Category: News

XINHUA GENERAL NEWS SERVICE
July 5, 2004, Monday
Cyprus, Armenia sign health cooperation agreement
NICOSIA
Cyprus and Armenia signed on Monday a cooperation agreement in the
field of health and medicine.
Cyprus Minister of Health Constantia Akkelidou, who inked the pact,
told reporters after the signing ceremony that this agreement would
provide numerous exchange visits between the two countries and other
ways of cooperation.
Cyprus has fulfilled an old pledge it gave to Armenia by sending
medicine and medical equipments to the country, she said.
Armenian Ambassador to Cyprus Vahram Kazhoyan who represented his
country said there had been a long experience of cooperation in the
field of medical sciences and health care between the two countries.
“I am glad that finally we were able to sign the agreement which puts
all this cooperation in a legal framework,” he said.
As a good gesture stemming up from this agreement, Cyprus will send a
container of medicine to Armenia soon, he added.

ITAR-TASS News Agency
TASS
July 5, 2004 Monday
Russia, Armenia to discuss Nagorno-Karabakh settlement
By Svetlana Alexandrova and Alexandra Urusova
MOSCOW
The Russian and Armenian Foreign Ministers, Sergei Lavrov and Vardan
Oskanyan, will discuss here on Tuesday ways of settling the
Nagorno-Karabakh problem.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Yakovenko said, “Russia is ready
to contribute to the settlement of the conflict and guarantee the
signing of agreements that will be acceptable for both sides.” “The
participants in the conflict should reach a compromise over this
problem,” he emphasized.
The Moscow talks “will focus on interaction within the CIS, including
within the Collective Security Treaty Organization and the EurAsEC,
and the foreign ministries’ joint efforts aimed at improving the
situation in the Caucasus.”
The Armenian foreign minister’s visit on July 5-7 will give an
additional impulse to Russian-Armenian relations which have a firm
legal basis, the spokesman said.
Trade and economic cooperation will be among priorities during the
talks. In 2003, trade turnover between Russia and Armenia increased
by 34.5 percent to 203.3 million U.S. dollars. Russia’s exports to
Armenia grew 33.5 percent to reach 126.2 million dollars, while
imports increased 36 percent to 77.1 million dollars.
In the course of his visit, Oskanyan will also meet with chairman of
the State Duma Committee for the CIS and Relations with Compatriots
Andrei Kokoshin.
The Russian and Armenian foreign ministers meet regularly. The
previous talks were held in Moscow last November.

ITAR-TASS News Agency
TASS
July 5, 2004 Monday
FC international committee calls for ratification of adapted CFE
By Lyudmila Yermakova
MOSCOW
Committee on International Affairs at the Federation Council, the
upper house of parliament, has supported the ratification of the
Conventional Forces in Europe treaty (CFE) and decided to recommend
the house members to ratify the document at a plenary session on July
7.
“The treaty is one of basic elements forming the patterns of European
security and stability,” the committee’s chairman, Mikhail Margelov
said.
“The ratification will enable Russia to keep its military forces in
Ukraine and Armenia,” he said. “The treaty also envisages the
building up of confidence between Russia and NATO and precludes the
covert formation of large-scale forces in Europe.”
Considering the fact that only Belarus, Ukraine and Kazakhstan have
ratified the adapted treaty, the committee members decided to prepare
a letter of address to other 27 signatories urging them to do
likewise.
On Tuesday, July 6, the letter of address will be submitted to the
council of the upper house and on Wednesday, July 7, to the all the
house members for affirmation.
Members of the Committee also called on the Federation Council and
the State Duma, the lower house, “to take steps to consolidating
Russia’s positions in different international organizations,
including in the Council of Europe (CE) and NATO, so as to press for
ratification of the treaty.”

Agency WPS
DEFENSE and SECURITY (Russia)
July 5, 2004, Monday
ARMENIAN GOVERNMENT EARNS MONEY ON “DODGERS”
The Armenian government has earned some $74,000 on “dodgers” from
military service: 120 Armenian citizens liable for military service
preferred to pay money into the budget to being conscripted. The
might-have-been protectors of fatherland used the opportunity,
provided by the law on dodgers from military service, passed on March
1, 2004. The law envisages payment of 100 minimum wages (about $200)
twice a year as a “compensation” for each conscription missed. The
amount of $200 suffices six months. The maximal fee per conscript has
been $3,300. So far, this chance is only give to persons, who reached
the age of 27 before the law was passed.
According to the Armenian Defense Ministry, over 5,000 citizens come
under this law. After the above sums are paid, these persons are
fully relieved of criminal responsibility for dodging the military
service.
Source: Moskovsky Komsomolets, July 2, 2004, p. 7
Translated by Andrei Ryabochkin

ITAR-TASS News Agency
TASS
July 6, 2004 Tuesday
Russia opposes foreign interference in Middle East
By Viktor Lebedev
DUBAI, July 6
Russia opposes any interference from the outside in the affairs of
the Middle East countries. Countries of that region are capable of
upholding their security on their own. There is no need for foreign
and military presence in the region, Igor Ivanov, head of the Russian
Security Council said at a meeting with chairman of the Iranian
National Security Council Hasan Rouhani in Teheran.
Ivanov, who arrived in the Iranian capital on Monday for discussing
some problems of regional and international security with Iranian
leaders, spoke in favour of a further development and consolidation
of political relations between Moscow and Teheran, especially in the
present-day international situation and following the latest
developments in the region, in the interests of the settlement of
regional problems, of the restoration of stability and security.
Ivanov said the building of a nuclear power plant in Bousher with
Russian assistance would be completed in 2005. It will be put in
operation in 2006. He described the projects for the building of oil
pipelines from Iran to Armenia, Pakistan and India as “projects of
major strategic importance” and reaffirmed Russia’s willingness to
cooperate with Iran in that sphere. Ivanov welcomed Teheran’s
cooperation with international organisations in the sphere of a
peaceful use of atomic energy.
In his turn, Hasan Rouhani opposed the attempts of the NATO countries
to ensure their presence in the Caspian Sea area and stressed it ran
counter to the interests of countries of that region and created a
threat for their security. He said the Caspian Sea countries should
cooperate in the sphere of security and suggested the holding of
meetings of heads of their security councils in the interests of
strengthening peace.
Hasan Rouhani described the Bousher nuclear power plant as “a vivid
example of technical cooperation” between Iran and Russia.

The Times Union (Albany, NY)
June 27, 2004 Sunday THREE STAR EDITION
Old-world skills shape Armenian family’s livelihood
For years, customers bought CDs at The Music Shack without knowing
what was happening in the basement.
There, in a woodworking shop that looks like it was transported from
19th-century Istanbul, Shahin Kasparian and his extended Armenian
family use battered hand chisels, planes and saws to shape intricate
woodwork for Ovation guitars.
Their ebony, walnut, teak, rosewood and bird’s-eye maple creations
can be seen in the expensive Ovations played by Larry Coryell, Al
DiMeola and Joan Armatrading.
A fourth-generation cabinetmaker, Kasparian has had a contract with
Ovation for 20 years.
With hand tools and power sanders laid at rest for a morning break,
the family sits around a small table, dipping biscotti into mugs of
American coffee.
“We like it better than Turkish,” they say.
Drinking American coffee is a small stab at payback. Turks massacred
thousands of Armenians in 1915.
“We always had religious differences in Turkey. They’re Muslim and
we’re Christian,” says Kasparian, whose grandfather was killed in the
Armenian genocide.
“The Turks called us infidels,” he says. “We came for freedom. We
like America.”
His talk is punctuated by the metronomic creak of footfalls overhead
on the wooden floorboards of Rocky Roy’s Music Shack, which has moved
to Colonie.
Kasparian, 53, fled Istanbul in 1972 and settled in Columbia County,
where he made furniture. He was 22 years old and hasn’t been back to
Turkey since.
Kasparian later brought over his parents, Nisan and Layla Kasparoglu,
who are in their 70s, and his brother and his wife, Argentine and
Alis Kasparoglu. They work together in the shop. All but Kasparian
live in upstairs apartments. Kasparian, who owns the building, lives
in Glenmont with his wife, Karen, who is the bookkeeper.
In between churning out guitar components and custom furniture,
Kasparian has dabbled in real estate and other businesses. He sold 95
Central Ave. to Equinox. He sold 57-59 Central Ave., which is empty.
He owns 61 Central Ave., which is also vacant after his relatives
tried unsuccessfully to operate a high-end imported rug outlet,
Central Orientals. He rents 83-85 Central Ave. to S&S Used Furniture.
Like the pigeons his wife feeds on The Avenue, he’s found his roost
here.
“Central Avenue is a melting pot,” he says. “It all depends on how
you look at it. Some people don’t like what’s down here. They forget
that this country was formed by immigrants.”

The New York Sun
July 2, 2004 Friday
Oh, Yerevan!
By BORIS GULKO and GABRIEL SCHOENFELD
Is there such a thing as national style in chess? One testing ground
for answering this question is the recently concluded match in Moscow
between selected great players from around the world and the best
players of Armenia. The unusual tournament is devoted to the memory
of Tigran Petrosian, the 1963-69 world champion. The Armenian team
featured such strong players as Garry Kasparov (whose mother is
Armenian), Peter Leko (whose wife is Armenian), and the Israeli
grandmaster Boris Gelfand (who was a pupil of Petrosian). Despite
this array of Armenian (and near-Armenian) talent, the world team
won, 18.5 to 17.5.
The best game of the match was played by a genuine Armenian, Rafael
Vaganian, against the British grandmaster Michael Adams. Throughout,
Vaganian played in the unique style of the late, great Petrosian. If
Armenia can be said to have a national style in chess, it is
exemplified by white’s play in this particular game.
VAG ANIAN VS. ADAMS
(white) (black)
Queen’s Pawn Game
1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 e6 3.e3 b6 4.Bd3 Bb7 5.0-0 d5 6.b3 Bd6
More precise here was 6…Nbd7
7.Bb2 Be7 with the intention of exchanging the white knight on d7
immediately should it appear on
e5. 7.Bb2 0-0 8.Ne5 c5 9.Nd2 Nc6
It was better to keep control over
the e4 square by playing 9…Nbd7
and to meet 10.f4 with 10…Ne4. 10.a3 a5 11.f4 Ne7 More consistent
was 11…a4 and 12.Bb5 Na7 13.bxa4 c4 is not dangerous for black.
After the move in the game, black’s previous move is shown to be a
waste of time. 12.Rf3 cxd4 In case of 12…c4 the ground would be
prepared for Petrosian’s favorite operation, the positional exchange
sacrifice: 13.bxc4! dxc4 14.Ndxc4 Bxf3 15.Qxf3 with huge
compensation. 13.! Bxd4! Bxe5? This exchange weakens the black
squares in black’s camp. The immediate 13…Ne4 14.Rh3 Nf5 15.Bxe4
dxe4 16.Ndc4 Nxd4 17.exd4 Be7 18.c3 g6 was better; also, 13…Nf5
14.Rh3 Rc8 would yield a playable position to black. 14.fxe5 Ne4
15.Rh3 Nf5 16.Bxe4! dxe4 17.Nc4 Nxd4 Now the white knight will
dominate the board, but the alternative 17…b5 18.Nd6! Bc6 (black is
the victim of a beautiful mate after 18…Nxd6 19.exd6 g6 20.Qh5!)
19.Qh5 h6 20.Bc5 Nxd6 21.Bxd6 Re8 22.Rg3 would lead to unbear able
pressure on the kingside. 18.exd4 Bc6 19.Nd6 Qg5 Again black had a
sad choice: in case of 19…a4 20.Qh5 h6 21.Rg3 Kh7 22.Rf1 Ra7
23.Rf6! gxf6 24.Rh3 he would be mated on the kingside. Now however he
perishes on the queenside. 20.Rc3! Bd5 21.Rg3 Qf4 22.c4 Bc6 23.Qf1!
Qxf1+ No better was 23…Qh6 24.Qf6 Qxf6 25.exf6 g6 26.c5. 24.Rxf1
Rab8 25.Rf4 b5 26.c5! a4 More stubborn was 26…b4 27.a4 Bd5. 27.b4
Rbd8 28.Rfg4! g6! 29.Rf4 Kg7 30.Rf6! White has obtained full control
over the black squares. The position is a startling reminder of the
famous game Petrosian-Mecking from a Dutch tournament in 1971. Black
is condemned to utter passivity. 30… Rd7 31.Kf2 Ra8 32.Ke3 Raa7
33.h4 h6 34.Rh3 Rd8 35.Rh1 Re7 36.h5 g5
(See diagram)
37.d5! The final blow is on a white square. 37… Bxd5 Of course, not
37…ed because of 39. Nf5+. 38.Nxb5 1-0

Newsday (New York)
July 4, 2004 Sunday
NASSAU AND SUFFOLK EDITION
BY STEPHANIE MCCRUMMEN. STAFF WRITER
On Sundays, Josephine and Richard Cawley would often trade their
everyday worries for long drives east, with no particular destination
in mind.
They’d leave their house in Williston Park and head toward the end of
the expressway, beyond houses and traffic and loud things, and when
time came to fork north or south, they usually picked north.
Soon, they were speeding past open fields and the quiet gray of the
Long Island Sound.
They felt an affinity for it. They made the drive again and again.
Then one day Richard Cawley saw that a motel they often passed was
for sale, a one-story strip of 15 rooms along North Road, facing the
water. He decided to take early retirement from the phone company,
and at the end of June 1994, he and Josephine bought the place.
During summer months, they moved into one of the rooms while they ran
the motel, and soon, a novel feeling settled over Josephine.
“Strangely enough – you wouldn’t understand … ” she began,
apologetically. “I’m from England and my husband’s from Ireland.
We’ve been here 40 years, but up until 10 years ago, I never felt at
home on Long Island. I never felt at home until I came here. For the
first time, I felt settled.”
What Josephine Cawley found was what generations of Greek and
Armenian families have found at the unassuming motel they book solid
summer after summer: the paradox of a temporary place that feels
familiar, like home.
“They come here because it reminds them of where they came from,”
Josephine said of her guests, and herself.
Since the Cawleys’ Sunday drives, the North Fork increasingly has
become like the tonier South Fork: real estate prices have
skyrocketed as people from Manhattan have bought summer homes.
Wineries have flourished and some art galleries, and now Greenport
has a boutique hotel that offers reflexology and herbal bath
treatments. Billy Joel bought a place.
But Cawley’s Southold Beach Motel is much as it has been since the
1950s. It is all yellow siding and 15 screen doors that open to a
deck with chairs facing the water. And if its blue is not as bright
as the Aegean in Greece or Lake Sevan in Armenia, if the green does
not roll over hills as in Josephine’s England, North Fork summers at
Cawley’s are pleasingly pale and unfold like a ritual.
The Armenians, mostly from New Jersey, come starting this weekend,
and August belongs to the Greeks, mostly from Astoria and elsewhere
in the city. The Cawleys estimate that at least 75 percent of their
guests are regulars.
Soon, there will be Nick, who books the same room the same three days
of the week, every week, summer after summer. There will be the
painters and diamond dealers and the man Josephine knows as the
red-headed Greek. They will sit all day under an umbrella on the
coarse sand of Southold Town beach, play cards and fish for smelts
with nets cast into the Sound.
At night, as cars brush past on North Road, they will get dressed up
and cook the catch in the yard behind the motel. They will offer some
to the Cawleys, and the Cawleys will politely refuse, and the sky
will turn orange.
“We’ve got beautiful sunsets,” Josephine said. “They’ve been written
about.”
Last week, she and Richard, who met 37 years ago at a dance hall in
Queens, were getting things ready for another season. Josephine
walked around to the backyard, where white lawn chairs were still
tilted against tables, and where she had planted a garden of
marigolds and impatiens and a pink tea rose she had transplanted from
her house in Williston Park.
Richard gave it to her in 1971, she was saying, just after a long
strike at the phone company that had left him out of work. “He said,
‘If they survive, we’ll survive,'” Josephine said.
This August, the Cawleys will have paid off their mortgage on the
motel. Richard Cawley says that Josephine always wanted a home by the
water, and now she has one, at least during summer.
GRAPHIC: Photo by Howard Schnapp-Richard and Josephine Cawley at
their motel, where Josephine said she finally “felt settled.”

Newsday (New York)
July 4, 2004 Sunday
ALL EDITIONS
An American dream
BY JAN TYLER. freelance writer.
Michael Halberian’s father, Jack, was a 17-year-old immigrant from
Armenia when he first saw the Steinway Mansion in 1914. In those
days, the imposing structure was the centerpiece of a 440-acre
country estate. Standing on a bluff overlooking the East River in
Astoria, the summer home of the piano-making Steinway family with its
lofty square tower “was to him like a grand stone castle,” says
Michael.
“My father was a simple tailor; he’d see the ‘castle’ every day from
across the fields on his way to work. To him it was a symbol of what
anyone could aspire to in America. He was a dreamer, but he was
determined to own it one day.”
His father’s dream came true in 1926 – the year Michael was born. The
25-room Steinway mansion, its property reduced to only one acre, came
on the market, and Jack went into debt to come up with the $40,000 he
needed to make it his own.
The house already had a place in history.
William Steinway had purchased the mansion in 1870 from the widow of
Benjamin Pike Jr., the man who built it. A manufacturer of optical
instruments, Pike had images of his stock-in-trade etched into the
glass inserts of a pair of massive walnut doors that connect the
mansion’s twin parlors. “The Smithsonian once wanted to buy those
doors,” says Michael. “But I wouldn’t sell them.”
The house stands in the district once called Steinway Village near
the Steinway & Sons piano factory. The family built homes for its
workers and added municipal improvements that included a trolley line
and a tunnel under the East River used by the city subway system. But
eventually the Steinways abandoned the mansion, where they had hosted
elegant parties, in favor of more fashionable locales and it stood
empty until Jack Halberian purchased it.
“The place was in excellent condition,” says
Michael, “but it had never been wired for electricity; it ran on
gaslight. For some reason the Steinways had shut off the water, which
was piped in from their factory, and the coal furnace sent up more
dust than heat. My father did most of the repairs and upkeep with his
own hands.”
Jack Halberian and his wife Shamie furnished the place with Edwardian
and Victorian pieces that complemented the classic backgrounds – but
they never attempted to alter their home’s architectural integrity.
All the public rooms – including a cavernous library and a demi-lune
dining room – retain their original glory. The parlors are paneled in
age-darkened pine, their 12-foot- high ceilings and wide crown
moldings encrusted with ornately detailed Beaux-Arts sculptured
plaster.
When his father died 25 years ago, Michael, a restaurateur, moved
back into his boyhood home with his wife and three children. “I put
everything I have into this place, like my father did. I wanted to
honor him and his dream.”
Now retired and divorced, Michael lives amid the fading splendor with
three dogs that patrol the fenced-in property, a lone chicken with
roaming privileges and a pair of house cats. He collects bronze and
marble statuary as well as historical artifacts and assorted
memorabilia that he displays on tables and sideboards and the mantels
of five fireplaces.
“I buy what catches my fancy at the moment,” he says. His main
interest at the moment is a collection of nonfiction books on a
variety of subjects, just a fraction of the more than 30,000 titles
in the library’s floor-to-ceiling shelves and in the upper gallery of
the center hall.
The gallery is reached by a graceful curved staircase illuminated by
a crystal chandelier 7 feet in diameter that he bought at auction. A
motorized mechanism of his making raises and lowers the half-ton
fixture that he believes once sparkled in a Whitney estate and now
hangs from a leaded-glass skylight 30 feet above the main floor.
Like his father before him, Michael is passionate about the survival
of the house. Which is why, in 1966, he applied for – and received –
city, state and national landmark status for it. He speaks with
reverence about his father’s vision and his mother’s warmth and
humor. “No one ever grew up in a more loving atmosphere.”
There was just one element from the mansion’s glory days that Michael
couldn’t preserve. He shows a photograph of the original cast-iron
portico and supporting pillars that distinguished the front entry
even in his childhood. Rusted and worn by time and weather, the
ornate portico would have cost $250,000 to replace. Reluctantly, he
removed it several years ago.
Now the still-impressive pillars stand alone – silent sentries of a
time before a waste treatment plant and industrial complexes intruded
on the pastoral setting, a time when the mansion on the river’s shore
was a symbol of the American dream.
GRAPHIC: NEWSDAY PHOTOS / BRUCE GILBERT – 1) LANDMARK: The 25-room
stone castle on a bluff holds on to its place in history. 2)
surrounded by History: The parlor’s intricately carved mantel and
sculptured plaster moldings harken to bygone days. 3) SPLENDOR IN THE
PAST: Michael Halberian’s eclectic collection of antique statuary,
left, is displayed throughout the house. 4) Below, from left:
elaborate moldings around the library skylight; 5) exterior pillars
stand tall against the vagaries of time; 6) ceiling medallion in the
parlor; 7) etched glass in the massive walnut front doors. 8) Newsday
Cover Photo by Bruce Gilbert – A half-ton crystal chandelier hangs 30
feet above the foyer in the Steinway mansion.

Los Angeles Times
July 5, 2004 Monday
Home Edition
Doubts don’t dog him
by AL MARTINEZ
I sing today of a happy man, who sits in the sunlight of a free
country, celebrating the right of individual choice, one hot dog at a
time.
At 35, Shawn Yekikian has for the last 18 years exercised that right
by shunning the big-time competitive world of moneymaking to sell
dogs, chips and soft drinks from a small cart parked less than a
block from the ocean.
“It’s what I want to do,” he says, preparing a hot dog for a customer
with the loving care of a gourmet chef, removing it carefully from
its steamy confines and laying it into a Vienna bun. “I’ll do it as
long as I can.”
He tells about a man who drove up one day in a new $300,000
Lamborghini and bought a hot dog. “I asked why a guy with a car like
that would buy a hot dog from a vendor,” Yekikian says. “He said
because he liked to help the little people!”
The hot dog man laughs loudly. He’s a big man, 300 pounds and 6
feet-plus, and his laugh fits his size. “So I guess I’m a little
people.”
He calls his stand “Rainy Day Hot Dogs,” in honor of his 4-year-old
daughter, Rain, whose name he chose because rain is gentle and
soothing. His logo is a hot dog in a cloud, with rain falling from
it.
I had passed his stand many times at Topanga Canyon Boulevard and
Pacific Coast Highway. There was always someone sitting with him at a
small table he brings so his customers can relax and eat their dogs,
and maybe join him in discussions of sports and politics. Music from
a portable radio plays softly throughout the day.
I love hot dogs almost as much as I love ice cream and martinis, so I
stopped by one day, and his dogs are delicious. Yekikian buys kosher
Shofar products, which he considers the best, and asks all his
customers “Is that OK?” as they eat, even if they have stopped by
daily for months and obviously savor every bite.
What struck me, in addition to the care he displayed preparing the
dog, was the aura of joy that seemed to surround him. I sensed a
happy man, and in a world of mind-numbing stress, happiness is a
rarity indeed. He lives no life of quiet desperation but rises each
day at 4 a.m. to face the prospect of doing exactly what he wants to
do from dawn to sunset, at least six days a week.
Bearded, with longish hair and thick-lensed glasses, Yekikian was
born near Boston, and although brought to L.A. at six months, that
part of him that loves sports remains in Beantown. He wears a Boston
Red Sox cap and a Boston Celtics T-shirt. His good luck piece is a
Boston Patriots cap hanging from the front of his cart.
He began selling hot dogs just after high school, helping an old man
who taught him the business, and decided that the life of a hot dog
vendor was what he wanted. It was a laid-back outdoors existence for
a guy who is easygoing and loves meeting people.
But his Armenian parents wanted their sons to be professionals. Of
Yekikian’s brothers, one is a lawyer, the other a dentist.
At first, Yekikian lied and said he’d given up selling hot dogs, when
in fact, after his mentor died, he’d bought one of his carts and had
gone into business for himself. Later, feeling guilty and wishing to
honor his father’s request, he attended college for two years while a
friend watched his cart, and he earned an associate of arts degree in
criminal justice. Finally, he told his pop the truth and won his
blessing to spend his life adding to the 2 billion pounds of hot dogs
Americans eat each year.
“I love this place,” he says, referring to the oceanside location, as
the number of customers increases proportionately to the going-home
commuter traffic. A man in a Mercedes stops to buy a dog. A young guy
in a pickup buys two, as he does every day. Then: a dude in black
leather in a black SUV. A motorcyclist. Two women in a yellow VW. A
Mexican day worker.
A hot dog sells for $2.50. You select your own condiments from
containers laid neatly in a row, except for the mayonnaise, which he
keeps refrigerated.
“This isn’t the most important job in the world,” Yekikian says, a
little self-consciously. “It’s not like being a policeman or a
fireman. But I like it.” He makes enough to get by, he adds. What
more does he need?
I write of Shawn Yekikian because in his way he glorifies America’s
basic freedom, that being the freedom to choose a career less
traveled. It is in the same category of not doing what everyone else
thinks is right, but setting off on a path of one’s own because
that’s what a whisper in the wind says to do.
Hot dogs may not be the healthiest food in the world and they aren’t
even native food, but they somehow represent us, and the spirit
displayed by Yekikian.
So celebrate America the next time you drive into the canyon from the
ocean. Buy a hot dog.
Al Martinez’s column appears Mondays and Fridays. He’s at
[email protected].
GRAPHIC: PHOTO: PICTURE OF CONTENTMENT: For 18 years, Shawn Yekikian,
35, has sold hot dogs from a cart at Topanga Canyon Boulevard and
Pacific Coast Highway. “It’s what I want to do,” he says simply.
PHOTOGRAPHER: Annie Wells Los Angeles Times