Why The Fuck Are We Still Saying "Redskins?"

Happy Columbus Day! Today, we take time to remember our whitewashed version of the "discovery of America" and celebrate a man who systematically enslaved and slaughtered the indigenous peoples of a land he, ostensibly, thought was fucking Asia.

Much too late, we are beginning to realize that "oh yeah, that guy sucks" and are slowly (very, very slowly) transferring attention and praise away from this murderous psychopath and back towards the people who, you know, lived here for tens of thousands of years before we showed up. But as much as we'd LIKE to give them the recognition they deserve, we're far more content "honoring" them through racial stereotypes and epithets. Namely, through using the term "redskins."

Indeed, we are still using this fucking term, despite the fact that it is 2015 and that the word literally means "Native American scalp." This is the equivalent of naming a team "Beheaded American Journalists" and shrugging when people ask what the hell is wrong with us.

And that's exactly what Washington Redskins owner Dan Snyder is doing. Although he is taking it a step farther and outright defending his offensive bullshit as "heritage." (Where have I heard that argument before....I'm sure it'll come to me eventually.) In a letter penned in 2013, Snyder defended the name, citing that "we cannot ignore our 81-year history." Eighty one whole years! How could any opposing group ever top a number as high as that?

Snyder and his fans (read: racist mob) go on to bemoan their hurt feelings and how offended they feel to be called racists. Because god knows it's the accused racists that deserve the benefit of the doubt. Snyder's position is, quite obviously, stupid and despite his citation that "most Native Americans" don't find the name offensive (a study conducted in 2004, by the way), it still desperately needs to be struck from our national lexicon.

California has done just that. Yesterday, in an overwhelming majority decision, the California State Assembly passed a law banning the use of the term "redskins" as a mascot name. Cool! Awesome! We are progressing, right?

Tulare Union Principal Michelle Nunley says she brought the letter when she went to Sacramento with some students to lobby against the bill. 

“People feel very passionate about it, and the fact that we’re all Redskins,” says Nunley. “We don’t want to lose that opportunity to remain Redskins here at Tulare Union.”

Oh, for fuck's sake. Yes, because the world spins on axis made entirely of fecal matter dribbling from the mouths of a million racist morons, someone in a position of authority and power has a fucking problem with this entirely reasonable and long-due decision. Tulare High School cites heritage as well as the high cost of renovation as their reason to sticking to their feather headdress-adorned guns. Native Americans cite thousands of years and the complete decimation of their population due to disease, war and displacement as their reason. Who's to say who has more of a leg to stand on?

Look, it's great that California is dragging its population, kicking and screaming, into a world where we don't go around using racially offensive terms. But it is very little, very late. For starters, this is the only state in the union to do so as of yet. (It is still legal in 49 states to dance around in fake Native American attire and call yourself a redskin.) Furthermore, and far more offensive, we still treat Native Americans like absolute shit. 28.2% of Native Americans live under the poverty line, many of which are living in overcrowded housing with insufficient access to healthcare (Native American lifespans trail the average by about 5 years) and jobs.

The native people of this land are still feeling the shockwaves of the absolutely horrifying shit our country's forefathers inflicted on them for hundreds of years, yet we're worried that a few thousand drunk sports fans that can't bear the thought of having to throw out all their racist memorabilia and learn to chant a different name at football games might have their feelings hurt? Not to mention, we're still celebrating murderous psychopaths via holidays and currency.

There is a startlingly wide gap in our national mindset concerning the native populations that causes this issue to pass by us daily without so much as a glance in its direction. The fact that a national sports team (in our nation's capital no less) can preserve its highly offensive name with very little consequence thus far shows just how unwilling we are to address this problem. This is due to a mixture of misconception and conscious apathy.

In short, stop being an ignorant asshole and change the goddamn name already.

Who Will Think Of The Men?

Who will think of the men? The poor, downtrodden man who hath lost his reason to live. Who will think of the manly man. The guy's guy. The DUDE. Who will consider his world, slowly slipping through his heavily calloused fingertips and falling into the dirt where it is being used to fertilize the pansy-laced garden of our modern progressive age? Who will help these masculine men? Cast out by society and made to watch as their delicate, wood-smoked world is dismantled piece by piece to fashion an IKEA bassinet and brunch.

Woe is the man who can no longer be a man. Castrated, silenced and broken, the man must now sit by the sidelines of a football game where the players can no longer call each other racially offensive terms. Since when did teammates stop getting to be teammates?

Pity the man who has watched idly by as words like "faggot" and "pussy" have been struck from his lexicon, replaced with words like "person" and "frightened person." Their dictionaries, stripped of gusto and machismo, now languish in a world that forces men to read them. Where have the days of brevity gone?

Bros, Romans, countryMEN, our world of male dominated pronouns has come crashing down around our ears, forcing us to moderately adjust our speech patterns to deal with it. It is a bitter, cruel world that would allow such a shift. The world as we know it is coming to an end and all we can do is stare silently into the abyss for tears might wash the dirt from our working man's cheeks.

And chivalry! Oh, chivalry. Alas, we knew you. To where shall we turn for our social cues regarding those of the fairer sex? How shall we proceed in coital endeavors? Who will open the door? All these questions and more are now sawdust in the wind, lost to a world where manners and social decorum are no longer gauged by gender.

Masculinity, we lay you to rest in a hole free from frills, dug with our own hands and filled with about two inches of shitty beer. We lower you into the ground to the tune of AC/DC's "Back in Black" and say our goodbyes with straight faces and taut jawlines. Finally, we send you out with a 21-gun salute, aimed at a sky filled with fluffy clouds and smiling baby suns, products of our recently feminized world.

Men, how we shall miss you. Boots replaced by Toms. Shirts replaced by blouses. Deteriorating vision replaced by glasses. I just don't understand this new world. Why can't it accept our mindset? Why can't things stay the way they were? Why can't men just be men?

Some Advice for the Rotten Appal

It's been over a year since the Rotten Appal's fatal blunder heard 'round the campus and a lot has changed since then. Gay marriage was legalized (and, subsequently, inspired stupidity), Donald Trump became a viable presidential nominee (a separate, unrelated stupidity), and the Rotten Appal managed to settle into a routine that worked. They got into the groove and, honestly, started producing some not-so-shabby work. Which is why this is more painful than it should be.

In a recent article, the Rotten Appal attempted to tackle the issue of catcalling and sexual assault via satire. The article, titled "Catcallers Make Good Points About Hot Bitches", was not well received. Criticized for its clumsy approach to the issue, many felt that the joke careened too far into bad taste and negated its original intention. In other words, it's time for this week's special article:

"Fucking A, Guys; You Were Doing So Well"

This was not handled well. By anyone. Let's get that out of the way first because it's worth pointing out lest we get lost in the "he said, she said" of internet fighting. I don't know where the outrage originated and, quite frankly, it doesn't really matter. The issue lies less with what the article said than how the protestations were responded to. Herein lies my particular gripes: When presented with criticism, the Rotten Appal staff (not a singular entity, I am aware) responded with anger and defensiveness. This baffles me.

As a humor organization, you expect a certain level of daily ire, usually in the form of the offended most recently insulted in an article. These offendees are, typically, oversensitive bedwetters that can't handle someone making fun of the football team or the Greek system. In these cases, it is usually best to respond by saying.....well, nothing. They aren't worth your time. This case, however, is very different. In this case, you have ended up offending the wrong audience, shooting yourself in the proverbial (and, indeed, collective) foot.

What draws the anger of the public is often predictable. Were I to write a blog post about the healing powers of cyanide, I could rest assured that people would take issue. But sometimes, something, be it the writing, visuals or content, just does not click with people and the audience turns on you. As an individual, you can avoid these; as an organization you cannot. As an organization dedicated to creating content for an audience, you have a particular duty to a respectful dialogue. Insulting your readers is not the route to take. I found it particularly disturbing to see Rotten Appal writers responding to their audience with dismissiveness and indifference on their official Facebook page. This belies a level of professionalism I had thought the Rotten Appal was beginning to aspire to.

Look, I get it. You were trying to be funny and start a dialogue about rape culture. That's a mighty fine goal and I am proud that you are trying to use satire to tackle controversial issues. But the joke just didn't work. I know it may have worked in theory, but every writer should know that sometimes something just does not hit the mark. This is typically the part where you suck it up, apologize and try to be better in the future. It's fucking humiliating, I know. It seems like you're giving up, but try to see it as an opportunity to grow and demonstrate that you are, indeed, an organization and not just a club full of dudes writing fart jokes. Because you've evolved past that and people have noticed. We really have. Don't squander that on pride.

Appalachian State's Big Pile of Bullshit

The transition from an academic institution to a machine for football has been steadily happening since we, you know, did that thing. Despite how weird it is that we still collectively masturbate over beating a team once (who, last year, annihilated us in the most ill-chosen revenge match ever), we've gained a foothold, however loose, in the world of televised sports and have been making moves towards becoming an eventual powerhouse. Which would be all fine and dandy if it didn't come at the expense of the students.

Now, the dichotomy between student athlete and student non-athlete is a tale as old as universities and there is, admittedly, some wrong information out there that is often used to demonize the former. For example, for years people have bemoaned the football team for taking all of our unused meal plan money, sparking outrage at the end of every year. A couple of years ago, on this very blog, I debunked that myth.

But just because the football team isn't taking your lunch money doesn't mean that it isn't still calling you a nerd and running away with your girlfriend. In this case, your girlfriend is a shoddy metaphor for parking. In a recent email sent out by the Chancellor herself (read: her secretary), she enthusiastically described how little the university gives a shit about your over-priced parking pass on October 22 and November 5th, both Thursdays and both, ostensibly, class days.

The email goes on to lay out which lots may be used and which may not....for faculty and staff, that is. As for students, well....

Haha fuck you nerds.

That's right. Not only is the university relegating faculty and staff to limited parking (from which they must be moved by 3pm!!), they are also pretty much banning students from parking anywhere near campus, with the exception of Rivers Street until 4pm, under the guise of their "green initiative." This in and of itself stinks to high heaven and is the topic of today's Big Pile of Bullshit.

For a university that just hosted the fourth annual Appalachian Energy Summit, whose attendees included Robert Kennedy Jr., Appalachian certainly has a strange concept of energy conservation and sustainability. If banning students from parking on campus is part of a green initiative, presumably with the notion that this will reduce carbon emissions for the day, would it not be also pertinent to just, you know, ban everyone from driving that day? Why not cancel the game, close up the lots and tell everyone to sit inside for the day with the lights off? Surely this would be more in line with your "green initiative." But, of course, this does not fit Appalachian's hilariously bad narrative. The university wants to have its cake and eat it too. Maintaining the illusion that they are an institution dedicated to making the world a better place, unfortunately, is starting to butt heads with the goal of making big bucks and planting themselves on the front page of Sports Illustrated again. 

Appalachian has elected dishonesty and word games in lieu of being upfront with its students. Furthermore (and possibly worse), they have given professors a very clear message that they care about them just about as much as a few parking lots can handle, literally suggesting to them that (and I am not making this up) "...some may wish to avoid the risk of traffic congestion by leaving campus early."

Go on, get out of here. We're done listening to all your fancy school shit. We got some FOOTBALLLLLLL!! Are you fucking serious Appalachian? You're literally telling your faculty and staff to get the fuck out (albeit covertly) and make room for paying customers. This is the academic equivalent of "the customer is always right." 

Look, I understand that this is only two days out of the year, but it's indicative of a worrisome shift in importance and reveals an underlying narrative being concocted by the university to justify its own actions. Overt screwing over of its, arguably, most important asset (aka students) would be preferable to being screwed with a smile and a wink. Touting your actions as "green" is akin to turning the NBC logo green for a month out of the year and saying you helped. 

Is it really worth getting worked up over not being able to park close to campus for two days out of the year? Maybe not for me; I have an apartment parking pass so none of this really affects me in the slightest. But there are people who rely on parking as a means of getting to campus, often too far out for the bus to pick them up and certainly too far to bike. Shortsighted behavior by a university with big plans doesn't give me much hope that their ongoing game of footsies with ESPN is going to pan out and it certainly doesn't give me much hope for their relationship with the students paying thousands upon thousands to attend this school. Fear not, however, as there is a silver lining to all of this. If you are a paying member of the Yosef Club, the university has several nice lots reserved for you.

Happy Football Season, motherfuckers. 

Presidential Dinner Theater

Welcome, welcome! Please have a seat. I said TAKE A FUCKING SEAT.

Sorry, Trumping out there. Anyways, where shall we begin? Ah yes, let's start by turning off our cell phones, pagers and really any form of technology for the next year and a half. It's time for the Presidential Dinner Theater!

Every four years, our nation sits down, burns the popcorn and then bitches about this same fucking movie for an extended period of time we call the "election cycle." We see the same cast of buffoons (namely Santorum and Perry) say the same stupid shit and for some reason, we have the same gripes, as if this method has worked in the past. You get major news outlets publishing long-winded articles filled with all sorts of problems faced by one party or another. It's the same fucking drudgery every four years.

Bullshit. Bullshit never changes.

I'm not saying they aren't proper gripes. I mean by all means calling out Donald Trump and Jeb Bush for being misogynistic assholes is certainly proper; but is it worthwhile? The answer, as you may have guessed, is resoundingly: no. Because, quite frankly, the candidates, nor their affiliated parties, don't give a rat's ass what you or your cute little newspaper/Facebook status/blog think.

And, to make matters worse, the major news outlets (Fox News, CNN, etc.) also don't care what you think. If anything, they care even less. Because this is all one big fucking game and we're sitting at the losers' table in perpetuity. We are casting our ballot for entertainment politics night after night as we rage into our computers about how stupid Candidate 1 is or how out of touch Party 2 is. These people know what they're saying is bullshit, but they don't care because we eat it up. Whether we like what we taste is irrelevant so long as we chew and swallow it down.

Being politically aware is important, no doubt. If you want to sit down and spend days crunching the numbers and facts behind each and every presidential candidate (you'll be there awhile) then, by all means, go for it. This is a good way to handle the next year and a half. But if you're among the rest of us who just sit around and shout at the screen because someone said something that made you mad, you're never going to get up. You're going to sit at that screen forever, your angry spittle greasing an already well-lubed machine that lives off of your willingness to pay attention.

Stop listening to it. Stop watching it. Stop fucking caring about it. The controversy, I mean. Stop clicking on articles that start with "You'll never believe what so-and-so said!" Just fucking stop. Please, for the love of all this is holy, end the seemingly endless cycle of "mad as hell" pageantry. Every time you post something bitching about a candidate, all you are doing is giving them and whatever second-rate news outlet that published it free publicity.

The election cycle is supposed to be a chance for Americans to review candidates and find out if they're worthy of the office of the Presidency. It's supposed to be objective and it's supposed to be professional. It's not. I'm not sure if it ever was, to be entirely honest. But that doesn't stop us from complaining that it isn't. Even me.

If you care about democracy and America and all that howdy-doody shit, you'll step away from the show and form opinions based on facts instead. About both sides of the aisle. About sides that don't yet have an aisle. You'll go for a walk and think about what it means to be a leader. You'll come home and you'll do actual research and make decisions based on facts and figures.

For now, you can find the emergency exit doors to your left and right. Please use them.

An Open Letter to College Students on Suicide

The collegiate epoch is, understandably, ridden with stress and confusion. Nothing quite prepares you for it; not the incessant and irritatingly light-hearted college prep books nor the conspicuously censored stories from your parents' experiences. Buzzfeed articles, littered with topical gifs and vague advice on not gaining too much weight your freshman year, are more of a hindrance than a help and you'll quickly find that that romanticized college atmosphere born of listicles is a myth conjured to justify the inordinate amount of stress that will be thrust upon you.

This is not an attempt to scare you or dissuade you from coming to college. Quite the opposite, actually. I want you to be prepared for the veritable shitstorm that is bound to tear through your psyche at the first mention of "the rest of your life" and inevitably find its way through an advisor's or professor's lips. It may seem petty and, frankly, a bit melodramatic that something as vague and in the future as, well, your future, could cause such a mental crisis. But make no mistake, stress can cause turmoil and, at its very worst, can kill.

In a recent piece by the New York Times, Julie Scelfo investigates the growing number of suicides on college campuses across the United States. Among the profiled schools, my own university finds a significant place, due in part to the highly publicized disappearance and eventual tragic discovery of Anna Smith last year. In addition to Smith, the university faced two more tragedies in the form of suicide. But Appalachian State was not alone in its grief.

Ms. Holleran was the third of six Penn students to commit suicide in a 13-month stretch, and the school is far from the only one to experience a so-called suicide cluster. This school year, Tulane lost four students and Appalachian State at least three — the disappearance in September of a freshman, Anna M. Smith, led to an 11-day search before she was found in the North Carolina woods, hanging from a tree. Cornell faced six suicides in the 2009-10 academic year. In 2003-4, five New York University students leapt to their deaths.

To make matters worse, suicide rates among the 15-24 years-old age range are on the rise, "from 9.6 deaths [in 2007] per 100,000 to 11.1, in 2013." In addition, college counselors have seen an increase in psychological issues among students.

But a survey of college counseling centers has found that more than half their clients have severe psychological problems, an increase of 13 percent in just two years. Anxiety and depression, in that order, are now the most common mental health diagnoses among college students, according to the Center for Collegiate Mental Health at Penn State.

Why are we losing our peers to depression and suicide? Obviously, there's no solid and satisfying answer to the age-old question of what causes this sort of melancholy reaction to life. It's wrapped in layers of nature and nurture that no one is really qualified to make a blanket statement about. It's individual to each and every person and to try and explain it is futile. That being said, there are some interesting insights on what, precisely, it feels like to be one of these confusingly suicidal individuals. Namely, the feeling of falling short.

The author of the article posits that depression often befalls people not who have nothing, but those who have had something and lost it. This discrepancy acts as a gauge by which we judge ourselves and our seemingly hopeless attempts at pulling ourselves towards our idealistic goals. In this line of thought, it's easy to see why a college freshmen with their sights set on medical school might fall into a deep depression upon that first C. Things that would ordinarily be met with a slight bout of irritation or disappointment are instead blown into stratospheric proportions, making people question the validity of their lives.

Is there something or someone to blame here? Perhaps, but to point fingers is an exercise in presumption, and forgoes the sacred process of critical thought. Personally, I think the societal expectations thrust upon incoming (and, indeed, returning) college students play a large role in creating this self-imposed ideal for how one should tackle college. The never-ending tide of college do's and don't's fashion a narrative by which many believe they must adhere to, effectively rendering perspective impotent in the wake of expectation.

Which, I suppose, is my main point. Expectation is the death of contentedness. It rips apart any sort of small happiness you may find in every day life and shoves it under the microscope, forcing you to look at your perceived failures. Expectation takes the form of candy-coated, peppy optimism about the college experience to-be. Even the asinine and oft-touted phrase "college experience" reeks of lofty expectations and inevitable disappointment.

But disappointment is good. These thoughts should not be taken as nihilistic omens for a wholly depressing future. On the contrary, they should be of some relief. I want you to know that you can fail, and do so miserably, without the fear that life as you know it will end. Because "life as you know it" is a mythology conjured by self-indulgent media outlets and the facade of your friends' impossibly interesting social media experiences.

Failure cuts through the bullshit. The disappointment accompanying it lays life as it is at your feet, warts and all. These are not enemies to your happiness, but agents of truth, designed to save you from the illusion that life, and in this case college, if going to be a constant parade of great times and endless smiles. College is going to suck at times. It's going to make you want to pack up everything and join the French Foreign Legion, without so much as a look back. You'll stumble upon worries you never thought you'd have and feel the prick of real life steadily shuffling you towards that most terrifying of leaps.

This is the way it is. And that is ok. We are all collectively tearing our hair out and agonizing over the vague future that we once thought might manifest itself some time between freshman year and graduation. But there is no magical moment of clarity, no sudden enlightenment. And to expect that it will occur is the start of a dangerous path towards despair.

I am not looking to scare. I am looking to prepare you for an easier time in college. Whether you're preparing for the first time or returning to another year, I want you to have some perspective on the whole damn comedy and realize that expectations are best trashed in favor of living honestly. And believe me, you will enjoy college. There will be cinematic moments seemingly lifted straight from pop culture. You will laugh, have a good time and lay out on the quad at least once or twice before the long winter. But with all this comes the other, less spritely element. Rather than push it to the side, I want to lay it in front of you so that when it rears its head in your own life, you will greet it with a nod rather than a scream.

Three students took their lives on Appalachian State's campus this past year. Whether they were victims of college's lofty expectations or their own demons, we may never know. What I do know is that nothing in college is worth taking your life over and that for all its stress and overwhelming nature, its still just a small facet of life in general. I'm sure you've heard that one before, though.

The Morality of Trophy Hunting

Today in "fuck this asshole in particular," America has begun the sacred process of vilification of a dentist from Minnesota for allegedly "hunting" and beheading a lion in Zimbabwe as part of a trophy hunt. The dentist, Dr. Walter J. Palmer, reportedly paid $54,000 to hunt and kill the lion, known affectionately as Cecil by the locals.

But trophy hunting happens all the time. It's legal in many African countries (Zimbabwe and Tanzania being the biggest) and attracts millions of dollars from all over the globe, namely America. Why the outrage? Why the calls for Palmer's head? Why are we fucking this asshole in particular? Well, for starters, almost nothing about this hunt was ethical (not to mention legal) by any standards. As the story goes, Palmer and his hired guides wandered into one of Zimbabwe's national parks and found Cecil, ripe for the killing. Knowing that killing the lion on the grounds of the park would be highly illegal, they decided to utilize a loophole and lure the lion out of the park using a dead animal tied to their vehicle. Once Cecil was safely out of safety, Palmer shot him with a bow and arrow, wounding him. They tracked Cecil and eventually shot and killed him, proceeding to behead and skin him and leaving the carcass behind.

Right about now, there are two different possible reactions. Depending on this reaction, you can either find out if you're a sociopathic rectal cavity or a decent human being. You either see this as a tragedy or "just part of life." The latter reactionaries are the same ilk that buy into the idea that trophy hunting is all hunky dory and that selling off animal lives to the highest bidder is some convoluted way of helping struggling animal populations. Remember Kendall Jones from, like, a fucking year ago? The Texas cheerleader, known for posing with dead animals that she ostensibly shot and killed, gained a whole host of negative media attention when her pictures went viral. Her ordeal briefly brought the conversation of conservation (I'm sorry) to the forefront of everyone's mind before it inevitably slipped into obscurity in favor of whatever pissed us off next in July 2014.

But the conversation needs continuing. Conservation efforts are incredibly important, particularly in a time where we, as a species, are encroaching on literally every habitat on the planet and knocking over trees so that we can....marvel at how many trees we knocked over? I'm still fuzzy on the details. At any rate, trophy hunting is a good place to start. Is it good? Is it bad? Is it more complicated than that? I imagine the answer is "fuck, I have to think about this?" Luckily for you, I've done a good bit of the thinking for you.

For starters, why do people claim that trophy hunting is beneficial in the first place? The most commonly touted reasons are that it A) allows for more regulation of land that would otherwise see the aforementioned human encroachment, and B) garners millions of dollars in revenue for places that are in dire need of it. On face value, these both seem to be fairly rational justifications for sport hunting. No one can deny that one of the biggest ways to help conservation is to make sure it has enough money to fight back against....whatever the opposite of conservation is. Hunting? Maybe I'm splitting hairs.

But how much of that money actually goes into local communities and conservation efforts? A paltry amount, according to some. In fact, according to a study conducted at the University of Oxford, only an estimated 3-5% of revenue from trophy hunting in Tanzania is actually given back to the community. The opposition argues that eco-tourism is a far more profitable method of utilizing Africa's great animals for monetary gain. And these aren't just PETA-addled eco-terrorists that think this. Many African countries, including Kenya and Botswana have implemented countrywide bans on trophy hunting of big game.

The assertion that trophy hunting is beneficial to the survival and thriving of its victim populations is specious at best, relying on self-reported statistics and mythological narratives cooked up by people who want to keep firing rounds into animals that are really just trying to avoid being seen by all these fucking people. Admittedly, in an article in the University of Washington's Conservation magazine, the authors argue that outrage over trophy hunting, while sordid, is simply a distraction from the real problem: illegal poaching. The authors admit, albeit begrudgingly, that trophy hunters are at least more in line with conservation efforts than their criminal counterparts.

But this sort of backwards logic is similar to justifying paying a $5 fee to punch old ladies in the face because, hey, at least you're paying for their dental. I understand that not every trophy hunter is gleefully kicking down the proverbial door, guns a-blazing, but at the same time, I have yet to see any strong evidence of real benefit stemming from the practice of hunting for sport. There are better ways of attracting tourists, better ways of drumming up profit and much better ways of conserving species.

Dr. Palmer is an asshole, without question. He purposefully led a lion (being tracked with a GPS collar that he and his guides attempted to destroy, no less) from its protected habitat so that he could shoot it for the sole purpose of telling his asshole friends that he did. This may not be characteristic of the trophy hunting population as a whole, but I would hazard a guess that it is not a rare personality trait among them. The über-rich shelling out hundreds of thousands each to murder for sport rubs me very much in the wrong way. Its purported benefits aside, there is a deeply moral issue here that cannot be ignored or misdirected. It's indicative of a society that truly believes itself superior to animal-kind, claiming divine dominion over living beings not endowed with the gift of speech and opposable thumbs.

There's still more room for debate here, and I urge you to research on your own. Maybe there are untold benefits and maybe I'm being reactive. But from where I stand, the whole thing reeks of moral depravity.