This story ran in one my favorite British newspapers over the Christmas vacation, with a particularly strong photo by Billy Hunt:

I love my day job covering criminal justice in New Orleans but I also got inspired by the people I met in the course of researching this piece. The Collective of Lady Arm Wrestlers, or CLAW, strikes me as anathema to a lot of the bullshit that can sometimes make America suck, and as celebrating all of the things that can sometimes make America kick ass. CLAW cheerleader Cathy Harding’s closing quote sums it up:

“But it’s incredibly transgressive, in some ways, that we’re able to use people’s excitement about scary women in costumes to make a point about empowerment. They’re not being duped. There’s just some wonderful, unexpected merging there of base instincts with higher order values in a way that only a theatrical event makes possible.”

Hope you enjoy reading it. Now I’m trying to figure out how to cover the World Championships in June…