MONDAY, JUNE 21The week begins with a letter from a nameless reader, who thanked Last Days for our morbid devotion to reporting the atrocious things parents routinely do to their children, then inquired how such a horrible trend came to be the column’s “hot button” issue. Dear nameless reader: Last Days’ obsession with parental kid-killers was sparked during the wrap-up of the last century, when each new day seemed to bring another statesman, preacher, or judge railing against the inherent unfitness of gay parents. While the religious right used the natural moral superiority of heterosexual parents to justify bigotry, we couldn’t help noticing a shadow trend of naturally blessed, morally superior heterosexual parents torturing their children, from bashing to broiling to beheading. Over time, the denunciations of gay families trailed off, as the religious right moved on to denouncing other things, like the natural moral superiority of heterosexual marriage. However, the kid-killings continued, leading Last Days to proclaim the diabolical torture of children by their parents “the hottest trend of the new millennium.” Over time, we’ve learned to pick and choose our dead-baby stories with care–darkness can be beautiful, but it’s good to have at least enough light to cast a shadow. Nevertheless, the universe has continued to keep the world’s store of parent-child horrors stocked full, as evidenced by today’s two stories of parents sending kids to the afterlife. Story #1 comes from Chicago, where a 23-year-old Abby Grason has been arrested after allegedly killing her two young children and torching the family’s home. According to the 14-page handwritten statement she gave police, Ms. Grason set her plan in motion just before dawn this morning, when the mother with a history of mental illness and dreams of sending her children to a “better place” placed two aerosol cans in the kitchen microwave and turned it on. As smoke filled the kitchen, Grason drowned her 3-year-old daughter Sandra and 2-year-old son Isaac in a foot of bath water, then walked to a neighbor’s house to report the fire. The Associated Press reports that Ms. Grason has been charged with two counts of first-degree murder and aggravated arson, while Ms. Grason’s attorney continues to argue for leniency for her “seriously mentally ill” client. Meanwhile in Poland: A husband and wife were today sentenced to life in prison after being found guilty of murdering four of their children, whose mummified bodies were found stashed in barrels at the couple’s apartment. According to the Associated Press, police in the city of Lodz arrested 30-year-old Krzysztof N. and his 31-year-old wife Jadwiga after a search of the couple’s closet turned up the aforementioned barrels, which held the remains of two newborn babies and 5-year-old twin boys. “You are not capable of loving and your crimes prove that,” said judge Marek Chmiela as he announced the verdict. “You don’t deserve the name of Mother and Father.” The couple’s remaining child, a 12-year-old girl, has been placed in an orphanage.
–In much lighter news: Today brought a strangely rich collection of celebrity birthdays, including genius film comedienne Judy Holliday, Nobel Prize-rejecting writer/philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, Kinks mastermind Ray Davies, Winger mastermind Kip Winger, Leo Sayer mastermind Leo Sayer, and both Michael Gross and Meredith Baxter-Birney from Family Ties.
TUESDAY, JUNE 22 Speaking of celebrities who share a birthday: Today Mary-Kate Olsen, best known as the totally fat Olsen twin, shocked the entertainment industry and no one else by entering a treatment facility for anorexia. According to the twins’ publicist, the 18-year-old Olsens are still planning to attend NYU together in the fall, but only the non-hospitalized Ashley will make this month’s promotional jaunt to Australia and New Zealand to hype the twins’ film, New York Minute. Good luck to both twins.
— Meanwhile: Another day, another beheading. Today the Pentagon confirmed that insurgents in Iraq made good on their threat to kill a civilian hostage–translator Kim Sun-il–if South Korea continued to send troops to Iraq. “To the South Korean citizens: We warned you,” said one of the militants in a video broadcast today on Al Jazeera. “Enough lies, or cheatings. Your soldiers here are not for the sake for the Iraqis, but they are here for the cursed America.”
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 23 Nothing happened today (unless you count the unlucky discovery made by a bunch of cheerleaders in Colorado, who attended a June cheerleading camp at the University of Colorado, during which the girls stayed off-campus at a nearby Broker Inn. All was fine until the girls developed film from the camp–and found photos of an unknown man resting his genitals on a bunch of their stuff, from drinking cups and “personal items” to food. According to TheDenverChannel.com, police believe the mystery man used at least five cameras in several different rooms to take pictures of his wang while the girls were at the cheerleader camp, and hotel personnel are cooperating with the investigation.)
THURSDAY, JUNE 24 The week continues with the greatest story in the history of the world, courtesy of those dependable snarks at the Smoking Gun, who today introduced the world to Donald D. Thompson, the 57-year-old judge in Oklahoma facing charges after allegedly masturbating, using a penis- enlargement pump, and shaving his genital area while on the bench as a district judge. According to a petition filed by the Oklahoma attorney general, visitors to Judge Thompson’s Creek County courtroom reported hearing a “swooshing” sound coming from the bench–a noise that court reporter Lisa K. Foster said “sounded like a blood pressure cuff being pumped up”; the AG’s complaint makes reference to Judge Thompson’s “repeated use of a device known as a penis pump during non-jury and jury trials in his courtroom and in the presence of court employees,” and charges Judge Thompson with pumping himself up during an August 2003 murder trial. For his part, Judge Thompson has admitted the pump was “under the bench” during the murder case, but has denied using the item, which he described as a “gag gift from a friend.”
FRIDAY, JUNE 25 Today brought a timely correction care of Hot Tipper Alan, who wrote to decry the “grievous mistake” in last week’s Last Days. “The ‘very burly, very sweaty woman’ who ‘removed one of her gigantic breasts from her shirt and stuck it in her mouth’ is no woman,” writes Alan. “That’s Bob. For years, my friends and I have been enjoying his public dancing and shaking, and for a long time we thought he was a woman, too. In fact, Bob is a very unique and very large man. Those breasts were man boobs. Though Bob is fully coherent and aware of himself, he is most certainly living in his own world.” Thanks to Alan for sharing, thanks to Bob for being.
SATURDAY, JUNE 26 Nothing happened today.
SUNDAY, JUNE 27 The week ends with Seattle’s humongous gay pride parade, today granted a gloriously sunny stretch of hours by God, and causing glee in many–most notably, the pair of shirtless, blissed-out “bears” spotted crouching in a doorway on Madison, whose huge pupils whispered “love” while their engorged nipples cried “lust.” Yay for gay.
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