I am about to spend two days driving with my mom from Las Vegas back to Oklahoma, and then I’ll be on the farm for a couple of weeks, so my posting will be spotty. Lisa and the other folks will fulfill your need for sociological commentary, I am sure.
If you are missing me in my absence, you can contemplate this image of me as a kid in Oklahoma:
There is no sociological significance, really, although you could discuss the sometimes awkward situation of being a working-class farm kid with a hick accent (long since mostly discarded) who ends up in academia, where people actually ask things like, “How did you grow up in the South and yet aren’t all racist?” or fellow grad students ask why you don’t just get your parents to lend you money to buy a house because it’s stupid to rent.
Or you could compare it to this introductory video (sent in by Breck) shown before a speech given by Republican Senator John Cornyn of Texas, and the way that western imagery (horses, big hats) are used to represent masculinity and authenticity:
I will point out that the images of him on horses are at rodeos, not out actually doing ranching-type stuff like, say, clearing brush, which I hear is what ranchers in Texas have to spend huge amounts of time doing.
Keep sending in the great stuff, y’all!
