Glendale News Press
June 7, 2006
Krekorian swamps Quintero at polls
*Rep. Adam Schiff will face William J. Bodell and Rep. David Dreier
will face Cynthia Matthews.
By Fred Ortega, News-Press Leader
GLENDALE — Paul Krekorian handily bested Glendale Councilman Frank Quintero
Tuesday night, earning the Democratic nomination to the 43rd Assembly
District seat after an acrimonious campaign that included allegations of
voter fraud and veiled racist attacks.
With all 239 precincts reporting, unofficial results showed Krekorian with
56.6% of the votes to Quintero’s 43.4%. That translates to 14,137 votes for
Krekorian and 10,863 for Quintero, according to the latest figures from the
county registrar’s office.
Total turnout for the election was low, with 17% of Glendale voters hitting
the polls and nearly 18% of registered Burbank voters casting ballots.
Despite Krekorian’s wide margin of victory, the race was very close at the
polls in the two candidates’ home cities. Quintero took Glendale by a mere
112 votes, 3,383 to 3,271, while Krekorian, a Burbank Unified School District
Board member, won the poll count in that city by just 700 votes, 2,735 to
2,038, according to officials at the registrar’s office. Final absentee
ballot counts, as well as vote tallies in the other district communities of
North Hollywood, Los Feliz, Silver Lake and Toluca Lake, were not available
as of press time Wednesday.
Krekorian, who faces an advantage in November over Republican challenger
Michael Agbaba in the heavily Democratic district, was ecstatic about his
win.
“I am thrilled at this resounding victory, especially because of the
circumstances of the last week,” Krekorian said Wednesday, referring to a
mailing sent out by an independent expenditure committee that linked him and
the Armenian National Committee to a terrorist suspect. “This was really a
clear victory of hope over hatred, and it was a victory for a common vision
instead of ethnic division.”
Quintero has denied involvement in the distribution of the mailer, which was
put out by the Oakland-based California Latino Leadership Fund.
Krekorian said he had already received congratulatory calls from prominent
Latino leaders including Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Assembly
Speaker Fabian NuC1ez and other members of the Latino Caucus.
“I plan to work closely with them on the healing process and to work together
toward a common interest as Americans,” Krekorian said, adding he does not
have much time to rest before heading up to Sacramento with all of the
Democratic nominees for a gathering at the request of NuC1ez. “We are going
to continue to do what I have been doing, to talk to people about the need to
have the finest schools possible providing the best 21st-century education to
all of our students.”
In addition to education, Krekorian listed universal healthcare for all
Californians, environmental protection and rebuilding the state’s
infrastructure as his top priorities if he wins the Assembly seat in
November.
“I am so grateful to the people of the 43rd Assembly District who entrusted
me to take on this job and voted based on the message I have been talking
about,” he said. “These are the things that matter to Californians much more
than the issue of character assassination.”
Agbaba released a statement Wednesday congratulating Krekorian for his win
and setting a conciliatory tone for the battle ahead.
“I look forward to a good, clean campaign based on issues facing our
communities and our state,” the Burbank-based electrical engineer wrote.
“This will be a very challenging election for both of us.”
Quintero, who led Krekorian in cash on hand at the end of the race $243,964
to $178,687, according to the Secretary of State’s office, threw the
accusations of personal attacks back at his opponent.
“I am disappointed in my opponent’s strategy; if you review the mailers I
sent out, they were focused on the issues,” said Quintero, who condemned the
Latino Leadership Fund’s mailer and added that his campaign did not initiate
the voter-fraud issue.
“That was initiated by the registrar of voters, and is now under review by
the district attorney,” said Quintero, referring to the more than 100
absentee-ballot requests submitted by the Krekorian campaign that are being
scrutinized for possible forged signatures. “We will be watching that
criminal investigation very closely,” Quintero said.
He admitted, however, that the 100 ballots in question would not make a
difference in Krekorian’s margin of victory and that he was not planning on
asking for a recount.
“I enjoyed the campaign, talked to thousands of people in the district, and I
was encouraged by many people to run,” Quintero said. “I was honored to have
the support from such diverse groups, and I look forward to continuing to
serve the residents of Glendale and enjoying my time on the City Council.”
In other local races, Burbank Rep. Adam Schiff easily fended off fellow
Democrat Bob McCloskey in the fight for the Democratic nomination to the 29th
Congressional District, 82.5% to 17.5%. He will face William J. Bodell, who
ran unopposed for the Republican ticket, in November. The district, which
Schiff has represented since 2000, includes Glendale and Burbank.
And Rep. David Dreier appears headed for a 14th term representing the 26th
Congressional District, having beat second-time challenger and La CaC1ada
Flintridge businessman Sonny Sardo for the GOP nomination, 64.9% to 26.9%. A
third Republican contender, Mel Milton of Walnut, garnered 8.2% of the vote.
Dreier will face Democrat Cynthia Matthews, who beat challengers Russ Warner
and Hoyt Hilsman for the Democratic nomination with 47% of the vote, in the
fight for the mostly Republican district that includes La CaC1ada Flintridge,
La Crescenta and Montrose.
* FRED ORTEGA covers City Hall. He may be reached at (818) 637-3235 or by
e-mail at [email protected].

Glendale News Press
June 7, 2006
Calls, letter bring anger
*Frank Quintero campaign says it has nothing to do with campaign mailing.
By Fred Ortega, News-Press and Leader
GLENDALE — A campaign mailing and phone calls linking Assembly
candidate Paul Krekorian and the Armenian National Committee to a
terrorism suspect convicted of weapons charges has many community
leaders outraged and some crying racism.
The calls and mailers, sent out by the Oakland-based California Latino
Leadership Fund, were delivered to thousands of Glendale and Burbank
area voters in the days leading up to Tuesday’s primary. The mailers
feature a mug shot of Mourad Topalian, a former Armenian National
Committee chairman who pleaded guilty for possession of stolen
explosives and two machine guns in Ohio in 2000, according to FBI
records.
The postcard-sized campaign piece also states that Krekorian accepted
the Armenian National Committee’s endorsement in his run for the State
Assembly and helped get “[Armenian National Committee] books and
literature into libraries for schoolchildren.”
“It is very sad whenever any campaign is tainted with tactics that
appeal to hatred and bigotry,” Krekorian said. “I think people care
about what matters to all Californians, which is improving education,
providing healthcare to everyone and protecting the environment — not
personal attacks and character assassination.”
The Armenian National Committee “books and literature” cited in the
mailer were actually 1,000 books in Armenian and English about
Armenian culture and history that were donated to the Burbank Library
system at the request of library officials to expand their
international section, he said, adding that the Burbank City Council
honored his wife Tamar Krekorian and the committee for their efforts
in securing the books.
The sinister undertone of the mailings contrast sharply with the true
spirit of the Armenian National Committee, said Zanku Armenian, board
member of the committee’s Western Region based in Glendale.
Topalian, who the FBI suspect was a leader of the Justice Commandos of
the Armenian Genocide, resigned his post after the charges surfaced,
Armenian said.
“We live in a country in which you are innocent until proven guilty,”
Armenian said, adding that Topalian was never convicted of terrorism
charges, only weapons possession. “At the time he was chairman and
started having these troubles, he resigned so he could deal with his
personal issues without dragging down the [Armenian National
Committee]. These matters have nothing to do with the organization,
which has a mission to represent and give voice to the Armenian
American community within the American political system.”
Armenian further suggested that Krekorian’s opponent for the
democratic nomination, City Councilman Frank Quintero, and outgoing
43rd Assembly District Rep. Dario Frommer, who has endorsed Quintero,
were somehow connected to the mailers.
“We had been hearing rumblings coming from Sacramento that Quintero
and Frommer had a ‘killer issue’ that would swing the race and we were
hoping our information was wrong, but it is now our firm belief that
Quintero knew all about it,” he said. “We believe that they were
firmly behind the scenes and this sort of dirty campaign tactics are
the last gasp of breath of a failing candidate at the end of his
political career.”
Under state law it would be illegal for Quintero’s campaign to
coordinate with a separate entity on an independent expenditure such
as the mailers in question. The California Latino Leadership Fund
spent more than $18,000 in independent expenditures opposing
Krekorian, and more than $30,000 on similar expenditures to support
Quintero, according to campaign finance records from the Secretary of
State’s office.
Both Frommer and Quintero denied any knowledge or involvement with the
Latino Leadership Fund or its activities, and each sent letters to
fund officials expressing the disapproval of the mailer.
“I am disgusted that this organization, which by law has no
affiliation with my campaign, has sent out such a hurtful message,”
Quintero said in a statement. “The mailer does not reflect anything
that I believe in or stand for.”
California Latino Leadership Fund officials did not return calls
seeking comment.
The group has received funding from tribal gaming groups, Pacific Gas
and Electric, Johnson & Johnson, Inc., and Cendant Corp., among
others.
The mailings and phone campaign have done much to damage the
relationship between Glendale’s Armenian and Latino communities,
Glendale Unified School District Board member Mary Boger said.
“The city and school district have worked closely together to create
harmony in our community,” said Boger, who received the controversial
phone calls at her home. “Whomsoever is responsible for this hate mail
and hate speech has undermined years of work and has no right to seek
a leadership position.”
Glendale Community College Trustee Victor King, Glendale Democratic
Club President Laurie Collins and Glendale Historical Commission
Chairwoman Deborah Dentler also released a statement condemning the
phone calls and mailings.
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, L.A. Councilman Eric Garcetti,
U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff and Quintero all denounced the attacks.
* FRED ORTEGA covers City Hall. He may be reached at (818) 637-3235 or
by e-mail at [email protected].

Los Angeles Times
June 7, 2006
POLITICS : CALIFORNIA
CALIFORNIA ELECTIONS
Brown Easily Defeats Delgadillo
Oakland mayor is aided by name recognition in the Democratic race for
attorney general.
By Eric Bailey, Times Staff Writer
June 7, OAKLAND
2006 Jerry Brown, California’s iconoclastic ex-governor turned big
city mayor, won the Democratic attorney general primary Tuesday in a
bid to return to statewide office after a two-decade absence.
Brown, 68, held a commanding lead against Rocky Delgadillo, the Los
Angeles city attorney who ran a spirited but uphill fight against a
foe who remains a household name in California political circles.
“I confident feel yes I do!” declared Brown, Oakland’s mayor, as he
disembarked from a black Lincoln Continental at his campaign
celebration with his wife, Anne, and the family pet, a chubby black
Labrador named Dharma.
Later he appeared on stage at the Oakland Police Officers
Assn. headquarters with his wife by his side to declare victory,
invoking the name of his late father, former California attorney
general and governor Pat Brown.
“As my father always said, I accept the nomination,” Brown proclaimed,
before quipping, “but he’d say that anytime a crowd gathered.”
Brown told the gathering of police and political supporters, including
current Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer, that if elected California’s top cop
he would give law enforcement’s rank and file “the tools you need to
protect California from criminals and terrorists. I’m going to be
there for ya. I got your back.”
Trailing badly from the beginning, Delgadillo, 45, conceded with about
a third of the statewide vote in.
“We knew this was going to be a tough race when we got into it and we
gave it our all, but we’ve come up just a bit short,” Delgadillo said.
He said he had tried to call Jerry Brown, who was busy at the time,
but would call again.
“Now, as Democrats, we need to stand together for this fight in
November,” Delgadillo said. “I’m going to work as hard as I can to
make sure we have a Democrat in the AG’s office to protect our
Democratic principles.”
Brown is headed for a general election showdown with the GOP nominee,
state Sen. Chuck Poochigian of Fresno, who has little statewide
recognition name just 9% in one poll recent but solid conservative
credentials and a reputation as a statehouse consensus builder.
Poochigian goes into the race with more than $3 million in his
campaign coffers, far more than any other GOP candidate not named
Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Poochigian can expect solid support among conservative voters who
remember Brown’s gubernatorial stint between 1974 and 1982, when he
was christened “Gov. Moonbeam” by wags. In his two terms as Oakland
mayor, Brown tried to refashion his image as a more pragmatic
politician intent on crime fighting and urban blight.
Poochigian’s strategists said they would hit Brown for his opposition
to the death penalty as well as a history of persistent attempts to
reach higher office, most notably three unsuccessful runs for
president.
“Jerry Brown is a man always more interested in the job he’s seeking
than the job he’s holding,” said Kevin Spillane, a Poochigian
spokesman. “At his core he’s the same Jerry old opportunistic,
insincere, calculating, overly ambitious.”
Ace Smith, Brown’s campaign strategist, said Poochigian is shackled by
“an extreme record” as an opponent of stem cell research and assault
weapon bans. He said Poochigian “carried the legislative water” for
the pesticide and pharmaceutical industries as a lawmaker.
The joke is that AG “really should stand for aspiring governor,” Smith
said. “And the only candidate who fits that description is Chuck
Poochigian. Jerry Brown simply wants to be the best attorney general
in history.”
Delgadillo attempted early on in the Democratic primary fight to raise
questions about Brown’s stand on the death penalty and his allegiance
to supporters of abortion rights.
But in the final weeks of the campaign, Delgadillo shifted the focus,
contrasting his efforts against gang crime in Los Angeles against a
recent surge in homicides and other felonies in Oakland.
In the final weeks of the campaign, Delgadillo invested more than $2.5
million on TV ads, outspending Brown by more than 6 to 1.
Brown, with a big lead in the polls, didn’t mount a TV
counterattack. His campaign spent less than $400,000 on a few upbeat
biographical commercials played on cable channels.
Instead he relied on the Oakland Police Officers Assn. to come to his
defense.
The association demanded that Delgadillo pull the crime ads, arguing
the spots exaggerated the rise in crime. Brown’s campaign also accused
Delgadillo, a Harvard graduate, of inflating his athletic
credentials. He referred to himself as an All-American in football
when in reality he received honorable-mention scholastic All-American
honors.
While those attacks received scant attention amid the well-publicized
mud-slinging of the Democratic gubernatorial primary, Brown’s ability
to run a frugal campaign against Delgadillo leaves him with a bigger
kitty campaign more than million $4 than his Republican rival heading
into November’s general election.

Jerry Brown Wins Nomination for California Attorney General
The New York Times
By JESSE McKINLEY
Published: June 8, 2006
With all precincts reporting, Mr. Brown had received 63 percent of the
vote versus 37 percent for Rocky Delgadillo, the city attorney of Los
Angeles. The Republican candidate, Chuck Poochigian, a state senator
from Fresno, was unopposed.
On Wednesday, Mr. Poochigian blazed through a series of interviews,
promising a serious challenge to Mr. Brown, the son of a former
governor, Edmund G. Brown Sr., and a three-time presidential candidate
who has spent nearly four decades in politics.
“My biggest challenge is overcoming Jerry’s name advantage,”
Mr. Poochigian, 57, said in a telephone interview from
Sacramento. “But Jerry has a bigger challenge to overcome, and that’s
his record.”
Mr. Brown embarked on his own campaign tour, barnstorming through the
state on a private plane, traveling from Oakland, across the San
Francisco Bay, to a pair of Southern California stops in Burbank and
San Diego; then north to Sacramento; and south again to Bakersfield
and Los Angeles.
Along the way, Mr. Brown ventured to Mr. Poochigian’s turf in the
Central Valley to address police officials. At every stop, he sought
to remind voters of his credentials, including his “practical hands-on
experience” as a governor and a mayor.
“I’ve been an independent leader, not just an appendage of narrow
partisan politics,” said Mr. Brown, 68, before boarding a plane in San
Diego. “I’m running against a man who has basically been a staffer or
bureaucrat or a legislator. He’s never run a darn thing.”
But Mr. Brown said he expected a tough campaign, and predicted that
Mr. Poochigian would use negative advertisements to try to paint him
as being out of step with average Californians.
Mr. Poochigian promised to run “a truthful campaign,” but he was
already hammering Mr. Brown for a recent spike in crime in
Oakland. “In the case of Jerry Brown, the truth is going to hurt,” he
said.
In the election to determine Mr. Brown’s successor in Oakland, the
former congressman Ron Dellums appeared to have won, although
officials were still counting the ballots.
Mr. Poochigian has $3.3 million in his campaign chest, aides said, and
has already raised more money than any other Republican running for
statewide office except Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
But he probably faces an uphill battle in a state that often votes
Democratic. Mr. Brown’s vote total among Democratic voters on Tuesday
was just 771 shy of what Mr. Poochigian received from all Republican
voters.

The Washington Post
Brown campaigns to become top Calif. lawman
By Michael Fitzgerald
Reuters
Wednesday, June 7, 2006; 9:16 PM
SACRAMENTO, California (Reuters) – Having spent two terms as
California governor, run for president three times and dated at least
one rock star, Jerry Brown has long served as an eclectic voice in
American politics.
After his Democratic primary win on Tuesday, Brown, who is ending his
second term as mayor of Oakland, campaigned on Wednesday across
California to conquer yet another political office, this time the job
of state attorney general.
In the day after a landslide win in the primary election, Brown, 68,
made campaign stops in Los Angeles, Fresno, San Diego, Sacramento and
Bakersfield.
Brown emphasized he had no aspirations to run for governor again, or
other elective office besides state attorney general. “At my age, I
prefer to focus on the task ahead, which is four years of hands-on
work as attorney general,” he told reporters in Sacramento.
Brown was again following in his father’s footsteps in seeking the job
of top state law enforcer, this time in reverse order. Pat Brown
served eight years as attorney general before his 1958 election to
governor.
The son, by contrast, served as governor of the nation’s most populous
state from 1975 to 1983 and only sought the attorney general job a
quarter of a century later.
“I will have to say, this job, I am truly prepared for,” he said. “You
could question some of the others.”
Brown’s low-key style as governor in the 1970s included living in a
modest apartment near the state Capitol building when he could have
lived in the governor’s mansion. He also made headlines by dating rock
singer Linda Ronstadt.
Brown was single until last year when he married Ann Gust, former
chief counsel for clothing chain operator Gap Inc. She is now serving
as his campaign manager.
“I am younger than he is but I feel older most days,” she said. “He
has a lot of energy and he wears me out.”
Brown is facing state Sen. Chuck Poochigian, a Republican from the
Central Valley city of Fresno. Polls suggest Brown has a big edge in
popularity and name recognition as few voters know Poochigian.
“That choice will be between my strongly held concern for the victims
of crime and the mayor’s emphasis on his political pedigree,”
Poochigian said on Tuesday.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Los Angeles Times
Steve Lopez:
Points West
It’s Open Season on Donkeys, Elephants
June 7, 2006
Whatever the results of Tuesday’s hold-your-nose primary for governor,
this much is true:
Democrats Steve Westly and Phil Angelides were both gutted and fileted
by this newspaper over the past several weeks. I mean that in a good
way.
Readers learned, primarily from reporters Dan Morain and Evan Halper,
that Westly and Angelides were anything but the upstanding,
straight-talking crusaders they claimed to be. It was this newspaper,
let’s remember, that pointed out the absurdity of an Angelides TV ad
blasting Westly for donations from “a corrupt Chicago businessman.” As
Morain and Halper discovered, Angelides himself had tried to tap the
same guy.
I almost hesitate to mention any of this, because there’s nothing
surprising or unusual about the way Westly and Angelides were knocked
around by The Times. That’s a newspaper’s job: Hold candidates up to
public inspection, study the viability of their promises and slap them
around as needed.
I’m just wondering why the paper hasn’t gotten huzzahs from the
professional gas bags who worked themselves into a frenzy three years
ago over our equally tough reporting on a candidate named Arnold
Schwarzenegger. As that doddering shill Hugh Hewitt put it back then,
The Times was “an organ of the Democratic Party” with no interest
other than “agenda journalism.”
Have John and Ken of radio fame weighed in on The Times’ coverage? If
you don’t know them, they’re the carnival barkers who jumped all over
the newspaper for its apparent bias and then showed up at
Schwarzenegger rallies to sing his praises, yapping like lap dogs.
“Wondering if anyone can tell me how much time the show has devoted to
The Times’ coverage of Westly and Angelides,” I wrote to them in an
e-mail that was not answered by my deadline.
Maybe they’ve talked of nothing else on-air. To be honest, I wouldn’t
know. I’d rather stick my head in a kettle drum and beat it with a
soup spoon than listen to these guys. But I sure hope they’ve given us
our props for reporting on the Westly-Angelides factor sleaze
especially given their cheerleading for Schwarzenegger.
I called Ken Khachigian, my favorite GOP consultant, even though he
worked with Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, to ask if he’d heard any
Republicans complimenting The Times’ tough coverage of Westly and
Angelides.
Khachigian gave The Times a pat on the back but said there’s a reason
conservatives aren’t ready to hand out any medals just yet. “Their
expectations are that once the primary’s over, the target turns to
Arnold,” he said. “They think that once the choice is a liberal, or
left-winger, and a Republican, then the gun sights go to the
Republican side.”
You can’t win with these guys.
Khachigian is predicting the paper will now empty both barrels on
Chuck Poochigian, the GOP candidate for attorney general against Jerry
Brown.
Wait a minute. If there’s a standing liberal agenda, why has The Times
broken the kneecaps of Westly and Angelides before one of them busts
out of the gates against Schwarzenegger?
That’s not to say the paper won’t tee off on Schwarzenegger between
now and November. Both he and his opponent will be vetted anew, and
based on what we already know about them, there’ll be plenty of
material to work with. Readers sometimes confuse this kind of
relentless snooping as the work of a political agenda rather than an
attempt to hold candidates accountable and keep readers informed, and
I’d like to try and set the record straight.
As a breed, good reporters are a mutant species, often completely
lacking in social graces, fashion sense and normal interests. They
don’t have many friends other than themselves, and even those
relationships involve unhealthy levels of suspicion.
Show a good reporter a bright, sunny day and he’ll wonder if the ozone
is burned to hell. This is not a matter of training, but of molecular
chemistry. They’re like hunting dogs, in love with the chase and
deliriously happy to go sniffing after any old bird, regardless of
hue.
A couple of weeks ago, to give you an example, Cruz Bustamante was in
town. True-blue Democrat, right?
By that measure, a left-leaning Democratic apologist like yours truly
should have given him a pass. As a columnist, I’ve got a license,
after all, to be biased. But I never let that get in the way of a good
public flogging. Bustamante was rolling in insurance industry dough
while running for state insurance commissioner, and he was hanging his
campaign on a plea to drop 50 pounds as an example for healthy living.
What choice did I have but to conceal a bathroom scale in my backpack
and pull it out after lunch at a Mexican cantina?
If holding people accountable means occasionally making them
uncomfortable, then I’m an equal opportunity agitator.
Speaking of which, one of Schwarzenegger’s aides recently suggested it
might be time for me and the governor to break bread. Finally. I’ve
been waiting three years for him to accept my invitation to get to
know my sweet side.
It’ll be painless, Arnold. Just a light workout.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

The Daily Breeze
June 7, 2006
dailybreeze.com
Brown gets attorney general nod; Bowen wins secretary of state spot
By Michael Gardner
Copley News Service
SACRAMENTO — Former Gov. Jerry Brown’s ongoing political
metamorphosis enters a new stage today, this time as the Democrats’
choice for attorney general.
Known more for his colorful and controversial eight years as governor
than for his latest job as mayor of Oakland, Brown held a commanding
lead over Los Angeles City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo.
South Bay Sen. Debra Bowen won the her race for secretary of state
with 61 percent of the vote.
Republican Claude Parrish, a member of the Board of Equalization from
Rancho Palos Verdes, won the battle for treasurer. Another current tax
board member, Democrat John Chiang of Torrance, beat his primary rival
for state Controller.
Two highly contentious Board of Equalization campaigns featured
Assemblyman Jerome Horton, D-Inglewood, in one race and local GOP
activist Michelle Steel of Palos Verdes in another campaign.
Horton lost to Assemblywoman Judy Chu, D-Monterey Park, on the
Democratic side for the 4th District seat, by a significant margin.
In the 3rd District, Steel defeated her rival, Assemblyman Ray Haynes,
R-Murrietta, in the GOP primary.
Between now and November, Brown will certainly face controversies from
his past — his appointment of Rose Bird as California Supreme Court
chief justice, the medfly crisis and his ill-fated plunge into
presidential politics.
All that and more will be fodder for Chuck Poochigian, who ran
unopposed for the Republican nomination. Nevertheless, the
little-known state senator from Fresno has the challenge of taking
down a California political legend.
“He obviously has a level of celebrity that presents a challenge,”
said Poochigian. “At the same time, he has a long record. The more the
public knows about that record, the better off I am and the people
are.”
Brown immediately returned fire.
“I have the cops on my side,” he said. Brown has planned a campaign
swing for today joined by police in San Diego, Los Angeles, Fresno and
Sacramento.

Sunday, June 04, 2006
****************************************
ELECTIVE AFFINITIES
***********************************
Canadian saying: If you hang around with sh**, don’t complain about the flies.”
*
Propaganda has the power to transform a painful truth to a comforting lie. Expose the lie and make ten thousand enemies.
*
History, especially our own, teaches us that God does not like to interfere in human affairs, and that we can no longer count on Him in a future conflict. Or, as the Yanks put it, you may praise the Lord all you want, provided you keep your powder dry.
*
If all men are brothers and we are all His children, why would He choose only some of us? It makes no sense. That’s when propaganda comes in. It is no exaggeration to say that the aim of propaganda is to make sense out of nonsense by introducing a bigger nonsense; and this bigger nonsense is readily accepted because it flatters the collective ego.
*
By refusing to flatter those who need to be flattered, I let them know they are more unchosen than chosen, and they may even be swimming in the same soup with those they despise. If you think politics makes strange bedfellows, try the truth.
*
You may have noticed that people are more eager to correct you when you are right for the simple reason that they hate to be exposed.
*
A fat slob once justified his hanging beer belly by saying: “A good workman always builds a shed over his best tool.”
*
Canadian saying: “You can’t polish a turd.”
#
Monday, June 05, 2006
*******************************************
A CASE OF MUTUAL MISUNDERSTANDING
********************************************************
Armenians don’t understand Turks because they don’t understand themselves. I speak from experience. For many years I did not understand not only my fellow Armenians but also myself. I confused what I had been taught (misleading platitudes, clichés, and slogans, that is to say propaganda) with reality. And now that I can tell the difference between a half-truth and a lie, I am misunderstood by self-assessed patriotic readers. This much said however, let me add that inability to understand others and oneself is not a peculiarly Armenian failing.
*
What we (regardless of race, color, and creed) really mean when we speak of understanding is the kind of misunderstanding that supports a specific self-serving political agenda. And when we speak of being understood, what we really mean is being misunderstood in a manner that reinforces our image of ourselves. Like dog owners who say “Love me, love my dog,” even when the dog happens to be a drooling, crutch-sniffing ugly mutt with menacing fangs, we say, in effect, “Love me, love my failings, and if you can’t love them, pretend they don’t exist.”
*
When it comes to misunderstanding others and themselves, Turks are no different. If Armenians accuse Turks of being guilty of genocide, Turks retaliate by accusing Armenians of inventing a genocide and believing it for a hundred years. (I wonder, does this have a parallel in human history?) They go further and accuse Armenians, if not of genocide (even they wouldn’t dare to go that far) than of committing indiscriminate massacres of innocent Turkish civilians. It follows, Armenians, unlike Turks, must be born liars motivated by raw hatred. It also explains why, as civilized, compassionate people, Turks are outraged whenever the world fails to understand them, or misunderstand them in a manner that supports their political agenda and reinforces their image of themselves.
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Armenians and Turks don’t hate one another, they hate reality.
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Tuesday, June 06, 2006
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Descartes tells us common sense must be just about the most widely and evenly distributed faculty because no one complains he hasn’t enough of it.
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It is common knowledge that what shapes human thought and action is not science or logic but the absurd and the irrational.
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Our religion teaches us not to judge our fellow men, but it also gives us the tools with which to divide mankind into believers and infidels, and sometimes even who lives and who dies.
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If you are dependent on the goodwill of another, you are only half a man. Subservience, even subservience to an ideology or religion, deprives a man of that which divides him from animals: his reason.
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For a number of years I made a living as an organist in a neighborhood Catholic church. The parish priest once complained to me, “You will be surprised how many people call me on Christmas Eve to ask what time is the midnight mass.”
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Let others say “Inshallah!” (God willing). We should teach ourselves to say, “God unwilling.”
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Wednesday, June 07, 2006
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THE WHITE AND THE BLACK
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If you want to understand the past, don’t listen to a politician, read a historian.
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If you want to read a historian, don’t read a historian who enjoys the support or agreement of politicians.
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The trouble with our ablest historians is that they enjoy the support of a political party with a specific agenda and propaganda line.
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If some people question our credibility it may be because we adopt the role of good guys and assign the role of bad guys to our adversaries, who, in retaliation, do the same. In other words we portray ourselves as white and our enemies as black. Life and common sense suggest that black and white distinctions may apply to Hollywood movies but seldom or never to reality, especially in cases where both sides portray the other as black and themselves as white.
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It is not my intention here to minimize the magnitude of a tragedy or to provide extenuating circumstances to killers, but to enhance our understanding of the past, of reality, and ultimately of ourselves.
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WHEN LAW IS EQUAL FOR EVERYONE
Lragir.am
07 June 06
As long as people do not have trust in anything, every businessman is
sure to be trying to take the safest place, that is in the parliament,
says Deputy Speaker Vahan Hovanisyan.
According to him, the owners of big businesses will be successful.
However, “when the law becomes equal for everyone, and the elements of
injustice are overcome, and competition between different producers
is fair and equal,” as soon as this beautiful reality is established
in Armenia, the businessmen will realize, says Vahan Hovanisyan, that
their direct presence in the parliament hampers both their business
and the parliament. And a less colorful and beautiful reality will
emerge, “lawyers, economists, trade unions, political parties of the
same economic environment will come, and the parliament will become
more effective.”

DESPITE POPULAR OPINION, REAL ESTATE PRICE IN ARMENIA ARE RISING NOT OWING TO IMMIGRATING IRANIAN ARMENIANS
Yerevan, June 6. ArmInfo. The threat of international financial
blockade that Iran has faced in connection with the latest ineffective
international negotiations on the national nuke program makes Iranians
transferring their personal savings abroad or converting them into
gold, writes The Washington Times. The newspaper reports some 200
billions of dollars were transferred from the country last year.
In the meantime, the popular opinion that the above tendency of
capital export from Iran is the key impetus of the “inexplicable”
rise of real estate prices in Armenia does not correspond to reality.
Talking to ArmInfo, Artem Pribilsky, Head of the Real Estate
Market, said the annual investments in real estate in Armenia by the
representatives of Armenian Diaspora can be estimated at $50-60 million
just on a hunch. It makes not less than 7% of the funds circulated
in the housing market. He said Iranian Armenians do not occupy the
“first class niche,” they are more likely to belong to the middle
class who do not claim elite and expensive apartments. The specialist
said that, as a rule, rich Iranian Armenians emigrate to Europe and
the USA, while the niche of elite houses in Yerevan is occupied by
officials or businessmen. A. Pribilsky believes the situation in the
real estate market stable despite the high prices.
And this stability is rather supported by the development of mortgage
crediting in the country.
To note, the annual growth of prices for houses and commercial
premises in Armenia for the last 2-3 years totaled about 25-30%. The
high growth rates are observed also in the mortgage crediting sphere
i.e. 2% for the first quarter of 2006, about $30 million.