Last Days

MONDAY, OCTOBER 6 This week of discontinued cookies, skeezy
she-pimps, and rejuvenated American hopefulness kicks off today with
Kory McFarren, the 37-year-old resident of Great Neck, Kansas,
who first made headlines back in February. That’s when McFarren called
police to report that his girlfriend had refused to come out of the
bathroom for two years, leading deputies to a woman who’d spent at
least a month not moving from the toilet, during which time the toilet
seat adhered to sores on her body. On July 29, McFarren pleaded no
contest to misdemeanor mistreatment of a dependent adult and received
six months probation. Which brings us to today, when McFarren won
$20,000 in the Kansas State lottery. As the Associated Press reports,
this was McFarren’s second state lottery win of 2008. Contacted for
comment, karma said, “Clearly, I don’t exist.”

•• Meanwhile in an upscale gated community of the San
Fernando Valley: Police came upon the grisly scene engineered by
Karthik Rajaram, a 45-year-old unemployed financial manager described
by the Associated Press as “despondent over extreme money problems.” In
his suicide note, Rajaram wrote of having two ways out, the first of
which was to simply kill himself. Tragically, Rajaram chose the second
way, which he deemed “more honorable,” and sometime between late
Saturday night and early Monday morning Rajaram shot and killed his
wife, his three children, his mother-in-law, and finally himself. Last
Days apologizes for repeating ourselves, but as we head into what’s
sure to be a dark and challenging era, remember: If you’re considering
a murder-suicide, do the suicide part first.

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 7 The week continues with 2008’s second
presidential debate,
90 minutes of polite back-and-forth that
nevertheless seemed to herald a changing of the tide so solid and
significant even the most protectively cynical lefties couldn’t deny
it. The almost preternaturally calm Barack Obama appeared more and more
presidential, while John McCain cemented his stature as a crotchety old
fool in way over his head. (Bomb bomb Iran, indeed.) The rest of the
week will get exceedingly ugly, as the Republican attacks on
Obama grow ever more garish. Most notably, Sarah Palin will continue to
repeat her line about Obama “pallin’ around with terrorists,” an
allegedly damning fact that McCain couldn’t be bothered to address
during the debate, and a particularly ludicrous claim coming from a
politician who repeatedly appeared before a radical Alaskan
secessionist group. By week’s end, McCain and Palin will have endured
several telling face-offs with a key GOP constituency: ludicrously
misinformed racists, who’ll spend the week casting racial epithets
at African-American news-crew workers and greeting mention of Obama’s
name with cries of “Kill him!” On Friday, a Republican-led bipartisan
legislative council will conclude that Palin abused her power as
Alaska’s governor by pushing for the firing of her
ex-brother-in-law, while in New York’s Rensselaer County, 300 absentee
voters will receive ballots listing the Democratic presidential
candidate as Barack Osama. Stay tuned.

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 8 Readers will remember our gloating last week
over Jerome Eugene Todd, the 29-year-old Everett man sentenced
to 26 years in prison for his crimes as a suck-ass pimp. Today
brings the opportunity to show that our antipimp sentiment
transcends gender, thanks to Chomphoonut Dongird, the
Seattle woman indicted today for conspiracy to transport individuals in
furtherance of prostitution. Details come from the Seattle
Times, which quotes the federal grand jury’s unsealed indictment in
alleging that Chomphoonut “Lisa” Dongird was responsible for running “a
trio of brothels disguised as massage parlors in Kirkland, Bellevue,
and SeaTac,” staffed with women brought from Thailand and California.
According to the indictment, these women “were required to perform sex
acts as part of their employment. In one instance, Dongird brought a
woman from Thailand to the U.S. and then told her she owed $25,000 for
her immigration paperwork and travel”—a debt Dongird allegedly
required her to work off at the brothels. On Friday, Dongird will plead
not guilty and be ordered held pending a detention hearing next
week.

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 9 Nothing happened today, unless you count news of
the sudden death of Mother’s Cookies, the beloved American
ass-fattener whose 92 years of excellence was brought to an abrupt halt
by rising fuel and food prices and a difficult credit market. Further
details come from the San Francisco Chronicle, which reports
that company representatives told workers last Friday of the impending
closure, with the company filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in U.S.
Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware on Monday. Even worse:
Due to “unforeseeable business circumstances,” the company won’t comply
with the federal law requiring a 60-day notification for any layoffs.
RIP Mother’s (and a moment of silence for those grossly delicious
frosted-and-sprinkled animal cookies).

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 10 Today brings a blast of good news from the East,
as the Connecticut Supreme Court ruled 4–3 in support of
same-sex couples’ constitutional right to marry. “Interpreting
our state constitutional provisions in accordance with firmly
established equal-protection principles leads inevitably to the
conclusion that gay persons are entitled to marry the otherwise
qualified same-sex partner of their choice,” wrote the majority. “To
decide otherwise would require us to apply one set of constitutional
principles to gay persons and another to all others.”

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 11 Nothing happened today, unless you count the
southeast Capitol Hill/northwest Central District blackout,
tracked by the Central District News to a falling tree branch that took
down a power line on 22nd Avenue near Marion Street and knocked out
power from Pine Street to Main Street and from 24th Avenue to
12th Avenue, from roughly 9:00 p.m. Saturday till sometime
Sunday (for some it was morning; for others, near evening). In Last
Days’ household, we enjoyed a lovely evening of candles and previously
downloaded This American Life podcasts played through a
battery-powered MP3 speaker system. But not everyone had such pleasant
experiences, as evidenced by Slog commenter Cochise‘s report: “I
sat in the dark until 3:00 a.m. and stared at the moonlit wall with
deep concern about the pork ribs I have in the freezer. Then I
went to sleep.”

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 12 Nothing happened today (unless you count
the resolution of yesterday’s nothing).

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