The three D's : Dependence, Democracy, Demographics

 I was once told that dependence  of any kind is...'slow death'.

I'v given much thought to dependence as an individual, trying to learn how to minimize it. I've given only little thought as to the country's dependence on other countries or factors.

We've always been dependent on the USA.  America is our greatest friend, ally, mother and father. Without her backing we feel like orphans.

Being a small country, surrounded by adversaries, Israel greatly needs the american military,  diplomatic, economic  support.

I must say, that I don't consider this  a healthy relationship, as it prevents us from seeing and facing reality clearly. Besides, times change,interests change, things get complicated for both sides.

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Democracy means 'power of the people' (greek: demos- people, kratos - power). It's a way of governing which depends on the will of the people. The majority wins the elections.   It can be successful  where the nation is more or less stable demographically.

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In our neck of the woods,  certain circles (mainly orthodox, but not only) have a high birth rate and that turns democracy into a joke.  We are experiencing now this kind of joke following  the last elections when these circles , not the most productive ones in the population, got the majority of votes and are now trying to shape everything according to their way of life - which is not for the benefit of the whole country.

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Customer Service

 I got myself a new desktop PC, with Windows 11 operating system. I had some trouble at logging in, and then at trying to approach my blog, as I constantly got messages of  'wrong password', 'wrong account', or 'wrong code'.

Since Microsoft has let me down with its support, I had to figure things out myself, and....thank God, it worked. Hopefully, no more issues ahead.

Microsoft offers at least five ways of  contacting them: phone, email, fax, chat, internet. None of them was helpful to me.

It seems customer service is getting worse everywhwere. They have all adopted the 'mantra' :"We're here for you". You'd better not believe it. They're there for you before selling you the device, afterwards you're mostly on your own.

My mobile phone company used to have representatives in physical stores. Whenever I had a problem I went to the nearest place and got it solved on the spot. Not any more. Everything is done by phone (putting you on hold), email, fax. Moreover, when one finally gets to a real person, one often becomes unpleasantly surprised by the lack of professionalism and patience that the person exhibits.