MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 14 This week of extinguished stars, botched executions, and reckless comparisons to Hitler kicks off with awful news out of Afghanistan, where today two soldiers from Fort Lewis were killed when an improvised explosive device hit their vehicle in the country's southern region. Today's soldiers will be identified by the Department of Defense via the Tacoma News Tribune as 26-year-old 1st Lt. David T. Wright II from Oklahoma and 24-year-old Sgt. Andrew H. McConnell of Pennsylvania, both of whom were part of the 2nd Battalion, 1st Infantry Regiment, 5th Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division stationed at Fort Lewis and deployed to Afghanistan in July. Later this week, Fort Lewis will honor three soldiers killed in earlier attacks—Spc. Jonathan D. Welch, Pfc. Jordan M. Brochu, and Spc. Tyler R. Walshe-Vietti—who were killed by an IED on August 31 in Afghanistan's Kandahar province. Condolences to all.

• Also: After an extended fight with pancreatic cancer, American movie icon Patrick Swayze died today at age 57. But we'll deal with that tomorrow.

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 15 The week continues with Crazy About Swayze, tonight's double-feature event at Central Cinema. Originally scheduled as a campy celebration, tonight's screening was abruptly turned into a memorial by the events of yesterday, and if there is a better way to commemorate Patrick Swayze than with back-to-back viewings of Dirty Dancing and Road House in a cinema that sells beer, Last Days can't think of it. As an aficionado of trashy American film, Last Days has seen Road House approximately 650 times, single-handedly proving that pain don't hurt, but through some fluke of fate we had not experienced Dirty Dancing until tonight. We were impressed, not just by the film's unexpected science-fiction time-travel elements (let's celebrate the '60s by dancing to this power ballad from the '80s!) but also by the glorious lead performance of Jennifer Grey, the most adorable Jewish wallflower ever to carry a watermelon. Thank you, Clinton McClung and the Action Pack for producing tonight's extravaganza (which included a sweet sing-along farewell for Swayze by candlelight), and a moment's silence for Jennifer Grey's tragically discarded original face.

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 16 The week continues to continue with people saying things. Specifically: Christie Prody—aka the woman smart enough to date O. J. Simpson for 13 years after he was acquitted of the murders but found liable for the deaths of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman—who today told Good Morning America how she now believes her ex-boyfriend is an unrepentant murderer. Details come from ABC News, which reports the 34-year-old Prody—a cocktail waitress who met Simpson when the celebrity-crime sightseeing tour she was on drove past his house—entered her 13-year relationship with Simpson ready to believe in his innocence. But as the years passed, she couldn't ignore clues to the contrary: On their first date, Prody wore black, which Simpson noted was the same color his wife was wearing on the night of her murder, and coming years reportedly brought numerous proclamations of would-be guilt—most notably the repeated references to his wife, Nicole, getting what she deserved. To those who believe that any woman who goes on a date with O. J. Simpson gets what she deserves: You'll be happy to know that Simpson allegedly subjected Prody to "constant physical and emotional abuse."

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 17 Today we head north to Snohomish County, where a 70-year-old man in Edmonds is facing criminal charges following an altercation with a couple douchey LaRouchies. Details come from the Seattle Times, which identifies our septuagenarian protagonist as Henry Gasparian, an Armenian immigrant who "witnessed firsthand the horrors of Nazi Germany," having lost two uncles and a brother during the Nazi occupation of the Soviet Union in the 1940s. More recently, Gasparian ventured out to the Edmonds farmers market on September 5, where he saw posters and flyers depicting President Obama with a Hitler mustache and lightly lost his shit. As Mr. Gasparian told the Times, his response to the images was "personal and emotional," and involved trying to block the posters and grab the flyers from the hands of two young activists for Lyndon LaRouche, the perpetual presidential candidate/nutbag determined in his opposition to "Obama's Nazi Health Plan." As the LaRouchies told police, Gasparian yelled obscenities at them from his car, then returned on foot and assaulted them without provocation. The skirmish ended with Henry Gasparian in handcuffs and charged with two counts of fourth-degree assault. "It's shocking, to say the least," said Aramis Gasparian, Henry's 29-year-old son, who told the Times that his father had never had more than a speeding ticket before this incident. As for the man himself, he remains stung and flustered. "I saw Hitler's soldiers," said Henry Gasparian to the Times. "I saw swastikas every day. To call Obama stupid, even criminal—OK, that's politics. But Hitler? It's hurting to anyone no matter who is president." Stay tuned for upcoming court action, and confidential to the Seattle music scene's would-be Dylans: Please get to work on a Hattie Carroll–style "Ballad of Henry Gasparian" immediately.

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 18 Speaking of folk-song-worthy subjects: Today we turn to Romell Broom, the Ohio man sentenced to death for the rape and murder of a 14-year-old girl in 1984. As the Associated Press reports, the 53-year-old Broom was scheduled to receive his state-sanctioned lethal injection this past Tuesday, and the execution team began their work around 2:00 p.m. However: "Executioners were unable for more than two hours to find veins that would accept fluid from an IV without collapsing... After the team spent nearly an hour trying to find a workable vein, Broom tried to help them... He turned over on his left side, slid rubber tubing designed to clarify his veins up his left arm, then began moving the arm up and down while flexing and closing and opening his fingers." After an hour of vein-rolling and attempted shunt installation, Broom "became visibly distressed... The team had been asking Broom whether he wanted a break, but he chose to push ahead..." Around 4:00 p.m., prison director Terry Collins alerted Ohio governor Ted Strickland to the execution troubles, and Governor Strickland issued a temporary reprieve. "Collins later thanked the condemned man for what he said was the respect he showed toward the execution team," reports the UK Guardian. But not everyone's feeling warm and cuddly: "It was obviously a flawed process," said Broom's lawyer Adele Shank to the AP. "He survived this execution attempt, and they really can't do it again. It was cruel and unusual punishment." Which brings us to today, when a federal judge temporarily halted the state's attempt to execute Romell Broom again next week.

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 19 Nothing happened today, unless you count the weird fact that TV's Batman Adam West, local film legend/cautionary tale Frances Farmer, plus-sized pop star Mama Cass Elliott, shrimpy pop composer Paul Williams, bony supermodel Twiggy, award-winning Claus von Bülow impersonator Jeremy Irons, Chic genius Nile Rodgers, TV journalist Soledad O'Brien, Pulp frontman Jarvis Cocker, rhymey-named comedienne Cheri Oteri, and inexplicable celebrity Jimmy Fallon were all born on this day.

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 20 Nothing happened today.