aaus-list @ ukrainianstudies.org -- [aaus-list] Did I miss the obituary?

[Max Pyziur <pyz@brama.com>]

Greetings,

What follows is a spontaneous (more or less) editorial.

Excuse me, but I must have missed the obituaries.  Where are all of the 
Diasporan institutions, both collectively and individually.

Having perused the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, Ukrainian Weekly, 
CIUS, and Encyclopedia of Ukraine web sites and there is little if no 
mention of the Orange Revolution.  Add to that the UABA 
(Ukrainian-American Bar Association) and some others to help us understand 
what is or isn't proper VR pariliamentary procedure.

The only people/organizations doing the heavy lifting here are Infoukes, 
Brama, Roman Senkus, and Dominique Arel;  the rest seem to have rolled 
over and are playing dead, save for a few self-appointed fearless leaders 
- one probably calling for the revocation of the never-as-yet-received 
Pulitzer prize awarded to the current NY Times reporter covering the fSU; 
another probably proclaiming some sort of Republican triumphalism of 
George W. Bush's success in developing Democracy in Ukraine (given that 
he's failing horribly in Iraq).  Thank goodness for all of the individuals 
taking initiative and getting out into the streets!

(I should mention Radek Sikorski at the AEI holding his roundtable last 
week as being the example to aspire to.)

People, you've been handed a narrative which Hollywood itself couldn't do 
much better at creating.  The non-initiated (CJ Chivers, Jim Lehrer, Diane 
Roeh to name a few) are scrambling to understand it.  Sure, it's 
overwhelming to everyone to try and read all of the news and at the same 
time listen to Radio Lux (or whatever your favorite Ukraine Internet radio 
feed is). (I myself along with running Brama have a day job where among 
other things make sure $5 billion is assets under management is correctly 
reported for several thousand accounts). But that shouldn't propel you 
into stupor and inactivity!  Don't wait for your phone to ring or your 
email to be uber-shtupped.


off soapbox, but more to follow ....

Max Pyziur                                     BRAMA - Gateway Ukraine
pyz@brama.com                                  http://www.brama.com/