What's the middle name of your daughter's boyfriend?

[freakonomics]

The next time your daughter brings home a new boyfriend, be sure to ask his middle name

I get a lot of interesting letters in the mail. (To those of you who send me things, I apologize that I so rarely respond. If you want to hear from me, your odds are better—but still not great—on email.)

I got a package recently, however, that really stood out. It came from Ms. M.R. Stewart, who is a proud mother, as well as being grandmother to four pit bulls.

Ms. Stewart has an unusual hobby: clipping newspaper articles of a particular ilk. She sent me xeroxs of her most recent finds. All of these clippings were from The Dallas News, from February 2006 to the present. The articles had two things in common: (1) all of them were stories reporting on crimes, and (2) the perpetrator’s middle name was “Wayne.”

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