Yesterday, I got this email in my inbox.  I am reposting it with the permission of the author, removing his name
The Saker
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Hi Saker –
For some time I’ve had this urge to write you – so – here I go –
I’ve been following your blog for a couple of years and I love it – your contributors and the comment section –
First thing every morning – a cup of coffe – and all the sites, that I certainly am not allowed to follow according to the thought police,
who think – for feel they do not –
that they must steer the streams of thought in every mind on earth.
Feeling is a choice and these rule-ridden folks have chosen not to feel.
They think it would be smart to have a planet inhabited by “factory-made” bipedal beings incapable af choosing by themselves.
Apparently their thinking capabilities do not allow them to see,
that this way they are hurtling headlong into entropy.
Now this may even be their real wish – intent as they are on revenge against creation itself.
Years ago Steven Pinker coined the word : to theel = think+feel and that is what I theel, that we should teach our kids to choose.
I like your choice of name – the Saker – and my aqquaintance with a member of that tribe is what really prompted me to write you.
I am a dane – born in Syria – growing up periods in Syria – periods in Denmark – the following takes place in Qalamun –
One day walking about the grounds where I was living, I came to a water basin and in the pool was this bird trying
helplessly to change its fate – what to do ? – I went in for a pair of gloves and my camera –
I lifted the little fellow out of the water and put him on the ground – very wet and very ruffled –
tørrer i solen
                                 all wet and ruffled
I took off my gloves and sat down with him thinking : You can’t fly with those swing feathers all battered out of order –
so I started straightening them one by one – and he allowed me to – this was the most fantastic feeling –
being allowed to help – and after maybe half an hour with feathers OK and dried in the desert sun –
tørret og klar til flugt
                                           dry and ready for lift-off
he took to the air – gave me a triple circle sayonara and headed for the mountains –
That experience did someting deep to me.
SYRIA – who is going to sit down beside you – straighten your swing feathers – see you lift off –
and watch you soar above your desert and your mountains ?
I don’t have words for what goes on inside me in these times of utter madness.
The place where I was made and lived and played is to be murdered.
Anger and deep disgust is what I feel.
The Syria I knew some fifty years ago was where a myriad of different religious denominations and languages
lived together – traded together – worked together and partied together and is now to be eliminated by some folks,
who have made it their final goal to have the silver string connecting heart and mind cut through –
in their epitomy of hubris they never realize, that when that note is silenced,
they’ll have no more to lord it over.
they’ll experience the poverty of being rich.
Homo Sapiens is hardly the right word for our species.
best wishes for you, those with you and your blog –
xxxxxx from Denmark