Ukraine Starting Over

The good, the Bad and the Beautiful ? The Rich, the young, and the Poor ? The banal, the serious and the sensual ? the workers, the slackers and the artists ? the mood in the metro last night, there was a funny moment: a big guy was sitting next to a skinny guy, at the seats on the end suited for 3 people. and then this really big guy sat down, the guy in the end was really squeezed, but they were all friends and another guy who was a friend, he started to laugh and joke about it, the normal (not big guy got up and then tried to sit in the middle between the two big guys , they were all laughing and jolly : despite this strange news of Right sector Cigarette wars (which seems to be strangely simplified and  compressed in Western media) Life goes on. http://news.yahoo.com/ukraine-nationalists-standoff-security-forces-two-killed-183349593.html;_ylt=AwrC1C7wgaNVWQIAxzrQtDMD;_ylu=X3oDMTByNXM5bzY5BGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMzBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzcg-- but the last time I checked, if it is a co...

Or is it the other way around ? A fox in the hen house ........ I can only think that the mood on the metro in Kiev, the mood of the working people, it has to be dour. with the recent corruption bust of the Ukraine  Volodymyr Shapakinhas  deputy prosecutor in the headlines, accused of holding  hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribe money, it would appear the old system kept rolling. What sense of trust in the central and regional governments that was building up, has been torn apart. no doubt about that . And a hyper paranoid atmosphere about corruption in  all matters will also impede the business climate. No one wins here, we all lose. Of course , it's not Napoleanic justice, he has a chance to prove his case in court, somehow or another.... it seems impossible, human nature is hard to change. Upon separation of emotions from government, current affairs , comes this lackadaisical attitude in most matters of society : it is hard to sense people are motivat...

 yesterday, after a J-4 peek at the (my ) US Government's Disney style PR event in Kiev, and all other small things, thoughts noted, I had to reopen my blog and convey a less Diplomatic, San Francisco style post, I hope it's not too hard to follow. At least the Ukrainian youths appeared to be having fun ) ****** the mood on the Kiev Metro appears to shift in subtle fashion, week by week, from cautious, guarded optimism one week, to pensive, inward focused retrospection the next week. It seems certain that the elites have largely left on summer vacations, business trips. Cafes sit mostly or entirely empty, few shops have customers who buy much of anything, it is simply now, a place as I see it, of the real people, those who have few options other to get to their work every day, take their days off in the park and not spend too much. The well off folks aren't entirely gone, you can still see plenty of nice late model Range Rovers, Mercedes, Lexus and other luxury brand cars...