No school today, religious holiday, and most students just didn't show up. Nobody knew before hand. So I have a lot of time, waiting for the administrators to finish work for the day so that I can tie up the phone line to get some internet. Went out to the bar with my team after the game last night and ended up having some really interesting conversations about how to take the first steps toward improving the economy and democracy. We also spoke about why nationalists are vehemently against having two national languages even though so many people in Ukraine speak Russian. Basically I was able to understand that the Russian language is tightly linked with the country of Russia and not disassociated from the empire that has impoverished and exploited Ukraine and its people for so long. Will it be separated? It seems dangerous to have a national language which so much of the population does not use. It must make that part of the population feel less included. But I can also see how after so much, a Ukrainian nationalist would want to separate Ukraine from Russia as much as possible.
Can anybody tell me what NATO is? What are the advantages of being in it? Is the US seriously still worried about communists taking over the world? Have there been conflicts where NATO has intervened militarily? Ukraine is debating joining, and obviously Russia does not want this to happen. Why would Ukraine want to be part of NATO and the EU? I feel like NATO is some kind of US lead nuclear weapons club. Need to fill my empty head with knowledge. I feel so ignorant.
