The author’s grandfather Levon, circa 1965. TMR WeeklyColumn Armenian Eyes Mischa Geracoulis Though it had been on my reading list for years, I’d held off entering into Aram Saroyan’s Last Rites: The Death of William Saroyan (William Morrow & Co. 1982) until recently. Facing his account of the last months, Read more…
by Mischa Geracoulis Apr 21, 2021 Sometimes, artistic testimony gives greater pause for reflection than in-your-face dramatics. Case in point: The Man Behind the White Guitar. The new documentary on the life of Brazilian-born and longtime Fairfax-based musician and composer, José Neto, is deliberate, chill and unfolds at a pace that Read more…
From Zahra to Yasmin, from the Islamic Revolution to the Green Movement and the Arab awakenings, Spring is inextinguishable Just as Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow on Groundhog Day 2021, and predicted another six weeks of winter, so too for the “Spring” uprisings. No longer simply symbolic of the prediction Read more…
Despite broad consensus that previously long-held beliefs about race that emerged from social, economic and political agendas rather than anthropological, historical or biological facts, and despite forward strides made in the American civil rights and South African anti-apartheid movements, race is still used as an instrument to divide and subjugate. Read more…
IT WAS LATE APRIL in the Capital, a time of blossoming cherries, daffodils, and other imported botanical cheer. The annual White House Easter egg hunt had recently passed — as, incidentally, had the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act. Washington, DC was in particular good form, enjoying the Read more…
Mary Mazzio, attorney-turned-humanitarian documentarian, impassioned founder of 50 Eggs Films, and producer of such films as Underwater Dreams, The Apple Pushers, and Contrarian, spotlights another human rights issue — child sex trafficking — in her latest film, I Am Jane Doe. Versed in asking tough questions, challenging the status quo, Read more…
San Francisco’s Temenos Catholic Worker house, the ministry founded by the Rev. River Sims, takes the Worker mission to the city’s front lines. Sims was ordained a priest in the Evangelical Anglican Church in America in 1995 and later consecrated bishop of the denomination’s Society of Franciscan Workers in 2007. Read more…
The Latin adage Ex oriente lux, ex occidente lex (“from the East, light, from the West, law”) expresses a yin-yang-like balance, signifying that both Orient and Occident are needed for harmony to exist. Imbalances between these two result in power struggles and losses – from personal to political. Such is Read more…
Greece is a microcosm of the world, complete with money problems and refugees. The EU should be doing more to aid those rendered most vulnerable by the crisis. Being of Armenian descent, I was born into the history of Asia Minor, an exotic sounding nomenclature used by my grandfather’s generation Read more…
Though diabetes is exploding worldwide, the tribes of the American Southwest take the lead. The ravages of diabetes in the U.S. Native American population are harder hitting than in any other ethnic group in the country. Nonexistent four and five generations ago, half of their adult population now suffers with Read more…