Thursday, December 28, 2006
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BUSHWHACKED
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The pen is mightier than the sword? What unspeakable nonsense! Not even PRAVDA and IZVESTIA under Stalin would dare to print such an absurd assertion. How many lives have the Holy Scriptures saved? Or rather, how many wars have been fought in their name?
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Contradictions are inherent in politics, religions, and human affairs in general. Wars are conducted in the name of peace, and innocent civilians are murdered in the name of a merciful Allah. Why should we be surprised if our dividers and destroyers portray themselves as our saviors?
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Speaking of our destroyers: I dedicated the following quotation to my brainwashed gentle readers who would like to see anyone who refuses to recycle their favorite propaganda line silenced permanently: “I call on you not to hate because hate does not leave space for a person to be fair and it makes you blind and closes all doors of thinking.” Thus spake Saddam Hussein. Gandhi is right: No man is beyond redemption…except perhaps mankind.
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To brag is to lie. Two recent examples: “I am not a crook,” and “Mission accomplished.” I wonder why American comedians and pundits don’t use the word “bushwhacked” more often these days.
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The dwindling number of polar bears is now making headlines not only in newspapers written, edited, and published by polar bears but also those of an entirely alien species. What about the dwindling number of Armenians? I remember to have read somewhere that once upon a time we numbered as many as thirty million. Today it’s more like three million. And yet, I don’t see any panic in our streets.
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Friday, December 29, 2006
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TWO DAYS TO GO
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Two days to go for the New Year. What does that mean? Nothing much. Years may come and go but some things never change; or, if they do, “the more they change the more they stay the same.”
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A headline in our paper today reads: “Bush closer to new strategy.” New, meaning here, more of the same. What else?
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Why do smart people make dumb mistakes? Because even the smartest man on earth cannot fathom the cunning of reality.
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Our paper has printed a long list of all the famous men and women who died in 2006, among them the “gritty, satiric, and erotic” Canadian poet, Irving Layton, the only one I have met. I will never forget his piercing blue eyes and his comment to someone who dared to quote the words of one of his critics: “Some people think,” he replied, “just because they have an asshole they must also have an opinion.” Crude! – my style.
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Saturday, December 30, 2006
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ON A REMARK BY BEETHOVEN
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Getting emotionally involved in music was wrong, Beethoven once said, because that way you miss the craft, the design, the architecture, all of which are results of expertise, hard work, dedication, and cold-blooded calculation. As a composer Beethoven knew that to master that aspect of music was much more difficult that to arouse emotion, which any modulation from a major to a minor key can do. Something similar could be said of understanding history or the workings of reality. Hence the importance of objectivity, which also means, the systematic elimination of all emotional involvement.
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In rejecting the emotional aspect of musical composition, Beethoven was also saying that an artist (be he a poet, painter, or composer) should not rely on inspiration alone at the expense of technique. Inspiration is not enough. If the emotional commitment, or the irrational element in human activity (and it makes no difference if you call it faith, ideology, or mysticism) is not modified by reason or cold-blooded calculation, it is bound to lead to sterility and the commission of colossal blunders like wars, massacres, and genocides.
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And speaking of crimes against humanity: Saddam’s greatest blunder was not the crime for which he was tried, found guilty, and hanged, (the revenge killing of 148 Shiite Muslims after a 1982 assassination attempt) but the war against Iran, during which millions perished. He was not tried for that offense because war making is not seen as a crime. If it were, how many political leaders today would be able to sleep at night?
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