A little reported perspective on the Ukranian crisis

I suppose it's hard for news organizations like CNN, ABC, CBS, etc. to give us perspective and context on such a complicated situation as the Russia-Ukraine crises in today's society with twitter being on our primary news sources.

I am constantly frustrated trying to answer someone in a tweet in 132 characters or less (or whatever the number is), much less debate someone and there always seem someone itching for a fight these days on the internet.

Healthy debate is great, but respect left the building a long time ago when folks figured out they could be anonymous and say whatever nasty stuff they really meant or just make things up. Just look at anonymous comments on any blog, forum, etc. if you want to get depressed about how people really feel. Hopefully, these are the smallest minority of folks making the most amount of noise, otherwise, I feel it's "Deserted Island" time, assuming I could find one in those over-crowded planet to begin with.

But I digress.

While CNN jumped the shark long ago and continues to breathlessly analyze every non- event with the missing Malaysian airliner, blissfully unaware or not caring that they have become a national punchline in the process, coverage of the Ukranian Crisis from any outlet rarely if ever asks the question "Did the EU and/or the U.S. overstep their bounds by helping to overthrow the previously corrupt government in Ukraine?"

I don't know, but I'd like to.

What I do know is that when I visited Kiev in 2012, I found a few very, very wealthy folks and mostly middle class others going about their daily lives in peace, with an occasional street peasant here and there, but honestly, not many. Granted I probably stayed in the nicest areas of Kieve, but I remember a very peaceful, fairly content society seemingly run by an over the top, plunderer of a President who knocked down some of the oldest structures in the region to build things like a Helipad so he wouldn't have to deal with traffic, or at least that was what I was told by a local.

Here is an article from Mikhail Kholodov, someone I met very recently while filming "Raw Travel" in Brighton Beach the Russian immigrant enclave of  New York City. I trust Mikhail knows his stuff and his article puts some perspective on the Ukranian/Russian crisis from a different POV you won't find on mainstream news outlets.

What Ukraine Must Learn from Georgia’s Mistakes


I'm not a political guy per se, I just observe what is around me and try to make sense of it and develop my own philosophy about the world I'm trying to live in. 

Articles like this help me because goodness knows the world history I was taught in school is not up to the task.  For this I must say thank God for the internet and it's many blessings (and aforementioned curses).