Prorogue

Today was protest day. It was frantic for me. I had to make the Jan 22 news update. Living in the Netherlands, there is this time shift issue I have to deal with . Since I am 6 hours ahead of most of Canada, news arrives kind of late (yesterday's news today!) and the demonstration here in the Hague was one of the first to happen.

So I also had to get my news page updated, the Netherlands Facebook rally group page updated and prepare for a protest/rally that I organized at the last minute. I fully anticipated a rally of one.

<div style="" :float:left;="" clear:none;margin:thin="" dotted="" red;"="">

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.