Fun_People Archive
27 Sep
Weirdness [448] - 6Sep96

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From: Peter Langston <psl>
Date: Fri, 27 Sep 96 08:59:26 -0700
To: Fun_People
Subject: Weirdness [448] - 6Sep96

Excerpted-from: WEIRDNUZ.448 (News of the Weird, September 6, 1996)
		by Chuck Shepherd

* The Classic Middle Name:  Conan Wayne Hale, 20, a triple- homicide suspect
who allegedly confessed to a priest in Portland, Ore., has been fighting
for three months now to have the confession ruled inadmissible in court on
freedom of religion grounds.  And escaped murderer Michael Wayne Thompson
was recaptured in July near Farmersburg, Ind.  And a few days later, Danny
Wayne Owens, 38, was arrested in Birmingham, Ala., for allegedly murdering
a neighbor.  (Among other prominent middle-name Waynes:  serial killers John
Wayne Gacy of Illinois and Elmer Wayne Henley of Texas; recently executed
Arizona murderer Jimmy Wayne Jeffers; sadistic Louisiana murderer Robert
Wayne Sawyer; the Ohio Aryan Nations member caught last year with
freeze-dried bubonic plague bacteria, Larry Wayne Harris; the Oklahoma
rapist recently sentenced to 21,000 years in prison, Allan Wayne McLaurin;
and of course John Wayne Bobbitt.) [Tuscaloosa News, Jun96] [Tuscaloosa
News-AP, 7-5- 96] [Birmingham Post-Herald, 7-11-96] [Weirdnuz.396]
[Weirdnuz.432]

* According to a May report in the New York Times, one of Argentina's most
popular radio programs is "Loony Radio," produced by and featuring patients
at the Borda Psychiatric Hospital in Buenos Aires.  One presents "The
Bolivian Minute" show but usually giggles uncontrollably until the producer
reminds him that he is on the air.  Another man delivers philosophy lectures
claiming to be "more schizophrenic than anyone" and says he is anxious with
every incoming patient because he fears losing his title.  One of
Argentina's best-known talk radio hosts says the patients are often more
insightful than his callers are. [New York Times, 5-14-96]

* An entire 86-member jury pool for a criminal case in Centerville, Tenn.
(population 16,000), in July had to be dismissed because, according to
prosecutor Ron Davis, too many members of the pool were related to each
other. [Columbia, Tenn., Daily Herald, 7-17-96]

* Jim Baen, publisher of Newt Gingrich's novel 1945, told reporters in
August that almost 100,000 copies are stockpiled in a warehouse in Bristol,
Pa., and that if they are not bought soon, they will suffer the usual fate
of surplus books--to be converted to pulp and used for such things as toilet
paper. [Albuquerque Journal, 8-3-96]

* Davenport, Iowa, police arrested a 34-year-old man in April and charged
him with indecent exposure along a busy city street.  The police were
alerted by two women in a car who said they first spotted the man, then
drove by again to confirm what they had seen. [Rock Island Argus, 4-27-96]

* In the Journal of Abnormal Psychology released in August, a University of
Georgia researcher concluded that a group of homophobic men (men who feared
and hated homosexuals and dreaded being close to them) contained twice as
many men who were sexually aroused by erotic photos of men as did an equal
group of nonhomophobic men. [Albuquerque Journal-Knight- Ridder News
Service, 8-1-96]

Copyright 1996, Universal Press Syndicate.  All rights reserved.
No commercial use may be made of the material or of the name
News of the Weird.

© 1996 Peter Langston