Hetq.am, a popular investigative news source in Armenia, has published an article covering the role of blogs in delivering information during the state of emergency in Armenia in March 2008. This blog is also mentioned.

A Spanish journalist, who was accidentally injured in an 80s attack by Armenian fighters in their radical efforts for recognition of the Armenian Genocide, has written another book on a forgotten topic that almost had him killed.

Image: The cover of “Armenia: The Forgotten Genocide” from José Antonio Gurriarán’s official website

According to the Spanish-language El Pais, José Antonio Gurriarán’s second book on the extermination of Ottoman Armenians during WWI, “Armenia: The Forgotten Genocide,” was released on May 2, 2008 in the Cultural Club of Barcelona.

Telling the forgotten history of the Armenian Genocide to a Spanish audience, Gurriarán’s new book on the subject is the second one two and a half decades.

Back in 1982 Gurriarán had published “La Bomba,” a book referencing his injury in an attack by ASALA (Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia) members that opened his heart to a silenced story he has not been able to forget.

According to Wikipedia, in December 1980 José Antonio Gurriarán, a 39-year-old journalist at the time:

“left the building of the newspaper “The People” (Pueblo) and entered a telephone booth to talk to his wife. The plan was to go to see a movie by Woody Allen and then to have a dinner at a restaurant. It was the end of the year. When Jose Antonio put down the headset two bombs exploded in the nearby headquarters of airlines Swissair and TWA was. Nobody died but among the 9 injured was Jose Antonio.

As soon as he was released from the hospital, Jose Antonio wanted to know who made that attack. Still in the hospital, where he struggled to save both his legs, he started to read books and materials about the case and the history of the Armenians.

Combining therapy recovery with the detailed study of a nation, in 1982 he found and met the leaders of ASALA (Armenian Liberation Army for the Liberation of Armenia) in Lebanon. Militants were covered their faces with balaclavas and never left the Kalashnikov throughout the day. The Spanish journalist, relied on his cane, gave a gift, a book by Martin Luther King, to the leader of the Armenian group, to think about the path they have chosen.

Soon after the incident, “La Bomba” was released, telling the personal experience of a Spanish journalist and the tragic story of survival of a whole nation.”

Although a Turkish columnist criticized the opening of Akhtamar island’s Surp Khach church as “cultural genocide” due to its conversion to a museum, last year’s restoration of Van lake’s ancient Armenian church in eastern Turkey was an unprecedented event in a country where thousands of Armenian monuments have been either deliberately destroyed or neglected.

The one-year-old story of the reopening ceremony of the church is told in detail by VirtualAni in a post accompanied by photographs and speech transcripts.

In a country where few disabled are seen in the general public due to inaccessibility and perhaps shame, it is interesting to learn that there are beauty pageants held for handicap women in Armenia.

Although the news is from 2005, I have come across to a Flickr photograph, posted above, that shows “Ms. Beauty for Disabled Women of Armenia.”

Although on an individual level there is much support for disabled persons (for instance, in the area where I grew up in Yerevan our family would often visit a young hadicap girl and socialize with her) in Armenia, there is no required accessibility for the disabled.

The photo above provoked me to do a brief Googsearch on disabled organizations and I came across to Pyunic’s website. The website has a gallery of some activities and also a devastating photo of the organization’s building.

ArmenianHouse.org, a trilingual virtual library, has posted several old Armenian jokes. As one would expect, these jokes don’t actually seem funny. The closest that gets to being funny, in my opinion, is the following (written by Vartan Aygektsi, 12-13 century):

Մի շատ ժլատ ու հարուստ մարդ մարմար քարից պատրաստել է տալիս իր արձանը։ Ցույց տալով քանդակը բարեկամներից մեկին, նա հարցնում է.

— Ինչպե՞ս է քանդակված, նմա՞ն է արդյոք ինձ։

— Եվ հոգով, և մարմնով շատ է նման քեզ,— պատասխանում է բարեկամը։

[A cheap but rich person has his statue made of marble. Showing the statue to some of his relatives, he asks, “How is It? Does it look like me?”

– It does! Physically and spiritually, answers the relative. ]