Author: Mary Fetzer

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Mary Fetzer is a professional freelance writer and editor. She has 10 years of experience writing articles, blog posts, and press releases for online publications and has covered an enormous range of topics ranging from personal finance and international trade to pregnancy and senior living. Mary has a business degree from Penn State and a tremendous passion for words (and good grammar). She lives with her two daughters in Central Pennsylvania. Check out Mary's work on Contently.

Where faith collides with the Constitution

Republican presidential hopeful Ben Carson predictably stirred up a firestorm back in September after making comments about the inappropriateness of electing a Muslim president. In all the noise, though, it seems fair to ask: Where, exactly, do faith and the Constitution intersect?

5 of the youngest killers ever

Another Halloween has come and gone, with partiers dressed as killers and corpses and ghoulish decorations hung from the front porch. It’s all in good fun… when it’s make-believe. But these pretend horrors are often inspired by awful, all-too-true tales. When young adolescents barely out of childhood are involved, they become all the more appalling.

The heroes who stopped Subway’s foot-long fakery

Thanks to a class action suit for false advertising, Subway restaurants in the United States will now measure every 6-inch and foot-long sandwich they make. Moving forward, customers can expect to get what they paid for. Still, no one will get rich from this legal wrangling. So why did anyone bother? Answer: there are other reasons for class action suits that go beyond monetary gain.

How to keep your tailgate party legal

Fall brings cozy sweaters, brilliant foliage, football games—and of course, tailgate parties. Sports fans across the nation gather in parking lots to enjoy food, fellowship, and more than a fair share of alcohol. If you’re planning your next tailgate—whether it’s for a pee-wee game or that big NFL match-up—proceed with caution: you just may be breaking the law.

Is “pee wee” football child abuse?

Children are more vulnerable than any other age group to concussions and other traumatic brain injuries. Yet we put our kids in sub-par equipment and in the care of coaches who don’t know how to keep young athletes safe from harm. When a pee wee football player suffers a head injury, who is to blame? The coach who didn’t teach proper technique? The league that didn’t train the coaches? The protective equipment that failed to protect? Or the parents who put their child in harm’s way?

Does Facebook own everything you post?

You may have noticed recently that your Facebook friends—maybe even some that aren’t always among the more gullible—started blowing up your news feed with wordy copyright disclaimers, supposedly protecting your privacy and intellectual property rights. The disclaimers certainly look official, with lots of legal jargon, but the fact of the matter is that they mean absolutely nothing. And they’ve been around before.

5 crimes confessed on Facebook

Examples abound of scofflaws taking to Facebook and spilling the beans about their bad behavior. Are the admissions of guilt a way of boasting? Or do these lawbreakers find penitent relief in the form of an online confessional? Or are they just idiots? You be the judge.