With a new look and a renewed spirit, Blogian is back. The archives are still and will be available at http://forum.hayastan.com/index.php?automodule=blog&blogid=2&.

I just watched (4 January 2006) the first part of “Walking the Bible” on PBS (America’s Public TV). I was stunned with the unbelievably ridiculous information provided in the part of the Mount Ararat. I don’t find other words, rather than “complete idiots” to describe the people who shot that “documentary” and wrote the part. Moreover, the “documentary” plagiarized information from a National Geographic article!

The most ridiculous information was that Mount Ararat situated at the “Iranian-Iraqi border, highly populated by the Kurds.” (of course the journalist knows that he was in eastern Turkey, but the information was misrepresented in a way that it alluded the Mount was in Iraq.)

Well, I guess I cannot argue with the journalist that Ararat “means a lot to the Kurds,” (though he could mention that Ararat has been the national symbol of the Armenians for at least 3000 years, and that every Armenian has a picture of Ararat in her/his home) but what is unbelievable is that the words of Frank Viviano’s “Armenia Reborn” was plagiarized (National Geographic, March 2004). Walking the Bible said, “But Ararat beckons. It is officially closed by the Turks.” This sentence does not make any sense, unless you have read Viviano’s article and you know what he means. What Viviano means (and states), is that Ararat still beckons to Armenians, a people to whom Ararat is officially closed by the Turks (because Turkey blockades the Republic of Armenia). But Walking the Bible said that the mount was closed to the Kurds (this is too ridiculous!). So not only Walking the Bible program plagiarized the words of Frank Viviano, but also gave false information.

Is this how PBS spends the money of American taxpayers?

The official website of the program is http://www.pbs.org/walkingthebible/.