Granted, in our country we do have the freedom of expression, speech and the right to peaceably assemble. In my profession, I work to protect these rights. One video game did not and does not account for the amount of violence in the world. However, one voice can turn into many against the violence. Effect change one voice at a time.

Additionally, as a father of small children, two boys 7 and 8, I have seen how watching a television program or playing a video game with a lot of action in it changes their demeanor. We do not allow them to watch shows of violence. In fact, when they were younger they were not allowed to even watch the kid's program "Power Rangers" because it caused behavioral problems, i.e. fighting. They were too young to turn off the proverbial "switch" and one of them would end up getting hurt. A TV show or game with fighting "winds them up" to want to fight and wrestle. Translate this on a larger scale and games of violence send the subtle message that it is cool to be violent. Further, I feel it desensitizes youth to the reality of blood and guts.

There is yet another proposal for a liquefied natural gas facility off the coast of Malibu. If the liquefied natural gas industry could get away with it, we would have LNG terminals every 50 miles all along our coast. Their greed is sickening.

Let's face it: Sempra Energy is the winner in the bid for California energy dollars. Sorry, Woodside, BHP Billiton and Crystal Energy. Sempra Energy figured paying the Mexican government to build a facility in Ensenada and then pipe gas into California was the way to go. Their facility opens in 2008.

I'm not convinced we need LNG at all. Didn't President Bush say something about the U.S. needs to become independent from foreign energy? Where do you think LNG comes from? It is shipped from far-flung countries like Iran, Qatar, Russia and Indonesia. Australia sounds like a friendly country by comparison, however, what happens when its energy needs rise?

I write in hopes Ventura County Sheriff Bob Brooks will read it. I suggest he investigate the system run by Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, Ariz. The prisoners live in a tent city, get bologna sandwiches for lunch, have no coffee, cigarettes, porn material or weight sets, and have to work on a chain gang to earn their keep.

Put the prisoners in pink, lavender or rainbow coveralls so that everyone can identify them on sight. Perhaps, with this kind of a system, the criminal element would get the idea jail is not such a fun place, and the revolving door would, if not completely stop, at least slow down. There are many other facets to Arpaio's tent-city jail program but there is not enough space in one letter to enumerate them.

Sunday, the 76th anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi's 241-mile Salt March, a Latino conscientious objector, a Latino parent of a fallen U.S. Marine and two dozen dedicated marchers (myself included) began their own two-week march of nonviolent protest. Their purpose is to end the war in Iraq.

The leaders of the peace pilgrimage are Fernando Suárez del Solar, whose Marine Corps son was among the first U.S. Marines to die in the Iraq war, and Pablo Paredes, the Navy seaman who was court-martialed and given base restriction for refusing to board an Iraq-bound ship.

We, in Ventura County, will honor these peace marchers in the nonviolent spirit of Gandhi. Monday, we will house them in the sanctuary of Oxnard's Congregation for Peace. Tuesday, we will walk with them to teach a handful of children at my alma mater, Oxnard High School. We will join them in passing before the Oxnard military recruitment office (embroiled in misconduct) and we will arrive together for a rally at the County Government Center at 5 p.m.

Please join Congregation for Peace, Ventura County Veterans for Peace and Citizens for Peaceful Resolutions in welcoming the marchers and supporting an end to the Iraq war. Come hear Suárez de Solar and Paredes speak at 7:30 p.m. at the Congregation for Peace at 2300 West Gonzalez Road, Oxnard. Admission is free. For more information go to http://www.guerreroazteca.org .

"Diversity training," "tolerance," "sex education" - there may be a place for such, although I doubt it, but it is not in the public schools. Schools should be a safe place for each student to study and learn without being indoctrinated.

The capitulation of school districts across the land to such groups of gay and lesbian persuasions is egregious and must be turned back. Schools are areas for learning; sexual content must be outed from this environment. Sexual content, in all its forms, has no place with math, science, history, homemaking, physics, chemistry and geography. Who opened this Pandora's box to allowing, and encouraging, this predatory encroachment in our schools down to beginning primary grades? How could so many eyes be closed?

Young minds, innocent and vulnerable, are sacrificed to this evil monster that is no longer even disguised. School districts and administrations have succumbed to the point of forgetting their true mission: teaching young children the essentials of becoming all they can be in a more and more demanding and complex world.

It is time to take back our schools, get back to educating our children. Any other agenda is off limits. Governments have no right whatsoever to invade the education system and captive minds with such perversity.

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