xxxNews Of The Weirdxxx
Bizarre but true stories about real people collected by syndicated columnist Chuck Shepherd.
Derek Leroy McSmith of Forest City, Ga., has filed 10,618 formal open-records requests to local governments in the last eight months, according to an Atlanta Journal-Constitution report. Most were, he said, to satisfy his curiosity about how government works, but one day, he asked for 490 magazines and on another day, he checked out 100 books (and soon, according to the librarian, walked outside and dropped them into the return bin). Each request must be logged in and processed, and a Forest City clerk spends almost full-time on McSmith’s work. Several officials said that after they locate his documents, he only glances at them (or, if there is a cost involved, declines the documents). A local First Amendment advocate said the situation was merely “one of the downsides of a free and open society.”
Steve Danos, 24, was arrested as allegedly the man who had been sneaking into young women’s apartments to watch them sleep and to snuggle with them (and, sometimes, to fold their laundry) (Baton Rouge, La., October).
Stephen P. Linnen, 33, an assistant to Republican legislators in the Ohio House, was indicted on 56 counts stemming from an 18-month spree in which a naked man jumps out from hiding and photographs startled women’s reactions (Columbus, Ohio, November).
Japanese men’s fetish for schoolgirls’ used underwear is such a problem, concluded a civic panel, that shops that cater to them are proliferating, thus enticing more and more girls to become suppliers (Tokyo, October).
Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 18737, Tampa, Fla. 33679 or [email protected]
Copyright © 2001 by Chuck Shepherd
NEWS OF THE WEIRD