Thursday, October 19, 2006
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THE CAPITALIST AND THE PAUPER
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When warned by his prosperous host not to spit on the floor, Diogenes is said to have spat on the man’s face explaining he could not find a meaner receptacle. I challenge anyone not to love such a man.
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ON STYLE
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If you have a choice between a long paragraph and a brief sentence, choose the sentence. Between a sentence and a single word, choose the word. Between a word of two or more syllables and a monosyllable, choose the latter. Between a monosyllable and silence, why say anything?
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FROM BUNS TO BUGGERS
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When in his famous Berlin speech Kennedy identified himself as a “Berliner,” he did not know and no one warned him that a “berliner” is a bun, in the same way that a frankfurter is a sausage, a hamburger is a hamburger, and bugger is short for Bulgarian. Now, to say “I am a berliner” may not be as bad as saying “I am a bugger,” but it is in that neighborhood.
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SEMANTICS 101
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There is a difference between smart and smart aleck, and between wise and wisenheimer. We are not smart, we are alecks; neither are we wise, we are heimers.
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ON PROGRESS
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We owe progress more to the evolution of the thumb and the invention of zero and less to the so-called greatness and nobility of the human spirit.
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ON BEING OBJECTIVE
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If I have a low opinion of my fellow Armenians, it may be because I have an even lower opinion of my fellow men, myself included.
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MEMO
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I write to remind myself, and in reminding myself I hope to remind others that it takes honesty and courage to be objective, and no matter how objective we are we can never be objective enough.
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CONFESSION I
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Charlatans are not born but made.
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CONFESSION II
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In my younger days I produced a great deal of chauvinist crapola because as a slum-dweller I was dependent on the charity of swine.
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Friday, October 20, 2006
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ARMENIANS IN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE
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ON HORESEBACK THROUGH ASIA MINOR by Frederick Burnaby (originally published in 1898, reissued in 2002) contains many references, not all of them flattering, to Armenians – their monasteries, churches, priests, bishops, officials, bazaars, money-lenders, newspapers, schools, women and so on.
“Armenian women were closely veiled whenever they left the house,” we read here, and: “In many instances, an Armenian was not permitted to see his wife before marriage, and had to take her, as the Yankees say, ‘on spec.’”
Elsewhere: “An Armenian lady is in no way educated. She is the slave of her husband, and has to do all sorts of menial work for him – wash his feet, rub them dry, and wait at table. From her earliest childhood a girl is brought up to consider herself as a slave in her father’s house. Until Armenians abandon these barbarous customs, their so-called Christianity will not do them much good.”
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In an appendix titled “The Corruption of Armenian Officials,” we are told Armenians are divided into Gregorians, Protestants, and Catholics, and their officials, in addition to being “disgustingly servile,” are as corrupt as their Turkish counterparts.
To readers who may begin to suspect that the author may have been a Turcophile, I suggest they read Yervant Odian’s realistic novels. But we don’t have to travel back in time to verify Burnaby’s observations. Let us ask instead if anything has changed now that we live in a free and democratic country like the United States.
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On the subject of the Armenian press, Burnaby has this to say: “Armenian newspapers frequently publish news which cannot be agreeable to the Government, and they are not interfered by the authorities.”
What would happen today if one of our editors were to publish an unflattering article about one of our bosses or benefactors? No need to use our imagination here because when one of our editors did exactly that, he was dragged to court, almost driven out of business on a legal technicality, suffered a stroke, and almost died. A grim reminder of the old French adage, “The more things change, the more they stay the same.”
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Another one of Burnaby’s observation that is worth quoting: “The Armenians who profess the Armenian faith detest any member of their community who has accepted the Roman Catholic or Protestant doctrines, the Christians being much more intolerant than the Turks.”
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About the author we read: “Frederick Gustavus Burnaby was an extraordinary person. Reputed to be the strongest man in the British Army, he was also fluent in seven languages…. He spent five months riding across some of the cruelest winter landscape in the world before hastening home to write this best-seller.”
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Please note that the Index is misleading. The references to Armenians in the text are many more than the number of pages cited in the Index.
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Saturday, October 21, 2006
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DISAPPOINTMENT
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A surprise call from a gentle reader asking about my health. “I heard you were sick,” he said. When I told him there was nothing wrong with me, he was inconsolable.
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ON SO-CALLED FACTS
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When a man deals only in facts and certainties, you can be sure of one thing: the facts on which his certainties are based have been carefully and cunningly selected, tailored, and doctored.
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SOUND BITES
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In a totalitarian environment to think for oneself can be a capital offense.
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In my youth I never asked myself “Am I right?” because I was always right.
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Turks called us their “most loyal millet.” By loyal they meant subservient or, in the words of an English traveler, “disgustingly servile” – a noteworthy distinction.
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A jackass does not ask himself, “Am I a jackass?” It is the same with charlatans and dupes.
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I try to be objective; therefore I am an enemy of the people.
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Cowards are better equipped at playing it safe than heroes.
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Stanislaw Lec (1909-1966), Polish writer and dissident: “No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible.”
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“The mob shouts with one big mouth and eats with a thousand little ones.”
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