from my notebooks

[ara baliozian]

Friday, June 24, 2011

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THEM AND US (III)

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As long as there are Armenians,

Turks will never be able to convince the world

they are a progressive and civilized nation

incapable of behaving like bloodthirsty Asiatic barbarians;

and as long as there are Kurds,

democracy and Turks will be perceived as

mutually exclusive concepts.

*

Americans will never use the word “genocide”

in reference to Armenians so long as Turks tell them:

“We did to our Armenians

what you did to your Indians.”

*

Tell me your favorite sport

and I will tell you who you are.

What’s ping pong to the Chinese,

hockey is to Canadians,

baseball is to Yanks,

massacre is to Turks,

and the blame-game is to Armenians.

*

Silencing dissent is a band-aid solution.

*

“An insult unanswered is the parent of many others.”

*

Cicero: “Do not hold the delusion that

your advancement is accomplished

by crushing others.”

#

Saturday, June 25, 2011

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FROM MY NOTEBOOKS

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I understand Turks

because I understand Armenians,

and I understand both

because I understand myself.

As for Armenians and Turks:

they understand only the misdeeds of the opposition.

*

Because they want to forget what I say,

they tell me I repeat myself.

*

When asked what had been

the most important day in his life,

Napoleon is said to have replied:

"The day of my first communion."

My own first communion was such a forgettable event

that the only thing I remember about it

is the above quote (probably apocryphal) by Napoleon.

#

[ara baliozian]

Sunday, July 17, 2011

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IDEAS

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There are synonymous ideas as surely

as there are synonymous words.

Case in point:

Saint-Simon: “My self-esteem has always increased

in direct proportion to the damage

I was doing to my reputation.”

Tolstoy: “The higher I rise in the eyes of the world,

the lower I sink in my own.”

*

People with money assume they are wiser

because if they don’t know or understand something

they can always hire someone who does.

*

I have two kinds of critics:

those who say I am wrong when I am right,

and those who tell me I am useless

and reading me is a waste of time.

Both agree on one thing:

I should be more positive by adopting them

as my role models.

#

Monday, July 18, 2011

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NOTES & COMMENTS

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LIES

***************

The easiest lies to expose

are the ones we have ourselves professed in the past.

*

MACHO ETIQUETTE

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Hemingway’s last wife writes in a letter that

whenever she wanted to talk to him about a problem,

he would say: "I haven’t got time.

I have to go shit now."

*

HONESTY

**********************

If you decide to be honest

be prepared to acquire mortal enemies.

*

KNOWLEDGE

****************

Compared to what we don’t know,

what we know is such a tiny fraction that

we might as well be blind, deaf and dumb.

When Socrates said "The only thing I know

is that I don’t know," he was not being ironic,

he was stating a fact.

#

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

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HUBRIS & NEMESIS

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Nemesis has finally caught up

with Robert Murdoch’s hubris.

We can now look forward

to the disintegration of his media empire

as fervently as the civilized world looked forward

to the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire

in the second half of the 19th Century.

*

My Turkish readers may not be aware of the fact

that at one point their diplomats

offered to apologize for their crimes against humanity

(i.e. the Genocide) provided

no further demands were made on them.

The Armenians rejected the offer

on the grounds that it would allow the Turks

to get away with murder.

*

If a World War III is ever declared,

I have every reason to suspect

the Turks will do to the Kurds

what they did to the Armenians during World War I.

That’s the problem with people

who get away with something.

They invariably come back to get away with more.

Which is what happened within Murdoch’s empire:

first they bribed a lowly cop or bureaucrat

and when they got away with it,

they went all the way to the top --

the head of Scotland Yard and the Prime Minister.

#

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

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COMEUPPANCE

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If Talaat was innocent,

why did he run away to Berlin

where he met the fate of a mad dog?

*

As for Kemal: he died as an alcoholic,

which amounts to saying,

he condemned himself to death

by self-administered alcohol poisoning.

*

If some Turks hate Armenians

it’s because “it is characteristic of the human mind

to hate those he has injured” (Tacitus).

*

If “I think therefore I am,”

it follows

“If I don’t think therefore I am not”

or I exist only on a subhuman level,

which amounts to the same thing.

#