Oh boy! What was Steve mad! Ranting like Jillert Amane! The great all time supporter of the all time Olympic US Blade Skating team! His “investment”did not pan out this time. Cutting “Dutch” Tulips furiously in half on Prime Time TV! Showing contemptuously the famous Dutch “wooden shoes” that are only used in “Holland” to please the American tourists. At some point I was afraid he would throw the wooden shoes at me from the screen. What a show.

OK, the Dutch speedskating coach Jillert Anema touched a bit hard on the favorite US national sport, “football” (which is called “voetbal” in Holland translated into “soccer”in the USA and then made into “football” here, but the “foot” is only used when punting for a goal, whereas in the “real football” it’s all with the foot. Rugby, called after a town Rugby in England where it was developed in the 16th century, is a bit of a mix, but played without all the overdone body armor as in US football).  But was Jillert not a bit right with the current criticism in the US media on NFL stars turned “knuckleheads” for the rest of their life after so many head-injuries?

I take issue with the hurt of the American media saying that Jillert’s “rant” was “Anti-American”. That is a typical self-conscious reaction. His point was that if the USA want to participate in international speedskating, it needs to better prepare to win, and maybe spend a little less on national football, which is not an international sport. Holland is not anti-American but your best friend, and friends quibble occasionally. We all remember Shani Davis, an AFRICAN AMERICAN on SKATES!,  winning the all round world championships in 2005 and 2006 and gold on the 1000 meters at the 2010 Olympics. What happened to the team?

Now, let’s go down to Steve’s accusations that the Dutch don’t even know how to call their own country; “Holland”, “Netherlands”, “Low Countries”, or whatever. It’s YOU, Steve, who doesn’t know. It’s them “foreigners” who call us that.

Item: “The Netherlands” MEANS “Low Countries”. “Nether” means “lower”.

item: in 1588, the Dutch and the British beat the Spanish Armada! “Viva Olanda”! Stands for Holland.

item: in 1688, William III “stadholder”of the then “Republic of Holland” (it was not The Netherlands yet, though the lands were low) beat the French Louis the Fourteenth to french fries (translation: smithereens) by becoming King William III of England through his marriage with Mary Stuart, affectionately called “King Billy”in Scotland and Northern Ireland (yes, that’s the same guy of the College of “William & Mary”). Louis the Fourteenth reportedly said: “ces salauds des Pays-Bas” (those bastards of the “low lands”) – Vive les Pays-Bas!

item: around 1614, the Dutch established “New Netherland” (Nieuw Nederland) along the Hudson River, which became “New Amsterdam” and remained so until the British took over in 1665 and named it New York. That’s a good one. You weren’t even Americans then! I’m sure that if at that time we had the Amsterdam coffee shops you Americans love so much, Holland would have stayed by popular demand and you would not have needed the Boston Tea Party with all its current ramifications.

item: New York has a famous Holland & Holland gun room, a town called “Holland”, and so many other things called “Holland”, including double-dutch and going dutch, not to forget my dutch uncle.

We call “Holland” “Nederland”, which means “low land”, since a good deal of it is below sea level, but you foreigners  prefer “Holland” to “The Netherlands” because it’s shorter. Can we help that?

And please don’t throw those Dutch shoes at us. You would miss them. It is reported you wear them at home for comfort.

As for the Olympics, coach Jillert Anema was right: speedskating is a world sport, and US football is not (he was joking that you always think you ARE the World, but you aren’t anymore since Michael Jackson passed away). USA (350 million people) won second place with  28 medals (11 gold), Norway (5 million people) won third place with 26 medals (9 gold) and LowLand Holland alias The Netherlands (16.8 million people) won fourth place with 24 medals (8 gold). In sum Norway did best. But USA Meryl Davis and Charley White were fabulous in figure skating. Just wonderful. I loved them (but your Canadian neighbors think Putin rigged the figuring to help Obama out of his care mess). The Dutch are speedskaters and you do what you are good at, internationally.

As for the Blade US Skating team, why not just buy them

After all,  the US team’s T-shirt you showed on TV was made in Bangladesh!(Donate now and help put skaters on track for winning Olympic medals — plus, for any donation over $30, you’ll receive a Colbert Nation/ Speedskating shirt!)

Your TV sports guy says football is much more “exciting” than two guys or girls racing “round and round”. True, speedskaters don’t pound on their competitors, they only do “sport”. That’s boring.

And why do you call us Hollanders “Dutch”? Again, not our fault and it’s so confusing. We call ourselves “Nederlanders”, but in English that sounds too much like “Neanderthals”. The great American informed people might not know the difference.  So better keep it at “Dutch”.  Dutch derives from the word “Deutsch”, the language that developed in the Germanic countries in Europe as of the Renaissance. Dutch are not “Pennsylvania Dutch”, these originate from Germany. English-speaking people pronounced Dutch language “Dutch” because it was part of the “Deutsch” or “Germanic”languages. But the Dutch language is quite different from  German (compare for example Spanish and Portuguese). But why then was President Reagan nicknamed “Dutch”?  Nobody really knows, unless from Reagan’s Memoirs that his father nicknamed him “Dutch” because as a baby he looked like a “fat Dutch boy”. Wherever he got that from is a mystery to me. He may have looked at that ad showing a Dutch boy smearing his bread with Dutch butter and growing up “strong”.

So, Steve, stop confusing us names. Get your skating team to use Dutch butter and the USA Blades will go speedy gonzales like your Amtrak or our TGV.