CHICKEN AND EGG PROBLEM
*************************************
We are told, when dogs bite, it’s their trainers who should be penalized. Others maintain, dogs will be dogs and as dogs they will bite. This may well be one of those chicken-and-egg problems that cannot be resolved. But if eggs were to start biting, we would use them only to breed roosters.
*
HOW TO RECOGNIZE A FOOL
************************************
Man is a bundle of contradictions. Only fools are consistent and predictable.
*
ON EMPIRES
*************************
All empires are warlike. There has never been a pacifist empire. A pacifist empire might as well be a contradiction in terms. A pacifist empire would cease being an empire before you can say Jack S. Avanakian. That’s because an empire is like an attractive wench: everyone wants a piece of the action, and if she doesn’t resist, she becomes a woman with a past and no future, and in today’s parlance, history.
*
WHY I WRITE
************************
“You are a fool to write for Armenians,” I am told once in a while by friends. I don’t write for Armenians. I settle scores with those who brainwashed me and I expose those who are now busy brainwashing you, your children and your grandchildren – regardless of nationality. What could be more universal?
#