Bless you and your principle that allows us humans to crawl into the belly of a huge metal bird that doesn't even flap about it, but glides smoothly upwards beyond the clouds, beyond the haze and fray of walk-around grounded earth life, delivering us from coast to coast, from country to country, and most of the middle parts in between - free as birds! Well, maybe not quite so free as birds but rather packed like sardines as airlines struggle to make more money per wingita (capita?) than their competitors, but hey, Mr. Bernoulli, I'm sure you could not have foreseen the stir your principle would create.
Fast moving air exerts less (downward) pressure.
Lift off happens when the big bird caging us reaches the right speed. No matter the weight, the bird lifts! I always get a thrill on take-off and landing. Principles be damned, it feels like magic to me, Mr. Bernoulli!
On arrival at our destination, we humans disembowel the bird as we disembark. (Sorry, Birdie. Your tummy will be full again soon. A pilot of experience will sit at your head to guide you toward a safe landing some distance from where you took off for the heavenly vault.) Grateful humans and those ignorant or oblivious of the magic will go about their business far afield from where they started.
Thank you for being a principled man, Mr. Bernoulli, and for lending us this refinement of Sir Isaac Newton's principles of physics.
Sincerely,
A grateful and awed-by-the-magic human
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We are all sexual beings hard-wired to seek-out that orgasmic sensation of incredible lightness of being that makes it feel as if we have communed with the All. What we do with that hard-wiring must be tempered by our response-ability. Do we act on our strong urges despite them sometimes being at odds with cultural norms, mores, or our own principles that hopefully include the Golden Rule?
Harvey Weinstein was cuffed, finger-printed and booked as a criminal for following his hard-wiring without thoughtful consideration of what that would do to his victims.
Your freedom to do as you please ends when your acts infringe upon my freedom to choose my own fate, safety or comfort.
There will always be the caveman mentality of bop 'em (cavewomen) over the head and drag them by the hair to bed. Knowing that requires that modern women assess the situation of power differentials and take care not to put ourselves in danger, exacerbating the discrepancy in strength and speed by becoming inebriated or incapable of running in the other direction should the feeling arise in the pit of our stomach that something is not right and our safety is at stake.
I cannot understand, at my current age, the allure of hobbling high-heeled shoes. It's impossible to run in them. I remember wearing the torture devices on my feet as a working woman of twenty to twenty-five. Insanity. My poor tootsies would look up at me and ask, "You want us to what?" The same was true when I donned toe shoes. Poor feet. At least I could run in the latter.
When alcohol (or drugs) are introduced, all bets are off as to the safety of a woman in the presence of a man or men. The biological imperative to procreate is among the strongest urges in all creation. Our frontal cortex is supposed to modulate that urge. Alcohol and many drugs take the executive function of our brains off-line. When consent to sex is upfront, that can be fun. When there is no consent, substances can increase the power differential to the point of harm to her/him who is victim.
Harvey Weinstein is alleged to have harmed many. Bill Cosby too. Priests, Cardinals, Bishops and other clergy harmed thousands of victims.
Sexuality is a birthright. Acting out on children, the voiceless, and less powerful (than the perpetrators) for the sake of feeling that incredible lightness of being, or for any reason, is a crime.
The momentary pleasure is just that: Momentary. Addiction to any pleasure can be a huge burden to the addicted and to society. It can also be healed.
Sexual predation can be a misguided attempt to show how powerful a being is over another being. Rape of women is happening on a grand scale in wars. Rape of Mother Earth is happening every day. Powerful men (mostly) who form powerful companies rape and degrade the planet systematically. Where's the safety in that?
Your freedom to plunder and poison ends when it endangers my right to breathe clean air, drink clean water, and live in a non-toxic environment. It's time to call out all perpetrators and use Bernoulli's principle to fly them to the moon.
One way tickets only.
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