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by Chuck Sheperd
LEAD STORIES
In March, Alan and Christine Davies of the Welsh city of Rhondda, were awarded about $200,000 from the driver who caused the collision that, according to doctors, left Alan with a rare brain injury. Alan developed "Capgras' syndrome," a separation of connections between visual perception and emotion which causes the victim to imagine that a person whom he recognizes (in this case, Christine) is actually someone impersonating her. Alan is convinced that the real Christine died long ago and refuses to become intimate with the "impostor." A court psychiatrist called Alan's condition permanent.
Prominent Christian conservative psychologist Paul Cameron told Rolling Stone magazine in a March interview that he feared gay sex would supplant heterosexual sex unless a vigilant society repressed it. "Marital sex tends toward the boring," he said. "Generally, it doesn't deliver the kind of sheer sexual pleasure that homosexual sex does." If all one seeks is an orgasm, he said, "the evidence is that men do a better job on men, and women on women." "(H)omosexuality," he said, "seems too powerful to resist."
The Times of London reported in March that a convicted rapist in his 30s has been recommended for British government-provided Viagra to treat a depression he has been suffering since his release from prison a year ago. Doctors at St. George's hospital in Tooting, south London, say his main problem now is the lack of a girlfriend.
According to a recent issue of the Indian Journal of Orthopaedics, a majority of arthritis patients in a study showed a reduction in pain and an increase in hand-grip strength after a regimen of "autohemotherapy." About 3/4 cup of blood was withdrawn from patients' veins, mixed in a copper bowl with 1/4 cup each of honey and lemon juice, stirred for several minutes, and then taken orally.
Clergyman James Elrod Ogle, 46, was indicted in March for the counseling he provided a parishioner at his Bull Run Bible Fellowship in Manassas, Va. According to prosecutors, after the parishioner confided his marital difficulties, Pastor Ogle offered to kill the man's wife if the man would help him out by killing Mrs. Ogle. The parishioner reported the conversation to police and wore a wire for several meetings with Ogle before the indictment was obtained.
Least Justifiable Homicide
Edmonton, Alberta, February: A 34-year-old man was beaten to death in a fight over whose turn it was at a tavern's pool table. Black Oak, Ark., February: A 65-year-old man was shot to death in an argument over whether the town needs sewer service. Miami Beach, Fla., March: A 66-year-old man was shot to death at a condominium association meeting by a man enraged that someone had stolen his garden hose.
Least Competent People
At a routine traffic stop in Horseshoe Bend, Ark., in January, Donnie Todd, 17, presented a driver's license in which Arkansas was spelled "Arkansa" and slightly misprinted, and he was cited for suspicion of forgery. However, after investigating, officials said the license was real, issued by a Sharp County office whose computer was malfunctioning. The big loser was Francis McCabe, 19, who pleaded guilty in February to forging driver's licenses, a crime detected because he had inadvertently used a Sharp County-issued license as a model for his own bogus licenses.
Joseph Kubic Sr., 93, was hospitalized in Stratford, Conn., in February after he tried to punch in an additional belt hole by hammering a pointy-nosed bullet through the belt. It fired, ricocheting off a table and hitting him in the neck. (In the last two years, Kubic also accidentally cut through his leg to the bone in a chainsaw mishap and set a small brush fire that raged nearly out of control, threatening neighbors' houses.)
In Monson, Maine, William Ranta, 25, and Russell LaBlanc, 31, were hospitalized in January when their private road ritual went bad. The two pals had a tradition, when their vehicles met on two-lane roads, to switch lanes and pass each other on the left. However, this time Ranta spotted a truck following in LaBlanc's lane and tried to call off the pass, but LaBlanc was slow on the uptake, and Ranta hit him.
The Classic Middle Name (continued)
Arrested for murder after a fight over money, Corpus Christi, Texas, February: William Wayne Wright. Sentenced to 27 years in prison for murder, Portland, Ore., February: Bryant Wayne Howard. Arrested for the murder of his wife, Mount Airy, Md., February: Donald Wayne Holt. Arrested for attempted capital murder for attacking a woman with a hammer and setting her on fire, Arlington, Texas, February: Jimmy Wayne Miller. Arrested for manslaughter in a road-rage death, Portland, Ore., January: Terry Wayne Unruh.
Recurring Theme
"News of the Weird" reported in January 1998 on a motorist killed by a flying cow (propelled through the air and through the windshield after being hit by another car). In February 1999 the same thing happened to the driver of a pickup truck near Vacaville, Calif., after a car hit a cow on Pleasants Valley Road. (Five days earlier, near Prattville, Ala., a 19-year-old motorist was killed in the same way by a 300-pound flying hog.)
Teacher From Hell
In August, the mother of high school student Justin Burnett filed a lawsuit in Chicago against the school board and shop teacher Philip Rush, who had admitted shocking disruptive students by hooking them up to a spark plug and a current-producing crank, sometimes, according to the lawsuit, for as long as 30 seconds. According to the school superintendent, Rush said the disciplinary stunt was a "teaching tool" for kids to see how electricity worked.
In Wichita Falls, Texas, former elementary school principal Terry Hitt said in October he would challenge the state's attempt to revoke his teaching certificate. He said he had a teaching ability that was a "gift from God," despite his having admitted earlier in the year that he had stolen his students' prescription Ritalin, melted it down, and shot up with it.
In Lop Buri, Thailand, in November, teacher Sombat Boon-namma was accused of punishing seven students by forcing them to hold their hands over a candle's flame until burned badly enough that they required hospitalization. Ms. Sombat said she was merely trying to narrow down the suspects in a recent theft and thought that an innocent person would have no fear of the flame. And the Cairo, Egypt, daily newspaper al-Akhbar reported in December that a teacher in a suburban elementary school had been accused of punishing a rowdy 10-year-old boy by forcing him to stare at the sun for such a long time that he suffered retina damage.
Music From Hell
In February, an upscale housing development north of West Palm Beach, Fla., was denied a restraining order against pig farmer Paul Thompson, who blares country and western music from loudspeakers in order to soothe his hogs and improve their appetites. And an Associated Press report from Fort Lupton, Colo., in March detailed municipal judge Paul Sacco's punishments for violators of the town's boombox noise ordinance: They must report to court weekly to listen to selections ranging from Roger Whitaker standards to bagpipes to Navajo flute music to Judge Sacco's own guitar compositions. (Several violators interviewed by the AP admitted they were scared straight by the music.)
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