Winter weather (and politics)

For all that I like to scoff at wint'rs that know no frosts (to paraphrase the Immortal Bard), this has been a rough winter for a lot of folks in the rest of Europe.  So far, more than 250 people have died in Europe this winter and 122 people have died in the Ukraine in the last week.1   Also, while it sure took its time getting here, winter has come with enthusiasm.  There have been record setting low temperatures--the coldest in 27 years--at -10 (-23 Celsius).2   The cold weather has been having an extremely deleterious effect on public transport.  So far it still hasn't gotten back in order--there are fewer metros, they are driving more slowly, and there are way more people trying to cram onto them.  Even the hearty Dutch are unhappy riding bikes when the actual temperature is around 7 and the windchill is about -10.  I opened up a Dutch news website on Monday and saw this headline:

"PvdA: 'Schultz heeft gefaald'"

("Labor Party: 'Schultz has Failed'")3

It seemed unneccesarily harsh and totally unprovoked. It turned out that the Labor Party (the Partij van de Arbeid--which is a "progrssive social democrat party"4) was talking about Melanie Schultz who is the Dutch Minister of Infrastructure and who is in charge of making sure that all trains run (sort of) on time.  Because of the snow and the cold, trains haven't been running right for almost a week and there were thousands of people stranded at train stations all over.  Apparently Schultz is getting blamed for everything, though to be fair, she is facing the worst weather in a quarter century.  It probably doesn't help that the Public Transport system keeps posting messages like this on Twitter:

"We don't believe we have anything to apologize for.  

In fact, we figure that you really ought to apologize to us, for all of your complaining."

(I am going on the assumption that its a joke, though.)

If you want to see some pictures of what the Dutch infrastructure looks like in the middle of a giant snow storm, you can click here.  Apparently they don't expect regular train service to resume until sometime next week when the weather is supposed to warm up a little.

On a marginally related note, I looked up the PvdA to see why they didn't go with the more obvious (and shorter) "Arbeiderspartij" name.  I thought perhaps there were multiple Worker's Parties (there aren't, at least not now).  Perhaps they are attempting to create distance from old German political parties.  What was very interesting though, when I looked up Dutch political parties (you can see the Wikipedia page here) was the diversity of the parties.  "Democrat" and "Republican" seems so boring now.  My favorites are the Partij voor de Dieren ("Animal's Party"--they say they are not a one issue party, though) and the Piratenpartij Nederland ("Pirate Party"!). The Pirate Party's goal is to legalize digital piracy. I guess they want to be the privateers of the 21st century. I was expecting good things from the Partij voor Naastenliefde, Vrijheid, en Diversiteit (the Party for Neighbourly Love, Freedom, and Diversity) but I was sorely dissappointed. Let's just say that their LEAST offensive platform plank was universal public nudity.

On another marginally related side note, the Dutch do not pronounce "Schultz" like the Germans do. I have been answering to "Skgholts" all year.