and You are all illiterate donkeys!!!

Yesterday, some dude calling himself Travis Martin became a new member of the Facebook group Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament. The group is now 150,000 members strong.

He started a discussion thread with this charming post…

Just thought I would join this group to publically declare you all illiterate, devoid of civic understanding, and completely unaware of the history of Canadian politics. A total omnibus of idiots! As such, your membership in this confederacy of dunces is symbolic only of how little you know about your own country and at the same time are willing to protest under the banner of your own ignorance. It is a shame to live in a country populated by such donkeys. Please god read a book, go to school, and develop skills such as critical thinking, the ability to understand Parliamentary Procedure, and the ability to read your own Constitution and governing legislation, and until such a time as that, if such a time ever possible, collectively shut the hell up and go back to your Pentecostal churches, your hippie compounds, and your pot-reeking congo-drum-circles. Sandals, a shawl, and black horn-rimmed glasses are not symbols of education they are symbols of “wanting to appear educated”. Get real jobs, meet real, people, and please, when you talk about democracy, please, god please, understand what it is you are talking about.

Sincerely,

Travis Martin
(Considerably more wise, and at least able to read a long book).

Stephen Harper has done it again. He crossed the line, was too clever by half, and he prorogued parliament for no good reason. Now he has pissed off more people than most anyone could ever imagined. People have reacted.

The breaking story from the CBC garnered over 4200 comments, the first Globe & Mail story logged over 2000 comments, all within 48 hours.

Harper has unleashed a tsunami of protest. A facebook group Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament now has close to 80,000 members, which is 22,000 more than it was just 18 hours ago! The debate on Facebook group is passionate, the activity intense.

An election is now on the horizon when parliment resumes sitting in March. Mr. Harper, you are responsible for this one. You, and you alone. You reached too far, assumed too much, and acted too imperially.

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A couple of years back, not long after we arrived in The Netherlands, a good friend paid us a visit. I was marvelling at the bike paths, the canals, the absence of mosquitoes in a landscape filled with calm water. Public transport was great, trains were on time and frequent. Who needs planes? Most things were more expensive but bread, milk, wine, beer and cheese were cheap. Life was good.

Holland was clean. It was safe. It seemed to work remarkably well. My friend quipped that Dutch society was probably 100 years ahead of Canada. I thought this was a bit exaggerated, reckoning maybe 50 years tops. That was before 2009. Now I'm thinking 100 years is a being very kind.

We draw the year to an end today. It has been a remarkable year. A flurry of articles about the 'best of the decade' have appeared, and this last decade has even been given a name - the Aughties, which is a lame effort to make it sound as exciting or memorable as other decades. I suppose it all started with looking back at The Roaring Twenties and The Dirty Thirties. Some decades stand on their own - The Sixties were just so different from the others it defies attaching any defining adjective to it.

We returned home to Calgary for xmas again to find lots of snow but a little warmer than last year. It has been a white xmas for two years in a row now and much colder than average. It's as if Alberta set out to prove that global warming is a myth with a convincing demonstration that it is not getting any warmer and we need all the warmth we can muster from around the globe just to get our cars started.

Yesterday marked the end of the KPN Chronicles, a bunch of blogs about our adventures with the Dutch phone company.

We switched our home phone to an old fashioned analog line recently. It turned into a two month project and we are still cleaning up the bits and pieces.

What is so remarkable about this story was how difficult it was to become a new customer of a business that laments its declining customer base - the Plain Old Telephone Service (POTS) business.

Customer service and the telephone company were never very good dance partners. They still aren't.

This blog is about customer service and the telephone company. When I say the telephone company I mean that former monopoly that once provided everyone with Plain Old Telephone Service, also known as POTS.

Almost every POTS company was a monopoly at one time. Most were owned by the state Their motto could have been: "Telephone service, NOT customer service". As a business model, this worked for almost 70 years.

Almost 2 weeks ago I received a phone call on my cellphone. It was someone from KPN. He informs me that a letter was sent to me on October 14th that noted the €50 credit and he asked if had I received it.

I pause for a moment. "But that's today, and it's 11:00 in the morning. The Dutch mail service is not that good".

I have spent most of the weekend attempting to configure this KPN modem so my home web server works. I have managed to activate the English menus and found the right place to switch on the required port, but it does not seem to work.

I have searched on the internet. Almost everything I find is in Dutch, so I can't be sure, but I'm left with the impression others have this problem and are anxious for an answer.

I phone KPN technical assistance again for help. Since my home phone works now, KPN customer service is only €6/hour, a 91% discount from before. This is almost soothing.

I have not heard from KPN for 2 days now, either by phone or email, and it comes as no surprise.

I ask another neighbour if I can use his phone because I have to a call another 900 number. I phone Ziggo, the old service provider, and ask beg them to take me back.

I say mea culpa 3 times. I offer the email address of my first born son. I just want any phone service now, even one available only most of the time.

The soonest Ziggo would accept us back is October 1. I thank them for their offer but decline. I am defeated. I have no choice but to wait.

I have waited until Monday to call the phone company to complain that we have no service. I have a cellphone, fully charged, with a new SIM card, fully activated. I have credit. Nothing is going to stop me now!

So I phone the 900 pay-per-minute number for KPN customer service.

Prior to connecting you to a toll number in Holland, a message plays that informs the caller of the toll charge. Like I have said, mijn Nederlands is niet zo goed. I only caught part of this toll message, which seemed far more complicated than usual.

Whatever, I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore.