Furious Angels

On occasion, I'm not ashamed of my nationality. Thank God, those moments won't last.

Nobody plays baseball where I come from. We play Finnish baseball, which is called, well, baseball. We have no name for the American variant, as nobody plays it. As a nation, we are the world champions in the game, the game, I mean. The women, they're the best of the best. And the team my niece plays in, Roihu, are the absolutely very best. They would be the heirs to the throne, if we were a monarchy.

Their blood may not be blue, but who cares? I believe there are icicles clinging to the ceilings of the chambers of their hearts. That should do the trick, during moments of national unrest: A sip of ice-cold water. Take a dive in it, if you must. You may lose your head, but never ever your heart. Proceed.

I'm just a fan, a spectator. I'm nothing. Yet I know something. I've seen things. Be quiet, skip a beat, and listen. Forget what the reporters and commentators tell you. This here is the truth, and you heard it from me first.

Today, Eeva brought the first run in a manner that set the tone for the rest of the game. The team caught the drift, and turned the game into the last of the season by winning it. Another result, and there would have been one more game. Not in this world. Roihu wanted this more than their adversaries. And I'm extremely proud to say it was my sister's daughter - whom I pushed in a stroller on the sidewalks of Toronto 18 years ago - who made that tendency palpable. Like gravel against your skin.

A friendly advice: Do not step in front of her while she's running. This was the second time I saw what happens, if you don't heed the advice. Angels tend to be very mellow indeed, but it is unwise to meet a furious one within an arm's length - even more so, if it's you who made her so displeased in the first place.

Understood? Good.

Lesson #2...

[To be continued.]

On My Signal... Unleash Mapplethorpe

First of all, the author wishes to extend his apologies to everyone whom it may or may not concern that he failed to mention al-Zarqawi's role as the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq. It would be just terrible, if people found that out themselves.

They came to see a rendition of that lost masterpiece, La Chasse spirituelle...

What they got instead: That vile photographer, back from the dead.

It is so depressing! And it won't sell!

Luckily, there's a touching love story
between Patti Smith and a boy from the pharmacy,

with Robert obsessing on Syria - a suicide!
They've got nowhere to go, no place to hide.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00EGJ3PJY

Spiritual Hunt 2 How to Sell Syria

 to Children

[NOTE: The text has been made unavailable due to artistic disputes, copyright issues, the awe of Patti Smith... and my former employer, City of Espoo. You may contact Mrs Tossavainen, the boss of all the tiny bosses there. Or:

• Ask Amnesty to start an email campaign on behalf of all the political prisoners held in degratory conditions in prisons they call daycare centers in Espoo.

• Try getting in touch with the head of Matinkylän päiväkoti, whoever is supposed to be in charge of it at the moment.

However, those who are truly desperate, ready to break laws et cetera to get what they want, are able to buy my piece  soon enough.]

A taste won't hurt anyone anyhow:



Once upon a time there was a giraffe.
This giraffe was a freak. He was the combination of Giacometti’s nightmares or something. He had the tiniest head bouncing at the end of the longest neck you’d ever seen, even at the giraffe scene. The other giraffes found this amusing. The giraffe himself, our giraffe, didn't find it amusing at all. Not one bit – he found the situation tragic. And he crowned himself the King of giraffes, since he had the longest neck of them all, was more of a giraffe than the others would ever be. They laughed at him. Our Giraffe the Freak said the others should bow their necks to him. He was the King, after all. The other giraffes laughed some more. They didn't bow their heads, or their necks. So our Giraffe the Freak decided to kill them all.
Giraffe the Freak had a friend, a rhino whose face was like a baboon’s ass the color of an oyster. He had no neck at all. This didn't bother his pal Giraffe, since he wasn't a giraffe, but a rhino. And they were in love. They felt for each other, and deep down knew what the other one was going through. The rhino was terrified. He knew he was a freak of nature. He knew that someday the other rhinos might make a remark of him having no neck or a baboon’s ass for a face, and he didn't have to wonder about what would happen next. All he had to do was look at the Giraffe. And all of a sudden Rhino the Oyster Baboon wanted to kill the giraffes too. As a lesson to the rhinos, if nothing else. So he and his rhino friends, who still were his friends at this point, went on a rampage at the Giraffe Land.
[He throws the cane away.]
Enough of the animals. Let’s talk about the opposition.

Once upon the time there was a giraffe.

         He grabs his cane from the wrong end, holds it erect.

        He points at the skull at the handle of the cane.

This giraffe was a freak. He was the combination of Giacometti’s nightmares or something. He had the tiniest head bouncing at the end of the longest neck you’d ever seen, even at the giraffe scene. The other giraffes found this amusing. The giraffe himself, our giraffe, didn’t find it amusing at all. Not one bit – he found the situation tragic. And he crowned himself the King of giraffes, since he had the longest neck of them all, was more of a giraffe than the others would ever be. They laughed at him. Our Giraffe the Freak said the others should bow their necks to him. He was the King, after all. The other giraffes laughed some more. They didn’t bow their heads, or their necks. So our Giraffe the Freak decided to kill them all.

                 He swings his cane like a club a couple of times.

Giraffe the Freak had a friend, a rhino whose face was like a baboon’s ass the color of an oyster. He had no neck at all. This didn’t bother his pal Giraffe, since he wasn’t a giraffe, but a rhino. And they were in love. They felt for each other, and deep down knew what the other one was going through. The rhino was terrified. He knew he was a freak of nature. He knew that someday the other rhinos might make a remark of him having no neck or a baboon’s ass for a face, and he didn’t have to wonder about what would happen next. All he had to do was look at the Giraffe. And all of a sudden Rhino the Oyster Baboon wanted to kill the giraffes too. As a lesson to the rhinos, if nothing else. So he and his rhino friends, who still were his friends at this point, went on a rampage at the Giraffe Land.

                 He throws the cane away.

Enough of the animals. Let’s talk about the opposition.

Armed Opposition in Syria - Updated, Illustrated

The latest twist in this story, which is a lot easier to understand (yet way more gory) than a Dostoevsky novel, is explained by my hero Michael D. Weiss here. I recommend some basic training before going there, though. Read my piece, and you'll be cool to join any of the opposition groups you choose. It seems you'll have to choose, though... you'll see. Let's move on. 

My map below depicts only the armed opposition, mind. A guide to the more complicated political mess is available here. I couldn't fathom any of it, every party is called coalition this or that, and so forth. Compared to that, the scene below is delightful in its simplicity.

Peace is a coffee stain,
and poetry, a dishwater blonde.

As a summary, there are three groups, two of which are al-Qaeda. Let's start with the one that isn't: FSA. 

Free Syrian Army — "the moderates" in the bleeding heart lingo — is lead by a 30-man Supreme Military Command (SMC), headed, in turn, by General Salim Idris. FSA has declared war against the latest arrival in the opposition army business, Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (or the Levant)*. ISIS had murdered FSA soldiers before, and the last straw came, when they shot one of the FSA's chosen 30, Kamal Hamami, also known by his nom de guerre Abu Basir al-Ladkani... or al-Jeblawi... or Abu Bassir. The Abu part, meaning "son of" seems right, anyway. The killing took place on Thursday, 11 July in Latakia.

ISIS has been very busy lately, trying to take over the other al-Qaeda affiliated group, Jabhat al-Nusra, or The Nusra Front. This is the original jihadist group in Syria. The CEO of al-Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri, told ISIS you can't do that. Jabhat al-Nusra was there first. You stay in Iraq, do a little fighting in Syria, but behave. The head of ISIS, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, told al-Zawahiri to go fuck himself. Using numerous Arabic words in saying it, but, basically, that was the message. I wonder if that would have happened, when Osama bin Laden was still in charge**.



ISIS is hated among the civilians for the atrocities it has committed against them — the most famous being the murder of the 14-year-old coffee-seller in Aleppo (a fragment of the story here, told by author and war junkie Anthony Loyd).


Jabhat al-Nusra has been losing members, as its fighters join the ISIS. Still, the ruling of the presiding Champion in Terrorism, al-Zawahiri, was in their favor, although ISIS couldn't care less. The two jihadist groups have already locked horns over some flour. Yes, the stuff that bread is made of.



We'll see if they start fighting for real with each other. Jabhat 

al Nusra, lead by Abu Mohammed al-Jawlani (or al-Golani) is 

often referred to as the most effective opposition army in battle.

But they want to have their their Caliphate and eat the infidels

(no pun intended)

and the rogue jihadists, too.

Shit. Hubert Selby Jr has NO place in this story! Does he?

It appears that Bashar al-Assad is able to have phone sex with Vladimir Putin yet a while longer.

________
*) The Levant mens roughly the same as the greater Syria. The abbreviation gets all fucked up, if you use that word: it should be ISIL instead of ISIS. So, clarity before poetry... And they are at war with FSA. Don't take my word on According to Associated Press, anyway: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/syrian-rebels-al-qaida-fighters-battle-aleppo   

**) Then again, bin Laden also had problems with his followers in Iraq:

In November 2005, as bin Laden was settling into his new life at the Abbottabad compound, Rahman wrote a seven-page letter to the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, the astonishingly cruel Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who had made a habit of personally beheading his hostages and videotaping the results for global distribution on the Internet. Rahman's letter, which clearly reflected the views of bin Laden, was a polite but blistering critique of Zarqawi, who had recently directed suicide bombings at American hotels in Amman, Jordan, that had killed sixty people, almost all of them Jordanian civilians attending a wedding. The bombings had severely tarnished al-Qaeda's image in the Arab world and came on top of Zarqawi's indiscriminate slaughter of any Muslim who didn't precisely share his views. Like a dissatisfied boss delivering a performance review, Rahman told Zarqawi that he should henceforth follow instructions from bin Laden and cease counterproductive operations such as the hotel bombings in Jordan.

When Zarqawi was killed in an American air strike six months later, bin Laden's subsequent public statements of admiration for him were only because Zarqawi had taken the fight to the Americans in Iraq in a manner that bin Laden himself could only dream of. Privately, bin Laden was worried that Zarqawi had grievously harmed the al-Qaeda brand, and in October 2007, al-Qaeda's leader even issued an unprecedented public apology for his followers in Iraq, scolding them for "fanaticism." 

Peter L. Bergen, Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search for bin Laden from 9/11 to Abbottabad. Broadway Paperbacks, New York 2012, p. 139. Emphasis added.

And now those fellas are in Syria. 

The situation on the ground doesn't look too promising.

The West could do something, however, to the situation in the Skies. 

More on the subject (and a third way to spell al-Nusra's leader's name) here.