crackpots

[arabaliozian]

Re: crackpots

Friday, September 16, 2016
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DIALOGUE
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To assert her authentic Armenian identity
and expose my status as a mongrel,
one of my gentle readers
born and raised in the shadow of Mt. Ararat,
once called me “Baliozoglu"
thus implying I cannot be an authentic Armenian
because I and my ancestors were born and raised
on Turkish soil.
*
Am I half-Turk?
I don’t know.
No Armenian does.
Only racists do,
and racists don’t even qualify as members
of the human race.
*
To search for a pure-blooded Armenian
born and raised on Turkish soil
or any other soil, including Armenian soil,
is to search for a non-existent black hat
in a dark room at midnight.
*
Question: If you had a choice between being
a Kurdoghlanian and an Avanakian,
which would you choose?
*
I am reminded of the following exchange
between a Republican presidential candidate
and a heckler:
HECKLER: My father was a Democrat,
my grandfather was a Democrat,
I am a Democrat.”
CANDIDATE: “If your father had been a jackass
and your grandfather had been a jackass,
what would you be?
HECKLER: A Republican.”
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: crackpots

Monday, September 19, 2016
**********************************
FOR THE RECORD
******************************
Rumor has it that
just because I stay away
from Armenian churches and community centers
I hate Armenians.
For the record,
I don’t hate Armenians.
I just enjoy exercising my freedom of choice
which I didn’t have as a child.
And I can’t help wondering
how many Armenians today
parrot the line “I love Armenians,”
because they were taught to say so
as children.
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: crackpots

Armenians are smart, progressive, civilized,
compassionate, peace-loving, creative,
brilliant…as long as you agree with their own
assessment of themselves. Disagree with them and
out pops the yataghan.

[arabaliozian]

Re: crackpots

In arithmetic, one plus one makes two. In life, the answer may be eleven or any other given number.

[arabaliozian]

Re: crackpots

Wednesday, September 21, 2016
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NOTES / COMMENTS
*************************
When you dislike someone
and can’t tell why it may be because
s/he reminds you of someone
you have been successful in forgetting.
*
It could be said of our leaders
that their ambition is to finish
what the Turks started.
*
To say “I don’t know”
when you don’t know:
I consider that a noteworthy achievement
for an Armenian.
*
There are two kinds of losers:
garden variety and the kind that rise
on the third day.
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: crackpots

Simon Vratsian (1882-1969): “All our religious, political and cultural institutions share a single aim, the survival of the nation. If the nation perishes, neither Etchmiadzin nor Antelias, not even God in His heaven, can be of any help to us.”
How many of our present leaders have had the honesty to say as much?

[arabaliozian]

Re: crackpots

One reason I don' mind exposing the negative aspects of our collective existence and ethos is that for everyone who writes as I do, there are dozens of apologists eager to explain and justify our ways on the grounds that everybody does it. There is some truth in that. There is no such thing as a stupid or incompetent nation, only stupid and incompetent leaders and their dupes.
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: crackpots

Saturday, September 24, 2016
****************************************
NOTES /COMMENTS
****************************
Orwell in ANIMAL FARM:
“Four legs good, two legs bad.”
Armenians everywhere:
“Armenians good, Turks bad.”
*
In politics if you raise your voice long enough
you will have a better chance to reach the moronized.
*
If you think as an Armenian I must be a mediocrity,
may I reminded you, as a bookworm
I cannot always tell if what I write
is not a quotation.
*
Judge a nation by the number of its unsolved problems.
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: crackpots

Armenians and Turks will begin to understand one another only when they say, “In their place, we would have done the same thing.”

[arabaliozian]

Re: crackpots

My land, my people, my home, my rivers, my lakes, valleys and mountains, my backyard, my chickens. But never – never! – my blunders.