ED

My best travel was in 2002 going to Armenia, I had a ticket with Virgin airlines, so they were late by 2 hours from LAX, and I had a connecting flight in London with British air, they said (virgin) I have to wait or fly out tomorrow, no way! made a scene "cant miss this flight I'm businessman and I have to be in Armenia tomorrow or I'll sue you" long story short Virgin booked me with British air which was leaving in 50 min, 1st class all the way to London, was wonderful and got pampered with those beautiful English flight attendants. The worst part coming back, now British was late arriving at Heathrow about 20 min, and there is a 50 min gap to connect with Virgin air, now, for those who never been at Heathrow, know how claustrophobic this place is, congested and hard to find anything, from terminal 3 to terminal 4 it takes 40 min and this is by bus and loooooooong walk. So I missed my plane for LAX. Ended up alone at Heathrow for 1 day, now British wont pay for hotel and virgin is not responsible. had a heatted argument with British air, I gave up I was tired and wanted to rest as soon as I could, now, I have to go thru customs, those Indian agents are funny I tell you, till I made them understand I was on fire. Virgin lost my suitcases and all the brandy was broken inside. For those who never flu thru Heathrow, don’t it’s a nightmare Tomorrow I should fly to Munich Germany, all paid for by my customer, this is going to be one trip I'll enjoy for sure, but then again you never know what will happen

DUDE???? OK, it appears you’re not as good getting it as it appears Lady, let me take you back for a moment! When it comes to woman circumcision you have reservation, I do to, and I said I agreed with you “God made as in a certain way” …… and I’m not a Taliban, but when it comes to uncircumcised man, you call it a “gross and disgusting ” reference to the tread I mentioned Now is there anything is not clear?? You have a convenient way of looking things man vs women. And one more thing, I was being humorous as I said, now drop it or continue if you wish!

I have to agree with Harut Sasunian here, yes quiet disturbing and I feel so much more outraged for this fact. I will do my part and send a letter to British embassy in Yerevan in protest as well as foreign Ministry of Armenia; they should have taken a leading role in protest, very upsetting!

I think you know what I'm referring to Brunchik, though my intend was to be a little humorous regarding the subject (and yes I was a little of topic up there), I will restrain my self to go any farther by clarifying for some members due to immaturity to discuss it, the reason I made comment was very simple, if we are created by God the way we ought to be, then why change. The contradiction arose simply when I read you comment and it took me back to the tread which I forwarded to you, more, I agree what you said regarding woman genitalia and so on, and at the same time I recalled something I read wile back saying something in a same context regarding male genitalia. Now dear, do I have to say anything farther? I don’t think so.

As I recall mine it was like, “hurry people because next couple are waiting and don't forget to be generous to "Tiratsu" (the guy who usually sings with a priest) also”

Brunchik aren't you contradicting your self here?

Now they can burn all the national geographic Magazine issues along with Charles Aznavour’s CD's and Doll bananas etc....

Here is the wholl artical. I'm posting this here due to some members (hyeforum) may not be subscibed to NY times. INNEAPOLIS — Taner Akcam doesn't seem like either a hero or a traitor, though he's been called both. A slight, soft-spoken man who chooses his words with care, Mr. Akcam, a Turkish sociologist and historian currently teaching at the University of Minnesota, writes about events that happened nearly a century ago in an empire that no longer exists: the mass killings of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire during World War I. But in a world where history and identity are closely intertwined, where the past infects today's politics, his work, along with that of like-minded Turkish scholars, is breaking new ground. Mr. Akcam, 50, is one of a handful of scholars who are challenging their homeland's insistent declarations that the organized slaughter of Armenians did not occur; and he is the first Turkish specialist to use the word "genocide" publicly in this context. That is a radical step when one considers that Turkey has threatened to sever relations with countries over this single word. In 2000, for example, Ankara derailed an American congressional resolution calling the 1915 killings "genocide" by threatening to cut access to military bases in the country."We accept that tragic events occurred at the time involving all the subjects of the Ottoman Empire," said Tuluy Tanc, minister counselor at the Turkish Embassy in Washington, "but it is the firm Turkish belief that there was no genocide but self-defense of the Ottoman Empire." Scholars like Mr. Akcam call this a misrepresentation that must be confronted. "We have to deal with history, like the Germans after the war," said Fikret Adanir, a Turkish historian who has lived in Germany for many years. "It's important for the health of the democracy, for civil society." Most scholars outside Turkey agree that the killings are among the first 20th-century instances of "genocide," defined under the 1948 Genocide Convention as acts "committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group." During World War I the government of the disintegrating Ottoman Empire, fearing Armenian nationalist activity, organized mass deportations of Armenians from its eastern territories. In what some consider the model for the Holocaust, men, women and children were sent into the desert to starve, herded into barns and churches that were set afire, tortured to death or drowned. The numbers who died are disputed: the Armenians give a figure of 1.5 million, the Turks several hundred thousand. In the official Turkish story the Armenians were casualties of civil conflict they instigated by allying themselves with Russian forces working to break up the Ottoman Empire. In any case atrocities were documented in contemporary press reports, survivor testimony and dispatches by European diplomats, missionaries and military officers. Abortive trials of Ottoman leaders after World War I left an extensive record and some confessions of responsibility. A legal analysis commissioned last year by the International Center for Transitional Justice in New York concluded that sufficient evidence existed to term the killings a "genocide" under international law. Yet unlike Germany in the decades since the Holocaust, Turkey has consistently denied that the killings were intended or that the government at the time had any moral or legal responsibility. In the years since its founding in 1923 the Turkish Republic has drawn what the Turkish historian Halil Berktay calls a "curtain of silence" around this history at home and used its influence as a cold war ally to pressure foreign governments to suppress opposing views. Mr. Akcam is among the most outspoken of the Turkish scholars who have defied this silence. A student leader of the leftist opposition to Turkey's repressive government in the 1970's, Mr. Akcam spent a year in prison for "spreading communist propaganda" before escaping to Germany. There, influenced in part by Germany's continuing struggle to understand its history, he began to confront his own country's past. While researching the post-World War I trials of Turkish leaders, he began working with Vahakn Dadrian, a pre-eminent Armenian historian of the killings. Their unlikely friendship became the subject of a 1997 Dutch film, "The Wall of Silence." Turks fear to acknowledge the crimes of the past, Mr. Akcam says, because admitting that the founders of modern Turkey, revered today as heroes, were complicit in evil calls into question the country's very legitimacy. "If you start questioning, you have to question the foundations of the republic," he said, speaking intensely over glasses of Turkish tea in the book-lined living room of his Minneapolis home, as his 12-year-old daughter worked on her homework in the next room. In a study nearby transcriptions of Turkish newspapers from the 1920's were neatly piled. He and others like him insist that coming to terms with the past serves Turkey's best interests. Their view echoes the experience of countries in Latin America, Eastern Europe and Africa that have struggled with similar questions as they emerge from periods of repressive rule or violent conflict. Reflecting a widespread belief that nations can ensure a democratic future only through acknowledging past wrongs, these countries have opened archives, held trials and created truth commissions. Mr. Akcam says some headway is being made, particularly since the election of a moderate government in 2002 and continuing Turkish efforts to join the European Union. After all, he says, in the past dissent could mean imprisonment or even death. "With the Armenian genocide issue, no one is going to kill you," he said. "The restrictions are in our minds." Mr. Akcam is convinced the state's resistance to historical dialogue is "not the position of the majority of people in Turkey," he said. He cites a recent survey conducted by scholars that appeared in a Turkish newspaper showing that 61 percent of Turks believe it is time for public discussion of what the survey called the "accusations of genocide." Ronald Grigor Suny, an Armenian-American professor of political science at the University of Chicago, was invited to lecture at a Turkish university in 1998. "My mother said, `Don't go, you can't trust these people,' " he remembered. "I was worried there might be danger." Instead, to his surprise, though he openly called the killings of Armenians "genocide," he encountered more curiosity than hostility. Still, Mr. Akcam's views and those of like-minded scholars remain anathema to the nationalist forces that still exercise influence in Turkey. Threats by a nationalist organization recently prevented the showing there of "Ararat," by the Canadian-Armenian filmmaker Atom Egoyan, a movie that examines ways in which the Armenian diaspora deals with its history. Mr. Akcam's own attempt to resettle in Turkey in the 1990's failed when several universities, fearing government harassment, refused to hire him. And when Mr. Berktay disputed the official version of the Armenian killings in a 2000 interview with a mainstream Turkish newspaper, he became the target of a hate-mail campaign. Even so, he says, the mail was far outweighed by supportive messages from Turks at home and abroad. "They congratulated me for daring to speak up," he recalled. Scholarly discussion can also turn into a minefield among the large numbers of Armenians in the United States and Europe. Attempts to discuss the killings in a wider context raise suspicions. "Many people in the diaspora feel that if you try to understand why the Turks did it," Mr. Suny explained, "you have justified or legitimized it in some way." Like their Turkish colleagues, a younger generation of Armenian academics in the United States and elsewhere has grown frustrated with the intellectual impasse. In 2000 Mr. Suny and Fatma Muge Gocek, a Turkish-born sociology professor at the University of Michigan, organized a conference that they hoped would move scholarship beyond what Mr. Suny called "the sterile debates on whether there was a genocide or not." Despite some disagreements between Turkish and Armenian participants, the group they brought together has continued to meet and grow. Mr. Akcam had been building bridges even before that meeting. At a genocide conference in Armenia in 1995, he met Greg Sarkissian, the founder of the Zoryan Institute in Toronto, a research center devoted to Armenian history. In what both describe as an emotional encounter, the two lighted candles together in an Armenian church for Mr. Sarkissian's murdered relatives and for Haji Halil, a Turkish man who rescued Mr. Sarkissian's grandmother and her children. Mr. Akcam and Mr. Sarkissian say Halil, the "righteous Turk," symbolizes the possibility of a more constructive relationship between the two peoples. But like most Armenians, Mr. Sarkissian says Turkey must acknowledge historical responsibility before reconciliation is possible. "If they do," he said, "it will start the healing process, and then Armenians won't talk about genocide anymore. We will talk about Haji Halil."

Great jod Domino jan, bravo, keep up the good work and let us know anyway we can help regards

Totally agree Azat, Ani, I always said to my son don’t let life to make whatever it is out of you, you make your best out of life, as I get older and maybe a bit wiser I intend to have a deferent view on things such as motivation, I can try my best and do everyday to point out things of motivation to my son, and yes I need to be motivated also, sometimes I have to mention money to my kid so he knows without it its a bit tough out there, of course deferent types of motivation, such as poetry music, humanity, spirituality, love. But you may agree with me, there must be something fundamentally wrong, and something very precious is vanishing from our society where money is the ultimate motivation and success, where success is majored by the size of your wallet, or now days it is portfolio.

In this day and age the vast majority is motivated by MONEY, yes sad but very thru

I hope this works out Սիրելի բարեկամ (ներ) սիրով կուզենք մեր երախտագիտուտյան և շնորհակալանքի խոսկը փոխանցել մեր ընտանիքից դեպի ձեզ, մախթելով ամեն պոկրիկներին այսպիսի և անհամար ուրախ արիտներ, հուսանք որ գալ տարի, և գալիք տարիներին ևս արիտը կունենք նշելու և նույնպես կիսելու ձեր ուրախուտյունը, ինչպես որ դուք կիսեցիք այն մեզ հետ Հարգանքներով, սիրով Շանփորիկիաններ

By those words you have surpassed Socrates Dante and Nietzsche combined Very interesting deep observation and so much wisdom you have expressed so eloquently in that statement lady, do you think you can evaluate and rephrase the sentence? Sort of breaking down to columns and elaborate so a dumb person like me could digest the essence? I thank you so very much in advance Sincerely yours Edward

Or you can say I went to Edo's house and cut the grass and cleaned his pool

no it is not, I say cello

I dont know about you but bits the crap out of me what the heck is the discassion about.

It is very typical almost a stigma when you talk or say something good about Armenia some one somewhere jumps out with a negative portrayal, yes there are many things wrong, but who is perfect after all? So many critics and yet so little contributors for well being of Armenia. What is the next? Oh let me guess men kiss each other, or cop takes a bribe, or people have hygiene (ever been in France?) Or in Holland, been at the red light district? Sooooo what. I wonder if one who could make $$$$$ would bitch about any of the above, for how long you people are going to realize for better or worst That’s the only Homeland we have for now. The Irony is with present day ROA some call for greater Armenia, lets get this one on the right track shell we? Then worry about Tsovits tsov Hayastan.

The idea is to raise an awareness whats going on in Turkey and its a cultural genocide, and I'm sure with enough voices heard maybe situation can be reversed, with UNECSO and similar organizations monuments can be saved and restored back or close to its original shape. I failed to understand last part of you comment, care to expand?

most probably picture was taken before 1960, with so much government restrictions I hardly would know in what shape those churches are, maybe Steve can answer that he has been in turkey many times, and here is the Webpage

Happy birthday Vava jan , wish you all the best

I apologize Steve maybe you have mentioned this in your web site I didn’t see it; I just wanted to bring this up for everyone to see. If it’s possible to be sad and angry decussated at the same time that’s what I feel now Beshkilise (5 churches) near Digor (to the south of Kars in present day Turkey). Only one of the 5 original churches survive. the others were blown up by the Turkish army in the 1960s

Ani Jan those were times of innocence how can one forget all those, and don’t be afraid go back and revisit you’ll come back with a new spiritual awakening.

Nice kakaches Azat I saw them on the way to Sevan in 2002 early June when I was there, so prety indeed, you know after 20 year absence when I went back there were moments i couldent hold back my tears, seeing a familiear street or a bench at the park, and tsaxkadzor where only rusty Iron bars were standing from Tsaxkadzor Hotel,once a very popular hang out for young generation, and The sport complex all gone , what a shame and pitty, so much memories to recall. I used to go to sport camps every winter and summer if any one of you been at tsaxkadzor would remember the uphill from the city all the up to the sports complex, we used to run up half naked 2 or 3 kilomiters up,I tryed to do the same after 25 or 30 years, no such a lack, I left my name writen at "qyachal sar" inside a cave, said "Edo was here 1973" and we used to walk up to the mountains where in a city was =25 26c and on top of Ali bek was 0c and covered in snow, ax lerner lerner , lerner hayreni~~~~ and before KVAS there was TAN in yerevan streets, for those who had the privlidge of drinkink it now is having his taste buds running wild, now thats one think you dont forget, and "tsiki perashki" Evelina remember those? with beer, mmmmM, lets see, oh yes "ARARAT HUP TUR" once Ararat and Dinamo Tbilisi game, we ended up forcing those Georgian fans cheering for Ararat, was funny Ok this much for now back to work, I'll remember much more in a days to come. thanks for the picks

What do you care for the Jews anyway hagarag? they may kill each other to the end as far as I'm conserned, what I'm consern is and you sould be also, preservation and fight we must fight against a common enamy, that is Turks and Azeris.

Yesterday I opened my water and power bill and it was over $400 for 2 mounts, in winter, and barely watering out lawn, hardly home, with rains pouring, over $400?? For those in California know what I'm talking about, prices for power soared, quadrupled and there is no relive in site, or is it? Good old coal is making a huge comeback, with world’s oil supplies shrinking and natural gas prices keep going up coal is the future I was think, and I was not mistaking, since 30 to 40% of our energy source is coming from fossil deposits coal is the most cheep to mine and its much cleaner then oil. and not a bad idea to get into coal stocks, do a little homework and convince your self as tomorrow morning I'll be buying some coal stocks! and you can find some input regarding this here