So… I got up this morning and thoughts, I only saved one piece of good news this week. And then it hit: more good news, an alert from the BBC about our Supreme Court and something from across the ocean that made me laugh out loud.

Supreme Court Decides Peoples is Peoples.

I learned that from The Muppets Take Manhattan, still, I’m happy that six Supreme Court Justices agree. Neil M. Gorsuch wrote the majority opinion:

“It is impossible,” Justice Gorsuch wrote, “to discriminate against a person for being homosexual or transgender without discriminating against that individual based on sex.”

The New York Times, 15Jun2020

That’s a strong statement. Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan concurred with Gorsuch. Three justices dissented.

Women Shaped History, too.

Erin Blakemore from the Smithsonian points out that although we have 10 military bases named after Confederate soldiers, none are named after women. She agrees with General David Petraeus and former defense secretary Robert Gates that we have an opportunity here.

“It fits [the Army’s] goals and their own regulations to name installations after people who can be an inspiration to their fellow soldiers—heroes and distinctive individuals,” says Kara Vuic, a professor at Texas Christian University who studies war, gender and the U.S. military.

Smithsonian, June 2020

Kara’s top five picks:

• Harriet Tubman: Yes, Harriet escaped slavery and then went back and helped over 700 people escape. She also became a scout and a spy for the Army. Although it took some time for the US Military to formally recognize her, she was buried with full military honor.
• Edith Nourse Rogers: Mother of WAC. Edith served as a field hospital inspector and Red Cross volunteer during WWI. Her nursing career earned her the nickname “the angel of Walter Reed.” Edith also became a 18-term congresswoman. She sponsored the GI Bill of Rights.
• Charity Adams Earley: First African American Woman Army Officer. She was a psychologist and educator who also let the first group of Black WACs who served overseas in 1944. Charity fought against segregation in the service.
• Mary E. Clarke: The Army’s Longest-Serving Woman. She enlisted just before WWII ended, and retired in 1981. In her 36 years of service she worked her way up from private to major general.
• Lori Piestawa: First Native American Woman to die in combat. A member of the Hopi tribe, Lori was only 23-years-old when her Humvee was ambushed and she was killed in Iraq. She was the daughter of a Vietnam veteran, granddaughter of a WWII veteran, and mother of two small children.

Neighborhood Watchmen

Patrick Hutchinson and his friends hoped to keep their neighborhood safe when they attended the Black Lives Matter rally in London when a brawl broke out.

I saw him interviewed on CNN over my lunch today. Patrick introduced his four friends before he answered any questions posed to him.

The man he rescued was an anti-BLM protester. Still, Patrick slipped under the protective shield that his four friends created with their bodies. He carried the man to a police officer. In the words of Patrick, the man he rescued was a football hooligan, just someone up to no good.

Patrick is a body builder and he’s a grandfather. Here’s what he said he’d like others to learn from what he did:

“Just because someone is up to no good, doesn’t mean you have to kill him.”

Amen to that.

That’s it for me this week. What’s on your good news radar this week?