June 11, 2026

Thursday. Left a little before ten. Blacksmith. On the cool side, partly cloudy. White cumulus clouds, a bit of gray here and there. One raindrop, riding on the Nedereindseweg. Jaarbeurs and Merwedekanaal to Jutphaas and Nedereindseweg. Meerlobrug to IJsseldijk. The flowers in the lillypads are about to open up, newly planted corn still has a long way to go. Around IJsselstein and through Benschop. Just a quiet weekday morning. Right at Polsbroekerdam toward Oudewater. Green polders stretching far to the left and right. A bridge stand-off in Oudewater involving several cars. Snelrewaard to Montfoort. At Mastwijk another stand-off, this time between two trucks. It doesn't take much for trucks, even cars, to run into trouble in these small towns, and that is as it should be. Any stretch without traffic furniture brings out the race car driver in people. New pink asphalt between Harmelen and De Meern. De Meernbrug to Møs and the paper. Lots of commentary on the World Cup, most of it negative. That the U.S. government would ban, among others, Somali referee Omar Artan has long ceased to be a surprise, and neither was the complete silence from FIFA. The ban and the silence are still outrageous, but outrageous has become routine. Still depressing, as some letter writers and commentators pointed out too, is that no individual referee, coach, or player has taken a stand. Doing so would likely have come at a personal cost, but it's not as if that's not the case now. If something like this happens--and certainly if it happens to, so to speak, one of your own--and you do nothing, you're implicated in the outrage. Let enough chances to take a stand go by, especially when the outrage occurs close to home, and you will live in a world where bullies and gangsters run wild.