Top Three Thursday – The past 7 days *Memorial*

*This week is just 4 things that stood out to me among the insanity that has been these past 7 days. Unlike previous T3’s, these are not “ranked” in any order.

Most Honorable mention: Killing off Cecil’s family

Two years ago this month an American dentist paid $54,000 to have a beloved lion lured out from the protected perimeter of his reserve with a cow carcass to kill him for a trophy, because it’s the 1930’s. Not to stir up those old wounds but one of Cecil’s sons has just joined him in lion heaven. Xanda, a six year old Kalahari lion and one of Cecil’s cubs was similarly lured and killed just outside of the Hwange National Park, where they are considered “protected.”

Masha Kalinina, international trade policy specialist for Humane Society, said in a statement, “Lions exist in 8 percent of their former range and are suffering from loss of habitat and prey in addition to poorly regulated trophy hunting.” Just this May, two lionesses and some cubs were reported as lured outside Hwange National Park with cow meat before being shot and killed (Conservation Action Trust).

It’s like baseball, where as soon as you step off base you can be “tagged out,” except with a bullet. Is there no buffer zone here? This is an expensive, Oxford run, research reserve, is it not? Can’t these blood-thirsty “hunters” actually hunt? Or are they simply a pitiful excuse for huntsmen who would rather pay for the sure thing because they can’t get it themselves? No wonder they camp outside of a freaking lion sanctuary.

3) Get it together Houston

Discrimination disturbs me, as it should you, but I notice I get a more fired up with youngsters because I consider any one of them could my kid or student [often felt like the same thing to be honest]. When this viral video came to my attention it got under my skin specifically when the officer pulls out his handcuffs in an obvious move to intimidate.

It’s a clear power play. Similar to if a teacher were to suddenly go silent and start writing… it always freaks the kids out. Now imagine the teacher pulls out a detention slip… oh, they are terrified then! Now amplify that on the scale of personal liberty and rights in a climate of strong racial tensions between authority and people of color. Oh, how it disturbs me!

Now I’ve been researching details and, depending on the news outlet, they have already tried to crucify the kid tainting the issues of the moment with details inapplicable to the time of filming. I don’t know the then teen and I don’t know the officer, but I know intimidation tactics when I see them and this cop was clearly violating the safe environment of this kid by trying to lead him to believe he was going to be detained, arrested, or worse.

This child was not wrong recording and wanting the officer’s name, and his defense speaks for the responsibility we all have to one another in a functioning society: “If I don’t do something about it, he gonna keep doing it and somebody is going to get hurt.” Let’s keep each other safe: document if able and report. If there’s any hope and justice left in our system, this officer will issue an apology and undergo some extensive professional development.

2) The attack on trans rights in the military

Honestly, I, like many, have avoided commenting on the internet kerfuffle that is our current country head. One could argue that there are just too many things now, too many to keep up with. During the school year it felt like another full-time job just trying to stay properly informed and getting the care needed to digest some of the realities we were being confronted with on a daily and sometimes personal basis. This week in review however, I cannot ignore the ludicrously discriminatory words that have most recently come out from under his fingertips.

“… in any capacity,” really? I was extremely bothered by this so I dove into hours of investigation, source gathering, graph reading, etc and found what many outlets are citing, which is the 2016 RAND study commissioned by the Pentagon for bipartisan data. Not surprisingly, the ACTUAL facts [can’t believe I have to qualify that] are antithetical to Trump’s reasoning, again. Considering the $49.3 billion health care expense of the Department of Defense in 2014, the study found the medical costs for transgender military personnel would be an “exceedingly small portion of active-component health care expenditures.”

In fact, between 0.005% to 0.017% of the department’s overall health care costs, according to the study. I hate to ask but really would love for him to expand on the so called “tremendous disruption” having trans individuals in the military would cause. Let’s see how much of the rhetoric matches the exact same excuses previously used for women in the military, LGBTQ+ in the military… good grief people!

What about all the transgender individuals already in the military you ask? Well good question! Why don’t we take it upon ourselves to ask our die-hard Trump/MAGA fanatic friends? Let’s start by asking if they support our troops. Can I get a “Damn right!” Good. All our troops? “Hell yea! They’re American heroes!” Cool. What about the transgender ones? ….

1) Chester Bennington

This one hit me ridiculously hard. As soon as I found out I found myself crying and unable to stop. I don’t think I’ve cried this much about a celebrity death since Robin Williams. I understand that people die every day and that I did not know him personally but Linkin Park was such a huge part of my life since middle school.

I remember almost a decade ago discovering that MTV played non-stop music videos early in the morning so I would wake up early and get ready for school super-fast so I could sit in front of the TV and consume all the new music videos (we also had just gotten cable again that summer so I was elated). Suddenly the “New Music” screen played with all its late 90’s glory and I thought to myself, “Oh here we go!” and what played next astonished me.

I saw dark greenish black lighting, warehouses and alleyways, and then I heard the intro and I was instantly hooked. Then I saw these super cute guys with their weird hair and Chester started singing… Dear God, everything changed. I had to know more about this band and everything they did! The scratching, the rocking guitars, the harmonious sprechgesang, the perfectly balanced melodic screaming, it was everything to me! Crawling came next and I knew the album had to be mine.

I even defended them when original fans started making fun of their changing style, as people do, but I didn’t care what they did, they could do no wrong for me. I remember being crushed that I couldn’t see them in concert with Metallica in 2003 but something came up and I had to go out of town that August. Ugh, I was devastated.

Hearing Chester talk about his inner demons and his family and friends always moved me. Describing how he’d have to keep himself occupied to ignore what was going on in his head resonated with me. Chester was always super honest and even poetic in his truthfulness. It may sound cheesy or whatever but their music got me through some very difficult times. The songs were angry so I didn’t have to be. Their lyrics talked about hurt and pain so I didn’t have to, they felt it so I didn’t have to feel it anymore. Their music did that for me and much more so I could go about being the happy little teenager everyone expects you to be. They were my daily catharsis and I can never thank them enough for it.

I haven’t been able to bring myself to read more about his passing, but my heart goes out to his family and friends. If he could touch my life the way he did, a complete and utter stranger, I can’t even imagine the positive impact he must have had on those around him. God bless his soul and the hearts of his family.

Also… in case you didn’t know: