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#1 ara baliozian

ara baliozian

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Posted 06 April 2011 - 08:43 AM

Sunday, April 03, 2011
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GRAFFITI
************************************
If anyone out there is planning to publish a volume of graffiti,
I submit the following candidates for his consideration.
*
“Stay in school and learn to read and riot.”
*
“Aunt Jemima is an Uncle Tom.”
*
“No Easter this year – they found the body.”
*
“Old soldiers never die -- just young ones.”
*
“Hugh Hefner is a virgin.”
*
“War is good business – invest your sons.”
*
“Be realists, demand the impossible.”
*
“Watch out, ears have walls.”
*
“Chastity is its own punishment.”
*
“Support free enterprise -- legalize prostitution.”
*
“Wear contraceptives – the unborn will bless you.”
*
“James Baldwin eats watermelon.”
#
Monday, April 04, 2011
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HEROES
************************************
Every nation has its heroes
who are invariably outnumbered by its cowards,
and we are no exception.
*
Speaking for myself:
I have at no time identified myself as a hero.
On the contrary, on more than one occasion
I have declared myself to be an orthodox coward.
*
To those who insult me anonymously
and from a safe distance, I say:
Why do you hide your identity?
Is it shame or cowardice?
Shame of who you are?
Fear of retaliation?
If fear, I assure you, you have nothing to fear.
I have no interest in harming anyone.
I am not your enemy.
Harming you would amount to killing someone
who is committing suicide.
I suggest you have more reasons to fear yourself
because by behaving as you do,
you expose yourself as a shameless coward.
*
Zarian once said,
“An Armenian’s tongue can be sharper than a Turk’s yataghan.”
With one difference:
whereas Turks use the yataghan against their enemies,
we use it against ourselves.
As for those who expect me to believe
those who insult me are motivated by patriotism
and nothing else, I ask:
What could be more useless
than the patriotism of a shameless coward
who is afraid of his own shadow?
Why can’t we see this as clearly
as anyone with an average IQ?
The obvious answer is:
Because our average collective IQ
hovers somewhere between single-digit and negative.
*
Finally, allow me to share a professional secret with you.
The most lethal wound a reader can inflict on a writer
is not reading him.
#
Tuesday, April 05, 2011
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DIARY
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Saw a classic of French cinema,
Robert Bresson’s AU HASARD BALTHAZAR.
Most of the characters in it are nasty, even sadistic,
the acting is wooden,
the script clumsily put together,
the camera-work average.
What makes the film memorable are the central character
(a donkey, that after being repeatedly abused
is hit by a stray bullet and bleeds to death in the middle of nowhere)
and the music (Schubert).
*
I see so many parallels between Balthazar’s life
and our history – with one significant difference:
Balthazar is an adorable, saintly creature…
Which may suggest that survival comes at a price,
and it is not always the best that survive.
*
A system that develops a bureaucracy
is a system on its way to the devil.
That’s because in all bureaucracies
it is the ruthless and the cunning – that is to say,
the scum – that rises to the top.
*
The aim of comedy is to make us forget that
life is a tragedy.
*
“I love to read but I don’t have the time.”
The words of a self-satisfied imbecile
infatuated with his own ignorance.
*
Old age replaces desire with guilt.
#
Wednesday, April 06, 2011
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WRITERS AND EDITORS
************************************
When asked why he no longer publishes me,
one of our partisan editors is quoted as having said:
“Because he writes garbage.”
*
I write about life as I have experienced it.
I write about my fellow men as I have known them.
To do otherwise –
to speak of my feelings and thoughts
based on what others have seen, experienced, and understood,
would be derivative and, in my view,
inadmissible because based on hearsay.
*
It is different with editors.
All editors have an editorial policy
set by the publisher or
whoever happens to be in authority.
If our bosses, bishops, and benefactors are unanimous
in thinking I write garbage,
an editor has no choice but to echo their views.
There are dissenting writers.
There are not and cannot be dissenting editors.
*
Nations that have won or lost wars
think victory and defeat have taught them valuable lessons.
In reality all they have learned
is either arrogance or subservience:
arrogance towards the defenseless,
subservience towards authority figures.
*
Am I saying anything you don’t already know?
I doubt it.
#

#2 ara baliozian

ara baliozian

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Posted 13 August 2011 - 09:20 AM

Thursday, August 11, 2011
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DOUBLETALK
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They say “We don’t need critics,”
because they hate to be exposed as incompetent fools.
*
They say “We need solutions,”
thus admitting so far they have failed to come up with any.
Imagine an economist saying to a street vendor:
“I need a new fiscal policy.”
*
“We don’t need critics!”
Translation: Shut-up!
*
They say they don’t need critics
because they consider themselves beyond criticism.
*
They say they need solutions
as if all of our literature dealt
with the eternal snows of Mt. Ararat,
nightingales serenading the moon,
and the mutual torments of love.
*
You need solutions?
Read Khorenatsi, Raffi, Baronian,
Odian, Zarian, Massikian…
and if you don’t like Armenian writers,
read Greek, Russian, French, English, and American writers,
because in the end they all speak
against ignorance, intolerance, oppression,
incompetence, dishonesty, and doubletalk.
*
“We need solutions!”
I have never heard a speechifier deliver that line in public.
What I have heard again and again and ad nauseam is
“We need your moral and financial support!” –
an obvious variation of the Panchoonie punch line
“Mi kich pogh oughargetsek.”
#
Friday, August 12, 2011
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NOTES AND COMMENTS
********************************************
Just because Turks disagree with us
it doesn’t necessarily follow that everyone who disagrees with us
is a Turk or a Turcophile.
*
If outrage were an argument
we all would be like David Anhaght – invincible.
*
I remember to have read somewhere that
the criminal rate among politicians is much higher
than among ordinary citizens.
If international law were tougher,
most politicians would be in jail.
*
Egocentrism: the misconception that
what we say matters.
*
Turcocentrism: the fallacy that Turks continue to be
in charge of our destiny as a nation.
*
No matter how hard I try
I cannot trust a man who is incapable of speaking
against his own interests.
*
Assad in Syria, Gadhafi in Libya:
the more incompetent and corrupt a leader,
the harder he will cling to power.
Closer to home: how many of our own political leaders
have resigned because they were not equal to the task?
#
Saturday, August 13, 2011
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OBSERVATIONS
********************************************
There is a familiar type of loud-mouth
and holier-than-thou superpatriot
whose role models are our revolutionaries
in the Ottoman Empire
who promised heaven and earth
and delivered hell.
That’s the way it is with political leaders,
especially revolutionary political leaders:
the more they promise,
the less they deliver,
and the chances are,
what they deliver is not fit for human consumption.
*
Rhetoric is a euphemism for verbiage
and verbiage is another word for verbal garbage.
If rhetoric were enough,
we could be the mightiest empire in the history of mankind.
*
We have this in common with the Jews:
history has not been on our side.
Their victory over the Palestinians
and ours over the Azeris have been moral catastrophes.
The Jews have been accused of behaving like Nazis,
and we have been accused of behaving like Turks.
*
We should teach our children to say:
“I disagree with what you say,
but I will neither raise my voice
nor go down into the gutter to prove you wrong.”
#




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