FESTIVAL OF BOOKS

I am glad that the economy hasn't claimed the life of the UCLA Festival of Books annual tradition.

Always hosted in the middle of April, this year the gala will take place on April 25 & 26 on the college campus of UCLA. If you've never been to the Festival it's a must do - even if you don't read books! Take your son, daughter, niece, nephew or significant
other, you are certain to have a blast!

This year they are promising:

140,000 attendees
450+ authors
300+ exhibitors
900+ volunteers
100+ author panels
6 outdoor stages
2 children’s areas

I haven't been in at least three years so I can't wait to attend it this year. Anyone want to rent their kids out to me for a few hours?

CYBERSOCKET MEETS LA TIMES... FINALLY

I am guilty of not deeply reading everyones profile or checking all of my friends pictures on Facebook. Not only is it almost impossible to keep up-to-date with all the postings and pictures that are updated daily -sometimes every other minute.
Last night my friend Rossmar posted a random story *or so I thought* about porn in the Los Angeles area. "I'll get to it and breeze over the article to see what it says.... eventually," I thought to myself. Fast forward 12 hours and I have a few minutes before I step out for my morning coffee. I open the article and am shocked that the story wasn't SPAMMED, being sent to 20 of his closest friends *not that Rossmar does this but it's a common occurrence on Facebook and MySpace. I was also shocked that my former place of employment, Cybersocket, was mentioned in the article... totally crazy.

The article is written by popular columnist Steve Lopez and of course has his old-fashioned humor and interjections, keeping the story light-hearted, yet informative.

Click here to read the story: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-lopez22-2009feb22,0,4761196,full.column

GAYS SUCKS... OR SO THIS ARTICLE SAYS!

The following article pulls at my heart strings but at the same time gives me a resurgence of urgency and activism. Why? Because it reminds me that we don't live in a bubble, people still think we are immoral deviants and shouldn't be treated to the same rights as everyone else. Read the article below and let me know your thoughts...

Homosexuals Missing a Lot of Points

Posted by Jason Cunningham on Tuesday, January 06, 2009 3:19:40 PM

The furor over the passage of Prop 8 having abated somewhat, Scott Boardman of Monrovia feels that there just aren't enough pro-homosexual rallies taking place anymore, and he plans to do something about it. Fine; go ahead and exercise your right to waste your time -- for only in America are we affluent enough to be able to put serious effort into legitimizing perversion.

And speaking of rights, one of Boardman's supporters, the Rev. (and I use that term loosely) Susan Russell of All-Saints Episcopal Church, said recently: "The United States is founded on values of freedom of religion and from religion." Actually, "reverend," "freedom from religion" is nothing but a fanciful idea dreamed up by atheists and the ACLU (the Anti-Christian-Liberties Union). Like "separation of church and state," it's a phrase found nowhere in our nation's founding documents. Besides that, no one can be free from religion; even if you don't subscribe to an "organized" religion, you subscribe to whatever unorganized hodge-podge you decide upon throughout the course of your life. In other words, you believe something, and whatever it is you believe, that is your religion.

Russell goes on to say: "All-Saints is part of a national group that believes God's laws include everyone and that the United States Constitution provides protection for everyone." Well, duh. Of course the Constitution applies equally to everyone -- that is, it guarantees everyone's civil (a.k.a. political) rights -- the right to vote, to petition government, to peacably assemble, etc. But since marriage has nothing to do with any of these things, it can't be considered a civil (political) right. (Ditto with abortion.)

And it's funny that Russell speaks of God's laws applying to everyone, because she glaringly fails to encourage obedience to one of His fundamental teachings: that He designed marriage as a particular thing, to the exclusion of all other things, as a way of demonstrating to us the differences and similarities between Himself and humans, and His desire (despite our differences) for intimacy with us. Russell, I'm sure, bases her position, at least in part, on the twisted, homosexual-friendly definition of "equality," wherein any two consenting adults should be able to do whatever they want (then why not three, or 10?), and according to which there are no differences between males and females (then why do so many lesbians come off as being men, and so many homosexual men come off as being women?). At any rate, true equality doesn't mean equal results; it means having equal protection of our basic civil (political) rights, and we all have that (last I checked, homosexuals weren't being denied the right to vote, weren't being segregated and weren't being knocked over with firehoses). Beyond these "off-limits" items, society is ours (meaning everyone's) to shape as we will; you can disagree with any of the decisions, but a decision not in your favor doesn't mean that your basic rights have been violated.

Homosexuals and their advocates need to understand that sexual practices comprise a difference case than skin color: Even if sexuality (like skin color) is an inherent genetic characteristic, it is nonetheless (unlike skin color) a question of morality, and for many of us, the practice of homosexuality constitutes a perversion, a deviation from what God intended. For us, therefore, it's not a question of accepting someone who is different in a benign way; instead, you're asking us to agree with and approve of a behavior that we find immoral.