The Dutch, once probably the coolest cucumbers on the planet, taking everything in stride, fazed by nothing, are becoming a nation of spoiled brats and fear mongerers.

• On the one hand, there is something really weird going on in the Netherlands that no other western nation has. (That’s with the exception of the gun violence and particularly the mass shootings in the US.) There apparently already have been over a thousand explosions in the tiny country this year, intended to scare people. This bizarre cult of intimidation and retaliation started some years ago and is really getting out of hand. Though they probably aren’t behind the explosions, particularly civil servants appear to be whipping up a climate of fear. 😥😟☹️ “Shut up or else.” It’s connected to racism and povertyism, perhaps also to sexism, definitely to ageism, and also to ableism.

• On the other hand, every molehill is being blown up into Mt. Everest. There for example is an unhealthy drive to collect each and every leaf that falls from a tree, lest anyone might slip on it in wet weather. Pretty bonkers if you ask me. The Netherlands doesn’t even have the kind of legal recourse for people who slip on leaves and the like that you see in the States. The leaf-collecting efforts consume a lot of fuel and electricity, too. The really worrisome idea of allowing euthanasia for the over-75s just because they are over 75 seems to tie into this too. Thankfully, that proposal didn’t make it into law. Is real life about to become outlawed in the Netherlands because it’s not close enough to a sweet Hollywood movie or what?

• Now they’re putting the fear of god into people about Russia attacking the country. People are being told to prepare for war, and have emergency supplies at home. This is not because of flooding risks or hurricane risks, the risk that hacking poses for the country’s inadequately protected utility companies and banking systems or the strain on the over-extended power grids or because of the insane housing shortage that puts almost everyone at risk of instant homelessness, but because Russia may attack? The Netherlands has not even an inch of border that it shares with Russia. Now any time anything out of the ordinary happens, kids in the Netherlands have a tendency to think that Russia is attacking. Its former long-running prime minister Rutte who currently heads NATO sounds like he is losing the plot and turning into his very own version of Trump. Then again, there’s also the threat of Trump. (I still can’t believe that he got re-elected.) Does Rutte believe that Trump and Putin are plotting to take over the EU? I don’t find that a credible explanation.

How do I connect these two developments? This too, it’s got such an eerie feel of Orwellianism to it.

Sorry, England, about all my moaning about you. Things are now much crazier in the Netherlands. It was never my favourite country, but its gears are seizing up, I think. It’s always emphasized being average and mediocre over the joy of excelling and doing the best you can, the way America used to tick, but it was a nation in which down-to-earth people worked hard. That’s no longer the case, it seems. I don’t know how much of this is due to the imbalance created by social media and TV between the reality propelled by media versus what is happening in society away from media or what the size of this discrepancy is.

Driving people to prepare for emergencies does boost the economy, I suppose, if everyone stocks up. Is that the main reason why this idea that Russia might attack soon is being pushed?

I probably don’t even want to try to make sense of it all. It’s giving me a headache. 😂 The Netherlands is such a tiny country, but it always used to set good examples. It used to be so egalitarian. What went wrong here?