MONDAY, JUNE 24 This week of Supreme Court rulings, open sores, and sore losers kicks off with a good ol' fashioned battle of the sexes, medical horrors edition. First up, a young Chinese woman was hospitalized after her breast implant exploded in her chest. The cause of the rupture? A four-hour marathon session of the iPhone game Dragon Summon, played while she was lying on her stomach. "A doctor said the low quality of the implant, combined with the pressure of lying on it for an extended period of time, had caused the rupture," reports the Daily Mail, which adds that the woman originally underwent breast enlargement surgery "to boost her low self-esteem."
•• Meanwhile, police responding to a burglar alarm at a middle school in Ypsilanti, Michigan, were confronted with a man "kneeling outside the school and bloody from the waist down, with parts of his genitals ripped off," reports the Detroit Free Press. "He mutilated his genitals with his bare hands," Sergeant Geoff Fox later told reporters, noting that officers had a hard time making "constructive conversation" with the man. The 41-year-old victim was rushed to the nearest hospital, along with the salvageable "parts of the man's body," as the Detroit Free Press delicately calls testicle scraps. The man, who reportedly had no history of mental health issues or drug abuse, later told investigators that he'd been high on hallucinogenic mushrooms when he reportedly broke into the school and attacked his own penis.
TUESDAY, JUNE 25 The week continues with the name on everyone's lips: Wendy Davis. Today, the Texas state senator launched a marathon filibuster on the senate floor to block anti-abortion legislation that would ban most abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy and close all but five abortion clinics operating in the nation's second-biggest and most populous state. The scene was captivating: Davis strapped on a catheter and a pair of pink running shoes and, following strict filibuster rules, spoke about the legislation for 11 hours nonstop, without resting, eating, drinking, or even leaning. Throughout it all, Davis embodied grace under pressure, even as her Republican peers interrupted and eventually silenced her by illegally breaking her filibuster two hours before the special session's midnight deadline. Fortunately, Davis wasn't the only badass on the senate floor: Her fellow Democrats picked up where she left off, repeatedly stalling the bill's vote. "Parliamentary inquiry," one would begin, before asking a long procedural question or reading paragraphs directly from the senate rulebook. Senator Leticia Van de Putte—who had rushed to the senate floor from her father's funeral—even asked, after a motion of hers was ignored for a colleague's, "Did the president hear me, or did the president hear me and refuse to recognize me?" Then: "Parliamentary inquiry... At what point must a female senator raise her hand or her voice to be recognized over her male colleagues?" Following Van de Putte's last inquiry, which came 15 minutes before the deadline, "the orange-clad abortion-rights supporters packed in the gallery burst into cheers," reports the Guardian. "Their shouts grew louder and louder until they drowned out the final minutes of the session, preventing Republicans from passing the bill."
•• Tomorrow, noted dickhead and sore loser Governor Rick Perry will convene another 30-day special legislative session to attempt to pass the anti-abortion bill. Still, let us praise the lady-loving lord we have women like Senator Davis in politics. (Now strap on those pink running shoes and run for higher office, please.)
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 26 Cresting on yesterday's victory for women come two historic victories for the gays, courtesy of the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS). First, the court issued a 5-to-4 ruling that the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which bans federal recognition of same-sex marriage, "is unconstitutional as a deprivation of the equal liberty of persons that is protected by the Fifth Amendment," states the majority opinion, authored by Justice Anthony Kennedy. "The opinion and its holding are confined to those lawful marriages." Or, as SCOTUSblog says in plain English, "Same-sex couples who are legally married must now be treated the same under federal law as married opposite-sex couples," including gay and lesbian couples in Washington State, who are now entitled to more than 1,000 federal benefits, including tax breaks and Social Security coverage. Hurrah!
•• Also today, SCOTUS kicked a case on California's same-sex marriage ban, Proposition 8, back to the lower courts, which bodes well for Californian gay couples, as a federal judge ruled Prop 8 unconstitutional in 2010. "The state's governor has already ordered state officials to begin issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples," reports SCOTUSblog, although it will take a few days for those marriages to begin in earnest. (Stay tuned for Friday!)
THURSDAY, JUNE 27 The week continues with a swarm of unlikely heroes, as police responding to reports of elder abuse at an Auburn home discovered a 70-year-old woman fused to her soiled bedding, near death, and covered in flesh-eating maggots. But in this case, the maggots seemed to be more helpful than the woman's 46-year-old daughter, with whom she lived. As Komonews.com reports, the older woman had a "septic, gangrenous wound [that] could have taken her leg," and that the "maggots may have helped keep [the woman] alive due to the fact that they were eating the rotting skin that was infected and helping to slow the infection," as King County Sheriff's Detective Marylisa Priebe-Olson stated in court documents. First responders in hazmat suits quickly transported the woman to Valley Medical Center in critical condition, where "medical staff removed hundreds of maggots from her body," says Komonews.com. When interviewed by investigators, daughter Sherrie Morton claimed that she'd changed her mother's diaper and bedding a mere two days prior, and that the maggots had appeared the very day police arrived. King County prosecutors have charged Morton with second-degree criminal mistreatment of a dependent person.
FRIDAY, JUNE 28 Today, the plaintiffs of the Prop 8 case, 50-year-old Sandra Stier and 48-year-old Kris Perry, were declared "spouse and spouse" at San Francisco's City Hall, minutes after the Ninth Circuit court officially lifted the state's gay marriage ban. Their wedding marked the first gay marriage in California in four years. Congrats to the happy couple!
SATURDAY, JUNE 29 Today, the sore, bigoted losers responsible for Prop 8 filed an emergency petition with the Supreme Court to once again stop gay marriages in the state, arguing that Supreme Court rulings generally don't take effect for 25 days, explains NBCnews.com. They were denied their request.
SUNDAY, JUNE 30 Nothing happened today, unless you count 90-degree weather, a kiddie pool filled with bottles of rosé, the occasional overheated bear, glitter ice (yes, ice with glitter frozen inside), and so much Seattle Pride that we contracted happiness fatigue and longed for a steadying dose of ambivalence.
Send hot tips to lastdays@thestranger.com and follow me on Twitter @ciennam
