ROCK interviewed by American Family Radio

ROCK Director of Policy and Operations MaryAnn Gramig will appear today on American Family Radio to discuss the impact of last week’s victorious Kentucky Supreme Court decision that citizens in Louisville have a constitutional right to protect their families and community from harms associatated with the presence of the sex industry.  Public officials across the nation regard the Louisville ordinance as a template of how to pass similar protective measures for their own towns and cities. 

ROCK has been involved in this case that has spanned the past six years and has stood up on behalf of Louisville citizens at every level of the battle.  The segment will be on American Family Radio stations across the country today and will also be released online at http://www.onenewsnow.com/Legal/Default.aspx?id=991190 where you can listen to Mrs. Gramig comment on this landmark victory and how when citizens stand together they can effect positive and lasting change.

How to combat porn spam

ROCK recently received an email from a grandparent who had received porn spam and was looking for a way to protect her young grandsons who use her computer.  We appreciated the reach out because it takes all of us doing our part to stand for decency in our homes and communities.  ROCK has several tips available our website. 

First, report porn spam (or any spam) to your Internet Service Provider.  This action will alert your ISP that they should block the address from sending future emails. 

Second, you can file a complaint with obscenity crimes, which will generate a letter to your federal prosecutor.  If you suspect that the email or link contains child pornography please take the additional step of reporting the link to the National Center of Mission and Exploited Children. 

Lastly, even with filtering software, many times an email linked can still be accessed because the filter is looking for key words in the url so that it can identify and block porn sites.  That is why ROCK recommends SEE NO EVIL, a program that allows only websites that you approve, empowering you to control what comes into your home.  It’s particularly helpful with protecting the children in your home. 

For more information, please visit our website or contact our office at (502) 297-9892 or info@myrocktoday.org.

ROCK President interviewed about recent court victory!

ROCK President Bryan Wickens was interviewed by Focus on the Family’s Family News in Focus about the impact of last week’s Kentucky Supreme Court decision that citizens in Louisville have a constitutional right to protect their community from the sex industry. The segment was on radio stations across the country yesterday. You can listen to it here.

sec and pornography – how it impacts you

Last week the Securities and Exchange Commission released a report on its investigation that has set off a buzz across the nation.  In a federal agency which bears the responsibility of oversight on the country’s financial institutions, more than 30 employees, more than half of which were paid salaries between $100,000 and $225,000, were viewing porn on the taxpayers’ dime.   Here’s a sampling of the news reports:

ABCNews.com – How Big is the SEC’s Porn Problem?   “So what was the Securities and Exchange Commission doing while the economy fell to pieces?”

ABCNews.com – SEC Pornography Problem: Employees Spent Hours Surfing Porn Sites  “These guys in the middle of a financial crisis are spending their time looking at prurient material on the Internet,” said Peter Morici, a professor at the University of Maryland and former director of the Office of Economics at the U.S. International Trade Commission.  “It’s reckless, and indicates a contempt for the taxpayer and the taxpayer’s interest in monitoring financial markets,” Morici said.

ABCNews.com - SEC and Pornography: Workers Spent Hours on Porn Sites Instead of Stopping Fraud  The Securities and Exchange Commission is supposed to be the sheriff of the financial industry, looking for financial crimes like Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme. But the new report, obtained by ABC News, says senior employees of the SEC spent hours on the commission’s computers looking at (porn).

The Washington Times – SEC porn peekers at work confess  “I think it was just arrogance and ignorance on my part,” one worker said. “You know, I mean … I didn’t intend to hurt anybody.

CNN – Report: SEC staffers watched porn as economy crashed As the country was sinking into its worst financial crisis in more than 70 years, Security and Exchange Commission employees and contractors cruised porn sites and viewed sexually explicit pictures using government computers, according to an agency report obtained by CNN.

MSNBC.com – SEC employees surfed porn as economy fell One senior attorney spent up to 8 hours a day downloading porn. 

Concerned Women of America - Getting paid by taxpayers to watch porn  While the United Stated was spiraling into a recession, high-ranking government employees were really enjoying their work—they got to watch pornography all day on their work computers at the expense of American taxpayers. Now all of those other scandals regarding lack of oversight and enforcement at the SEC make a lot more sense. 

Pornography isn’t private – its negative impact is felt by families, communities and our nation. 

the movie that made roger ebert a conservative

I used to thoroughly enjoy Roger Ebert’s movie reviews, back before he added “angry liberal” to his job title. Still, his impact on the film industry and the popular culture is undeniable; what other name do you think of when you hear the phrase “film critic”? A favorable blurb from Roger Ebert remains a highly prized addition to any movie poster.

Just because I admire his writing skill and knowledge of cinema doesn’t mean that I always agree with him, though. Like many of the Hollywood elite, Ebert often confuses degeneracy with “edginess” or mislabels pretentiousness as “artistry.” So I took notice when I saw his negative review of a film that opened this weekend. The film, whose very title removes it from G-rated consideration, is being lavished with praise from almost every other internet and print critic. The plot involves a group of ordinary people who decide to put on costumes and fight crime. Sounds like just another comic book movie, right? The devil’s in the details. In this movie, the “heroes” are a group of teens and a twelve year-old girl (eleven when she filmed it) who wallow in very R-rated profanity and blood-soaked violence from beginning to end.

Just read the following passages from Ebert’s review: “A movie camera makes a record of whatever is placed in front of it, and in this case, it shows deadly carnage dished out by an 11-year-old girl, after which an adult man brutally hammers her to within an inch of her life. Blood everywhere. Now tell me all about the context.” And later: “Big Daddy and Mindy never have a chat about, you know, stuff like how when you kill people, they are really dead. This movie regards human beings like video-game targets. Kill one, and you score. They’re dead, you win.” He also makes valid points about the appeal of the plot and clever marketing to children who have even less business seeing this junk than grownups—just wait until the DVD goes viral at your kids’ middle school this fall.

If I didn’t know any better, I’d almost think Ebert was writing for Plugged In Online (whose review you can read here. Be advised it goes into painful detail). Make no mistake, I find the existence of the film (and its effusive critical reaction) mildly depressing. Yet perhaps this potential teachable moment will serve as a wake-up call. In its mad dash to the bottom of the depravity barrel, Hollywood seems to have outraced one of its most powerful champions of violence-as-art. Even Roger Ebert gets it: There are certain lines you do not cross with children.

My hope is that discerning moviegoers vote with their feet and stay away in droves this weekend, but I’m not holding my breath. I mean, it’s kids in costumes fighting bad guys. Everybody loves a good comic-book movie, right?

the faces behind Chick-fil-a Desire to Inspire Dinner Series benefiting ROCK

Laurie (pictured) and Bryan Haag own the Chick-fil-a on Veteran’s Parkway in Clarksville, Ind.  Find out more about their vision for their business, the community and their purpose of designing the Desire to Inspire Dinner Series benefiting ROCK on their recently launched blog. 

It’s not often you see these two in front of the camera!  Bruce and Julie Morris of Morris Images are good friends of ROCK and also the Haags, and have generously given their time and talent and ideas to Desire to Inspire Dinner Series with Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy.

Thank you, Bryan and Laurie Haag and Bruce and Julie Morris, for your work to impact our community!  ROCK looks forward to a fantastic event next Thursday, April 22!  Tickets are still available at itickets.com, Chick-fil-a (Clarksville, Ind. location), Coffee Crossing and Lifeway.

world magazine: counting the costs

World magazine reports on a recent Witherspoon Institute study on pornography called “The Social Costs of Pornography.”   ROCK President Bryan Wickens went to D.C. to stand with national pro-family organizations for the release of the study.  World magazine reports what one of the many experts said:

Mary Anne Layden, director of the Sexual Trauma and Psychopathology Program at the University of Pennsylvania, noted that the overall body of research indicates that the realistic and accessible nature of internet pornography can lead to addiction that is so severe that users lose their marriages, families, and jobs.

With regard to porn’s impact on children, Layden pointed out, “There is evidence that the prevalence of pornography in the lives of many children and adolescents is far more significant than most adults realize, that pornography is deforming the healthy sexual development of these young viewers, and that it is used to exploit children and adolescents.” 

To read the entire article, please click here.

Thanks to our volunteers!

Our staff was suprised today by good friends and ROCK supporters who brought and served lunch! It was very tasty and much appreciated! We are thankful for all of our supporters who invest their time and resources into ROCK and our mission of building stronger communities and families.

Chick-fil-a Desire to Inspire Dinner Series with Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy benefits ROCK!

Chick-fil-a and ROCK (and our good friends from Morris Images) are finalizing the last details for Desire to Inspire Dinner Series benefiting ROCK with Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy!  The event is just a couple of weeks away on Thursday, April 22 at 7:30 p.m. at Northside Christian Church in New Albany, Ind.  We still have Premium Experience tickets availabe with a special dinner at 5:30 p.m.  Contact the ROCK office for more information at 502-297-9892 or rloy@myrocktoday.org. 

You can get general admission tickets online by clicking here or stop by :

• Chick-fil-a on Veteran’s Parkway in Clarksville, Ind.
• Coffee Crossing on Charlestown Road in New Albany, Ind.
• Heaven Help Us Christian Bookstore on Blackiston Mill Road in New Albany, Ind.
• Lifeway Bookstore on Hurstbourne in Louisville, Kentucky

That’s a wrap!

ROCK spent a few hours yesterday with our good friends at Audiacom shooting video for upcoming April events – Chick-fil-a Desire to Inspire Dinner Series Benefiting ROCK and a brunch for Key Faith Leaders in Kentucky with Dr. Mohler and Archbishop Joseph Kurtz.  We appreciate the professionalism of Audiacom’s Ryan and Johnny, but more importantly, their creativity and humor on the job.  

At the end of the day, the work that we do is about real lives.  Two young men shared personal stories of the darkness of addiction to pornography and sex businesses, but they also shared the freedom that they are now experiencing.  If you are struggling with pornography, please contact ROCK at info@myrocktoday.org or 502-297-9892.  There is hope for you!