A few days ago, someone seemed to suggest that my situation is more or less the result of illegal migrants in the Netherlands putting pressure on the system. (And that the Dutch givernment cares greatly.)

Bollocks.

If you’re illegal, you don’t have access to anything. If you don’t have an official registered address in the Netherlands, you don’t exist.

I don’t exist any longer either. If I needed medical assistance, I would have to go to the United Kingdom. (Yes, I have the Dutch nationality. I was born and raised here and so were my parents.)

I knew nothing about the plight of migrants until I moved from Amsterdam to England.

I’d previously emigrated to the United States and although the restrictions of my visa hampered me and I ran into misunderstandings such as that foreign employees of a State don’t have to file income taxes – plus very occasionally some nonsense about sex and drugs or wooden shoes, tulips and windmills and Denmark – I never felt discriminated against.

When I emigrated to England, however, government politicians and others were spouting so many vicious lies about “my kind” that it forced me to start pondering the situation of migrants in the Netherlands too.

I supposedly was from a poor country called the Netherlands and I supposedly had come to the UK because there were more opportunities there than in the Netherlands or to get its supposedly much more generous social security benefits (which you could not even get in the UK for the first five years and in order to start qualifying, you had to make an appointment and show evidence of your income) and I supposedly was a thieving drug addict and lying about my affiliation with the University of Southampton. It got stale. (Initially, I thought that some people simply behaved in really odd ways.)

And that is how I know that most of the utter nonsense being spouted in the Netherlands about illegals, and refugees and foreigners and people such as myself who have lived abroad for a long time and can no longer be trusted is just that. It is utter nonsense aimed at sowing fear and gaining fearful people’s votes.

Right-wing statements of supposedly left-wing Dutch politicians don’t help.

Globally, I dearly miss the powerful moderating influence of “Mutti” Angela Merkel and also that of Jacinda Ardern.

So when someone said “As-salamu alaykum” to me the other day (peace, shalom, namaste), I replied “Salaam”. (I’d previously asked someone whether it was okay for me to say this, and he smiled and said “yes”. It’s not said in England, you see, at least not as openly, but likely often enough when no semi-indigenous people are around.)

Part of the problem with the Netherlands is that it has made a whopping shift to the right in the past two decades – hence to “not caring” – and that it wants to regulate every sneeze and cough and requires you to have to apply for a license for sneezing and a license for coughing and that if somehow, all license applications are automatically rejected, it comes up with a third and fourth and fifth regulation to regulate the failing regulations instead of simply fixing what’s wrong.

The horrific childcare tax credits disaster STILL has not been resolved. A repeat is around the corner and many victims of this travesty are still stuck, waiting, waiting, waiting for the Dutch state to step up and do what it should do.

(The Netherlands now seems to be pervaded by thought policing, too. How dare you call out the emperor for not wearing any clothes?)

Btw, does anyone know why WordPress.com does not recognize ENGLISH?

Displaced aggression is when a person displays – redirects – hostility toward a different person because he or she feels intimidated by or weaker than the person he or she is annoyed with.

One of my neighbors in Portsmouth did it. He sometimes made angry remarks at me that had nothing to do with me. I found it puzzling until it dawned on me that the remarks applied to his partner. They used to quarrel, in what sounded like a very healthy respectful albeit angry manner, but they had stopped quarreling.

Well, birds do this too.

There is a group of six white geese where I am right now and I connected with them months ago, just by talking with them. They often greet me with softer or louder honks. Hi! Hi hi! Hi hi hi! Hi!

The lead goose is pretty bossy and his eyes speak volumes.

I’d brought them escarole twice over the months (in hot dry weather). The second time, they already knew that I had something for them when I walked up, just from my movements, the way I walked.

One day, he looked at me with undisguised anger. “I thought you had food but all you did was grab a handkerchief to blow your nose!” So I got some spinach, on sale, to make up for it, but while walking back I started wondering about the oxalic acid content. (It can interfere with the calcium metabolism of birds.)

Mr Lead Goose was furious. “Spinach? You brought us spinach!?!”

He was so furious that, yes, I went back to get some escarole.

“I wanted bread!” Yeah, well, the others were happy with the escarole. One of them did eat spinach too, but admittedly, somewhat reluctantly.

Last week, he was in one of his moods again. He sees me as challenging him or eroding his power a little at times. He then picked on one of the other geese, clearly because he didn’t risk pecking me. I interfered. That’s a goose who had a leg injury and was limping but the leg has gradually improved over the months.

So then he diverted his attention to (smaller) Nile geese, a couple and their two kids. He picked on one of the parents.

I stepped between them.

I’ve also previously stepped between a great blue heron and the Nile goose youngsters.

All you need to do is stand between them. (The heron I walked off. He needed to move away just a little. He flew off by a mere meter or so. Message received. Goal accomplished.)

The white geese were all very intrigued by all this.

This morning, the six white geese honked at me and swam with me, to a spot on the shore where the Nile geese already happened to be, to the left of a pedestrian bridge.

I then saw one of the Nile goose youngsters pick on a pigeon. I had to laugh. That one had clearly been watching Mr White Lead Goose.

There’s also sometimes a swan and right now (that is, yesterday), a swan couple with a kid. The geese keep a respectful distance. You don’t mess with a swan.

(The geese also warn each other about dogs, btw.)

If they can redirect anger, then they can also empathize.

Sure enough, I’ve seen quaker parrots look out – step up – for cats. Cats!

I’ve also seen a pigeon understand that mice too need to eat and that you should drop some food somewhere on purpose if you don’t want them to go somewhere else and that you shouldn’t be sloppy with your food there.

If pigeons know how to deter rodents humanely, then so can humans.

And we all know the racket that magpies make to warn everyone else if they see a cat on the prowl (or a bird of prey in the air). They warn everyone, usually perched pretty high up so that they can monitor the cat. They don’t just warn their own kind.

PS Non-human animals sometimes do things, play games, to test a human, to assess how much of a danger you might represent. Humans sometimes do something similar. They can become a real pest just to test another person’s loyalty. “Can I drive you away or will I always be able to count on you?” My youngest sister once told me that she’d done that with a boyfriend. She’s very smart, yes. People with insight in themselves are pretty precious.

Update: They unflagged my account and apologised.

There is a lot more behind Farage than I knew. He beat death three times…

“There are strong arguments that human health and life have fundamental value and that incremental gains in health and in years of life will benefit us.”

I agree! For this to be realized, two things need to happen.

(Any mud – inane bs and whatnot – thrown at me splashes back these days.)

Anyone who hacks into my equipment and messes with me anonymously is NOT my friend.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2025/aug/16/im-proud-to-have-made-this-stand-over-60s-arrested-at-palestine-action-ban-protest-explain-their-decision

One striking detail among those detained is their age. Half of those arrested at the largest protest yet, in Parliament Square in London on Saturday, were 60 or older. Some said they had taken part to give a voice to younger people who have more to lose by breaking the law, some simply felt they must challenge the government’s stance.

The Guardian has spoken to some of these protesters.

‘This is not a terrorist organisation, it’s a direct action organisation’
Deborah Hinton, 81

There also was a “Free Palestine” event where I am right now. No more than 20 demonstrators but possibly up to 50 police were present. The police took part with several vans, of different types and sizes, and at least 6 horses, plus officers on foot.

532 arrested at this demonstration in London. Quite a contrast.

Sorry, England. I was (often) so wrong about you, in the past. And I think that I’m a lot more English now than I’ve ever been Dutch. I’m sorry. Also about what Labour is doing, being more conservative than the Conservatives in many respects.

The world is going nuts…

I’m currently in a neighbourhood where the residents are all home owners and where lots of people drive a Tesla.

I think that this is fairly representative of the current state of the Netherlands, where people like Rutger Bregman are frowned upon and where looking away from injustice is becoming a favourite pastime.

That a “Free Palestine” protest in Amsterdam draws no more than 20 activists and many more police officers makes this quite clear, too.

One in three suspects interrogated in the Netherlands has a cognitive impairment.

https://nos.nl/nieuwsuur/artikel/2577338-verdachten-met-verstandelijke-beperking-onvoldoende-herkend-in-politieverhoren

I do not have a cognitive impairment, but don’t know what “Ben je bekend met psychische problemen?” is supposed to mean either! It’s like “Have you ever heard of the full moon?” or “Do you have a weird nose?”

Yes, this is a messy post on a messy website. Please bear with me. Perhaps you can picture me as a refugee on the run if you want a framework for the messiness if that makes it easier to digest the content.

In June 2023, I made what may have been the biggest mistake of my life. I moved into an apartment in Purmerend (an isolated small town surrounded by polders, north of Amsterdam). I certainly made a decision that had severe consequences for me. Keep reading and you’ll see.

For starters, I sacrificed 17 years of housing waiting list credits for this. I should have waited one more month and have moved into a nice little place in Amsterdam. Instead I moved into what I later started calling a penal colony for the over-55s.

I learned a lot from it.

This woman, legally in the US, but not a US citizen yet was detained after her honeymoon for… how long?

I just learned that one from “keepin’ it wheel” (Lisa Franks?). Brilliant!!!

Article in today’s FD (Dutch Financial Times)

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2025/jun/19/uk-advertising-standards-authority-criticises-offensive-portrayal-older-people-adverts

Something that people who have a lot of money are automatically entitled to.

Can Doctors Test Embryos for Autism? Should They?
Listen to what Vardit Ravitsky has to say on NPR

A newly available kind of genetic testing, called polygenic embryo screening, promises to screen for conditions that can include cancer, obesity, autism, and bipolar disorder. What would it mean culturally if more people tried to screen out some of these conditions? And how does this connect to societal ideas about whose lives are meaningful? Hastings Center President Vardit Ravitsky explores these questions on NPR’s “It’s Been a Minute.” She expresses concern that prospective parents may reason that “if we have a new tool to select the best embryo, I’m ethically obligated to do that.“ Listen to the NPR interview.

https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1263527123

I began writing the first version back in 2016. It was released on 2 June 2017. Eight years ago!

Extremely altruistic people have almost no ego; they experience themselves as part of a much greater entity. Most of us, however, feel quite differently about who we are. When someone violates our boundaries time and time again – and does so on purpose – no amount of compassion makes up for that.

Never cease to exist as a human being just because someone else leaves you no other choice.

That’s coercive control.

When you are caught between a rock and a hard place, squeeze out sideways. Split.

Sooner rather than later because if you wait too long, you may find that you’ll never let anyone into your life again, just to protect yourself from potential evil. Harm.

I can no longer tell. There is a heck of a lot of overlap. So much that I am no longer certain that there is a difference between the two. I never saw that coming.

If you don’t have a lot of time, skip forward to 26 minutes and listen to how someone with an OBE for service to the military and many service years is now struggling because he has MS.

I remember that my Dutch friend Hélène said that she was very fortunate that she had the personal financial means to deal with it and do whatever was needed after she developed progressive MS. I’m sure that the Dutch social security too fails to meet international human rights standards. The Ombudsman has said that it did not cover the basics, with the exception of single parents.

I quote: “In addition to being poorly understood, the condition is also highly stigmatized”

https://www.academia.edu/2997-9196/2/2/10.20935/MHealthWellB7718

Instead of “trade”, read “professional” or “scientific”:

Continue reading →

https://www.bps.org.uk/research-digest/living-close-family-linked-harsher-views-aggression-and-punishment