The polls opened at 7 am. There were people who had been in line since around 6 am. Some of the poll workers said that people came over at 5 am. I was there at quarter past seven and the whole thing took less than an hour with half an hour of wait outside.

Unzipped, another Armenian now resident in the U.K., was inspired and cautiously optimistic.

They proved that impossible is possible in America. They proved that ‘American dream’ exists […]

[…]

Expectations are so high of him that chances to get disappointed are very high too. Beginning of new era, or so I hope.

Political scientist Artashes Boyajian echoes the sentiment of the Obama campaign motto and also compares the scenes of Obama's supporters converging on his campaign headquarters in Chicago to demonstrations held in Armenia in the last dying years of the former Soviet Union.

Let this be a victory of intelligence over arrogance, of responsibility over recklessness, of decency over shameful fear-mongering!!!!

The world needs a positive and respectful attitude from America, for a change. “Change we can believe in!” :):):)

Local blogger Pigh [RU] takes a different position. Ironically, his blogger name translated into English means elephant, symbol of the Republican Party.

Friends, why is it that you’re taking Obama’s election with such joy? What, do we all care for the rebirth of powerful America?”

The brave-little-soldier Mccain and silly Palin would quickly bring the “global stronghold of democracy” to its logical end. Our Armenians, instead, are so joyful! So joyful! All our office looks like at Easter holidays. And don’t hope that Obama will deliver his campaign pledge and recognize the Armenian Genocide.

Another resident blogger, Uzogh [RU], is more positive.

One thing I can see from Obama’s stance is - morality. He tries to show (and personally, I am convinced in it), that he cares about all the values, which are important for all the people, regardless of their being black, white or whatever. You can call all this - dirty PR and hold me for a naive romantic. Well, I guess we’ll have to live and see for ourselves.

American-Armenian Notes From Hairenik reflects on the consensus of opinion shared by most Armenians wherever they might live. However, the blogger shares Pigh's view that campaign promises to recognize the Armenian Genocide will not be fulfilled.

It comes as no surpise that Armenian-Americans who supported Obama–most likely the vast majority of them although there's probably no way to say for sure–are ecstatic about his being elected as president. He has made several promises to the Armenian-American community, most notably to recognize the Armenian Genocide. In a press release issued by his campaign Obama for America it clearly states his dedication to recognition.

[…]

Even if he does not live up to this promise, it would not be his fault. He would not be the only president to refrain from doing so–in recent memory both President Bill Clinton and George W. Bush said similar things as campaign pledges. The US State Department policy has always been one favoring Turkey's interests, and Armenian Genocide recognition has never been one of them.

A podcast in Armenian summarizing these reactions can also be downloaded here.

When not-infected yet, to suck up all the votes of the American Armenians, American Congress and Presidential candidates abundantly and heartrendingly acknowledge the unendurable Tragedy of all the Armenians worldwide. My own parents were survivors, and it still hurts ME in my own three scores and six years.

Having gobbled up the Armenian vote in America (definitely over a million!), the US political elite (post election and instant infection) inhumanly (never mind dishonorably, shamelessly, filthily – call it what you like in English – my own mother used to say in Armenian, “they lick their own spit”) renege on their pre-election promise and eagerly eat their own words – precisely what President Reagan (Senator McCain’s senile hero) did, Bush the Father did, unworthy son Bush did even last year – and alas, alack, the tragic President Clinton did too …

The failure of the genocidal attempt is used as an argument by the genociders and their defendants to prove the non-existence of their criminal act. They are too dumb to grasp the historical fact that all attempts at genocide have always failed, as if by divine will and as evidence of the power of God’s miraculous goodness, to nail the satanic coffin of the genociders in historical ignominy. The mad Genghis Khan, a thousand years ago, was determined to murder all the peoples of China because he wanted the country empty as a vast grazing ground for his horses …

The Three Major Deniers of the Holocaust – and it does not include Iran’s President

Winston Churchill called it ‘The Holocaust of the Armenians’, before the humane Raphael Lemkin, the learned Jewish American Lawyer coined with legalistic precision the immortal label for it – genocide. It is a pity that the American Jewish Lobby did not follow suit, and childishly, just to spite the Armenians and all those who they thought were encroaching on their uniqueness, refused to adopt Lemkin’s verbal coinage of genius to their own case. Time shall be ripe that they do, I hope before long.

Language – words – is extremely important for truth-acquisition, especially as the same words are tortured and twisted into lies by ruthless marketing men and false historians. As if it were not enough that Jewish intellectuals should deny themselves the horrendous fact of a genocide – holocaust etymologically means no more than “burning whole”, an apt description of the Nazi crematoria, but nothing like History’s charge of a genocidal crime perpetrated – worse, as a result of blunted linguistic consciousness (and of course political expediency) the State of Israel today officially and formally denies the genocide of the Armenians, and that by the mouth of a pseudo-socialist Shimon Peres.

Jewish Armenians or Armenian Jews

Britain’s ex-prime minister Tony Blair may have been (and still may be for all I know) the lap-dog of Bush junior – but I find it impossible to accept that the State of Israel should be the lap-dog of the US governments, to the degree that of all nations, the prime victim-nation of a genocidal holocaust should be the one to deny the genocide of the Armenians, on whose mountains of Ararat Noah’s family and animals were saved, of whose mountains the Hebrew people descended, whose King Dikran the Great (Tiridates in classical Greek sources) uplifted a whole community of Jews from Palestine (around 100 BC - then part of his empire) and brought them safely into the heartland of his Kingdom in present-day Turkey, to build a new capital city named after him Dikran-a-gerd (=built by Dikran, re-named by Turks Diyarbekir). This fact – little known in world history – is recorded in our ‘Herodotus’, the 5th c. AD Historian, Movsess Khorenatsi (known as Moses of Khoren – translated even into Latin in the 17th c. Europe). My own family stretches back to those days – all our records lost tragically because of the genocidal holocausts since.

I care very little for the mad and the bad who deny my genocide. I have Turkish friends I call brothers and sisters who cannot still bring themselves to acknowledging it – actually, I feel immensely sad and sorry for them, as I feel their sense of shame, against their government’s totally stupid denial – insufferably stupid, because Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, mythologized as the Father of modern Turkey and the Turkish nation, himself once a member of the Young Turks, had acknowledged their deed in the most powerful possible Turkish-language description of it as a “shameful act”. [Kazim Őztűrk, ed., Atatűrkűn TBMM Ac̨ik ve Gizli Oturumlardaki Konus̨malari, vol. I, Ankara: Kűltűr Bakanliği, 1992, p. 59; cited in Taner Akcam, A Shameful Act, The Armenian Genocide and The Question of Turkish Responsibility, tr. Paul Bessemer, New York: Metropolitan Books, Henry Holt & Company, 2006, p. 380]

Ataturk’s definition contains more than meets the English eyes – it refers to the turkish national custom as much of using the expression as a euphemism for the crime of Rape.

The Nazi copy-cat imitation of the Young Turks

Although suspected at the time, as the Ottoman Armies were under German High Command, Professor Vahakn N. Dadrian has proven exhaustively the German Responsibility in the Armenian Genocide, A Review of the Historical Evidence of German Complicity (title of his book), Watertown: Blue Crane Books, 1996. Professor Dadrian has proven legalistically even more – the direct causality (and the historical continuity) of the Jewish Holocaust perpetrated by the Nazis entirely modeled on nothing else but the Young Turk paradigm of the genocide of the Armenians.

About 2,000 German officers of the German imperial High Command in Turkey during the First World War had witnessed first-hand – like the young Baron Konstantin von Neurath, First Secretary of the German Embassy in Istanbul (the State Archives in Bonn are awash with his eye-witness accounts), and frequently participated in the genocide, became the Nazi hierarchy during the Second World War, including Rudolf Hőss, the Commandant of Auschwitz.

The British Government of the day was the first to document meticulously in a way the best of the British know how to, the facts of the attempted genocide of the Armenians as a Blue Book first, then published famously separately in 1916; James Bryce and Arnold Toynbee, The Treatment of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, 1915-1916, Documents Presented to Viscount Grey of Falloden by Viscount Bryce, Uncensored Edition, ed. and with an introduction by Ara Sarafian, Princeton: Gomidas Institue, 2000.

The whole world was shocked when the blessed Jewish American ambassador in Istanbul, Henry Morgenthau, published his memoirs … dispatched to Istanbul, to intervene for his own Diaspora people, Morgenthau temporarily ‘forgot’ about them blinded by the horrors of their fellow Armenians. As a direct result, the American Human rights movement arose, exhaustively recorded by Peter Balakian (The Burning Tigris, A History of the Armenian Genocide, Pimlico, Random House, 2005), to evolve eventually I suggest into its different forms, including the revolutions of the Flower Power, Black Power, Feminism, Gay & Lesbian Rights and the Black Civil Rights Movements.

In spite of such massive accumulated evidence, the Turkish government proposed to form a Commission of Historians to establish facts already established a thousand times … while murdering any historian that dares to establish them – like Hrant Dink in Istanbul, and pouring death threats on reluctant Turkish refugees like Taner Akcam and Orhan Pamuk. What foolish Historian would risk life and limb to join such a Commission!

Today, the only ‘great’ deniers of the genocide of the Armenians, led by America, are the British and Israeli governments in bed with the Turkish government. Let the official fools and frauds of America, Britain, and Turkey deny History, Truth, and historical Fact, to their false-hearts’ contentment – what is unbearable, unforgivable, a Badass lesson to the rest of the world is the denial by the Israeli State – No, a thousand and one times No to Israel.

Genocide denied is genocide committed – any wonder that the Turkish state is still at it on their Kurds, Israel on their Palestinians, America and Britain in Darfur and Iraq … all because the Nazis were allowed to copy-cat the Young Turks, who got away with it, and remain still un-punished in absentia by American government refusal to acknowledge the failed genocide of the Armenians.

Barack Obama – At last a world-leader that shall seek, see and find and live the Truth

Why am I so confident that Barack Obama as the next President of the United States shall not be infected by ArmGenDen-itis and his acknowledgment shall finally render the denial of the Triumvirate of Fools and lap-dogs – Britain, Israel, and Turkey redundant?

The answer is simple really – because he seems to me to be a man of Truth. Why?

My answer to this one is complex, with some ‘politically in-correct’ dialectical contradictions that may carry the risk of misunderstandings. One needs to decouple most certainly individual sexual proclivities from the practices of public life. America is the country of every conceivable sexual practice, from the most holy (whatever that may mean) to the most perverted (whatever that may imply). Britain led the European Union into the legal decriminalization and acceptance of many sexual deviations from the norm as normal, especially the Gay liberation of all civil servants.

But where does one draw the line?

I myself draw the line at the sexual abuse of children that must NEVER EVER BE ALLOWED, not even in a million years (if the man-made Climate Change won’t end life sooner). Yet, I do not advocate the imprisonment of such unfortunates, but their life-long therapy if need be, subsidized by the State.

The protection and welfare of all children must be paramount in the whole world signed up by every government (hopefully, eventually, if America shall lead the way).

While totally un-interested in who does what in their leisure, I do argue that philosophically speaking, politically correct, relativist consonance of sexual deviations are not without any consequence upon individual character, behavior or social action. Said simpler, one’s sexuality does determine one’s personal identity, which is contingent on one’s sexual identity manifested in sensuous proclivities. What the whole world does, or, what all in the world do, are of course their own democratic prerogative and a matter of inalienable individual freedom, as long as it does not abuse the rights and freedoms of fellow human beings inhabiting the same environment.

However, the case of public figures cannot be ignored, and is vital to the health of a nation. Their sexual life is alas everybody’s business. This problem is of course time- and culture-specific, solved differently in different mindsets of cultures and times. People of Krshna Consciousness for example, believe that individuals of both genders, after achieving the number of children they desire, must give up sexual life altogether, especially in middle age, and cultivate spiritual living exclusively. They are oblivious of the function of safe sexual practices for individual health and longevity.

Post-modernist Nonsense

There is an extremely foolish dogma perpetuated by some social scientists, that whatever can be shown to be of old, or universally practiced, it must therefore be all right in modern times. If some classical Greeks (like the Athenians and the Spartans, otherwise deadly enemies) practiced pedophilia – always nothing else but child abuse even in Greek times – then it should be all right to follow suit. I disagree with the homosexual arguments that it had its positive aspect of subsidizing a child to adult life through puberty and education. Like war – child abuse in any form or shape can never be justified, by the natural inalienable rights of the Child.

There is also the parallel relativist argument that if animals do it – whatever that ‘it’ may signify – and since humans are animals, therefore it cannot be wrong. Human beings are indeed animals, but with distinctively evolved consciousness that functions to transcend one’s animal nature, enabling people to construct collectively a new species-nature unique to the human beings, that must be uniquely humane and compassionate I think, and not barbaric, genocidal and/or capitalist. Our Consciousness must enable us to leave the Darwinist jungle where dog- eats-dog and animal-people kill each other for money-money-money.

The natural state of polygamy

The evolutionary Darwinian fact is that all known primate species are polygamous (= single male servicing several females), followed by the facts of Anthropology that almost all known human societies are similarly so (with the rare case of polyandry = a single female servicing several males in a socially acceptable construct, as in the Himalayas – its socially disapproved manifestation is the globally widespread practice of Prostitution, which no expert hitherto seems to have understood as a form of the anthropologically admired polyandry – one woman raped constantly by many men in sequence to fill the pockets of a pimp).

Traditional Islamic societies are obviously polygamous, which is not of course obligatory, and modern Islam in developed countries is turning quietly monogamous. The trouble comes in fact with the hypocrisies of Christian societies (America, Britain, France, Germany, Russia, Spain, Italy etc) where the majority subverts its difficult-to-practice monogamous ethics by hundred and one lies, secrets and double-lives – practices that are corruptive of self-identity and individual character – but drawing comfort from the evolutionary facts of nature given ‘scientific’ respectability by Social Anthropology.

Monogamy – a revolutionary concept

Inaugurated by St. Paul (and it is worth studying its conceptual progeny), Christianity seems to possess the sole ideology of monogamy in the History of humanity – the evolutionary and revolutionary significance of which still needs to be understood. Mankind as a whole has not matured yet into the knowledge and acquisition of the depths and the heights and the joys of Monogamy – the one-to-one sexual love for life of a heterosexual couple – which marks the beginning of all social truth and individual integrity – the fornicating man or woman can only live and lead a life of lies and social deception.

And here comes the crunch; the reason I am so confident of Senator Obama’s truth is in this precisely – that he has been able and capable to truly achieve with his wife Michelle the Biblical ideal of Monogamy. When he announced to the whole world that Michelle “is the love of his life”, not only that I could believe him, but believed him in awe and admiration, because I could see even on television Michelle’s own unconditional love for her man.

The French philosopher Descartes doubted everything, to conclude that he could not doubt himself having thoughts therefore that he exists (cogito, ergo sum). I, on the other hand, can say with absolute certainty, without going through any Cartesian doubts, that there can be no woman in this world that can tease Senator Obama into fornication ever, and similarly, the man is not yet born that can seduce Michelle away from him.

Thus, I think, Senator Obama and his First Lady shall also bring a new paradigm to the White House and the world – the truth of the Christian Monogamy and its profound decencies in all aspects of life, especially in the mostly sexually corrupted Washington DC (since the much admired Franklin Roosevelt … whose secretary and wife were right write-offs).

This is why I can say with absolute confidence that President Obama shall stand by his pre-electoral promises, and acknowledge the genocide of the Armenians as such. He shall not be infected by the ArmGenDen-itis, making sure that the virus is eliminated world-wide. I trust his monogamous decency and truthfulness. He possesses the dignity and integrity of the monogamous human being away from the polygamous deceptions of the primates.

Michelle and Senator Obama’s paradigmatic Christian Monogamy shall be the greatest revolution yet in the history of mind-set shifts, greater than the economic ones procured by the Marxist power-shifts among pathetic corrupt classes, enslaved by their Freudian animal natures – slaves to their jerky genitals.

I hope that every American Armenian – be they Republican or Democrat – Republicans especially, vote for Obama to be part of the Christian Monogamous Revolution that shall acknowledge first of all our Genocide perpetrated by the sexually corrupted Ottomans.

And let the governments of Britain, Israel and Turkey stew in the stinky juices of their holocaust denials.

(*) I avoided using the expression Armenian genocide, current in American discourse, passed even into the Congressional Recrods, as it betrays linguistic illiteracy. “Armenian” is used as a qualifying adjectival epithet for the noun (genocide) confusing the victim with the perpetrator … it might as well mean the Armenian genocide of the Turks, which is what the Turkish authorities try to claim!

While most Armenian-Americans live in Democratic strong-holds like California and the East Coast, there are some in battleground states. In my Blogian, I write that there are approximately 3,000 registered ethnic Armenian voters in the swing state of Colorado. The state has 9 electoral votes – enough to make a difference if the election turns to be close. But there are, perhaps, as many Armenians in Colorado who are not citizens yet. I mention in Blogian that my mother, proportionally speaking, is a top Obama donor. She makes very little money working very hard and going to school at the same time, but she wants to invest in the process. As a green card holder, she cannot vote at this time.

Capitalizing on the Armenian-Americans, The Armenian Economist raises the question that maybe there is no “Bradley,” but an “Armenian” effect in US elections, at least in the 1982 California race:

The Bradley effect is a proposition advanced to explain the “discrepancy” between opinion polls and the outcome of California's gubernatorial elections in 1982. Tom Bradley, an African-American, lost the race to George Deukmejian, an Armenian American, despite being ahead in some polls. The story here is that some voters may have told pollsters that they will vote for the black candidate, but on election day, in the privacy of the voting booth, voted for his “white” opponent.

The blog further argues that the 1982 wasn’t that black and white:

As Armenians we may see things a bit differently, and that the Bradley effect may take on a totally different meaning. Indeed, the 1982 race was between a non-white man and a white man who belonged to an ethnic group that once was legally considered non-white in the US. It was not until Halladjian vs. the United States on December 24, 1909, that Armenians were classified as white and eligible for citizenship. However, varying judicial interpretations remained an obstacle for many would be citizens. Indeed, the United States government challenged the citizenship of one Tatos Cartozian in 1924. The government's prosecuting attorney argued that “It is the contention of the government that it makes no difference whether a man is a Caucasian or not or what the racial and language history of his people may be if the man on the street does not recognize him as white.” The case was dismissed in favor of Cartozian.

Now, in 2008, most Armenian groups are mobilizing behind Barack Obama. There is an Armenians for Obama blog registered on the official Obama site. While the Blog only has 179 members, its Facebook version has over 2,800 subscribers. The majority of the Facebook group members are U.S. citizens, but there is a number of Armenians from around the world. And one of the admins of the group, Aram Hamparian (who is Executive Director of the Armenian National Committee of America), sometimes updates his Facebook status by rhetorically asking “for an Armenian American argument in support of the McCain-Palin ticket.”

Caucasus Pictures gives voice to the overwhelming Armenian support for Obama. It cites news sources quoting Obama on the issue of the Armenian extermination as saying, “The Armenian Genocide is not an allegation, a personal opinion or a point of view, but rather a widely documented fact supported by an overwhelming body of historical evidence. The facts are undeniable.”

While there is no “Armenians for McCain” group on Facebook, there is the inactive website of Republican Armenians - www.nora-dc.org.

But even supporters of Obama are cautious.

Ditord, an Armenia-based blogger, posted news that Turkey’s president has sent two officials to the United States to talk to both Obama and McCain campaigns. According to the post, the topic of the Armenian Genocide will be on discussion.

Obama’s support on Armenian issues is spelled on the ArmeniansforObama website, and even as a conservative US site has written about “McCain’s Armenia Problem,” there are Armenians outside the United States who support Obama over McCain not based on the candidates' stance on Armenian issues.

A London based Armenian professor, Hovhanness Israel Pilikian, writes in his “The Dusk of McCain versus the Dawn of Obama” on Keghart:

The first and last words John McCain spoke at his Convention included “fight”, and in between he used the word over 30 times … Who did he remind me of? No other than mad Hitler, who was obsessed with the verb kämpfen – the exact translation in German – even included in the title of his blood-soaked book Mein Kampf – translated as My Struggles – it should be My Fights, in McCain-speak.
John McCain’s CV declaimed endlessly by a bulky Hollywood Senator Thompson (?) sounded (to our European mind-set) like a tale told for the private pleasure of a Sadomasochist Mac-brigade in a porno movie-house … and to the great credit of the Republican Convention participants, they looked bored to death!

[…]

The reason I am hopeful that America shall wake up and claim Senator Obama as President, is because in my own life-experience, there seems to be an ultimate Force of the Good – and I have experienced it not as a religious person, but as an Agnostic (and a ‘methodological atheist’ being a social scientist) – when all is said and done, and the worst evil is survived, the Good somehow emerges and saves the day=life from the clutches of total evil=untimely-death, very much symbolized by the metaphorical depths of the Old Testament Book of Job.
It is what makes me confident to prophesy that Senator Obama shall win the day to bring about a new American dawn, and send Senator McCain with his Bushist lies packing into the dusk, and dustbin of history.

The unconventional professor even finds prophecy in Obama’s name:

Young men, like Senator Obama, and wise men like Joe Biden live for the future and build it with their own hands. People grow into their names – and Obama’s first name, Barack, derives from a triune Semitic root [B-r-ck] meaning God’s Blessings [berachot/barackat] – exactly what America needs more than ever.

Interestingly, as a reader of my Blogian writes, “Barakat” is sometimes used in Armenia.

The word Barakat is not Armenian (I think it’s used by Arabs, Turks, and Persians), but we sometimes use it in Armenia for “good luck” or “blessing.” Maybe Obama will bring good luck to the United States, Armenia and the world?

UPDATE: The Stiletto has just published a post titled, “As The Armenian Vote Goes, So Goes The Nation?”.

With Barak Obama (African father, white mother) being ahead in the polls in the US, there are repeated references to the Bradley effect in the media. Because those polled may have lied, the argument made is that Obama may not be ahead, or at least not ahead enough to overcome the Bradley effect.

As Armenians we may see things a bit differently, and that the Bradlee effect may take on a totally different meaning. Indeed, the 1982 race was between a non-white man and a white man who belonged to an ethnic group that once was legally considered non-white in the US. It was not until Halladjian vs. the United States on December 24, 1909, that Armenians were classified as white and eligible for citizenship. However, varying judicial interpretations remained an obstacle for many would be citizens. Indeed, the United States government challenged the 16-year old citizenship of one Tatos Cartozian in 1924. The government's prosecuting attorney argued that “It is the contention of the government that it makes no difference whether a man is a Caucasian or not or what the racial and language history of his people may be if the man on the street does not recognize him as white.” The case was dismissed in favor of Cartozian.

In many ways the legal environment, with its racial overtones, may explain the very low immigration of Armenians to the US pre and post the genocide of 1915 and during the earlier massacres and pogroms. In any event, I usually like to stick to economics, but I couldn't resist the relevance of the news to the historical formation of the Diaspora and its spreading across the globe.

Now what puzzles us a little is that, according to The Economist, Obama apparently is more popular in Azerbaijan and Turkey. Is that really the case? Obama has been very outspoken about recognizing the Armenian genocide, and enjoys full support by the Armenian caucus, a sizable group of American legislators (apparently nearly one third of all legislators belong to it). So pronounced is this issue, that it has been described by The Atlantic as “McCain's Armenia problem”). So does that matter for comparing candidates?

For more depth, let's turn to Gallup World Poll (and we will be writing more about some of their impressive work in the region soon).

While Gallup has no data on Armenia and Azerbaijan, they have asked this question in Turkey and Georgia. And here lies one clue: in Turkey, 22% are pro-Obama, 8% pro-McCain. But 70% say they don't know, or refuse to answer. In Turkey, at least, the popularity of Obama, is based on the majority not having made up its mind yet. If Obama is elected, some delicate questions need to be resolved. See, again, the Atlantic article on this.

The data is, as far as we know, pre-conflict, collected in July, therefore the Georgian preferences may not be up to date: 15% Obama, 23% McCain, 62% Don't Knows/Refuse. So here, the race is pretty far away, too. Compare with the most extreme pro-Obama country, the Netherlands: 74% Obama, 10% McCain, 16% Don't Knows/Refuse.

Does the election matter to the world? Go to the Gallup website, and their nifty online data presentation, to find out more.

As Armenian-Americans overwhelmingly support Obama in this presidential race, the McCain-Palin ticket is trying hard to reach even a few Americans of Armenian heritage.

The Republican ticket’s not-so-profound support for Armenian causes aside, one wonders about even the awareness of such issues in the ticket. Senator McCain, who has been to Armenia, is definetly aware of issues that concern Armenian-Americans. But what about Governor Palin? Does she even know if such a country exists?

According to The National, Sarah Palin does know at least one Armenian-American. Here is the latter’s story:

[…]

Andrée McLeod is shouting into the phone from a desk set up in her bedroom as I wait for her at a kitchen table annexed by stacks of paper. “She’s only powerful if you think she is! This right here, if it turns out to be true, is a bunch of bull****!”

It is because of McLeod, a lovably obstreperous woman of Armenian descent somewhere in her fifties, that the world knows of Governor Palin’s preference for Yahoo over .gov – one of the little details from Alaska that suggest uncomfortable parallels between the modus operandi of the Palin State House and the Bush White House, which also liked to transact government business on private e-mail accounts.

The stacks covering the table are the fruits of McLeod’s request for e-mails and phone calls between Palin and two aides, whom McLeod suspected of working in concert to oust the Alaska Republican Party chair, Randy Ruedrich – a violation of the state executive ethics code, which forbids conducting party business on state time. It might seem a venial sin – but it was also precisely the accusation Palin had earlier wielded to eject Ruedrich from the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission– with the help of Andree McLeod herself.

McLeod emigrated from Beirut with her family in 1963, and moved to Alaska from Long Island thirty years ago. She was apolitical until 1995, when she spied an opportunity to earn money for grad school by operating a falafel cart in Anchorage. The town fathers squashed her plans, declaring fried chickpeas “potentially hazardous.” She took the fight to city hall, wound up running for mayor, and her local state house seat twice, losing the last time in a tight race that required a recount.

McLeod told me that she’d met Palin shortly after her own failed state house bid in 2002. They’d stuck up an unlikely friendship, the home-grown beauty queen and the cerebral but scrappy and energetic import. Palin complained to McLeod about Ruedrich’s penchant for doing party work from his office at the AOGCC, where Palin also served – appointed by Murkowski after her losing bid for Lt. Governor marked her as a “comer” in the state party. McLeod got tired of Sarah’s ceaseless complaints and told her to do something about it already.

“She didn’t know how to go about it,” McLeod says. “I would guide. So that reporters would ask her, but there was a role I played in the background, making sure all the information was correct. But she did the exact same thing she accused Randy of doing. Had I known that I wouldn’t have given her the time of day.”

The takedown of Randy Ruedrich was Palin’s first public scalping (of a fellow Republican, no less) and it helped cast her as a dogged reformer.

“It’s true, Andrée’s almost responsible for creating Sarah Palin,” Rick Rydell, an Anchorage talk radio host and 2004 Alaska Republican Man of the Year, tells me over sushi a few days later. Rydell has just finished his show, which airs weekdays from six to nine in the morning. His Harley is parked out front and we’re sampling some hijiki and gyoza, talking about the Palinistas – his disparaging moniker for those still “drinking the kool-aid.”
[…]

It's not surprising, therefore, that most bloggers are part of a small and somewhat exclusive group of foreigners and locals working in the media or civil society and international organizations. Most are Yerevan-based and information from outside the capital is lacking as a result. However, in recent years the U.S. Peace Corps has allowed its volunteers to set up blogs to update friends and family back home.

That wasn't always the case, as the Unfocused Wanderer detailed on one of the first PCV blogs from Armenia in January 2006.

I apologize for not posting before, but the internet connection in Berd where I'm assigned to an NGO is very poor at its best. I've been somewhat concerned with the Peace Corps policy on posting information on the internet as well, but I've gotten over that lately. So, what I'm going to try and do is go chronologically from training until now until I can simply point my friends and family to this blog to keep everyone updated on what's going on here in Armenia.

Since then, PCV blogs have begun to offer a rare insight into life in the regions of the country. Mark in Armenia, for example, talks about the problem of giardia, “a nasty parasite that reproduces in our small intestine.”

[…] I have had a couple horrific days of stomach problem, but I haven’t been lucky enough to get giardia so far. One of my friends, a fellow A-16 (since we are the 16thgroup of volunteers to come to Armenia (‘A’), starting in 1992 till now, 16 years of volunteers helping Armenia), had giardia and he look deathly ill after having it for 2 days. His face was stark white and he looked like he was now only made up of 60% water, before he was a fairly big guy from Wisconsin. I think he is better now, but I’ve been told everyone gets giardia during their tour in Armenia.

Moore From The Source introduces its readers to “nightlife” in the country's second largest city of Gyumri.

[…] nightlife is not really something that I get on a regular basis. Really, unless I’m in Yerevan, there isn’t much of what we would call in the states a “nightlife”. But, that’s not to say that there aren’t exciting things that happen at night. So, I’ve decided to sketch out a few nocturnal events that have happened recently.

1. Wolves! In a daring effort to reclaim the land for nature’s original tenants, a pack of wolves deftly sneaked into the city of Gyumri under the cover of night’s darkness. The citizens of the city awoke to the terrified sounds of cattle being slaughtered and devoured by the hundreds. When morning dawned, a total of 300 head of cattle had had the likes of life removed from their bones, courtesy of countless encounters with the vengeful jaws of relentless wolves, who incidentally turned out to be fairly efficient at what they do. […] So that’s exciting.

The blogs also unintentionally introduces oversight and transparency into regional development projects as well as highlight some of the needs. A recent PCV who left Armenia this summer wrote about his project in Noyemberian late last year.

I haven’t mentioned much about the school and our handicap accessibility projects lately, as our work from the ramps is pretty much done. The biggest step, which the school director and I started discussing over a year ago, is renovating their bathroom and sewer system to make them accessible (and usable, really). Right now, students and teachers have to go to the bathroom outside, which is horrible in the winter and completely unsanitary, as there’s no place to wash up afterwards. And considering the whole facility is on a muddy slope, it redefines the word “inaccessible”.

Others, such as Staci in Armenia, simply detail daily life in the regions of the country.

It’s starting to get cold here and there is snow on the surrounding mountain tops. It won’t be long until it’s on the ground here. Everyone in the village keeps telling me how long and cold the winters are, when I tell them there’s snow where I live in the United States they seem to think I’ll survive here. The difference is the lack of central heating and heat in the buses and cars. The wind chill is also a factor here. On the bright side they make great quilts here that are filled with wool, not processed but actual clumps of sheep’s hair. They are really warm and even though the bedroom is cold sometimes, the blanket really keeps you warm. If nothing else I’ll just wrap myself in one of these all winter.

At times of political turmoil, however, it is often impossible to avoid commenting on the situation. During the recent post-election unrest in Armenia, for example, Kyle’s Journey in Armenia updated its readers back home.

With the country essentially on lock-down, Peace Corps has put us on high alert and is requiring us to stay at our sites until further notice. Outside of Yerevan (and Noyemberyan is no exception), things are functioning as normal, and we have not had any problems with civil unrest here or in our region at all. Schools and businesses are open, and we are going forward with life, albeit with a black cloud looming over the country. […]

[…] We will see in the next couple weeks, but until then life will remain tense and uncomfortable. It can only get a lot better, or a lot worse, from here. Hopefully this State of Emergency will do the former and at least keep people off the streets. It has, of course, disrupted some things in my life (for instance, my friend was supposed to come teach a class here this week, and my skiing trip was canceled) but I am safe and not worried about the situation getting worse here in Noyemberyan.

Interestingly, the blogger was later instructed by the Peace Corps to password protect the entry so that only those who requested access could read it. However, the password was revealed a few days later.

[…] Due to the delicate political situation in the country, and Peace Corps’ role as a non-politically affiliated organization, I was asked to password protect my last post about the situation in Yerevan, and any future posts about politics in the country. The password is, and always will be, my last name. […]

Blogs have also been used to discuss the activities and purpose of the Peace Corps in countries such as Armenia. An account of a rare visit from a local Armenian based in Yerevan to a PCV site in the north east of the country posted on my previous blog prompted much discussion and an opportunity for volunteers to counter any criticism leveled against them in the comments section of the post.

There are 80 of us all over Armenia. Americans who are not Armenian who speak decent Armenian and are here to simply help. I would like for people […] to come see the work that can be done. More importantly, the work we are doing is not about resources but about change. It is about throwing off the blanket of Soviet era thinking and being cheerleaders to help our communities improve themselves. […] Resources, although nice, are not required for change and improvement. Hard work, community and a vision for a brighter future is all that is needed to improve rural Armenia.

Come one, come all. Find a Peace Corps Volunteer in a rural area of Armenia and see the country as you would have never experienced it other wise regardless of your ethnic heritage.

And, as a sign that blogs are now being taken seriously by the Peace Corp itself, posts from many of these blogs are handily available from one source — A PCV Wiki at http://www.peacecorpswiki.org/journal/. There is also a list of past and present PCV blogs from Armenia at http://www.peacecorpsjournals.com/am.html.

Primarily this is because of one reason — recognition of the 1915 massacre of ethnic Armenians living in Ottoman Turkey which most historians consider to be the first Genocide of the 20th Century. Commemorated every 24 April, recognition of the Armenian Genocide has become a key issue for the Armenian authorities in Yerevan and especially for the country's large and powerful diaspora.

The issue is not new, with almost every U.S. presidential candidate promising to recognize the massacre, deportation or assimilation of the Ottoman Empire's Armenian population as Genocide in past elections, but failing to do so once in office. However, with recent albeit stalled momentum towards a related resolution in the U.S. Congress last October, many Armenians at home and abroad believe that Barack Obama might actually follow through with his campaign promise.

In response, some Azerbaijanis and Turks set up their own anti-Obama Facebook Group. One member, Sonya Reynet, explains why.

In order to garner votes from one and a half million people of Armenian origin living in the United States, both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton stepped up their rhetoric regarding the Armenian Genocide Resolution 106 in the House and the Senate. They reiterated their “commitment” to the recognition of Armenian Genocide by the United States while at the same time condemning Turkey and Azerbaijan as well as siding with Armenia for the Armenian occupation of the Nabarno-Karabagh territory. 

Yet, not everyone is convinced. Despite promises to recognize the Armenian Genocide from both Republican and Democratic candidates in the past, none followed through with their promises. The reality of geopolitics once in office was not lost on Davut Suicmez.

Being a politician and being the president of US are totally different. Even he talks about the Armenian allegations right now he will see the reality if he becomes president. Current president Bush promised Armenians for the same claims on his first run for presidency on 2000. But now he is totally against it. I guess they reborn with a new brain even smarter after becoming the pres… 

Maybe it's for this reason that other Azerbaijanis decided to set up their own Facebook Group in support of Obama. Ironically, they argue that such a candidate does represent change, and this even goes as far as eventually changing his mind on issues such as the Genocide and the conflict between Armenians and Azerbaijanis over the disputed territory of Nagorno Karabakh.

Azerbaijanis all over the world support Barack Obama. He can bring the CHANGE we belive in!The planet needs CHANGE, USA needs CHANGE and Azerbaijan needs CHANGE!We also believe that he will CHANGE his position in issues concerning Azerbaijan-Armenian conflict. WE support him because we believe that he can also CHANGE! The power of CHANGE is limitless, once you discover it! 

Interestingly, given the track record of past presidents of whatever political denomination, Yerevan-based Armenia Discovered appears to suspect that history will be doomed to repeat itself.

US presidentation candidate sen. Barack Obama tells America deserves a president who is able to tell truth about Armenian Genocide and any other genocides. Obama critisizes Bush administration position in Armenian Genocide Recognition, claiming his administration is going to solve the problem.Anyhow most of the US presidents of the recent times, including Georgia W. Bush used the genocide adoption factor during election campaign, but till now no action is taken. 

Even so, and bound to encourage Armenians, disappointment comes from the American husband of one Turkish woman who says that his letter to Obama's campaign team on the issue was effectively ignored. Whether Obama actually personally read the letter is debatable. Jeff Martens was not impressed by the response.

I sent him two letters in the last past 6 months concerning Turkey’s dilemma ”the so-called genocide”.However, two days ago, finally, I received a mail from him telling me how important his presidency would be for this country and asking me to support him by my contributions for his campaign by Aug.30th not mentioning anything on the genocide issue and nothing about Turkey, no concerns or whatsoever. All he is showing me is the ways of payment and he needs the money by Aug. 30th. 

Meanwhile, even if the likelihood of recognition of a tragic past is uncertain even in the event of an Obama victory, many Armenians consider that there are other issues of relevance, and not least as they pertain to the conflict with oil-rich Azerbaijan. In particular, they point to the Republican party's reliance on links to, and donations from, large multinational oil companies.

The policies pursued by Senator McCain would ensure that the U.S. remains a hostage to nations, such as Azerbaijan, which have large oil and gas reserves but are major human rights violators and remain sources of regional instability.”It would be more of the same with a McCain Administration in the White House. The Arizona Senator would 's as he has for the better part of the last three decades - continue supporting big oil companies that profit from high gas prices and are pouring billions of dollars into countries like Azerbaijan, which lack the basic principles of human rights,” said Areen Ibranossian Chairperson of Armenians for Obama. 

To date, however, there has been little other discussion among ethnic Armenians at home and abroad on other issues. And for now at least, the Azerbaijani blogosphere and online community appears even quieter.