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Part 2 of an in-depth analysis of Meline Toumani's book, There Was and There Was Not, titled "Saint Meline of Jersey." This time I discuss the seemingly unconscious or ironic Christian overtones of Toumani's message and project, which, towards the end of her book, appear only to be the residue of a confused mass of modern ideas, especially her familial Bolshevism. (Her grandfather Aram was dubbed "Marx of the Caucasus apparently) On Meline Toumani's Book, Part 2: Saint Meline of Jersey

Poor Meline Toumani. She tried to write an avant guarde, post-modernist book about 1915 and now in interview after interview she is having to walk back point after point. For example, on her characterization of hate-filled Armenians: The reservations many Armenians had about Toumani's memoir, that it would be politicized and used against the interests and the rightful claims of the Armenian people have already been realized, and it occurred sooner than anyone thought. It appears I am the only one who noticed and fully appreciated the significance of a blurb on the cover attributed to one Stephen Kinzer. Who is Stephen Kinzer? Read part 1 of an in depth analysis of Toumani's book, "The Stephen Kinzer Kiss of Death", to find out.

Ms. Sarkeesian was just the subject of a story on Nightline on the ABC network. http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/jumping-gamergate-turns-fearing-life/story?id=28230901 As I explain in the essay, i wouldn't have paid any attention to her if her last name didn't end in "ian". I find her case pretty typical of the Armenian pathology known as odaramolutyun, which is on full display in all of her utterances. I leave military and even political matters to those whose expertise it is to make such decisions. What I can say is that the religious and moral state of the Armenian people is dire, and the Armenians of the diaspora especially are succumbing to the decadent manners of a dying empire and, as before, will be taking taking back to Artaxata, the corrupt manners of a corrupted people. et tamen unus Armenius Zalaces cunctis narratur ephebis mollior ardenti sese indulsisse tribuno. aspice quid faciant commercia: uenerat obses, hic fiunt homines. nam si mora longior urbem indulsit pueris, non umquam derit amator. mittentur bracae, cultelli, frena, flagellum: sic praetextatos referunt Artaxata mores.

Anita Sarkeesian, an Armenian woman born in Canada and now living in the U.S. is making waves in the American media appearing on CNN and Comedy Central and authoring Op-Eds in the New York Times. She makes a living criticizing American popular culture and video-games in particular from an academic feminist perspective. Once in a while she refers to her Armenian ancestry, but her statements are inconsistent and confusing. But she is aware enough of her ancestry to have criticized Suzanne Khardalian for saying she wasn't a feminist, and suggesting that feminism could free Armenian women of generational shame. For the first time, someone (namely me) has written a critique of Sarkeesian from an Armenian perspective. Somehow the goddess Anahit and Sanasar and Baghdasar make an appearance. http://radiotransmittinginasnowstorm.blogspot.com/2015/01/anita-sarkeesian-armenian-damsel.html

I completely understand the "brilliant" part, but what in that essay did you think was "kakapoo"? Or did you mean my essay was a kakapo, a breed of owl parrot native to new Zealand?

"Armenians Have no Raison deter, as illustrated by the Hamshen Issue" One thing the Hamshen issue made very clear, is that Armenian don't have a binding world-view, national mission of any kind, or, in short, "reason for existing" other than the basic biological imperative of survival. Considered in this abridged essay is Aram Hamparian's 2011 "We're All Armenians", whether or not the Christian religion inspired Armenian art; the influence of Armenian art on Renaissance Italy; the evils of atheism; and because Armenians love historical obscurities, ARMENIANS AT TROY!!! Not included in the abridged version is a discussion on the characteristics of the Armenian race, ultimately in relation to the idea of tseghagron, and religion and its importance to the state, etc. etc. For your approval and comment: http://radiotransmittinginasnowstorm.blogspot.com/2014/10/armenians-have-no-raison-detre-as.html

I'm having a hard time remembering where I read the anecdote that Turkish soldiers were shocked at how Armenians who read the deportation orders obeyed them without a struggle and marched like lambs into the Syrian desert. I'm pretty sure I read it once from one of Harut Sassounian's articles (which one I don't remember), but the original source of this account would be much better. Does anyone recall?

Excerpt: The reality is Armenians are not “caught up in the cross-fire”, they are in the cross-hairs. Armenians are being targeted by the foreign and Turkish backed revolutionaries, who from the beginning openly stated that in order to topple the regime, they would seek to undermine the Syrian economy. In Syria, as they were in the Ottoman empire, Armenians are the pillars of the economy: as Christians they have the most to lose from the secular regime falling into the hands of the NATO backed “Islamist neo-cons”; and by being peaceful, productive citizens they are holding up the regime, and are the natural enemies of these revolutionaries. A Turkish “Deep State” conspiracy that has been uncovered and much discussed in Turkey under the name “Sledgehammer plot”, included murdering Christians and blowing up Mosques simultaneously in order foment chaos and create a pretext to conduct a coup d’état. Accordingly, the “Deep State” armed and supported Syrian and foreign revolutionaries are deliberately murdering Armenians to 1) undermine Syria’s economy, 2) pit Muslim against Christian to destabilize the government, and 3) provoke outrage from Europe and America and create the conditions for a foreign military intervention. It should not surprise anyone that the “Deep State” Turkish backed revolutionaries are following the example of the Young Turk revolutionaries in murdering Armenians.

Excerpt: "Ironically, with regard to Syria, many Armenians in the diaspora are making the same argument deniers of the Armenian genocide put forward as to why so many Armenians were killed around the first world war, namely, that they were “caught up” in a general chaos of war rather than being deliberately targeted. So instead of using the means available to them through the Armenian media and employing lobby groups to exert some political pressure to try and avert the disaster of having Syrian Armenians further removed from their lands, when not sitting with their hands folded, are collecting money to empty them from Syria and send them further from their lands. "

Excerpt: 'When Protestant missionaries started venturing into the Ottoman empire in their noble effort to convert Christians to Christianity, the only way they could convince the Armenians was with bags of flour; but, when the flour ran out, the Protestant missionaries discovered Armenians’ true allegiance: BREAD. Hence the words they told the missionaries in the Turkish language: “Un biti, din biti,” which can be faithfully translated as “No flour, no faith”. '

Someone took exception to an asterisked pejorative, huh? Fine: there are other curses. I'll use an archaic curse with a "thee" and "thy" which has almost no meaning and doesn't convey any emotion whatsoever to people today. So be it. Just read the following on the Syrian-Armenian crisis. http://radiotransmittinginasnowstorm.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-devil-take-thy-bread-syrian.html

This is excellent. Thank you.

Hmm, my German doesn't extend very far beyond "die alte haus", "die auto ist gelb" and a couple dozen lines from German opera and Nietzsche. I assume there's no translation into English. If you can Zartonk, can you indicate some of the pertinent pages, which I may be able to slog through with my "die alte haus" and a German to English dictionary? Also, in what work does Austin elaborate on Jensen's thesis?

That is the thesis of the book The Solution to the Hittite Question by Peter Jensen in 1893. Jensen proposed that Armenian is the closest language to the Hittite language, and Armenians themselves a remnant of Hittites. It has been dismissed by many in recent years, but his work rests on some solid foundations, such that I have read other scholars write that his thesis is not so easily dismissed. http://books.google.com/books/about/The_Solution_of_the_Hittite_Question.html?id=4UsjSQAACAAJ The book has long been out of print, but also out of copyright, so it should be freely available. Considering how important its thesis is, if anyone can help me find it and put it up, it would be a great service to researchers.

Thank you, that's a very good source. I figured that բան might be used as "thing" only as a place-holder for a word one couldn't think of ( or in your example, an obscene word one didn't want to say), and I understand that բան can mean both "word" and "deed", but what I want to know is whether it means "word" simply because of how it is used in its theological context in the the book of John, when it is clearly used in the sense of "work" which is the opposite of "word". Did Mashdots use բան to combine the otherwise incompatible ideas of "word" and "deed" to indicate the supposed "creative word" of God?