notes / comments

[arabaliozian]

Re: notes / comments

Sunday, November 12, 2006
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I MAY HAVE SAID THIS BEFORE
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“You are consistently negative,” I am told again and again. “Try to be more positive.” They never tell me to be more honest, as if honesty were negative, and Turks and massacres positive.
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Some of my most faithful readers are hoodlums. Writers share this in common with bus drivers: they can’t choose their passengers.
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Jacques de Groff (b. 1924), French historian: “The mediocrity of leaders has at no time slowed down the evolution of mankind.” True, in so far as, by alienating the best and the brightest, mediocre leaders (whose number one enemy is excellence) promote the brotherhood of all men and thus accelerate the decline and ultimate demise of nations and tribes.
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If “a famous man is disgusting” (Ionesco), what could be more contemptible and repellent than a total mediocrity who thinks he deserves fame.
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When I first came to Canada, I met an Oriental carpet dealer who thought of himself as the uncrowned king of the Armenian community. Whenever he saw me he would ask, “Are you making any money?” He died bankrupt.
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Death is the first step of a long voyage, and if the voyage is into nothingness, so much the better.
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My choice of cheerful epitaph today: “Here lies a dog who barked up the wrong tree.”
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I would love the slums and gutters of my homeland more than the rivers, boulevards, and palaces of foreign capitals – if I had a homeland.
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[Anonymouse]

Re: notes / comments

We like to brag not only about Dikran the Great, but also our millionaires. What does it take to be a capitalist? Exploitation. Our benefactors may not brag about their wealth but they love to make headlines in our papers and see their portraits hanging in vestibules of community centers, schools, and churches.

So you believe in that Marxist hogwash that capitalism is a result of exploitation. Big deal, it is only fashionable to believe in the capitalist=exploitation nonsense for intellectuals. God forbid an 'intellectual' actually champion the idea of free markets and capitalism. It only shows your ignorance in economics, history and political philosophy. After all, at least you are consistent. You preach about egalitarianism and how we are all equal, you have a blind and unfettered reverence for the life sucking ideology known as democracy, and you loathe capitalism. What more can you do to fulfill your role as nothing more than a typical cliche "intellectual"? Cliche intellectuals of modernity all believe in the same guff. You must be self-hating, you must espouse nonsense such as egalitarianism, you must give unyielding praise to democracy, and you must bash capitalism, the same system that is responsible for all the prosperity in the Western world which you are a part of and enjoy.

I am willing to wager that it would be a far cry for you to praise socialism and other Marxian-lite ideologies if you lived in some of these states.

[gmd]

Re: notes / comments

Sunday, November 12, 2006
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I MAY HAVE SAID THIS BEFORE
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Some of my most faithful readers are hoodlums. Writers share this in common with bus drivers: they can’t choose their passengers.

This may be because you are a hoodlum writing for hoodlums, you just don't want to admit it. Kind of like a bus driver in the ghetto is bound to pick up thugs on his route.

How can a man live his entire life and not gain any insight into his own shortcomings.

[arabaliozian]

Re: notes / comments

Monday, November 13, 2006
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RIDDLES WITHIN
MYSTERIES
WITHIN ENIGMAS
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Unlike Christians, who believe in three gods (Father, Son, Holy Spirit), Muslims are convinced theirs is a better religion because they believe in only one God. It seems they find the concept of Trinity incomprehensible. So do I. So do most Christians. Which is why they call it a mystery. Religions call their contradictions mysteries.
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Father and Son I understand. What I don’t understand is the necessity of the Holy Spirit (also called, until very recently, Holy Ghost), the Gray Eminence of the Triumvirate. If Almighty God is at the top of the food chain, why does He need an assistant or a VP? As a Christian I never thought I believed in three gods, perhaps because I was told otherwise. It’s astonishing the degree of trust we place in our elders. What is even more astonishing is our lack of awareness of contradictions within us.
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To prove they are good Muslims, some Muslims don’t see anything wrong in behaving like bad Christians, and vice versa. And consider the case of the Armenian who in his effort to prove he is a good or even a better Armenian sees nothing remotely questionable in behaving like a hoodlum or a bad Turk. This to me is as incomprehensible as God or the concept of the Trinity.
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To understand man, psychologists have come up with many contradictory theories and explanations. To understand God, theologians have done the same, probably because the need to understand and explain is as strong in us as the instinct to survive in animals. But unlike animals, in order to survive we are willing not only to kill, but also to die; and to cover up that contradiction, to invent such noble-sounding concepts as heroism, self-sacrifice, martyrdom, and patriotism.
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To explain the concepts of good and evil, an African tribal chieftain is quoted as having said to C.G. Jung: “If I steal my enemy’s wives, it’s good. If he steals mine it’s bad.” We fool ourselves, or we allow our sermonizers and speechifiers to fool us (which is worse), if we think our motives are more civilized or noble.
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After witnessing a horrible crime in his own neighborhood, a Canadian is quoted as having said in today’s paper: “You read about all this negative stuff coming from the Middle East, but guess what, there is a lot of negative stuff happening in Canada that is unspeakable!” To which I can only say, “So what else is new?”
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[Armenian]

Re: notes / comments

Monday, November 13, 2006
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RIDDLES WITHIN
MYSTERIES
WITHIN ENIGMAS
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Unlike Christians, who believe in three gods (Father, Son, Holy Spirit).
Muslims are convinced theirs is a better religion because they believe in only one God. It seems they find the concept of Trinity incomprehensible. So do I. So do most Christians. Which is why they call it a mystery. Religions call their contradictions mysteries.

More pathetic nonesense. Christians believe in the 'one' triune God. Church forefathers and other theologans caledl the Trinity a 'profound mystery' essentially because peasents had a hard time understanding complex theosophies associated with a universal creator God, a God that has several characteristics. Had you understood real theology, had you undersood real Christianity, this topic would not be incomprehensible to you.

There are three general catagories of men:

First, the educated ones who comprehend complex topics and have the 'humility' to fully accept that not all things in life would make sense to mere mortals.

The second, the ignorant masses who comprehend nothing.

Third, individuals who 'think' they comprehend yet are are hoplessly blinded by their massive egos.

Guess what catagory you fall in?

Father and Son I understand. What I don’t understand is the necessity of the Holy Spirit (also called, until very recently, Holy Ghost), the Gray Eminence of the Triumvirate. If Almighty God is at the top of the food chain, why does He need an assistant or a VP? As a Christian I never thought I believed in three gods, perhaps because I was told otherwise. It’s astonishing the degree of trust we place in our elders. What is even more astonishing is our lack of awareness of contradictions within us.

If you don't understand, it does not exist, right? You are so self-engulfed, your ego is massive. Its good to know that throughout history the kind you represent have passed-on disgruntled and angry, and they have never remembered.

[ARK]

Re: notes / comments

Christianity=Trinity. Questioning the Trinity and saying that we believe in 3 gods is nonsense and this is what jhuds and muslims say.
for me the Torah seems to be the incomprehensable as a saint book.

[arabaliozian]

Re: notes / comments

Tuesday, November 14, 2006
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IS HONESTY ANTI-ARMENIAN?
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Somewhere along the line it seems we as a nation decided that it is. That once upon a time we valued honesty there is no doubt. Think of our folks songs, think of our liturgical music, think above all of our architecture, and I don’t mean the derivative neo-Hellenic style but that of our small, humble, severe churches, shorn of all ornamentation, whose impact is as straight as an arrow.
What happened to our composers, architects, and our creative impetus in general? The answer must be obvious: we concentrated all our efforts on entertaining and pleasing our masters. We were Romanized, Arabized, Ottomanized, and Sovietized. Sinan and Balian became more Ottoman than Turks. The onlyArmenian feature in Khachaturian is his reliance on Caucasian (which doesn’t mean Armenian only) folk tunes; his orchestration is more Russian (Tchaikovsky) and French (Ravel).
Saroyan’s characters may be of Armenian descent but their aim is not to express the Armenian voki but to amuse the average American reader. When a critic of TIME magazine said something to the effect that Michael (PASSAGE TO ARARAT) Arlen’s Armenians and Saroyan fictional characters shared very little in common and that Saroyan’s Armenians were less authentic, Saroyan wrote an angry letter to the editor saying he had at no time distorted his fellow countrymen, only “stylized” them. Stylized them to what end, except perhaps to make them more accessible to his non-Armenian readers. This is not what Shakespeare does with his characters. This is not what great writers do in their fiction.
What do Odian’s fictional Armenians share in common with Saroyan’s? Absolutely nothing. Saroyan’s characters are cute, colorful, harmless. Odian’s are the exact opposite – mean, narrow, full of piss, vinegar and venom. Saroyan’s Armenians have been Americanized, Odian’s Ottomanized.
Had we presented a united front against our enemies and maintained our independence, we would now be bragging about our own Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms, not to say, Dante, xxxxens, and Dostoevsky…instead of Gulbenkian (who was Sultan Abdulhamid’s hireling) and Mikoyan (Stalin’s flunkey).
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[Armenian]

Re: notes / comments

Had we presented a united front against our enemies and maintained our independence, we would now be bragging about our own Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms, not to say, Dante, xxxxens, and Dostoevsky…instead of Gulbenkian (who was Sultan Abdulhamid’s hireling) and Mikoyan (Stalin’s flunkey).
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Look who's talking

Yeah, united front, I can just see you now...

Dashnaks come to your home in Anatolia and ask you to join them in their fight against the Ottomans. And you stand up take a deep breath and begin your garbage rhetoric: About how evil Dashnaks are (because they actually believe in something); about how there is no such thing as a Turk or an Armenian (because we are all one); about how there is no God (because you don't understand the concept); about how there is no nationalism (because its for racists); about how the Turks are not our enemy (those who don't like your writings are the enemy), etc...

Haha... "had we presented a united front"...

Its your kind that has always been one of the fundamental factors within our society that has kept us from going forward.

[Anonymouse]

Re: notes / comments

Look who's talking

Yeah, united front, I can just see you now...

Dashnaks come to your home in Anatolia and ask you to join them in their fight against the Ottomans. And you stand up take a deep breath and begin your garbage rhetoric: About how evil Dashnaks are (because they actually believe in something); about how there is no such thing as a Turk or an Armenian (because we are all one); about how there is no God (because you don't understand the concept); about how there is no nationalism (because its for racists); about how the Turks are not our enemy (those who don't like your writings are the enemy), etc...

Haha... "had we presented a united front"...

Its your kind that has always been one of the fundamental factors within our society that has kept us from going forward.

Very lucid post. I concur.

[arabaliozian]

Re: notes / comments

Wednesday, November 15, 2006
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ASSESSING AN ASS
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Whenever people assess themselves they tend to emphasize the positive and cover up the negative, and after they fool themselves, they think they have been successful in fooling others.
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What is flattery? To say to a second-rater that he is first rate. To flatter someone means to imply that he is so bad that he needs to be propped up by lies.
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Sometimes asking questions is more important than answering them. But if you ask the wrong questions, don’t expect to get the right answers.
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The most effective way to expose a liar is by speaking the truth, not by speaking bigger lies.
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To my critics I say, even literary giants like Thomas Mann and Solzhenitsyn were powerless against the likes of Hitler and Stalin. If you are a competent judge and I am what you say I am – a minor scribbler – what’s the harm in what I have been doing? Unless you assess your fellow Armenians to be such gullible dupes that they will be taken in even by a mental masturbator.
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