Tag: music

A Young John Lennon!

UK: Gimme Some Truth – an Interesting John Lennon Album, Documentary & Documents! (25.8.2026)

This is why I admire the genius-structure of “Taxman” – but thoroughly reject the underlying selfishness that informed its production. As for ideology – The Beatles were all over the place. I think “money” was their god – and the transcending freedom this gave them from the cycle manual labour, paying bills, and being in debt – enabled them to take drugs, reads books and explore different realities – realities not normally open to the British workers of the day. John Lennon was did flirt with Maoism (and had an affair with his “Chinese” Secretary) – and they all wore Lenin-type hats from time to time (I do not think Lennon knew anything about Maoism). But this does not amount to Revolutionary action. According to the US government – Lennon was a “Trotskyite” – but I doubt his ideological development had progressed to him taking sides in the unfolding of the Soviet Revolution. He once said the the Socialist had messed-up the world as much as the capitalists – and this was to a group of UK students! Perhaps we expect too much from our millionaires as the game they play is designed to enrich and then move privilege away from the path of Revolution (keeping them firmly ensconced within reaction).

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PrOP-M - Soviet Rover - 1971

USSR: The 1971 Mars 2 & Mars 3 Missions – Carried the 1st Soviet-Made “Mars Rovers” [PrOP-M]! (18.8.2026)

The USSR and Eastern Europe had been devastated by Hitler during WWII with the Soviets suffering 41 million (killed and wounded) casualties whilst large swathes of the Western USSR was materially devastated. Leningrad, of course, was reduced to starvation by the Nazi blockade (rather like what Trump II is attempting to do to Cuba). Despite suffering that material and psychological devastation – within a few short years of reconstruction directed by Joseph Stalin – the country was able to regroup and direct its resources toward space exploration, a process which sent shockwaves throughout the world of the US, a place which had suffered no material or economic damage during WWII. Make no mistake about, although Stalin passed away in 1953 – everything that unfolded in the USSR from a technological position – manifested from the groundwork laid by Stalin between 1945-1953. This dialectical preparation sustained the country for decades despites its leaders betraying Stalin and taking the country in a Counter-Revolutionary direction. Indeed, the Mars 2 and Mars 3 Soviet fact-finding missions to Mars in 1971 both carried a version of the world’s first “rover” designed to explore the area immediately surrounding the lander (or “Mars Station”). This “Device Assessing [through] Cross-Country Capability-Mars” [Прибор оценки проходимости-Марс – Pribor otsenki prokhodimosti-Mars] or “ПрОП-М” [PrOP-M] was attached to the lander via a 15 metre tethering cable (similar to the first-generation remote controls attached to TV sets and video recorders).

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Medical staff use brain-computer interface equipment to conduct rehabilitation training for a patient at the Third Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, south China's Guangdong Province. (Photo: The Third Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University)

China: Guangzhou Hospital Launches Art & Humanities Healing Centre! (12.8.2026)

Nurses conduct nutrition education sessions using food models, translating complex dietary requirements into practical daily choices through individualized guidance.

“Medicine is shifting from a disease-centred approach to a health-centred one. In the AI era, humanistic care should run through the entire patient journey, from hospital admission to returning home,” said Wu Jinghong, Party secretary of the hospital and director of the healing centre.

The centre also plans to address the mental health needs of healthcare workers through art-based activities, psychological support and stress relief programmes.

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Asteryth Sloane - Maestro

UK: Xia Leon [Asteryth] Sloane – “Award-Winning” British Composer Dies at 26! (24.7.2026)

I’m a person-centred therapist with particular interest and experience in working with survivors of abuse and complex trauma. I believe that therapeutic work is revolutionary in the ways it can go against the grain of the violence and brutality of past and present experiences in both personal and global contexts. As a queer, autistic, blind person, it’s especially important to me to hold curious, authentic, and anti-oppressive spaces for all who come to my practice.

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Slave Master on his Throne

US: What Where the Black & White Minstrels? (2.7.2026)

From the 1940s onward, a progressive trend in Minstreling permitted real black men to participate on stage – often along side white actresses. It must be born in mind that plantations existed well into the early 20th century. Slaves cannot help being uneducated because that is the state that the slave-master demands (knowing less is believed to make a person more easily controllable). On stage, the “interlocuter” would sit on a central throne and control the entire show. He is in fact the “slave-master” – and his slaves sit all around him – like obedient soldiers. Why the seats? Well, the “crackers” – the white security guards with whips (stood in the aisles) – preferred that the slaves be seated (and in one place for as long as possible) until it was their turn to perform. These crackers, although hidden, probably numbered as high as the performers just in case the slave-master (or his white assistants) were attacked at any point in the show. When blacked-up white men took the place of the slaves, the risk of attack disappeared, but the organisation used to control the slaves was retained on stage as an important feature of the entertainment itself. It is interesting to consider that popular music, in all its genres, is believed to have evolved out of the Minstreling tradition.

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Dad Waving in Torbay!

UK: Remembering the “White Wizard” of Torbay! (14.6.2026)

I think that if religions gave-up their ridiculous claims to exclusivity – then the method of “looking within” could become a legitimate part of understanding the material world (albeit “subjectively”) and take its place alongside “objective” science. As matters stand, religious development tends to be unregulated and more or less ad hoc in its ability to produce legitimately transcendent beings. Such a being would declare the path he followed to be obsolete as he emerges thoroughly enlightened. Today, religions make stupid claims of non-existent (exclusive) knowledge – and limit their practitioners to religious dogma. It is for this reason of general ignorance and their siding with capitalism that Marxist-Leninism has a bleak view of religions in general. If religions truly abandoned the physical world they inhabit – then capitalism would be left firmly behind. Greed cannot be encouraged at source when transcendence demands a complete break with all fetters that would bind the practitioner to the mundane. The truly transcendent amongst us quietly disentangle their minds from the tortures of the physical world and humbly “ascend”. They do not do it for fame, money, or recognition. Indeed, for us mere mortals, we will be lucky if we receive an emancipating wave from them!

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