Dish Network is the Ultimate Source for Information and Entertainment

Dish Network can be a great resource for your family for all of your entertainment and information needs. In fact, Dish Network specifically designs each of it's entertainment packages to have a balance of entertainment, news, and educational programming. This is true from Dish Network's economical Dish Family package all the way up to the Platinum Level High Definition Television package, and everywhere in between.

Most subscribers looking for the category of entertainment packages which fall in between will be most interested in Dish Network's America's Top Entertainment Packages, which come in sixty, one hundred twenty, and one hundred eighty channel versions. America's Top 60 Entertainment Package is a great introductory satellite TV plan that includes channels like The Weather Channel, MTV and MTV2, the Discovery Channel, the Sci-Fi Channel, ESPN, CNN, The Learning Channel, and many many more. America's Top 120 Entertainment Package builds on America's Top 60 with favorites such as Univision, BET, MSNBC, the Speed Channel, PAX TV, Fuse, Discovery Health, the FOX News Channel, and more. America's Top 180 Entertainment Package adds on Style, Great American Country, The Biography Channel, Discovery Home and Leisure, National Geographic, VH1 Classic, Nick Toons, and a whole slew of Encore movie channels.

If you and your family love movies, America's Everything Pak could easily be the perfect entertainment package for you. It has all one hundred and eighty channels from America's Top 180, but thirty additional channels that comprise the STARZ! Super Pak and Showtime Unlimited as well as HBO and Cinemax. America's Everything Pak is a great choice for the family who wants the best of everything and plenty of great movies and entertainment options without taking the High Definition Television plunge.

If you are ready to move up to High Definition Television, there's no better television service provider to do it with than Dish Network. Dish Network provides more High Definition channels than any other television service and provides a High Definition receiver at no extra charge when you sign up for an HD entertainment package. DishNetwork High Definition receivers can handle television in High Definition formats as well as standard definition format and come with all of the other great features you expect from a Dish Network receiver. Dish Network's High Definition entertainment packages start out at the Bronze level which offers twenty five HD channels (more than the competition at any level) and eighty standard definition channels. The Silver level provides the same twenty five High Definition channels, but with two hundred standard definition channels. The Gold level adds on High Definition channel- National Geographic HD- and forty more standard definition channels. The Platinum level keeps all two hundred and forty standard definition channels, but adds three more High Definition ones- STARZ! HDTV, HBO HD, and Showtime HD. In addition, local channels are often available in High Definition for a small extra fee.

Dish Network also provides additional programming to help you customize your entertainment package. Die hard sports fans will love regional sports networks as well as the ability to add seasonal sports subscriptions like MLB Extra Innings, ESPN Game Day, and NBA League Pass. Local channels are often available and are a great way to keep up with what's going on where you live as well as providing access to mainstream network programming. SIRIUS satellite radio gives you even more entertainment options as does Pay Per View. International programming in nineteen different languages provides even more options.

Whatever your entertainment and information needs, you can be sure that Dish Network can meet them.

Arts and Entertainment News from Hollywood North

Boys Come... Boy's Co.

"John Lennon & Yoko Ono Bed-In for Peace"

Ask any girl. Those rules were bent Friday night when I happened upon old flame David Goldman still going strong at his Boy's Co exclusive opening of "All We Are Saying" - a fashionable evening featuring the original photographs of "John Lennon & Yoko Ono's Bed-In for Peace" by the late photojournalist Gerry Deiter.

These extraordinary photographs, providing the backdrop for the theme of the evening, were on display through the sagacity of the Elliott Louis Gallery's owner Ted Lederer - who single-handedly dragged them out of Deiter's vault for a first-time showing on May 26, 2004 - thirty-five years after John Lennon and Yoko Ono went to bed in a suite in Montreal's Queen Elizabeth Hotel, and invited the entire world to join them in seeking an alternative to violence and war in solving global political and social problems.

May 26, 1969. That month the battle of Dong Ap Bia, a.k.a. Hamburger Hill was exploding in the Vietnam War. Race riots occurred in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. French Foreign Legion paratroopers landed in Kolwezi, Zaire, to rescue Europeans caught in the middle of a civil war. U.S. National Guard helicopters sprayed skin-stinging powder on anti-war protesters in California. It was two years after the Summer of Love.

John and Yoko were in room 1742 of the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal. Early in the Bed-In, a reporter asked John what he was trying to do. John said, "All we are saying is give peace a chance." Putting sounds to the thought, he rented an 8-track tape machine from a local music store and, on May 31 while in bed, recorded the first solo by a single Beatle," Give Peace a Chance", - the recording was attended by dozens of journalists and various celebrities, including Timothy Leary, Petula Clark, Dick Gregory and Canada's Tommy Smothers.

Gerry Deiter was there for the entire eight days. He was assigned to photograph the Bed-In for Peace by Life Magazine but Life never ran the feature. Ironically, it fell victim to a bigger story - the death of Ho Chi Minh, leader of North Vietnam.

Deiter kept the negatives and transparencies locked away for more than 30 years. He had been living aboard a classic wooden motor yacht cruising the wilderness of the British Columbia coast photographing and writing when Ted Lederer, with the help of family and friends, prevailed on him to bring this archive to life and offer the work to the public at the Elliott Louis Gallery in 2004. This amazing work offers up 25 images in colour and black and white that celebrate John and Yoko's example of peace and love.

What brought the Boy's Co show together were Goldman and Lederer meeting up on the field where their sons play soccer. It was a confluence that allowed for a new generation to have a special glimpse of an older one.

Disenchanted fan, Mark David Chapman, murdered Lennon on December 8, 1980. The world is still at war. This retrospective clearly speaks to Lennon's prescience.

Good on Deiter, Goldman and Lederer for keeping his mission in our faces.

Devorah Macdonald is a freelance writer living and working in Vancouver, British Columbia. Her professional career began as a disc jockey in California, Seattle and her hometown of Vancouver BC.
Vancouver Magazine, in an article titled ‘Video Vixen’, hailed her as having “the best female voice in radio locally,” going on to compare her world-weary delivery with Linda Ellerbee, formerly of the ‘Today Show’ and the award winning ‘Nick News’.
A ten-year retirement devoted to creating three children, “one of each,” according to Macdonald, now allows time write on music, movies and television.

Entertainment News - May-December Couples

This is one equation that has always baffled the race that took domination after the dinosaurs died. When you flip through entertainment news channels, you come across many couples who have a good number of years between their birth years. A couple of famous examples would be Katie Holmes-Tom Cruise and Demi Moore-Ashton Kutcher. These couples are known in the celebrity gossip circles. They are also known as couples who have a yawning age gap. There is no strain on their relationship because of the age gap, but readers of celeb gossip columns sometimes wonder aloud why a man falls for a woman much younger in age and vice versa. The answer, though not definite, is out there somewhere. Let's look at some possibilities.

A younger person is generally happier. This appeals to the older partner. Entertainment news columns are awash with such stories. A younger person feels excited about life, sees the positive aspect of things and is more forthcoming about hope in the future. The older generation, which tends to be cynical about things, takes a liking to this attitude. They feel drawn more by the vitality and life force in the person than the personality of the person. It's like living life anew through someone. Of course, the older man who dates a girl much younger to him finds himself at the receiving end of extensive celeb gossip coverage. But some things in life are worth, they are heard saying!

Younger people make you feel smarter. Ask any celebrity who features on entertainment sites on a regular basis and you will know that the older partner feels more responsible, more protective and more involved when dating a young partner. There is always this factor of having things to teach your partner. Because the older person is more experience in the ways of life, he or she is in a more capable position of handling the relationship with maturity and concern. The limelight shed by celebrity gossip sites and portals are something to deal with as well. Keeping a balance in the relationship, despite the continued media glare, is one such issue.

Then there are those entertainment news junkies who date a celebrity just to get in the celebrity gossip circles. They have no intention of taking the relationship to a more serious level. They are casual about life and take things as they come. In that case, it becomes easier to connect with a younger celebrity because he or she is not accustomed to the machinations of these media whores. The younger succumbs to the charms of the older. But such relationships are not stable. Before long you will come across break-up alerts on the celeb gossip sites, ringing the death knell of the relationship. But all is not bad and bleak. There are some who fall for the innocent charms that the young have embedded on their faces. There is no greater lure than an innocent face and a sharp mind! It's all about chemistry and some May-December couples have oodles of that!