Am I the only to find jokes like "What is the ETA for the completion of the revolution?" and "Is there an issue for the revolution? Can we label it as a blocker?" inappropriate?
Yeah. It's an extremely serious situation and there are people who are injured and dead. fre5h's reply was fantastic and darkly funny, but the people trying to turn it into a running gag are being deeply tasteless.
Gallows humor is very hard to pull off without being involved yourself and there is the clear danger of overdoing it. I think the replies are an example of both.
Those comments are not taking sides or minimizing the impact of what's happening. They're just mixing a bit of project management-jargon with real life events.
I'd tend to say I agree with you, except for one thing: the response itself is clearly slightly in jest.
You'd expect a comment like "I'm caught up with some day job work at the moment" to show up, but this one is clearly pulling humor into the situation, so I think the responses are relatively in matching humor.
I will disagree with the rest of you people and say that I thought it was hilarious, it made me laugh. It didn't make me think less of Ukrainians or fre5h in particular. As other GH commenters said Героям слава.
Some people also make fun of everything that does affect them.
People are complicated. I have been to funerals where it is almost like a roast. Some people deal with heavy emotions through humor.
I do understand how if something doesn't affect you it can be very disrespectful to mock it. I am just pointing out that not everyone holds a reverence for even very serious situations.
I recommend looking up the evolutionary purpose of laughing. Then apply it to the people who used humour in this instance. IMHO, its a perfectly natural response. Appropriateness is there for irrelevant. Certainly not an issue by which one should get one one's high horse and judge others by.
As such, I have to ask: Is it appropriate to judge such people?
There's also this 24/7 stream: http://videoprobki.com/eng/camera/70-nezalezhnosti-majdan. It shows Maidan Nezalezhnosti and a good part of Khreshchatyk from above (through a robotic camera originally intended to stream live traffic).
Im normally all for having a go at Americans for being so insula, and not realising there is a rest of the world out there, well, the NSA know, but, you know... stereotypes and all that.
But in all fairness, the Ukraine borders the EU and there are political ties or ambitions there concerning the EU. No, I don't know all the details and I wont pretend to, but ultimately, it affects the EU. The US, on the other hand, is a world away and frankly what goes on in the Ukraine is not exactly a big deal to the US or its people. Yes, on a being informed of big events in the world level, it should be reported in the US, but I can understand the US not being that interested. Im sure there are levels of concern for the US, but its a much bigger deal to us in Europe.
I'm in the USA, it's not about snow or football, so it's (embarrassingly) not front page news on the various tv news sites. It is showing up on the nytimes & washington post. so that's something.
I'm in the USA, am I'm aware of it - but only because I listen to NPR on my commute and I'm signed up for the Quartz Daily Newsletter (qz.com - I recommend it). Unfortunately, neither are hugely popular news sources in the US (outside of certain circles).
Well, apparently there is no trace of Ukraine on the front pages of cnn.com and msnbc.com, and barely a mention on foxnews.com, so it seems that - in the states - that's probably your best bet.
I think blaming "MSM" is becoming an increasingly poor excuse in an age where you are free to compose your own news feed in places like Twitter - even Tumblr.
I'm sure many of the people unaware of what is going on in Ukraine didn't follow the MSM to begin with.
Fair enough, but for me, I've generally used a quick peek at CNN and a relatively large newspaper site as my "Is there some major world event happening right now" filter. Clearly, I was mistaken. Switching to the international edition of CNN seems to be a reasonable start.
Those are infotainment / political agitprop sites. May as well complain about TMZ not covering it. If you go to bb.co.uk or reuters.com or news.google.com or reddit its front page news.
The problem is they did a "bait and switch", those sites started as news sites, however the US public don't know or (most likely) don't care that what most consider news aren't covered anymore.
To be honest, it's perfectly reasonable, there's a 0% chance of it affecting the average US citizen.
To be fair, the media covered the protests pretty well when it started and there was the possibility of joining the EU and thumbing their noses at Putin... there's just been a bit of typical fatigue on a long-running political story lately.
What many don't realize is that large news organizations often provide two views of the news. One is a view aimed toward the local audience, and focuses on in-country events, and includes a lot of sports and entertainment.
The other view is aimed toward the international audience and focuses on events of world wide importance or interest.
A typical US visitor to a news site will get the local view at US sites, and the international view at non-US sites. Al Jazeera doesn't cover "Arab Idol" the way CNN covers "American Idol", for instance, not because Al Jazeera is serious and CNN is fluff, but rather because Al Jazeera's "Arab Idol" coverage will be in its edition aimed at Arab countries, which US viewers won't see. (Yes, there is an "Arab Idol", and it is as big in Arab countries as "American Idol" is in the US).
American news have been covering it as well. I don't watch TV news so I can't comment there, but at least NPR has had lots of coverage (albeit lots of it comes through their broadcasts of the BBC) and it shows up in Google News as well.
Actually, Ukraine's natural gas production has been picking up. Significant shale deposits have been found and off-shore drilling has begun in the Black Sea.
As I'm watching these news from Ukraine, it makes me really sad. People getting hurt on both sides (a couple of police officers were attacked by molotov cocktails and got burns, really horrific). All the while politicians sit in their offices and give orders. The saddest thing of all is that all this fight will eventually be in vain. Whoever comes in power next will be corrupt or even if they themselves are not corrupt, then they wouldn't be able to get rid of an endlessly corrupt apparatus.
People fighting governments in protests should really understand one thing: they feed the beast with their own money. If they want to have any influence whatsoever they should organize not to go protesting, but to stop paying taxes and stop using corrupt currency. If you do that, then at least everyone will be able to see who initiates violence (and it will be the state trying to take tax money by force) Unfortunately, people are wired to fight individuals, because it's easy to identify them and see some actual paths to fight them. And most people reject the idea that they don't need rulers to make peace and order. Until they keep believing that, they will keep fighting and losing these battles against their owners. History predominantly is on the dark side, showing that most protests either lead to civil conflicts and wars or don't lead anywhere.
There's this joke I once heard: there are more good people than bad people. The problem is that bad people are better organized. That is very true.
Ukrainian government is less dependent on individual taxation, and more relying on corporate taxation (of enterprises divvied up among oligarchs) and external borrowing.
Taxation in a corrupt environment transforms into endless series of bribes one must succumb to "speed up the process" for pretty much anything.
Just IMd with some former contractors I worked with that live there - they're doing ok so far. They said that this law isn't final - there are people in the Rada who oppose it and want more debate before it can go into effect.
There are corrupted but legal government on one side and opposition that tries violently take power on other side. Sure it isn't obvious choose as you try to present it.
How do these things go together? They are passing laws in clear violation of the usual process. Of course everything a corrupt government does is legal, since they just make whatever laws they need... you could say the same about Nazi Germany, and it'd be technically correct.
Also, the "legal government" is also trying to violently stay in power, while the protesters stayed peaceful until they were brutally attacked (by now, some have been murdered). So claiming the government has some sort of moral high ground is kinda rich, if you ask me.
> Sure it isn't obvious choose as you try to present it.
Are you projecting? The poster just posted a donation link, and then you claimed it's a clear-cut situation of a "corrupted but legal government against people violently trying to take power".
Poster trying to represent link as donation for ukrainians, and this is lie. This is help for specific political forces. Someone may think they a better than current government, but they for sure isn't "the people" as poster trying to represent. I wont go into political discussion anyway, it isn't topic for HN.
It's not the political opposition but the people who are on the other side. Looks like you used the biased sources of news. Let's just stop this for now, HN is not for politics.
I'm not speaking about politics here. You are calling to support one side and I just want to make very clear that when you are helping one side you are not helping "the people", you are not helping "ukrainians", you are helping conrete doubtful political forces to take power.
See, this is why I think XP was poorly named. My expectation of Extreme Programming involves guys with body-piercings and facial tattoos coding while base-jumping and chugging Mountain Dew.
Not pair-programming, good testing, and a minimalist design process.
i just hope they don't just go from one dictatorship to another, that is, eu membership. the most noble thing i've seen so far is protesters wearing gear and going against those thugs who call themselves police -- they're cowardly on the wrong side, the establishment's.
