Isn’t it hot? Well. Two days of heat and the whole country is upset. For example, the ‘general director of Education, Culture and Welfare’ of my village (The Hague) already sent a letter to all elderly people last week. By 2020, 650 people had died from the heat, she wrote, and she wanted to prevent that. How? By hitting all 85 thousand ‘seniors’ in the face with a wet mop.
My mother was one of the lucky ones. With any luck, she’ll be one of the last survivors of the heat stress the day after tomorrow, thanks to municipal tips such as ‘Drink enough’, ‘Keep yourself cool’ and ‘Don’t sleep under a warm blanket’. ‘Is your pee dark yellow? Then have a drink as soon as possible.’
A sour smell of patronizing wafted through the open doors. According to the latest etiquette, you can’t grumble about that. ‘If you don’t need those tips, they’re for someone else. Fine, isn’t it?’ Is also true. And yet – my feet in a cold bath, the puddle still bright yellow – I couldn’t get the images out of my heated head: last week’s municipal Welfare team meeting.
Just a few more days of work, then it was finally vacation; But first, let’s go through this note. It has been discussed, brainstormed, written, checked, adapted, printed hundreds of thousands of times and also sent. Everyone could safely enter Black Saturday, on their way to a southern forest fire.
Now that a state of emergency has been declared, the National Heat Plan has been made a Constitution. Article 1: ‘Drink enough.’ All resistance has been successfully broken. Not only did the General Director of Education, Culture and Welfare get it, the media landscape has also withered – the commandment ‘Avoid the media’ would certainly help to keep a cool head in times of heat stress. ANP, 1.08 pm: ‘Fire brigade advises against lighting fire in nature’.
Even the learned former evening newspaper got the tropics in the headlines on Monday with two full news pages about ‘how to deal with the heat’. Stay indoors, wear light clothes – you don’t expect it. Question from the editor Slim Leven: ‘Does it make sense to turn on the fan?’ Spoiler alert: ‘Yes.’
(Admittedly, I’m not going to put my hands in hellfire for this paper either.)
Once, when it was still raining, we sank unnoticed into the swamp. Who will pull us out?
Last week, when everyone was still concerned about nitrogen, a smart reader sent an email with some questions. He was amazed at farmers and their advocates who are allowed to shout on TV without being contradicted ‘that there is no nitrogen problem’, that ‘nature is doing better than ever’ – just look: they could still bury their heads in the sand.
Have the ecology and environment subjects been completely removed from agricultural education, the smart reader wondered. And how is it possible that we are not allowed to drive without a driver’s license, that every buttock washer in the care sector needs a diploma, but that every peasant is allowed to drive the largest chemical biofactories without the slightest knowledge of nature and the environment? Why didn’t Wageningen’s ‘agricultural university’, founded in 1876, produce smarter farmers?
Anton Chekhov was right: ‘The university develops all abilities, including stupidity.’ For some, stupidity has become an excellent business model.
I don’t even know who Chekhov was. Way too hot to look it up.