SanVal

A person can be educated and come from a good family and still be primitive.

I'm not aware of any mail order groom sites. I did meet someone who "ordered" a groom from Armenia at a wedding the other day...he looked like a model, but the consensus was that he's an Alphonse. I don't think ordering a couple is enough; order more just in case the first few turn out to be conwomen. Maybe they'll deliver all of them in time for Armenian Christmas.

I found an Armenian mail order bride site for the first time today. Looks like they've joined the bandwagon. http://www.2-brides.com/armenian-brides.html

I don't know why I asked. I don't have an explanation for that.

Men and women will Never be equal; we can only try to come close. The main reason is pregnancy. As long as women are the only ones who get pregnant, women will be disadvantaged. In the legal field, for example, some "progressive" law firms allow women to take time off to have babies and the time they take off counts toward the number of years it takes to become a partner. I had a conversation about this with one male senior associate, and I empathized with him when he complained that the time a woman at his law firm spends giving birth and breastfeeding is considered to be the same as what he's doing (going to work and using his brain). At the other end of the spectrum is not taking a woman's pregnancy into account and not even trying to accomodate her, thereby encouraging her to quit her job or work part-time if she gets preganant. I can't even think of a middle ground that would be fair to both men and women.

"oo" you mean?

If you can't relocate to another country, the best way to learn a language is to date someone who frequently speaks that language. Another alternative is to find an Armenian-speaking surrogate family, like the character in Atom Egoyan's "Next of Kin."

That's really sad. In response to the question, "recognition, then what?" I have for a long time believed that the best form of reparation would be a treaty between Armenia and Turkey that permits Armenians to operate tourist sites in historically Armenian lands. That would mean 1) more revenue, and 2) an ability to maintain an Armenian stamp on these lands. I think that's the best solution because the alternative of giving up land would mean that 1) I, as a non-Native American, would also need to pack my bags and leave, and 2) Armenia, which already is very poor, would need to spend more money and put more lives on the line because a bigger country means longer borderlines. It looks like the Turks would resist my proposal as much as any demands for land.

My bad...it's Sami, not Saami. I think I was influenced by the word Saab.

The reason why some people in the Baltics have high cheekbones might be because they have some Asian ancestry. Estonians are Baltic, and they're related to the Finns, some of whom are mixed with the Saami (aka "Lap"--but I don't use that word because I heard from a Norwegian that that's considered to be derogatory), who in turn are part Asian.

Tim Robbins would make a better movie about the Armenian Genocide. 10 years ago he made "Dead Man Walking," which featured Armenian music. I even remember his interview, where he said that he's a big fan of the duduk. 'Dead Man Walking' argues against capital punishment By Richard von Busack SISTER HELEN PREJEAN (Susan Sarandon), a New Orleans nun who has been working among the poor since she took holy orders, decides to answer some letters requesting pen pals for prison inmates. She meets Matthew Poncelet (Sean Penn), a convicted killer at Angola State Prison in Louisiana, sentenced to die by lethal injection. Tim Robbins' new film, Dead Man Walking, based on Prejean's memoir, is the story of the friendship before the midnight execution, and if it sound like exactly the sort of film you'd like to avoid, it isn't. Robbins' movie is unsentimental, in many respects. The waxy-faced narcissist Poncelet, with his Aryan Brotherhood sympathies and one other matter unveiled during the film, is eminently killable. Yet Robbins makes you realize, with a minimum of manipulation, why Poncelet shouldn't be given the hot shot. To underscore the dilemma, Robbins also acquaints us with the people whose lives were ruined by the crime Poncelet is accused of committing. R. Lee Ermey--typecast as a military type ever since he played a Marine drill instructor (which he was in real life) in Full Metal Jacket--is the father of a murdered girl, thirsting for Poncelet's blood. Raymond J. Barry, father of her murdered boyfriend, is more numb with grief, shunned and facing divorce. Both embody the emotional reasons why people want murderers dead; both subtly prove the good old liberal notion that justice is best left to neutral parties. Sarandon's performance as Prejean is smooth and unflashy, without serious rage; it builds to an emotional climax at the execution that's an indescribably tricky bit of action--one glimpse of the actress underneath the nun's persona and the scene would be revoltingly sentimental. Sarandon's nun makes you marvel once again at the sort of people who can find the faith to expose themselves to trouble. (Prejean, in interviews, likes to disabuse us of this notion, as Sarandon's line has it here; it's not faith, she says, it's work.) Sarandon's character balances Sean Penn's Poncelet, who doesn't deserve as dignified a term as evil. Can Penn constrict his pupils at will, like a parrot? Whatever Penn's qualities are off camera--repellent little grind that he is--there's no question that he subsumes himself into his role, evaporating his own personality into someone else's. His Poncelet is the least romantic transgressor you're apt to see in years, begging the question not just of why we sponsor killings, but also of what is to be done with such people as Poncelet represents? Robbins focuses on the mundane, the smallness of a state prison, its lack of architectural drama, filming on location in Angola and at some of the poorest quarters of New Orleans (and the United States). As director, Tim Robbins made the choice to hire his brother, David Robbins, to write the music, and the other Robbins has put together an outstanding selection of Armenian and Indian compositions, a provocative soundtrack which unfortunately ends with a ballad by Bruce Springsteen at his most obvious. Still, the soundtrack succeeds in purging the film of Dixie cuteness and New Orleans quaintness (though the first time Sarandon uses the Southern accent, you cringe, thinking, here it comes). Poncelet is a combination of two different inmates that Sister Prejean knew. Most films ostensibly based on true stories are a mixture of the true, the fictional, and the too good to be true, which is true nonetheless. Do the guards really bellow "dead man walking" as the prisoner makes his way to the killing room? Does a prisoner strapped in the bed for lethal injection really have both arms out, and is he truly wheeled to face the witnesses to be seen for a moment as if strapped to a cross? Is there much evidence, as Robbins has a lawyer character assert, that lethal injection is cruel and unusual punishment, in the sense that it is painful (as opposed to being arbitrary, expensive and useless as a deterrent)? Even if Dead Man Walking wasn't in the kind of shape it's in, it would merit honor for its critique of capital punishment. The prison population just increased to more than 1 million, according to Reuters, and the total number of people held in prisons and jails has almost tripled since 1980. The popular demand for capital punishment is the crowning idiocy in a hill of comforting idiocies that constitute the criminal justice system. Capital punishment has been nothing but a spectator sport ever since it was first devised, and more damage never makes damage better: This is the lesson of Sister Prejean's memoir, and it has been faithfully transcribed into a deeply moving film.

I thought you meant the university before I opened up the page.

I think Al Pacino should play the leading man. He already played an Armenian in "Author, Author."

How would one get figures of the number of people living and the number of people killed in, say, 300 BC? I think even historians can't do that even if they have the resources to get every ancient language translated. The best you can do is rely on your basic knowledge of what the world was like at the time and make an educated guess about how many people were killed. You'd have a hard time convincing me that people haven't, generally, become more peaceful. It certainly is telling that some European countries went from using the guillotine to a total ban on the death penalty. (Caveat: I'm one of those diabolical people who think that retribution in the form of a death penalty is appropriate in some cases, so I'm not necessarily exalting the Europeans here.)

I think it's worth the money if the test is accurate. I'm afraid that they might tell me I'm some exotic mix when in fact my genetic makeup is very similar to the great majority of Armenians. If you look at the "testimonials" page, it looks like this test is really for those with northern and eastern European roots.

In the interests of remaining anonymous, I can't send you my picture. But I have unusually high cheekbones for an Armenian. I wonder if that means I had an ancestor who fooled around with one of the Mongol invaders.

Can you explain how it works? Don't these companies have to have enough samples from every ethnic group to see how you compare to them?

Has anyone here had a DNA test done, or knows of any Armenian who's had it done? I'm referring to a test such as this one: http://www.familytreedna.com/. It's a test to determine your recent ethnic origins. The reason I'm asking is that I'm curious about the ancestry of Armenians. There are so many of us who proudly claim to be "100% Armenian," but how true is that really?

It could've been the bloodiest in terms of the number of people killed, but that's only because there were more people to kill at the time than during ancient times.

I somewhat agree that human nature hasn't changed. But I disagree with you that the 20th century was the worst in history in terms of violence. We know more about the 20th century because it's recent, recorded history. I'm sure that in the ancient times there was more bloodshed. Torture wasn't even considered a crime at the time. During the 1940s, what the Nazis did was at least disapproved of by most of the world. Have you seen the palace stone relief sculptures of the ancient Assyrians? Here's an excert from an article about their art (read it and see if you can imagine a modern government openly advocating such violence): The postures and gestures of non-Assyrians in these scenes, ranging from their crouching posture to hand gestures and the disposition of their weapons, made them appear - especially to the eyes of the Assyrians viewing this art - strange, contemptible, and out of step with Assyrian values. Through the language of gesture, these images communicate the identification of intercultural difference with intracultural transgression and the subversion of Assyrian social codes. Moreover, within the context of the stories told in Assyrian narrative art, many of these strange non-Assyrian figures are shown meeting dreadful fates, ranging from capture [iLLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 2 OMITTED] to horrific mutilation [iLLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 3 OMITTED]. The internal logic of these visual stories, then, often portrays a violent death as the natural consequence of the violation of Assyrian values that these strange gestures embody. The notion of the merciless punishment of transgressions and the wisdom of conformity serves as a powerful message for the foreign visitors to Assyrian palaces, as well as the members of the Assyrian court itself. I saw "Apocalypto" on its opening night (amazing movie, by the way). It reminded me of what I saw when I studied ancient art history in high school.

Exactly. The main point that I have been trying to make (although I probably should've been clearer) is that Armenians haven't done what the Turks did NOT because Armenians are a better people, but because they couldn't. What the Turks did to Armenians and to some other people who lived under the Turkish "yoke" has less to do with any cultural idiocyncracies of the Turks and more to do with the brutal, competitive, territorial, and tribal nature of mankind. Similarly, the Republic of Armenia treats its minorities better than Turkey treats its minorities not because Armenians are nice, but because it's one of the most ethnically homogenous countries in the world and the few Yezidi Kurds and Russians who live there aren't a real threat to its political stability. So, so much for Turkish, Armenian, or any other kind of hospitality. Most people of any ethnicity will be nice to you when all you are is a visitor who wants to do nothing more than bask in the sun, purchase souvenirs, and mingle with the locals. When you're perceived as a threat, on the other hand, watch your back.

I'm not aware of any historic facts that prove that Christianity and Islam have made people more peaceful. True, people have become more peaceful over time, but that's attributable to more experience, better communication (which has contributed to people's ability to understand and empathize with one another)higher literacy rates, and better education. I don't even need to mention any examples of brutality committed in the names of Christianity and Islam because we all know they are legion (the Armenian Genocide, however, is not one of them because it was perpetrated by the secular Young Turk government). You can argue that these were committed by people who misinterpreted their religions, but there are as many interpretations of the Bible and the Qur'an as there are people. There's at least one historic Armenian figure who seemed to believe that violent means justify the end: Monte Melkonian, a former ASALA member (good thing Irlandahye brought him up). I don't know enough about him to know whether he had renounced his past by the end of his life, though.

Aside from the genocide, the reason why many Armenians resent the Turks is that they conquered our ancestors and took away their lands. Tigran the Great conquered non-Armenians, subjugated them, and forcefully relocated them to populate his capital; and many Armenians are proud of him. We can also go into more detail. In those days, taking members of a conquered people captive was the norm. That was part of the loot, since conquered people were seen as no different from inanimate objects; making them slaves was thought of as normal. That's probably what Tigran the Great (or Tigran the Barbarian, the way I see it) did. My quick internet research already revealed that at least the Urartians subscribed to this practice (see usanogh.org, for example). So, that's something to be proud of, but we should chastise the Turks for instituting the janissary system, for sending women to harems to serve the Sultan? How is all of this not hypocritical? I'm aware that what Tigran the Great did was far from a human rights violation by the standards of the time, but why should we use the standards of savages in deciding who are national heroes are? If you respond to this posting, please give reasons, and not just conclusions.

Why are all the girls here asking everyone else about this? Is everyone so sexually inactive in the Armenian community?

I don't think the differences between how the US government treats critics of American historic figures and how Turkey treats critics of Ataturk is indicative of fanaticism. All it shows is that, in general, the US is a more democratic country. I'm sure the Turks have more severe reactions with respect to any criticisms of the government, even if they're not related to ethnic minorities.