notes and comments

[Tsov]

Re: onionheads

“ONIONHEADS”
********************************
Pushkin called Armenians “cowards”
probably because they were not
as eager and willing to die
in defense of Mother Russia
as Onionheads for the simple reason
that Russia was not their Mother
but at best their Stepmother.
*
The unspoken aim of all nonentities
is to drag you down to their level.
Something similar could be said
of all men of faith.
*
The temptation to be seduced
by the logic of our own arguments
can be irresistible.
*
Love is important of course
but remember, after seven years
all other women will be more desirable.
#

Pushkin never called Armenians that. It's a misquote from Pushkin's poem where a Chechen father calls his son that. It's explained here: http://isteve.blogspot.nl/2013/04/pu...-checheny.html

Don't take Azerbaijani propaganda at face value.

[arabaliozian]

quotations

QUOTATIONS
*******************************
Kemal called Armenians “Christian Turks”
and Saroyan agreed with him.
*
One reason I am a total failure
in the eyes of my fellow Armenians
is that I refuse to write like Saroyan.
*
If you have nothing to brag about,
brag about how smart you are.
No one will dare to contradict you
because everyone knows
it is a waste of time
to argue with an idiot.
*
Bankers tell us they don’t really understand
how money works and they are believed by politicians:
I call that a conspiracy of thieves.
*
In a book of quotations
I find floozies more readable
than Mother Teresa and Jane Austen.
*
To want something very badly
is the beginning of all major catastrophes.
#

[lampron]

Re: onionheads

"You're not a Chechen -- you're an old woman / A coward, a slave, you're an Armenian!"

It's not surprising - after centuries of subservience

[arabaliozian]

crime

A MAJOR SCANDAL
************************************************
The unthinkable has taken place.
I have been accused of comparing myself to Saroyan.
When?
How?
On what grounds?
On the ground that if you sling enough mud
some of it may stick.
What else?
*
As a child I was brought up to believe
Saroyan, Gulbenkian and Mikoyan
were the Holy Trinity of Armenian celebrities.
Their status in our pantheon
was similar to that of the eternal snow of Mt. Ararat.
To say anything remotely critical about them
would be a sacrilege not to say a capital offense.
And here I stand accused of that unspeakable
of all insults to Armenianism.
*
What to do?
How to expiate that most serious of all transgressions?
I see only one possible answer to that question:
to cut my throat with a rusty knife
and bleed to death in a garbage can.
#

[londontsi]

Re: crime

A MAJOR SCANDAL
************************************************
The unthinkable has taken place.
I have been accused of comparing myself to Saroyan.
When?
How?
On what grounds?
On the ground that if you sling enough mud
some of it may stick.
What else?
*

#

The modern thinking is that,
There is no such thing as bad publicity.
Any publicity is good publicity.

And be careful,
No publicity is worse than what you would describe as "bad publicity"

.

[arabaliozian]

Re: crime

Sunday, May 03, 2015
***********************************
Q/A
******************
How can a nation that has produced
such literary, financial and diplomatic giants
as Saroyan, Gulbenkian and Mikoyan
be reduced to the status of
perennial losers sand victims?
In what follows I make an honest effort
to answer that question.
*
If I make a mistake, I am corrected.
No harm done.
But if the leadership makes a mistake,
death follows – and death by the thousand
and the million.
That’s when the blame-game
and propaganda come in.
*
The Big Lie in our propaganda is that
our leadership is infallible therefore blameless.
*
Propaganda works only if
the majority are dupes or freely choose
to behave like idiots.
*
The central message of our literature
is that we have a problem (divineness)
with an obvious solution (solidarity)
which so far we have freely chosen to ignore.
*
Flattery we welcome, criticism we reject.
That indeed maybe said to be
our unspoken national slogan.
For more on this point read Zarian,
not Saroyan.
*
And by the way,
neither Saroyan nor Gulbenkian and Mikoyan
were particularly fond of Armenians.
Their #1 concern was #1.
For more on this point read Raffi.
He is your man.
#

[lampron]

Re: crime

Sunday, May 03, 2015
***********************************
And by the way,
neither Saroyan nor Gulbenkian and Mikoyan
were particularly fond of Armenians.
Their #1 concern was #1.
#

You mustn't say that!

Many Armenian superpatriots are dependant on such names to sustain their patriotism!

[arabaliozian]

Re: crime

LITERATURE
*********************************
A Frenchman once said:
“If a man runs away with your wife,
the worst punishment would be
to let him keep her.”
*
If the ancient Greeks had thought that way
we wouldn't have two of the greatest epic poems
in the history of world literature.
But then, we may have had
a better literature.
*
THEOLOGY
**************************
“It is asinine to promise 73 virgins
to sexually starved teenagers.”
“Not 73 but 71.”
“You must be a theologian.”
*
SUCCESS
**********************
You may have noticed that
successful Armenians prefer to stay away
from their fellow Armenians.
Asked to visit an Armenian community center in Detroit,
Saroyan is quoted as having said, “No, thanks!”
*
ON FAILURE
**********************
One good thing about being a failure is that
no one bothers suing you.
They figure being a failure is punishment enough.
*
ETHICS
***********************
“Grub first then ethics” (Brecht):
four words that apply to 99% of mankind –
some say 100%...
*
LITERATURE / II
**********************************
To write for Armenians means
writing for an audience that is
wiser, better informed and amorally superior
than you.
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: quotations

TO SEPARATE FACT
FROM FICTION
******************************
The real aim of patriotism is to protect, defend
and if necessary to die in defense of our 1%.
*
Something similar could be said
of capitalism and communism.
*
To those who say without patriotism
or love of homeland we would be reduced
to the status of slaves to alien swine,
I say: Isn’t that exactly what happened to us?
Does that mean we are subhuman?
Does that mean we were born again
as human beings on the day
we declared our independence?
*
How to answer these questions?
I don’t know. I plead ignorance.
Unlike most of my fellow countrymen
I am an expert on nothing
except perhaps failure,
which I find preferable to being a success
in a world of crooks, liars, and dupes.
*
And speaking of the 99%:
I have never heard any one of them say
I don’t want to be powerful and rich;
I prefer to be weak, poor and powerless.
*
Scratch the 99%
and expose the scum of the earth!
#

[lampron]

Re: quotations

QUOTATIONS
*******************************
Kemal called Armenians “Christian Turks”
and Saroyan agreed with him.
*

#

Ottoman Armenians had become culturally close to Turks

It is said that fleeing Armenian refugees from Cilicia arriving in Cyprus mostly stayed among the local Turks of Cyprus