by Niles Wimber
In the first season of the TV series “House of Cards”, a major plot point is a large education reform bill, much like the Affordable Care Act (popularly, Obamacare) if it was the Affordable Education Act. It was the usual: messing around with charter schools, performance evaluations, federal funding requirements, etc., etc. Now, while the show obviously exaggerates how reform works (scandal and blackmail exclusively moving the process along, for instance), we’ve seen a lot of education reform in the last decade that seemingly hasn’t really done anything, like No Child Left Behind or the currently disputed Common Core standards. I’ve been thinking and I’d say that there is something better.
If this rings true about education reform, there is a problem. Source: Netflix
A New Cold War: the US/Russia Battle over the Ukrainian Crisis
By Niles Wimber
Update:
Russia has begun deploying troops to the Crimean peninsula in Ukraine “for the safety of ethnic Russians in the region”. Considering they have a major naval base there and the region borders with Russia, that only further confirms my commentary below about Russia’s motivations there. Read on.
Since my original review of the Ukrainian Maidan Revolution on February 20th, things have changed quite a bit, namely, the overthrow of President Viktor Yanukovych and the installation of a new opposition led government. The new government has immediately turned towards the US and the European Union for help with Ukraine’s crippled economy, much to the dismay of Russia who had previously offered to buy out Ukraine’s debt to the tune of $15 billion dollars. For their part, the Russians have started running massive war drills for troops bordering Ukraine, just for the heck of it according to them. Ukraine isn’t really an influential country compared to, say, Germany or China; what’s provoking this sudden Cold War flashback?
Russian tanks on parade. Source: Niles Wimber
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Posted in Commentary
Tagged America, Cold War, EU, national security, protests, Russia, Ukraine