On Monday I read email from a teenager asking if she could work for ArmeniaNow to earn $500. It is the amount her school is demanding she pay in bribes for her diploma if she wants top grades. Any lesser amount and she won't receive '5s', no matter how well she performs on exams. She is an honor (an ironic description, yes?) student, smart enough that she won a scholarship to study in the United States.

Her parents can't afford the payment, because her brother has been conscripted into the army, and the family is spending its money on bribes to officers so that he won't be sent to Karabakh.

On Tuesday I saw a man in front of our newsroom eating out of a public garbage barrel. Not just scavenging, but literally eating the scraps of food he found.

On Thursday a woman brought a little girl into my office. She said the girl was her granddaughter, whose mother is in hospital with tuberculosis and the family has no money. Could I buy food for her?

On Friday I read the Radio Free Europe story in today's ArmeniaNow, stating that half of the newly elected Parliament members are among the most wealthy citizens of Armenia, therefore the most powerful.

It would be unfair to suggest that Monday, Tuesday and Thursday are somehow connected to Friday. But what's fair got to do with anything?