Maidan

(I voted for "other")

Primary issues in Ukraine that I see after having studied them for several years now (enough to merit a US doctorate in post-Soviet studies, had I been pursuing such a thing), are as follows:

1-Poverty relief. Between a quarter and a third of Ukrainians suffer poverty, for no good reason except for
2-Corruption and organized crime, both of which have in the past made it very difficult for Ukrainians to work themselves out of poverty; or, for situations where Ukrainians must rely on social support due to age, infirmity, or disability, have robbed public coffers of funds to help them. Primary methodology of relief of those factors (corruption and organized crime) are two-fold:
3-Market reforms, and
4-Civic development, without which rule of law is impossible, and therefore market reforms don't get past mafia's guns, fists, and blunt instruments to the head and body.

Later this week, I'm going to explore all of these issues in more detail -- not with government, but with bandits/mafia. I'm simply going to ask them what they suggest needs to be done to correct their ways.

That is quite possibly the very last strategy anyone might think of, but, it's what I'm going to do -- because I can. Freedom and so on.

I know a group of nearly a dozen hard-core bandits/mafia/killers who found out about my work in Ukraine -- making fat profits, just as any other greedy bastard -- but then using the money to help poor people. They -- mafiosi -- were, to say the very least, flabbergasted.

Moreover, for whatever reason, they offered alliance with and protection of me even going so far as to plead with me to become a Ukrainian man. Mafiosi are my best consultants in these matters. They are experts, after all, so who better to ask?

I have agreed with their passionate reqeusts (including kisses, hugs, and, would you believe it? GROUP PRAYERS) regarding success of my work for the poor, and being a Ukrainian man, on condition that I don't have to give up my US citizenship -- with ulterior motive on my part to find a nice Ukrainian girl to make a family, Ukrainian babies, and therefore firmly establish my existence in Ukraine for the remainder of my days (and nights) as an American/Ukrainian gentleman, papa, husband, and friend, in that order.

So it goes.

Regards,
Terry
Kharkiv