Sometimes I have no idea what to write about in this space.  Most of the time an idea strikes me when I sit down and see the blank sheet of paper on my computer screen. Today I had a hundred thoughts but none of them would make a good blog on their own so here are one or two that I thought you may find interesting.

First The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power starts next week on Amazon Prime. If you are a Tolkien fan you have been aware of this and you are either anticipating the show with joy or dread. What amazes me is the number of people who have decided to give a negative opinion on a show they haven’t seen.  The show is based on the side stories that are told in The Lord of The Rings and its appendices. There is a lot of good material there and The Tolkien Estate and Trust are involved in the production. I think we are in for a treat. I will never understand how anyone can be judge and jury on something that no one has seen.

I also read this week that schools in Florida are beginning to ban books.  Banning books in any place is very frightening to me. This is behavior that occurred under Hitler in Germany. The government of Florida is not allowing the public to consume what our free press is producing. Now the first I read of this there was a list of books attached.  That list was revealed to be bogus. The correction was down to two known books The Diary of Anne Frank and The Bible. Banning either of these books from schools is just stupid. Most of our laws are based on Biblical principles. The Bible has played an important role in U.S. history and students should have access to it for that reason alone. The Diary of Ann Frank seems to be the desire to forget what happened to the Jewish people under Hitler. It used to be required reading and now it’s being banned. Something is dreadfully wrong here. I know it’s only in Florida at the moment but how long until this spreads to other states?

I also want to take a moment and discuss something that gets little press but is slowly becoming a national issue with both men and women and that is porn addiction. Porn addiction or sex addiction or as it is referred to clinically Compulsive Sexual Behavior Disorder is now something that is being taken very seriously by the medical and psychological community. Globally the porn industry takes in 97 billion dollars a year. This is an industry that everyone says they never look at but let’s face it more people do than don’t. Pornography is addictive because when you orgasm the same areas of the brain get stimulated as when a person uses heroin. Some people can use small amounts of heroin and not get addicted. Sex is the same. You can have a healthy sex life and not be an addict. Sex, however, when used inappropriately can lead to addiction and its consequences can be just as severe as abusing drugs or alcohol. The sex addict opens him or herself up to danger when they participate in anonymous encounters.  There is always the threat of venereal disease or AIDS. For those who use pornographic material the law of diminishing return applies.

The pornographic industry is very smart when it comes to marketing its product. You can go on the internet and get almost anything you want to see at no cost. The problem sets in when the free stuff fails to satisfy in the same way. At this point, you begin to look for something a bit more graphic or exotic, you may still find some for free but slowly it will become less and less and then you begin to pay. Once hooked on the paid sites people begin to spend more and more money sometimes up to six or seven dollars a minute to get what they crave. The industry has you hooked and an addict is born. This is the law of diminishing return and it works the same way with drugs and alcohol.

Of course, it doesn’t stop there. For many people when pornography fails to satisfy they find themselves craving live encounters and employ male and female prostitutes. All of this can turn into hundreds and thousands of dollars a year for just one person. There is however hope for the addict.

Sexaholic Anonymous has been around for years recognizing the problem before the medical community did. Other groups have recently sprung up as well recognizing that this problem is more common than anyone wants to admit. The biggest problem and parents take heed, is the porn shop we have in our house.

In the year when I was growing up buying pornography was embarrassing. If you bought it at all, you went to a store that was nowhere near where you lived. You secreted it into your house and hid it from prying eyes. Now porn is available instantly on your phone, tablet, laptop, and desktop computers. Anyone and everyone is just a few clicks away from images they are better off not looking at. And this is both men and women.  According to the U.K.’s Daily Record, one in four women are admitting to using pornography. That’s 25% of the female population. Men’s usage is in larger numbers but women are moving up.

The reason I am bringing this to your attention is that these things need to be talked about. People need to know that there is help and that they are not alone in this battle. If you are caught in porn’s grip you are just as many clicks away from finding help on the internet as you are from finding your next hit.

Random thoughts. The things that run around in my head that need a voice. I’m sure you have thoughts about some of the things I wrote about today or maybe some thoughts about another topic all together feel free to leave your own ‘random thoughts” in the comments.