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Welcome to the weekend calculating Day 216 of the Dictatorship of COVID-19 where crisis leads to authoritarian government unquestioned and unchecked even by elections... New Zealand's dictator on two counts-COVID-19 and firearms-winning big in terms of her country's politics with almost half of the popular vote. Jacinda Ardern's Labor Party looking at a majority in its own right in the 120 seat parliament..... Donald J. Trump Dow Jones 30,000, Joe Biden Dow Jones 15,000, Anthony Fauci Dow Jones 7,500 Ever look at the political situation that way. I looked by my quarterly statement retirement investments last week and my dad...

With one sentence, John Lennon changed The Beatles’ prospects in the United States. In March 1966, the renowned singer sat down for an interview with The London Evening Standard. “We’re more popular than Jesus now,” Lennon said during the interview. Follow This Week in History on YouTube The sentence alone appears to compare the band’s fame to Christ. But in full context, Lennon wasn’t attempting to say what would be regarded as a blasphemous and negative comment. Lennon simply stated that rock music, The Beatles in particular, were more popular in England than Christianity at that point.

Back in London, at the piano in his Cavendish Avenue bachelor pad, Paul played it for John and Yoko. When he got to the line “The movement you need is on your shoulder,” he told them, “I’ll change that, it’s a bit crummy.” John replied, “That’s the best line in it!” John heard this new tune as Paul cheering him on in his romance with Yoko. “I took it very personally,” John told Rolling Stone in 1968. “‘Ah, it’s me,’ I said. ‘It’s me.’ He says, ‘No, it’s me.’ I said, ‘Check. We’re going through the same bit.’ So we...

Video LinkMy daughter and I were listening to a bunch of varying music on this pretty afternoon while out and about. Some Beatles thrown in, too, as we are both fans. I was reminded of this video I came across a few months ago. I have just about zero musical ability, but I enjoy music hugely, and I also enjoy watching about music talk. I find this video fun and interesting.

At 1 p.m. today, Thursday, Nov. 16, classic rock station KSWD "The Sound" 100.3 FM went off the air with side two of The Beatles' Abbey Road. The move came as a result of a deal The Sound's parent company, Entercom, struck with the FCC to divest three of its stations in exchange for regulatory approval of its $1.7 billion merger with CBS Radio, which also owns several stations in the L.A. market, including KROQ. The 100.3 FM frequency was sold to Educational Media Foundation for an undisclosed amount. EMF, based in Rocklin, owns 770 FM stations and translators and...

The most ambitious reissue yet of an individual album from the Beatles’ catalog is coming May 26 with an expanded and newly remixed edition of the Fab Four’s 1967 pop masterpiece, “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.” Consistently ranked by critics and fans among the most influential rock albums of all time, “Sgt. Pepper” is being reissued in multiple formats and editions, including new stereo and surround-sound audio mixes along with nearly three dozen previously unreleased recordings from the same sessions.

When the Beatles visited New Orleans for their now-legendary City Park concert in September 1964, they had two primary requests. Following the show, they wanted a day off from their grueling 25-concert, 30-day tour, in order to bask in the music of one of America's most soulful cities; and they wanted to meet local musician Fats Domino, one of their major influences. As far as that day off goes, it was scheduled – and then un-scheduled when the band was offered a reported $150,000, which is said to be about six times their normal fee, to add a last-minute concert...

Sir Paul McCartney has talked candidly about the depression he suffered after The Beatles broke up, confessing he considered giving up music altogether. Speaking to BBC Radio 4's Mastertapes, he said he had been at a loss when the band fell apart in acrimony in 1970. "It was difficult to know what to do after The Beatles. How do you follow that?" ... The Beatles officially split in 1970 with the release of Let It Be, but the seeds of their demise were sown a year earlier, when the band appointed Allen Klein as their manager, against Sir Paul's wishes...

Tributes to two of the most famous American entertainers of the 20th century serve as a reminder of how fame flees. The entertainers are Bing Crosby and Bob Hope; the reminders are the documentary “American Masters: Bing Crosby Rediscovered,” which had its premiere last week (and will run again on Dec. 26 ) on PBS, and “Hope: Entertainer of the Century,” a new biography by Richard Zoglin. Neither Crosby nor Hope have much cachet with contemporary consumers of art and culture, but the accounts of their careers make convincing cases that their contributions still influence their respective fields, even if...

SNIP The Sankei Sports newspaper said McCartney was admitted to this hospital in Tokyo when the infection worsened, although there's no confirmation he is in hospital. (Video report at source link.)

Growing up I listened to a lot of music. And, like a lot of teenagers, I didn’t pay much attention to the words, they were just another instrument in the whole melody of the song. As I got older, I started paying attention to the words and was often shocked at what I had been humming.Like many people my age, one of my favorite songs was John Lennon’s “Imagine.” A beautiful melody, in a thoughtful and meditative tone. But oh the words! When I finally got around to paying attention to them, I stopped listening to the song. For in...

WTF of the Week: Paul McCartney Wants a Free T-Shirt by Michael Gallucci December 17, 2013 1:48 PM Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Apparently being a member of one of the greatest groups of all time and one of the richest and most popular people on the planet isn’t enough for Paul McCartney. Now the dude wants a free T-shirt to go with his knighthood and power to shut down Times Square. As you can see in the above video, the Beatle known as the Cute One back in the day made an impassioned play for a free T-shirt...

FULL TITLE: 'I felt I was on trial for murdering the Beatles': Yoko says fans wrongly convicted her for 40 years Yoko Ono has told how being blamed for The Beatles’ split made her feel like she was on trial for murder. She said: ‘It feels like I was accused of something that I didn’t do, which was breaking up The Beatles. It’s like you’re accused of murder and you’re in prison and you can’t get out.’ Since the Fab Four broke up in 1970, Miss Ono has been blamed by many fans for their demise because she was in...

Liberty is about a lot of things; it’s a deep topic. But at its core liberty can be summed up in one simple and reciprocal concept. That concept is respect. You know the 2010 last election was about many things, but it was mostly about respect. It was about starting to restore the respect that people have in government, by getting the government to restore the respect that they show to you…by taking liberty seriously. If you are like me, you think that many of our elected officials from both the right and the left truly believe that what...

A dentist wants to clone John Lennon from his rotten tooth All you need is DNA. A Canadian dentist says he's working with "American scientists" to clone John Lennon from a rotten molar the Beatles singer had extracted in the 1960s. According to the press release (warning: it autoplays a weird parody song, "Love Me Tooth") dentist Michael Zuk bought the tooth at auction for $31,000 and now is working with an unspecified lab to see if they can clone him. Says Zuk: I am nervous and excited at the possibility that we will be able to fully sequence John...

While watching the Grammy awards last Sunday, it occurred to me that American culture has been defined by music ever since the end of World War II. After the Germans and Japanese surrendered in 1945, millions of GI's returned home to marry and begin families. The big-band era of good-time music accompanied that, and romantic singers like Frank Sinatra ruled the day. In the '50s, many young people, tired of conformity, began to rebel. The rise of Elvis Presley illuminated that rebellion. Then the angst kind of died out as Chubby Checker ushered in "The Twist" in 1960, and...

ST. HELENA, Calif. — The scientists exchanged one last look and held their breath. Everything was ready. The electrode was in place, threaded between the two hemispheres of a living cat’s brain; the instruments were tuned to pick up the chatter passing from one half to the other. The only thing left was to listen for that electronic whisper, the brain’s own internal code. The amplifier hissed — the three scientists expectantly leaning closer — and out it came, loud and clear. “We all live in a yellow submarine, yellow submarine, yellow submarine ....” “The Beatles’ song! We somehow picked...

LONDON --Paul McCartney and his girlfriend Nancy Shevell are engaged, his publicist said Friday, nearly four years after they were first spotted together.

The house of the former Beatle Ringo Starr has been under threat for a number of years. Beatles lovers in Liverpool have united in a bid to save Ringo Starr's home which is under threat of demolition. The Save Madryn Street (SMS) campaign will be launched at the city's Hard Day's Night Hotel. It will be headed by local Ringo lookalike Max Frudd. Born Richard Starkey on 7 July 1940, the drummer lived at the house for the early years of his life. The Victorian terrace in Madryn Street, Toxteth, is one of hundreds in the "Welsh Streets" area to...

...A mono-sound copy Two Virgins, which he recorded with Yoko Ono, is expected to fetch at least £2,500. When the avant-garde LP was released in November 1968 it was notable for being sold in brown paper bags because the sleeve controversially featured a naked picture of the famous couple on the cover. Although a limited release of 5,000 stereo versions of the album were available in shops, fans had to write to the record label to purchase a mono copy of the record. The exact number of mono copies sold is not known, but auction organisers say it is likely...