Wildfires, Drought Costing Russia $15 Billion. Russia's national emergency.

...A state of emergency (click title to entry - thank you) has been declared in seven of Russia's regions that have been hardest hit by peat-bog and forest fires. The fires spread from Russia's north to Central Russia, the Volga Region and the Caucasus. Forty people have been killed, while the survivors have lost their property and homes. But there are no wildlife losses statistics available now, and there may never be....

On the heels of a global financial crisis, the Climate Crisis doesn't make recovery any easier.


...A Russian business newspaper says early estimates show wildfires, drought and Moscow's two-month-long heat wave will cost the Russian economy at least $15 billion.
Kommersant said Tuesday this is about 1 percent of Russia's gross domestic product.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has suspended grain exports until the end of the year to keep domestic food prices from skyrocketing....


http://www1.voanews.com/english/news/europe/Report-WIldfires-Drought-Cost-Russia-15-Billion-100345539.html



Sunday, 15 February 2009

...Wildfires
Prof Field said the impact on temperatures is as yet unknown, but warming is likely to accelerate at a much faster pace and cause more environmental damage than had been predicted.
He says that a warming planet will dry out forests in tropical areas making them much more likely to suffer from wildfires.
The rising temperatures could also speed up the melting of the permafrost, vastly increasing the amount of carbon in the atmosphere, Prof Field warns.
"Without effective action, climate change is going to be larger and more difficult to deal with than we thought," he said.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7890988.stm



Putin puts out two wildfires in central Russia (update 1)

17:57 10/08/2010
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Tuesday took part in extinguishing forest fires in Ryazan Province on board an amphibious firefighting airplane.
The Russian head of government was the co-pilot for half an hour aboard a Be-200 plane scooping up water from the nearby Oka River and dumping it on raging forest fires some 200 kilometers southeast of Moscow.
He dumped approximately 12 tons of water on each of two fires, extinguishing both completely.
Putin initially sat in the cabin in front of a thermal imaging monitor together with Emergency Situations Minister Sergei Shoigu and Ryazan Governor Oleg Kovalev.
However, shortly after takeoff Putin suddenly entered the cockpit and sat in the co-pilot's seat....

http://en.rian.ru/russia/20100810/160145818.html



U.S. State Department warns against visiting Russia

02:39 11/08/2010

...The department recommended U.S. citizens to postpone travel to Russia because of acrid smog and numerous flight delays.
A scorching heat wave has gripped much of western Russia since mid-June, sparking wildfires and causing the worst drought in decades. More than 50 people died in the fires....

http://en.rian.ru/world/20100811/160150878.html

Representative 'Boner' states "We are broke.' He is a 'non-positionist.' He's slick and very slippery. He is always avoidant on any issue.

...House Minority Leader John Boehner (click title to entry - thank you) said Tuesday before voting on a bill to aid cash-strapped states that the states need to figure out their budget woes on their own.
“We are broke. We do not have the money to bail out the states. It’s time for them to get their arms around their own problems,” he told reporters....

The Minority Leader in the House is far less a leader as he is a dodger.  He states nothing but rhetoric.  ALLLLllllll the time !!!
 
Someday the House Minority might even decide to have a real leader, rather than one that is 'anchored' in their electorate without risk in Texas.  Pathetic.
 
Hoyer: I don't use same tanning salon as Boehner
 
August 10, 2010, 4:42 pm by Christina Wilkie
 
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) went on defense Tuesday, and took a swipe at his GOP counterpart, Minority Leader John Boehner (Ohio) in the process. The issue at hand? Who is tanner, and how they got that way.
Hoyer was speaking to MSNBC's Joe Scarborough, when Scarborough asked him why he wasn't as bronzed as Boehner is, even though it's summer.
"John Boehner has this remarkable tan at all times," said Scarborough. "Do you just not go out with the people as much in the streets as John Boehner?"
Hoyer, who has a very good relationship with Boehner, didn't miss a beat. "Well, I guess I just don't have the same salon that he has perhaps." Zing!


Hoyer's not alone. Making jokes about Boehner's seemingly impossible, year-round tan is a favorite topic in Washington.
President Obama has said Boehner is "a person of color."
Boehner attributes his tan to playing a lot of golf.

http://washingtonscene.thehill.com/in-the-know/36-news/5515-hoyer-i-dont-use-boehners-tanning-salon


"Avoidant" is a personality disorder, by the way.  You know I remember someone once telling me that TRUE politicians are actually suffering from Anti-Social Personality Disorder, because they lie so much.  The example at the time was Richard Nixon.

David Gregory tried his level best to try to get Mr. Boner to make a statement that actually addressed issues.  What did Mr. Boner do?  He avoided reality at all costs.  You have to wonder sometimes if he is capable of answering the call for any subject. 

At any rate, in desperation, Mr. Boner states there is 'funny accounting' in the government that causes runaway spending and an unhealthy economy.  Mr. Gregory wasn't prepared for the 'funny accounting' statement, who would be.  But, in all honesty, he should have asked Boehner to submit proof of the funny accounting as soon as his golf schedule allowed it.


MR. GREGORY: [Y]ou're not, you're not being responsive to a specific point, which is how can you be for cutting the deficit and also cutting taxes, as well, when they're not paid for?



REP. BOEHNER: Listen, you can't raise taxes in the middle of a weak economy without risking the double-dip in this recession. President Obama's favorite Republican economist, Mark Zandi, came out several weeks ago and made it clear that raising taxes at this point in, in the economy is a very bad idea.



MR. GREGORY: But do you agree that tax cuts cannot be paid for...




REP. BOEHNER: You cannot balance the budget without a...



MR. GREGORY: But tax cuts are not paid for, is that correct?



REP. BOEHNER: I am not for raising taxes on the American people in a soft economy.




MR. GREGORY: That's not the question, Leader Boehner. The question...




REP. BOEHNER: And the people that the president wants to tax...




MR. GREGORY: ...is, are tax cuts paid for or not?



REP. BOEHNER: Listen, what you're trying to do is get into this Washington game and their funny accounting over there. You cannot get the economy going again by raising taxes on those people who we expect to create jobs in America and to get the economy going again. If we want to solve the budget problem, we've got to have a healthy economy and we have to get our arms around the runaway spending that's going on in Washington, D.C.


http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2010/08/09/john-boehner-vs-funny-accounting/?xid=rss-topstories


So, Mr. Boner believes the country is too broke to support a child's education in the face of the Great Recession, but, has no answers regarding tax cuts. 
 
Avoidant.  It is.  It simply is. 
 
I suugest Mr. Gregory actually use his talent and program for issues that actually are discussed. 

So, the country is broke, BUT, not too broke to continue the tax cuts for the most wealthy in the country. 

Of course. 

Private school tuition is a tough one to cut from the budget.

Tne years after Alaskan Statehood, Ted Stevens became its Senator. He was never a 'native' Alaskan.

Ted and Catherine Stevens

There is no doubt the Late Senator Stevens moved Alaska into the status it finds itself today, however, he never moved the people of Alaska forward. 

The Stevens and the Murkowskis had captured Alaska and having seen it from territory to Statehood, they 'occupied' the power structure that resulted afterward. 

To say Stevens was ambitious is an understatement, but, his ambition existed as an opportunitis and not a Statemen.  He never moved native born Alaskans to lead their State's infrastructure.  It shows.

...Several days after Dwight Eisenhower's inauguration as president (click title to entry - thank you) in January 1953, the Alaska Republican Party Central Committee demanded that "all Democratic appointees [in Alaska]" resign their patronage jobs."‘ One of the Democratic appointees who did so was Robert McNealy, the U.S. attorney in Fairbanks, who submitted his resignation effective February 1." However, rather than accepting it, the newly appointed Eisenhower officials at the Department of Justice asked McNealy to stay on the job until the president appointed his replacement;" so Charles Clasby knew when he offered Stevens a job at Collins and Clasby that McNealy's position was vacant and would be filled by a Republican political appointee.
Winter passed into spring and then summer, and in July when his suc­cessor had not been named, McNealy notified Fairbanks District Court Judge Harry Pratt that August 15 would be his last day in office.
When McNealy departed, on August 31 Pratt named Ted Stevens to serve as U.S. attorney until the president appointed McNealy's replacement.
Stevens was a peculiar choice, since he had little to no trial or criminal law experience and, having arrived in Alaska less than six months earlier, was something of a carpetbagger. Who, if anyone, discussed Ted Stevens' appointment with Pratt before he made it is not known. What is known is that when the appointment was announced, a majority of the members of the Fairbanks Bar Association were outraged, but had no candidate for the permanent appointment until December when the association met and the members in attendance voted to support Carl Messenger, the legal officer at the nearby air force base.9' Two weeks later the Alaska Republican Party Committee for the Fourth Division (in which Fairbanks is located) also endorsed Messenger. But the decision on the permanent appointment would be made 3,500 miles to the east....



Victims in crash that killed Stevens identified
By RICHARD MAUER, LISA DEMER and KYLE HOPKINS


Anchorage Daily News
Published: August 10th, 2010 03:49 PM


Last Modified: August 10th, 2010 04:03 PM
Former U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens, a political icon who helped steer Alaska from its frontier territorial days to its modern present, was among five people killed in the crash of a lodge floatplane near Dillingham on Monday....

http://www.adn.com/2010/08/10/1404123/troopers-id-victims-of-crash-that.html

Has the USA offered aid to Russia during this CLIMATE event?

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin speaks with local residents who lost their homes to fire near Nizhny Novgorod. Photo: AFP

Russian Church collects $217,000 in aid for wildfire victims

The Russian Orthodox Church has collected 6.5 million rubles ($217,000) for those affected by wildfires, the Moscow Patriarchate said on its website Monday.
22:22 09/08/2010

Wildfires caused by an extreme heat wave are raging in 22 Russian regions. A total of 52 people died in the fires and 472 have received medical assistance. Over 1,900 houses have burned down, leaving 3,500 Russians without a roof over their heads.
The Church's Synodal department for charity and social services also invited volunteers to collect and distribute aid to those in need....

http://en.rian.ru/russia/20100809/160133678.html


Human influence on the warming of Earth has been recorded since the late 1800s.  The change in climate is directly due to the Climate Crisis that is human induced.


Climate change: how to play our hand?  (click title to entry - thank you)
There have always been extremes of weather around the world but evidence suggests human influence is changing the odds
Peter Stott
guardian.co.uk
Monday 9 August 2010 16.20 BST
 
Over the past week or so, Pakistan has been devastated by its worst floods for generations and Moscow has suffered under a blanket of smog after its hottest day in 130 years of records. What is causing these and other recent extreme weather events and are they linked to climate change?
Because of a rare meteorological pattern we can see a connection between extreme weather across Eurasia. Usually, the flow in the upper troposphere over northern India, the Himalayas and Pakistan is dominated by the monsoon anticyclone which pushes the sub-tropical jet to the north of the Tibetan Plateau. This prevents mid-latitude weather systems from penetrating very far south, unlike this year, when active weather systems have spread southwards into Pakistan. Here this has combined with the monsoon to produce record rainfall. The record-breaking high temperatures in Moscow, forest fires and damaged crops are another consequence, as was the excessive rain over China when the Three Gorges Dam almost reached capacity a few short weeks ago....





Another Russian nuclear facility threatened by wildfires
02:35 10/08/2010

Emergency regulations over the threat of spreading wildfires were enforced late on Monday in the town of Ozersk in the Chelyabinsk region, where one of Russia's largest nuclear-waste plants is located.
The Mayak plant, which makes tritium and radioisotopes from decommissioned weapons and waste from nuclear reactors, is about 80 kilometers (about 50 miles) from the town of Snezhinsk where a forest fire has recently threatened a major nuclear research center.
"The head of Ozersk administration has enforced emergency regulations in the forests and parks due to a serious wildfire threat," the local administration said in a statement....

http://en.rian.ru/russia/20100810/160135776.html

The tropical weather at Glacier Bay National Park in Alaska (Crystal Wind Chime) continues:

Lat/Lon :: 58.8° N 137.0° W

Elevation :: 33 feet

Local Time: 2:09 PM AKDT (GMT -08)

Temperature :: 61 Fahrenheit

Conditions :: Overcast

Humidity :: 72%

Dew Point :: 52 Fahrenheit

Wind :: 9 mph from the South Southeast

Pressure :: 29.97 inches (Rising)

Visibility :: 10.0 miles

UV :: 2 out of 16

Clouds :: Mostly Cloudy at 4100 feet


              Mostly Cloudy at 4600 feet


              Overcast at 6000 feet


               (Above ground level)




I suppose if I were God, I'd make myself known in an interesting way, too.

The calving of these large icebergs including the one in 1962 is directly related to The Climate Crisis.  The warming of Earth due to Human Induction started in the late 1800s.  It is hideous to continue to deny it!

Giant Glacier Breaks on Anniversary of Global Warming  (click title to entry - thank you)

'Analysis by Michael Reilly



Sun Aug 8, 2010 03:50 PM ET

On Thursday, scientists discovered that a huge mass of ice four times the size of Manhattan had broken free of Petermann glacier in northwestern Greenland. The "ice island" was the largest calving event on the glacier since 1962, and researchers estimated Petermann lost nearly a quarter of its floating ice tongue in one go....

...As it turns out, the new ice island was born just in time for the 35th anniversary of the scientific paper that coined the term "global warming." On August 8,1975, the journal Science published the article entitled "Are We on the Brink of a Pronounced Global Warming?" by Wallace Smith Broecker of Columbia University....

Whatever happened to the Geico Caveman? (click here for ring tones)

Geico replaced the Caveman with a Wacko Drill Sargent.  Let's hope the man in the chair for therapy isn't suffering from PTSD.

Bring the Caveman back, the Drill Sargent therapist is simply a 'bad idea.' 

Seriously.  A bit insensitive.

Since hearing from Castro that nuclear war is near, Dickie heads home to be near his fallout shelter.

Vice President Dick Cheney (click title to entry - thank you) was released from a Virginia hospital Monday a month after he underwent a heart procedure....

For real. 

Representative Maxine Waters cannot be held responsible for saving a bank during the 2008 global financial collapse.

The law that was passed to 'bailout' the banks exempted anyone form being procecuted or held responsible in any way.  That is why Goldman got away with a fine and nothing more.  This is just about as ludicrous as it gets !  One United is a minority enterprise and I am sure everyone involved was scrambling to save homes and minority owners from foreclosure, especially after the news from Countrywide.  The charges need to be dropped.

The House Ethics Committee (click title to entry - thank you) says that even as the Los Angeles Democrat was warned against interceding on behalf of a bank with ties to her husband, her chief of staff was 'actively involved' in helping OneUnited....

Castro is no joke. He knows the mind of his friend in North Korea.

The USS George Washington in Busan on July 27. The Pentagon said Thursday the carrier will be in a joint drill in the Yellow Sea. By Song Bong-geun

August 07, 2010

Ignoring China’s protests (clcik title to entry - thank you) about large-scale military maneuvers near its shores, U.S.-South Korea joint military exercises in the Yellow Sea in the next few months will include a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, the Pentagon said.
“The USS George Washington will exercise in the Yellow Sea, in the West Sea,” Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell told reporters in Washington Thursday, “but I don’t have for you yet dates when that exercise involving that aircraft carrier will take place.”
The U.S. Defense Department said future drills, designed to rebuke North Korea for the sinking of a South Korean warship in March, will take place on both sides of the peninsula. The first of the exercises took place from July 25 to 28 in the East Sea and the USS George Washington aircraft carrier took part....

The Chinese Navy has been showing increasing prowess in the Pacific.  It was a surprise to the USA.  In recent years, Russia has launched new nuclear submarines as well.  I hope this isn't going to end up being a major confrontation.  It might be very tempting for Asia to rid the world of any potential for "A Return of the Neocons." 


North Korea fires artillery rounds into the sea
The move comes a day after the North seized a South Korean fishing boat. Pyongyang had vowed to respond to South Korea's naval training exercises.
By John M. Glionna and Ethan Kim
Los Angeles Times
August 9, 2010
4:25 a.m.
Reporting from Yichang, China and Seoul — In a pointed example of escalating tensions on the Korean Peninsula, North Korea on Monday fired more than 100 rounds of artillery into the waters off its west coast, according to South Korea's Defense Ministry.
The move came one day after the North seized a South Korean fishing boat and its seven-man crew that officials claimed had violated North Korea's exclusive economic zone.
In recent days, North Korea had vowed "strong physical retaliation" in response to South Korea's launching last week of five days of naval training exercises near the disputed sea border between North and South. The exercises ended Monday....

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fgw-north-korea-artillery-20100810,0,4308176.story

"Morning Papers" - Its Origins

The Rooster

"Okeydoke"

The warnings of the Climate Crisis began with the industrial revolution and an concern of increased carbon dioxide levels.

Due to lower populations of human society and a consumerism that wasn't yet in full blossom, the idea of a 'warming gas' to the troposhere was dismissed as unimportant in the face of capitalism's wealth and philanthropy.

It would be later with the advent of cars and personal purchasing power and the exponential growth of consumerism that the reality would take a prominence as a scientific pursuit.  Even in 1960, there was a race to find the evidence and reverse the trend when scientists realize how long the growth of greenhouse gases had existed.

In the early 1960s, C.D. Keeling measured the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere: it was rising fast. Researchers began to take an interest, struggling to understand how the level of carbon dioxide had changed in the past, and how the level was influenced by chemical and biological forces. They found that the gas plays a crucial role in climate change, so that the rising level could gravely affect our future.

The pursuits of this alarming reality would be conducted on a short while when it became evident 'The Greenhouse Effect' would override Earth's ability to maintain life 'in the thin blue line.'  '

Keeling began the study which would result a decade later in the first "Earth Day" on April 22, 1970.  Below is Ron Cobb's Ecology Symbol.  And the race to stop deadly trends was launched with full vigor and still hangs in the balance today.

The moment in time when the world stopped spinning.

The manned program for NASA started with Project Mercury and Gemini and culminated in the Apollo Program which took the USA to the moon.

On May 5, 1961, astronaut Alan Shepard became the first American in space when he piloted Freedom 7 on a 15-minute suborbital flight. 

John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth on February 20, 1962 during the flight of Friendship 7.

The video below is a depiction of the events.  The video of the newscasts are accurate and people globally watched at whatever screens were available to them to witness the USA's Neil Armstrong as he stepped on the moon.

The USA Supreme Court would find "I am Curious" (Yellow) to be obscene.

The loop is an unpublished scene from "I am Curious" (Blue).  It is not obscene, but, reveals the passion of a young woman discovering the reality of life.  "I am Curious" (Yellow and Blue) were intended to be seen in one sitting for three and a half hours.  It is a Swedish film.  The 'sixties' were a time that could be coined as 'an awakening' from 'straight laced loyalty' to any form of 'conventional mind speak wisdom.'

In 1969, the film was banned in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts for being pornographic. However, after proceedings in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts (Karalexis v. Byrne, 306 F. Supp. 1363 (D. Mass. 1969)), the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and the Supreme Court of the United States (Byrne v. Karalexis, 396 U.S. 976 (1969) and 401 U.S. 216 (1971)), the Second Circuit found the movie not to be obscene.[3]

The statement about mental health was released in "One Flew Over a Cockoo's Nest

The rigidity of the 'medical society' was to change and mental institutions were to be scrutinized for mental cruelty and control.  It was the beginning of investigations such as Willowbrook.





The fascination begun in the 1960s continued from some time including the all popular "Rainman."

Published in 1963, "Where the Wild Things Are."

I was still reading it to my children in the 1980s.

The book was initially banned in libraries with negative reviews.  But two years later when children everywhere were demanding it and reading it the tide turned.









The book tells the story of Max, who one evening plays around his home making "mischief" in a wolf costume. As punishment, his mother sends him to bed without supper. In his room, a mysterious, wild forest and sea grows out of his imagination, and Max sails to the land of the Wild Things. The Wild Things are fearsome-looking monsters, but Max conquers them by "staring into all their yellow eyes without blinking once", and he is made "the king of all wild things", dancing with the monsters in a "wild rumpus". However, he soon finds himself lonely and homesick and he returns home to his bedroom where he finds his supper waiting for him still hot.

Media Scholar of the time was Herbert Marshall McLuhan

...Understanding Media, first published in 1964, focuses on the media effects that permeate society and culture, but McLuhan’s starting point is always the individual, because he defines media as technological extensions of the body. As a result, McLuhan often puts his inquiry and his conclusions in terms of the ratio between the physical senses (the extent to which we depend on them relative to each other) and the consequences of modifications to that ratio. This invariably entails a psychological dimension. Thus, the invention of the alphabet and the resulting intensification of the visual sense in the communication process gave sight priority over hearing, but the effect was so powerful that it went beyond communication through language to reshape literate society’s conception and use of space....


... McLuhan wrote with no knowledge of galvanic skin response technology, terminal node controllers, or the Apple Newton. He might not have been able even to imagine what a biomouse is. But he pointed the way to understanding all of these, not in themselves, but in their relation to each other, to older technologies, and above all in relation to ourselves—our bodies, our physical senses, our psychic balance. When he published Understanding Media in 1964, he was disturbed about mankind’s shuffling toward the twenty-first century in the shackles of nineteenth century perceptions. He might be no less disturbed today. And he would continue to issue the challenge that confronts the reader at every page of his writings to cast off those shackles.
—by Terrence Gordon, July, 2002


Marshall McLuhan



July 21, 1911-December 31, 1980
--------------------------------------------------------------------


Born Herbert Marshall McLuhan in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. McLuhan was a leading voice in the interdiscplinary field of media ecology. He coined the controversial phrases "the medium is the massage" and the "global village" to probe into the cultural shifts caused by the electronic revolution, focusing mainly upon TV. McLuhan held several degrees in English, including a PhD. He taught at several colleges and universities throughout Canada and the United States and was highly sought after by both religious and world leaders as well as major corporations for his insights. He was the receipient of many honorary Literary degrees and awards in Cutural and Communications studies. While he had many detractors, his influence is still recognized by media ecologists and in the formatting of popular reality TV shows today.
McLuhan married (elopement) Corinne Lewis naive of Fort Worth, Texas, in 1939. Together they had six children.

McLuhan's The Gutenberg Galaxy: (click here) The Making of Typographic Man (written in 1961, first published in Canada by University of Toronto Press in 1962) is a pioneering study of print culture, a pioneering study in cultural studies, and a pioneering study in media ecology.

The women of 'The Sixties' spanned the diversity of the country.

Maya Angelou  (click here)

"I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings"

The free bird leaps
on the back of the win
and floats downstream
till the current ends
and dips his wings
in the orange sun rays
and dares to claim the sky.



But a bird that stalks
down his narrow cage
can seldom see through
his bars of rage
his wings are clipped and
his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.


The caged bird sings
with fearful trill
of the things unknown
but longed for still
and is tune is heard
on the distant hillfor the caged bird
sings of freedom


The free bird thinks of another breeze
an the trade winds soft through the sighing trees
and the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright lawn
and he names the sky his own.


But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams
his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
his wings are clipped and his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing
 
The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.
 

 
Betty Friedan and "The Feminine Mysti (click here)
 





"The Equal Rights Amendment" 

Section 1. Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.



Section 2. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.


Section 3. This amendment shall take effect two years after the date of ratification.



The ERA was introduced into every session of Congress between 1923 and 1972, when it was passed and sent to the states for ratification. The seven-year time limit in the ERA's proposing clause was extended by Congress to June 30, 1982, but at the deadline, the ERA had been ratified by 35 states, leaving it three states short of the 38 required for ratification. It has been reintroduced into every Congress since that time.

"Imagine" by John Lennon

Imagine there's no Heaven

It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today


Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace


You may say that 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


Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world


You may say that I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one
 
This loop was performed in 1972.  It was released in 1971.

On 25 February 2009, the Supreme Court of the United States quoted the lyrics to the song in footnote 2 of Pleasant Grove City, Utah v. Summum, a case dealing with the messages of monuments:



What, for example, is "the message" of the Greco-Roman mosaic of the word "Imagine" that was donated to New York City’s Central Park in memory of John Lennon? See NYC Brief 18; App. to id., at A5. Some observers may "imagine" the musical contributions that John Lennon would have made if he had not been killed. Others may think of the lyrics of the Lennon song that obviously inspired the mosaic and may "imagine" a world without religion, countries, possessions, greed, or hunger.
 

...silence is betrayal...