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This weekend we went to Disneyland Paris. For three days in a row we were mangled, turned up side down, dropped from 10th floor, launched like a rocket, splashed and otherwise assaulted. All this for fun! I was totally exhausted after this.We were lucky to be there on July 14th, the main national holiday in France. We were treated to an extra great fireworks display to celebrate this occasion.

 

 The kids want to go again next year ...

Well after dabbling for six months with Simple PHP blog, last week I installed Serendipity, a much more professional blogging system.

Things I like about Serendipity:
- professional software, very stable, no crashes or blank pages
- it can use the Postgresql database as a back-end which I already use for other applications
- many, many plugins: karma, comments, hitmap, statistics, spamblocks, IPv6 check, etc ...
- customized my very own "look & feel", based on the bulletproof style sheet, nice!
- special simplified styles for iPad and iPhone users, very cool!

Things I like less about Serendipity:
- minimal documentation, installing some plugins was a bit of a struggle
- some plugins are written for the Sqlite database and need (some) reworking for Postgresql

Overall I am very pleased. Every aspect of this blog is styled to my precise liking. The new banner image is meant to suggest the "larger picture". Which is exactly my aim writing this blog. So stay tuned! All counters and karma are reset as of September 1st 2012, the official launching date  of my new blog, version 1.0.

  Today Lisa received her Master of Arts degree in Cultural Economics and Entrepreneurship at Erasmus University Rotterdam. The title of her thesis is: "Outside the Box - The Added Value of Strategic Alliances for Dutch Popular Music Venues". In this Master thesis Lisa explores the reasons for popular music venues in the Netherlands to (not) enter into strategic alliances with other cultural organizations. It is a qualitative study using semi-structured interviews to collect data. Lisa interviewed ten bookers/directors of some of the larger Dutch popular music venues. Here are some of the conclusions from the final chapter: "From the participants’ responses, it becomes clear that there are some major developments in the music industry. Most important developments are the growth of the Internet and globalization. The Internet causes audiences to become fragmented into smaller segments of visitors for larger segments of genres. Due to globalization, artists do fewer shows in The Netherlands. Participants consider experience an important theme, both for the audience as well for the artist. By booking at different locations, venues anticipate these changes. According to the researcher, this trend seems part of a bigger development. The interest of the city becomes an increasingly important factor in these partnerships on level of content. The researcher notices a shift in the function of the booker to some sort of promoter who divides the artists over the city depending on which location suits best. While participants are hesitant in their predictions, the researcher sees it as a step towards more cooperation." We are all very proud of her accomplishments!
My take: In the past culture was something for the rich and upper echelons of society - those who could afford it. After 1960s this all changed. In the Netherlands the government started to subsidize culture, especially the type of 'highbrow' or 'fringe' culture which was not commercially viable on its own. It seems with the current economic crisis this policy is under scrutiny again and about to change. In all fairness the world has changed. In the Netherlands even most adolescents are now 'rich' enough to be able to afford the monthly smart phone bills. Mostly because they now all have (part time) jobs - this was not the norm when I was young. So, I think there is a market. The fact that Pop festivals have sprung up like wildfire the last couple of years is proof of this since they are - by and large - not subsidized. But the transition from guaranteed income from government to commercially viable enterprises will no doubt be painful. The commercial viability of popular music venues in Amsterdam is beyond doubt; they are and will continue to thrive. But the economic viability of venues in the provincial towns in the Netherlands is in question. Just image asking Madonna to perform at a gig in Groningen. "Where the **** is Groningen?" These harsh economic facts-of-life were dampened by government intervention for a long time. But, The times they are a-changin' (again)

They say people need to be made aware of the advantages of European integration.

Well, here it is!

If the United States of Europe were to exist and all present members of the European Union would be part of it, The United States of Europe would have won the 2012 Summer Olympics by a momentous margin.

Food for thought

London 2012		Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total

Austria			 0	  0	  0	  0

Belgium			 1	  2	  3	  6

Bulgaria		 0	  1	  0	  1

Cyprus			 0	  0	  0	  0

Czech Republic		 4	  3	  3	 10

Denmark			 2	  4	  3	  9

Estonia			 0	  1	  1	  2

Finland			 0	  1	  2	  3 

France			11	 11	 12	 34

Germany			11	 19	 14	 44

Greece			 0	  0	  2	  2

Hungary			 8	  4	  5	 17

Ireland			 1	  1	  3	  5

Italy			 8	  9	 11	 28

Latvia			 1	  0	  1	  2

Lithuania		 2	  1	  2	  5

Luxembourg		 0	  0	  0	  0

Malta			 0	  0	  0	  0

Netherlands		 6	  6	  8	 20

Poland			 2	  2	  6	 10

Portugal		 0	  1	  0	  1

Romania			 2	  5 	  2	  9

Slovakia		 0	  1	  3	  4

Slovenia		 1	  1	  2	  4

Spain			 3	 10	  4	 17

Sweden			 1	  4	  3	  8

United Kingdom		29	 17	 19	 65

		       ---	---	---     ---

United States of EU	93	104	109	306



United States           46       29      29     104

China                   38       27      22      87

Russia                  24       25      33      82

Lyme is a little town in Connecticut, USA. It is the namesake for Lyme disease. In 1975, Allen Steere MD from Yale and formerly the CDC, was called to Lyme when a suspicious number of children and adults were diagnosed with what was thought to be juvenile rheumatoid arthritis. Now juvenile rheumatoid arthritis is by no means contagious, so how come 50+ people got this diagnosis in and around the town of Lyme? After a lot of interviewing, testing and reading about skin rashes as a result of a tick bite in the European research literature, Allan Steere connected the dots and published the first scholarly article on Lyme Disease.
Lyme Disease is now known to be the result of a bite by a tick carrying on of the three species of bacteria belonging to the genus Borrelia. In about 25% of all cases a strange, spreading skin rash (erythema migrans) is seen before any other symptoms occur.
Because the cause is bacterial, the disease can be treated with antibiotics. In fact the recommended protocol in the Netherlands when bitten by a tick is: if skin rash is present, prescribe doxycycline in twice daily doses 100 mg for 10 days, if no skin rash is apparent, do nothing.
In most cases this is adequate. But there are people with persistent symptoms even when treated twice in this manner. They do not get better, in fact they seem to get worse over time. One of these people is my wife.
Exactly one year ago my wife went to see her physician with a sore knee and large red rash on the inside of her left knee. The doctor decided to test for Borrelia antibodies using the Western Blot test and to our surprise the test came back partly positive. She did have type IgG antibodies, but not type IgM. When type IgM antibodies are found this indicates an active infection. IgG antibodies are found whenever you have had a Borrelia infection in the past, even if this was years ago. My wife had in fact been bitten by a tick in the past, twice no less. In 2004 and again in 2010. In both cases she went to see her doctor, but since no rash was present in either case, nothing was done. Also after this test result the doctor to our consternation decided to do nothing. My wife did not find this satisfactory at all and asked for a second opinion from a renowned ‘Lyme expert’, a rheumatologist. This medical expert made a clinical Lyme diagnosis based on three symptoms: the red rash, a positive antibody test and mono-arthritis in the left knee. The treatment was a twice daily dose of 100 mg doxycycline for 30 days. Alas this did not help, and the expert doctor could do no more, because in his words “This has killed all bacteria and should have cured you.” But, it didn’t.
I will skip almost half a year ahead and at least four more doctors. Among the things we tried: another antibiotic Claritromycine, taken orally for one month, it did not help. Alternative medicine in the form of both light therapy and bio resonance therapy, they did not help at all. An MRI was done and a lumbar puncture, nothing there either. We went to a hospital of tropical diseases to rule out both dengue fever and chikungunya. They were ruled out. The symptoms persisted and in fact got worse and worse. In April my wife could not walk anymore; she limped. Her left knee was so swollen you could not distinguish the kneecap.



She had quit exercising a long time ago: almost a year of no fitness training and no one to two hour walks per week. The result: 5 kg (11 lbs) more wife.
After almost a year we ourselves secured a referral to the Lyme clinic of the Amsterdam University hospital. What a difference! Finally we were seeing doctors who were actually interested, intrigued and inquisitive. They took my wife’s symptoms very seriously, and just seemed to want to find out what was going on here! My wife responded to being taken seriously emotionally very positive and I was very pleased to finally meet open minded scientific inquiry without the time constraints of the 10 minute consult. Of course we realized that ‘the case of my wife’ just fitted their current research interests to a tee. That is what I call a classic win-win.
At first they drew a bit of fluid from inside her knee for testing. After two weeks or so we got the result: the PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction) test was positive for Borrelia DNA. Now this test is the very same test we have come to know and love from the CSI shows. It basically clones and multiplies DNA a million or more times, so that it can be analyzed by a specialized machine. This test proved that there was Borrelia DNA inside the knee. Based on this test two things were decided: to perform keyhole surgery to take a sample of tissue and look at the inside of the knee and a treatment of a daily dose of a third generation antibiotic (ceftriaxon) intravenously administered for 14 days. The keyhole surgery showed us on a TV monitor that the inside of my wife’s knee was badly infected. Instead of smooth surfaces of cartilage we saw a lot of reddish tissue growth that was not supposed to be there. They took out several pieces of this infected tissue for testing and rinsed the inside of the knee. It can take up to six weeks to culture Borrelia in vitro. It is notoriously difficult. If this succeeds it proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that my wife has an active Borrelia infection despite two treatments of the proper antibiotics. This is what most doctors simply do no believe to be possible. We will see, five more weeks to go before this comes to a conclusion. In the meantime my wife takes a daily dose of ceftriaxon antibiotic intravenously every day for an other week (two weeks in total). She has learned to administer this herself; it seems difficult to match the calendar of the home care team to the schedule of a self employed person. So this is where we are now. The good news is that the knee does seem a little better. My wife seems to walk more and limp a little less. Time will tell, and there is hope.
In the course of a year I have read a lot about Lyme. There is a lot of literature out there. It is difficult to separate the useful from the unhelpful. What follows is what I learned so far.

Lets start with the tick. This is really a very simple little animal with a two year life span. The tick is part of the class of Arachnids, so let’s say they are little spiders and have eight legs. During the course of their two year life span they eat only three times, mate once (and the females lay eggs) and then die. What is their staple food? Right, the blood of an other living animal or human. All this is simple enough, but they have several really clever tricks up their (eight) sleeves:
- Their saliva contains a powerful anesthetic. So when they bite you, you do not feel the sting and it does not itch.
- Their saliva contains an inflammation inhibitory protein. So this means there is no swelling and no inflammation; your immune system is not alerted to the treat.
- Their saliva also contains a blood thinner to facilitate sucking the blood.
- Last but not least their saliva contains a powerful glue which allows the tick to stay on you for up to five days.
- When the tick is done feasting on your blood it secretes an other chemical which act as a solvent for the glue. So after the glue is dissolved the tick simply drops to the ground.

Please notice there is really no jaw biting action involved here, just superglue.

All this is not too bad at all. A large animal or human is not really hurt at all by the amount of blood drained by a tick. The nasty bit starts when the tick is a carrier for an other organism like a bacteria. This can happen because the tick likes all types of blood: birds, rodents, deer, cattle and humans it feast on all of these without discrimination. So the tick makes blood contact with many different mammals and even reptiles and therefore is an ideal vector for the transmission of diseases across species.
The next big thing is the timing issue. Current medical opinion states that if you remove a tick quickly enough, say within 36 hours, no infection with the Borrelia bacteria will have occurred. This is based on research testing mice in USA. A tick can pick up a Borrelia bacteria when it feasts on the blood of an infected deer or rodent. The bacteria is at this point in the gut of the tick. Only when it next attaches itself to say a host (actually the mice in this experiment) the bacteria will travel from the gut to its salivary glands and from there on into the second host. This takes time. Research in the Russian Federation has shown that different types of Borrelia bacteria take different amounts of time to make this journey. This same Russian research also suggests that the strains of Borrelia bacteria prevalent in Europe and Asia make this journey faster than 36 hours. So this 36 hour respite seems only hopeful for people being bitten by a tick in the USA.
For a long time work done with park rangers in the Netherlands has influenced medical opinion about Lyme disease. In a large study government employed park rangers were tested for the Borrelia infection. These rangers had each removed about 10 ticks from their bodies over the years. The study showed that 15% of all park rangers tested positive for a Borrelia infection. Only 5% of the rangers who tested positive for a Borrelia infection ever developed Lyme disease. Conclusion was the risk of getting Lyme disease is small even for those routinely exposed to ticks. We now know that a specific genetic variation of the immune system is a precondition for actually getting Lyme disease. Only people who have this variation are getting Lyme. So yes, it is rare to get Lyme, but not for the reasons originally thought.
Speaking about genetics. Earlier I mentioned some of the clever tricks the tick has up its sleeve. Well if the tick is clever, the Borrelia bacteria can be called a genius of Total Cellular Warfare. Here’s a partial list:
- Borrelia assumes different forms in different hosts. Its DNA encodes survival mechanisms depending on the specific host (deer, human, rodent).
- With more than 1500 gene sequences, Borrelia contains at least 132 functioning genes. Furthermore it contains 21 plasmids. This is by far the largest number of plasmids in any bacteria and it is thought that these plasmid genes provide the ‘ rapid response’ system that allows Borrelia to cycle efficiently between ticks and mammals.
- It has genes that encode for suppression of the immune response of the host
- It mimics the outer skin of specific host cells to fool the immune system into thinking that the bacteria is a native cell.
- It hides itself into places the white blood cells find it hard to reach (joints, eyes, central nervous system)
- It utilizes the native fibrinolytic system to penetrate the blood-brain barrier and thus gain access to the central nerve system
- Borrelia has a slumber feature that allows it to lay dormant when faced with a powerful antibiotic. This can last for several months and the Borrelia wakes up after the threat is gone.

The relevant medical literature calls Borrelia ‘ a formidable infectious agent’.

Its ability to mimic the outer skin of specific hosts cells may be the underlying cause of the famous ‘induced auto immune response’. The immune system of genetically predisposed individuals actually notices the ruse and proceeds to attack these fake hosts cells. Too bad the original host cells are also attacked.
Last night my wife received the last dose of antibiotics. Actually she claims she feels a little better. Next week we have an appointment with the specialist. We will see.

This week the Dutch minority government led by Mr. Mark Rutte fell apart because it could not agree on an austerity package worth 14 billion euros with the populist Freedom party of Mr. Geert Wilders on whose parliamentary support it depends.

In order to comply with the Maastricht treaty rule of limiting the budget deficit to 3% of GDP the Dutch government had to find 14 billion in cuts for the 2013 budget. This was totally unexpected and rather embarrassing in light of the continued lecturing by the same Dutch government of their Southern European colleagues on the very same subject earlier this year.

Mr. Geert Wilder's argument for withdrawing his parliamentary support for the minority government was that he cannot in good conscience agree to cuts that will result in an ordinary elderly Dutch person - the famous and fictitious Mr. Henk senior - having 500 euros less to spend in 2013.

Have you ever owed a debt? Then you will know that, as long as you owe a bank a single euro/dollar/yen/whatever, they own you. If you cannot pay the interest due, they inevitable show a legal contract, signed by you, entitling them to do a bunch of very unpleasant things backed by the full force of law.

The funny thing is that in the context of governments borrowing money it was somehow always presented the other way around. Investors, if they were really very well behaved and played nice, were granted the privilege to lend their money to the Dutch government. Why was this? I suppose the biggest reason was that lending money to Western governments in general and to the Dutch government in particular was perceived as being a very, very safe investment. I understand earlier this year the Dutch government secured a short term loan with a negative interest rate. this means investors, in this case banks, were paying money to have their money deposited in the coffers of the Dutch State. Now why would they do that? The answer is that in a very unsafe world, investors are all struggling to keep their money somewhere safe. Especially if you are a bank and do not trust other banks with your money.

It is this perception that governments are a very safe place to deposit your money that is in question in this crisis. This perception is formalized in the credit rating of a country. Presently the Netherlands is one of the few countries left in Europe with a triple-A status, the highest mark a country can get for being a safe place for your money.


The auction room at the Ministry of Finance where loans are being secured by the Dutch government. See the NOS TV item on the dsta (in Dutch).

Because of this perceived safe haven status the Dutch government can borrow money at a rate of 2.3%. Germany is currently perceived to be the safest place for your money, so it can borrow at a rate of 1.72%. Spain is thought to be less safe, and must pay 5.67%, not to mention Greece, which at some point last year faced a mind boggling 20% interest rate. Just for reference the USA can borrow presently at a rate of 1.99%, in dollars that is. Although a bunch of financial indicators are less favorable compared to The Netherlands and Germany. The reasons for this are complex and could be the subject of another blog entry but in essence it comes down to a simple fact: the USA are presently top dog in the world.

So to put all this in perspective some comparisons
The total Dutch outstanding debt is estimated at 407 billion euros. At a rate of 2.3% this means the Dutch government must pay some 9.4 billion euros interest each year. Were the Dutch government be perceived as safe as Germany this sum would be only 7 billion. On the other hand if the Dutch were in the same position as the Spanish, they would have to pay a whopping 23 billion euros interest a year. The really, really bad thing about all this is that perceptions can change very quickly. And everything depends on perception here.

Some more perspective
The entire Dutch defense budget is about 8 billion euros a year. Fact 1: getting rid of defense completely will not even help the Dutch in 2013 to stay within the 3% deficit norm, since 14 billion is needed for that. Fact 2: If the Dutch were deemed as safe as Germany, roughly a quarter of the entire Dutch defense budget could be paid for by the savings in interest payments alone. Fact 3: If the Dutch government were to have no debt whatsoever, they could fund the entire current Defense budget with the savings on interest payments. Easy, and have some spare change at that. Why do I bring up Defense in this context you ask? Well it is an historic fact that any country not attending to its defenses in the long run will get invaded/conquered/destroyed by someone who just simply can get away with it. If you do not like my Defense example, please realize the Dutch government's total spending on foreign aid amounts to 3.4 billion a year and do the math yourself.

Even more perspective
The Netherlands has roughly 16 million inhabitants. So the total debt per Dutchman is about: 25.000 euros. Yes, each and every Dutchman, woman and child owes roughly 25.000 euros and pays 588 euros interest per year. At German interest rates, every Dutchman would pay only 438 euro interest per year and at Spanish rates that would be 1438 euros per year.

The uptake of all this?
"There ain't no such thing as a free lunch" is an old American lesson which is finally being taught to governments in Europe. I suppose my biggest revelation while researching this issue is the realization that the relative standing of the Dutch government in the pecking order of financial trust is a big deal. Having to pay 9.4 billion a year (Netherlands now) versus 23 billion a year (Dutch debt at Spain's rates) dwarfs all political discussion and bickering about budget cuts. It also puts into perspective the real spending choices political parties have while owing so much money to others. Oh, and by the way you did get the fact that the Netherlands spends more money on paying interest on its debt than on defense, did you? Good, I thought you did.

PS in reality outstanding debt of the Netherlands is on average financed with seven year loans. This is done to insulate against short term interest fluctuations. So calculating the interest due on all outstanding debt based on the daily interest rate is a deliberate simplification on my part. It is really complicated stuff folks.

Now why would any government go to the trouble of borrowing money at such cost if they have the legal right to simply print the stuff? This will the the subject of a later blog entry, so stay tuned!

Today I installed and configured my first web blogging system. I used the Simple PHP Blog software, version 0.8. After that I wrote the first couple of articles.

Things I like about Simple PHP Blog:

- it is really simple; works out of "the box"
- no database necessary

Things I do not like about Simple PHP Blog:
- after entering an article the screen goes blank (this is fixed in version 0.8.1)
- after entering a comment the screen goes blank - maybe it is too simple ... 

So am I being serious with this? Am I going to keep blogging? I do not know. For now, I am just testing ...

Tonight we went to the Opera in Amsterdam. Kitesh, a Russian opera by Nicolay Rimski-Korsakov from 1907.

This opera has never before been performed in the Netherlands and it is a production on a scale seldom seen here. The story is about the choice between good or bad, positive or negative. Everlasting bliss, so we learn from the pure Fevronia, does not come when complaining about your sufferings, but from showing happiness and compassion for others. It was a rare insight into the Russian soul of the beginning of the 20th century.

Skating on the canals in Utrecht February 4th 2012. Just like those old famous Avercamp paintings.

Today colleague Berni Drop left the Interstudie NDO offices for the last time. Her she is accompanied by Ton van Wanroij. Berni is leaving Interstudie NDO for a new position as princicpal of the Montessori College in Arnhem.


As usual I shot the pictures for this occasion.

Today Janne celebrates her 19th birthday with family and friends. Every year she gets a birthday card from her mom & dad with a written message. This picture was taken at the very moment she reads this year's birthday card.