When you care deeply about something, it is especially gratifying when someone senses your commitment, and shares it. This does not happen often in life, but when it does, it means a great deal.

It is even more gratifying when there is more than a word or a look that passes between two people who understand the same thing. When understanding enters the temporal world, where it can be seen, there is even greater understanding.

That is what we see when we look upon the new and much-improved image of our old friend, Meshach Milbourn, who, unknown to loyal Journal readers, was out in California, getting a facelift.

Just look at him. It's taken at least a hundred years off him, and he is elated.

Randy South was a genius when we were kids in high school together in Greenville, South Carolina. He was a talented writer, a quick and clever comedian, and a spokesman of sorts for the "breakfast club" type of kids we were back then, those who regarded the social order of an upscale southern high school with disdain, certainly because we were not part of it.

But his greatest talent was always art, and he could sketch an image in a few seconds that was more than just a physical image, but a mental image as well. His paintings had emotional objects and bewildered people much like us who felt disjointed from an odd and unsuitable world. In his art he brought together the alienated, and gave them a sense of companionship.

He still does that, now and he has found a way to make a living with that empathy of his, by using it to understand what people are trying to do. You can see that in his work, displayed here on these pages.

You can see these are more than images. We don't know how one puts power or excitement in an image, we just know when we see it, and we see it in all of these.

That is the wonder of genius, and excellence. It is not in the accomplishment itself, but in the effect the acomplishment has upon those who see it, and know it for what it is. We raise the new flag proudly, and only hope to provide similar effort in our endeavors here.

Better start scraping together a five-spot, folks. We feel a coffee mug coming to a url near you. See you next week.