Free Republic

>>>>> CHILDLIKE HONESTY ….These are cute ________________________________ Children are so honest !! While I sat in the reception area of my doctor's office, a woman rolled an elderly man in a wheelchair into the room. As she went to the receptionist's desk, the man sat there, alone and silent. Just as I was thinking I should make small talk with him, a little boy slipped off his mother's lap and walked over to the wheelchair. Placing his hand on the man's, he said, “I know how you feel. My Mom makes me ride in the stroller too.”

Misinterpreting the Words When my twin daughters were young, I taught them to say this prayer before going to bed. As I listened outside their door, I could hear them say, "Give us this steak and daily bread, and forgive us our mattresses." My husband and I always had a good laugh over this. That was over 50 years ago, and the memory still remains in my heart. Groton, Mass. My mother spent her early childhood saying, "Hail Mary, full of grapes" Missoula, Mont. My son, who is in nursery school, said, "Our Father, who art in Heaven, how didja...

Candid Camera Classic: Guardian Angel ?Matt is an adorable little boy who explains what a guardian angel is in this classic clip from the Candid Camera Show. He sat down for a talk with Allen way back in 1976 and then made an appearance 23 years later at Allen’s memorial service. I hope Matt is right and that we all have a guardian angel looking after us or at least little kids as it sure is a comforting thought the way he explains it. 5 minute video: HTTPS://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPe2q58U0Xw

Officers were justified in their shooting of Alton Sterling during a confrontation in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, according to a police report on the incident. That shooting resulted in Sterling's death, which alongside the police-involved shooting of Philando Castile near St. Paul, Minnesota, triggered nationwide protests. From CNN: In a search warrant affidavit seeking surveillance video from the store, [where police responded to a call about a man threatening another man with a gun,] Detective R. Cook wrote that the Baton Rouge officers deployed their Tasers after Sterling did not comply with their orders. "While the officers were attempting to subdue...

Fathers and Daughters – Is This a Missing Key to Modesty Today? By: Msgr. Charles PopeWe often speak today of the terrible toll that fatherless homes have on young boys. And this is true. Without a reasonably good (even though not sinless) model of manhood and responsibility, many boys lose their way. Fathers also play a large role in disciplining boys, especially as they grow older and become  stronger than their mothers.But missing fathers also bring forth terrible effects on many girls. Women, even young girls, certainly do seek and desire the love and appreciation of men and have...

Glenn Reynolds highlights a rather touchy story from across the pond, where Peter Lloyd, writing for the Telegraph, points out that the assumptions of both innocence and privacy are handled rather unequally in sexual assault cases. The primary case under discussion involves the handling of laws in the UK, but parallel debates are taking place in the United States today. Lloyd speaks rather passionately about what happened to Oxford University Union President Ben Sullivan following what turned out to be two unfounded rape allegations. After five weeks of public humiliation, finger-pointing and gender bias – both on campus and...

Editor's Note: This column was co-authored by Jerome Elam.Behind the green curtain is where my world began to end. It was where my innocence was forever washed away in a porcelain pan filled with developer. Grainy images brought into strong relief on white paper that would become forever etched on my soul. It all began at the age of eight when my mother enrolled me in an after school program. My parents were divorced at that time, both with demanding careers, and the time we spent together was subject to the requirements of their jobs. An after school counselor began...

At least 4.1% of all defendants sentenced to death in the US in the modern era are innocent, according to the first major study to attempt to calculate how often states get it wrong in their wielding of the ultimate punishment. A team of legal experts and statisticians from Michigan and Pennsylvania used the latest statistical techniques to produce a peer-reviewed estimate of the “dark figure” that lies behind the death penalty – how many of the more than 8,000 men and women who have been put on death row since the 1970s were falsely convicted. The team arrived at...

The University of the Incarnate Word is a highly-rated Catholic college in San Antonio, Texas. It is hardly a hot bed of campus violence. When senior Robert Cameron Redus was pulled-over last Friday by campus police for “erratically speeding,” it is unlikely he had any clue of how tragically the stop would end. The campus police department contends Redus, an honors student set to graduate in May, grabbed the officer’s steel baton during a struggle. Not in dispute, however, is that Redus was shot five times by the officer, at close range, leaving him dead and the University scrambling to...

What Shall I Tell My Grandchildren By Norma Zager “Second Star to the right and straight on till morning…” Directions to Neverland The anniversary of President Kennedy’s death forced me into a state of nostalgic self-examination and unanswered questions including one in particular; what shall I teach my grandchildren? It is indeed a conundrum to have reached a certain age and still be in search of an identity. Or perhaps be overwhelmed by the profusion of identities embraced then discarded throughout one’s lifetime. At this stage, I am left with the ultimate question plaguing me in my grandmother years; who...

Tomorrow is the 50th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Few events and people have had more words written about them than that day and that man. But, and I have to be honest here, I don’t get it. In fact, I’ve never gotten it. Yes, losing a president to an assassin’s bullet is a traumatic national event, something we’ve fortunately not been through again since – although there have been some close calls. And it’s the one event where everyone over the age of 55 seems to recall exactly where they were when they heard the...

“O God I pray that this sin might not have happened!” That’s what Sandra told me she prayed the night she gave into the suggestions and demands of her boyfriend. She was, in her words, “tired of resisting the overtures of Bob, and tired of wondering what sex would be like.” Now she knew what it was like, or at least she knew what it was like outside of marriage with a man she never wanted to marry. Not only did she feel a deep sense of betrayal and regret, but she was overcome with burning shame—the feeling that she...

A Gift by Ari Bussel Writing is a gift, bestowed by heaven. After several weeks of not writing, the urge, the tingling in the fingers, the feeling from within drove the body to do what it resisted. A single flame started burning, gaining strength, feeding and expanding. Soon it would be unstoppable. I often use the metaphor of the child shouting “but the King is naked.” Let me recount a modern day tale of a visitor who came for Sukkot (the Festival of Tabernacles). When the Temple existed, Israelites would go three times a year to Jerusalem, during Passover, the...

Jesus said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these." Matthew 19:14 Throughout the New Testament, Jesus is shown as compassionate and loving toward children. It’s refreshing actually. He always stood up for them. You can just picture him sitting down near them, gathering them around him, and telling them stories. And oh the stories He could tell! Children in today’s society, however, are growing up way too fast. They know things by the age of eight or nine that we didn’t know until we were...

DALLAS - Charles Chatman said throughout his 26 years in prison that he never raped the woman who lived five houses down from him. Now 47, Chatman is expected to win his freedom Thursday on the basis of new DNA testing that lawyers say proves his innocence and adds to Dallas County's nationally unmatched number of wrongfully convicted inmates. "I'm bitter. I'm angry," Chatman told The Associated Press during what was expected to be his last night in jail Wednesday. "But I'm not angry or bitter to the point where I want to hurt anyone or get revenge." If released...

CHARTER APPLICATION; The fingerprinting process designates one a criminal: artist A lawsuit to be filed today in Ontario court demands that the federal justice department define the word "criminal." Andre Milne, 42, a commercial artist who faces a possible charge of threatening bodily harm to a parking lot attendant, notes that the word is not included in a lengthy glossary attached to the Criminal Code, which defines everything from "act" to "writing," and such emotionally loaded terms as "victim" and "terrorist activity." So when Mr. Milne was ordered to be fingerprinted and photographed prior to his court appearance next month,...

AUSTIN — Gov. Rick Perry ordered today that schoolgirls in Texas must be vaccinated against the sexually transmitted virus that causes cervical cancer, making Texas the first state to require the shots. The girls will have to get Merck & Co.'s new vaccine against strains of the human papillomavirus, or HPV, that are responsible for most cases of cervical cancer. Merck is bankrolling efforts to pass laws in state legislatures across the country mandating it Gardasil vaccine for girls as young as 11 or 12. It doubled its lobbying budget in Texas and has funneled money through Women in Government,...

A registered sex offender accused of kidnapping and sexually assaulting a 6-year old girl, from Maricopa is behind bars. George Horner, age 26, was taken into custody around 11:00 a.m. Saturday near the Coolidge, Arizona airport. Investigators say the girl he allegedly kidnapped Friday was found walking on a Casa Grande road 20 miles from her home. According to the child's mother, Horner was an acquaintance who'd been staying at their home for a few days. He was supposed to take the little girl to school, but he and the girl disappeared. The woman who found the girl says she...

Following is a quote from Whittaker Chambers' autobiographical masterpiece, Witness, in which the former Soviet/Communist spy gave his account of his turn and ultimate fight againt the communists and his testimony naming Alger Hiss a communist before the House Committee on Un-American Activities. The following is taken from pages 536-7: "I was even less impressed by such shrieks of outraged innocence uttered by some of the Committee's witnesses, as sometimes reached my ears. Experience had taught me that innocence seldom utters outraged shrieks. Guilt does. Innocence is a mighty shield, and the man or woman covered by it, is much...

Washington plans to seek declaration of innocence Earl Washington Jr. plans to petition Gov. Timothy M. Kaine for a complete exoneration of the 1982 rape and killing of a Culpeper mother of 3 that nearly led to Washington's execution, his attorney said. The announcement Tuesday comes on the heels of an indictment filed against a new suspect in the case, convicted rapist Kenneth Maurice Tinsley. The 61-year-old Tinsley is serving life in prison for an unrelated rape conviction. Special Prosecutor Richard E. Moore announced from Culpeper on Monday that he had obtained an indictment against Tinsley charging capital murder, rape...