Dead at 27

Amy Winehouse was discovered dead. Even though at the time of this writing (July 24, 2011) the cause of death has not been determined, it is fair to conclude with her history of drug and alcohol abuse that it may have been a contributing cause. Amy Winehouse was 27.

The age of 27 and the death of music stars seem to be a common occurrence.

It was on July 3, 1969 that one of the founding members of the Rolling Stones, guitarist Brian Jones, was found dead in his swimming pool. Not only was Jones one of the founding members of the Stones he was the group’s original leader. But with Mick Jagger and Keith Richards as the song writing team, they emerged as the lead men. Jones developed a substance abuse problem. As a result of a number of drug arrests, he was asked to leave the group on June 8, 1969. This was less than a month before his death at the age of 27.

Woodstock would become the culture event of 1969 a month after the death of Brian Jones and two of the biggest Woodstock performers would die before the end of 1970. Jimi Hendrex would die on September 18th and Janis Joplin would die a couple weeks later on October 4. Both were 27 at the time of their deaths.

1970 ended with the death of two rising stars and another would die in 1971. The Doors was at the height of their career and even obscenity charges against singer Jim Morrision wasn’t affecting their image. In fact it may have been helping to enhance the image of Bad Boy Rock and Roll. However, while in Paris he would die of unknown causes on July 3, 1971. Since his cause of death was ruled by the the medical examiner to have no evidence of foul play an autopsy was not performed. Yes, he too was 27.

And still another would die at the age of 27. Nirvana’s lead singer and guitarist, Kurt Cobain, should have been on the top of the world. The group was riding high but drug use along with professional and personal pressure must have been more than he could handle. He would die of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound on March 18, 1994 joining those who had died at the young age of 27.

Note: Also published at 6 Things To Consider – 6ThingsToConsider.com

Revolutionary Blogs

A thought just came to mind.

Would the leaders and others that lived during the era of the American Revolution blog?

Upon further thought it occurred to me that they did. Only they called it writing letters.

Happy Independence Day

Two Hundred and Thirty Five years ago on July 4, 1776, and two days after voting for independence, brave men sweltered in the heat of Philadelphia to hammered out and approve the document that declared to the world the reason that they felt that the United States should be a free and independent nation.

It’s time to read the document and encourage our leaders to to the same.

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. –Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the state remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.

He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.

He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislature.

He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states:

For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing taxes on us without our consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury:

For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses:

For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule in these colonies:

For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments:

For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow citizens taken captive on the high seas to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare, is undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms: our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have we been wanting in attention to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.

We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.

New Hampshire: Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton

Massachusetts: John Hancock, Samual Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island: Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery

Connecticut: Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott

New York: William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris

New Jersey: Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark

Pennsylvania: Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross

Delaware: Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean

Maryland: Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia: George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton

North Carolina: William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn

South Carolina: Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton

Georgia: Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton

The Big Man Dies

Clarence Clemons, saxophonist for Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, dies from complications from a recent stroke.

Full story is at: http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2011/06/18/report-e-street-band-saxophonist-clarence-clemons-dies/

He was a man who was clearly made to play on the stage and for most of the past 40 years has been with Bruce and his stage (as well as recording band). Watching a Springsteen concert will not be the same for many without him.

May he Rest and Peace and forever be remembered.

Bullying Behavior and Sleep

Here’s an interesting thought?

Does lack of sleep increase Bully Behavior.

Apparently according to a research projects as reported at UPI it does.

But doesn’t it make sense. How do you feel when you don’t get enough sleep. I know that when I need sleep I get to the point that I snap at people without realizing it. And sometimes more demanding of those around me. And less understanding.