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Secret John Lennon Files Released By FBI Documents Conclude Former Beatle Wasn't Serious ThreatPOSTED: 7:35 am EST December 20, 2006 LOS ANGELES -- The FBI has released its final surveillance documents on John Lennon to a university historian who has waged a 25-year legal battle to obtain the secret files. The 10 pages contain new details about Lennon's ties to leftist and anti-war groups in London in the early 1970s, but nothing indicating government officials considered the former Beatle a serious threat, historian Jon Wiener told the Los Angeles Times in Wednesday's editions. The FBI had unsuccessfully argued that an...

New York -- Yoko Ono is calling for the anniversary of the death of her husband, John Lennon, to become a day of worldwide healing. In a full-page advertisement appearing in Sunday editions of The New York Times, Ono urges readers to mark the anniversary by apologizing to those who have suffered because of violence and war. "Every year, let's make December 8th the day to ask for forgiveness from those who suffered the insufferable," writes the former Beatle's widow, who signs the letter Yoko Ono Lennon. Ono urges readers to take responsibility for failing to intervene on behalf of...

Elton John - make that Sir Elton John - recently declared in a magazine interview that "religion should be banned completely." At least he didn't say it should be banned selectively; that might smack of favoritism and discrimination. It seems his animus toward religion is driven largely by his status as a homosexual. He resents religiously based disapproval of his lifestyle and says that religion directs "hatred towards gay people." His ironic remedy is that religious intolerance, as he sees it, shouldn't be tolerated. He's also critical of religious leaders for not coming together to end war. Now, Elton John...

ATTICA, New York (AP) -- John Lennon's killer was denied parole for a fourth time Tuesday because of the "bizarre nature" of his crime. Mark David Chapman, 51, must remain at Attica Correctional Facility for at least two more years for gunning down the former Beatle outside his Manhattan apartment building in 1980. "The panel remains concerned about the bizarre nature of this premeditated and violent crime," the board wrote in a one-page decision issued shortly after Chapman's appearance before the three-member panel at Attica.

We live, as the pundits say, in the United States of Amnesia. Even so, did the makers of "The U.S. vs. John Lennon," an inquiry into our government's bizarre attempt to neutralize the perceived political juice of that famed English singer-songwriter, really need to spend half the movie explaining the Vietnam War and the anti-war movement to viewers? If things are really that bad, then perhaps the filmmakers should explain who John Lennon is. After all, the Beatles date back over 40 years. For those who do remember or are aware of the zeitgeist of the counterculture, this lengthy regurgitation...

JOHN LENNON DOCUMENTARY ABOUT TO SHAKE UP THE POLITICAL LANDSCAPE"Pffft. In their dreams."From the studio that brought you Fahrenheit 9-11".Here we go again. When are these people gonna get their heads out of the @ss of the '60s? Nothing is working for them, so they commence to dig up the bones of their number one anti-war hero John Lennon. Problem is, none of that is relevent today. But they just can't let it go. How sad.I wonder if Drudge can sue them for ripping off his site?

Thanks (I think) to Ace of Spades for pointing out a 1973 video of William Shatner singing Harry Chapin's "Taxi" on the Dinah Shore show.  If that's not enough for you, have a gander at multiple William Shatners singing Elton John's "Rocketman."If you're really brave, watch Shatner rap something about Julius Caesar.For an encore, see this music video set to a excerpt of Shatner singing "Lucy in the sky with Diamonds."Don't ever say that I don't bring you guys true entertainment.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A controversial television seance airing on Monday will claim it has reached the spirit of John Lennon, but viewers will have to pay $9.95 to find out what the peace-loving Beatle has to say. The special, being carried on pay-TV service In Demand, was organized by the producers of a 2003 attempt to channel the late Princess Diana. That show failed to find Diana and received reviews that could have sunk the Titanic but it is estimated to have grossed close to $8 million. Sight unseen, the Lennon effort has been attacked by the late Beatle's...

John Lennon's Imagine has beaten two Beatles numbers to top a radio poll for the UK's favourite song. Voters placed Imagine higher than The Beatles' Hey Jude and Let it Be, which were in second and third place in the Virgin Radio poll of 7,000 listeners. Fourth on the list were U2 with One and Robbie Williams' Angels was next. The Beatles had 33 entries in the top 500 songs, followed by the Rolling Stones with 17 and U2 with 15. David Bowie and Queen had 14 entries each. James Blunt was the highest-placed debut act, with his chart-topping single...

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Imagine this: a talking John Lennon doll. The Web site for the National Entertainment Collectibles Association (http://www.necaonline.com) has unveiled pictures of a new John Lennon action figure that is expected to arrive in stores in the spring. The 18-inch doll, dubbed "The New York Years" John Lennon, will utter "authentic" phrases used by Lennon, according to the Web site. A spokesman for Lennon's wife, Yoko Ono, could not be reached for comment, nor could officials for National Entertainment Collectibles. As a solo artist, Lennon wrote songs like "Imagine," which asked listeners to consider a world with...

All right, this is for hard even for yours truly to believe, but here goes. It looks as if Yoko Ono has licensed a John Lennon action figure that will be sold, I don't know, in stores of some kind. Parts of it may be referred to as the Plastic Lennon Hand (get it, Plastic Ono Band?) Ono is clearly out to prove that there's nothing you can sell that can't be sold. Yes, it's been only a week since the 25th anniversary of Lennon's murder. I did in fact write a hopeful piece about Ono last week. All I...

The Cuban President, Fidel Castro, has paid homage to John Lennon at the unveiling of a statue of the late pop singer in Havana. The ceremony in the Cuban capital's El Vedado Park coincided with the 20th anniversary of John Lennon's murder in New York. President Castro praised Lennon as a revolutionary, whose thinking and ideas made him great. In the 1960s, when Lennon's band The Beatles topped the charts throughout the world, the Cuban authorities denounced their music as decadent. But an official statement said recently declassified US documents showed how Lennon had suffered for his opposition to the...

LONDON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Former Beatle John Lennon was the master of the peacenik anthem, exhorting listeners to live in harmony and give peace a chance. He also asked us to imagine a world without possessions. Yet the bickering among family and fans over his legacy is as loud as ever, as record releases, autobiographies and commentaries jostle for attention ahead of the 25th anniversary of his murder on Thursday. In recent months the musical "Lennon", endorsed by his widow Yoko Ono, flopped on Broadway and an autobiography by his first wife Cynthia described how he once hit her out...

JOHN Lennon was almost as famous for his biting wit as he was for his music. The star who was shot dead in New York 25 years ago this week - on December 8, 1980 - pulled no punches in interviews. Here DAVID EDWARDS looks at some of his acerbic comments on everything from religion to the Rolling Stones. ON PAUL McCARTNEY WE got fed up of being sidemen for Paul. Paul took over and supposedly led us. What's leading us when you wander around in circles?INthe studio, every time he sang the line 'Get back to where you once...

A Korean brothel on 23rd Street in New York proudly displays John Lennon’s signed photograph. Mr. Lennon was a patron in the early 70’s, during the time Yoko Ono was pregnant. At the time he had just dumped his “mistress” May Pang, another Oriental like Yoko, who was one of his “toys” often at the arrangement of Yoko herself. Drugs, sex and rock and roll were certainly his forte as with so many “rock stars” of the decade, that is when he wasn’t totally impotent, often due to use of heroin. Everyone who lived the times knows the factual details...

Last Friday on MSNBC’s “The Abrams Report,” Hoda Kotb made an appearance to plug that evening’s NBC “Dateline” program centering on John Lennon’s murderer, Mark Chapman. Ms. Kotb said that in listening to 100 hours of audiotape she was struck by Chapman’s being “so meticulous. He’s so calm. He’s so measured; all the while he is plotting out one of the most heinous crimes of the century.” Lennon’s killing was tragic, as most killings are, but categorizing it as “one of the most heinous crimes of the century” is a gross overstatement. This is, after all, the century in which...

John Lennon was dismissed as a Communist threat to the US only because he was always stoned, secret FBI papers revealed yesterday. The ex-Beatles singer was thought to be a ringleader of revolutionaries plotting to hijack a Republican conference, the documents show. But his drug-taking - which in the early 1970s included heroin, cocaine and marijuana - ultimately ruled him out of FBI inquiries. Marilyn Monroe, Lucille Ball and Albert Einstein were also investigated as suspected Communists, according to the files, published for the first time. From the 1950s to the 1970s, the FBI kept many celebrities under close watch...

Edited By Barry A. Jeckell. September 16, 2005, 10:25 AM ET 'Lennon' Musical To Close On Broadway "Lennon," the musical about the life and music of John Lennon that earned dismal reviews, will close just six weeks after it opened on Broadway. Created with the help of the former Beatle's widow, Yoko Ono, the show had a troubled road to Broadway that involved major rewrites after it was first produced in San Francisco. Critics slammed it for what The New York Times called its "Ono-centric" view of Lennon's life, and audiences have dwindled since its Aug. 15 opening night, falling...

It doesn't look so good for the beleaguered Broadway musical about John Lennon. The eponymous titled show, which got scathing reviews after finally opening on Aug. 14, is limping along with few patrons. Last week, Lennon took in a measly $303,959 and played to less than a half full theater on most days. The box office was down about 14 percent from the previous week, and those numbers hadn’t been very encouraging either. Of course, “Lennon: The Musical” is a god-awful piece of work that portrays the late ex-Beatle with five actors. The show completely skips using any Beatles’ songs,...

Lennon on Live 8 A timely excerpt from David Sheff's September 1980 Playboy interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono. Sheff: Just to finish your favorite subject [the Beatles], what about the suggestion that the four of you put aside your personal feelings and regroup to give a mammoth concert for charity, some sort of giant benefit? Lennon: I don't want to have anything to do with benefits. I have been benefited to death. Sheff: Why? Lennon: Because they're always rip-offs. I haven't performed for personal gain since 1966, when the Beatles last performed. Every concert since then, Yoko and...