And it's beyond my imagination how awful this is. And I have had Ukrainians the people in Ukraine on my mind ever since the 24 February. And even before that, I just want to bring it to your attention and I want to put down a marker for the future as how dreadful the situation looks in Ukraine itself. And nobody knows when this invasion will end. Nobody knows how far it will go. But we all know how dreadful it is, don't we?
Barbara KB
@barbarakb · 4:10
I looked at some polls recently here in the United States, and when it comes right down to it, most Americans don't care. They don't care about the war. They don't care about the situation. Many have no understanding of what's going on. And really, the TV channels are being turned a lot when it's on the news at night. So there's not a whole lot of interest here. And the polls show that out
Swell Team
@Swell · 0:15
Paul OMahony
@omaniblog · 3:23
Al. Barbara, it's not a bad thing at all for you to describe the sentiment in the United States about what's happening in Ukraine. I think it's in a way, I think it's unreal understandable that the average person in the United States doesn't care or isn't interested. They are not receiving refugees, but probably much more interested in refugees coming from Central America into Arizona into Texas into the south
Barbara KB
@barbarakb · 3:43
It's all over the news here, Paul. I mean, it's everywhere. It's constantly covered, so you can't help but avoid it. But people don't like it. People are looking at other things. But I give kudos to the press here in the United States for covering it extensively. I think the Biden administration is pushing a lot, constantly talking about all the aid we're sending to them, the military help, of course, NATO
Deborah Pardes
@DBPardes · 1:56
Hey, thank you for this conversation. And Barbara, thank you for this link. And you're absolutely right that the coverage here is it really depends on what outlet you're looking at. But I think there's I think radio was doing a phenomenal job catching the sound bites, catching the moments, bringing in that visceral sense of how people sound and are experiencing things so that when we're driving or when we're waking up in the morning, we're dropped into that if we choose to
Brandon Novara
@theaveragejoe · 3:58
He will put his country into a worse position than they are already in just a proof of point. He will continue to massacre and destroy. There's no fair fighting if you look at history, but the way he operates and what they've done and all that, he will do that. It'll be guerrilla warfare. It'll be Syria tactics. It will be all kinds of stuff. If he can sit there and wipe out a city, he'll wipe out a city
Paul OMahony
@omaniblog · 5:00
How are people going to be given accommodation, Deborah, I thought your point is terrifically, well made, that it would be a great thing to have help for people who want to help. This has not gone down too well. This has not worked too well in Ireland because there was initial outburst of offerings, people offering their house, people offering rooms in their houses. And then it was revealed that everybody would have to have their what they were offering assessed. Not unreasonable, I suppose
Barbara KB
@barbarakb · 4:37
So I think asking those bigger questions is completely appropriate and completely fine, because this is not ending anytime soon. And it's going to be around for a while because these cities are completely obliterated. I mean, there's people who just even if, quote, it ends, they aren't going to be able to go back for years for quite some time. It's horrendous. The whole thing is just horrendous and I don't have solutions but the solutions are likely in terms of housing for people
Brandon Novara
@theaveragejoe · 4:34
Ukraine has put up a massive fight in defense, but this is not over. I fear it's only the beginning. And we need to figure out as a community. And when I say community, I mean world community, how to handle situations like this, not just with Russia, but looking for the future, what could happen?
Paul OMahony
@omaniblog · 4:59
And I don't know enough about how which country is coping with the arrival of refugees best. Maybe other countries don't have a complication like there is in Ireland. The huge complication in Ireland is around the fact that we talk about housing waiting list
Brandon Novara
@theaveragejoe · 5:00
I was blessed because I guess just how I operated as far as financial resources go, as far as me saving and budgeting prior to covet doing what I felt like I was supposed to do as a dad and as a man, so to speak, that I had time to where I wasn't worried about getting a job right away. I was just enjoying the time with my son during a difficult time. But there were other people that were on the verge of getting kicked out on the streets
Brandon Novara
@theaveragejoe · 1:02
I should probably research myself and see what some of these other countries have done just to kind of get a feel of what everybody is going through. I think I'll do that today
Paul OMahony
@omaniblog · 1:19
Well, number one, Brandon, I think you're absolutely right, of course, that this is a long way from being over. I read yesterday eleven and a half million people have lost their home homes in Ukraine. I think that's about 20% or 25% of the total population in the country have lost their homes. And as you say, there will continue to be people leaving Ukraine
Mark Francis Rahaman
@MarkR · 1:26
Yes, there's a lot of people that came out from underground. They've been there for two months. I was like, how did they eat? What were they eating? It's just unthinkable, right? It's unbelievable that it will be happening in 2022. I don't know, man. I really don't know what to say, but I think we all share your frustrations and anger and disbelief. It's just terrible. It's
Brandon Novara
@theaveragejoe · 1:43
Yeah, it seems, Paul, just about a day ago, according to the BBC, obviously, Poland has taken in a huge number based on, you know, location and all that. But it seems right now they're fully focusing on connecting families. So as they look through families who have other members that are obviously living outside the Ukraine and other Pardes of the UK, which would be a lot easier to connect than, say, sending over to the States