First autopsies show at least 6 people were alive when Cypriot airliner crashed in Greece
AP Worldstream; Aug 15, 2005
PATRICK QUINN
At least half a dozen people aboard a Cypriot plane were alive when
the jetliner carrying 121 people slammed into a hillside north of
Athens, Athens’ chief coroner said Monday after conducting the first
autopsies from the crash.
But Fillipos Koutsaftis could not rule out that the six people were
unconscious when the Helios Airways Boeing 737-300, with six crew
and 115 passengers, plunged 10,400 meters (34,000 feet) Sunday
into a mountainous area near the village of Grammatiko, 25 miles
(40 kilometers) north of Athens. There were no survivors.
“We have performed autopsies on six people. Our conclusion is they had
circulation and were breathing at the time of death,” Koutsaftis said,
but stressed: “I cannot rule out that they were unconscious.”
Investigators, to be joined by U.S. experts, were sending the plane’s
data and cockpit voice recorders to France for expert examinations
that could shed light on what happened.
But the head of the Greek airline safety committee, Akrivos Tsolakis,
said the voice recorder was damaged. “It’s in a bad state and,
possibly, it won’t give us the information we need,” he said.
In Cyprus, police raided the offices of Helios Airways in the coastal
city of Larnaca, near the international airport.
A search warrant was issued “to secure … documents and other evidence
which could be useful for the investigation into possible criminal
acts,” Cyprus’ deputy presidential spokesman Marios Karoyian said.
Investigators also were trying to determine why the pilot was not in
his seat shortly before the crash.
The pilots of two Greek air force F-16 fighter planes scrambled to
intercept the plane after it lost contact with air traffic control
shortly after entering Greek airspace said they saw the co-pilot
slumped over the controls. The pilot did not appear to be in the
cockpit, and oxygen masks were seen dangling in the cabin.
The fighter jet pilots also saw two people possibly trying to take
control of the plane; it was unclear if they were crew members or
passengers.
The plane might have run out of fuel after flying on autopilot,
air force officials said, asking not to be named in line with Greek
practice.
After the crash, authorities said it appeared to have been caused by
a technical failure _ resulting in high-altitude decompression. A
Cypriot transport official had said Sunday the passengers and crew
may have been dead before the plane crashed.
“They had circulation and were breathing _ so they were alive _ but
of course that only concerns the people that have been examined. The
others, according to a preliminary observation, show the same signs,
but the autopsies must be carried out to confirm this,” Koutsaftis
said late Monday outside Athens’ main morgue.
He added that there were “80 passengers who cannot be recognized and
that we are not examining at the moment. We are only talking about
a certain number of people at this point. The tissue examinations
on those who cannot be recognized will help us draw more clear
conclusions.”
Koutsaftis also dismissed reports that those aboard may have frozen
to death.
In a related development, police in northern Greece arrested a
man who claimed to have received a telephone text message from a
passenger. The man _ identified as Nektarios-Sotirios Voutas, 32 _
told Greek television stations that his cousin on board the plane
sent him a cell-phone text message minutes before the crash saying:
“Farewell, cousin, here we’re frozen.”
But authorities determined he was lying, and arrested him on charges
of dissemination of false information.
The airliner’s pilots had reported air conditioning system problems
to Cyprus air traffic control about a half-hour after takeoff.
Searchers still were looking for three bodies, including the plane’s
German pilot, fire officials said. Cypriot authorities identified
him as Marten Hans Jurgen, 50, from Berlin.
A spokesman for the German Foreign Ministry, speaking on condition
of anonymity in line with German practice, identified one of the
pilots as a 58-year-old German but would not give his full name. It
was unclear why there was a discrepancy in his age. Greek and Cypriot
authorities often list surnames before given names, and Hans-Juergen
would likely be the pilot’s first name.
In Berlin, police were guarding the house at the address where
the Cypriot government said the pilot lived _ a gray stucco house
surrounded by a tidy, tree-filled garden in a quiet Berlin neighborhood
near the Schoenefeld airport.
The name on the mailbox said Merten. Neighbors confirmed his first
name was Hans-Juergen and said he was a pilot in his 50s, but refused
to provide any other details.
There were other unanswered questions about the pilot, including how
long he had worked for Helios.
“I don’t remember the exact date of his employment,” Helios General
Manager Andreas Drakos said when asked at a news conference.
A passenger list showed there had been 20 children under the age of
16 on board. At least 10 families with children were among the dead.
The passengers and crew included at least 12 Greeks and the German
pilot, and a four-member family of Armenian origin. The rest were
Cypriot.
The body of the Cypriot co-pilot, Pambos Haralambous, was found in
the cockpit.
The airliner’s pilots had reported air conditioning system problems
to Cyprus air traffic control about a half-hour after takeoff, and
Greek state TV quoted Cyprus’ transport minister as saying the plane
had decompression problems in the past.
But a Helios representative said the plane had “no problems and was
serviced just last week.”
Helios said the Boeing 737-300 was manufactured in 1998 and was
previously operated by Deutsche BA. It entered the Helios fleet in
April 2004, the company said.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Clues Sought in Cypriot Airliner Crash
ELENA BECATOROS
AP Online; Aug 15, 2005
Coroners testing the remains of passengers and crew of a Cypriot
airliner that slammed into a mountainside near Athens will try to
determine if the 121 people were already dead when they crashed,
while French experts will examine the plane’s black-box recorders,
officials said Monday.
The cause of Sunday’s crash, Greece’s deadliest airline disaster,
appeared to be technical failure resulting in high-altitude
decompression and loss of oxygen. There were no survivors, yet many
questions remained _ including why the co-pilot was unconscious in
the cockpit 40 minutes before the crash and why he was alone, with
the captain nowhere in sight.
The captain’s body has yet to be recovered, and Greek investigators _
joined by a U.S. team _ were trying to determine why he was not in
his seat while the Boeing 737 was in peril.
Coroners also will examine blood and tissue samples from victims’
lungs to determine whether anything they breathed in could have caused
their deaths.
“We will seek to determine when they died and how they died,” chief
Athens coroner Fillipos Koutsaftis said.
Victims’ relatives gathered at a central Athens morgue to identify
the remains.
There had been 21 children aboard Helios Airways flight ZU522 from
Larnaca, Cyprus, to Athens, “all aged 4 and above,” Greek deputy
Health Minister Giorgos Constantopoulos said Monday. Initially, Greek
and Cypriot officials had said there were 48 children on the plane.
No explanation was given for the discrepancy.
According the Cypriot government, at least 10 families with children
were among the dead. Passengers and crew included at least 12 Greeks,
one German _ the pilot _ and a four-member family of Armenian origin.
The rest were Cypriot.
The Boeing 737 had been scheduled to continue to Prague, Czech
Republic, after Athens. It crashed while on autopilot at 12:05 p.m.
Sunday near Grammatiko, a scenic village 25 miles north of the Greek
capital, apparently after running out of fuel.
Greek state television had quoted the Cyprus transport minister as
saying the plane had decompression problems in the past. But a Helios
representative said the plane had “no problems and was serviced just
last week.”
Searchers at the crash site were still looking for three bodies,
firefighting officials said Monday _ including the pilot. His name was
Hans-Juergen Merten, 58, of Berlin, according to German authorities
and his neighbors near the German capital’s Schoenefeld airport.
The body of the Cypriot co-pilot, Pambos Haralambous, was reportedly
found in the cockpit.
In Cyprus, Helios Airways Chairman Andreas Drakos said the airline’s
crews were operating normally on Sunday, rejecting earlier reports
that its pilots and crew were refusing to fly.
The head of the Greek airline safety committee, Akrivos Tsolakis, said
that the two recovered black boxes _ a data and cockpit voice recorder
_ would be sent to French air safety investigators for examination. The
voice recorder was badly damaged by the crash and ensuing fire.
“It’s in a bad state and, possibly, it won’t give us the information
we need,” Tsolakis said. “Both boxes will be sent to Paris where a
French committee will help us and the foreign experts that are here
to decode.”
He said he believed his committee would be able to reach a conclusion
“in a few days, a very few days.”
U.S. experts will join Greek investigators on request by the American
government, because the aircraft was manufactured in the United States,
Tsolakis said.
The plane took off from Cyprus at 9 a.m. Sunday. About a half-hour
later, the pilots reported air-conditioning system problems to Cyprus
air-traffic control. Within minutes, the plane entered Greek air
space over the Aegean Sea and shortly afterward lost all radio contact.
The Greek air force sent two F-16s fighter jets to intercept the
plane. They caught up with the airliner at 34,000 feet and peered
inside the cockpit. The jet pilots saw the co-pilot slumped over the
controls but could not see the captain, and oxygen masks were dangling
inside, government spokesman Theodoros Roussopoulos said.
When the jets flew by a second time they saw two people possibly
trying to take control of the plane; it was unclear if they were crew
members or passengers. The plane crashed 40 minutes later.
“When a pilot has no communication with the control tower, the
procedure dictates that other planes must accompany and help the
plane land. Unfortunately, it appeared that the pilot was already
dead as was, possibly, everyone else on the plane,” Cyprus Transport
Minister Haris Thrasou said.
At 34,000 feet, the effects of depressurization are swift, said David
Kaminski Morrow, of the British-based Air Transport Intelligence
magazine.
“If the aircraft is at 30,000 feet, you don’t stay conscious for long,
maybe 15 to 30 seconds,” he said.
Cyprus declared three days of national mourning, and in Athens flags
were ordered to fly at half staff on Tuesday. A 40-day mourning period
was declared in Paralymni, a Cypriot town of 10,000 that lost 16 of
its residents on the plane.

Ukrainian-Russian transport plane passes desert, mountain tests
Inter TV, Kiev
15 Aug 05
A new Ukrainian-Russian plane, the An-148, has completed yet another
field test. This time the plane successfully passed tests in the
Uzbek deserts and Armenian mountains, the Antonov design bureau said.
Pilots did not have any complaints about either engines or
electronics. The real technical specifications of the plane [measured
during the tests] coincided with those planned. In other words,
the tests showed that the An-148 is suitable for work in Central
Asia and the Middle East. The Antonov design bureau is planning to
complete all the tests by March 2006. Nevertheless, mass production
of the plane has already been started in Kiev and Voronezh.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Egoyan in Ratings Battle
Cinematical
August 15, 2005,
By Martha Fischer
Atom Egoyan will find out later this week if his new film, Where the
Truth Lies, will receive an NC-17 rating or not. Apparently the MPAA
are having issues with not one, not two, but four scenes in the film,
one of which features some Hot Three-Way Action! between costars
Colin Firth, Kevin Bacon, and Rachel Blanchard (the girl from Seventh
Heaven? Getting down and dirty? Say it ain’t so!). In a refreshing bit
of news, the ratings board actually had less trouble with a lesbian
scene than it did the menage a trois, which might be a weird sort of
progress. According to Egoyan, what the MPAA’s concerns come down to
is not, in fact, the possibility that people of the same gender might
touch one another — instead, it’s all about “the actual number of
thrusts seen.” Seriously.
Where the Truth Lies is based on a novel by Rupert Holmes (who
wrote that great “If you like Pina Coladas” song back in the day),
and follows a pair of journalists as they try to uncover the reasons
behind the breakup of a Martin and Lewis-esque comedy team. However,
since the director is Egoyan, the film is not likely to spend much
time with straight-forward, boring narrative. For a hint of what’s
to come, check out the trailer from Cannes. Whoa.
Filed under: Politics, ThinkFilm
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

AGBU Press Office
55 East 59th Street
New York, NY 10022-1112
Phone: 212.319.6383, x118
Fax: 212.319.6507
Email: [email protected]
Website:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Monday, August 15, 2005
AGBU Organizes Workshop at 58th UN DPI/NGO Conference in New York
For the second consecutive year, AGBU will jointly sponsor a
workshop with the International Council of Nurses and Felician
College at the United Nation’s Annual DPI/NGO (Department of Public
Information/Non-Governmental Organizations) Conference from September
7 – 9, 2005 at UN Headquarters in New York City. The topic of this
year’s conference, “Our Challenge: Voice for Peace, Partnerships and
Renewal,” advances the UN’s commitment to the Millennium Development
Goals (MDGs) that outline a strategy to alleviate extreme poverty,
provide universal education, ensure gender equality, combat AIDS and
other diseases, encourage environmental sustainability and develop
global partnerships for development.
The Wednesday, September 7th workshop, established and organized
by AGBU UN Representative Adrienne Alexanian, is entitled,
“Successful Development Programmes in Education and Healthcare through
Partnerships.” It will focus on the interrelated issues of technology
and education in advancing development in healthcare.
Alexanian will serve as moderator for the workshop and the three
featured speakers will be: Mary Norton, Professor and Associate Dean
at Felician College (USA); Rita Balian, Founder of Armenian American
Wellness Center (Armenia); and Micaela Iovine, Senior Programme
Officer, Global Programme, Council for International Exchange of
Scholars. Featured speakers will discuss existing partnerships with
governments, educational institutions, the private sector and the
World Bank.
The UN DPI/NGO Conference is the largest annual gathering of
NGOs. This year over 2,700 representatives of 1,000 NGOs from 120
countries will attend the three-day event. Jean Ping, President of
the 59th Session of the United Nations General Assembly, will address
the delegates during Wednesday’s opening session. Kofi Annan, United
Nations Secretary-General, Gordon Brown, Chancellor of the Exchequer
(UK) and Shirin Ebadi, President, Human Rights Defence Centre (Iran)
are some of the other confirmed speakers for the conference. For
more up-to-date information about the 58th UN DPI/NGO Conference,
pleases visit:
Established in 1906, AGBU () is the world’s largest
non-profit Armenian organization. Headquartered in New York City
with an annual budget of $26 million, AGBU preserves and promotes
the Armenian identity and heritage through educational, cultural and
humanitarian programs, annually serving some 400,000 Armenians in
35 countries. AGBU has been a registered NGO at the United Nations
since 1989.

Turks rethink idea of EU membership
By Seth Rosen
The Washington Times
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Published August 14, 2005
ANKARA, Turkey — Turks are becoming increasingly disillusioned with
the European Union’s stringent stipulations for membership and are
rethinking entering a club they have yearned to join for 40 years.
After the initial jubilation in December 2004 of securing an October
date to begin accession talks, the need to make concessions on
politically sensitive issues has engendered a tide of uncertainty in
this expanding nation of 70 million.
In a poll conducted in May, 63 percent of the Turks who responded
said that they would like to see their country attain membership —
down from 75 percent in December.
“The general enthusiasm about membership is eroding, and as the EU
demands become clearer, the public will shy away more and more,”
said Hasan Unal, a professor of international relations at Bilkent
University in Ankara.
French and Greek officials called last week for Turkey to recognize the
Greek Cypriot government in Cyprus or risk derailing its EU bid. This
is part of a mounting list of demands from EU members that challenge
Turkish identity and fundamental values, politicians and analysts
here said.
“Europeans don’t fully understand the limits to patience on this
side,” said Suat Kiniklioglu, director of the Ankara office of the
German Marshall Fund of the United States. “We’re not yet counting
on Plan B, but the euphoria is gone.”
Expectations were raised after the December decision, as Turks
anticipated an immediate flood of foreign investment and a decrease
in unemployment. A disappointment has permeated the nation as no real
benefits have accrued to date, said Emine Sirin, an independent member
of Parliament.
Since December, many Turks have seen a significant change in the
attitude of Europeans. As public opinion in most EU countries has
crystallized against Turkish accession, European politicians have
started taking a firmer stance as well.
One of the central reasons cited for the rejection of the European
constitution in France and the Netherlands in May was disgruntlement
with past and future enlargement of the bloc, especially for
predominantly Muslim Turkey.
More worrying for Turkey is the German election scheduled for
September, in which the Christian Democrats are favored to win. Their
leader, Angela Merkel, is an adamant opponent of Turkish membership and
instead advocates a “privileged partnership.” French President Jacques
Chirac has vowed to hold a separate referendum on Turkey’s membership.
This is part of an increasingly unjust treatment of Turkey’s
application, said Onur Oymen, the vice chairman of the Turkey-European
Union Joint Parliamentary Committee, who points out that French
citizens did not vote when Bulgaria, Croatia and Romania applied.
Some European politicians, emphatically led by the French, have called
on Turkey to recognize the mass killings of Armenians by Ottoman
Turks in 1915 as “genocide,” a red line for all Turkish politicians.
“People are disappointed with the double standards we are facing,”
said Hasan Ali Karasar, a researcher at Ankara’s Center for Eurasian
Strategic Studies. “What they ask for is against our tradition,
culture, history and strategic location.”
Others are more cynical and think that the European Union is meddling
in Turkey’s internal affairs to dissuade it from continuing with
negotiations.
“What the EU is trying to do is frustrate us with unacceptable demands
so that Turkey will say ‘We give up and don’t want to be a member,’
” said Mr. Unal, the professor at Bilkent University. “This way,
they don’t have to turn us down.”
A growing chorus of pundits in Turkey, frustrated with perceived EU
interference in internal matters, is beginning to see a “privileged
partnership” as an attractive measure. A special status would pull
the country closer economically to the European Union but allow it
to retain its sovereignty.
It would also restore a sense of balance to Turks, who currently
possess little leverage in their discussion with the European Union,
Mr. Unal said.

Greek Police Raid Helios Airways Offices
By ELENA BECATOROS, Associated Press Writer
Associated Press
August 15, 2005
Police in Cyprus raided the offices of Helios Airways in the coastal
city of Larnaca on Monday, a day after one of the company’s passenger
jets slammed into a mountainside near Athens, killing all 121 people
on board.
Police spokeswoman Christalla Dimitriou said officers “carried out
a search” after asking the city’s court for a search warrant. No
arrests were made and she did not say whether police had confiscated
any material from the office.
Chief Athens coroner Fillipos Koutsaftis, meanwhile, said that tests
conducted on the remains showed at least six of the 121 victims were
alive when the aircraft went down.
“We have performed autopsies on six people. Our conclusion is they had
circulation and were breathing at the time of death,” Koutsaftis said,
but he added they could have been unconscious.
French experts will examine the plane’s black-box recorders,
officials said.
The cause of Sunday’s crash, Greece’s deadliest airline disaster,
appeared to be technical failure resulting in high-altitude
decompression and loss of oxygen. Yet many questions remained,
including why the co-pilot was unconscious in the cockpit 40 minutes
before the crash and why he was alone, with the captain nowhere
in sight.
The captain’s body has yet to be recovered, and Greek investigators
– joined by a U.S. team – were trying to determine why he was not
in his seat while the Boeing 737 was in peril.
Coroners also will examine blood and tissue samples from victims’
lungs to determine whether anything they breathed in could have caused
their deaths.
“We will seek to determine when they died and how they died,” chief
Koutsaftis said earlier.
Victims’ relatives gathered at a central Athens morgue to identify
the remains.
There had been 21 children aboard Helios Airways flight ZU522 from
Larnaca, Cyprus, to Athens, “all aged 4 and above,” Greek deputy
Health Minister Giorgos Constantopoulos said Monday. Initially, Greek
and Cypriot officials had said 48 children were on the plane. No
explanation was given for the discrepancy.
According the Cypriot government, at least 10 families with children
were among the dead. Passengers and crew included at least 12 Greeks,
one German – the pilot – and a four-member family of Armenian origin.
The rest were Cypriot.
Police in northern Greece also arrested a man who claimed to have
received a telephone text message from his cousin who was on the
plane before it crashed.
The man, who was identified as 32-year-old Nektarios-Sotirios Voutas,
called Greek television stations shortly after the Helios Airways
flight crashed, saying his cousin Nikos Petridis sent him a message
that read: “Farewell, cousin, here we’re frozen.”
The report that the plane was cold was taken as a sign of
decompression, but police in Thessaloniki said they had determined he
was lying and the name Petridis was not on the Cypriot government’s
official list of victims.
Voutas, a resident of the northern port city of Thessaloniki who had
identified himself to Greek media as Sotiris Voutas, faced charges
of disseminating false information and causing a public disturbance,
police said.
The Boeing 737 had been scheduled to continue to Prague, Czech
Republic, after Athens. It crashed while on autopilot at 12:05
p.m. Sunday near Grammatiko, a scenic village 25 miles north of the
Greek capital, apparently after running out of fuel.
Greek state television had quoted the Cyprus transport minister as
saying the plane had decompression problems in the past. But a Helios
representative said the plane had “no problems and was serviced just
last week.”
Searchers at the crash site were still looking for three bodies,
firefighting officials said Monday – including the pilot. His name
was Hans-Juergen Merten, 58, of Berlin, according to German authorities
and his neighbors near the German capital’s Schoenefeld airport.
The body of the Cypriot co-pilot, Pambos Haralambous, reportedly was
found in the cockpit.
In Cyprus, Helios Airways Chairman Andreas Drakos said the airline’s
crews were operating normally on Sunday, rejecting earlier reports
that its pilots and crew were refusing to fly.
The head of the Greek airline safety committee, Akrivos Tsolakis,
said that the two recovered black boxes – a data and cockpit voice
recorder – would be sent to French air safety investigators for
examination. The voice recorder was badly damaged by the crash and
ensuing fire.
“It’s in a bad state and, possibly, it won’t give us the information
we need,” Tsolakis said. “Both boxes will be sent to Paris where a
French committee will help us and the foreign experts that are here
to decode.”
He said he believed his committee would be able to reach a conclusion
“in a few days, a very few days.”
U.S. experts will join Greek investigators on request by the American
government, because the aircraft was manufactured in the United States,
Tsolakis said.
The plane took off from Cyprus at 9 a.m. Sunday. About a half-hour
later, the pilots reported air-conditioning system problems to Cyprus
air-traffic control. Within minutes, the plane entered Greek air
space over the Aegean Sea and shortly afterward lost all radio contact.
The Greek air force sent two F-16s fighter jets to intercept the plane.
They caught up with the airliner at 34,000 feet and peered inside the
cockpit. The jet pilots saw the co-pilot slumped over the controls
but could not see the captain, and oxygen masks were dangling inside,
government spokesman Theodoros Roussopoulos said.
When the jets flew by a second time they saw two people possibly
trying to take control of the plane; it was unclear if they were crew
members or passengers. The plane crashed 40 minutes later.
“When a pilot has no communication with the control tower, the
procedure dictates that other planes must accompany and help the
plane land. Unfortunately, it appeared that the pilot was already
dead as was, possibly, everyone else on the plane,” Cyprus Transport
Minister Haris Thrasou said.
At 34,000 feet, the effects of depressurization are swift, said David
Kaminski Morrow, of the British-based Air Transport Intelligence
magazine.
“If the aircraft is at 30,000 feet, you don’t stay conscious for long,
maybe 15 to 30 seconds,” he said.
Cyprus declared three days of national mourning, and in Athens flags
were ordered to fly at half staff on Tuesday. A 40-day mourning period
was declared in Paralymni, a Cypriot town of 10,000 that lost 16 of
its residents on the plane.
Associated Press writers Elena Becatoros in Athens, Derek Gatopoulos
in Grammatiko, Greece, and Alex Efty in Nicosia, Cyprus, contributed
to this story.

Tulsa World (Oklahoma)
August 10, 2005 Wednesday
Community World – Midtown Edition
Conservatory builds on kids’ musical abilities
Annie Gasparro World Staff Writer
As auditions for Barthelmes Conservatory’s music school begin,
executive director Aida Aydinyan hopes to take the program to a
new level.
Aydinyan, who was raised in Armenia and became executive director last
summer, said she wants to incorporate the Armenian model of education
into the conservatory by focusing on the history and theory behind
the music her students perform.
“I brought with me a system of knowledge and a vision,” she said.
“Music is much more than learning how to play a song.”
Aydinyan organized the conservatory into two components: the music
center and the music school.
The music center provides private music lessons to students of all
ages and abilities.
“This area is more community-oriented — no auditions or exams. We
have all ages come in, children and adults,” Aydinyan said.
However, the music school is reserved for second- to sixth-graders
who demonstrate high musical aptitude.
The audition process consists of written and audio tone and rhythm
tests, an interview with the student and an interview with the parents.
“It is not based on skill,” Aydinyan said. “It is based on initial
musical giftedness.”
Aydinyan said the student does not need to know how to play an
instrument to audition.
“We are not performance oriented, but we’re concentrating on the
process and enjoying the process,” she said.
Selected students receive a full scholarship for a twice-weekly
after-school program where they learn music theory and receive
instrumental instruction.
“The whole idea of music school is that we can give an opportunity
to someone who would never otherwise be given musical instruction,”
Aydinyan said.
Last year, the school accepted 13 students.
This year, Aydinyan plans to expand by introducing a more advanced
program for second-year students that offers extra classes such as
music literature and orchestra.
But the school needs the funds to do so.
“The instructors recommended 10 of the students to continue, and we
will also have a new pool of students,” she said. “So we are looking
for the general public to support us.”
She said the conservatory receives grants from the Barthelmes
Foundation and will hold fundraisers.
Aydinyan said she hopes to start an “adopt-a-gifted-student” program
to get the rest of the community involved.
Christina Hardin, mother of two music center students, said the
instructors get the community involved by taking the students to play
at venues such as restaurants and nursing homes.
Hardin’s children, Emma, 12, and Zac, 10, are taking weekly lessons
from music instructor Kevin Jackson.
“The key is learning when they’re young, because whether you want
to play more seriously or for fun, it builds a foundation for high
school and anything after that,” Jackson said.
Emma and Zac are auditioning for the music school.
Emma, learning the cello, and Zac, playing the double bass, have
influenced other children with their interest in music.
“Their friends came kind of snowballing once they saw that Zac and
Emma like it,” Hardin said.
The conservatory also provides free string and drum instruction
to students at three Tulsa elementary schools as part of a talent
development program.
While at the schools, the instructors often find students who are
musically gifted and can encourage them to audition for music school.
For auditions or private lessons at Barthelmes Conservatory, call
794-0330.

Houston Press (Texas)
August 11, 2005 Thursday
Down Is Up
System of a Down is rock’s least likely success story
by By Michael Roberts
They used to call us nue-metal,” System of a Down singer-guitarist
Daron Malakian told the ecstatic crowd at a stop on his band’s spring
tour. “Now they call us prog-rock. I think they’ll call us anything
that’s popular.” Then, after a pause and the subtlest of grins, he
announced, “But actually, we’re just a bunch of mo-rons. ” Months
later, as System headlines its biggest junket to date, Malakian is
being touted as the mastermind of Mezmerize, which has been embraced
by critics and fans alike. The CD debuted in May atop the Billboard
album chart, further raising expectations for Hypnotize, a companion
disc scheduled for a November release. Malakian isn’t particularly
comfortable with this attention, and he’s just as wary of questions
about his in-concert comments from earlier this year. “I never
remember anything I say on stage,” he warns. Upon having his
statement repeated to him, however, he laughs with relief. “I can
stand behind that,” he declares.
No wonder, since his offhand remark effectively satirizes the media’s
continuing attempts to pigeonhole System. “Lately, we’ve been doing
interviews, and people have been like, ‘You guys are really leading
the way for the new prog movement,’ ” he notes. “And I’m like,
‘What?’ Because a couple of years ago, these guys were comparing us
to Limp Bizkit and Korn, and now that we’re still here and those
bands aren’t, they’re talking about prog. It’s just kind of
aggravating that people always have to have something to compare us
to, or bunch us up with. I’m not saying we’re the most original band
in the world, but I don’t really feel that we fall into a heavy-metal
category or a pure rock category. There’s a lot of stuff mixed up
into one.”
As for the humorously self-deprecating “mo-rons” remark, it hints at
a truth about the group that’s frequently overlooked. Although System
is clearly one of the smartest acts in popular music, socially
astute, hyper-articulate fare like “B.Y.O.B.” is as popular among
just plain folks as it is with left-wing activists and Mensa members,
for reasons that the live show makes clear. Vocalist Serj Tankian’s
sweeping theatricality, bassist Shavo Odadjian’s elastic
head-bobbing, drummer John Dolmayan’s hyperkinetic rhythms and
Malakian’s aggressive riffology suggest that they remain very much in
touch with their inner mo-ron — the part of them that loved sound
and fury long before it signified anything.
“It’s important not to take yourself too seriously,” Malakian says,
“and I think sometimes people take us a lot more seriously than we
take ourselves, especially when it comes to politics. Politics, for
me, is a reflection of the world I live in. But love is just as
important as politics to me. They both exist in the world, you know?
And if you don’t reflect the entire world around you, then you’re
leaving something out.”
System is all about inclusion. The music bears the mark of so many
varied influences that, Malakian maintains, “I think you could call
us anything you want and you’d be right.” That’s one reason numerous
labels initially kept their distance from System, even though these
“four Armenian guys from L.A.,” as Malakian calls them, had built a
sizable audience among habitues of the mid-’90s Hollywood club scene.
Producer Rick Rubin eventually signed System to his imprint, American
Records, but reviewers didn’t quite know what to make of the
quartet’s 1998 self-titled debut.
“They’d say, ‘It kind of sounds like this,’ or ‘It kind of sounds
like that,’ ” Malakian recalls, “and by the time they were done,
they’d named five bands that had nothing to do with one another.” He
wasn’t bothered by Dead Kennedys references, since he acknowledges a
certain commonality between Tankian’s nasal wailing and that of DK
leader Jello Biafra, but he felt nue-metal allusions constituted
“guilt by association.”
Still, this tag likely helped convince radio programmers to give
System a chance, and the airplay lavished on strong cuts such as
“Spiders” and “Sugar” — not to mention the publicity garnered for
its star-making turn during the 1998 edition of Ozzfest — helped
break the band nationally. Malakian and company responded with 2001’s
Toxicity, an even better recording than its first, albeit one whose
appearance was awkwardly timed; the disc arrived in stores the week
of 9/11. Shortly after the terrorist attacks, representatives of
Clear Channel, the owner of more U.S. rock radio stations than any
other company, placed the group’s entire oeuvre, including the
brilliant single “Chop Suey!,” on a list of tunes that shouldn’t be
aired. This misguided, arguably racist move, which took place around
the same time that Tankian posted criticism of American foreign
policy on System’s Web site, hardly stopped listeners from seeking
out Toxicity. As Malakian points out, “We were being censored, but
people were still going out and buying the record. And to be honest
with you, radio was playing it like crazy.” He adds that “the more
they try to shut somebody’s mouth, the more people are going to want
to hear what the person has to say. It’s a big mistake from the
beginning.”
Toxicity created such a big noise that System promptly issued 2002’s
Steal This Album!, a first-rate collection of random tracks from
throughout its existence that spawned another hit, the appropriately
explosive “Boom!” The period of relative quiet that followed was
broken in a major way by Mezmerize, and many admirers characterized
it as a coming-out party for Malakian. Granted, Malakian’s voice is
more prominent than before, and “Old School Hollywood,” a wry
recapitulation of a celebrity baseball game that mentions Tony Danza
and Frankie Avalon, finds him employing the first person in an
extremely direct manner. Yet he sees the theory that he’s suddenly
taken control of System as being fatally flawed.
“Yeah, I’m singing more, and yeah, I sing just as much on Hypnotize,”
he confirms. “But that’s the only difference. I’ve always written and
produced and put down the path for System when it comes down to the
songs: first record, second record, third record, these records.
Almost every chorus — about 80 percent of every System of a Down
chorus that you sing — is a vocal line that I wrote, with words that
I wrote. I just didn’t sing them. And this time, the songs called for
more of an interaction between me and Serj, so suddenly people think
I’m doing more. People get very focused on the vocalist, and end up
thinking the vocalist is doing everything in the band, which isn’t
necessarily the case.”
It’s unusual for Malakian to trumpet his role in System, primary
though it is. He’d much rather talk about people he respects — an
honor roll that runs the gamut from Mahatma Gandhi to Charles Manson.
Malakian tweaked political correctness on Toxicity via “ATWA,” a
track inspired by some of Manson’s environmental musings, and
Mezmerize’s liner sports an epigram from the “Helter Skelter” man:
“In your world you can take a pen and write on a piece of paper and
destroy 200,000 people or more and it’s ok because you don’t have to
see it.”
“I have no interest in murder, and I have no interest in people
dying,” Malakian stresses. “But I’m interested in people’s minds, and
sometimes Manson puts thoughts together that I find really
interesting. Have you ever seen his unedited videos? He starts making
a lot of sense. I’m sure people are scared of that, but to me, it’s
scarier to watch George Bush try to make sense.”
Even so, Malakian’s rhapsodic waxings about another hero — former
Los Angeles Laker Kareem Abdul-Jabbar — reveal more about him than
does his Manson jones. Malakian often saw Abdul-Jabbar play during
the Lakers”80s heyday, and he says, “I like that he was the captain
of his team, and he wasn’t so much of a showboater. You just don’t
see players like him anymore — players who keep quiet, play their
fuckin’ game and don’t act like a rock star.”
Malakian takes the same approach to System of a Down. “When people
come to our shows, I don’t want it to only be serious moments about
politics,” he allows. “I want them to have a good time. That’s what
it comes down to for me.” System of a Down appears Saturday, August
13, at the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion, 2025 Lake Robbins Drive,
The Woodlands, 281-363-3300. The Mars Volta and Bad Acid Trip are
also on the bill.

EDITORIALS Short attention span Another day, another genocide
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (Little Rock)
August 8, 2005 Monday
THERE’S ONE thing you can always count on when the subject of genocide
comes up: Nobody gets too worked up about it. The dead are certainly
beyond caring. Survivors might be interested, especially surviving
family and friends. But in general the living, most of us anyway,
have other things on our minds.
A short news item out of Rwanda once again brings to mind how easily
the deaths of hundreds of thousands can become nothing more than
a footnote in the bloody pages of history. It seems the Rwandan
government has okayed the release of 36,000 prisoners, most of whom
have confessed to participating in the genocide in that country more
than 10 years ago. End of story.
What genocide? Well, over a period of about 100 days in 1994,
800,000 Rwandans were murdered by their countrymen. The massacres
arose out of tension between the majority Hutu and the minority
Tutsi. Most of the deaths were among the Tutsis, although Hutus also
were slaughtered. Sometimes by fellow Hutus who thought they were
soft on the Tutsis. It will all sound familiar to students of 20th
Century Europe.
The prisoners being released now were mostly foot soldiers in the reign
of terror, rather than leaders and organizers. Rwanda’s government
says the ex-prisoners will go back to their homes in the villages
where they committed their acts of violence. There they are supposed
to face local tribunals set up to allow for reconciliation-confession
and forgiveness. Not a bad idea, and it’s about as much justice as
can be mustered in Rwanda right now.
There’s a case to be made for the release of the prisoners. Rwandan
prisons are known for their horrific conditions. They were built to
hold about 30,000, but until this release there were more than 80,000
inmates crowded together. Food and shelter are lacking. Disease is
rampant. Some of the prisoners have been held for 10 years or more,
with no prospect for trials any time soon. Many have already served
longer sentences than they would probably have received if tried.
Many were minors when they participated in the killings. Others are
elderly. Many are sick.
>>From the point of view of the survivors, though, such humanitarian
concerns are misplaced. A massive release of prisoners puts them
back among the same people they once terrorized. One survivor voiced
her fear of what would happen, even with the prospect of village
tribunals. The released prisoners, she warned, will stick together
and hide the truth. And the survivors will rightly fear further
retaliation.
Those scholars who keep up with the world’s genocides tend to have the
same concern. The worry is that mixing the perpetrators and the victims
could re-open old wounds and lead to yet another round of mass murder
in that Central African country. And they suspect that the huge number
of prisoners being released will overload the reconciliation process,
meaning many never have to acknowledge their crimes. In short, the
release could create more problems than it solves. But it’s hard to
get the world to care.
Even in 1994, when the killings were known to be happening, nobody on
the outside showed much concern. Reaction from the United Nations was
feeble. Elsewhere, the reaction was non-existent. Another outbreak of
violence in Rwanda is likely to draw the same immense lack of interest.
Besides, Rwanda is so yesterday. Today’s genocide is happening in the
Darfur region of the Sudan, but few know the details, and fewer still
are trying to stop it. Rwanda is joining the long list of genocides
that escaped attention while they were occurring, then slipped from
human memory.
“Who remembers the Armenians?” as Hitler was supposed to have asked
when making his own genocidal plans. For that matter, who now remembers
the Bosnians or the Cambodians? Even the 20th Century’s most notorious
genocide, the Holocaust, has produced its deniers. How long, after all,
can one be exposed to tales of horror before the mind grows numb? The
Rwandans must now compete for attention on an always crowded list of
mass atrocities. And always we will have those who would minimize,
euphemize, or even excuse genocides, setting the stage for more. (One
Japanese textbook now refers to the Rape of Nanking-a weeks-long binge
of absolute horror-as the Nanking “incident.”) There will always be
those who say it’s time to move on. But often enough, that advice
comes from those who joined in the mass murders. Forgive and forget,
they say. Don’t dwell on the past. But attention must be paid if
humanity is ever to move beyond this bloody stage. The thankless
job of recording these enormities must go on. Lest we forget, and
repeat the Killing Fields of Cambodia, the slaughters of Rwanda,
the massacre at Srebrenica . . . .
All must be recorded in history, none whitewashed. No, remembering
won’t do much for the victims or maybe even for the survivors, but
somewhere, sometime maybe attention will be paid. And the future will
be better than the still echoing crimes of a terrible past.