Monday, September 5, 2011

Pretty photos and a rant

I want to share a few of the sights of yesterday. The weather has been terrific! I need to focus on the pretty here because the not so pretty is bubbling up.


The dolphins are abundant this weekend. I watched them jumping out of the water and cruising by. They seem to find the boat interesting, often swimming right beside it.


The beach had its share of crazies but all were located in one area. Once the gauntlet is run, there is nothing but peace and quiet. The shrimp boats come near the beach, plying a nearly lost trade in this area. Foreign imports and fuel prices have made most go out of business.


The sand dollar is actually related to the sea stars. When alive, these critters move along the bottom feeding on algae and small invertebrates. Most of the ones I find are the shell. These are fragile and often broken by the waves.


The ghost crab is one of my favorite beach critters. It can see in all directions with those stalked eyes. Most are hiding out in their burrows during the day. At night, they run to the water to wet their gills.

I don't know how much longer I will be coming to this little island that I treasure. I have spent some wonderful days and nights here. It has been a place of peace. Summer though brings some fairly wild and crazy people with a lot of bad behavior. I have written about the stuff that happens here before: the drinking, unsafe boating, the loud profane music and the women that denigrate themselves by pandering to the sexist males on the power yachts.

Today, I am just fed up. I heard a fellow call a woman some terrible names yesterday. He was about to back into our boat, and she was scared. I have to say that one of the things that throws me into a rage is someone talking disrespectfully and rudely about women or to an individual who is doing no harm. It is hard, saddening, and frightening to watch real people in the real world say hateful things.

The woman was deflated and horrified. She evidently was a guest on his boat. Because his boat was caught up in an anchor line, our two boats were side by side. He eventually offered a kind of off hand apology after I said to knock it off. An apology is not a solution. The real solution is to to be aware and to change behavior.

Words do hurt, even if we are taught that they don't matter. If someone makes sexist jokes, says crude sexist things, and perpetuates sexist ideas that women don't have brains or that they are not valuable unless you think they are sexy, whatever that means, they are low lifes to me.

The gleeful skewering of another person, the disregard for their thoughts and opinions, and the total lack of respect for another person, whoever they are, leaves me sad. I know that this happens every day to all manner of people. And I know that we each have our moments of disregard for others. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t sad to see this happen up close.

And since this incident involved a woman, I want to note that the kind of sexism that places value on women’s appearance before anything else is rampant in our society. Flaws can and will be found with any person if hateful people need them to be there.

What I think this incident reveals is the degree to which hateful beliefs can become ingrained and invisible, and come out especially in moments in which a person feels threatened. When an instinctual, and later intentional response is predicated on racism or sexism or any kind of bigotry, we owe it to ourselves not to sweep our actions under the rug and say we are really a good or nice person, except this one time. Instead it is time to take an honest look at what the root of the issue is.

I needed to write about this because I sorely wanted to kick his ass. That is the instinct that I am inventorying.

18 comments:

  1. It wouldn't do any good for YOU to kick his ass.
    Some woman needs to kick his ass. Or somewhere that it might be more meaningful.

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  2. Thank you for speaking up on her behalf, Syd. I am glad for you, that you did kick anyone's ass. You spared yourself having to apologize to an a-hole.

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  3. nice rant...that stuff pisses me off as well syd...ugh...sorry it got in the way of the beauty of your opening...dolphins are so cool...and used to dive for live sand dollars...

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  4. I, too, am going to focus on the sand dollars, crabs and dolphins.

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  5. dAAve, it's dangerous for a woman to kick a man's ass unless she's had adequate training.

    My EX was a "nice person" but he led a double life without my knowledge. When it exploded (via FB and other online sites) I kicked him out.

    Women are much smaller than men and kicking men's asses can cost lives or ....health. I know because I'm still undergoing dental treatment from injuries suffered from a one time rage attack from my EX when he followed me home after a failed settlement hearing. And the attack was three years ago...! So far my medical damages are over 50K. I have expired all Victim's Comp. benefits so it's on my dime!

    It's easy to say but dangerous to do. =(

    Syd, that boat photo is ...odd. It looks like the boat is floating above the water! And the crab photo, I so loooove it.....!

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  6. Syd you are a gentlemanly hero. :o) Love the pics....

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  7. I agree with Dave. I think the women in question need to stop perpetuating this crap.

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  8. There's no accounting for the bad actions of some people. I hate discrimination and bigotry and it seems to be getting worse. I keep thinking that the only one I can really change is me but I sure wish people could learn by example and perhaps some do.

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  9. A woman is no match for most men physically, but she could have spoken up for herself. If the man was enraged, and she felt threatened, she could have called the police on a cell phone. I'm not saying you are wrong for speaking up..in fact, I applaud it. But unless a woman (or anyone) clearly states their boundaries, some people will continue their behavior unchecked.

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  10. I understand how you feel. I feel better when I can get my anger down to a low boil and then I usually just feel more sorry for the person doing the harm than the one being harmed. It's very difficult though. Some things sure make my blood boil and this would be one of them. Sad that someone felt the need to treat her in such a way.

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  11. Thank you for sharing the beautiful photos, it's a good and much needed reminder for me to focus on the beautiful things in life. I hope that gal finds the courage to speak up or get out of that relationship.

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  12. I fully agree, would want to do the same, but the serenity prayer helps...

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  13. When we see women out in public with men and seemingly accepting of sexist behaviour, we don't know if that women is battered behind closed doors or grew up with a father who hit or raped her, beat her into passivity. Male violence is so prevalent in society but still kept secret.

    Syd I think of you as an ally working with women to end this crap. So often when I rage about sexist behaviour, people think I am being anti-male. Sexism degrades those who practise it and endangers those on the receiving end. A kick in the ass is not a bad place to start.

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  14. Being in a position to witness up close and personal some cowardly and disrespectful behavior does tend to bring out the desire to kick ass. Then darn it all anyway, we have to examine our own reaction and deal with it properly. Just doesn't seem fair but it is healthy.

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  15. If he didn't touch her in anger then you had no right to kick his ass...IWOULD have kicked his ass if he had and I'd been there. As it was your response was appropriate to the situation.

    Same sort of shit in front of my house last night I said something, nothing physical happened, after I told the two thugs to leave her the hell alone, though she was being pretty ugly too, but if it had the 16 and 12 were right there to end it.

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  16. You are SO right, Syd. Words DO hurt. The speaker of those words might be forgiven but the words themselves are never forgotten. Words and tone of voice can crush the human spirit.

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  17. well toxic energy like that up close is like a bad smell.. it floats around and attaches to ppl mearby.. ugh

    those negative exclamations give off bad energy.. so yes not nice.. it is hard to love the reptilian brain response in others but i am trying as i suppose they are the people who are the most lost..

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  18. One of the highlights of my days in SC is getting up for sun rise and watching the shrimp boats pass in front of the rising sun. We are lucky. There are still active shrimpers on our island. We can see them come and go on the sound from our bedroom window

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Let me know what you think. I like reading what you have to say.