only a step away

It is really hot. And very windy. I should take pictures of the garden, I really should. At least I can report that we had a bumber sugar snap harvest, are now deep into tomatoes, zucchini, beans, peas, carrots, strawberries and raspberries. Blueberries almost ready, stone fruit next week, corn and onions and so on. Also, ants and spiders and a 24 hours house fly infestation thanks to a colony of maggots in an unwashed carton of cottage cheese deep in the yellow bin. We took apart most of the IKEA kitchen before we copped on. The adventures of a retired couple.

We both applied to have our passports renewed. You never know these days. Mr Rutte, head of NATO, has warned that maybe Europeans will need to learn Russian in the near future. He was not joking. 

I bury my head in cryptic crossword challenges. Also helped a friend to write a paper on alternative pollinators, it has been accepted for publication and briefly, we were elated and full of hope for humankind.  After dark, I watch gruesome Scandinavian thriller series, lots of killing and kidnapping and all that snow and ice. 

And stuff happens.

Let me tell you. Europe is not perfect. 

But neither Macron nor Merz or von der Leyen are inclined towards personality cults. The political stage is not populated by billionaires and millionaires alone. As of today, the checks and balances hold, religion is a private matter and anyone who falls ill is not ruined at the same time. Those who lie and agitate will be contradicted. Those who claim to get their politics from God personally are advised to have their souls examined by a doctor.

But it could be worse. All of this could change, what do I know. The fear mongering against migrants, the increasingly violent terminology, the hardening of the them vs us mentality, it's happening.

And yet, we look on, find it difficult to imagine, that the grandson of a German pimp and son of a criminal slumlord is waging a war against immigration in the world's largest country of immigration, which was appropriated by the first immigrants through genocide.

Back then, before the internet, we thought that the reason for human stupidity was the lack of information.
Let me put it this way: it wasn't.