Free Republic

It's easy to forget that Halloween isn't the same carefree holiday for every child in our community.In the central city, some neighborhoods can be scary places all year round. These are not places where you feel comfortable allowing young children to go from house to house accepting treats.In areas where drug dealing, gunfire and other negative elements exist, you think twice before allowing young kids to knock on every door. Mac Weddle, executive director of Northcott Neighborhood House, 2460 N. 6th St., thinks some of today's children will never get to know about the kind of Halloween fun their parents...

NEW YORK - Between the Sex Pistols and Ozzy Osbourne, there's an air of malice associated with this year's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame class. Blondie is doing its part, too. The band being inducted Monday includes two members, Nigel Harrison and Frank Infante, who unsuccessfully sued their former colleagues for being left out when Blondie reformed in 1999. Deborah Harry's voice turns hard when she's asked if the two men will be invited to perform again with Blondie for old time's sake at the Waldorf-Astoria ceremony. Even the Police and Talking Heads managed to set aside bad feelings...

What do Geezer Butler, the long-time bassist of heavy metal pioneers Black Sabbath, and Bobby Ingram, the frontman of the venerable Southern rock band Molly Hatchet, have in common besides making legendary music? Both rockers have joined PETA’s boycott of KFC until the company ends the worst abuses of chickens raised and killed to fill its buckets. Geezer and Bobby have prominently displayed links on their respective Web sites (GeezerButler.com and MollyHatchet.com) to PETA’s KentuckyFriedCruelty.com site, where visitors can learn how KFC torments the more than 850 million chickens raised and killed for the company each year. Why are Bobby...

Days after confounding fans with a so-called "special announcement" that fell short of expectations, organizers have confirmed that Black Sabbath will headline Ozzfest 2004. The timing of the announcement comes as more of a surprise than the news it contained, since, for weeks, assumptions were high that the legendary metal quartet was on board for the trek. Last week, Ozzfest.com promised a big announcement on Friday, though visitors to the site were met with a message about an unsigned-band contest instead of the news that Ozzy Osbourne himself first hinted at in a radio interview in early April (see "It's...

IS OZZY TO BE PITIED OR SCORNED? J. Grant Swank, Jr., POB 1984, Windham ME 04062 Pastor, New Hope Church, Windham ME Ozzy’s English boyhood was poor—father worked nights in a steel plant, mother worked days at a car plant. No money, no auto, meager food. He claims as a child he had one pair of shoes, no underpants, trousers and one jacket. At the base of his bed was a bucket for urinating in. There were no clean sheets on his bed, overcoats used as sheets when all else failed. Dad beat on Ozzy, chiefly for the boy’s attempts...

Sharon Osbourne, the wife and manager of expletive-spewing rocker Ozzy Osborne, has been diagnosed with what her family spokeswoman called a "treatable form of cancer."She is scheduled to undergo surgery today at an undisclosed location.Ozzy Osbourne and the Osbourne children — Aimee, Kelly and Jack — were with Sharon Osbourne in Los Angeles last night, spokeswoman Lisa Vega said."The family is together," Vega said. "They will be with her through her surgery and recovery."Vega declined to be specific about the type of cancer, saying, "I want to protect their privacy."The spokeswoman said Sharon Osbourne only recently learned she had...