World News and Trends: Pornography gaining respectability
Sales of illicit sex in the form of pornography are a $10 billion industry in the United States, according to Forrester Research of Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Among porn profiteers are major corporations that are household names in America. Writes Timothy Egan of the New York Times News Service: "The financial rewards are so great that some of the biggest distributors of explicit sex on film and online include the country's most recognizable names."
The story says General Motors and AT'T sell far more pornography than Playboy Enterprises and Larry Flynt's Hustler empire combined. One primary outlet is a special television box in many of the nation's hotels, 40 percent of which are equipped to show pornographic movies.
Mr. Egan's account includes the assertion that 21 million Americans visit at least one of the 60,000 pornographic Internet Web sites once a month or more. (Source: The Corpus Christi Caller-Times.)
An Article from:
Good News Magazine: January - February 2001
Course Content
John Ross Schroeder
John died on March 8, 2014, in Oxford, England, four days after suffering cardiac arrest while returning home from a press event in London. John was 77 and still going strong.
Some of John's work for The Good News appeared under his byline, but much didn't. He wrote more than a thousand articles over the years, but also wrote the Questions and Answers section of the magazine, compiled our Letters From Our Readers, and wrote many of the items in the Current Events and Trends section. He also contributed greatly to a number of our study guides and Bible Study Course lessons. His writing has touched the lives of literally millions of people over the years.
John traveled widely over the years as an accredited journalist, especially in Europe. His knowledge of European and Middle East history added a great deal to his articles on history and Bible prophecy.
In his later years he also pastored congregations in Northern Ireland and East Sussex, and that experience added another dimension to his writing. He and his wife Jan were an effective team in our British Isles office near their home.
John was a humble servant who dedicated his life to sharing the gospel—the good news—of Jesus Christ and the Kingdom of God to all the world, and his work was known to readers in nearly every country of the world.
Melvin Rhodes
Melvin Rhodes is a member of the United Church of God congregation in Lansing, Michigan.
