Americans

Both the Senate and House are finally getting ready to debate and vote on separate versions of health-care reform. Both bills fall short of what President Obama promised and the American people voted for last year. President Obama repeatedly called for bipartisan reform that reduced Americans’ health-care costs. He called for a bipartisan, open process that included televising the entire process on C-SPAN. This, he said, would make the process transparent. Unfortunately, the Senate majority leader and the House speaker rejected the president’s leadership.

A new survey of American religious beliefs reportedly finds that one out of five Americans believe God favors the United States in worldly affairs. Among those Americans, the Baylor University study also reportedly found that more Republicans — four times as many — than Democrats believe God favors the U.S. What do you think? It is always a dangerous prospect (not to mention idolatrous) to think that God favors "us" over "them." The Hebrew prophets of old were aware of this danger, and they urged their listeners not to assume any specialness simply because God had chosen Israel.

Flag critics quickly become flag wavers I would like to thank the gentleman who owns the Shell Station on Pacific Avenue for the wonderful display of flags that he has. People say he uses the flags to draw attention to his business, but I don't agree. I have passed that station for years, stopping for gas only once or twice. The flags are a beautiful sight. When the tragedy in New York City happened, how many Americans owned a flag? I say not many.

Congressman David Dreier (R-San Dimas,CA), chairman of the House Rules Committee, voted to encourage increased financial literacy amongst Americans. H.Res. 737, Supporting the Goals and Ideals of Financial Literacy Month, was approved by the House with broad bipartisan support,423-1. "As we enter the 21st Century, more Americans have access to financial services and products than ever before," Dreier said in a prepared statement. "With the click of a button, consumers can perform a variety of financial activities over the Internet, from paying bills to managing investments.

I thought that at least one non-Armenian should register disappointment in Rep. James Rogan's flip-flop on the Armenian Genocide bill. I am, of course, equally disappointed with President Clinton, and the State Department in general. We Americans condemn the Germans and Japanese for the genocides they committed in World War II, yet they remain our allies. Americans are even now willing to admit our own atrocities in the past against the American Indians and African Americans.

I thank Albert Abkarian for his down-to-earth letter in the Aug. 17 Glendale News-Press, "Freedom of speech and press cannot be compromised." So therefore, may I say let's quit using hyphenated nationality titles. Most people say they come here for the opportunities and or the great fears and dangers they want to flee from. So why not plain Americans when you come. My father was not called German-American, my husband's family not called Norwegian-American, they came and were sponsored by family members here, no help from anyone else, so they had to learn the language as quick as possible and get a job. Family members were very hard-up and strict but they all considered themselves Americans and worked hard to prove themselves.

I must say that after reading Paul Carney's letter, I feel happy and proud not to be an American. I got sick in the stomach. I am from Italy and have lived in Los Angeles for three years. His letter just proved the opinion I got of America during the period I spent here. America isn't the great country Americans think it is. Its people are uneducated and often racist. What he wrote about the Armenian Genocide is an insult to people's rights. I wonder what would happen if he wrote the same things about other numerous races that make this country.

Francesca De Cesari's letter (Jan. 29) saddened me. Instead of helping to find a solution for racism, she has chosen to become part of the problem. She has branded Americans, as a group, as uneducated and racist. To her and to others who believe as she does, I say this: America is a dream in the process of becoming a reality. The vast majority of us want America to be a country where there is equal opportunity for all, and we are working to make it that way. Americans have made terrible mistakes, like allowing slavery to exist.

If Mr. Konialian knew anything regarding American history, he would not place Gus Gomez shoulder to shoulder with Lincoln, JFK, MLK and FDR. Also, the loss of 3,000 Americans had nothing to do with improved understanding and respecting other peoples cultures. What's great about America: too much to put in print here. However, here is one thing: If enough voters feel that Mayor Gomez was irresponsible in carrying out his duties, then this country, state, city, municipality affords these people the right to place a measure before all the voters to determine if enough agree.

In his letter ("Armenians survived much than letters," March 10), it is evident that Joseph Adamian has completely missed the point. The point being that this is a new country, and people need to let the old country be just that -- old and passe. Try looking to the future and not worry about the past. This is Glendale, and it is here that you live. So live and let live. We don't look down on the present-day Germans for what they did. The Turks have a right to be here and live with us also.

I am a seventh-grader at St. Bede Elementary School in La Cañada. I am trying to bring awareness to the benefits of recycling to your readers. The seventh-graders at St. Bede School have worked hard this week to recycle $68 worth of cans. Our class wants your readers to know that you can also make a big difference in your community by recycling. You can make the world a better place if you recycle because you will conserve energy and save valuable landfill space that is greatly needed by the city of Glendale.

I'm pretty diligent when it comes to my taxes. And by diligent, I mean that in November, I make an appointment for February with my tax guy, which is unlike those co-workers in your office asking around in April if anyone knows a good accountant. That's like trying to get face-value Super Bowl tickets on game day. To coin an overused phrase, a good accountant is like a good pair of shoes: The best ones give you comfort for the long haul and are worth the cash outlay. Bad ones may look nice for the price, but are painful and need replacing too soon.

Back in 1977, Dennis Reed read something that intrigued him: There once had been a vibrant society of Japanese American photographers, including first-rate modernists, but with the advent of World War II and U.S. internment camps, all of their work had been lost. “Nothing survived,” the photography educator and historian remembers reading in that article. He wondered about that. Reed spent the next few years researching the subject. He found that not only was there evidence of the work in books and surviving prints, but the work was exceptional.

The following are updates on area athletes at the collegiate level. Alyssa Selve (Glendale Community College, 2012) junior, Adams State women's cross-country : With Selve fresh off aiding the Glendale college women's team's 2011 state cross-country championship, the junior's attempt for back-to-back team titles came up a bit short, as the Adams State women's team took third at the NCAA Division II championships Nov. 17 in Missouri. The Grizzlies took third with 109 points, eight behind winner Grand Valley State's 101. Still, Selve's first season as a Grizzly ended with her earning All-American status.

L.A. City Councilman Richard Alarcon is moving to save the Verdugo Hills Golf Course from residential development by adding it to the city's list of historic and cultural monuments. It's the latest in a series of moves - including rezoning and outright purchase - aimed at keeping the land from being developed. Nearby residents contend the massive development project will bring a cascade of vehicle traffic to the urban-rural area and erase from the landscape a long standing community recreational resource.

We had a good thing going for a while, but it could soon be toast. By “we,” I mean readers, writers and editors. By “a good thing,” I mean a system for placing periods and commas relative to quotation marks. And by “toast,” I mean falling victim to that annihilator of printed word traditions: the Internet. For decades, American publishing has had some very specific rules on how to handle punctuation that comes next to a closing quotation mark. And if, as a reader, you never noticed how it was done - well, that was the point: a visually unobtrusive system that creates no stumbling blocks to sentence flow or ease of reading.

The U.S. embassy in Armenia joined those in at least six other nations on Wednesday in warning of possible anti-American protests following the attack on the consulate in Libya that killed an ambassador and three other officials. While the embassy, located in Yerevan, acknowledged it had no “specific information” that the protests would affect events locally, it cautioned U.S. citizens there to remain “particularly vigilant.” “Given the uncertainty and volatility of the current situation, all U.S. citizens in Armenia are cautioned to maintain good situational awareness and should stay current with media coverage of local events,” the embassy said in its statement . The embassies in Burundi, Egypt, Kuwait, Sudan, Tunisia and Zambia all issued similar warnings on Wednesday.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- With hundreds of delegates and alternates in attendance, the California delegation to the Democratic National Convention takes up a big piece of real estate inside Time Warner Cable Arena. Sitting enthusiastically among them Wednesday night was delegate Juliet Minassian of Glendale, attending her first political convention. “The convention is very educational,” said Minassian, who came to Glendale from Iran about 15 years ago. “You can learn very much, and I have been thrilled to see all these people in here.

A group of voters who claim Armenian Americans have become so “politically sophisticated and well-financed” that they've monopolized the Glendale Community College Board of Trustees has filed a lawsuit seeking a change in how elections are carried out. The lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court on Aug. 15, alleges that the district is in violation of the California Voting Rights Act. It comes after months of discourse about altering the...

Director Peter Ramsey is sitting in his office on the DreamWorks Animation campus in Glendale and recalling a vivid childhood memory. “I remember being in my pajamas in the back of my parents' car at an Inglewood drive-in watching Disney's “Snow White” and being mesmerized,” he says. “We didn't get to go to movies a lot when I was a kid, so when we did, it was such an emotional overwhelming experience. That's where I really got that reverence for movies.” For an African American inner-city kid from Crenshaw, the dream of making it big in Hollywood seemed almost as fantastical as the movies he watched.