observations

[ara baliozian]

Thursday, April 19, 2012

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BREAKDOWN IN LEADERSHIP

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A headline in my morning paper reads:

“Soldier blames breakdown in leadership.”

How many of our historians have ever dared to use that expression –

“breakdown in leadership” – to explain any one

of our divisions, defeats, and catastrophes…

or, for that matter,

our status as perennial losers?

*

HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF

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You want something badly

and after getting it you are disappointed,

after which you want something else badly –

and so it goes.

It is almost as if we were programmed

not to learn from history.

#

Saturday, April 21, 2012

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PATRIOTISM, ARMENIAN STYLE

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In our context, patriotism does not mean love of homeland;

patriotism means hatred of the same enemy,

beginning with Armenians who dare to disagree with us.

*

No one can be as dumb as a self-assessed smart Armenian.

*

When cornered about our divisiveness,

among other self-inflicted wounds,

we like to say there are divisions everywhere,

or we are a people like any other people.

Are we really?

We may be as dumb as most of them

but can we really claim to be as smart as some of them?

*

Never underestimate the cunning of a dumb Armenian

or the stupidity of a smart one.

*

The rich should be taxed more

not because they can afford it,

or because they exploit the poor

by overpricing their products or services.

but because they are jerks.

#

Saturday, April 21, 2012

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OBSERVATIONS

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Shakespeare wrote about royalty for royalty.

With us it’s losers writing for losers.

*

My guess is – and this is only a guess –

more people have died in Armenia

than anywhere else in the world.

*

Has anyone ever heard one of our chic Bolsheviks say,

“I was wrong about Stalin”?

An infallible leadership will generate infallible citizens.

*

Instead of recycling Saroyan I recycle Zarian:

there you have the root of my failure.

*

To be misunderstood is a routine experience with me.

So much so that whenever I am understood

I begin to suspect what I write has no merit

because all I do is state the obvious.

#

[Louise Kiffer]

Yes you state the obvious, but I would like to read about the credit we deserve sometimes.

Louise