"PEACE AND LOVE"...Across the UniverseImagine all the people
Living life in peace...You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one...keep the "Dream"..aliveDedication of the IMAGINE PEACE TOWER..I dedicate this light tower to John Lennon
my love for you is forever...Yoko Ono...Videy Island, Reykjavik, Iceland
October 9th 2007...Happy Birthday John......."Peace and Love""John Lennon" truly came into being....His life as a work of art in which every act shimmered with potential meaning for the world at large.It was a Messianic attitude, to be sure, but one that was tempered by an innate inclusiveness and generosity.If he saw himself as larger than life, he also yearned for a world in which his ego managed at once to absorb everyone else and dissolve all differences among people, leaving a Zen-like tranquility and calm."You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one," he sang in "Imagine,"which has become his best-known song and an international anthem of peace."I hope someday you'll join us, and the world will live as one."
Well... I have many interests...Music, specifically
BEATLES MUSIC is my Number One interest.Collecting memorabilia is also a BIG one. BEATLES, pop culture, and action figures are my biggies. I collect action figures of all kinds, sports figures, entertainers, and GI Joes represent the bulk of my collection.
I also collect newspaper and magazine clippings, I'm sure I got this from my beloved POP...
From my Artist father I love art, both making art (WATERCOLOR PAINTING!!) and art appreciation, Christa and I love to explore "The City's" amazing museums.
The outdoors, also is a Major interest.
My wife and I love to go tent camping.
We plan to someday own a canoe that we can take along, in the meantime firebuilding, hiking, and working on a new-putting-up-our-tent time record will have to do!!
Along with the above, I love to go to Kings and/or Rivercats games, and have the monthly lunches with my family.
I'd like to meet:
"INSTANT KARMA..."
Instant karmas gonna get you
Gonna knock you right on the head
You better get yourself together
Pretty soon youre gonna be dead...What in the world you thinking of
Laughing in the face of love
What on earth you tryin to do
Its up to you, yeah you...Instant karmas gonna get you
Gonna look you right in the face
Better get yourself together darlin
Join the human race
How in the world you gonna see
Laughin at fools like me
Who in the hell dyou think you are
A super star
Well, right you are...."THE DREAMERS..."
Mother Theresa, Muhammed Ali, Jesus, Dalai Lama, Buddha, Ghandi, Martin Luther King, Vince Lombardi, Michelangelo, Leonardo Da Vinci, John F. Kennedy, Bob Marley, Malcolm X, Cesar Chavez, George Harrison, John Lennon....."My role in society, or any artist's or poet's role, is to try to express what we all feel. Not to tell people how to feel. Not as a preacher, not as a leader but as reflection of us all..."Our society is run by insane people for insane objectives. I think we're being run by maniacs for maniacal ends and I think I'm liable to be put away as insane for expressing that. That's what's insane about it.It just was a gradual development over the years. I mean last year was 'all you need is love.' This year, it's 'all you need is love and peace, baby.' Give peace a chance, and remember Love. The only hope for us is peace. Violence begets violence. You can have peace as soon as you like if we all pull together."BAGISM" - According to John, it is a form of total communication, and others cannot judge you by the color of your skin, the length of your hair, or any other such attributes. John and Yoko answered interviewers' questions wearing a large white bag, during a press conference for their avant-garde film "Rape (No.5)" at the Hotel Zach in Austria on March 31, 1969 and when appeared in the television news program in England on the following day, April 1, 1969. This is the beginning of a lot of Bagism performances after that.You're all geniuses, and you're all beautiful. You don't need anyone to tell you who you are. You are what you are. Get out there and get peace, think peace, and live peace and breathe peace, and you'll get it as soon as you like." - John Lennon..
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"UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE..."This is not only a broken system, this is a sick system, says Moore.Michael Moore advocates for a national health-care system. To prove that such a system would work, he goes to England, to France and to Cuba where there is universal health coverage.So the table has been set for a big brouhaha over "Sicko," which contends that the American system of private medical insurance is a disaster, and that a state-run system, such as exists nearly everywhere else in the industrialized world, would be better.This argument is illustrated with anecdotes and statistics terrible stories about Americans denied medical care or forced into bankruptcy to pay for it; grim actuarial data about life expectancy and infant mortality; damning tallies of dollars donated to political campaigns but it is grounded in a basic philosophical assumption about the proper relationship between a government and its citizens.This guy broke his ankle, how much will it cost him? asks Moore. Will he have some huge bill when he's done?
"Here at NHS [National Health System] everything is free, is the reply.
Moore: "What did they charge you for that baby?
Father of the baby: "No, no, no, This is NHS. It is not America."
Blue Cross, Humana, Aetna. These are just a handful of the American health insurance companies that Michael Moore accuses of operating on greed and trampling on the needs of the American public."GLOBAL WARMING SOLUTIONS..."We have the technology and ingenuity to reduce the threat of global warming today. Solutions are already available that will stimulate the American economy by creating jobs, saving consumers money, and protecting our national security.By investing in renewable energy and energy efficiency, and increasing the efficiency of the cars we drive, we can take essential steps toward reducing our dependence on oil and other fossil fuels that cause global warming.Using energy more efficiently and moving to renewable energy (wind, solar, geothermal, and bioenergy) would significantly reduce our emissions of heat-trapping gases. The United States currently produces 70 percent of its electricity from fossil fuels such as coal, natural gas, and oil, but only two percent from renewable sources. Since the burning of fossil fuels releases large amounts of carbon dioxide the leading cause of global warming but renewable energy does not, increasing the share of our electricity generated from renewable resources is one of the most effective ways to reduce global warming emissions."GREENPEACE..."has been working for the planet since 1971. We've played a pivotal role in big wins for the environment:- Commercial whaling moratorium
- Ban on toxic waste exports to less developed countries
- Bans on dumping radioactive and industrial waste at sea
- 50-year moratorium on mineral exploitation in Antarctica
- An end to large-scale high-sea driftnet fishing
- Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary
- Ban on all nuclear weapons testingGreenpeace is hard at work and you can help.......
Click here for Myspace Layouts"FREE TIBET"..Back in 2001, China promised that it would improve its human rights record for the honor of hosting the 2008 Olympics. Instead, China's human rights violations have increased in the months leading up to the games. Their actions have included a crackdown on peaceful dissent in Tibet, the rounding up and jailing of prominent human rights activists, and increased censorship of the media. Together, the abuses constitute a fundamental violation of the letter and spirit of the Olympic charter - and must be condemned in the strongest possible terms...
“I believe that the very purpose of life is to be happy. From the very core of our being, we desire contentment. In my own limited experience I have found that the more we care for the happiness of others, the greater is our own sense of well-being. Cultivating a close, warmhearted feeling for others automatically puts the mind at ease. It helps remove whatever fears or insecurities we may have and gives us the strength to cope with any obstacles we encounter. It is the principal source of success in life. Since we are not solely material creatures, it is a mistake to place all our hopes for happiness on external development alone. The key is to develop inner peace...DALAI LAMA
http://www. freetibet. org/
INSTANT KARMA - SAVE DARFUR AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL.. is keeping with our tradition of combining music with activism harnessing the power and reach of both to stop the violence and horrific human rights abuses happening each and every day in Darfur.Darfur has been embroiled in a deadly conflict for over three years. At least 400,000 people have been killed; more than 2 million innocent civilians have been forced to flee their homes and now live in displaced-persons camps in Sudan or in refugee camps in neighboring Chad; and more than 3.5 million men, women, and children are completely reliant on international aid for survival. Not since the Rwandan genocide of 1994 has the world seen such a calculated campaign of displacement, starvation, rape, and mass slaughter.Since early 2003, Sudanese armed forces and Sudanese government-backed militia known as Janjaweed have been fighting two rebel groups in Darfur, the Sudanese Liberation Army/Movement (SLA/SLM) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM). The stated political aim of the rebels has been to compel the government of Sudan to address underdevelopment and the political marginalization of the region. In response, the Sudanese government regular armed forces and the Janjaweed largely composed of fighters of nomadic background have targeted civilian populations and ethnic groups from which the rebels primarily draw their support the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa.The Bush Administration has recognized these atrocities carried out against civilians primarily by the government of Sudan and its allied Janjaweed militias as genocide. Antonio Guterres, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, has described the situation in Sudan and Chad as the largest and most complex humanitarian problem on the globe. The Sudanese government and the Janjaweed militias are responsible for the burning and destruction of hundreds of rural villages, the killing of tens of thousands of people and rape and assault of thousands of women and girls.With much international pressure, the Darfur Peace Agreement was brokered in May 2006 between the government of Sudan and one faction of Darfur rebels. However, deadlines have been ignored and the violence has escalated, with in-fighting among the various rebel groups and factions dramatically increasing and adding a new layer of complexity to the conflict. This violence has made it dangerous, if not impossible, for most of the millions of displaced persons to return to their homes. Humanitarian aid agencies face growing obstacles to bringing widespread relief. In August 2006, the UN's top humanitarian official Jan Egeland stated that the situation in Darfur is "going from real bad to catastrophic." Indeed, the violence in Darfur rages on with government-backed militias still attacking civilian populations with impunity.On July 30, 2004, the UN Security Council adopted resolution 1556 demanding that the government of Sudan disarm the Janjaweed. This same demand is also an important part of the Darfur Peace Agreement signed in May of 2006. On August 31, 2006, the Security Council took the further step of authorizing a strong UN peacekeeping force for Darfur by passing resolution 1706. Despite these actions, the Janjaweed are still active and free to commit the same genocidal crimes against civilians in Darfur with the aid of the Sudanese government.International experts agree that the United Nations Security Council must deploy a peacekeeping force with a mandate to protect civilians immediately. Until it arrives, the under-funded and overwhelmed African Union monitoring mission must be bolstered. And governments and international institutions must provide and ensure access to sufficient humanitarian aid for those in need.AUGUST 28 ,1968...I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream....I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal...."I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood....Champions aren't made in gyms. Champions are made from something they have deep inside them - a desire, a dream, a vision. They have to have last-minute stamina, they have to be a little faster, they have to have the skill and the will. But the will must be stronger than the skill......
MUHAMMED ALI... "The Greatest"This Beautiful Beatle Family Tree was created by Caro and Delik...Aka: The Daytripper/The Fool on the Flaming Pie and Caro...a couple of sweethearts...Thank you ladies..
Music:
As half of The Beatles, John Lennon and Paul McCartney were one of the most successful songwriting teams of the century. Together they wrote dozens of hit tunes, ranging from "Help!" and "Ticket to Ride" to "Penny Lane" and "Let It Be." Lennon's romance with Yoko Ono was a major influence on his post-Beatles career, and he collaborated with her on everything from the modern pop hymn "Imagine" to avant-garde noise and poetry.The Beatles broke up in 1970
and Lennon followed with a solo career marked by uneven recordings and public pleas for world peace. After a reclusive five years as a family man, Lennon released an album with Yoko in 1980, Double Fantasy.As their new song "Just Like Starting Over" was reaching the top of the charts, Lennon was shot to death outside his New York home.
December 8,1980WORKING CLASS HERO:As soon as you're born they make you feel small
By giving you no time instead of it all
Till the pain is so big you feel nothing at all...A "working class" hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be...."When real music comes to me - the music of the speres, the music that surpasseth understanding -that has nothing to do with me, cause I'm just the channel.The only joy for me is for it to be given to me, and to transcribe it like a medium...those moments are what I live for."
-- John Lennon"I believe in God, but not as one thing, not as an old man in the sky. I believe that what people call God is something in all of us.I believe that what Jesus and Mohammed and Buddha and all the rest said was right. It's just that the translations have gone wrong...."
John Lennon"If being an egomaniac means I believe in what I do and in my art or music, then in that respect you can call me that... I believe in what I do, and I'll say it."
John LennonThe Beatles recorded their first full length album, live in the studio, on February 11, 1963 in one 12 hour session. On February 22, 1963 the Beatles' second single, "Please Please Me" went straight to No. 1.Meet the Beatles, the first Beatles album in the United States, was released on January 20, 1964. On February 7, 1964 The Beatles travelled to New York for a number of U.S television appearances and performances.Upon arriving at JFK airport, The Beatles noticed thousands of kids screaming and awaiting the plane's arrival.They assumed that there must have been someone important on the plane with them and were a bit shocked to learn that the crowds were actually there for them.The Lennon-McCartney Songwriting Partnership
John Lennon and Paul McCartney are considered by some to be the greatest songwriting team ever. Lead singers of the legendary band, The Beatles, and close friends, they wrote many hit songs together and helped create popular music as it is today.The Beatles are among the most influential popular music artists of the second half of the 20th century,affecting the culture of Britain and America and the postwar baby boom generation, and the entire English-speaking world, especially during the 1960s and early 1970s.Certainly they're the most successful, with global sales reaching past 1.2 thousand million records sold as of 2003.Their influences on popular culture extended far beyond their roles as recording artists, as they branched out into film and even semi-willingly became spokesmen for their generation.The members of the group were John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr (Richard Starkey), all from Liverpool, England.The effect of the Beatles on Western culture (and by extension) on the rest of the world has been immeasurable.Originally a high-energy pop band (typified by the early singles "Twist and Shout" and "Please Please Me"),as the Beatles progressedtheir style became more sophisticated, influenced in equal measure by Bob Dylan and Chuck Berry.Their popularity was also aided by their attractive looks, distinctive personalities, and natural charisma; particularly on television where they appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show and others.This was the beginning of..."BEATLEMANIA"in which the committed pop-music band found itself turned into a worldwide phenomenon with worshipful fans, hysterical adulation..."LIVE AT SHEA STADIUM"...1965and denunciations by others such as Frank Sinatra. None of this had much to do with music and was regarded by the band members with intermittent awe and resentment.
"WE'RE MORE POPULAR THAN JESUS.."
John Lennon..1966Two years after they first invaded America, the Beatles were used to being accosted by screaming teenage girls -- not by screaming middle-aged Bible thumpers.That changed on the eve of their third U.S. tour when American teen rag DATEbook printed John Lennon's comparison of his band to a somewhat more revered pop-culture figure.Mass protests ensued: The Vatican denounced John Lennon's remarksand the love-song-singing lads even received death threats.Two weeks into the tour -- at an Aug. 11 press conference in Chicago that found the Fab Four hanging their heads like reprimanded schoolboys -- Lennon explained that he had merely been referring to the worldwide frenzy of Beatlemania and that his words were "never meant to be a lousy anti-religion thing." The Vatican accepted his apology, but the death threats -- and, of course, all those screaming girls -- had taken their toll.The Beatles' Aug. 29 concert at San Francisco's Candlestick Park would be their last."CANDLESTICK PARK...1966""THE DARK SIDE OF BEATLEMANIA.."
We may never fully understand the incredible power of Beatlemania to sweep people away in a sea of emotions.But at the height of their popularity in the spring of 1966, a segment of the American public demonstrated how that overpowering love could turn to hate very quickly.
Maureen Cleave in 1964
On March 4, 1966, this quote of John's was printed in an interview by reporter Maureen Cleave in the London Evening Standard:"Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn't argue with that; I'm right and I will be proved right. We're more popular than Jesus now;I don't know which will go first - rock 'n' roll or Christianity. Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It's them twisting it that ruins it for me."
He was, as she reported, reading extensively about religion. It was a small part of the article. No notice of it was taken in Britain. Read the entire original article here.John remembers the original interview.Then, almost five months later, on July 29, a teen magazine in the US,Datebook, reprinted the quote out of context, not submerged in an article, but as a part of a front cover story entitled "The Ten Adults You Dig/Hate The Most"."STUDIO STYLE EVOLUTION.."
By 1966 the influence of the peace movement, psychedelic drugs and the studio technique of producer George Martinresulted in the albums Revolver and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, still widely regarded as classics.Particularly notable, along with the use of studio tricks such as sound processing,unconventional microphone placements, and vari-speed recording, was the Beatles' use of unconventional instruments for pop music,including string and brass elements, Indian instruments such as the sitar, and early electronic instruments.At the height of their fame in the mid-sixties, bolstered by the two films Help and A Hard Day's Night, the band discontinued touring.The increasingly sophisticated arrangements of their songs were difficult to perform in front of thousands of screaming fans who typically made such noise that the music could not be heard anyway.By then, the stress of their fame was beginning to tell and the band was on the verge of splitting at the time of the release of The Beatles (the "white album"),with some tracks recorded by the band members individually, and Starr taking a two-week holiday in the middle of the recording session.By 1970 the band had split, with each of the members going on to solo careers with varying degrees of success.The psychedelic years
In early 1965, Lennon and Harrison were dosed with LSD by their dentist.In the ensuing years, the Beatles met with psychedelic counterculture icon Timothy Leary, experimented extensively with LSDand released two heavily LSD-influenced albums, Revolver and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.On June 12, 1965, The Beatles were individually awarded the order of Member of the British Empire (MBE) by the Queen.Since it was unusual for rock stars to receive the MBE, some previous recipients complained and protested, and a small number went so far as to return their own honours, complaining they had been "devalued". (Some had received the award for military heroism.) Lennon would return his own in 1969 with the note..."Your Majesty, I am returning my MBE in protest against Britain's involvement in the Nigeria-Biafra thing, against our support of America in Vietnam and against "Cold Turkey" slipping down in the Charts.
"With love,
"John Lennon"The murder of John Lennon, who in so many ways represented the heart and soul not just of the Beatles but of all '60s rock'n'roll, was perhaps the most emotionally felt of all rock deaths.Certainly there was an equal outpouring of emotion for Elvis Presley, and perhaps as much in some quarters for Buddy Holly, Jimi Hendrix, and Janis Joplin. But John Lennon's death was more stunning than any of them.He was just emerging from a long period of silence with a vigor as surprising as it was refreshing, and he seemed in command of his powers as never before, at a time when rock'n'roll and the world desperately needed his voice.In retrospect, it seems absurd that the United States government felt so threatened by the presence of John Lennon that they tried to have him deported. But that's what happened, as chronicled in directors David Leaf and John Scheinfeld's The U.S. vs. John Lennon.The film starts slowly, with a familiar look at the former Beatle's troubled childhood, his outspokenness as one of the Fabs ("We're more popular now than Jesus Christ," etc.), and his eventual hookup with Yoko Ono, paralleled by the growth of political protest in '60s America, particularly against the Vietnam War.John and Yoko went on to stage their own peaceful demonstrations, like the Canadian "bed-ins," but these were largely harmless media stunts. It was when the Lennons moved to New York in the early '70s and took a more active role in the anti-war movement, making friends with radicals like Abbie Hoffman,Jerry Rubin,and Black Panther Party founder Bobby Seale,that the government got interested--and paranoid--and men like President Richard Nixon,FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, and right-wing Sen.Strom Thurmond began actively looking for ways to silence him (it was Thurmond who came up with the deportation idea). That's also when the film picks up.An array of talking heads weighs in, ranging from Ono and others sympathetic to Lennon's plight (Walter Cronkite, Sen. George McGovern,even Geraldo Rivera) to those on the other side, including Watergate conspirator G. Gordon Liddy.Though The U.S. vs. John Lennon is hardly impartial, it's safe to say that although Lennon was more an idealist than an activist,he was an influential celebrity whom Nixon viewed as a potential nuisance in an election year.And even once Nixon had won the '72 presidential race, the Immigration and Naturalization Service refused to drop its case."Anybody who sings about love, and harmony, and life, is dangerous to somebody who sings about death," says author Gore Vidal."Lennon... was a born enemy of the U.S. He was everything they hated."It was the time immediately following the first landslide election of Ronald Reagan, a discouraging prospect to so many who had embraced all that Lennon seemed to stand for and believe in.If the two events were unrelated, and clearly they were, they are indelibly linked on an emotional level. Not only had Ronald Reagan been elected president,with all his cold, brutal values coming to ascendance -- but the one rock star who seemed the warmest and most human (much of that merely public image, as it turned out) had been summarily slain a month later.Asked about Lennon's death within days of its happening, Ronald Reagan cupped a hand to an ear and then shrugged and grinned, saying something affably inaudible toward the crowd of reporters. He obviously didn't care.But don't get mixed up about John Lennon. His true genius, which he practiced all his life, was to make people love him. As a human being, he was seriously troubled, the result of a lifetime of festering pain.Separated from his parents as an infant (his father went off to sea and his mother on to good times, the next relationship, and eventually an early death), he was raised by his aunt, Mimi Smith, in a middle-class British setting.He was a behavior problem all through school, but early on found something like salvation, or at least balm, in U.S. rock'n'roll, which he loved. He formed his first band at age sixteen.Paul McCartney attended a performance in 1957 and shortly afterward became a member. McCartney's musical skills impressed Lennon -- and Lennon's savvy impressed McCartney.Soon they had agreed that everything written by either would from that point on be credited to "Lennon-McCartney," a promise they kept for nearly fifteen years.George Harrison eventually joined and, later, Pete Best, who was replaced on the brink of the group's breakthrough by Ringo Starr.John: "I'm not anti-God, anti-Christ or anti-religion. I am not saying we are greater or better.I believe that what people call God is something in all of us. I believe that what Jesus and Mohammed and Buddha and all the rest said was right. It's just that the translations have gone wrong. I wasn't saying whatever they are saying I was saying. I'm sorry I said it, really. I apologize, if that will make them happy. I still don't know quite what I've done."The Beatles officially broke up in 1970 after the chemistry between the band had been deteriorating for some time and they were ready to explore the type of music each wanted to explore.Previous to the break-up John and Yoko released the album "Two Virgins",John and Yoko's first album collaboration, "Two Virgins," was released. The cover showed nude photos of the lovers front and back, and was banned."Life with the Lions", "Wedding Album" and "The Plastic Ono Band/Live Peace in Toronto".At the end of 1970 John released his first true solo album called simply "John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band" which reached 6th on the charts. His second album released contains one of the greatest songs ever written and a song that defined John's idealism, the album was "Imagine". The song the album was titled for was a simple song, with John and his white grand piano, that moves the mind and soul to dream the dream he longed for the the earth.On March 20, 1969, the couple wed in Gibraltar. The following week, the two master media manipulators used their celebrity for good, hosting a honeymoon "bed-in"for peace in room 902, the presidential suite of the Amsterdam Hilton.The press avidly pursued them, assuming that the famous nudists would make love for their cameras. Instead, the pajama-clad newlyweds spoke out about world peace. It was the honeymoon as performance art, interlaced with a protest against the Vietnam War.Lennon's "The Ballad of John and Yoko" chronicles the week in song: "Drove from Paris to the Amsterdam Hilton /Talking in our bed for a week / The news people said / 'Hey, what you doin' in bed?'/ I said, 'We're only tryin' to get us some peace!'"For a week, John and Yoko give interviews, ignoring the mockery...
