Thank you, Pauline Getzoyan

 

Recently in an email exchange with Pauline Getzoyan about a piece I had written for the Weekly, she closed her email with, “I have some news to share with you and I’d rather tell you over the phone than via email.” Having been around the corporate and organizational block a few times, I knew she was going to tell me she was stepping down as the editor of the Weekly.

I got a little sad. 

Part of the sadness was the unknown about who would take over, what their leadership style would be, where they might want to take the paper, et cetera, yev eylin. It is a natural part of the change and turnover that occurs with greater frequency these days. We have to get used to it and manage. Heck, I have worked in fields where the job was to change and improve organizations. Change is inevitable.

The greater part of the sadness was simply that Pauline was so good at being the editor of the Weekly.  She was easy — actually, wonderful — to work with. Working on the AYF Olympics Special Issue with her for five years was a great pleasure. We met as a team, and there was constant communication between the writers and editorial staff. It was more collaborative than ever, and that is not to take anything away from previous editors. With Pauline, it was just more of a joy.

Pauline has made the print edition cleaner and more visually appealing. The website has become a vibrant go-to news source with more original content. Her leadership style and team-building skills are exemplary.

Pauline is the kind of editor who nurtures and encourages writers and contributors. She edits to make the writing better, not just to cut content to accommodate a layout. She asks questions and provides feedback in a way that not only makes you a better writer but also makes you want to write more. This last skill is truly a gift. It cannot be taught in any school. It is an innate trait. 

Pauline presided over the paper in very tough times for the Armenian nation: the Artsakh war of 2020, the ensuing blockade and the fall of the Republic of Artsakh in 2023. We talked about these sad events and existential implications for the Republic of Armenia. These events weighed heavily on her heart, as they did for many of us. Pauline led her team and kept us all informed with reporting online and in print. She also knew how important it was to help our community, the readers of the Weekly, regroup and appreciate what it means to be Armenian in the Diaspora. She sought out and encouraged articles that focused on this, as well.

James Mandalian, Jimmy Tashjian and Khatchig Mouradian were great editors and stewards of the Hairenik Weekly and Armenian Weekly. They all had longer tenures, but Pauline’s contribution in five short years puts her right up there with these editors. 

In each and every AYF Olympic Ad Book, Mal Varadian’s family presents his tenet and charge for all of us: “Make it better than it was.” I think Pauline has indeed “made it better than it was.”  Brava and thank you, Pauline. 

--

Originally published in the Armenian Weekly

New Year's Day 2025

A beautiful sentiment
sent by my friend Mike Adajian

 

It is the start of a new year… another new year. 

As of today, we are a quarter of the way through this 21^st century. 

Traditionally, I would be writing about all the things I want to do and accomplish this year.  Over time, that has been less and less the theme of these New Year’s Day posts.

In 2019, I posted my New Year piece on January 3^rd.  It was titled In the Time of Your Life.  It focused on the prelude to William Saroyan’s award-winning play, The Time of Your Life.  Like many a great writer, Saroyan’s were impactful and probably something I should read more often, at least every New Year’s Day.  Saroyan’s words put this whole thing into a perspective that resonates with me. 

My 2020 post was written two months before the COVID-19 Pandemic hit and disrupted everything.  The Dawn of a New Year and Decade was more reflective and full of the contentment and joy that comes from hanging out with one’s grandchildren.  Later that year, my hopeful naivete really shined in a May 1, 2020 post, Contagion: Promise of Utopia?  I really thought there was a chance that impact of the pandemic would unite us all.  Talk about naivete.

Was it folly or wrong to be hopeful?  It was certainly a normative perspective… focus on the way things should be rather than the way things are.  It is folly for not knowing it was a normative aspiration.  It is never folly for being hopeful.  Hope, dreams, aspirations drive the world.  This happens on a global scale and for each of us in our personal communities. 

What am I getting at here?

That is a really good question.

It is the dawn of a new year.  It is an arbitrary marker, but it is marker like one’s birthday, and the start of a new school year.  It is a good time to reflect and assess where one is and where we want to be.  It is a good time as any to set some goals, resolutions, whatever you want to call them.  They may be new goals or goals that you have set many times but have not made much progress at.  It is OK to be hopeful for yourself.  Try again.  To paraphrase Winston Churchull, “Never give up.”  Remember the words of the great comedic sage, Jerome “Curly” Howard (or a script writer): “If at first you don’t succeed, keep on sucking until you do succeed.”  It’s also good to keep the words attributed to Albert Einstein in mind, “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

Honestly, these New Year’s hopes and resolutions are for the most part personal, about ourselves.  Sure, over the holidays we tend to thing on a larger scale when wishing for Peace on Earth.  New Year’s Day signals the end of the holidays that began with Thanksgiving.  We prepare ourselves to return to work in earnest and set personal goals for ourselves include the infamous resolutions.  The resolutions are filled with dedication and hope on New Year’s Day even though most are quickly forgotten in a few weeks.

Today, this first day of 2025, a violent act in New Orleans forced a larger, global, perspective in today’s reflections and planning.  In the early hours of the morning, a rented truck drove into the reveling crowds of Bourbon St. and killed at least 15 and injured 35.  The gunman had an ISIS flag in the truck.  The FBI is considering this an act of terrorism and suspect it was not a sole act.  Hours later, a rented Tesla Cyber Truck started smoking, caught fire, and exploded outside a Trump Hotel in Las Vegas.

This only reminds us on this day of setting personal objectives and resolutions that we need to think globally as well.  The wars in the Middle East and Ukraine, the starvation and displacement issues in Gaza and the Sudan were brought front of mind today with these violent acts.  The setting of personal goals and resolutions were shelved worrying about the dangerous state of world we live and how we might realize that utopian goal of Peace on Earth.

      If only…