One egg in one basket.

Turkish and Northern Cyprus Turkish flags seen from the Greek side., originally uploaded by nazarian.

Today I came across the Haykakan Zhamanak issue of January 20, 2007. It had an interesting editorial and an accompanying article on page three as well which dealt with an issue I have pondered about a lot during the last few years.

The foreign policy of Armenia has had one issue since the independence - the Karabagh issue. Another issue was added when Mr. Kocharian became the president - the international recognition of Metz Yeghern (Genocide). Nikol Pashinian goes on to articulate that all the actions of Azerbaijan are interpreted by the Armenian government through the prism of these two bedrocks of the foreign policy principles. But Azerbaijan has moved on and Karabagh issue is not a bedrock in foreign policy but a means, or a pipeline, to gain access to the ears of the world's movers and shakers, i.e. the president of the United States, or European powers, and thus resolve such 'trivial' issues as access to foreign markets for their goods while isolating Armenia from the world.

I have to admit that they have been quite successful so far as does Pashinian. He also has a suggestion to prevent the next project that will isolate Armenia - the Kars-Tbilisi-Baku railway construction - make sure that the parties involved realize that Armenia will make sure that every possible option is used to prevent the construction.

There is a recent precedent to what Azerbaijan is trying to accomplish. Often, Karabagh is compared with the situation with the Turkish occupation of the Northern Cyprus. In 1974, after years of internal conflict, the Turkish community established an autonomous entity in Northern Cyprus with the help of invading Turkish military. They have a de-facto independent state with their own military, economy and other sectors of a proper independent state. Yet they are isolated and mired in poverty (relative to their Greek counterparts). That has been the result of the successive Cypriot governments' efforts to keep them cut off from the world while continuing negotiations for the last 32 years! Nothing has been accomplished through these negotiations except to keep the Turks distracted. All their efforts have been focused on achieving independence while the Greek Cypriots have developed and prospered. When the EU and the UN demanded for a referendum to take place for the Northern Cyprus be admitted into the EU a few years ago, the Greek Cypriots slapped the Turks with NO while the Turks wholeheartedly said YES.

There is a big lesson to be learned here. Armenia does not want to be what the Turkish Cypriots are now. The Northern Cypriots are a little luckier - they live on an island so the transportation is not blockaded, and they have a powerful backer - Turkey is the only country that has recognized their independence besides Pakistan. They are effectively in the backyard gutter of Europe and Middle East.

Anyway, here is the www.hzh.am article in Armenian:

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   -         :   ,          ,    ,                 : , ,        ,        ,    ` :   `          ,  ,      : ,   ,    ,      ,       .  -       ,     :       ,         `   -     -  ,      : , ,  ,           ,         :     ` ,            :      :   , ,    , `    :       .   ,            ,      : ,  ,   ,     1998   : ,   ,     ,         . ,      : ,  ,    ,           ,   ,        `     ,     :            :  , ,       :                       ,        ,               :         ,                    ,       :           ,       :

 3

    

       ,     ,  ,            ,          : ,           :      ,    , , 10  ,            ,    :           ,        ,      ,          :      .  ,    (      ):          ,   ,  ,  `        : ,  ,    - :       . - , - , - ,  .    ,            :           ,  ,          ,        ,     :    - `    ,    :       ,         ,       :         ,     ()  :   ,         :    ,    ,          ,           ,     ,     ,      :  ,    ,     ,  ,    ,           : ,    ,     ,      ,     -   ,       -       :  -        : ` ,         ,           ,  , ,  ,       ,  ,    `    ( , 1997-    -   ,      ):  ,      ,          .  ,  :      ,        ,       ,     ,         :   ,        .        ,           `   , , ,  ,   ,   :  ,      `    ,      ,     ,   :

  , -  ,   ,       :   ,      ,       :     ,      ,    ,       ,      : 1998- -       ,         ,      ,    :   ,     `  ,        :     , ,       ,    ,               ,     :         ( ,  ),      ,     :         ,   -      :    ,  ` : ,    :        :  ,   ,                : ,       ,  ,    9-        :     ,            ,         :  1988-        ,      :     ,   - ,            ,      :        ,        :      . -      (  )       ,      ,    , -, -, -, - :           ,  ,       :   ,  ,       , -    :          ,   -         :  ,   ,        ,      ,    :

 

Hrant Dink shot dead in Istanbul.

The first news item I came across today was a CNN story about Hrant Dink being shot in Istanbul. I am saddened immensely but I am neither shocked nor surprised. Being outspoken in Turkey is dangerous. Being an Armenian and outspoken in Turkey is certainly a death sentence.

Khosrov Harutyunian press release.

Khosrov_Harutyunian_press_release, originally uploaded by nazarian.

Aravot has this picture that accompanies an op-ed piece titled 'Black cat, do not pass near Khosrov Harutyunian'. Khosrov Harutyunian is a former Armenian PM and a Speaker of Parliament.

The cat does not look like a street cat but you never know. The street cats and primarily dogs can be very sociable. When I visited Yerevan in 2003 after years of living in the US, I was at first surprized that people sitting in cafes had their dogs without leash. It took me a couple of days to realize that these were not pets but street dogs.

Armenian attitudes are quite lax when it comes to street animals. These guys are tolerated and usually people do not mind packs of ruggedy dogs running around. Unfortunately, sometimes the government decides to resolve the homeless dog issue and sends hunters to shoot them at night (a quite traumatic experience for civilians to witness). Cats are not shot at and roam freely.

This is unlike the US where street animals are not tolerated. Any dog or cat without a tag is captured promptly and sent to a 'Humane Society' animal shelter. There they are spayed, put up for adoption and if not adopted within a short period of time (usually a month), are killed in gas chambers. It's a twisted logic but they think they are helping these animals.

Photo for January 18, 2007.

Indy_skyline, originally uploaded by nazarian.

Indiana State Senate building at night.

Photo for January 16, 2007.

Indianapolis Illinois Avenue, originally uploaded by nazarian.

The other day I was driving in downtown Indianapolis and realized that I had my camera with me. I started experimenting with the nighttime photography while driving. Most of the results were quite nice. The movement of the cars, combined with the shaky drive on potholed streets, yielded nicely paranoid pictures.

Hardworking monkey in Yerevan.

Yerevan_monkey, originally uploaded by nazarian.

I came across the picture of this hardworking monkey in 'Haykakan Jamanak' daily. The caption underneath made references to the current authorities saying that unlike this well dressed monkey, people soon will be lining up to take their pictures, and they will not be in the Republic Square but in jail, and they won't have colorful coats but striped prisoners' jumpsuits.

But what I saw as important in the whole rant was the picture of this poor creature. He obviously is not being treated badly by the man holding him. He is as well dressed as a little kid. Also, notice that he is not on a leash. But it must be hard for him/her to be outside in a cold weather. He doesn't seem very enthusiastic about cold climate at all.

Snow on palm trees.

Herrschaftliche Ruine in Machindschauri, originally uploaded by Rapho (http://georgien.blogspot.com).

I just came across this photo of palm trees in Batumi, Georgia that are covered by snow on Rapho's flickr page at http://www.flickr.com/photos/georgienblogspotcom/ but not on his blog at http://georgien.blogspot.com .

Simply amazing as I have never seen anything like this. My experience has been that palm trees do not grow naturally where it usually snows. Either these are some hardy palms, or it was just a fluke.

Photo for January 5, 2007.

JordanianArakHaddad, originally uploaded by nazarian.

A family friend from Syria gave this bottle when I visited Cyprus last year. Before I had settled in the US, I never thought that it would be weird to hold an alcoholic drink made in an Arab country, with Arabic inscriptions on it. I had drank Lebanese and Syrian vodka before and had never thought about it. But living in the US does wonders to you. The official propaganda eventually gets to you. After a while you start believing that the Muslims are fundamentalists and are out to get us, the Germans are genocidal freaks, the French are cheese eating surrender monkeys, and the Americans are the most superior nation in the world. It's quite silly but a lot of effort is made to convince people this is indeed true.

Anyway.

This Arak resembles Ouzo but is a little stronger. I think regular Ouzo is 40% alcohol. This one has 50% alcohol, and if you don't swallow it immediately, it will burn the inside of your mouth. One is supposed to mix it with water but I think it's the sissies who do that.

My goal was to finish it over the Christmas and New Years holidays. The Arak is still in the bottle laughing at me. Maybe this weekend...

Country music in the US.

When I was a kid in Armenia, 7 pm was a special hour. This is when my family would tune in to the 'Voice of America' on frequency 31 on our short wave radio. The signal was weak, and it would drift on the dial as the Soviets tried to jam it. So one had to keep an eye on it, and adjust it accordingly. One had to be careful also of the neighbors not being able to hear what were you up to. We lived in a 4 story Khruschev apartment building which had bad sound insulation. Most of the residents were Akhpars (repatriated Armenians from Diaspora) so there was less of a danger of being reported to the authorities as I suspect most of them listened to VOA as well. And I am sure the authorities knew exactly what was going on but chose to turn a blind eye as the Akhpars were not very politically influential as they kept their opinions among themselves - they did not trust the native Armenians very much.



One of the best moments were the weekly music programs. And sometimes they would play this strange music called 'country music'. I didn't understand much what it was about and I didn't know who listened to it. To me it was just another aspect of the American culture that we were prohibited to know.



Two decades later I found myself in the middle of American heartland. One of my neighbors had a black matte Chevy Blazer with a decal that read 'REDNECK' and there was a for sale sign on the window for $1000.00. It would take me a few months to get to know what America was all about and what redneck meant. But my redneck neighbor was cool as were the others.



The music of choice for the heartland is country music. When you drive in the interstate highways, once you are out of the metropolitan areas, you have few choices on your FM radio. You will get a couple of religious channels with either preaching of the Bible or Christian rock. Or you can tune in to a country music channel. I usually tune in to the country music channel.



The Economist has an article titled 'Middle America's soul' that attempts to explain what country music is about. Most of it is true - there is not a lot of cursing, and most of the songs are about broken hearts, sorrow, drinking, and some are about faith. And they are probably right - the audience is the mostly non-coastal population that the politicians refer to as 'conservative'. I don't know if I fit in this demographics very well. I am somewhat of a Libertarian opposed to big government and for open trade and less military adventures abroad. But I am for welfare state (though not the way of giving fish but teaching how to fish), secular governance and racial equality.

Hunters in the snow.

Bruegel_Hunters_in_the_Snow, originally uploaded by nazarian.

One of my more favorite paintings.