Fun_People Archive
15 Jun
Weirdness #381

Date: Thu, 15 Jun 95 23:39:14 PDT
From: Peter Langston <psl>
To: Fun_People
Subject: Weirdness #381

By: Chuck Shepherd
Excerpted-from: WEIRDNUZ.381 (News of the Weird, May 26, 1995)

* In March, President Clinton invited sidewalk protestor Txxx Oxxxxxxxx,(*)
27, into the Oval Office for a five-minute meeting.  Oxxxxxxxx had requested
the meeting on February 19, 1993, after returning from a seven-month walk
across the U. S., picking up signatures demanding action on Vietnam war POWs
and MIAs.  After a five-minute chat, Oxxxxxxxx announced he was satisfied,
that he was ending his 25-month protest, and that he was moving on to other
issues, such as the war with China which "will be coming up around the year
2000."  (In a previous interview, Oxxxxxxxx said he did not know why he was
so obsessed with the POW-MIA issue, in that he had no friends or relatives
who served there.) [Washington Post-AP, 3-25-95]
                                 (*) Name disguised in response to threats

* In December, the town of Bexley, Ohio, adjacent to Columbus, granted a
permit for a McDonald's on a main street, and construction began despite
much opposition that a fast-food restaurant was not appropriate for the
neighborhood. The opponents said they preferred the site's then-current
occupant, an adult video store. [Albuquerque Journal-AP, 12-28-94]

* In December, the U. S. Drug Enforcement Administration office in
Wilmington, N. C., made a public announcement that a valuable piece of
technology had been stolen.  The head of the office asked the public's help
for its return, and offered a reward, but refused to identify the object
except to say that it was palm-sized.  Said the supervisor, "For security
reasons, I can't say what it looked like." [The Observer (Charlotte, N. C.),
12-5-94]

* In Salem, Ohio, in January, Robert E. Pugh, 24, accidentally shot himself
in the leg while crawling on the floor of his girlfriend's home tracking
down a mouse he had seen.  [Youngstown Vindicator, 1-6-95]
* In New Orleans in May, tourist Freddie Harrison reached into a bag for
his video camera while walking through the French Quarter and accidentally
caused his gun to discharge, killing his 31-year-old daughter. [Columbia
Tribune-AP, 5-3-95]
* In Youngstown, Ohio, in March, Andre Adkins, 23, accidentally shot himself
in the groin when, after firing off a few shots at a target, he put the gun
into his waistband with his finger still on the trigger. [Youngstown
Vindicator, 3-28-95]
* And Al Rodrigues, 24, who had planned to return the gun he had just bought
because he and his wife had decided it was dangerous to have around,
accidentally shot himself in the penis as he stood at the side of a road in
Hawthorne, Calif., in March after supposedly unloading the gun.  [The Daily
Breeze, 4-1-95]

Copyright 1995, Universal Press Syndicate.  All rights reserved.
Released for the entertainment of readers.  No commercial use
may be made of the material or of the name News of the Weird.

© 1995 Peter Langston