Oh Oh Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh, GooGooLeeGoo (Aklor)

Tomorrow is my birthday. The sun entered the Leo House and my power to write down a log came again. hehehe
First of all, sorry about my absence.
I will tell you the most important thing in my armo community of Argentina that happened some days ago. And this page has a lot to do with it.
Levon Mardikyan, a nice guy of Los Angeles came to do a work about Coronel Peron in Buenos Aires. And, i had the chance to be guiding him somedays. How did i know him? He is one of "the commenters" of this Logging journal in Cilicia. Thanks Raffi?s ideas two armenian guys met each other and discussed a lot of things about armenia and armenians. A logger of Buenos Aires and a commenter of Los Angeles were togheter ! ! ! How loco could be if all loggers get togheter someday at someplace.
We went to many places, were he took some photos. Next month, when he gets back to LA he will send me the photos so i can show you some armenian places in Argentina that any armenian that visits our community should see.

Un baccio Amigos ! ! !

Jean August Abadjian

The plague has come and gone. Now it's time to get back to work. We are in the last two weeks of the program, and the same ol' stuff is going on.

However, I was watching CNN last night and they were showing a nice replay of Larry King with Bob Dole on for his 80th birthday. This is for those who haven't heard or read, but Clinton called in to say happy birthday. When asked what he respected most about Dole (or something like that), Clinton went on to say that Dole is a great man for helping the "little people" who don't have much of a strategic anything to offer to the US, but still, Dole stood up for places like Kosovo and Armenia in times where others wouldn't. My question... Clinton, why now? Why not a few years ago when your administration pulled the Genocide bill because Turkey was making crazy threats? It's times like this I really wish Dole was elected president. Not only would I appreciate his help to the Armenians, I would respect him as a president, unlike a man who wooses out to Turkish demands. I'm starting to sound like a republican. Damn!

Not too much other news. AYF Olympics is around the corner, and around this time you can feel the entire East Coast mentally preparing for it. I'm not competing this year, as I didn't have much time to jump in the pool and practice. But I'll stand behind the camera and act as photographer. That's my favorite part of the weekend!

This is too funny not to log about. The plague has hit the ANCA office. My interns are dropping like flies, and the ones still standing have a box of disinfectent wipes glued to their hands. I've been banned from answering the phone because people don't understand me when I talk, my voice is so scratchy. My nickname is "throaty" right now. I sound so completely different that I'm thinking about bringing out my enemy list and making some prank phone calls. So, of the 9 interns and me, 7 are down, and 3 are clinging to their health with every weapon they have... clorox, lysol, you name it. Some trace the source of the problem to be Senator Fiztgerald, who said straight to our faces that he does not believe the genocide took place. That ignited the stress in one intern, who then got sick, the chain affect occurred and the rest is history. Darn Fitzgerald.

The internship is moving nicely along. Every day has been packed with meetings, lectures, tours, etc. The other day we visited the Library of Congress, with a guided tour by Levon Avdoyan. He showed us around, then took us to the Armenia section and gave a great presentation of rare Armenian books that have been restored. This is a visit I recommend to everyone. These books are available for the rest of the world, and we owe it to ourselves to see them ourselves.

Three weeks left in the internship. The end of the summer is slowly creeping up on me. The first thing on my mind of course is going to Armenia. Plans are in progress. Otherwise, I'm preparing my photography for a couple events. One will be in LA, no date is set. Possibly another in Washington. More on that later when I have details.

Right now, I'm sitting home... sick. I think I'll make tonight a movie night. The interns have had the day off, so I'm free as can be.

Last week, I was on a business trip in Bar Harbor, Maine of all places. It's a bit islolated up there, but the scenery is pretty cool. I was able to visit Acadia National Park, sit back, and just enjoy the view while driving to my locations for work. While staying there, I was able to rethink the Hover marketing strategy for the upcoming disc by them, "Six Fables: Based on the Writings of Vardan Aigektsi". This time around, I am going to stress marketing the group in the LA area a lot more than I have been marketing our other discs. I've been trying to develop the non-LA market as best I can, however, this approach has been met with mixed results. Now, our team is ready for the challenge over here and in Armenia to promote this world premier recording coming out September 1. Hover will be performing in the UK from September 13-21. We've already got a few volunteers in the UK (Thanks Harmick) ready to help out. If you are in Europe and want to help out, please contact me.

In other news, the Boston (or whoever gets the Armenian Weekly) area has witnessed a public brawl in the media between the ARF's english language weekly newspaper edition, The Armenian Weekly, and Harvard University Armenian Studies Chair, Prof. James Russell. In the past month or so, barbs have been traded focusing around the effectiveness of Mr. Russell and his impact (of lack of) at Harvard. The Weekly came out an roasted Russell in an editorial over anti ARF comments pertaining to his bewildering statements on General Dro Kanaian (Bash Abaran), the Armenian Community, and the defense of himself and his record at Harvard. As a casual observer, the criticism by the Armenian Weekly of Mr. Russell seems fair. Under his 10 year leadership at Harvard University there has been only one graduate of his Armenian Studies program there. Of late, some have said that Mr. Russell has been making irresponsible and divisive comments in Armenian and non-Armenian circles regarding certain Armenian political parties. Anyway, my point isn't to further chastigate Mr. Russell, but to merely explain that the Armenian-American community may have better and more important things to worry about, although Mr. Russell's reputation at Harvard is tanking pretty quickly.

A soon to be former colleague of Mr. Russell, Bert Vaux, Associate Professor in the Department of Linguistics and an expert on the Armenian Language has come out against Mr. Russell recently in an interview in the Armenian Weekly (July 12, 2003) and stated that "I am sure that there are Armenians that can meet with the President of Harvard to let him know what's been going on with the chair, and what they think are reasonable goals or activities for a chair- things that have nothing to do with academic freedom. What you need to watch out for is the defense that academics need to be free to do their own research and you can't censor them, but this isn't about that. This about basic goals like producing students, doing things for the community, allowing people to take your classes, and so on." when asked what the Community can do with the Armenian Chair.

Nasty stuff, indeed. If you get a chance, pick up the Armenian Weekly and read the exchange, it may change your view on how the Armenian Chair at prestigious Universities are being either abused or championed, according to your perspective. You make the choice.

Last week I saw the movie, "The Journey". The movie is about a young girl originally from Armenia, who grew up in New York and is living the "typical" Armenian-American lifestyle. She is an aspiring photographer, and one day gets the opportunity to travel to Armenia to document for a magazine, what's happening in the Caucuses (it's set in 1991). And so she travels to her homeland more than 10 years after leaving. Basically, she remembers the life she had in Armenia and somehow becomes involved in the "revolution" that was taking place at that time. She documents the history with her pictures, and falls in love with an inspiring individual.

My Review: I absolutely loved the movie! I don't know if it's because I wished I'd be able to go to Armenia and take wonderful pictures that would be published in a magazine telling others about the importance of our independence.... or if it's because it's a cute love story. Either way, I think everyone involved in making this movie did an incredible job. Eve (the girl) was living the typical life we all live in America. She had a waitressing job, and had boyfriends here and there but always felt there was something missing in her life. To the regular person, she looked happy, and her life seemed complete...but there was a void in her life. She was not happy. I think Sona Tatoyan (Eve) did a great job and expressing the change in Eve once she was in Armenia. In Armenia, Eve seemed different. She had this "life" to her, whereas in America she seemed "blah". I don't know if that's me reading into things more than I'm supposed to, but I really felt that it was supposed to show us something. (I guess we all see what we WANT to see.. hehehe).

The movie makes you laugh and cry, and teaches you about making certain sacrifices to make your life "better". Eve decided to stay in Armenia and marry the guy she fell in love with (despite all their differences). Her soul was a lot more happier in Armenia.. and she had the guts to do something about it, rather than continue living like a robot in America. I just hope we can all one day do the same. :)

If anyone is in L.A., go see this movie in Glendale... I'm not sure where else it's playing.

The Journey

TSUH! :)~
p.s.- expect a log from me, writing from Armenia, in the near future! ;)

Well everything is smooth sailing now that I'm home and almost done recooperating. I'm slowly starting to get back into the groove of things... My daily outings include Target, the Farmer's Market, and the ever-so-exciting armenian market. :) It doesn't really seem like summer.

This week, my doctor gave me clearance for travel... and so now I'm looking into the possibilities of going to Hayasdan for a few weeks.... if anything, just to get away from LA.

Tonight I'm going to go see the Armenian move, "The Journey".... I'll let u know how it was. The Navasartian games were apparently a big hit once again! I went to the closing ceremonies on Sunday evening, and I don't think I've seen so many Armenians in one place! It was so crowded, it took me 20 minutes to walk to the booth that was selling Armenian ice cream!

That's pretty much it on my end.

TSUH! :)~

Today I attended a very interesting conference on Capitol Hill, hosted by the American Hellenic Institute... our Greek friends. Great people. I love the Greeks. The conference was addressing US-Turkish Relations and the speakers were Christopher Hitchens, author, Aram Hamparian, our own Executive Director of the Armenian National Committee, a human rights speaker from the Christian Solidarity... forget the rest of the name, and Kani Xulam on behalf of the Kurds. The event was attended by NUMEROUS Turks, as well as Greeks, Armenians, and Kurds... possibly Cypriots, but none I saw. The panelists spoke very well on Turkish violations of human rights in Cyprus, with the Kurds, Greeks, and of course, the Armenians.

The Turkish presence was certainly noticed, and it was impossible not to. The question and arguement sessions with each speaker allowed for Turks to make very poor arguements, purely reactionary arguements contradicting each others' statements and completely discrediting their own positions. An example is their persistence to deny the Armenian genocide, and yet, they questioned the Kurdish speaker about Kurdish massacres of the Armenians, which the apparently don't understand was under instruction of the Ottoman Empire... to which Xulam responded saying that the Kurds recognize, and have appologized, but not before Hitchens could show his disgust in the statement's "stupidity" in that it denies the genocide, and then asks the Kurds to take the blame for it.

To go on, the ending note was a positive one in that Turks came out defeated. Sadly, the only people in the room at the time were people who's minds were made up one way or another.

Anyhoo, it was an interesting day, Aram Hamparian was so well spoken and quick on his feet to reply to the attacks of the Turks. Another day on the Hill!