MONDAY, DECEMBER 15 This week of peeping creeps, Uber horror, and a big Cuban surprise kicked off on TV, where tonight The Colbert Report welcomed actor Seth Rogen to promote The Interview, the forthcoming comedy from Sony Pictures starring Rogen and James Franco as celebrity journalists tasked with assassinating North Korean despot Kim Jong-un. Addressing North Korea’s displeasure with (and alleged hacking of Sony over) the forthcoming film, Colbert asked Rogen, “Did you picture them as a jolly regime?” in response to which a giggly Rogen made a joke about lube. In closing, Colbert crowed, “The Interview opens Christmas Day!”
•• Unfortunately, Colbert’s closing statement will spend the rest of the week being battered into untruthiness: On Tuesday, Sony Pictures received the following threat from its hackers: “Soon all the world will see what an awful movie Sony Pictures Entertainment has made. The world will be full of fear. Remember the 11th of September 2001. We recommend you to keep yourself distant from the places at that time. (If your house is nearby, you’d better leave.) Whatever comes in the coming days is called by the greed of Sony Pictures Entertainment. All the world will denounce the SONY.” In response to this weird, vague threat, James Franco and Seth Rogen canceled all media appearances promoting The Interview, and the US Department of Homeland Security told TMZ, “We are still analyzing the credibility of these statements, but at this time there is no credible intelligence to indicate an active plot against movie theaters within the United States.” Nevertheless, on Wednesday, the five biggest theater chains in America announced their decision to drop The Interview, soon after which Sony announced its decision to kill the film altogether. “In light of the decision by the majority of our exhibitors not to show the film The Interview, we have decided not to move forward with the planned December 25 theatrical release,” read Sony’s official statement. “Sony Pictures has been the victim of an unprecedented criminal assault against our employees, our customers, and our business. Those who attacked us stole our intellectual property, private e-mails, and sensitive and proprietary material, and sought to destroy our spirit and our morale—all apparently to thwart the release of a movie they did not like.”
•• On Friday, the FBI will confirm that “the North Korean government is responsible” for the Great Sony Hack of 2014, after which the shitbag hackers of North Korea will flex their Sony-empowered muscles with a new message, sent to Sony Pictures executives, ensuring “the security of [Sony’s] data unless you make additional trouble,” and insisting that Sony “never let the movie [be] released, distributed or leaked in any form” by destroying “everything related to the movie, including its trailers, as well as its full version [must be taken] down from any website hosting them immediately.” For a review of The Interview, see page 47.
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 16 The week continued with a two-man creep parade kicking off in Seattle, where a man stands accused of possessing hundreds of images of child pornography, as well as a library of locally sourced creeper shots. “Investigators said [57-year-old Greg Weldon] Phillips took hundreds of pictures of young girls in bathing suits at the International Fountain at Seattle Center,” reports KIRO. “According to charging documents… Phillips was arrested at his home after Homeland Security investigators found a large amount of child pornography on his computers and cameras… Phillips was charged with possession, distribution, and receiving child pornography.”
•• Meanwhile in Alabama, a man is facing criminal charges after allegedly getting a bucket, cutting a hole in the bucket, and then taping his cell phone inside the holey bucket to secretly videotape three young women as they used the restroom and showered. “Julio Cesar Olayo, 38, is charged with two counts of producing pornography with a minor and three counts of criminal surveillance,” reports Alabama Media Group. “He is being held in the Jefferson County Jail with bonds totaling $210,000.”
•• In worse news, today Taliban militants shouting “God is great!” stormed a public school in Peshawar, Pakistan, to massacre 145 people—three soldiers, 10 school staff members, and 132 children.
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 17 Speaking of stories that make you want to stay in bed, drunk, forever, the week continued with a reprieve from such stories, thanks to the impressively presidential action taken by President Obama, who vowed to “cut loose the shackles of the past” as he ordered the restoration of full diplomatic relations with Cuba and the opening of a US embassy in Havana for the first time in more than 50 years. “The surprise announcement came at the end of 18 months of secret talks that produced a prisoner swap negotiated with the help of Pope Francis and concluded by a telephone call between Mr. Obama and President Raúl Castro,” reports the New York Times. [Insert celebratory-mojito-and-cigar joke here. We’re still too fucked up over that Taliban massacre.]
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 18 To quote dead Joan Rivers, “Can we talk?” Sometimes Last Days feels guilty about subjecting you, dear readers, to the humanity-damning horrors that so often fill this column. But then we remember the animating spirit of the column, which is to assemble a dossier of God’s wrongs, which we will one day shove in His face (probably on a thumb drive) with the demand to EXPLAIN YOURSELF, FUCKER. Case in point: Today’s urban nightmare horror story out of Massachusetts, where an Uber driver stands accused of raping a female passenger he picked up in Boston. Details come from CBS, which reports the alleged horror went down on December 6, when the women hailed an Uber from a Boston residence, after which she was allegedly driven to an unfamiliar location and attacked. “He allegedly struck her with his hands, strangled her, locked the car doors so that she could not escape, and covered her mouth so she could not scream,” according to the Middlesex County district attorney’s office. “During an ensuing physical struggle, the defendant allegedly sexually assaulted the woman.” Yesterday, 46-year-old Alejandro Done was arraigned on charges of rape, assault to rape, and assault and battery. “He is being held pending a dangerousness hearing scheduled for December 24 in Cambridge District Court,” reports CBS. “Uber says Done passed a background check prior to becoming an independent contractor with the company,” but that he was not the driver the victim contacted to pick her up.
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 19 Nothing happened today, unless you count the ongoing Sony hack hubbub introduced and detailed in Monday’s item.
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 20 Nothing happened today, unless you count the birthdays of Law & Order creator/tycoon Dick Wolf (born on this day in 1946), “Ring My Bell” hit-maker Anita Ward (1957), or comic actor/two-time Academy Award nominee Jonah Hill (1983), and the death-days of novelist John Steinbeck (dead on this day in 1968), astronomer Carl Sagan (1996), and poet Denise Levertov (1997).
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 21 Ditto, but replace the birthday-havers with Jane Fonda (born on this day in 1937), Frank Zappa (1940), and Samuel L. Jackson (1948), and the dead with F. Scott Fitzgerald (dead on this day in 1940), George S. Patton (1945), and Hitler’s mother (1907). 
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