Mantis Shrimp Thrash

I am at a salon, getting a pedicure. A man walks in, and greets the women in the salon, with a "Hello, Ladies!". His voice is a deep bass, and the respond back with warm hello's, asking him if he wants the usual. He is tall, African-American, with broad shoulders and athletic build.  He has a goatee that looks as if it is sculpted on his face, and curly hair cut very short.  He has warm eyes, and a grin that immediately says, "I could be your friend".  I'm relaxed and enjoying the rubbing and massage part of the pedicure.  The women who are working on me all had told me to get a color of nail polish, and I had to rebuff them no less than six times because I did not want any paint on my nails.  I would just ruin it, anyway.   Because of my nail polish color experience, I grin at him and tell him, "You should choose your color."  He does not miss a beat.  He puts his hands on his hips in a "super hero" fashion and cocks his hip a ...

(Note: This is written from the perspective of a white, cis-het, woman. Your experiences may vary, of course.) As a Feminist, I often read articles about the experience of a marginalized person/people.  This is normal because the people being marginalized need to have the discussions that they are, to bring awareness of the issues to the general public.  Often, however, there are people that come back with, “but in my experience, I have never seen that”.  OK, I will give you the benefit of the doubt.  YOU have never seen that. It does not mean that it doesn’t happen. When a man says that he has never cat-called a woman, I believe him.  It was not him that chased me down the street, demanding my attention when I just wanted to get to my bus stop.  When a man says that he would never try to get a woman drunk to take advantage of her, I believe him.  He specifically was not the one that insisted that we do shots and that I caught pu...

Darren Rainey, a schizophrenic man in Florida has been boiled to death .  The prison guards though, are not going to be charged . The prosecutor says that there is not enough evidence, even though his skin was sloughing off when examined.  This is the Miami-Dade State Attorney, Katherine Fernandez Rundle. According to various articles, the temperature of the water was estimated to be 160 degrees (F), and he was screaming for two hours before dying.  But he died due to “undiagnosed heart disease”.  I have a question for you: don’t you think that being boiled alive would affect your heart? I mean, I’m not a doctor or anything like that, but the stresses of BEING BOILED ALIVE seem like they would be a contributing factor to heart failure. Perhaps being tortured for two hours might have something to do with your organ finally failing, after beating harder and harder because of the massive amounts of adrenaline going through you.   But what do I know? I’m j...

I was driving around on errands, as you do, when I passed a billboard that advertised their perfect Easter ham.  This brought me to ask a very serious question:  Why do you celebrate the resurrection of a Jewish rabbi by eating ham? The eating of pig is forbidden to any who would eat Kosher (as is shellfish, rabbit, certain types of fish and a host of other tasty treats).  If you eat Kosher, you cannot enjoy a bacon sarnie, nor can you eat ham.  So, what's up with the ham on the Christian table, anyway? For answers, I asked the Internet, because if there is one god that I can believe in, it is the Internet. Just run with it. According to the Daily Meal , we do it because this would be when pigs were in season.  Turns out that this would be the time to take down the cured ham, which had been curing over the winter, in the spring, when it was ready to be consumed.  The article also indicates that the size of a ham is great to feed a lot of people, so ...

The first post for any blog is apparently obliged to be an introduction of some sort, apparently.  Far be it from me to break the tradition. I am the Mantis Shrimp, and this is my thrash. I’m exhausted with what I am seeing and want to yell at it. I hate what people are doing to each other and want to stop it. But I’m just a Mantis Shrimp. I live in my little world bubble, and while I can be strong, relative to my size, I’m just a smallish creature with a massive attitude.  But I can see what is happening, and I am pounding my claws and thrashing around, desperate to get someone who can do something to actually do it.  I have no power, because to have power is to use it to try to effect change.   I’ve marched. I’ve donated. I’ve called the congress critters and signed the petitions. I’ve listened and shared and tried to attend when possible.  But in my aquarium there are walls, most of which are related to my job. I have to pay for the stuff we all...