My photograph from USA TODAY, published for my membership to the All-USA Academic First Team, has appeared in the anti-Armenian TallArmenianTale.com – a website that hatefully denies the Armenian Genocide.

Holdwater, the ghostwriter of the hatesite, is apparently pissed off at my blogging about Turkish historian Taner Akcam’s findings that Holdwater is Murad Gumen, an ex-Disney cartoonist of Turkish desent.

Hilariously enough, Holdwater is now denying that he is Murad Gumen by saying his communication with the United States Holocaust Memorial Council he wrote about wasn’t really his because somebody else had written it and in order not to get somebody else in trouble he said he had written it. (It was through this communication that Akcam made Holdwater’s identity public). Mr. Gumen, stop embarrassing yourself.

The idiot, who continuously claims he has proven the Armenian Genocide never happened and is now saying he is not who he said he was, is even unable to find the source that first wrote about his comparison of Armenians to rodents.

The fact of the matter is that “Armenian genocide” photos are undocumented, even Armin Wegner’s; some Armenian sites have sunk so low as to use documented photographs of Ottoman Muslims slaughtered by Armenians, in order to represent Armenian victims. While I don’t know which photograph The Jewish Advocate made use of, if the source of the photograph cannot be verified, an ethical journal must use a word such as “alleged.”

There are lots of things that Mr. Gumen doesn’t know, including the fact that he can be embarrassingly ignorant and stupid. The webpage he refers to has a link to my actual letter that he failed to read (oh, what a researcher).

If the idiot opened that link, he would see the photo I had written about (in fact, The Jewish Advocate acknowledged its mistake in silence by removing the ridiculous article from its website and its archives). And guess what the photo is?

I wonder if anything else on Earth can be more convincing to Murad Gumen than an old photograph with skeletons and a banner mentioning “Armenian cranes.” But again, genocide denial is not a simple rejection of the word “genocide” to describe the destruction of Ottoman Turkey’s native Armenian population. Denial is the micro-level refusal of accepting that a crime was committed against Turkey’s Armenian population.And to understand how embarrassingly short-sighted Mr. Gumen is, consider his unchallenged acceptance of a Turkish nationalist’s comment at this blog that “the recently discovered cave with the mass grave said to be of Armenian victims has been confirmed by European scientists to have been a Roman site.”If the idiot were to do a little bit research, he would find out that the Roman site had been reused during World War I as a mass grave. Whether used for Armenians or others, though, it will never be known. Because for some reason Mr. Gumen’s beloved Turkish Historical Society covered up the destruction of the mass grave by the Turkish military.We are not talking about a 90-year-old document, Mr. Gumen. This is a documented, photographed mass grave from last year that has been erased from the face of the Earth. Even if you don’t think there was Armenian Genocide, one wonders why would deniers like you not even accept the possibility of even one small mass grave of Armenian victims in Turkey.

I am writing my final for my Middle Eastern Politics class and the following question has come to my mind – does the “Arab CNN” al-Jazeera (indirectly) support or stop terrorism?

The western answer is that it, of course, al-Jazeera indirectly supports the spread of Islamic fundamentalists’ and al-Qaeda’s rhetoric by providing much air time to their releases.

I think it could be argued, nonetheless, that al-Jazeera’s work may have just been doing (again, indirectly) the opposite.

If you look at the history of ideological Islamic fundamentalism, you may find out that their empowerment came about from western-supported persecution of thought.  The BBC has a shocking documentary called “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” that deals with this exact phenomenon.

Sayyid Qutb, “the man whose ideas would shape al-Qaeda,” was nothing but a conservative critique of western materialism.  He was an Egyptian writer who studied in Colorado.  Of course the guy was crazy in the way he disagreed with American values (such as calling Jazz music a tool for sex). But he was treated even crazier (just for his crazy thoughts) by American-supported Egyptian government.  Placed in jail, tortured and executed.

I think giving voices to all parties should not be required, but forcefully silencing voices can bring about unanticipated fanaticism. So perhaps al-Jazeera has not been given the credit for actually toning down Islamic terrorism?  Just a random thought.

Washington Post has an interesting article on Armenian Jewish activist Gary Kasparov who has turned out to be the main opponent to Russian President Putin’s authoritarian rule.

The last part of the article reminded me of “Mrs. President,” a documentary about 47 female presidential candidates in Iran’s 2001 elections.  One important point that one of the Iranian women makes in the documentary is that all [male] heroes have either had strong mothers or strong wives.

This is, indeed, the case for Kasparov’s Armenian mother who not only feeds his son with dolma, according to Washington Post, but with political strategy as well:

His mother had a late lunch waiting, a traditional Armenian meal of dolma, soup and vegetables. Mr. Kasparov ate little as he took more calls from reporters. His mother interrupted him for an urgent interview on a local radio station. “Garry, come over here,” she said, holding up the phone in a corner of the living room. “You’re on in 40 seconds.”

Mr. Kasparov walked over and took the phone. “Now don’t speak too fast, and speak simply,” his mother said. The interview started, and she said, “Slow down, Garry, don’t get excited.”

The post also has an article on Turkish elections which largely talks about the Armenian community.

Uraratu.com domain, registered by us, is on sale for a start up price of $350.  Please note it is not Urartu, but Uraratu.  I decided to sell it because I don’t have the time to develop it.

I’d prefer to sell it to an Armenian organization due to the nature of the domain name.

Inquiries can be made through [email protected] or [email protected]. 

A discussion at Topix.net links to www.muradgumen.org, a website revealing the identity of Turkish-American celebrity cartoonist Murad Gumen who is the racist webmaster behind TallArmenianTale.com, a website that denies the Armenian Genocide.

Another photo of racist “Holdwater” Murad Gumen

According to Muradgumen.org,

Ex-Disney cartoonist and celebrity illustrator Murad Gumen is quick to take credit for his famous Mickey Mouse cartoons and made-up characters like Wonderguy.

But one thing the Turkish-American celebrity doesn’t want anyone to know is that he operates one of the most vicious hate websites in the Internet – TallArmenianTale.com. Disguised under “Holdwater,” Gumen has been hatefully denying the Armenian Genocide – the murder of Ottoman Turkey’s native Armenian population during World War I. His tactics have included dehumanizing respected scholars of the Armenian Genocide in order to discredit their work. When there is nothing else to write to prove his thesis, Mr. Gumen writes that Armenians are rats.

Until late May 2007, the identity of “Holdwater” remained a mystery. “Holdwater” admitted he would lose his career if his identity was ever revealed.

British archaeologist Sam Hardy has updated his recent post on Turkey’s Mardin mass grave with photographs he took in May 2007.  I placed these images next to October 2006 photographs taken by a now banned Kurdish newspaper in Turkey.  They show the “glorious” work of the Turkish Historical Society in covering up a possible mass grave from the Armenian Genocide.

(there are two more photographs in Hardy’s post)

Murad Gumen, the Turkish-American author of this famous Micky Mouse cartoon is infamous for his part time job – he is the covert webmaster of tallarmeniantale.com, a website that denies the destruction of over a million Christian Armenians by Ottoman Turks during World War I.

Gumen has been using the pseudo name “Holdwater” in denying the Armenian Genocide and comparing Armenians to rodents.  Keeping his real identity secret for many years, Mr. Gumen is now in hot waters.

A Turkish professor of Armenian Genocide, Taner Akcam, is the hunter of Mr. Gumen.  Prof. Akcam, author of recent bestseller on the Armenian Genocide, was repeatedly called “terrorist” in Mr. Gumen’s website leading to a 4-hour detention of the Turkish historian during a recent trip to Canada.

Prof. Akcam, a long time human rights activist now in exile from his native Turkey, apparently did not endure the personal attacks against him.  He did what an average historian would do: go after the documents and sources used on the racist website.

File six in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Institutional Archives, Accession no. 1997-014, box 152 was the answer. This was a personal communication that “Holdwater” made reference to not realizing it was public domain. Making reference to “Holdwater’s” xenophobia that he would lose his job if his identity were revealed, Prof. Akcam the “terrorist” used a nuclear bomb called revealing the truth.

And the truth is – “Holdwater” is Murad Gumen, a celebrity Turkish-American cartoonist and creator of “Wonderguy” (1993) with an unbelievably “wonderful” hate for the Armenian people and the tragedy called genocide that they experienced in 1915.

Taner Akcam’s two articles on Holdwater in English are available and originally published at Blogian.

Its great look makes me want to travel to Armenia this summer (if Kerkorian reads this post perhaps he could help me with an airline ticket :D)

Set to serve passengers in a few hours, a new terminal at Armenia’s Zvartnots International Airport reminds of overrich Saudi Arabian malls (not that I have seen one lol).

Thanks to my good friend Anna in Yerevan, who worked in the last several years on this new terminal project, we have a sneak peak of the beautiful part of the used to be infamous for service Airport.  Lragir also has an article on last Friday’s dedication.

The Christian Science Monitor has an article about Artsakh (The Republic of Nagorno Karabakh) with its Prime Minister Anoushavan Danielyan depicted with Armenia’s flag (the actual Artsakh flag is slightly different) in a Borat-fashioned cartoon.

I was walking in Downtown Denver this Friday when I noticed an outdoors art market on the 16^th street. 

One artist’s work depict natural and human objects – fruits, hands, eggs – showing human shapes and actions.  My favorite one was the pregnant pear!  Here are some more photos…

This one was titled “On the Other Hand”‘