Brain Damage

The Delaware father of five children who was arrested Tuesday after a punishment his 11-year-old daughter said he called "waterboarding" is an internationally known pediatrician who specializes in so-called near-death experiences. Melvin Morse, who has written several books on children and near-death experiences, has appeared on numerous TV shows, including those of Oprah Winfrey and Larry King as well as 20/20 and Good Morning America to talk about his research. Delaware state troopers have charged Morse, 58, with multiple felony counts of endangering the welfare of a child after the girl told social workers about her father's punishments.

The Delaware father of five children who was arrested Tuesday for "waterboarding" his 11-year-old daughter is a internationally-known pediatrician who specializes in so-called near-death experiences. Dr. Melvin Morse, who has written several books on children and near-death experiences, has appeared on numerous TV shows including Oprah , Larry King , 20/20 and Good Morning America to talk about his research. State troopers have charged Morse, 58, with multiple felony counts of endangering the welfare of a child after the girl told social workers about her father's punishments.

A Logan Township man who asked his wife why she wasn't "dead yet" after he repeatedly bashed her in the head with a two-by-four was sentenced Friday to 10 years in state prison in Superior Court in Woodbury. Thomas Tansey, 50, pleaded guilty in June to aggravated assault in connection with the Oct. 9, 2009, attack, which apparently occurred in the couple's garage. The two were planning to divorce, but shared a residence. It was a "miracle" that the 40-year-old woman did not suffer brain damage, Gloucester County Assistant Prosecutor Staci Scheetz said Friday.

TO SAY THAT Eagles' Hall of Fame wide receiver Pete Pihos lived a memorable life would be something of an understatement about a man who survived the bloody slaying of his father when he was 14, invaded occupied France under Gen. George Patton and helped the Birds win NFL championships in 1948 and 1949. That only made Pihos' last decade - as he struggled against ever-worsening dementia in a North Carolina nursing home before his death last August at age 87- all the more tragic for his youngest daughter Melissa.

When Kevin Turner retired from professional football in January 2000 after five seasons as a fullback with the Philadelphia Eagles, the letdown was steeper than he expected. "I just turned into a loser overnight and I couldn't figure out what was wrong," Turner, 42, told reporters Thursday. "It was a very scary proposition. " Turner's tally of ailments grew until August 2010 when doctors told him he had amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, the incurable, devastating neurological disease that killed baseball great Lou Gehrig.

In the 1970s, during eight years as a safety with the Atlanta Falcons, Charles "Ray" Easterling lived in a world bound only by the rules and dimensions of the football field. By last August, Easterling's world was limited to the walls of his Richmond rancher by a brain so battered he forgot why he walked into a room by the time he got there. It was then that Easterling and his wife, Mary Ann, - joined by six other retired players including ex-Eagles quarterback Jim McMahon and offensive lineman Gerry Feehery, and four spouses - sued the NFL seeking lifetime medical monitoring for ex-players.

Father's Day A Journey Into the Mind and Heart of My Extraordinary Son By Buzz Bissinger Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 242 pp. $26   Reviewed by Andrew Ervin   Buzz Bissinger's list of accolades and awards could fill this entire review. He won a Pulitzer Prize as a reporter for The Inquirer and has since written two best sellers, including the enormously successful Friday Night Lights. I can't think of another writer working today who has achieved the same balance of critical and popular success.

With each passing day, the list of plaintiffs filing concussion lawsuits against the NFL grows. At last check, more than 2,100 former players have filed suit against the league in 74 separate lawsuits, most of which have been consolidated in federal court in Philadelphia. By the end of the summer, the number of plaintiffs could exceed 3,000. The list of plaintiffs includes Hall of Famers like Lem Barney and Joe DeLamielleure and Rickey Jackson and Paul Krause, and Super Bowl MVPs like Mark Rypien and Dexter Jackson.

Buzz Bissinger has already called someone a moron on Twitter this day, but really, the virtuosic vitriol that has characterized his Twitter feed has been somewhat subdued lately. Instead, Bissinger is sitting on a chair in a family room off the kitchen of his house in Chestnut Hill and talking about stuff so personal, so self-flagellating, that it would make you gasp if it weren't comically shot through with F-bombs. Next to him is his son, Zach Bissinger, 28, well known to anyone who ever worked with Buzz at The Inquirer or met Zach through work or at a party where Zach walked up to you, introduced himself, and wanted to know who you were, what's your birthday, and whether you ever worked with Vernon Loeb or Steve Lopez or the other people known forever to him through his familial and personal connections in journalism.