Last Days

MONDAY, DECEMBER 7 This week of misplaced pigeons, peace-prize-winning warmongers, and history-making gay mayors kicks off today in Fort Worth, Texas, where a girls’ volleyball team is embroiled in a controversy situated squarely in one girl’s womb. As ABC News reports, 17-year-old Mackenzie McCollum was the star of the Arlington Heights High School girls’ volleyball team—until school officials learned of her pregnancy, at which time she was ordered off the team. Undeterred, McCollum fought to regain her right to play competitive volleyball while four months pregnant, producing a doctor’s note clearing her to play with “some conditions.” School officials responded with a letter to McCollum’s mother, saying they were “unable to accommodate the need to monitor her heart rate” and reminding mother, daughter, and child-to-come about the “physical contact… inherent in this sport.” The saga continues (and the baby McCollum is due at the end of March).

••Meanwhile in Brooklyn, prosecutors are embroiled in a pregnancy-related hubbub that makes the Fort Worth volleyball scandal look like baby poop. At the center of the drama: Kisha Jones, a 38-year-old Brooklyn woman facing a slew of charges for allegedly attempting to abort her romantic rival’s baby. Details come from the criminal complaint to be filed tomorrow by the Brooklyn district attorney’s office, which will lay out Ms. Jones’s alleged plot in all its horrible, multifaceted glory. As CNN reports, “The complaint alleges that Jones in October used a doctor’s prescription pad to forge a prescription for [25-year-old, seven-months-pregnant Monique Hunter] for a drug that can induce labor… After obtaining the drug, Jones called Hunter numerous times claiming to be the pregnant woman’s doctor’s office and telling Hunter that her doctor had sent a prescription for her to pick up and take immediately.” Following “doctor’s orders,” Hunter took the drug and was overcome by severe abdominal pain. Upon being rushed to the hospital, Hunter gave birth to a baby boy, who was soon targeted in another attack. “A source at the Brooklyn district attorney’s office confirmed to CNN that following the child’s birth, an unidentified man went to the hospital with what he claimed was breast milk for Hunter’s baby, but the liquid was later determined to be toxic.” Tomorrow, Jones—who reportedly believed Hunter had been impregnated by her husband—will be charged with reckless endangerment, forgery of a medical prescription, possession of a forged instrument, criminal impersonation, attempted abortion, and assault. The baby remains in
intensive care.

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 8 The week continues in Baghdad, where today a courthouse, two colleges, a mosque, and a bank were bombed, killing at least 121 people and wounding over 400 others. “The bombings, a coordinated assault on the capital, highlighted an ominous convergence of politics and violence, which American and Iraqi officials have long warned will mar the country’s [March] election,” reports the New York Times. “The attacks appeared intended to cripple the government’s basic ability to function, and at least in part they succeeded. Two government institutions struck on Tuesday, the Finance Ministry and an appeals court, had only just relocated to new buildings after similar attacks destroyed their old offices in August and October.” As one young Iraqi woman with burns over her arms and legs yelled outside the bombed mosque in Qahira: “Are we cursed?”

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 9 In much lighter news, today brings a bracing story of a bird onboard a Metro bus, courtesy of Hot Tipper Madeline: “I ride the 358 to and from work every day, and I have experienced my fair share of weird shit, but today takes the cake. My bus pulled up to a stop, and right away I noticed the woman waiting to board had a grocery cart rigged with milk crates attached to the front of a Razor scooter. She was capable of riding this magic Razor-scooter cart around the city but needed the lift to board the bus. She wasn’t wearing shoes. Then the bird on her head started to flap its wings. The bus driver said, ‘You know you have a bird on your head?’ She replied, ‘Yeah, but it’s okay.’ The bus driver shrugged, and the lift carried her up. She sat in the seat directly across from me, at which point the bird shit on her face. She wiped the bird shit off to one side of her face, where it stayed the remainder of the trip downtown.”

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 10 Nothing happened today, unless you count President Obama taking time away from his busy war-prolonging schedule to travel to Stockholm to accept the Nobel Peace Prize.

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 11 The week continues, horribly, on Seattle’s First Hill, where early this morning, a medical worker at the 600 Broadway Medical Center went to the parking garage to retrieve her phone from her car and was attacked from behind, thrown to the ground, and raped by a masked stranger who said he had a gun and fled on foot. As KING 5 reports, “The attack occurred across the street from Swedish Medical Center and next door to Seattle University. Both institutions sent out warning e-mails to staff and students.” Police continue their hunt for the attacker, searching nearby businesses’ surveillance tapes for footage of the man loitering before the crime and urging anyone with information about the case to call the SPD. For now, be careful, travel in packs of two or more when you can, and best wishes to today’s survivor.

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 12 Nothing happened today, unless you count the reopening of Forza Coffee, the Parkland coffee shop where Lakewood Police Sergeant Mark Renninger and Officers Ronald Owens, Tina Griswold, and Greg Richards were slain just two weeks ago; or the rejuvenation of Houston, which today became the nation’s largest city with an openly gay mayor. (Her name is Annise Parker.)

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 13 Nothing happened today (unless you count the demolition of the Seattle Seagulls at the hands of the ridiculously named Houston Texans, who clobbered the ‘Gulls 34–7 in some sport or other).

Attention Showgirls enjoyers: Under direct orders from Jesus, I’ll be hosting a Christmas Eve screening at the Triple Door. Everyone else: Send Hot Tips to lastdays@thestranger.com.