LIFE

Click Here to see the Film "Life" by Artavazd Peleshian

PS. Anyone ever wonders why there are no films gloryfing abortion?

UW Obama is no US Grant- 'Unconditional Withdrawl Obama' is no 'Unconditional Surrender Grant'

by Yervand Kochar

Every time I catch Obama giving a speech on TV, I wonder why they broadcast it live.
Every speech sounds exactly like the one given a day before. After all, how many different messages of hope and change can you bring from Monday through Thursday?

Obama hammers the abstracts of change and hope so consistently that even he believes that once he becomes the Wizard of the United States of OZ, he will cease being a man from Kansas anymore. His demagogue repetition of the same magic words of hope and change is amplified by the machinery of the media hidden behind the curtain of fascination that hopes so much with Obama that as a result of a prolonged journey into the OZ Hillary got heart, Edwards got courage and Kucinich got brains.
The only problem that Dorothy may not be sent back home to Kansas but may stay around, get on welfare and listen to Deepak Chopra as she tries to empower herself for the rest of her life as a single mom.

What is really troubling about Obama is not the fact that his presidential platform sounds increasingly like a user profile on MySpace but the fact that he is the only black man in the American politics that is not linked to the heritage of the black slavery. This alone is not basis for equating the man with a gramophone, but it is odd for a half white guy to come across as the ultimate reparation for the plight of the descendants of the Western African chattel slaves. After all, slavery was not about just skin color but a repression of a specific group of people who happened to have a different skin color.

But even this is not enough for dismissing Obama as an African-American candidate.
He is more African in heritage than most of the black Americans and this alone gives him basis of identification with the issues of slavery.
I mean, you don’t even have to be black to understand the trauma of slavery and the plight of the civil rights. So the question is, ‘Does he really understand what slavery meant and means to the African-Americans who have a direct generational link to it?’

What makes me doubt this is his indifference to the destiny of another oppressed and formerly enslaved people, the people of Iraq. If the hope and change are the nails on which his candidacy hangs on the shaky wall of the American political interest, the immediate withdrawal of the US forces from Iraq is the frame that embraces the image of his candidacy. Obama’s insistence on withdrawal is based on the fact that Iraqi people have to take responsibility for their own future and stop depending on the US help.

Now, let’s rewind to year 1877 when the Northerners, worn out by the not so distant Civil War and continuous occupation of the South, were calling upon the withdrawal of the Union army from the defeated South.
People got tired of fighting with the former slave owners who just could not accept the fact that their former slaves were put into positions of power. Under the pressure and constant unrest in the South by the Democrats, the Republican political establishment in the North began to give in and got weary of supporting the effort of elevating the former slaves to a position of a normal citizenry. The Democrats in the South threatened the second secession and an electoral deadlock over the presidency of the Republican Rutherford Hayes if Northern Republicans continued the Reconstruction process and the empowerment of the blacks.

A radical wing of the Democratic party formed a terrorist organization known as KKK which was dedicated to undoing the Reconstruction process by brutally and demonstratively murdering blacks and the Republican operatives in the South.

Under the ferocious pressure from the Democratic political establishment in the South and the public opinion in the North, Republicans had to withdraw the armed forces from the South leaving the blacks alone with their former tormentors. This unfinished process resulted in violence, segregation and had disastrous consequences for the post war reconstruction and racial harmony.

Therefore, not only Obama but any Black-American who does not understand how a premature withdrawal of the US forces will affect the people of Iraq has no right to represent the issue of slavery.
Obama simply uses the wound of slavery when he needs to hurt people who feel guilty about it and drops it when the people he needs don’t care about the wound at all.

The tragedy of history may very well be in its ruthless irony; when a race that rose out of the ashes of human slavery and a monumental struggle against it, chooses a leader that may cause a chain of events that will make the slavery happen all over again.

And this, my friends, is no change. This is history repeating itself over and over to people who always hope that they can learn from repetition but always make the same mistakes out of habit.

In Memory of 9/11

This evening I traveled my usual subway route back home to Wall St.

As I got off the train and walked past the many locked gates, following the crowd to the one open exit entering the street, I very slowly walked upstairs passing the many police and military personnel. As I stopped at the police barricades, I slowly lifted my eyes to look at the site of the WTC. I had seen this site many times before, in glory, not in destruction.

I took for granted those magnificent buildings towering into the clouds; I took for granted all the people who worked in those great towers bringing them to life. I now stared at the blocks and blocks of wreckage that was once our WTC. They were the symbol of a free world, and you know what? They still are.
Yes, physically they have fallen, but what they stood for still exists in spirit. They can be felt -stronger than ever, and now all over the world.
The beautiful NY skyline will be forever altered, but her spirit will never change. There is a new heart in the city, felt everywhere, and actually a new heart in our country, a pulsating passion for freedom and peace. We lost many heroes, thousands in that building; the amazing men and women who gave and risked their own lives to help strangers. All the people who worked there who didn't make it out, their families and friends. Yes, our brothers and sisters lost many, some a father, mother, child, husband, boss, worker, friend. And all the people who lost the first person they would see, or greet in the morning, the many friends one makes in the workplace, and this was no ordinary workplace, these buildings housed 50 thousand on any given day.

They are all heroes, and they need love, support and much prayer. On that fated day, many watched the buildings they worked in and loved crumble in a black cloud, taking their friends and family with them. As they watched on TV in horror and disbelief, or ran from the crumbling buildings, crying and covered in the dust of death, all were bathed in shock and horror. This could not be happening, but it was, and the sight, smells, sounds and emotions they can never run from. Grief and trauma was now embedded in their spirit. It is now embedded in all our spirits; for we learned that day that the freedom and security we once knew would never be the same.

I was a few blocks away in my apartment when the first plane hit. The sound of that plane tearing through the tower I will never forget. I knew at that moment many were dead. I huddled in fear as I listened to the sounds of death. How can one ever forget the sight, smell and sound, of it all? I never will, as I prayed and waited in fear, were we being attacked, 'Was the whole city under siege? Was it the end of the world? Well, that's what it felt like and I really thought I might die that morning.

I didn't know if I would live as the day turned tonight, as the blackness of the falling buildings engulfed our building in a cloud of dust and debris. As each building fell and the walls quivered, I held my girlfriend and prayed. And then the flood of tears and anguish came, screaming out for the thousands of people I knew were in that area, and for my very dear friend Brian, who I knew worked in Tower 1.

That's when we lost power, and that's when I could feel the souls of thousand leaving the earth. I cried and prayed for the souls I knew were gone, so fast, so unexpected. I felt the pain, the fear and the loss. My body started shaking, I was never so full of anguish in my life. All my body and soul felt was the sound of the WTC collapsing and the sound of the people crying for help.

We remained in darkness with a candle and a radio. My girlfriend and I spent the rest of the day into evening listening to fighter planes and choppers overhead. The sound of the snow plows picking up the debris and many inches of ash sounded like gunfire in the streets.

We cried ourselves to sleep. We woke to a great stillness, as if there had been a great snowstorm. Everything outside was white and quiet, very quiet. So we packed a few things and made our way down 10 flights of blackness. We were at the street, and in shock, as we covered our mouths with scarfs. We saw what we never thought we would see on our shores, no less in the great city of New York. Military tankers and personnel were everywhere, carrying large guns atop the tanks, and on top of our buildings. Yes, there were tanks heading down Wall Street. Does anyone ever think they will see this?

There were more police then I have ever seen in my life, and those sounds, the sounds of rescue where everywhere with a most haunting melody. As I write I must stop as I catch my breath and wipe my tears. Because I still can't believe this happened.

The sites and sounds are scratched upon my soul and a great sadness with it.It is the eve of the second week since the attack.

The shock has not gotten better but worse. Police, firefighters and military are everywhere so brave and caring. I want to hug every one of you.

There is also a strange quiet in the streets, and a reserve in the subways. People don't push and are quicker to offer their seats. There doesn't seem to be different races anymore either, it has all changed, we now realize we are all one and we fight a much bigger enemy than our own bigotry. For when the WTC was attacked, all Americans and the free world was attacked. A part of us all was lost that day, but a renewed strength and spirit has replaced it. We all need to be proud and to discard any guilt we may feel.

We need to dance with love and life, for life on this planet is short, and one never knows when we, or a loved one will leave it.

My fellow New Yorkers and Countrymen have shown a unity of love that I am so proud to be a part of. To be part of the family we call America and part of the family of the free world. I am damn proud as we renew our faiths, renew our spirits and fight for truth.

So, if I may borrow from a great late night TV show, 'LIVE FROM NEW YORK CITY!' We will survive stronger then ever. May God bless and protect you and your family. Remember, when fear besieges your soul and heart, hold the hand of the Divine, hold it real tight, and you will realize, no matter what the loss: YOU make a difference, we are all needed now, love is needed now.

Don't give up the good fight.

Bean-girl

(written two weeks after September 11, 2001)

The Velveteen Rabbit

Fifty years ago women everywhere were stuffed into a roll cleverly made up for us by the elites of America.
In this roll we could be everything, we could be a Mother, a worker, “it’s our bodies” Women, 'we will do as we like Women'.
All our morals meant nothing as “We Are Women.” We were told that nothing mattered but us and our wants and our goals. And most of us sat and watched and read this all on TV and in the Madison Avenue magazines. And we became dazed.

We became a stuffed version of ourselves; we became a toy, a toy for the Media and Politicians, as they used us for cheap sex, and a vote, all this as they tore our bodies apart, while dressing us in sexy lingerie. We became stuffed toys for the elites to use as they wished.

When the news of Sarah Palin as a VP choice came out last week… America took a big sigh of relief. Why?

Was it just Republicans who took this breath? Was it independent women, most women, some Democrats? Who was it that took this deep sigh of relief?

It was almost everyone in America except for the mainstream media, the Democratic pundits, and the hard-core leftists.

Yes, women everywhere, even the ones that were sold on hope and change, took that healing breath. Why? Because Sarah IS hope and change, she does not talk about it, she is it, without effort, not feigned, just is!
Why is she our hope and our change? She is just a woman, with five kids, pretty, not a model though, married for 20 years, and, frankly, average in many ways.

And, that is why American took that breath of relief, for she is REAL. Yes, real… finally women became real. Like in ‘The Velveteen Rabbit’, all that the child and the rabbit ever wanted was to be real and that is what America has been waiting for almost 50 years, for a Woman in politics to be real, to have a woman role model who is a real woman.
Not a clone of a man Hillary, not a Barbara Streisand or an Oprah woman. No, super Hollywood types just can’t cut it, they are not real. They kept us holding our breath, in the hope that one day we can be like them, a fabricated ideal, a well marketed and distributed feminist fantasy.

Now we breathe…we see a real deal who is like us. We don’t need the ‘empowerment’ that only takes away from our real power, we just have to be ourselves, we have to be REAL and that what Sarah Palin represents

You see America has been waiting without knowing it for someone who is real. No hairdresser, no makeup artist, no personal trainer. Just a Mom, who loves life, her family, her Country and God. A simple woman who gets things done. Like you, like me.

A woman, a mother, a wife, who holds a job, and does not complain every five minutes about how hard it all has been, while she holds her Down Syndrome baby, a child from God that she loved… she did not see this baby as a punishment, but a gift from God.
And we see her as a gift from God. We can finally throw out all the ads of the sexy perfect working woman, the sex symbol woman, the sex in the city woman, the woman who has no morals. We were never them, they tried to make us them.

Now we are finally seeing us, yes, us.

Sarah is a symbol of the REAL American woman, not the made up Gloria Steinem woman.. Not the Cosmopolitan woman… but the American woman.
A lovely woman, so full of life, abilities, with time for truth, for family and for community...
It is time to say no to the lies that the media has been brainwashing us with for 50 years. We are tired; not from the work but from making believe.

We just want to be real, and Sarah gives us all permission to be real.

Thank you, Sarah, and thank you, John McCain, for having the guts to see that we need a role model. Not a model with five housekeepers, two hairdressers, a stylist, makeup artist, and a Hermes bag but someone we can all relate to- a fighter, a woman like most of us.
A woman, who can do it all, who is not perfectly coifed for the camera. A woman who looks like us, acts like us, and is a symbol of us.
Perhaps, now American woman can come back to life after 50 years of trying to be what she was not and will never be, a fake idea of a woman.

It is our time to become REAL again.

Finally peace out,
Bean-girl

Gurus Gone Wild

by Jeani DiCarlo

I just finished reading a book called “Being in Balance” by Dr. Wayne W. Dyer. It was a lovely book with lovely thoughts reworked from the great healers such as James Allen. Actually it was lovely up until page 63 where Dr. Dyer stepped into his moral duty as a modern age guru feeling compelled to equate the US and its citizens with terrorists.

This was a sad use of his power and even sadder for the many who will read his words and become angrier at the US. Will his words put people in balance or will his opinions make them more fearful of the US, perhaps, creating even more hatred towards his own country?

He did the very thing he told his readers not to do, so Dr. Dyer negated his own philosophy. I suggest the Dr. read James Allen again and refresh his memory. What the world needs is healers who sooth, not incite.

The point here is not whether his opinion is valid or not, after all, we have been having pro and anti war arguments for many years. The point is whether expressing such a radical thought will keep anyone in balance. It certainly threw me out of balance and if Dr. doesn’t care about keeping everyone in balance, but only those who agree with his political views, than he is not a healer but another citizen using his fame to impose his political opinion. Then what’s the difference between him and leftist Hollywood stars, who, by the way, also throw me out of balance?
And if he is not who he claims to be, than who is he?

Dr. Dyer’s book was an early release on QVC, the all-American shopping network, as a “toady’s’ special”, thus, selling in the thousands. Why would any of their buyers allow a book like this that blatantly equates Americans with terrorists to become their darling? To my knowledge, there are not any QVC shoppers who blow up weddings and behead contractors, unless, Dr. Dyer knows of some.

As someone involved with the healing arts and metaphysics, I am constantly dealing with the world of new age gurus that fell so out of balance that they incite hatred around the world. Imagine if they had said something good about the millions helped by the US, thus, soothing many fears and helping to bring an end to the war.

I am convinced that well-meaning men such as Dr. Dyer and the peace movement have caused more war than they realize. I am sure when they leave this planet, they will see how they also played a part in this death dance.

My dear friend is a Muslim woman who has fled from the bonds of slavery; I hear the tears of the torment she has suffered since birth. I hear her cries of gratitude to the US. Why do I hear it and the Dyers of the world do not? Do they choose to turn a deaf ear?

Dr. Dyer, you carefully put the word terrorist in parenthesis as if they are a fabrication of America’s imagination. Dr. Dyer, I am a witness of 9/11. I will not go into detail, but I will tell you that the planes hitting the towers were not flown by people in parenthesis, they were flown by terrorists. The sound of death was not in parenthesis either; the men and women jumping out of the towers were not falling on parenthesis but on a New York City street.

This story is one of great sadness and I do not expect men and women of ‘peace” living in affluence to understand this.
What I ask is men and women of peace to pray and not to incite. Did we not learn that this never works? Why not even one guru ever condemned the acts of the terrorists? Why when Dr. Dyer writes about terrorists he puts the word in parenthesis but he so courageous in attacking his own countrymen? But then again what is any American (including QVC shoppers) going to do to him?

Dr Dyer, you are saying that it is the so-called Law of Attraction that causes our problems. You claim that it is our fault that the Muslim terrorists attack us. Then why don’t you explain how that law functioned when the Muslims began to exterminate Christian populations about 800 years prior to the conception of America?

Mr. Dryer, America did not start a war; this war has been going on
for 1400 years. A base statement that you made in your book shows not only your own hatred unveiled but also your ignorance of world religion and politics. I pray that you put away your hate and trade it in for love, than you will, perhaps, be able to rise to the healer you claim to be. Let’s hope it is in this lifetime, so you don’t have to do this again.

God Is Not Great...or at least not as great as Christopher Hitchens

by Yervand Kochar

In his recent book “God is not Great” Christopher Hitchens writes very graphically about things he cannot see. This work is of great value if one considers reading an appendix of errors and omissions more than the actual book.
Those who think that reading heavy books contributes to global warming can always spare the planet by not reading it. The essence of the book is expressed in its title “God is not Great” and that’s what it is all about.

Back in Armenia years ago, I had a great teacher who said that those who say there is no God think they are God themselves. My teacher was a drama critic. His life was turned into hell by the communist regime for nonconformist approach to …mediaeval Armenian theatre.
The communists also believed that God was not great, that the Party was greater than God.

Christopher Hitchens, though, has a definite advantage before God. God never spoke with a refined British accent as Mr. Hitchens does. (Although for some reason in all Biblical movies Jews, Egyptians and Romans do speak exclusively in the Queen’s English.)
Hitchens may not be saying anything new but he sells it with a British accent and that’s all that matters. This reminds me of another man who speaks with an accent. Hungarian accent. He once said, “Because of the raise of fundamentalism in all religions, now, our old friends, atheists get popular again. But unfortunately they cannot say anything helpful or new. Well, because atheists cannot say anything new”. This man is a bishop of a Gnostic Church in Hollywood. (Not a Gnostic from another ‘God is not Great’ book “The DaVinci’s Code”, but a Gnostic in a sense of knowing God is great since 3rd century AD.)
The bishop escaped Hungary in 1940’s after his father, a count, was shot in the head in front of his eyes by the occupying Communists, who now moved to spread the gospel of God is not great into the Eastern Europe.

So on one side of my equation we have an eloquent, wealthy and famous Englishman spreading the gospel of non-God in a country that relies on God and on the other side we have two foreigners who were persecuted in their countries that rejected God. This is like one of those mediaeval puzzles such as if Cod is omnipotent can He create a stone that He cannot move. Looks like some original thinkers thought that God was probably not that great even in the mediaeval times. This midlevel stuff is really weird!

The problem with Hitchens and people like him is that they are not really atheists or so-called militant atheists. The prove is again in the title of his book. Atheists do not think that God is not great; they think that there is no God. And as the bishop said, atheists cannot say anything new because they adhere to a closed argument. There is no God. Period. What else?
But once you say that God is not great you acknowledge God, you believe in God. You just do not trust God. You think, as my teacher said, that you are better and greater than God.
I will not go into lengths to prove my teacher's idea, but I urge you to do it yourself, in a scientific, empirical approach (an approach one wishes Charles Darwin and Al Gore would employ in their religious quest).
Observe people who claim that God is not great and you will notice a common characteristic that manifests throughout all of them. They are proud, superfluous and they think they are better than anyone else.

What these people do not understand about religion is the fact that true religion liberates one from the very concept of God and desperate attempts in trying to figure it out. True religion makes one to be an organic and important part of a whole creation. In its very essence religion is irreligious. By submitting to something that you think is greater than you are, you see yourself in perspective and realize how great you are after all.
When you deny God you inevitably place yourself into a position where you have to be like God, you have to worry like God and you have to be tortured with the idea of God and God’s role in society. Like the communists, you get into a paranoid frenzy and believe that someone’s opinion about mediaeval theatre can be threatening to the well being of society.
You need not to have God as unconsciously as the fundamentalist need to have Him. You depend on God for His not being. You become ardently religious and fundamentally annoyed by yourself and your and others religions which now seem to be the cause of all the confusion in your self-centered universe

Of course, again, it all can be far less torturous and could even pass as an original thought when the center of the universe thinks and sells it with the British accent. Yet, once you find yourself in a prison cell and the accent evaporates in the morning like alcohol in Paris Hilton’s brain, just like Miss Hilton the first book you kind of want to open, even if the urge is instinctive and temporary, is the one that says that God is still great… or at least greater than Christopher Hitchens.