Column | Tie – NRC

And suddenly the badgers are in the news. Badger experts appeared at all the talk show tables to talk about the undermining animals that cause the NS a huge financial loss. The word tie is obvious, but fortunately no presenter has made that joke.

I really enjoy the badger debacle. Because I like it when something relatively small, something completely normal, completely disrupts an arrogant human economy. In Brabant and Friesland, for example, trains are not running on certain routes because the badgers have dug tunnels under the rails, which can cause them to sag. In Friesland it is a rusty piece between two villages, but in Brabant an essential traffic artery has been damaged. Environmental activists are already working to release a pack of badgers at Schiphol in the hope that they will establish a cheerful fortress under the Polderbaan. Can Schiphol finally keep its promise?

ProRail has to work hard to create brand new accommodation for the badgers in Brabant and Friesland. Those protected badgers are entitled to that. When ProRail is ready, they will go to the province of Groningen, where a number of earthlings have also been waiting for a decent home for some time. This week, probably under pressure from the devastating election results, the people of Groningen were suddenly promised that the damage problem will now really be solved. Do I believe that? Seeing is believing. This is in contrast to the CDA, where they have believed for years. Although? Lately they don’t believe in themselves anymore. Two more years and then they can leave.

But it’s nice that those stupid badgers are protected. Just like the beavers that undermine our dikes. And the wolves that take our sheep. I always like to watch an angry farmer who is indignant because a wolf killed his sheep, when the farmer would have liked to have done it himself. But that’s just the wolf’s job, isn’t it? Didn’t God put the beast into the world for this?

Another question: why are the badgers actually a protected species and are hundreds of thousands of chickens allowed to be crammed into a Veluwe barn? Just like pigs are under a trap to prevent a fat sow from crushing a piglet.

But I’m in favor of the protected ties. That’s also a bit because I became melancholic about the word spring jitters that buzzed through the media this week. The youth would receive pornographic sex education in primary schools. That was the opinion of the roaring right. When I saw the attention organs Thierry and Wierd stomp furiously like aggrieved Rumpelstiltskin, I knew nothing was wrong. In the meantime I wondered why Jan Smit’s sister didn’t participate and how my own sex education had gone. My dear prudish mother murmured something about flowers and bees at the time. I had to make do with that. While after eight children she really knew better. Yesterday I read about plastic artificial lips that you can connect to your iPhone, after which you can tongue with your loved one via an app. Although? The complaint of the users is that the tongue has been forgotten.

I shared my first kiss with a certain Sonja and this event took place in a railway tunnel at the Bussumse Vlietlaan. So I had to think about the badgers. I don’t remember who started the so-called uvula tick, but I’m afraid it was me. Probably unsolicited. Maybe soon I will be sued by Sonja for transgressive behavior with retroactive effect. What I do remember is that Sonja and I had just started insecure and then an express train raced over us. The ceiling of the tunnel shook. That made this first kiss even more sensational. I think the train honked too, but I almost certainly made that up. That’s kind of my problem. Sketching things out better afterwards than they actually went. But yes, that’s my job.