March 30, 2025

 Left a little after 10 (daylight savings time). Blacksmith. City was a cool, dry place. Stiff northwesterly breeze. No place to go but home. Merwedekanaal, Plofsluis, Lekdijk. Saw three riders, they all left me behind. Authoritative sun through the clouds on the Lek multiple times. Lek refreshingly empty. Zuwe, Goyerbrug, Sterkenburg, Traaij. Magnolias and forsythias well on their way everywhere. Huis ter Heide, Bilthoven, Blauwkapelseweg, Buys Ballotstraat. Møs with yesterday's paper. Some encouraging signs of European follow-through against the autocrats in East and West: can't trust either one. Paper also playing catch-up to the demolition works in the U.S. right now (who isn't); it brought to mind the fellow on the Newshour the other night: his new Peruvian wife had been caught up in the deportation dragnet, and in his worst case scenario he'd move to Peru with her. This is someone who gave his vote to the current head of state, but he does not regret his vote. Still trying to get my head around that. Earlier in the week they had an educated woman in a government job from Nebraska. She's now losing her job and is surprised, since she imagined that change would come gradual and in a nuanced way. Of course, we had every reason to expect that, absolutely. The saying goes that people deserve the government they get, certainly the one they vote for. Problem is everyone else getting swept up in the chaos.

March 29, 2025

Left around 9:45. Blacksmith. Cool, partly cloudy, moderate breeze from the northwest. Daalsetunnel to Thomas a Kempisplantsoen. Old intersection gone, bike path runs straight to the light before the yellow bridge now. Goodbye diesel fumes and related filth. Progress. N will be spinning in his grave, but I like riding through the western suburbs. Hermelijnvlinderpad, then the Lint to the Alendorperweg, where you return a little to an earlier time there; you're in the park, and you're not. Out by way of Vleuterweide (Stroomrugbaan) to Rivierpad. Geese with chicks in the meadow at Kasteel de Ham, later storks on the nest. Sun on yellow reeds along a small canal curving to the right. Breudijk to Gerverskop. Koot on a nest, little lambs in a small field by one of the farms. Schutterskade to Galgerwaard (finally locating Vinkeveen's church). Breukelen, Gunterstein, Veenkade. Then almost all of Gageldijk to Ruygenhoek, the last bit "new road!" Everything's normal, as long as you don't read the news. 

March 27, 2025

 Left a little after nine. Nikor. Cool, sunny morning. Straatweg to Maarssen. ARK. Cees saw some baby geese alongside the road; I looked back but can't claim to have seen my first new waterfowl of the year yet. Wind out of the southwest, easy ride to Javaplein (inside). Ringdijk memories of 1960s "Jongenseiland," when you could drive home to Weesp that way, when you could still drive just about everywhere (I'm not nostalgic). Then BG2. Tourist Killer, Plantage, Watergraafsmeer: non-stop challenges thrown into your path. Short detour through Betondorp. Gaasp, Gooilandseweg, Ankeveen. Chase Cees. Herenweg, Kwakel, Emmaweg. Kerkelanden, airfield, Egelshoek. Spring on its way, but still early.

March 23, 2025

 Left at 9 (Dom bells ringing as I stepped out). Blacksmith. Some dampness on the pavement going out, otherwise partly cloudy and mild, light south winds. Straatweg to Breukelen. Spectacular colors at some of the big houses outside of Maarssen. Galgerwaard, Geerkade, Meije, Zwammerdam, Nieuwkoop. After the coffee stop it clouded over, but the darker skies, interspersed with white and light blue, provided a good backdrop to bits and pieces of blossom, daffodils, light green buds, even the grass and the yellow reeds, especially between Noorden and de Hoef. Brilliant contrast. Same with the row of bare trees on the high dike next to the house called de Rietkraag between Waverveen and Vinkeveen. Back by way of Demmerik, Oukoop, Lage Weide, de Meern bridge. Took off the knee warmers and buff half-way through, which, while not urgent, was still tenable.

March 21, 2025

 Left around 9:45. Spring. Southeasterly winds. Blacksmith. Off to Amerongen: de Bilt, Zeist, Woudenberg, Griftdijk, Haarweg with some rough, farm-to-nature fields signalling progress. After Amerongen, Lekdijk. Storks on the nest, one farm with baby sheep. Faint, green buds in more and more places, Forsythia yellow not far behind. Wijk glorious on the approach: the two church towers, the castle, and the windmill. In the news the report that on a global happiness index, the Dutch rank fifth. One explanation may be found in the recent vote in parliament, where three of the four parties participating in the current government opposed the country's participation in the envisioned EU borrowing to boost the common defense. Lame, disingenuous justifications boiled down to a denial of how the world has changed in recent years and especially this year. How do you maintain a healthy level of happiness? Easy: head in the sand.

March 19, 2025

 Left a little after nine. Nikor. Chilly, but just light winds out of the southeast. Oudenoord to Straatweg to Maarssen. ARK. Between Nigtevecht and Driemond I saw what turns out to be an oystercatcher--two actually. Javaplein with the newspaper. Putin still expects to win. We'll see when that sinks in fully, over here and in the White House. Bushuis (been away from the cellar so long, I could at first not remember where my lock was). Spring for the return trip at three. Outdoor consumption of food and beverages everywhere. Omval (almost gone), Duivendrecht, Abcouderpad, Baambrugge. And then, just before Loenersloot, my first lambs of the season (some apparently a few weeks old). One more just past the Mijndense Sluis. Guntherstein, Molenpolder, Ruygenhoek (aggressive local in an Audi).

March 15, 2025

 The Joop, from Leiden. 9:15 start. Blacksmith. Chilly northeastern wind, sunny. Into the Green Heart hundreds strong: Zoeterwoude, Stompwijk, Benthuizen, Bentwoud (big park, at least enough room though still not to look around much). Alphen (Zegerplas), Korteraar, Papenveer. Then some more familiar territory: Nieuwkoop, Noorden. Vrouwenakker back to Papenveer (strong group, too fast to pay attention to anything). Woubrugge, Alphen, Koudekerk, and back. On the whole mostly infrastructure, albeit usable. Historic Green Heart almost unrecognizable, green mostly agribusiness green. Good ride, little else. Aside from the croci and daffodils, spring far away.

March 11, 2025

Left just after 9:30. Nikor. Overcast, but not solid gray, chilly wind from the north. Straatweg to Loenen, then Vecht to Nigtevecht. Many folks between Vreeland and Nigtevecht worry about their health and thus would rather not look at windmills. One tree with pink-white blossoms in the cold wind; two Abcoude spires framed by the bridge carrier over the ARK, then a whiff of rain. Driemond, Javaplein (excellent courgette-walnut cake). Into the city, rebuilt Gelderse Kade excellent; BG2. Sun after 12, tailwind home. First couple of kilometers along the Amstel new bricks, rolling beautifully. Ouderkerk, great views left and right and ahead before Nes. Uithoorn, de Hoef, Spengen (another tree pink-white), Kockengen, Haarzuilens, Hermelijnvlinderdijk full of kids on fat bikes.

March 9, 2025

 Left by 9:30. Blacksmith. Cool, sunny, light wind from the east. Bilthoven, Soestdijk, Amersfoort, airbase, Lage Vuursche (coffee), Baarn, Bussum, Bachlaan, Kerkelanden, Achttienhoven. After 11 summer, but only a few cows outside. Lots of people, unsurprisingly. Conversation with a businessman: Washington now also threatens to withhold natural gas from Europe, it's crazy [indeed], we should just go back to buying from Russia, there just has to be peace. I did my best and managed not engage (long-standing relationships are involved, going beyond him and me). Only after we went our separate ways did a good response come to mind: over here too, clearly we need more business people going into politics. Switching from one blackmailer to another, what could possibly go wrong? 

March 7, 2025

Left a little after 10. Blacksmith. Sunny spring day, but after a cool night. De Bilt, Zeist, Woudenberg, Amerongen, Ginkelduin (woods and camp ground still barren, quiet), Haarweg, Hoogstraat, Ruiterberg, back up Zeisterweg, etc. Croci everywhere, a few other signs of spring (not counting all the bare arms and bare legs out on the road). No baby sheep yet.

March 5, 2025

 Left at 9:30. Blacksmith. Still chilly, but full sun. Merwedekanaal, Vreeswijk, Lek, Uitweg, Benschop, Stuivenbergweg (nature flat, open, quiet, anticipatory--or maybe more accurately: milk production facilities being readied). Flapwing near Hollandse IJssel. Coffee at Mos. Disturbing but inevitable realities in the newspaper: all those European hugs of Zelensky, all those professions of full support, they seem to have been about us feeling good about ourselves. Now, push coming to shove, it appears that while the U.S. can't be relied upon anymore, the U.S. is still indispensable for Europe to make good on its pledges. Shameful.

Nukes now for the Netherlands?

 Someone asked me this the other day. The context, I'm sure, is the U.S. betrayal under the current administration of NATO's mutual defense obligation. The rest of the background to the question I'll have to determine when I talk to the person, later today. It could simply be about national defense, which would be a bit ignorant, since the Netherlands has not (been able to) provide for it by itself since 1940. The more interesting reason to ask the question is in the context of "Europe's" deterrent capabilities, and specifically with reference to European pledges of fairly unconditional support for Ukraine against the nuclear-armed Russian invader. This is about scenarios, most of which have to assume that Russia will not adjust its aims of ending Ukraine's existence as an independent, democratic society as part of an imperial project that also aims to restore the sphere of dominance of the former Soviet Union as well as (further) divide the West. First Ukraine: if Russia won't stop and the U.S. is now on Russia's side, a peace deal will prove elusive and Ukraine will have a harder time to hold its own. Given Europe's near-unconditional support, if Ukraine then started to lose more territory to the point where its resistance could collapse, "Europe" would have escalate its support. The limits to European military capabilities or its will to fight would become clear very quickly. If it did manage to join the fight, that might make a difference. In the best case, Russia might begin to feel cornered, the regime might begin to feel desperate. It was a British general who during the Cold War said that one cannot make a nuclear power feel desperate (it's too dangerous). The Americans got a taste of this in the first year of the war, when the Pentagon believed that the Kremlin, amid all kinds of set-backs in its invasion of Ukraine, began to look at using nuclear weapons. It took all matter of persuasion from the Secretary of Defense to get them to drop that idea. In a scenario where European forces would join the Ukrainian battlefield without U.S. backing, a desperate Russia would have so-called "escalation dominance." It is true that the French and the British do have nuclear weapons, but these are of the strategic, as opposed to the battlefield, kind. You can hit and destroy a big target with them, but these types of nukes are useless on the battlefield. Russia, on the other hand, does have so-called tactical nuclear weapons which, somewhat more credibly, could be used in battle. You can't deter the use of tactical nuclear weapons only with strategic nukes, because how credible is it to threaten the destruction of, for example, an enemy city (and subsequently surely one or more of your own) in response to the detonation of a small nuclear weapon somewhere in Eastern Ukraine? Perhaps that in the very long term "Europe," aiming for genuine "strategic autonomy," can decide to build tactical nuclear weapons, and maybe the Netherlands could in some way be part of that effort. It seems highly unlikely (though not impossible), and it would certainly not be in time to make a difference in Ukraine's current war for survival. For that war to end in a just peace, Russia will have to back off and accept its war aims, and its imperial project, are unattainable. Thanks to the choice made by the American voter last fall, that has become less, not more likely. I would love nothing more than to be proven wrong. 

March 2, 2025

 10:45 departure. Blacksmith. Sunny in the city, foggy everywhere else. Quite chilly. Bilthoven, air base, Wieksloterweg. Coffee at LV (Arno back). Still chilly by mid-day, but full sun.  Water like mirror everywhere. Tienhoven, Loenen, Oukoop, Haanweg (very flat and still), golden-yellow reeds Rodendijk as seen from Schutterskade. Leidse Rijn to Groenedijk. If not for the chilly air, spring.