Free Republic

John Grogan | Time to unload on gun stupidity By John Grogan Inquirer Columnist The funeral, all these years later, sticks with me. There had been an accident involving two boys and a loaded handgun, and I had arrived early for the service. Outside, the undertaker paced, waiting for the family to arrive, and a priest smoked a cigarette, ready to pray. Inside, I stood alone beside a small casket holding an 8-year-old boy, shot through the forehead by his best friend. The details of the death should have been shocking, but they were numbingly familiar: yet another gun brought...

The tale of a rambunctious puppy is proving its staying power in the dog-eat-dog world of U.S. best-sellers. With more than 1 million copies in print, "Marley and Me -- Life and Love with the World's Worst Dog" has struck a chord with dog lovers who are laughing and crying over author John Grogan's account of his yellow Labrador retriever. The story is more than a recounting of Marley's antics that include chewing through doors, expulsion from obedience school, clawing paint off concrete walls, devouring furniture, swallowing valuable jewelry and swooning over soiled diapers. The excitable, good-natured lab also knows...

By John GroganInquirer Columnist Her name is Millie. She came into this world 55 years ago, a healthy, chubby baby with a shock of dark hair. Her family loved her then, and despite everything - or perhaps because of it - loves her now even more. Millie Reynolds has never spoken a word or returned a smile. Her first tentative baby steps would be her last. Just before her first birthday in 1950, she contracted viral meningitis, with sustained fevers that left her profoundly brain-damaged. The doctors said an institution would be best, but Millie's parents would not listen. They...

Per Fox News...

Sometimes even newspaper columnists change their minds. In the matter of Terri Schiavo, the permanently brain-damaged former suburban Philadelphia woman caught in a life-and-death tug-of-war, this columnist has changed his. I no longer so blithely believe Schiavo's feeding tubes should be pulled and her life allowed to end. I'm no longer so sure her parents do not deserve a say in their daughter's future. I no longer am totally comfortable assuming her husband, Michael, who now has two children by another woman, is acting unselfishly. That's not to say I have changed my opinion about the right of all of...