Chapman: All he needs is love

Myles Brand and Kent Harvey are near the top of the "People I really don't want to be this week" list. But both pale in comparison to number one ' our humanitarian friend Mark David Chapman.\nFor those who have been living under a rock for the past 20 years, Chapman is one of the finest specimens of human being ever to grace our planet. In 1980, a disillusioned Chapman gunned down singer John Lennon outside of Lennon's New York apartment, killing any remaining fragments of the hippie dream that weren't washed away by cocaine, punk rock or John Travolta.\nJust weeks before Christmas, the Lennon murder threw a shocked nation into a tumultuous grieving process. And beyond killing one of the most loving and peaceful public figures of the 20th century, Chapman also killed any chance there would ever be a Beatles reunion.\nThe State of New York announced last week that Chapman is up for parole next month. While the state refused to comment on whether he might be released, stating they look at each individual on a case-by-case basis, Chapman has repeatedly pledged his sorrow and confirmed his transformation with a perfect prison record in an already-crowded New York prison system.\nIn other words, if the inmates get Chapman a going-away present, it had better be a really good pair of running shoes.\nI can picture the scenario already. On the day of his release, hordes of Beatles fans will surround all walls of the prison, armed to the teeth with guns, rocks, broomsticks and any other contraption they can come up with. At the hour of his release, a nervous group of prison guards, hoping to make it home to their children that evening, will crack open the gate and throw Chapman out on his ass, immediately locking the door behind him.\nAlthough details are sketchy after that point, I do believe the rest of the story involves repeated cries of pain and a media feeding frenzy. All this with "All You Need Is Love" blasting from the speakers of a nearby SUV.\nFate is not without a twist of irony. Here is the man who single-handedly crushed the few remaining hopes that we might live in a peaceful world where everybody loves one another. And now the former flower children, long disillusioned of their peace and love ideals, are going to make him bleed.\nSo a word of advice to Chapman: When the parole board asks if you are rehabilitated, you'd better rant about genocide. It'll be the only thing that might save your life.