Wednesday, May 25, 2022
No Result
View All Result
Asbarez.com
NEWSLETTER
ՀԱՅ
  • Home
  • Top Stories
  • Community
  • Arts & Culture
    • Art
    • Books
    • Music
    • Theatre
    • Critics’ Forum
  • Op-Ed
    • Editorial
    • Opinon
    • Letters
  • Columns
    • By Any Means
    • My Turn
    • Three Apples
    • Community Links
    • Critics’ Forum
    • My Name is Armen
    • Living in Armenia
  • Videos
  • Sports
  • Home
  • Top Stories
  • Community
  • Arts & Culture
    • Art
    • Books
    • Music
    • Theatre
    • Critics’ Forum
  • Op-Ed
    • Editorial
    • Opinon
    • Letters
  • Columns
    • By Any Means
    • My Turn
    • Three Apples
    • Community Links
    • Critics’ Forum
    • My Name is Armen
    • Living in Armenia
  • Videos
  • Sports
No Result
View All Result
Asbarez.com
ՀԱՅ
No Result
View All Result

There’s a Land that I heard of Once in a Lullaby

by Asbarez Staff
January 11, 2013
in Columns, Featured Story, Latest, Three Apples, Top Stories
0
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter
Paul Chaderjian

BY PAUL CHADERJIAN

Once there were and there were not …

“Sone le le” from Andre’s 1000x album is blaring in your earbuds as you battle your default human nature of being unsatisfied, lazy, suffering, lethargic and ennuied.

You are pushing half your body weight away from your chest, against gravity and destiny, and sweating in a gym on the fourth floor of a building at the intersection of King and Ward in Honolulu.

You open your eyes and standing in front of your is a Kazakh lawyer. His lips are moving; he’s talking to you.

You smile and remove your left earbud to hear him, because your right brain is intuitive and process the whole and not the parts.

His name is Tim. You met him more than a year ago at the gym. He and his wife have a strict routine they follow every other day.

Today, he jumps through a series of thoughts and questions.

“Your anchor Pamela Young. She’s the most talented woman on the air here. I saw her live reports from the Vatican. Good coverage of the Mother Marianne Cope beatification ceremonies.”

When you first met Tim, he asked where you were from. “You’re not local,” he said.

You’ve always had issues with the word local. What is local in the 21st century? So, you told him about the place of your birth, the place of your origins, the civil war and the American schools where you were taught to be global and cosmopolitan.

“I know Armenians,” he had said. Then he had explained his accent and where he was from with some hesitation. He had said people knew his country only as the butt of jokes, thanks to Sasha Cohen.

You had almost said people around the world knew your Homeland because of a reality show star. But you had refrained.

“Armenians are smart. You’ve got Jewish blood in you,” he begins and then asks whom you think the President will name as the head of the DOD? Then he asks which think tanks do you follow and most agree with?

#FOURTH MACHINE, THIRD SET
The Beautified Project’s rendition of “Kilikia” is blaring when you feel a light slap on your shoulder. You’re doing curls and turn to see who it is.

Josh is a Filipino-Mexican public school counselor. Smart. Dedicated to his students. He’s the only child of a military couple from Nebraska, who stayed on the islands after they left the service.

“I told my cousin I met a Kardashian,” he says.

You ask him to explain.

“You,” he says. “You’re the Kardashian.”

A rainbow

Brad says hello. He’s the retired Air Force pilot from South Carolina, who now spends a few hours a day selling time shares in Ko Olina.

You introduce the men to one another and make your way to the treadmills and Joanne, who lives three floors below you in your building down the street and thinks you’re her landlord’s nephew. She is carefully walking uphill and watching the Hill on C-SPAN.

You smile and think of all the people whom you’ve met at the gym, in your apartment building and at work:

Joe, the Hawaiian doctor whose Hawaiian parents are both doctors. He has just returned from USC to join the family practice. Haruko, the precious great grandmother next door whose name means spring, and the pilot down the hall who flies to Hong Kong with his fiancee, the stewardess, every week.

Then there’s Takashi, the chain smoking neighbor next door whose wife walks him to the garden so he won’t smoke inside their home. He’s multilingual with a keen sense of politics and political players on the islands, and he is a consul at the Japanese consulate and writes reports to the Foreign Ministry about everything that is happening here.

There’s Matt, the art historian and tour guide at Shangri La, Bob, the former bodyguard of the Hollywood stars, and lest not forget the Beirutsi Armenians huddling together every Tuesday in the back of a Waikiki jewelry shop for backgammon tournaments.

#MENTAL WORKOUT IS PAU (finished)

On the elevator, you’re greeted by the bright smile of an academic named Marco. He’s a multiple degreed mench with a historied personal story dating back to Sicily, the Bronx, San Francisco and now the islands. He helps run a private university and is tasked with its institutional effectiveness.

When you were working in Armenia a few years ago, a friend of a friend called you ‘riffraff.’ She did what native Armenians did to the repatriates in the 40s – reverse racism, the expression of self-hatred towards others, encultured xenophobia.

She, a diasporan, equated people who weren’t fortunate enough to land in one place and have a steady job in their chosen profession to debris that the waves thrashed around and delivered to a beach.

Debris has been washing up on the islands from the 2011 Japanese triple disaster, when a tsunami and earthquake created a nuclear nightmare, and the ocean’s gyrations have brought boats, buoys and a television set to Hawaii.

Your Genocide was your multi-generational tsunami, and here you are – wherever you are reading this column.

What can you be but grateful, learning after a lifetime to trust the waves, the oceans, the universe – God as She sweeps you where you need to be. You feel blessed and are grateful to have been allowed to enjoy the label, rather title of riffraff – debris of the world, trash.

You’re royal riffraff, the connector of people, the glue of society, the spiritual soul making the universe a friendlier place.

You, we, I am proud and blessed to be riffraff.

Had you not trusted Her, would you have ever met and learned from the 101 incredible souls on Oahu like the Kazhakh, the Filipino, Japanese, Hawaiian, jeweler, restaurateur, painter, writer, retired Jordanian doctor, the sniper, engineer, banker, the Air Force Captain, the grandmother of ten, and globe-trotting journalists… all in one place, somewhere over the rainbow.

And three apples fell from heaven: one for the storyteller, one for him who made him tell it, and one for you the reader.

Paul Chaderjian is a television news producer at the ABC station serving the Hawaiian Islands. He has worked at ABC News in New York as a writer-producer for “World News Now” and as a reporter in Fresno. He served as the Arts & Culture and West Coast Editor of the Armenian Reporter, anchored English-language news at Armenia TV and has hosted the annual Armenia Fund Telethon. He may be reached via paulchad.com.

Asbarez Staff

Asbarez Staff

Next Post

OSCE Kicks Off Armenian Election Monitoring

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recommended

Artsakh Parliament to Take Up Bill on ‘Occupied Territories’

Artsakh Parliament Baffled by European Leader’s ‘Distortion’ of Karabakh Settlement Process

19 hours ago
ANCA Colorado Endorses Colorado Governor Jared Polis for Reelection 

ANCA Colorado Endorses Colorado Governor Jared Polis for Reelection 

20 hours ago

Connect with us

  • About
  • Advertising
  • Subscribe
  • Contact

© 2021 Asbarez | All Rights Reserved | Powered By MSDN Solutions Inc.

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Top Stories
  • Community
  • Arts & Culture
    • Art
    • Books
    • Music
    • Theatre
    • Critics’ Forum
  • Op-Ed
    • Editorial
    • Opinon
    • Letters
  • Columns
    • By Any Means
    • My Turn
    • Three Apples
    • Community Links
    • Critics’ Forum
    • My Name is Armen
    • Living in Armenia
  • Videos
  • Sports

© 2021 Asbarez | All Rights Reserved | Powered By MSDN Solutions Inc.

Accessibility

Accessibility modes

Epilepsy Safe Mode
Dampens color and removes blinks
This mode enables people with epilepsy to use the website safely by eliminating the risk of seizures that result from flashing or blinking animations and risky color combinations.
Visually Impaired Mode
Improves website's visuals
This mode adjusts the website for the convenience of users with visual impairments such as Degrading Eyesight, Tunnel Vision, Cataract, Glaucoma, and others.
Cognitive Disability Mode
Helps to focus on specific content
This mode provides different assistive options to help users with cognitive impairments such as Dyslexia, Autism, CVA, and others, to focus on the essential elements of the website more easily.
ADHD Friendly Mode
Reduces distractions and improve focus
This mode helps users with ADHD and Neurodevelopmental disorders to read, browse, and focus on the main website elements more easily while significantly reducing distractions.
Blindness Mode
Allows using the site with your screen-reader
This mode configures the website to be compatible with screen-readers such as JAWS, NVDA, VoiceOver, and TalkBack. A screen-reader is software for blind users that is installed on a computer and smartphone, and websites must be compatible with it.

Online Dictionary

    Readable Experience

    Content Scaling
    Default
    Text Magnifier
    Readable Font
    Dyslexia Friendly
    Highlight Titles
    Highlight Links
    Font Sizing
    Default
    Line Height
    Default
    Letter Spacing
    Default
    Left Aligned
    Center Aligned
    Right Aligned

    Visually Pleasing Experience

    Dark Contrast
    Light Contrast
    Monochrome
    High Contrast
    High Saturation
    Low Saturation
    Adjust Text Colors
    Adjust Title Colors
    Adjust Background Colors

    Easy Orientation

    Mute Sounds
    Hide Images
    Virtual Keyboard
    Reading Guide
    Stop Animations
    Reading Mask
    Highlight Hover
    Highlight Focus
    Big Dark Cursor
    Big Light Cursor
    Navigation Keys

    Asbarez.com Accessibility Statement

    Accessibility Statement

    • asbarez.com
    • May 25, 2022

    Compliance status

    We firmly believe that the internet should be available and accessible to anyone, and are committed to providing a website that is accessible to the widest possible audience, regardless of circumstance and ability.

    To fulfill this, we aim to adhere as strictly as possible to the World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 (WCAG 2.1) at the AA level. These guidelines explain how to make web content accessible to people with a wide array of disabilities. Complying with those guidelines helps us ensure that the website is accessible to all people: blind people, people with motor impairments, visual impairment, cognitive disabilities, and more.

    This website utilizes various technologies that are meant to make it as accessible as possible at all times. We utilize an accessibility interface that allows persons with specific disabilities to adjust the website’s UI (user interface) and design it to their personal needs.

    Additionally, the website utilizes an AI-based application that runs in the background and optimizes its accessibility level constantly. This application remediates the website’s HTML, adapts Its functionality and behavior for screen-readers used by the blind users, and for keyboard functions used by individuals with motor impairments.

    If you’ve found a malfunction or have ideas for improvement, we’ll be happy to hear from you. You can reach out to the website’s operators by using the following email

    Screen-reader and keyboard navigation

    Our website implements the ARIA attributes (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) technique, alongside various different behavioral changes, to ensure blind users visiting with screen-readers are able to read, comprehend, and enjoy the website’s functions. As soon as a user with a screen-reader enters your site, they immediately receive a prompt to enter the Screen-Reader Profile so they can browse and operate your site effectively. Here’s how our website covers some of the most important screen-reader requirements, alongside console screenshots of code examples:

    1. Screen-reader optimization: we run a background process that learns the website’s components from top to bottom, to ensure ongoing compliance even when updating the website. In this process, we provide screen-readers with meaningful data using the ARIA set of attributes. For example, we provide accurate form labels; descriptions for actionable icons (social media icons, search icons, cart icons, etc.); validation guidance for form inputs; element roles such as buttons, menus, modal dialogues (popups), and others. Additionally, the background process scans all of the website’s images and provides an accurate and meaningful image-object-recognition-based description as an ALT (alternate text) tag for images that are not described. It will also extract texts that are embedded within the image, using an OCR (optical character recognition) technology. To turn on screen-reader adjustments at any time, users need only to press the Alt+1 keyboard combination. Screen-reader users also get automatic announcements to turn the Screen-reader mode on as soon as they enter the website.

      These adjustments are compatible with all popular screen readers, including JAWS and NVDA.

    2. Keyboard navigation optimization: The background process also adjusts the website’s HTML, and adds various behaviors using JavaScript code to make the website operable by the keyboard. This includes the ability to navigate the website using the Tab and Shift+Tab keys, operate dropdowns with the arrow keys, close them with Esc, trigger buttons and links using the Enter key, navigate between radio and checkbox elements using the arrow keys, and fill them in with the Spacebar or Enter key.Additionally, keyboard users will find quick-navigation and content-skip menus, available at any time by clicking Alt+1, or as the first elements of the site while navigating with the keyboard. The background process also handles triggered popups by moving the keyboard focus towards them as soon as they appear, and not allow the focus drift outside of it.

      Users can also use shortcuts such as “M” (menus), “H” (headings), “F” (forms), “B” (buttons), and “G” (graphics) to jump to specific elements.

    Disability profiles supported in our website

    • Epilepsy Safe Mode: this profile enables people with epilepsy to use the website safely by eliminating the risk of seizures that result from flashing or blinking animations and risky color combinations.
    • Visually Impaired Mode: this mode adjusts the website for the convenience of users with visual impairments such as Degrading Eyesight, Tunnel Vision, Cataract, Glaucoma, and others.
    • Cognitive Disability Mode: this mode provides different assistive options to help users with cognitive impairments such as Dyslexia, Autism, CVA, and others, to focus on the essential elements of the website more easily.
    • ADHD Friendly Mode: this mode helps users with ADHD and Neurodevelopmental disorders to read, browse, and focus on the main website elements more easily while significantly reducing distractions.
    • Blindness Mode: this mode configures the website to be compatible with screen-readers such as JAWS, NVDA, VoiceOver, and TalkBack. A screen-reader is software for blind users that is installed on a computer and smartphone, and websites must be compatible with it.
    • Keyboard Navigation Profile (Motor-Impaired): this profile enables motor-impaired persons to operate the website using the keyboard Tab, Shift+Tab, and the Enter keys. Users can also use shortcuts such as “M” (menus), “H” (headings), “F” (forms), “B” (buttons), and “G” (graphics) to jump to specific elements.

    Additional UI, design, and readability adjustments

    1. Font adjustments – users, can increase and decrease its size, change its family (type), adjust the spacing, alignment, line height, and more.
    2. Color adjustments – users can select various color contrast profiles such as light, dark, inverted, and monochrome. Additionally, users can swap color schemes of titles, texts, and backgrounds, with over 7 different coloring options.
    3. Animations – epileptic users can stop all running animations with the click of a button. Animations controlled by the interface include videos, GIFs, and CSS flashing transitions.
    4. Content highlighting – users can choose to emphasize important elements such as links and titles. They can also choose to highlight focused or hovered elements only.
    5. Audio muting – users with hearing devices may experience headaches or other issues due to automatic audio playing. This option lets users mute the entire website instantly.
    6. Cognitive disorders – we utilize a search engine that is linked to Wikipedia and Wiktionary, allowing people with cognitive disorders to decipher meanings of phrases, initials, slang, and others.
    7. Additional functions – we provide users the option to change cursor color and size, use a printing mode, enable a virtual keyboard, and many other functions.

    Browser and assistive technology compatibility

    We aim to support the widest array of browsers and assistive technologies as possible, so our users can choose the best fitting tools for them, with as few limitations as possible. Therefore, we have worked very hard to be able to support all major systems that comprise over 95% of the user market share including Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, Opera and Microsoft Edge, JAWS and NVDA (screen readers), both for Windows and for MAC users.

    Notes, comments, and feedback

    Despite our very best efforts to allow anybody to adjust the website to their needs, there may still be pages or sections that are not fully accessible, are in the process of becoming accessible, or are lacking an adequate technological solution to make them accessible. Still, we are continually improving our accessibility, adding, updating and improving its options and features, and developing and adopting new technologies. All this is meant to reach the optimal level of accessibility, following technological advancements. For any assistance, please reach out to