Iranian Cultural Heritage News Agency, Iran
April 15 2006
Caspian Sea Neighbors to Study Norouz
Scholars from 10 countries will discuss Norouz and common culture
during Caspian Sea Common Cultural Heritage Festival which is to
start work today.
Tehran, 15 April 2006 (CHN) — 32 Iranian and foreign scholars will
give presentations on `the state of Norouz in Iran and neighboring
countries’ during the Caspian Sea Common Cultural Heritage Festival
held in the Iranian northern province of Mazandaran from 15-19 April
2006.
`During this festival, papers submitted by scholars from 10
participant countries with a focus on Norouz, common folkloric
culture and art including music, architecture, and handicrafts will
be analyzed,’ said Delavar Bozorgnia, Director of Cultural Heritage
and Tourism Organization of Mazandaran Province. He further added
that 68 papers from Iranian and 32 from foreign scholars had been
submitted to this festival before the deadline.
Pointing to the fact that this festival has been largely welcomed by
domestic and foreign intellectuals, Bozorgnia added, `Among the
prominent participants are head of Iran-French Research Institute,
President of Armenia’s College of Eastern Studies, head of National
Museum of Armenia, two outstanding Ironologists from the Republic of
Azerbaijan, Iran’s master of literature Dr. Mir-jalaleddin Kazazi
along with a number of other Iranian and foreign scholars.’
`Topics covered by these scholars include Norouz in Iran’s Neighbor
countries especially Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, and Turkmenistan, and
also similarities in the visual art and common traditional musical
instruments particular of these countries, commonalities in
handicrafts and architectural styles of Iran, Uzbekistan and Turkey,
and many more,’ said Bozorgnia about the papers which will be
presented during this festival.
The first round of the International Festival of the Common Heritage
of Caspian Sea Regional Countries will start its work today in the
city of Sari and will end on 19 April 2006.

Azeri Press Agency, Azerbaijan
April 15 2006
Separatist regime occupied Azerbaijani lands prepare for war
[ 15 Apr. 2006 14:12 ]
Separatist regime occupied Azerbaijani lands is holding military
training for troops. The trainings are being held within 2006 army
trainings.
The aim of training is to examine the fighting preparation of the
army. APA Garabagh bureau reports that the shots in the training are
clearly heard in the Azerbaijani Army’s positions. Besides, ordnance
and mine explosions in the training caused shake of houses and break
of windows in Azerbaijan residential zone. The information says that
voice of ordinance, mine and ammunition frightened the local
residents.
Trainings are being held under command of Armenian Armed Forces’
headquarters, colonel-general Mikhail Arutunyan. /APA/
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

TREND Information, Azerbaijan
April 15 2006
KLO: We should not commit Ramil Safarov’s fate to Hungarian courts

Source: Trend
Author: E. Javadova

15.04.2006

After all that happened we should not leave Ramil Safarov’s fate to
the mercy of Hungarian courts, Trend reports with reference words
said by Akif Nagi, head of Committee for protection of R.Safarov’s
rights, at the conference held April 15.
He said Budapest court had issued a very unjust and severe sentence
on Azeri officer Ramil Safarov. This witnesses the lack of justice in
Hungary. «Alongside the shame on Hungarian authorities and courts,
this case has demonstrated their dependence on Armenian lobby. It
doesn’t make sense to appeal to the higher legal instances of this
country», – Mr Nagi said.
He said also the first injustice was trying R.Safarov’s case not in
military tribunal but in a civil court. «Taking all this in
consideration we think Azerbaijan’s government should do its best to
return R.Safarov home. Each day of his stay in hungry is a threat to
his life. Moreover, here is no necessity to try his case in other
legal instances of Hungary as it should be done in NATO’s military
tribunal or somewhere in neutral European country. We do not trust
Hungarian courts», – Mr Nagi outlined..

Interfax, Russia
April 15 2006
Karabakh not a drug transit route – Stepanakert
STEPANAKERT. April 15 (Interfax) – Stepanakert has criticized the
naming of the self-proclaimed republic of Nagorno-Karabakh as a
territory used for illegal drug transit in a U.S. Department of State
report.
Nagorno-Karabakh Foreign Minister Georgy Petrosian and police chief
Armen Isagulov sent a letter to U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for
the Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs
Anne Patterson, in which they declared that “Nagorno-Karabakh is not
a transit route for illegal drugs.”
The Department of State’s International Narcotics Control Strategy
Report (INCSR) for 2006 “again identifies Nagorno-Karabakh and
territories it controls as a drug transit route, unlike in the
previous years, when explanations given by the Nagorno-Karabakh
authorities helped reach understanding on this issue,” the
Nagorno-Karabakh Foreign Ministry told Interfax.
“We would like to once again assure you with all die responsibility
that Nagorno-Karabakh is not a drug transit route, not only due to
the absence of a developed transportation and communication system
resulting from Azerbaijan’s continuing blockade of the republic, but
primarily thanks to efficient preemptive efforts by Nagorno-Karabakh
law enforcement agencies,” Petrosian and Isagulov said in the letter.
“This incorrect information was given by Azerbaijan, which has made
the falsification and discrediting of Armenia an element of its
policy,” they said.
The authors regretted that “the report cites unconfirmed information,
while repeated calls by the Karabakh authorities on putting together
an independent monitoring team and sending it to Nagorno- Karabakh
with a fact-finding mission have not yet evoked a response from the
relevant international institutions.”
Nagorno-Karabakh would welcome such a monitoring team capable of
drawing an independent and objective conclusion, they said. va

Times of Malta, Malta
April 15 2006
The Judas manuscript: Is it Gospel?
Mark Micallef

Judas betraying Christ as depicted in a Good Friday statue in Naxxar.
Photo: Gino Galea

Lost for 1,700 years, the National Geographic Society recently
released a translation of what is believed to be the gospel of Judas,
an anonymous account of early Christian history, which recasts Judas
Iscariot, the symbol of treachery personified, in a new, positive
light. Mark Micallef looks into the claims of “the gospel” in a bid
to establish what effect it will have on established Christian
doctrine.
Not only did Judas not betray Jesus for 30 pieces of silver,
according to this manuscript, but he was actually following his
master’s orders in handing him over to his executioners. In doing so,
Judas helped Christ fulfil the biblical prophecies of saving mankind.
The first Coptic to English translation and interpretation of the
script was presented by the National Geographic Society last week
during a highly publicised press conference in Washington, where a
few pages of the restored text were also put on display.
The leather-bound codex – as the collection of texts is known – was
found containing the fragile 26-page manuscript along with other
non-biblical texts in middle Egypt near Armenia in the 1970s. The
entire 66-page codex includes a letter by Peter and a text of what
scholars are provisionally calling the Book of Allogenes, along with
a text titled James.
The relic, however, disappeared in the world of antiquities traders
shortly after being found, moving first to Europe and then to the US.
Once in the US it was abandoned in a safe deposit box at a bank in
Long Island, New York, for 16 years by a trader who could not find a
buyer.
Frida Naspurichakos, a Zurich-based arts dealer, rescued the codex in
2000, but the manuscript was quickly deteriorating and the document
was transferred to the Maecenas Foundation for Ancient Art in Basel,
Switzerland, for conservation and translation.
Five years later the National Geographic struck a publication deal
with the foundation and last week, after some 1,700 years of silence,
the purported version of the most reviled man in history was made
available for public consumption.
Along with a feature article in its flagship magazine, the society
published two books on the gospel of Judas, while the National
Geographic TV channel ran a special two-hour documentary on the
manuscript last Sunday.
Despite what the name may lead some to believe, the gospel was not
written by Judas himself – unlike that of Luke, Mark, Mathew and
John. In fact, the author has not been established.
Experts believe the script may be a Coptic copy of a still earlier
gospel of Judas, written in Greek about 150 years after Jesus’s
death. In fact, the first known reference to a Judas gospel was
around 180 AD, in the influential work of the early Christian Bishop
St Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses (Against the Heresies).
By this time there were many accounts of the life of Christ, written
by various early Christians in several gospels. Bishop Irenaeus
helped streamline the Christian message by arguing that there should
be just four approved gospels: by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. All
others, including the gospel of Judas, are known as apocrypha – not
inspired by God and, therefore, not part of the canonical Gospels –
and were labelled at the time by early Church as heretical.
In fact, the gospel of Judas is only the latest of many texts
discovered recently, which include the gospels of Thomas, Mary
Magdalene and Philip, believed to be written by an early Christian
sect, the Gnostics. Gnostics were seen by early Church leaders as
unorthodox, and were denounced as heretics.
Catholic theology still stands
The discovery of the Judas gospel may shed more light on the
“diversity and vibrancy of early Christianity”, in the words of Rev.
Donald Senior from the Chicago Catholic Theological Union, who was on
the panel during last week’s presentation.
But does it really shake Catholic dogma?
Fr Thomas Williams, dean of theology at the Regina Apostolorum
University in Rome, thinks it does not. Of a similar opinion are the
Bishop Emeritus of Gozo, Nikol Cauchi, and Fr Martin Micallef,
lecturer at the department of Sacred Scriptures at the University of
Malta.
In an interview with Zenit, a Catholic newswire, Fr Williams says
Gnostic gospels, of which there are many, are not Christian documents
per se because they proceed from what is known as a syncretistic sect
that incorporated elements from different religions, including
Christianity.
“From the moment of the Gnostic gospels’ appearance, the Christian
community rejected these documents because of their incompatibility
with the Christian faith. The gospel of Judas would be a document of
this sort.”
Fr Micallef concurs: “The history of how the New Testament document
was given canonical status illustrates the fact that the choice of
texts was not coincidental”. During the council of Trent, which took
place towards the mid-1500, the Church closed the list of books
deemed to be divinely inspired. “Seventy-two books: 45 in the Old
Testament and 27 in the new. No more, no less”, Fr Micallef insists.
The council also secured the chasm between the Catholic and the
Protestant Church. In fact, Protestants do not accept the Catholic
canonical books.
Both Mgr Cauchi and Fr Micallef agree that while the find is very
interesting from a historic standpoint, it changes nothing for the
Church theologically.
Unlike the accounts in the New Testament, the author of the gospel of
Judas believed that Judas Iscariot alone among the 12 disciples
understood the meaning of Jesus’s teachings. The Gnostics believed in
a secret, mystical knowledge of how people could escape the prisons
of their material bodies and return to the spiritual realm from which
they came.
But this emphasis on mystical knowledge rivals the mainstream
position of the Church. Fr Micallef said: “These Gnostic documents
originate from a heretical sect contemporary of early Christianity,
which based its faith on the concept of ‘knowledge’. Gnosis, in fact,
means knowledge in Greek. In contrast, the Church always taught that
salvation comes from faith in Christ, and not ‘knowledge'”.
“Therefore, Gnostic documents do not add or take away anything from
the Catholic theological perspective.”
The document is officially deemed a Gnostic text even by the scholars
who translated it. Actually, the team that analysed the manuscript,
led by historian Rodolphe Kasser, formerly of the University of
Geneva, commented that the theological concepts and linguistic
structure of the Judas codex are very similar to those of the Nag
Hammadi manuscripts – a large group of Gnostic texts named after the
place where they were found.
Thirteen leather-bound papyrus codices were found in the
middle-Egyptian region, buried in a sealed jar. The writings included
52, mostly Gnostic, texts, believed to be a library hidden by monks
from the nearby monastery of St Pachomius when the material was
considered heretical. It was even an offence to own one.
The Church believes the material of such early Christian sects was
often an attempt to “fill in the historical blanks” left by the
established gospel on the life of Christ.
Mgr Cauchi explains that some early Christian communities believed
that not enough was written about the Christ’s childhood, for
example, and they attempted to fill the gap in this way.
To this effect, Fr Micallef points out that the primary goal of the
four gospels was not to serve as a biography of Christ but as a
catechism of the message and person of Jesus as the Son of God.
“Therefore, the apocryphal gospels were written to fill this void,”
he said.
Elaine Pagels, professor of religion at Princeton University,
however, thinks that such discoveries are exploding the myth of a
monolithic religion, and demonstrating how diverse and fascinating
the early Christian movement really was.
The true role of Judas
There is, however, a crucial aspect to consider: the key revelation
in the Judas text to many is probably that he was no traitor at all.
This is all the more significant since the figure of Judas is often
thought of as the quintessential, somewhat racist portrayal of the
Jewish traitor who sold his master for money.
Mgr Cauchi says the gospel itself does not use the words sold or
betrayed as such, but rather that Judas handed Jesus over to the
Romans.
The ultimate executioners of the Golgotha tragedy, he points out,
were the Romans. “There are various interpretations of why Judas
betrayed Jesus… for money… to instigate a revolution. But does
this mean we can reconcile what the gospel says with the thesis that
emerges from this text? I don’t think so.
“Christ said that the human being can be deceived into handing over
the Son of God to the enemy. So I think that the thesis that Judas
was acting on his orders is a bit far fetched, if I may say so.”
Nonetheless, Mgr Cauchi continued, no theologian says that Judas went
to hell. “In fact, it is said that Judas’s mistake was that he hung
himself on a tree. He should have asked for forgiveness and God would
have rehabilitated him as he did with Peter.”
“Overall”, Mgr Cauchi concludes, “I don’t think there needs to be a
lot of fuss. I’m giving my personal opinion here but actually I think
that if this text and others like it help generate interest in
Christian history and literature, this find could be a blessing in
disguise.”

San Gabriel Valley Tribune, CA
Pasadena Star-News, CA
April 15 2006
Locals commemorate Armenian genocide
By Patricia Jiayi Ho Staff Writer

PASADENA – At Friday evening’s rehearsal, Tro Mgrditchian had to
stand on his toes to reach the microphone.
The 8-year-old had a tall task: He was playing the role of an
Armenian exile in an event held to commemorate the forced evacuations
and subsequent deaths of more than a million Armenians in 1915.
“That’s how I grew up and that’s how I want my son to learn about our
heritage,” said Tro’s mother, Shoghair.
The play is part of a 90-minute event organized by the Pasadena
Armenian Youth Federation and held later Friday at the Pasadena
Armenian Center.
Also included were poetry readings, traditional Armenian dance,
readings of survivor stories and a slideshow.
The program is intended to be more introspective than the protest
marches held annually on April 24, which call for the Turkish
government to acknowledge the genocide.
“That’s when we all go out and yell with our picket signs,” said
Razmig Jierian, 22, an organizer. Friday night’s event “is a
dedication to our ancestors. It’s sad and dramatic. I think we’ll
have everyone crying by the end.”
That genocide occurred is not a matter of fact for all – the Turkish
government opposes the term and attributes Armenian deaths during and
after World War I to civil war.
The massacre of more than a million Armenians is recognized as
genocide by the state of California but not by the U.S. government.
Part of Pasadena AYF’s goal is to make sure memories of the tragedy
are not lost between generations.
“We’re going to commemorate our ancestors the best we can, from our
youngest kids to our oldest adults,” said Jierian, a Pasadena-born
student at Cal Poly Pomona.
“We don’t know how far our family trees goes,” Jierian said. “Some of
our grandparents don’t even know their real names because it was
changed back then.”
About 80 people from the Pasadena AYF, ranging in age from 8 to 22
years old, are involved in the program.
“My parents, my grandparents, they’ve been talking about this
throughout my life,” said Tro Karkourian, 19, a student at Pasadena
City College. “I think about this all the time, but this month
especially.”

Azeri Press Agency, Azerbaijan
April 15 2006
Armenian armed forces break cease-fire in Gazakh and Terter
[ 15 Apr. 2006 12:49 ]
Armenian armed forces violated the cease-fire in Azerbaijan’s regions
of Gazakh and Terter.
The Defense Ministry told APA that the units of the Armenian forces
from their positions located near Mazam village, and occupied village
Ashaghi Askipara, Gazakh, fired on the opposite positions of
Azerbaijani armed forces and Mazam from 00.00 till 00.45 on 15 April.
The enemy forces from their positions located in north-east of the
Berkaber village of Armenia’s region of Ijevan fired on the positions
of Azerbaijani armed forces located near Gizil Hajili village,
Gazkah, with submachine and machine guns. Armenian forces fired on
the opposite positions of Azerbaijan from their positions near
Garmiravan village of Terter with submachine and machine guns from
05.30 till 05.35.
The enemy was silenced by response fire. No casualties were
reported./APA/

Globe and Mail, Canada
April 15 2006
Egoyan does Beckett, and sees a lot of himself
At a Dublin festival marking the 100th birthday of the Irish
playwright, the director marvels at their many affinities
HADANI DITMARS
Special to The Globe and Mail
DUBLIN — At Dublin’s famous Gate Theatre, Atom Egoyan is pacing
nervously in the lobby, waiting for the curtain to rise on his new
production of Samuel Beckett’s Eh Joe.
“This place,” he says, in mild awe of the 78-year-old theatre whose
artistic director, Michael Colgan, staged all 19 of Beckett’s plays
in the early nineties, “is a shrine.”
The lobby is full of photos of Beckett himself, as well as
productions of Waiting for Godot and Endgame. It is also packed with
serious theatre-going Dubliners, here for the Beckett Centenary
Festival (on until May 6) which has turned the entire city into a
living memorial to the celebrated, Nobel Prize-winning Irish writer.
Given the show’s glowing reviews in The Guardian and the Irish
Independent, Egoyan’s anxiety, however modest, is a little
unexpected. But tonight is the first time Beckett’s nephew Edward,
executor of his estate, will see the show, and Egoyan has flown in
especially from an Italian press trip promoting his latest film,
Where the Truth Lies.
The Beckett estate keeps a close watch on what is produced in the
playwright’s name. It had already given a nod to Egoyan’s film
version of Krapp’s Last Tape — produced with RTE (Irish television)
in 2000 — and it had approved his ingenious new version of Eh Joe,
adapted for the stage from the original 1966 television production,
about a middle-aged man haunted by regret and pursued by a camera.
Still, it’s easy to see that Edward Beckett’s opinion of the actual
production means the world to Egoyan.
After Beckett approaches the director in the lobby to say hello,
Egoyan practically winces. “Wow,” he says, “this is so intimidating.”
Egoyan has won the Order of Canada and been knighted by the French
government with the Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres. So why is this
one-act play so important to him?
“I’m very excited about it because it is the most succinct expression
of ideas I’ve been working on for a long time, presented with the
finest actors available,” says Beckett, referring to Penelope Wilton
and Michael Gambon. Adds the director, who says he has idolized the
playwright since his teenage years, “To be doing a Beckett play here
at the Gate, it’s a really privileged opportunity.”
Those ideas, says Egoyan, involve the pondering of a number of
questions. Among them: “How do we construct personality? What is the
nature of a dramatic presentation? How do we know when something is
real? How do we access our own experience of what it means to be
ourselves?
“Ultimately,” he says, “all my work is about the inherent mystery of
any meeting between two people.”
In the case of Eh Joe, those two people are a solitary man onstage,
and the haunting voice of a woman. But for Egoyan — who, like
Beckett, celebrates the Irish philosopher George Berkeley’s concept
of esse is percipi, that “to be is to be perceived” — the perception
of the audience is almost a third entity that makes for a “a rich
alchemy.”
Adding to this richness in Egoyan’s current production is the
delicate textural quality created by a scrim between the audience and
the actor. An offstage projector projects Gambon’s image onto the
scrim, so that every movement in the actor’s face, every subtle
nuance, is writ large. But rather than distancing the audience from
the actor, the effect is one of profound intimacy. The experience is
gripping.
Beckett’s poetic language is delivered in the form of a long, lilting
monologue by the prerecorded voice of Wilton, who may or may not be a
former love of Joe. Or is she an inner demon he is exorcising? As the
voice describes the lyrical suicide of a young woman Joe once loved,
the camera inches closer to Gambon’s face in nine tightly
choreographed, almost imperceptibly subtle movements.
Intriguingly, while Gambon’s face is remarkably expressive, it’s his
hands that one notices the most. At the beginning of the play, they
tenderly caress windows and doors, searching for some kind of escape
from Joe’s inner solitude, in an almost filmic gesture. At the very
end, they rise dramatically to touch the actor’s face, in a final act
of self-recognition.
As the curtain rises, the packed house applauds its approval. The
no-nonsense Dubliners — wearing jeans and lacking pretense, and
evidently feeling as great a sense of ownership of Beckett as does
his estate — appear to have embraced Egoyan’s take on their bard.
Later, over drinks, as actors like Charles Dance discuss the previous
evening’s performance of Endgame, and artistic director Colgan holds
a rather jovial court, Egoyan delightedly receives a thumbs-up from
Edward Beckett. (The next night Bono, who has lately taken to writing
editorials on Beckett in the Irish press, will make a surprise
appearance and tell Egoyan that his production “really got me inside
Joe’s head.”)
With all that Egoyan has on at the moment — including an upcoming
production of part of the Ring cycle for the Canadian Opera Company,
a book on actress Claudia Cardinale with an Italian publisher, the
debut of a camcorder documentary, Citadel (which he made with wife,
Arsinée Khanjian, about her return to Lebanon), as well as his
ongoing visual-installation projects, the latest with Turkish artist
Kutlug Ataman — his seeming obsession with an old Beckett TV play
may seem incongruous.
But in some ways, he says, the play is a “pure distillation” of all
his work to date. Indeed, his background in theatre (he was at
Toronto’s Tarragon in the eighties), his film projects and his
installation pieces all come together in Eh Joe. According to Egoyan,
Beckett’s explicit stage directions and visual sensibility were
decidedly “filmic.” He even recounts that Beckett once wrote to famed
Russian filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein, asking to apprentice with him.
In terms of the difference in genres, Egoyan says he is excited by
the spontaneity of live theatre and the “magical process of
incarnation — what an actor does when they allow another character
to enter their soul.”
For Colgan, Egoyan, whom he sees as a fellow “Beckett devotee,” was a
natural choice for Eh Joe. “Like Beckett, he has so much integrity
and so much dedication,” says Colgan. “His ego doesn’t get in the way
of the work.”
The two men first met at a theatre festival in Toronto in 1998, when
Colgan was on tour with Waiting for Godot and Egoyan was directing
his opera Elsewhereless. While the opera was not a huge critical
success in Canada, Colgan was impressed enough by it to ask Egoyan to
direct the RTE production of Krapp’s Last Tape, one of a series of
plays he was filming.
With the experience of filming 1999’s Felicia’s Journey still fresh,
Egoyan was soon bitten by the Dublin bug. “There’s something about
this city,” he muses, “so many of the writers I adore are from here:
Swift, Beckett, Joyce. It’s inspirational.”
He also sees some parallels between the Armenian and Irish experience
(even noting an uncanny resemblance between the Armenian and Celtic
crosses). In fact, it was during the filming of Felicia’s Journey
that Egoyan had an epiphany of sorts that inspired his film Ararat.
“It was the scene when Felicia’s father is taking her through the
ruined castle in County Cork, and he says, ‘You must never forget
1916 [the Irish uprising against British rule].’ I thought
immediately of 1915 [the year of the Armenian genocide] and wondered
why I could be so involved in one history and not with my own.”
Coincidentally, the day after Egoyan’s Eh Joe wins the approval of
Beckett’s nephew, three days before the 90th anniversary of the 1916
uprising, and on Beckett’s 100th birthday, Egoyan learns that Turkish
television will finally be showing Ararat on the same day.
Still reeling from the excitement of the Gate’s birthday tribute to
Beckett, Egoyan says, “I can’t quite believe that I’m here. I just
keep thinking about being a teenager in Victoria, devouring Beckett
at the library.
“But Beckett is still so important, so relevant today,” he continues.
“He took postwar French existentialism and married it to Irish
tradition in a wonderful way. His work is austere and rigorous but
it’s full of affection for the human condition. Beckett is about
despair, but also about transcending despair — not through anything
esoteric or spiritual, but through pure humanity.”

WorldNetDaily, OR
April 15 2006
Librarian attacked by profs for promoting ‘Marketing of Evil’
College employee accused of ‘sexual harassment’ for recommending
Kupelian’s best-selling book
Posted: April 15, 2006
1:00 a.m. Eastern
© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com
In what is being called an “astonishing” and “shameful” case of
campus persecution, Ohio State University’s head librarian is being
formally accused of “sexual harassment.” His crime? Recommending that
the school’s freshman class be required to read WND Managing Editor
David Kupelian’s controversial best seller, “The Marketing of Evil.”
Scott Savage is head of Reference and Instructional Services at the
Bromfield Library on Ohio State University’s Mansfield campus.
The school’s Office of Human Resources put Savage under
“investigation” after three professors – Hannibal Hamlin, Norman
Jones and J.K. Buckley – filed a complaint of discrimination and
harassment, saying Kupelian’s book made them feel “unsafe.”
In his role as a member of OSU Mansfield’s First Year Reading
Experience Committee, Savage had suggested new students read “The
Marketing of Evil,” as well as three other books – “The Professors”
by David Horowitz, “Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis” by Bat Ye’or, and
“It Takes a Family” by Sen. Rick Santorum. Savage made the
recommendations after other committee members had suggested a series
of books with a left-wing perspective, by authors such as Jimmy
Carter and Maria Shriver.
The attacks on Savage stem directly from faculty members’ reaction to
“The Marketing of Evil,” according to the Arizona-based
public-interest group Alliance Defense Fund, which is defending the
librarian.
“Universities are one of the most hostile places for Christians and
conservatives in America,” said ADF Senior Legal Counsel David
French, who heads the group’s Center for Academic Freedom. “It’s
shameful that OSU would investigate a Christian librarian for simply
recommending books that are at odds with the prevailing politics of
the university.”
ADF sent a “Cease and Desist” letter to OSU Mansfield officials [pdf
file] March 28 informing them of Savage’s constitutional rights. In
it, the legal group explained the attack on Savage:
After Mr. Savage suggested the four additional books, Professors
Hamlin and Jones took issue with “The Marketing of Evil.” They
e-mailed the Committee and labeled Mr. Savage “anti-gay” and called
his suggestions “homophobic tripe.”
Jones did not stop there; he sent a private email to Mr. Savage’s
supervisor, questioning the integrity of the library staff. He sent
another email to the Committee, arguing with Mr. Savage’s academic
opinions and quoting additional text from Amazon.com’s review of “The
Marketing of Evil.” After this e-mail exchange, a non-committee
faculty member, J.F. Buckley, emailed all faculty and staff at the
Mansfield campus criticizing the book Mr. Savage mentioned,
denigrating Mr. Savage’s professionalism, and claiming that he felt
threatened by Mr. Savage. …
On Monday, March 13, 2006, at the routine faculty meeting, several
faculty members accused Mr. Savage of sexual harassment and made a
motion to file formal charges against him. The faculty unanimously
passed the motion and appointed Professor Gary Kennedy to notify
OSU’s sexual harassment officer. Two days later the faculty met again
and rescinded the motion (due to confusion as to whether the faculty
had the authority to pass the origional motion), but instructed the
complaining professors to notify OSU’s sexual harassment officer
individually. On March 16, 2006, Buckley, Jones and Kennedy filed a
Discrimination & Harassment Complaint with OSU’s Office of Human
Resources.
To date, the university refuses to halt the investigation, saying in
response, it takes “any allegation of sexual harassment seriously.”
French is incredulous that faculty members are attempting to label a
librarian as a “sexual harasser” simply because they disagree with
his book suggestions: “It is astonishing that an entire faculty would
vote to launch a sexual harassment investigation because a librarian
offered book suggestions in a committee whose purpose was to solicit
such suggestions,” he said.
Note: Readers may read all the e-mail exchanges between the
professors attacking Savage and “The Marketing of Evil” here.
Here are a few of the OSU professors’ March 9 intra-faculty e-mail
comments:
Hamlin: “On the matter of homophobia, I think you should be rather
careful, Scott. OSU’s policy on discrimination is not simply a matter
of academic orthodoxy, but a matter of human rights. Re Kupelian’s
book, would you advocate a book that was racist or antisemitic [sic],
or are you arguing that homosexuals are not in the same category and
that homophobia is not therefore a matter of discrimination but of
rational argument? And what are we supposed to make of the fact that
Kupelian’s Armenian family died in the holocaust? Does this mean that
he then has the right to spout bigotry about other minorities with
impunity?
Jones: “The anti-gay book Scott Savage endorses (below) falsely
claims that ‘the widely revered father of the ‘sexual revolution’ has
been irrefutably exposed as a full-fledged sexual psychopath who
encouraged pedophilia.” This is a factually untrue characterization
of Dr. Kinsey and his work on every point. … I am frankly
embarrassed for you, Scott, that you would endorse this kind of
homophobic tripe.
Buckley: “Rather than waste your time with the paucity of
intellectual rigor that Kupelian brings to the table, I encourage you
to visit his website, and see for yourself his unmitigated homophobia
and xenophobia. In short, he is a pontificating, phobic, cultural
atavism bemoaning the loss of an (Anglo) America that only existed on
such shows as “The Lone Ranger.” … As a gay man I have long ago
realized that the world is full of homophobic, hate-mongers who, of
course, say that they are not. So I am not shocked, only deeply
saddened – and THREATENED – that such mindless folks are on this
great campus. I am ending now, with the hope that I have seriously
challenged you Scott, and anyone who “thinks” as you purport to do.
You have made me fearful and uneasy being a gay man on this campus. I
am, in fact, notifying the OSU-M campus, and Ohio State University in
general, that I no longer feel safe doing my job. I am being
harassed.”
Commenting on the controversy surrounding his book, Kupelian said:
“It’s disgraceful that this university’s faculty members would
destroy an innocent man by calling him a ‘sexual harasser,’ just
because he recommended my book. What’s ironic is that my book simply
champions the traditional, Judeo-Christian values almost all
Americans took for granted 60 years ago. But today, many of us, at
least on our nation’s college campuses, are in mortal combat with
those same values.”

“The Marketing of Evil,” released in August, has become one of the
nation’s most talked-about books, widely praised by Dr. Laura, David
Limbaugh, Michelle Malkin, D. James Kennedy and many others and
garnering over 100 five-star reader reviews on Amazon.com. Here’s a
sampling:
“Opening this book is like turning on the Sun. … Mr. David Kupelian
has written a remarkable book that reveals how the American public
has been taken down the slippery slope of moral relativism.”
“I finished “The Marketing of Evil” over a month ago. It absolutely
changed my life.”
“Prepare to see your world with new eyes!”
“Read this book and you will start seeing the lies more clearly and
you will then be on the path to truth. It will be very painful for
some to admit the truth. You will have to say to yourself, as I did,
“Oh my God. All those precious years wasted living by these lies.” …
In the long run you will feel a tremendous sense of gratitude for
having read this book.”
“This book has put a powerful voice to many things that truth-loving
people in America have felt in their spirits for a long, long time. …
I like my medicine straight and my truth even straighter, and this
book delivers, with no apologies or flinching. … I for one am forever
changed.”
“This was a great book!! So truthful. Should be required reading.
Shows what is behind much of the assault on traditional values, and
how we have morally slipped so far in America.”
“The way Kupelian writes is phenomenal, his footnotes are extensively
accurate, and his research superb. … Kupelian takes the reader,
sometimes by the hand, and shows them point by point why we need to
remember our heritage as Americans, and see what has happened since
traditional values have been thrown out the window, to further a
free-for-all society that has decayed from the inside out. … Give
this book to everyone you know, you’ll thank me.”
“Kupelian, with a calm, steady and patient hand, exposes the left as
master marketeers selling an agenda of ever-increasing licentiousness
and depravity as a designer substitute for classical American ordered
liberty. … Kupelian pulls back the curtain and exposes the wizards
pulling the levers of fraud and deceit that has masqueraded as news
for the last 40+ years.”
“The Marketing of Evil” irritates only those who hate the light of
day, goodness, family and the Truth. I recommend this book for anyone
who is looking for an explanation of the simple question: ‘How could
we (Western Civilization) have sunk to such depraved depths?'”
“A book whose time has come.”
“The socialists in this country no doubt cannot stand that this book
even exists, however, thinking people will find the book an eye
opener!”
“David Kupelian exposes like nobody before how key statistics related
to crime, divorce and everything negative is related directly to our
propensity to literally buy evil. Evil that was intentionally
marketed to the public! … This book really pulls back the veil on
evil. A must read for anyone that cares about the future of our
nation.”
“I will forever look at the media and liberalism even more cautiously
than I have in the past.”
“David Kupelian has authored a masterpiece that belongs in every home
in America next to the Family Bible.”
“This fast-paced survey book is one of the more eye-opening books you
will read this year. I got this book thinking there wasn’t much I’d
learn, but I was quite mistaken.”
“This book may offend those with a secular, humanistic, left-wing
outlook but I feel that it is required reading for our time. Indeed,
it is one of the best books that I have read for some time.”
E_ID=49761

ARKA News Agency, Armenia
April 14 2006
INTERVIEW IN US EMBASSY FOR GETTING VISA TO BE APPOINTED BY TELEPHONE
IN ARMENIA FROM MAY 1
YEREVAN, April 14. /ARKA/. Interview in the US Embassy for getting
visa will be appointed only after preliminary agreement by telephone
in Armenia from May 1. According to the Press Service of the US
Embassy in Armenia, this system will enable to save time of the
people applying for visa
According to the press release, the previous procedure of getting
individual arrangement after visiting the consulate of the embassy is
not valid any more. `Not a single applicant will pass interview
without preliminary arrangement’, the message states.
At the same time agreement may be reached either by the applicant
himself or by an authorized person, however in that case the person
who calls must have all the necessary information, including full
passport data of the applicant. According to the press release, it is
necessary to have stamp of departure clearance in the passport with
not less than 3-month validity, and the passport itself must be valid
for at least 6 months from the moment of entering USA. The applicant
must present filled in application form as well. S.P.–0–