Manly Thoughts
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James Joyner | Saturday, August 29, 2009 |
If you haven’t been reading MANzine this week, here’s what you’ve missed:
- Can a Real Man Drive a Minivan? (James Joyner) – Despite what the advertisements may tell you, manhood has little to do with what kind of cigarettes you smoke, what car you drive, or how white your shirts could be.
- Emergency Flank Steak (Stephen Green) – What do you reach for when there’s a dinner emergency? Why, emergency flank steak!
- Best Dessert Ever: Tort & Port (Stephen Green) – An easy way to make a decadent after-dinner treat.
- Cheap Spanish Wine (Steven Taylor) – A look into some inexpensive, but surprisingly good, Spanish wines.
- How a Suit Should Fit (James Joyner) – Esquire’s advice on men’s suits is not taken by their own models. And it’s incomplete.
- Shopping with the Wife (James Joyner) – Sixty-year-old advice is insulting, wrong, and still rings true!
- Hemingway Motivational Posters (James Joyner) – The manliest of authors is posterized.
- Price of Steak and Beer To Rise (Alex Knapp) – It’s about to get more expensive to get manly staples while dining out. So eat at home!
- Jessica Biel Most Dangerous Celebrity (James Joyner) – The lovely actress is carry a nasty bug.
About the Author: James Joyner is the publisher of Outside the Beltway and the managing editor of the Atlantic Council. He's a former Army officer, Desert Storm vet, and college professor with a PhD in political science from The University of Alabama. He lives just outside the Beltway in Alexandria, Virginia with his wife and infant daughter.
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People who worry about what others think of them by their choice of cars speak more about their sense of insecurity than anything else.
Speaking of Marginal Revolution, one of the topics they return to there is "signaling." That is one of the "utility" in things we buy. It signals to others who we are, or who we think we are, or who we want them to think we are, etc.
Signaling is huge in cars, even inexpensive ones. If I say "green Subaru wagon" then you can make a guess about the person.
I think, sadly, that one of the reasons F150s have over-sold to the poor is that they signal differently than a smaller car with lower recurring costs. The F150 costs little up front, and signals manliness and independence.
My Prius was interesting, because even though inexpensive it seems to signal "rich" to many. Of course that is part of "rich liberal SOB."
(My joke was that I could have put an Obama sticker on my Prius, but it would just be redundant.)
Hmmm. Wonder how many (Windows-user) readers of OTB scanned the list, saw the Jessica Beal thing, clicked on the link, read and then said, "Oh Shit!"
That is, of course, Jessica Biel.
Odograph,
Interestingly, I just ran through the people I know with hybrids through my email box (I'm buying a car and have been asking everybody). There is a roughly 100% correlation between being voting for Obama and owning a Prius and voting McCain and owning some other hybrid. One exception out of eleven, a McCain voter who bought a Prius.
As someone that is considering getting a green Subaru, what precisely does that say about me?
:-), on the west coast at least green Subarus are linked with Oregon (locale or spirit).
I did see a McCain sticker on a Prius once. They owner obviously had to differentiate him or her self.
