Julian Lennon, the son of late Beatle John Lennon, is throwing his support behind childhood friend Lucy O'Donnell, -- the girl behind the Beatles tune 'Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds' -- who is suffering from the auto-immune disease lupus.

"I've been able to help out a bit," Lennon said of O'Donnell, now Lucy Vodden, 46, from Surrey, England. "I was so upset to hear what happened."

Julian Lennon met Lucy in nursery school, drew a picture of her with diamond-shaped eyes and showed his father, thus inspiring the song, which appeared on 1967's 'Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.' The song has long been the subject of speculation, however, with many maintaining that it's a reference to LSD. The Beatles have admitted to using the drug around that time.

Although Liverpool was John Lennon's birthplace, New York City could be considered the former Beatle's spiritual home. It was in New York where he spent his remaining years -- performing with Elton John in concert at Madison Square Garden, living at the famous Dakota building and recording the 'Double Fantasy' album -- up until his murder in 1980.

That memorable period of his life is now being celebrated with a new special exhibit: 'John Lennon: The New York City Years,' which opened at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Annex NYC. Created by Lennon's widow and collaborator, Yoko Ono, the exhibit contains lyrics, photographs, clothing and other items associated with Lennon and his time in the city.

Interestingly, the exhibit also features a bag of bloody clothing worn by the 40-year-old Lennon on the night he was fatally shot by Mark David Chapman. Ono said the bag, delivered from the medical examiner at New York's St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center, was "hard to include" but in the end was "important for people to see that, and for people to understand what violence is about."

"We're bigger than Jesus now." John Lennon's words -- spoken 43 years ago Wednesday, in an interview with the Evening Standard -- about the Beatles are among the most controversial in rock 'n' roll history.

"Christianity will go," he said. "It will vanish and shrink. I needn't argue with that; I'm right and I will be proved right. We're more popular than Jesus now; I don't know which will go first -- rock 'n' roll or Christianity. Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It's them twisting it that ruins it for me."

Between Mama Cass' ham sandwich and Courtney Love's hit on Kurt Cobain, there are plenty of bizarre rock 'n' roll myths abound. One man, however, has taken it to another level by trying to prove that author Stephen King was the gunman who killed John Lennon in 1980. Seriously.

Steve Lightfoot, who's been on the "case" for years, showed up at a Sarasota City Commission meeting in Florida last week to once again accuse King, who owns a house in nearby Casey Key. The California resident carried anti-King posters and took the floor during the public comment section to say the horror master is "the worst criminal the state of Florida has ever harbored." The bizarre rant lasted three minutes before the city's mayor had Lightfoot removed without incident amid the audience's laughter.

One of John Lennon's loudest political statements is being heard again 40 years after his initial protest. In 1969, as part of his call for peace, the Beatles icon returned his MBE (an insignia awarded for outstanding contribution to the British Empire) to Buckingham Palace with a note that read, "Your Majesty, I am returning my MBE as a protest against Britain's involvement in the Nigeria-Biafra thing, against our support of America in Vietnam and against 'Cold Turkey' slipping down the charts." He signed the note, "With Love, John Lennon."

Now, the insignia, assumed melted down or recycled according to the Times London, has been found in a vault along with the handwritten note. The MBE is at the Central Chancery of the Orders of Knighthood, in St James's Palace. Ironically, though long forgotten, a Palace spokesman says that's where it's held ever since its arrival there.

Although personal computers were still a few years off at the time of his death 28 years ago, John Lennon can now be seen in a new television campaign that supports "One Laptop per Child." Through the use of digital technology, Lennon posthumously supports an initiative to deliver tough, solar-powered XO laptop computers to the world's poorest children.

"Imagine every child, no matter where in the world they were, could access a universe of knowledge," says a voice and video image of Lennon. "They would have a chance to learn, to dream, to achieve anything they want." In a variation on the lyrics to his 1971 classic 'Imagine,' the digitized Lennon continues: "I tried to do it through my music, but now you can do it in a very different way. You can give a child a laptop, and more than imagine, you can change the world."

Lennon's widow, Yoko Ono, approved the public-service announcement, which began airing on Christmas Day. The commercial will be shown on donated broadcast and cable television time. The One Laptop per Child Foundation was founded in 2005 at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It started producing the XO laptop in late 2007 at a manufacturing cost of less than $200 per machine.

On This Date in 1968: 'Two Virgins,' an experimental album by John Lennon and Yoko Ono, is released. The LP is released in a brown paper bag, due to its controversial full-frontal-nude photo of the couple.

The Almanac Advises for November 11: "Many young couples have been enlisting in 'abstinence only' programs, in which they have sworn to remain celibate until marriage. The effectiveness of such programs is currently under debate."