Sunday, October 02, 2005
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MEMO TO OUR FUND RAISERS
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If you send me any more letters with Comrade Panchoonie’s punch line – “Mi kich pogh oughargetsek” (Send us a little money) – I will discard them into the nearest wastepaper basket. And if some day I hit the jackpot and can’t spend it all, I will follow Baruir Massikian’s example and leave the unused balance “to a bordello in Cairo,” or Mexico, or Sao Paolo – anywhere but Yerevan. I don’t want to promote prostitution there. Besides, our pimps are the last men on earth in need of financial assistance from the likes of me. My sources tell our pimps in the Homeland are as loaded as some of our national benefactors in the Diaspora.
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Monday, October 03, 2005
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If you are born in a Christian or Muslim country you will be either a Christian or a Muslim. The same applies to all organized religions and belief systems in general. Under Stalin, all communists were atheists. We don’t chose our gods; geography does that for us. Nothing could be more absurd than to say my religion is better than yours is, or I am closer to god because I live on this side of the river, mountain, or sea.
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Something similar could be said about our understanding of the past. As children we are taught not history but propaganda, and as adults we continue to cling to our childhood illusions and believe our version of the past to be closer to reality or truth than all other versions.
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A headline in our local paper reads: “FATHER OF SLAIN TEEN SAYS HE FORGIVES DAUGHTER’S KILLER.” In our environment such a father would be accused of entertaining unArmenian sentiments and ostracized.
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Tuesday, October 04, 2005
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We see this happening almost daily in American and Canadian politics: the guiltier the bureaucrat the louder his assertions of innocence. By contrast, our crooks don’t even feel the need to assert innocence because their accusers soon give up in disgust and they either emigrate or assimilate, thus leaving the field to the dupes who will say “Yes, sir!” to anyone who is on top, be a he a sultan, pasha, commissar, or mullah. As for our so-called revolutionaries: once upon a time they were to the left of the Sultan, they are now to the right of Genghis Khan. How to explain this?
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In August Wilson’s obituary today I read: “Wilson’s plays dealt primarily with the effects of slavery on succeeding generations of black Americans.” What have been the effects of six centuries of subservience to sultans and commissars? If so far our writers have failed to explore this theme it may be because they have concentrated too much on documenting the nightmare to analyze its aftereffects.
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Wednesday, October 05, 2005
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Writing for Armenians feels like working for minimum wage and offering financial assistance to millionaires.
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To be popular, think like a propagandist and speak like a pundit.
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Recycling propaganda is not just repeating hearsay evidence but parroting perjury.
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Enlightenment comes only after the realization that you have been living in darkness.
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Ritual is choreographed propaganda.
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Massacres are not historic events but daily occurrences. Top dogs may pretend otherwise but underdogs know better.
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Every belief system generates non-believers and the men at the top decide who is right who is wrong, and ultimately who lives and dies.
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