SCRIBES

SCRIBES As a self-confident young lawyer, who was also solo practitioner, I would occasionally become so excited with the profundity of a particular pleading, that I had prepared, that I would call up the lawyers on other side, credulously, expecting them to rejoice with me! Youth conceive of be-Alls and end-Alls. Elders, seasoned sages know that the sun shall shine tomorrow, if we did not witness its brilliant rays. Thus, I would also smile whenever in my later years of the practice of law, if some excited young lawyer would call me up to inquire what I had thought of their draftsmanship. And so it goes, as the world turns. 

BREATHE FEEL

BREATHE. FEEL. REFLECT. SHARE. Notions of good and evil are part of a cavalcade of ancient wisdom that has survived into the present era. The two dichotomous notions do not exhaust ancient rubric defining the parameters of human conduct. Being astute observers of nature, as well as its codifiers, ancient men and women had to have noted, also , other associative polarities, regularities, that festooned the Earth, life, space, human relations. The ancients did so with "time," by creating the calendar from carefully observing and recording the stars, over eons, in relation to natural phenomena. That same assiduity that discovered "time" may have discovered other laws, relations, codes for humans upon the Earth. As modern humans, we are part of that cavalcade, that ever unfolding deliverance of human knowledge , learning, virtue, wisdom, laws, for governance and faith that graced our forebears anciently and after. What more is there for us to know? Breathe. Feel. Reflect. Share. Love. 

"LIFE" ON EARTH ON US

"LIFE" ON EARTH 🌏 AND ON US Roots. Roosts. Residency. All three terminals being on Earth equalize plant-life, bird-life, animal-fish life, insect-life, microbial life, all "life." As Earth is epicenter and vortex of "life," of whatever shape or form, the Earth is the planet of life, all life. We search the heavens, if not in vain, then surely desperately, for some, for any, assurance that we are not alone upon Earth; that there is also life out there. Somewhere. There, life as we know it here, as we recognize it here, as we assume it, exists in other places than Earth. Since we gather as we go, become wiser as we wander about therein, I no more begrudge national space exploration, than I do babies' digital investigations, of our human faces. The simple fact is that each one of us must know, by some impulse will know, by reaching out, by means of digital manipulation for an answer to the question of what this is? Each would seek, in turn, to fathom what this is that we see so regularly and how is its visage related to me? There has to be a relationship of some kind. But, what is it? How did it get there? What is it made of? Where am I ? What is this place? Does what is upon the human face relate at all to outer space? Is it merely symbolically representative of some abiding, infinite, cosmic, interstellar space mystery, or is there much more ? Is there not that something back of all Earth's facial appearances, features, expressions that are intrinsically related to us? Surely there must be, and there is!

APPLE PHILOSOPHY

APPLE 🍎 PHILOSOPHY A poet may sing of a rare apple 's beauty, color, texture; a musician may salute it symphonically; artist's brush strokes or a sculptor's chisel may capture its exact image; a craftsman may perfectly replicate it in stone, metal, wood, or wax. But just one bite of the rare apple will banish all artificiality, however lovely, melodious, clever, precise. So too is philosophy like this apple . Its power is perfected in its actual application to the pedestrian affairs of mankind, to the common stuff of ordinary daily life. We make more of it than we ought, signifying by it our utter ignorance of philosophy. As the sun shines, as wind blows, water flows, so philosophy knows that it was made by man for man to enable man to be all that it can be. As is the apple, so philosophy is as well. "Taste, see that the Lord is good!" Take ample bites of some philosophical delight, uninhibited !

MASTERY

MASTERY Error, dissonance, irregularity, are easily noticed even by those who are not versed in the art, craft, or activity under review. The absence of deficiencies is also noticed, even though that absence does not itself elevate the endeavor into the realm of mastery. Mastery is not only just being error free, but it is exhibiting that activity of such sublimity, that one's highest spiritual essences are activated, and the soul is satisfied.

HIDDEN FIGURES

"Readers of black newspapers around the country followed the exploits of the Tuskegee airmen with an intensity that bordered on the obsessive. Who said a Negro couldn't fly! Colonel Benjamin O. Davis Jr. and the 332nd Fighter Group took the war to the Axis powers from 30,000 feet. The papers sent special correspondents to shadow the pilots as they served in the skies over Europe , each dispatch from the European front producing shivers of delight. 'Flyers Help Smash Nazis!' 'Negro Pilots Sink Nazi Warship!' '332nd Bags 25 Enemy Planes, Breaks Record in Weekend Victories!' No radio serial could compete with the real life exploits of the men who were the embodiment of the Double V. "The 'Tan Yanks ' as the black press dubbed the black GIs fighting overseas, loved their planes as passionately as any other American pilots. Their lives and the bomber crews they escorted , depended on knowing the plane 's every strength and weakness, its peccadilloes and eccentricities, on coaxing it and coercing it and waltzing with it through the sky. Initially serving in Bell P-39 Airacobras, they moved on to Republic P-47 Thunderbirds, and by the summer of 1944 the 332nd was flying North American P-51 Mustangs. 'The assignment of the terrific P-51 Mustang planes to all of the Negro pilots foreshadows important missions and sweeps ahead of them as the war enters its decisive stage,' wrote the 'Norfolk Journal and Guide.' "'It's best described as a 'pilot 's airplane,' said an American military official in a front-page article in the 'Washington Post.'...Once aloft, it soared for an eternity , pushing up against 400 miles per hour with the ease of a family sedan out for a Sunday drive. And it was a damn fierce contender in a dogfight. As far as the Tuskegee airmen were concerned, it was the best plane in the world.... "Certainly the Tan Yanks would have marveled to know that supporting the performance of their beloved Mustang was a group of Colored Computers. But whereas every maneuver executed by the 332nd in their red-tailed Mustangs fed the headlines, the daily work of the West Computers and the rest of the laboratory employees was sensitive, confidential or secret." Human dynamics also precisely refract the arcane science of aerodynamics. "For a wing moving through the air, the slower - moving air on the bottom of the wing exerts a greater force than the faster-moving air on the top. This difference in pressure creates lift, the almost magical force that causes the wing, and the plane (or animal) attached to it, to ascend into the sky. Smooth air flowing around the wing means the plane can slip through the sky with minimum friction , the way efficient swimmers cut through the water. Turbulent flows, like the swirl and churn of rapids in the water, resist the plane, slowing it down and making it harder to maneuver. One of NACA's great contributions to aerodynamics was a series of laminar flow airfoils, wing shapes designed to maximize the flow of smooth air around the wing... The P-51 Mustang was the first production plane to use one of NACA's laminar airfoils, a factor that contributed to its superior performance ." P.51-52, 54-55, "War Birds," HIDDEN FIGURES, by Margot Lee Shetterly (2016)

CONCEPTS AND ACTS

WHAT WE CONCEIVE AS POSSIBLE IS ALWAYS SURPASSED BY THE ACT. WHETHER IT BE VAGINAL DELIVERY, HUMAN FLIGHT, UNDERWATER NAVIGATION, SPACE FLIGHTS, LIFE AFTER DEATH, OR OUR GOD.