So much attention for the death of a 96-year-old woman is not appropriate in this time

On Thursday afternoon, news came out that the ECB is making the largest rate hike ever since the introduction of the euro. News that is historic and that will affect everyone in Europe. That same day, 300 people sleep outside in Ter Apel. Inflation reached its highest level on record at 12 percent last month. With inflation, war, asylum crisis, housing crisis, energy crisis and staff shortages, we live in one of the most turbulent periods in recent history.

Until a 96-year-old woman dies in England and the world suddenly seems to stand still. All problems fade into the background; the Queen of England has passed away. It is incomprehensible that the death of a 96-year-old woman takes over all the news.

Since Thursday afternoon it has become difficult to know how the world is doing. Visiting regular news sites does not provide the answers as easily as you are used to. You are inundated with posts about the death of the Queen of England.

Of course I understand that Elizabeth’s passing is news. I too find it sad when people die, so does Elizabeth. But the extent to which attention is given to this is not appropriate in the present time. We do not live in a ‘cucumber time’ where little happens. There is so much important news right now.

But media apparently feels the space for full retrospectives, reactions, profiles of Charles, the organization of the funeral and really where to pontifically present every bit of information related to it. Media should realize that showing certain news is also not showing other news. The ‘other’ news is so relevant at the moment that it is not appropriate to focus on the death of a 96-year-old woman.

The attention at the time to the death of Lady Diana was more understandable in terms of news value; a tragic accident of a young woman with a certain role of the (gossip) press. Here a woman of 96, a respectable age, died naturally. That is sad, and my best wishes to her relatives and the nation of England in a time of mourning. But we have to put things in perspective. I hope to have normal access to that news starting tomorrow. I am now aware of Elizabeth’s death.
Stefan WirkenAmsterdam

fun eyes

I think Queen Elizabeth waited a while to die until the new prime minister took office, to prevent Boris Johnson from giving her eulogy. It would explain her twinkling eyes in the last photo taken of her, when Liz Truss was nominated.
Marlies JansenOegstgeest

Toxic

How Toxic Is That New British Prime Minister? No sooner had she shaken the queen’s hand than she was dead.
Ies van GolenDuivendrecht

Date of birth

A remarkable date of birth will appear on your front page: 6 February 1958. This makes him suddenly ten years younger, but yes, it is also the day of the Munich air disaster. The top Manchester United team was killed. Not a nice association.
Louis TiemensmaGroesbeek

Verb

Half-hearted apologies after failing administrative policy (Schiphol: chaos; Groningen: earthquakes) and yet (continue to) collect a salary of 600,000 euros. You could almost turn it into a verb: Benschoppen.
Pierre DaanenAmsterdam

torture

The intention to postpone family reunification has dramatic consequences for pending asylum applications. As a volunteer at Refugee Work I supervise the highly educated Palestinian status holder Karim (not his real name) whose 80-year-old mother and three school-age children, one of whom is autistic, reside in Abu Dhabi.

The cost of living, housing and school is growing over his head. His papers are in order; The decision of the IND would fall on 12 June. He has not heard anything since and is now in the process of getting his driver’s license, in order to earn money as a driver as soon as possible.

Karim has been living alone for a year and a half now, his young children need a father. For this Palestinian status holder, the refugee policy is torture.
Jan Jonker RoelantsThe Hague

healthcare crisis

Eighteen months ago, Ernst Kuipers, then director of the Erasmus Hospital, called out that there were not enough hands on the beds and our national intensivist, Diederik Gommers, said that there is insufficient appreciation for the care employees. A plan had to be drawn up to recruit more staff as quickly as possible and to improve working conditions as soon as possible. It was sink or swim.

Now the Ministry of Health presents the Integral Care Agreement with dry eyes. The most striking aspect of this is that the proportion of people working in healthcare should not increase further in the coming years. Didn’t we hear recently that there are still over 130,000 patients waiting for surgery? And are we not confronted daily with waiting times of three to four months at different specialties in hospitals? Wasn’t it the case that there is a gigantic absenteeism due to illness among healthcare staff and that many expert staff resign or have resigned out of dissatisfaction?

That is why, according to Ernst Kuipers, the starting point is that a maximum of 1 in 6 people work in healthcare. If that doesn’t work, then healthcare is in danger of becoming unaffordable in the long run.

In this way, the next crisis presents itself in the short term. The healthcare crisis. And who will be the victims of this? Right, the chronically ill and the elderly. It is mopping with the tap open. The health care system is sick while many, unnecessary, billions are involved.
Ernst LeupenThe Hague

Step

The Stap budget round has been completed again and many applicants are left out in the cold after hours in the queue. My daughter, a single mother with two young children, is retraining to become a healthcare profession. The education in care does not allow full-time employment, which means that income is limited. The STAP subsidy is therefore very welcome. A new employee in care as well.

With this subsidy, however, the government does not specifically stimulate the professions on the labor market that have the greatest social need: care, education and technology.

Government advertisements cheerily announce that ‘wedding planners’ are being called upon to compete for this subsidy. What other-worldly official has invented this haphazard scattering of government subsidies and has this absurd advertisement displayed?
Julius van DamZwolle

Trump

“Lock her up” was the much-loved cry against Hillary Clinton during the 2016 US presidential election. Hillary Clinton had used her private email for her work, and that mistake had to be rubbed down on her as much as she could.

Donald Trump has attempted a coup and kept top American secrets in boxes in his home. If he were honest, he would ask that the US be protected from himself: Lock me up! However, he does not intend to do that at all and his fans have no problem with that.

They are just as brainwashed and lied to as the Russians by Putin. That’s what makes it really scary.
Will KuijpersEindhoven

Unnecessary

Stop the nonsense about shorter showers and the heating a degree lower to save energy.

Name what really makes a difference: to stop producing everything superfluous. That saves energy: for materials, manufacturing and transport.

That’s what it will come down to, because we have to get rid of the devastating pollution. Let’s start today. Stop making the superfluous, stop buying the superfluous. Then we have plenty of energy left over. First and foremost for a healthy life.
Helen GerretsenAmsterdam

Subsidy

Peter de Waard rightly writes that compensation for the increased energy prices must come through higher benefits and tax relief for the lowest incomes. There is money for that. The report by Alman Metten, Subsidy for fossil fuels unprecedentedly large from Me Judice, indicates that in 2019 not 4.5 billion, but 17.5 billion, so four times as much subsidy will be provided to fossil fuels. It’s a shame that this has been happening for years and our governments are not doing anything about it.
Henk Korthofbox sum

Inflation

Last week I spent a week in Blankenberge, Belgium. On the boulevard you can eat a menu restaurant after restaurant for 15 euros, the same price as last year. Is there no inflation in Belgium or are prices unnecessarily inflated in the Netherlands, under the guise of inflation? Friends came back from Italy and Germany and said that the prices in the supermarket there are lower than ours for the first time. It used to be the other way around. What the hell is going on in the Netherlands?
R. DekkerZaandam

flight tax

Airlines are questioning the increase in the flight tax from 1 January. The reason for this is that the extra tax revenues do not go directly to making aviation more sustainable.

In line with the airlines, I want to question the payroll tax, excise duties and other taxes that I will have to pay in the coming years. This money does not go directly to making my home and lifestyle more sustainable, personal allowances and improving my personal purchasing power.

Free to Mr. De Nooijer of Transavia: ‘After all, taxes make it expensive to live, while it doesn’t help me immediately.’
Ewout DamThe Hague