GIVING CARE: A FULL-TIME JOB; HANOVER WIFE GETS BY WITHOUT MUCH HELP FROM STATE
By Sue Scheible

The Patriot Ledger, MA
Dec 11 2006

Elsa Hart got her hopes up when she read that Massachusetts will
now pay family caregivers. "My elation didn’t last long," said Hart,
who is 71 and has provided round-the-clock care for her 84-year-old
husband, Vartan, since his massive stroke four years ago. Two new
state programs don’t include spouses or parents among the caregivers
paid for what they do. Children and other family members are eligible.

"It’s a shame, because I really could use some help here," Hart said.

She begins her days at 3 a.m., when her husband wakes up, and is on
duty until 8 p.m. when they both go to sleep.

They have been married for 49 years. Her husband, called Varty,
had a massive stroke in April 2002. It left him unable to speak
and paralyzed on his right side, but he understands what is said,
recognizes family and friends, enjoys TV and smiles often.

After the stroke, he was hospitalized and went to a nursing home for
nearly three months of rehabilitation. But after he lost 30 pounds
and Elsa saw how unhappy he was, she brought him home to Hanover.

"You could see it in his eyes," she said.

The state has two programs that will pay some caregivers but does
not include spouses or parents – apparently because for them, it is
considered a family duty.

"I don’t mind doing it all," Hart said.

She once worked as a nurse’s aide and is clearly devoted to her
husband and cheerful about her lot. But she does get tired and she
does feel confined.

"Some days, I feel that if I don’t get out, I’m going to go crazy,
but when I do get away, I’m happy to come home," she said.

The Office of Elder Affairs provides some help. Health aides from
Old Colony Elderly Services in Brockton come in for one hour and 15
minutes a day, Monday through Friday.

But Hart still does a lot of difficult hands-on care for her husband,
who is 6 feet tall and weighs 170 pounds. She changes him several
times a day and moves him around to prevent bed sores and infections.

She feeds him and specially prepares his food and beverages so he
won’t choke.

Whenever he is moved from his bed to his wheelchair, aides must use
a special lift. It requires strength, even to assist. On weekends
and holidays, her two sons come by to help.

"I have never had the feeling of ‘Why me?’ she said. "But I need a
break. I’ve only started feeling this way the past six months."

If the state paid her even a small amount, she could hire someone
skilled to come in for a few more hours a week.

The Harts share a romantic and glamorous past. Vartan Haroutunian
grew up in an Armenian family in Everett and served in World War II,
as did his five brothers and his sister. He flew 37 missions for the
Army Air Forces and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.

After the war, he attended the Boston Conservatory . He played tenor
sax and managed the Jazz Workshop in Copley Square, a hip, popular
night spot.

"He was just so talented," Elsa said.

He was 31 and she was 18 when they met.

Elsa Lindgren grew up in Boston, studied classical violin in high
school and played with the Boston Junior Symphony. Discovering jazz
with her brother opened up a whole new world.

"The Jazz Workshop was full of writers and artists and musicians,"
Hart said. "It had a nice atmosphere. Tony Bennett and Stan Kenton
played there; Barbra Streisand sang a few songs when she stopped by."

Vartan Hart had his own sextet, was in Herb Pomeroy’s Big Band and
played at the first jazz concert in the Isabella Stewart Gardner
Museum ("Jazz Rocks Staid Precincts of Hallowed Gardner" read one
headline). In 1962, he played in the first jazz festival on the Boston
Public Garden.

Before the couple married in 1957, she spent three years traveling
with Sam Snyder’s Water Follies as a synchronized swimmer, visiting
Australia.

They moved to Weymouth and then Hanover in 1971 to raise their two
sons, Eric and Christian, and changed their last name to Hart. He
got a job with more regular hours as manager of Star Market at Queen
Anne’s Corner in Norwell. Eric Hart lives in Hanover and Christian
Hart in Hanson.

When Elsa Hart decided to bring her husband home after his stroke,
the nursing home warned her about the burden.

"The first night I had him at home, I woke up at 3 a.m. There he was
in a hospital bed next to me, and I thought, ‘Oh my God. What have I
done? Can I do this?’ I got up and had a cup of tea and decided that
I could."

Today, he is in relatively good physical shape and enjoys life. He
is happiest when he sees his family, loves to watch sports on TV,
and laughs at his favorite programs such as "The Price Is Right."

"His face says it all," Elsa said. "When his sons or grandsons come
in, he is all smiles."

A recent report by the Caregiving Project for Older Americans warned
of an inevitable crisis, as social changes continue to thin the ranks
of traditional family caregivers while baby boomers nearly double
the demand for them.

Al Norman, executive director of Mass Home Care, said it is not fair
or wise to exclude husbands, wives and parents from state help for
home care.

"If she fails, he will end up in a nursing home at state expense,"
Norman said. "And we will be needing as many family caregivers as we
can find. The baby boomers will be coming along and there won’t be
enough caregivers for them all."

Finding help

Through its Caring Homes program, the state pays caregivers of people
62 and older who are not eligible for MassHealth (Medicaid.). Call
Old Colony Elderly Services in Brockton at 508-584-1561 or Senior
Link at 866-797-4222.

The Enhanced Adult Foster Care program will pay caregivers of
people 16 and older who qualify for MassHealth. Call 800-841-2900
or 800-AGE-INFO.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

LIVES STILL AFFECTED BY AZERI-ARMENIAN WAR
By Matthew Collin

St Petersburg Times, Russia, Russia
Dec 12 2006

I met Ashot in a village just outside the Armenian capital, Yerevan,
at the house of his father, Vladimir, a writer who fled the Azeri
capital, Baku, with his family in the early 1990s, amid the upsurge
of violence between Azeris and Armenians.

Vladimir was leafing through an album of old photographs decorated
with mementos of a lost life in cosmopolitan Baku, where his mother
sang show tunes during the lazy, lovingly remembered Brezhnev era.

All that is gone now. These days, Vladimir’s family members are
"internally displaced persons," although probably never to be
replaced. And Baku is no longer the city Vladimir remembers. Ethnic
Armenians haven’t been welcome for years. His family now lives in a
one-room cottage near a rusty automobile dump. They’re lucky. Some
of the war escapees in this village live in a disused prison.

Then Ashot walked in – 16 years old, hair meticulously gelled, bright
but bashful. He’s a singer too, he said, although it took a bit of
bullying by his father to coax a tune out of him. When it came, it was
unexpectedly in Azeri, a language he doesn’t even speak. It turned out
he had learned it by heart from his grandmother without knowing what
the words meant. So an Armenian boy whose family was driven out by
the Azeris was singing an old Azeri song in a refugee hovel in Armenia.

A few weeks later, I was in the oil boomtown of Baku, listening to
a very different tune: the call to prayer from a city-center mosque.

Standing next to me was Vahid, 20, who comes here every week for
Friday prayers. He said he was studying business and wanted to work
for BP, the key player in the Azeri black gold rush. But he feared he
wouldn’t have enough money to bribe his way through what he said was
a corrupt education system and to afford the private English lessons
he would need to get a job with an international company.

While I waited to speak to the imam, Vahid kept talking. His father
runs a plastics factory, which he managed to build up from nothing in
the few years since the family arrived in Baku. "Arrived from where?"

I asked. From Armenia in the 1990s, he said.

Although they traveled in opposite directions, both Vahid and Ashot
– along with nearly a million others – were displaced by the same
war between Armenia and Azerbaijan. In the continued absence of a
final peace agreement between the two countries, it’s a conflict that
continues to affect the lives and futures of both young men more than
a decade later – and the lives of many others too young to remember it.

Matthew Collin is a journalist based in Tbilisi.

CONSTITUTIONAL REFERENDUM. KARABAKH ASSERTED RIGHT FOR INDEPENDENCE

PanARMENIAN.Net
11.12.2006 16:18 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The voting on the NKR draft Constitution was held
with unprecedented inspiration, said chairman of the RA NA standing
commission on foreign relations Armen Rustamian, who attended the
referendum as an observer. In his words, the people of Karabakh
asserted their right for independence. "I think it will become a
recurrent message of Artsakhi people expressing desire to live freely,"
he said.

"Azerbaijan should take into account the reality.

"Ostrich policy" cannot be pursued all the time.

Azerbaijan will not benefit from distorting history and neglecting
the reality," he remarked.

In his opinion, the adoption of the Constitution will have crucial
importance and the NKR Organic law is more progressive than
Azerbaijan’s.

"Building its independence and state in the course of 15 years the
people of Nagorno

Karabakh realized that this should be done abiding by the Organic
Law. It’s fully concordant with all international norms and criteria,"
Armen Rustamian resumed, reports newsarmenia.ru.

NAGORNY KARABAKH BACKS CONSTITUTION

The Moscow Times, Russia
Dec 12 2006

YEREVAN, Armenia — The breakaway Nagorny Karabakh region
overwhelmingly approved a new pro-independence constitution, returns
from a Sunday referendum showed.

Azerbaijan shrugged off the vote as a "farce," and the European Union
said it would not recognize it. The region broke away from Azerbaijan
in the early 1990’s and has no international recognition.

But Karabakh’s leader described the plebiscite, seen as a signal of
the region’s commitment to independence, as a factor which could help
revive languishing talks on its future status.

Karabakh wants to be part of the talks underway between Armenia and
Azerbaijan over the status of the region.

According to official figures released Monday by the Karabakh elections
commission, 98.6 percent of voters approved the constitution, which
describes Karabakh as a sovereign state.

OBSERVERS: REFERENDUM IN KARABAKH MEETS MOST OF INTERNATIONAL STANDARDS

PanARMENIAN.Net/
11.12.2006 16:49 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ "The referendum conducted on December 10, 2006 on
the Nagorno Karabakh Republic (NKR) constitution meets most of the
standards of the OSCE, the Council of Europe and other international
structures in terms of democratic elections, equally used for
the referenda as well. The referendum followed the broad and open
discussions of the draft Constitution, where the proposals of both
local organizations and international experts of Constitutional
Law were taken into account. The broad public confidence, which is
typical of an election in the NKR, has impressed greatly," says the
report issued by international observers upon the outcomes of the
constitutional referendum in Karabakh, reports the RA MFA press office.

"The campaign was of pluralistic nature and gave an opportunity to
all the political parties and unions to show their stance towards the
draft Constitution to their electorates. The campaign was exercised
mainly via media by having relatively a few numbers of big meetings.

The Central Referendum Commission (CRC) has made praise-worthy
efforts to conduct this election in a professional and trustworthy
manner and the due respect and honor should be given to the election
administration for their endeavors under tough conditions.

Transparent ballot-boxes were used during the referendum that ensured
more transparency for the voting.

We have not fixed any significant violations on the very day of
the referendum.

The remarks made by the observers and the shortcomings in the work of
the referendum commissions, which were rather of a technical nature,
were taken into account and the necessary steps were undertaken to
eliminate them.

The counting of the votes in the polling stations visited by us was
exercised effectively and transparently," the document says.

RA PRESIDENT CONGRATULATED NKR LEADERSHIP AND PEOPLE ON ADOPTION OF CONSTITUTION

PanARMENIAN.Net
11.12.2006 17:10 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Armenian President Robert Kocharian sent a
congratulatory address to the leadership and people of Nagorno Karabakh
over the adoption of the Constitution via a universal referendum,
reported the RA leader’s press office. The message says in part,
"I congratulate the leadership of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic and
Artsakhi people on the adoption of the Constitution via a universal
referendum. With well-organized and efficient participation in the
referendum the people of Artsakh one again proved their decision
to live freely. The referendum proceeded in accord with the highest
standards and laid one more stone in the fundament of the NKR state
system.

The NKR has stepped on the path of democracy since the very first
day of proclamation of independence and this was repeatedly proved
by free and fair elections.

The Constitutional referendum followed this good tradition and gave
the possibility to consolidate democratic canons in the Organic Law
of the state.

Congratulating all Armenians on the referendum I wish prosperity,
peace and sustainable development to the Nagorno Karabakh Republic."

TURKEY SETS 1.5 TERMS FOR ARMENIA

PanARMENIAN.Net
11.12.2006 17:16 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ "Turkey has 1.5 terms for opening the
Armenian-Turkish border and normalization of relations between the two
states, these being the settlement of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict
and formation of bilateral commission of historians on the events of
1915," Mensur Akgyun, head of the Foreign Policy program from TESEV
(Turkish economic and social studies foundation) stated in Yerevan. In
his words, Ankara enjoys special relations with Azerbaijan and would
not like to sacrifice them for normalization of relations with Armenia.

The Turkish political scientist remarked that presently the Turkish
public doesn’t deny the ‘tragedy of 1915.’ "I think that those events
do not match the Convention on Genocide adopted in 1948. Historians
should make out what really happened. The issue needs compromise,"
he said.

He considers that the Armenian-Turkish relations are not widely
discussed in Turkey. "Nevertheless Turkey should put an end to this
story by recognizing or not recognizing the events of 1915. We cannot
struggle against the whole world over the issue," he underscored
adding that Turkey is likely to appeal to the Hague International
Court to clarify the problem.

"Irrespectively of the court decision the issue will be removed from
the agenda," Mensur Akgyun said.

NKR REFERENDUM. OBSERVERS FIXED NO SERIOUS VIOLATIONS

PanARMENIAN.Net
11.12.2006 17:33 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ On the very day of the referendum the observers,
whose signatures come below, visited 137 polling stations and were
present during the counting of the votes in 32 polling stations. The
list of the voters embraced 89 044 people. The observers wеre
given the opportunity to familiarize themselves, without restriction,
with documents, the samples of the ballots, the resolutions of
referendum commissions, the journals, as well as receive copies
and make extracts from them, says the report issued by international
observers on the results of the constitutional referendum in Karabakh,
reports the NKR MFA press office.

"We have not faced any restrictions of our right as observers and
mass media representatives, including freedom of movement.

The ballot-boxes were installed in places visible for the persons
authorized to be present at the polling stations.

We have not fixed any serious violations either in the registration
of voters and voting organization or in the processing the votes and
transportation of the vote counting protocols from precincts to the
regional (city) referendum commissions, and then – to the CRC.

At the polling stations we discovered no facts of administrative
or law-enforcement bodies` interference in the work of the election
commissions.

During the whole day of elections, the rate of attendance was reported
every 3 hours. Finally, the participation of voters made up 87, 02 %.

There were all conditions and terms made to keep the secrecy of
ballot. The voters, we had spoken with, expressed their satisfaction
as to the information on preparation and conducting the referendum
by the media.

In general, the voting was held in a cheerful, but quiet
atmosphere. The attendance of the voters was high practically
everywhere. Anyway, some problematic tendencies were observed on
the very day of the referendum. Particularly, not every voter used
the separation for confidential voting. Some cases of family voting
were observed. The majority of the polls were hardly reachable for
the physically disabled and the aged. We have observed some queues
of the voters in some districts. However, this cannot be regarded as
a violation, but rather a positive moment," the document says.

TURKEY’S TERMS INADMISSIBLE

PanARMENIAN.Net
11.12.2006 17:40 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Any proposals on formation of a bilateral commission
of historians on investigation of events of 1915 are absolutely
inadmissible, said political scientist, director of the Caucasus
Media Institute Alexander Iskandaryan. The Armenian Genocide is a
crime that must be recognized. Armenians do not doubt the fact of
Genocide in the Ottoman Empire.

Telling an Armenian that there was no Genocide is the same as telling
a Jew that there was no Oswiecim and Dachau," he emphasized.

The Armenian political scientist remarked that the Armenian Genocide
issue cannot be a precondition for opening of the Armenian-Turkish
border. "If opening of the border and normalization of the
Armenian-Turkish relations depend on the issue the relations will
never be normalized," he said.

Turkey’s proposals are inadmissible. It especially refers to the
Nagorno Karabakh conflict settlement.

Turkey is a third state and has no right to interfere.

Armenia’s interference into the Cypriot issue would look the same way,"
he said.

DATE OF ARMENIAN AND AZERI FMS MEETING NOT DETERMINED YET

PanARMENIAN.Net
11.12.2006 17:59 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The RA Foreign Ministry holds consultations to
exact the date of the meeting of the Armenian and Azeri Foreign
Ministers late January, RA MFA Acting Spokesman Vladimir Karapetian
told PanARMENIAN.Net. "We cannot confirm the date, since it has not
been determined yet," he said.

Azerbaijani FM Elmar Mammadyarov stated that the recurrent ministerial
meeting will be held late January.