Chicago Archives

Protest interrupts Armenian Genocide denier’s speech at UChicago

April 27, 2016 by administrator

211177 A group of activists held a protest on Monday, April 25 during a lecture in Chicago entitled, “Turks and Armenians: Nationalism and Conflict in the Ottoman Empire,” which featured genocide denier Justin McCarthy, The Armenian Weekly reports.

Prior to the start of the lecture, members of the University of Chicago Armenian Students Association (ASA), together with Students for Justice in Palestine, the UChicago Hellenic Students Association, and the Armenian Youth Federation (AYF), handed out flyers to attendees condemning the event.

At the beginning of McCarthy’s talk, protesters placed red tape over their mouths, held up banners, and conducted a silent protest by standing in unison and turning their backs to the lecturer. They then staged a mass walk-out in protest of McCarthy’s denial of the Armenian Genocide.

“The University of Chicago has a long history of protecting the right to free speech. But in the case of the Armenian Genocide, the historical facts are clear and genocide denial should not be tolerated by any degree,” Daron Bedian, a member of the UChicago ASA, told the Armenian Weekly.

According to Bedian, while several groups—including the Armenian National Committee of Illinois (ANC-IL)—sent e-mails to the university urging that the event be canceled, McCarthy’s talk was allowed to take place.

Bedian said that the university surely would not allow a neo-Nazi to spread Holocaust denial on campus, and that “the university must then explain allowing an Armenian Genocide denier to speak.”

Turkey’s Lobbyist Dennis Hastert expected to plead guilty Wednesday in federal court

October 27, 2015 by administrator

Former House Speaker Dennis Hastert, shown leaving the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse after his arraignment on June 9, 2015

Jason MeisnerContact Reporter
Chicago Tribune

Former U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert had been paying hush money to hide a dark secret for four years by the time federal agents came knocking last December, prosecutors allege.

When the FBI arrived at Hastert’s Plano estate on that snowy Monday morning, he had already been questioned by banks about a series of unusual $50,000 cash withdrawals he had made two years earlier. Still, he tried to keep his secret hidden, telling agents he was trying to store his own money because he didn’t feel safe with the banking system, according to prosecutors.

“Yeah … I kept the cash. That’s what I’m doing,” Hastert was quoted by prosecutors as saying to the agents.

Ten months after that crucial interview, Hastert, 73, is scheduled to walk into federal court in Chicago on Wednesday and plead guilty to a bombshell indictment that alleges he was making the withdrawals as part of an agreement to pay a total of $3.5 million to a longtime acquaintance, identified only as Individual A, to cover up wrongdoing from years ago.

Though the indictment only hints at the alleged wrongdoing, federal law enforcement sources have told the Tribune that Hastert was paying to cover up the sexual abuse of a student when Hastert was a wrestling coach and teacher at Yorkville High School.

Hastert, who has remained free on his own recognizance since pleading not guilty in June, faces one count each of evading currency-reporting requirements and making a false statement to the FBI.

Hastert’s admission of guilt would mark a startling fall from grace for a man who once held the nation’s third-highest political office. But the 8:30 a.m. hearing before U.S. District Judge Thomas Durkin could also leave more questions than answers.

Among the mysteries that could well remain unresolved is Individual A’s identity. That has been kept a well-guarded secret despite a concerted attempt by media outlets across the country to confirm who was allegedly receiving the payments from Hastert.

In addition, with such dry charges involved, the written plea agreement with prosecutors might not mention, let alone detail, Hastert’s underlying, allegedly sensational motive for paying Individual A. Prosecutors are required only to present a factual basis for the charges and tell the judge what they intended to prove if the case had gone to trial.

Hastert’s appearance at the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse — just his second since the shocking charges were announced in May — is expected to spark a media frenzy and has prompted court officials to set up an overflow courtroom and extra security measures for the anticipated crowds.

Hastert will likely be required to say very little in court. To show for the record he’s making the decision to plead guilty of his own free will, he will be questioned by the judge about his mental state, whether any promises had been made or any other issues that would preclude him from changing his plea. He also will be asked if everything the government alleged in the factual basis is true.

Chicago: A Tuesday night of Armenian food and the American Songbook

October 2, 2015 by administrator

Jazz singer Erin McDougald performs with her band Tuesdays at Sayat Nova, an Armenian restaurant, at 157 E. Ohio St., in Chicago. (Nuccio DiNuzzo / Chicago Tribune)

By Rick Kogan,

A little Armenian restaurant off Michigan Avenue is jazz singer Erin McDougald’s “perfect listening room.”

Erin McDougald has a high-spirited laugh, serious artistic intentions and deeply soulful jazz singing voice and she uses them all to fill any room she occupies, and on Tuesday nights that room happens to be a most unusual, unexpected and altogether enchanting one, an Armenian restaurant called Sayat Nova.

Even many of those who have been partaking of this place since it opened in 1969 at 157 E. Ohio St. do not know — Haven’t cared? Never asked? — that it is named for an Armenian poet and musician who lived (and died) in the 18th century, his works now largely forgotten.

Not so what comes from McDougald, which are the timeless tunes of such people as Cole Porter, George Gershwin, Harold Arlen and all of those talented others who have filled the pages of the so-called and seemingly everlasting American Songbook.

“This is the music I love,” she says. “It does not allow me to fall into a rut. It is so rich, of such depth and texture that it always enables me to stretch outside my comfort zone.”

McDougald (www.flappergirlsings.com) has been at this for some time and you may have seen her in such rooms as the Green Mill, Reggie’s, Underground Wonder Bar, Pete Miller’s, Jazz Showcase and the many other places that dot the local nightclub landscape. She has recorded fine CDs, among them “Blue Prelude” and “The Auburn Collection.” She has appeared on TV and been interviewed on radio, where she once addressed the precarious state of the contemporary jazz singer by saying, “My parents, who live in Florida now, are biting their nails worrying about my career, asking me why I just don’t go on ‘American Idol’ and become famous.”

Born in Ohio, she was started down this jazz road as a child growing up in Delaware, her first guide being her grandfather. “He lived in our house from the time I was about 10,” she says. “And he wanted me to learn the standards so I could sing to him. He listened to an oldies station and I can clearly remember him lighting up when I sang, even as he began to get older and fade away.”

She studied dance and took voice lessons for many youthful years and after high school pursued a musical theater degree at the University of Cincinnati. Transferring to Columbia College here, she earned a degree in music performance, mentored by such grand talents/teachers as composer William Russo and singer Bobbi Wilson. She started visiting clubs, she started singing in clubs and she has been here ever since.

“Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Anita O’Day … There are just so many singers who I love,” she says. “Having a good voice is just part of what makes a good singer. There is always a challenge. The timing, the rhythms. The challenge is always there and I think I am always evolving. Jazz allows for that in its complexity. It is my life.”

There have been some memorable highlights: Bob Dylan saw her two nights in a row when she sang at the Pump Room, bought one of her CDs (asking for her autograph) and bought for her a red wine; John Malkovich bought a bunch of her CDs and gave them as gifts to some of his Steppenwolf pals; and she has performed with so many greats, including Ira Sullivan, Paul Wertico and Howard Levy.

An ebullient personality, she will tell you: “I love writing and singing my own tunes and I enjoy greatly taking non-jazz compositions and creating a jazz treatment for them. The words or melody alone will not necessarily define the genre, the expression of those things is the key ingredient.”

And so, a recent Tuesday night at Sayat Nova and the owner of the restaurant and the building in which it sits is saying that for a decade on Saturday nights the room used to feature music spun by international deejays and that “it attracted a crowd of its own.”

“But you can’t get this anyplace else,” says Roupen Demirdjian, and there is no argument, whether he is talking about the music or the restaurant or the combination of both. He is a genial and energetic owner/host, as was his father, Arsen, who died in 2013. Roupen jumps up from his stool the moment someone pushes through the restaurant’s doors, smiling in greeting friends and strangers. That is how he met McDougald when she strolled in quite by accident one afternoon more than a year ago.

“Tuesdays have been special ever since,” he says.

People arrive in a steady stream this night, many of them having made this room and its food and drinks and music a part of their weekly diet. Some perch on the 10 stools that front the small bar. They sip drinks. Others are spread out at tables or tucked into the seven intimate booths that line a couple of the walls. They eat, they talk but mostly they listen.

“This really is what I consider a perfect listening room,” says McDougald.

She and the other members of her regular quartet (Don Stille on keyboard, Aaron Zachary on bass and Keith Brooks on drums, often joined by special guests — on this night it is trombonist Andy Baker) are at the front of the room, separated from the sidewalks by windows. They play roughly from 6 to 9:30 p.m. but have been known to go deeper into the night. There is no cover charge (www.sayatnovachicago.com) and the food is terrific. The restaurant is not large; it is cozy. The whole scene conspires to create a timeless place, a pleasant and tuneful era.

And so the evening moves on and the songs come in random order according the band and McDougald’s sense of the audience. And so here is “Skylark,” and that is followed by “It’s Almost Like Being in Love,” which is followed by “I Only Have Eyes for You.” The band is tight, together. Her voice fills the room with sound and emotion.

A group of three men, coats and ties and convention lanyards, enters.

“Are we interrupting a private party?” one asks.

“Oh, no,” says Demirdjian. “Join us. You are more than welcome.”

They decide to stay and settle in to eat and listen.

“That is so satisfying, to win over people who didn’t expect anything but a good meal,” McDougald will later say. “There is a lot of politics in the music scene and I know that I can be a polarizing person sometimes. But it is all worth it to me. One night I can be playing with some of the greatest musicians in the world and the next be alone in some tiny room. Or here.”

The three businessmen finish dinner and linger over coffee. There is a break in the music and they pay the check and head toward the door. “We’ll be back,” says one of them to no one in particular. McDougald doesn’t hear that. She is talking to the band. She is laughing.

“After Hours With Rick Kogan” airs 9-11 p.m. Sundays on WGN-AM 720.

Source: Chicago Tribune

Holocaust Museum spotlights 100th anniversary of #Armeniangenocide

February 11, 2015 by administrator

By Mike Isaacs

(Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education… (Illinois Holocaust Museum)

Some 100 years later, the black-and-white photo, grainy and archaic as it may be, remains ghastly and gruesome, documentation of grand inhumanity still difficult to digest today.

The remains of a woman and two young children lay lifeless, starved to death and apparent victims of the Armenian genocide that dates back to 1915. report chicagotribune

Tragically, other global genocide — whether the Holocaust waged by Nazi Germany against the Jews or barbarity more recent and current —- have produced their own photos documenting systematic, brutal murder, efforts to eliminate a demographic of human beings.

In marking the 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide with a symposium Feb. 8 at Skokie’s Illinois Holocaust Museum, a panelist concluded that every genocide is unique and yet every genocide is the same.

“The magnitude of them could be different, the causes of them could be different, but there tends to be common elements that you see persistently through most of them,” said Shant Mardirossian, chairman of the Near East Foundation.

One of the most basic is dehumanization of a group of people. Eventually targeted for persecution, those people become regarded as less than human beings so attempts to eliminate them take on a warped and skewed sense of morality.

Chicago-area woman, one of oldest survivors of Armenian genocide, has died

November 17, 2014 by administrator

By MAUREEN O’DONNELL S

Chicago Sun-Time Helen Paloian, believed to be born 14 years before women got the vote and six years prior to the sinking of the Titanic, was one of the few people left in the world to have witnessed what’s been called the first genocide of the 20th century.

Deportations, forced marches, massacres and starvation befell Armenians in 1915 after a political coup in Turkey by the so-called “Young Turks.”

In an interview with the Chicago Sun-Times around her 100th birthday, Mrs. Paloian remembered when Turkish soldiers forced everyone from her village in the Armenian province of Kharpert. She said she begged on the streets for food, grubbed for roots and ate grass “like a chicken.” Sometimes, she received bits of bread from kindly Turkish people.

“Be happy,” she liked to say. “Hope and pray. Love.”

She died Oct. 24 at Midwest Palliative & Hospice CareCenter in Glenview. Her family’s research puts her birth year at 1906, which would make her 108. A Sun-Times check of records lists birth years for Mrs. Paloian ranging from 1898 to 1910.

“She was one of the few survivors left in the world who could remember in detail all the horrors,” said Richard G. Hovannisian, a Guggenheim fellow and professor emeritus of Armenian history at UCLA. “She spoke with a strong and assured voice, shared her amazing story without rancor and, throughout it all, displayed a wonderful sense of humor.”

She might have been the oldest survivor in the United States, according to Marc Mamigonian, director of academic affairs for the National Association for Armenian Studies and Research in Belmont, Mass.

The super-ager, who was living at her son Matthew’s Northwest Side home until June, attributed her longevity to happy thoughts and prayer — and not smoking or drinking. A year ago, she was still attending St. Gregory the Illuminator Armenian Church at 6700 W. Diversey, where, if she didn’t grasp the sermon by Father Aren Jebejian, she’d tell him right out, “I don’t understand your point.”

Until she was about 104, Mrs. Paloian did the cooking for her caregiver. And she liked working the Rubik’s cube she received from her neuroscientist grandson, Robert Ajemian of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

She still had her own teeth. A hip broken in four places healed nicely when she was around 98. She survived two heart attacks. During one, she walked down two flights of stairs because she didn’t realize what was happening, said her granddaughter, Marianne Ajemian.

At physical therapy, Mrs. Paloian could get feisty, especially if she was tired of being urged to take a few more steps. “Don’t start your business with me!” she’d say.

In the 1920s, to improve her odds of getting into the United States, she took a detour to Cuba, where she entered into a sham marriage with an Armenian-American, Zadig Paloian. Then, they fell in love. The marriage lasted 55 years, until his death.

Women don’t have to do what their husbands say, she would say: “Zadig always said, ‘Vote Democratic.’ I said, ‘OK,’ but I vote Republican.”

She never knew her parents, who died when she was very young. Relatives cared for her until her village was ordered emptied, said family historian Charles Hardy. Two of her brothers were conscripted into the Turkish army, and one fled to America. None was heard from again.

At one point, she recalled, Turkish soldiers took her and other children to a church packed with Armenians. The women feared the solders would set the church on fire. She decided to escape.

“I jump from the window,” she told the Sun-Times. “No stocking, no shoe, nothing. They don’t catch me because I’m little girl.”

Jacob Hardy — a first cousin of Mrs. Paloian and the father of Charles — was living in Tennessee when he dreamed young Helen’s mother, Mariam, visited him in their ancestral orchard. “She showed him the last rose in the garden and told him to pick it and take it with him,” Charles Hardy said.

The next day, Jacob Hardy saw her name on a list of orphans in an Armenian newspaper. “The rose,” Charles Hardy said, “was Helen.” Jacob Hardy retrieved her from an orphanage in Corinth, Greece and helped her immigrate to America.

She outlived her husband and two of her children, Mary and Lilly Ajemian. When Lilly died, she helped raise her granddaughters, Marianne and Geri Lyn Ajemian, who were 3 and 6.

Mrs. Paloian loved the White Sox. “She would whoop and holler at the TV whenever there was an exciting game,” her granddaughter said. She also liked to watch “Everybody Loves Raymond.” She cooked delicious lamb dumplings called manti and the Armenian pizza known as lahmajun and fragrant baklava and rice pilaf.

She is survived by a daughter, Lucille Ajemian; a son, Matthew Paloian; five grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. Services have been held.

“She was a link to people and to places whose physical existence was destroyed in 1915 and in many cases only lived on in the memories of the survivors,” said Mamigonian.

Protest Against Armenian Genocide Denial Held in Chicago

May 16, 2014 by administrator

CHICAGO, Ill.—Armenians from across Greater Chicago converged on Daley Plaza in the city’s central business district to mark the 99th Anniversary of the Armenian genocide and to protest the Turkish government’s ongoing campaign of genocide denial. The Armenians were joined in the protest by Pontian Greek and Assyrian Christians, whose people were also victims of the genocide, as well as by Moslems from Palestine, Iraq, Nigeria and Sudan. The protest was organized by the Armenian Youth Federation “Ararat” Chapter on April 24.

In addition to carrying signs, waving flags, and chanting slogans, the protestors distributed thousands of leaflets calling for an end to Turkey’s denial of the Armenian Genocide. The leaflets urged passersby to contact their state legislators to oppose Turkey’s blatant attempts to win support for its denial campaign by lavishing gifts on members of the Illinois legislature. The Chicago Tribune has reported that from 2009 to 2012, 32 of the 43 foreign trips received as gifts were by legislators traveling to Turkey, including four trips by Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan.

“The people of Illinois need to send a message loud and clear to their state legislators that our state is not for sale, and we will not tolerate Turkey’s attempts to export lies,” stated Mike Demirjian, Chairman of the Armenian National Committee (ANC) of Illinois.

Demirjian noted that the Turkish Human Rights Association had issued a declaration calling on the Turkish government to halt its denial of the Armenian Genocide and to begin discussions with the Armenian people on the issues of restitution for “the incalculable losses their ancestors and they themselves have suffered and continue to suffer because of the Genocide and its denial.”

“Spending money on PR firms and lobbyists here in Illinois and around the world, the Turkish government thinks that it can somehow re-write history,” stated Mike Demirjian, Chairman of the Armenian National Committee (ANC) of Illinois. “Prime Minister Erdogan needs to understand that the world will no longer tolerate his antics, and that even Turks in Turkey have had enough of his genocide denial agenda.”

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