The Story of Dennis

Dennis Stuart Hayle "Mr Long Island"

Once again, I am writing another post about the life of an exceptional young person who is no longer here through no fault of his/her own. Dennis Hayle embodied the spirit of North Carolina A&T University’s “Aggie Pride” and the hope and joy of a generation. But he has now become another murder statistic in a sea of senseless murders that destroy our best and brightest for no apparent reason.

Dennis was not involved in drugs or other illicit activity and he was not in the wrong place – he was, in fact, in the hall outside his apartment having just come from visiting a friend in the same building. And then, on the night of Sunday, January 25th,2009, Dennis Hayle, age 22, was shot to death by an unknown assailant.

But, once again, I refuse to become a voyeur into this young man’s death but instead I want to emphasize and honor the LIFE of Dennis and what he accomplished in his short time on earth.

Dennis grew up in Hempstead, NY on Long Island and, according to his mother, he dreamed of coming to A&T (Greensboro, NC) since he was in the 5th grade. He was a political science and criminal justice major at A & T, ready to graduate in a few months. His dream was to become a lawyer or lobbyist.

Dennis played football, lacrosse and wrestling in high school and overcame a learning disability to accomplish his goals. He attended the college of his dreams and became an Omega Psi Phi fraternity brother. He studied hard and he gave back to the community by mentoring elementary school students and working at homeless shelters.

Dennis went to Washington, DC to attend the inauguration of President Obama just days before he was killed. He has been described as loving, caring, polite, well mannered and the life of the party. One friend said of him, "He was here to make people feel better."

The deaths of these young people aren’t about gender or race or ethnic origins. They are the products of a world of gangs and casual violence and societal apathy. Until we are willing to confront this problem head on and make some tough choices, our children will continue to be collateral damage.

And so, another bright light has gone out in the world.

I’m sorry, Dennis…

WOMEN IN ART

Digital Video by Philip Scott Johnson

Five hundred years of female portraits in Western Art.
Music: Bach's Sarabande from Suite for Solo Cello No. 1 in G Major, BWV 1007 performed by Yo-Yo Ma.

In the old days before the availability of computer-generated imaging techniques, a sequence of still photos would be called a “montage,” and the choice of continuity would be the “lap dissolve.” Following a shooting script similar in concept to traditional cell-animation, 2-dimensional artwork would be photographed on a rostrum camera having compound X, Y and rotational movements.

Although similar in concept, digital techniques add an extra dimension … the ability to interpolate colors and forms, also called “morphing,” between still subjects. Early morphing techniques often resulted in bizarre effects ... in-between frames appearing misshapen and grotesque. In this example, Johnson avoids these pitfalls. Subjects merge smoothly, and the effect is pleasing. The execution is a worthy tribute to women in art.

Slow, Slow Stamps

Yesterday I needed a stamp. So I went to the post office. I stood in line. For a long time. For ever. In a long line. With other people – just buying stamps.

As I stood – waiting - & waiting – I thought about WHY I was standing – for –ever – to buy a simple book of stamps.

Last Fall I had come to my same local post office in search of a stamp only to discover that the stamp machine had been ripped off the wall. So – I had to go stand in line. I did. For ever. When I finally got to the counter & asked for my stamp & inquired about when the stamp machine would be fixed, I was told it wasn’t coming back – gone for good. Naturally I asked why. The explanation was that the person in charge of the machine had retired & the position was being discontinued. I asked – with the faintest hint of sarcasm – so that means we have to stand in line just to buy stamps? Yes. Making the line longer? Yes. Taking up more of your time? Yes.

After putting my precious stamp on my piece of mail & mailing it, I pondered the idiocy of all of this. Grumbling about the Herculean effort to be required in the future to buy stamps. Shaking my head at the lack of foresight of post office officials about efficiency. Needless to say – I was irritated.

Now – like many people today – I don’t use that many stamps. Maybe 2 or 3 a month. I pay most of my bills on line & lord knows I don’t send anyone any personal letters. So my stamp needs are minimal. And perhaps this was calculated into the post office’s decision to do away with the stamp machine – our changing mail habits. And yes – I could buy a large quantity of stamps all at one time to avoid the occasional stand in line (I buy 10 at a time) BUT BUT BUT I stopped doing that because they keep raising the price of stamps & then when I actually do have to mail something I am at a loss to know whether or not I have the appropriate stamp & if I don’t then I have to scrounge around looking for 1 cent stamps – not having a clue which drawer I left them in & then giving up & going & buying a new stamp anyway – you get the picture.

So – in other words – back to the post office to buy the appropriate priced stamp. To stand in line. To wait. For ever. Again.

So did they just rip out the machine at my branch? If I took the time & precious gas to drive to another branch would there be a stamp machine or was the now-retired person in change of those machines too? And is any of this logical? Weren’t machines introduced to save on expensive human labor hours? And now, when the post office is threatening to go down to 5 days a week to save labor money, there are no machines to fill in the gap for the lack of human postal workers? Does any of this make sense????

As you can see – I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the loss of my local stamp machine. While standing. In a long line. To buy a stamp. With nothing but time to think. To ponder. To gaze nostalgically at the gaping hole in the wall where once upon an efficient, logical time a stamp machine once resided.

Penny for your insanity

Some people are feeling a kind of smug delight at the increasingly hysterical dementia of the religious right. I'm not delighted at all, nor do I count them out. In fact they thrive on persecution and so much so that they usually invent it when they can't actually provoke it.

The latest piece of insanity to arrive in my inbox seems hysterical enough, but of course it was written as a cold, calculated attempt to push the nut buttons and release another wave of irrational religious anger toward supporters of the US constitution. Nothing works quite so well for so long as the endlessly repeated threat that "They" are trying to take God off the money, where God so longs to remain.

We are due for a new series of Lincoln Cents this year, which is the year Honest Abe turned 200. The reverse side of the coin will contain scenes from different parts of his career. There will be four versions. The obverse side will remain the same as it has looked since 1909 when Victor D. Brenner designed it to replace the "Indian Head" coin to honor Lincoln's 100th. There are no plans to remove "In God We Trust."


The viral e-mail of course only shows us the plans for the reverse side, but belief addicts never ask, do they? They just believe. They just have to have the adrenaline, the feeling of belonging that believing brings. Of course we went through this with the Presidential Dollar Coin series and of course the fact that each and every coin in that series had God engraved on it never affected the beliefs of the gibbering Republican idiots who still have palpitations over the outrage. I've had shopkeepers refuse to accept them and one refused to be shown that In God We Trust was indeed there for fear, no doubt, that the Devil would drag him down to hell for looking.

The fact that the supply of attempts to restore our coinage to what it was before the Civil War when politicians needed to use religion to get people to kill their own countrymen, has long exceeded the demand and so the Liars of the Lord have to invent more. Worse, they have to heap fallacy upon fiction and invent an entire paranoid fantasy to inflame the three chambered hearts of their devotees.

It's because of the ACLU of course, along with the Atheists, the Jews, the Liberal stooges thereof -- and continuing down the slippery slope of fallacy: if they can take God away from the penny they surely will outlaw prayer in Churches, have the word God eliminated by fiat from the English language and forbid the sale of Bibles. No, I'm not making this up, they are.

Ignore them at your own peril.

Occam's butterknife

entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem

Perhaps we owe it to Barak Obama that Darwin's birthday passed by without massive hysterical demonstrations attempting to prove that all species on Earth sprang into existence from thin air about 6000 years ago. Hysteria, the other mother of invention, is required since there is no evidence other than belief and all beliefs are equally possible and equally credible, as any number with zero as a factor is equal to any other. The barking and howling Republicans were too busy yesterday denying the demonstrable truth of Barak Obama's citizenship to deny the demonstrable truth of speciation through natural selection.

The amount of evidence for the proposition that Mr. Obama was born outside the USA or its possessions is nugatory and is as dependent on wishful thinking as is the evidence for "creationism." None the less, "lawmakers" in Tennessee, the former site of the only-in-America Scopes trial that proved to the world that Americans are demented idiots if not actually an atavistic subspecies, are up to something completely similar. They are insisting that our new president prove his citizenship to them by furnishing his birth certificate -- again.

Beyond the question of how one proves anything to demented idiots, is the question of why they haven't looked, as did the Supreme Court, at the evidence they are demanding: the evidence already on record and verified. His birth certificate has been furnished, verified by the Registrar of Vital Statistics and the Health Department of the State of Hawaii and by an independent group. Let me say it again: The director of Hawaii’s Department of Health confirmed Oct. 31, 2008 that Obama was born in Honolulu.

In Tennessee of course, Occam's Razor is as dull as a Republican's mind and so Republican Congressmen Eric Swafford, Stacey Campfield, Glen Casada and Frank Niceley, suspicious of a conspiracy, have agreed to join in a suit by the hilariously Orwellian sounding Defend Our Freedoms Foundation, demanding a writ of Mandamus to obtain the birth certificate that has already been obtained and immigration records which do not exist. Postulating a conspiracy of incredible proportions between the State of Hawaii, the US Supreme Court, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and a legion of America hating Liberals to elect an alien president, certainly constitutes the multiplication of entities without necessity, other than the necessity to lie and cheat in order to unseat a popular President.

"Let's just put this to bed," Says Casada, who is also the chairman of the House Republican caucus.

"Yes, people may say, you're just chasing some conspiracy theory. It's a simple act on his part to just do, and we're done — move on."

People may indeed say so, even people on the Supreme Court. People may also keep lying until, by some kind of auto da fe, it becomes truth. What people ought to do, if they give a damn about their country and its future is to run these delusional, dishonest, dimwitted mystics out of the Congress and perhaps import some Chimpanzees to the State of Tennessee to improve the gene pool.

Koala Love

I’m sure most everyone who hasn’t been hiding under a rock (that’s probably everyone but Rush and Coulter) has seen the image of firefighter, Dave Tree giving Sam the koala a drink of water and comforting her during the devastating Australian fires.

What a heartwarming, humane moment in the midst of despair and destruction! And just in time for VALENTINE’S DAY (are you pulling out your hair yet, Capt. Fogg?), Sam has found a boyfriend named Bob at the wildlife center where they are both housed.

The loss of human and animal life in the area of the fires is mind numbingly tragic, from which the inhabitants will probably never fully recover. An arrest has been made and more will probably follow, but, while nothing will be able to replace the lives lost, it seems these koalas are becoming a sort of touchstone for the Australians.

So, while I’m dancing in the moonlight in the wee hours, raising my glass to the New Age and all the birthday boys and girls, I’ll lift it once more to our neighbors down under and wish them godspeed in their recovery.

THIS ONE IS FOR THE GIRLS

Like most of you, I’m forever getting those “pass them along” emails and videos and photos, etc. The ones that threaten to have a body part fall off or whatever; I delete – The others I usually look through, have a good laugh and either pass them on or delete. I mean, there is only just so much space to occupy even in cyber space.

This came in my mail last night and is way too much fun to just toss. Besides, with Valentine’s Day approaching there may be someone out there who NEEDS an alter ego for the night.

And all you guys who just can’t help yourselves (8pus) go ahead and give it a whirl; you may find your true “feminine” side!

SQUID – let me just apologize up front for the apparent sexist nature of this meme. I hope you can get by that and have a little fun with it.

So, without further ado:

YOU NEVER KNOW WHEN YOU MIGHT NEED A STRIPPER NAME
(Hey, times are tough)

Sometimes when you have a stressful day or week, you need some silliness to break up the day. And, if we are honest, we have a lot more stressful days than not.

Here is your dose of humor... (Be sure to post your new name in the comments!)

A. Follow the instructions to find your new name.

1. Use the third letter of your first name to determine your new first name:

a = Chesty
b = Fantasia
c = Star
d = Diamond
e = Montana
f = Angel
g = Sugar
h = Pinky
i = Lola
j = Kitty
k = Roxie
l = Dallas
m= Princess
n = Heidi
o = Bambi
p = Bunny
q = Brandy
r = Sugar
s = Candy
t = Raquelle
u = Sapphire
v = Cinnamon
w = Blaze
x = Trixie
y = Isis
z = Jade

2. Use the second letter of your last name to determine the first half of your new last name:

a = Leather
b = Dream
c = Sunny
d = Deep
e = Heaven
f = Tight
g = Shimmer
h = Velvet
i = Lusty
j = Harley
k = Passion
l = Dazzle
m= Dixie
n = Spank
o = Glitter
p = Razor
q = Meadow
r = Glitzy
s = sparkle
t = Sweet
u = Silver
v = Tickle
w = Cherry
x = Hard
y = 20 Night
z = Amber

3. Use the third letter of your last name to determine the second half of your new last name:

a = hooters
b = horn
c = tower
d = fire
e = thighs
f = hips
g = side
h = jugs
i = shock
j = cocker
k = brook
l = tush
m= sizzle
n = storm
o = kiss
p = bomb
q = cream
r = thong
s = heat
t = whip
u = cheeks
v = rock
w = hiney
x = button
y = lick
z = juice

Posted by: Heidi Heavenwhip

(CRACK! What do you think? Can you see me in white leather with angel wings? HA!)

AN OCTOPUS VALENTINE ADVENTURE

OMG, ANOTHER BIRTHDAY!

Rocky, please forgive this interruption of our Swash Zone Saint Valentine’s Day Love-Fest. Breaking news (February 11, 2009) - Today is also Sarah Palin’s 45th birthday:


Congratulations, Sarah.  We see where your political ambitions lie:

Capital One. Who's in your wallet?

Now, back to our party!

H/T to Lawyers, Guns and Money.

THE AGE OF AQUARIUS!

My friend Marc Catone (author of The Giant’s Chair and As I Write This Letter: An American Generation Remembers The Beatles), always good for an interesting and informational email several times a year has sent me a report that essentially says that the signs recorded in the famous 5th Dimension song of the same name as my title will happen on:

Feb. 14, 2009 – Valentine’s Day!

The Moon will be in Libra (the seventh house of the Zodiac) and Jupiter and Mars will be aligned (conjunct) in Aquarius along with the Sun, Neptune and Chiron also in Aquarius.

“When the moon is in the Seventh House And Jupiter aligns with Mars Then peace will guide the planets And love will steer the stars This is the dawning of the age of Aquarius..." (song lyrics)

This is apparently a very rare cosmic occurrence and, we did come close to a similar alignment in the 1960s, but the one happening this year is more so (or something like that).

There is a whole article of metaphysical explanations here by Jude Currivan, PhD if you are into that sort of thing. Me, I just love the appeal of 18 minutes of universal consciousness based on peace and love so I will reprint this invitation:

At 7.25am on 14th February and for the 18 minutes of the alignment, I invite you, in the universal heart, to add your own intention for love and peace and to co-create the dawning of the Age of Aquarius to that of the Cosmos. In whatever way feels appropriate for you, you may choose to align with 7.25am (UT) or 7.25am your own local time energizing a wave of intention that will surge around the Earth.

(Now I know that SOME of you will think it appropriate to be asleep but for those who WANT to participate, you can find a time conversion chart here).

Let the sunshine in!

Peace and Love, Rocky