US, Get Over Yourselves!

Imagine you are a young woman walking down a street in the US when a group of young men starts hooting and whistling at you.  It’s probably annoying, even infuriating, but you keep walking and ignore them.  Now imagine the same thing happening on a street in Kiev or Odessa.  You should probably run for your life because you may have just become a target to be kidnapped and sold as a sex slave in a distant land.

That is the reality faced every day in Ukraine, where a repudiation of the descent into a mafia state is likely the main issue at the heart of the recent rebellion and interference by neighboring Russia.  But you’d never know that reading the mainstream media here in the US.  This important story has been largely ignored because everything, everywhere in the world is reported as if it is about the US somehow – no matter how ridiculous this perspective is.

Our inability to simply get over ourselves is the main reason our press is so terrible, not some liberal/conservative bias.  It is well demonstrated by the complete miss on this important story shaping the world today.

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Time Flies

If you’re like most people, the upcoming week will start a little bleary from losing an hour of sleep to Daylight Savings Time. It’s an uneven process, too, with Europe not changing until 30 March this year – meaning that there’s now only 6 hours difference between St Paul and Frankfurt instead of the usual 7.  Schedule your skype conferences appropriately!

All this messing with the clocks only proves how artificial the whole idea of time is.  Perhaps we’re better off with one time across the globe.

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Ukrainiana

Ukraine heated up this weekend when Russian troops invaded Crimea and backed the unrecognized Prime Minister Sergey Aksyonov, who has declared the province is now independent from Ukraine.  The situation essentially pits all of Europe against Russia, with the Ukrainian people caught in the middle.  It feels like the way something like World War III might start for good reasons.

Russia cannot let Ukraine go over to the West for many reasons and has been playing every card in their deck.  This situation started on 21 November when Ukrainian President Yanukovych backed out of a deal to join a European Union “Eastern Partnership” under Russian pressure.  Russia then sent a $15B emergency loan to Ukraine, more or less paying Ukraine to be their friend.   The people of Ukraine rose in protest, eventually ousting Yanukovych and declaring an interim government with limited legitimacy.

There is a lot of background necessary to understand this from a Ukrainian, Russian, and European Union perspective.  Much of this is unfinished business from the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, but the tortured history goes back much further.

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6 Myths About the Economy

If you pay attention to social media, or even just talk amongst your friends, you may have heard some awful things about the economy.  Many people, Republican and Democrat, are convinced that things are simply not improving.  The feeling tends to be stronger among Republicans, especially Tea Partiers, who believe that socialist policies are still killing us.  But the mood crosses party lines rather fluidly.

It boils down to six persistent myths about our economy today.  Some are based on old news, taken from horror stories from the depths of this depression around 2010.  Some are simply wrong.  But all of them reinforce the emotional reason why this is indeed a depression, a dark feeling shared across society.  It’s also rather wrong.  Let’s run them down.

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Talking to Teens

I’ve had the great pleasure of working with a number of young people recently.  The  Robotics League team at Great River School are a dedicated and smart group of kids with extraordinary skills at times.  They make things happen.

Learning about them as people has been a terrific joy for me, too.  I’ve learned a bit about how to motivate the next generation of adults and what they are capable of.  I’d like to share my experiences and ask your opinions, too.

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