My friend Steve sells Cessnas (single engine propeller planes, usually with between two and four seats).  A four-seater basic single-engine Cessna will cost you about $200,000, plus insurance, hanger fees, regular maintenance, and check-ups.   They aren’t particularly fast (not jets): the $200,000 one will get you somewhere about twice as fast as a car.  The gas will cost you about twice as much.   And there’s a much bigger carbon footprint.

Last summer, Steve sold a six-seater single-engine Cessna to France.  Since someone had to fly it (and the trip was paid for), we decided to take it there ourselves.  (Okay, Steve decided to take it there himself; I decided to sit in the passenger seat.)  Among other things, the adventure was a fascinating look at how the other half, eh em, top one percent lives.  In this post, I’m going to talk about the terminals serving private planes (also posted about here).   If you fly by private plane, you don’t go to the main terminal.  There is a separate private terminal.  We went through a lot of those terminals as we flew from Omaha, Nebraska; to Bangor, Maine; to Goose Bay-Happy Valley, Canada (Newfoundland-Labrador border); to Narsarsuaq, Greenland; to Reykjavik, Iceland; to Aarhus, Denmark; and, finally, to Nice, France.

Because I have my priorities straight, the first thing I noticed about these terminals is that they all have free treats: muffins, candy, or cookies:

There was also always free coffee and soda and bottled water. (This, I gotta tell you, was torture because I was off caffeine for the trip and, on top of that, couldn’t drink anything before taking off because of the whole no-bathroom-on-the-plane-thing and living below the poverty line until you’re 32 really instills a desire to pilfer anything that’s not nailed down.)

Private plane travel is figuratively as well as literally delicious.  There is no “long-term parking.”  You park your car right up front in the complimentary parking lot.  Honestly, going to the grocery store is more challenging.  In the private terminal, you can wander about as you please; your things will not be confiscated if you leave them unattended. There are no announcements.  You will not wait in line.  There is no security, except that which is designed to make your life more comfortable. You will not be asked to walk through an x-ray machine or show anyone any paperwork. There are computers available if you would like to use them and free wireless if you brought your own. You will leave whenever you like and stay as long as you please.  And how nice, since the facilities are incredibly comfortable.

Steve let me borrow these photos from the Houston Million Air.  The main desk:

A lovely place to sit and watch TV comfortably:

And if that isn’t good enough for you, a free, private cinema:

There were also free magazines about things like investments, yachts, and other expensive things:

This is where I got the ads and articles aimed at exeedingly rich people that I have been posting recently (see here, here and here).

When we decide to leave, we just waltz out to our plane, jump in and taxi to the runway.  We would call ground control, say “we’re ready,” and they’d say “go ahead.”   We never waited more than three or four minutes to get clearance to take off.

When we landed, we’d taxi over to the terminal, jump out of the plane and wander in.  The interaction would go something like this:

THEM: Welcome Sir and Miss. Can we get your bags?

STEVE: Please.

[They go out and start unloading the plane.]

THEM: Can we arrange for a hotel?

STEVE: Why yes.

THEM: Will do. Would you prefer downtown or on the water?

STEVE: The water will be lovely.

THEM: One moment, please. [The hotel is called.] Your room is booked. Would you like us to arrange a rental car for you or would you like a ride to the hotel?

STEVE: We will take a rental car, please.

THEM: It will be just a few minutes. Please enjoy our complimentary beverages, delightful morsels, overstuffed chairs, and free wireless while you wait.

STEVE: We certainly will.

I am totally not kidding.

You could also call ahead and request a rental car.  In this case, they would drive it right up to your plane, unload your bags for you, and you’d just scoot across the tarmac and be off!

One final tidbit:

Steve and I left the U.S. and entered five different countries over the course of our trip.  We got through Canada and Greenland without being asked for our passports.  Iceland would be both the first and the last place we were required to show I.D.  Denmark and France welcomed us with wide arms and trust.  We were the special people.

UPDATE: Several commenters pointed out that once Steve and I were through Iceland, the law grants us entry to Denmark and France without I.D. Thanks for the correction!

(Image found here.)

Ballgame at Feminist Critics writes:

The assertion, “children do better with parents together” could mean a number of different things, so let’s go through the possible ways the statement could be interpreted:

The notion that “Children ALWAYS do better with parents together” is almost certainly false. If one of the parents is abusive, it seems pretty non-controversial to assume that the kids would be better off with the non-abusive parent alone.

The notion that “Children SOMETIMES do better with parents together” is almost certainly true, but so banal and useless an observation that it’s not worth the expense of a billboard or worth discussing at any length.

That leaves “Children GENERALLY do better with parents together.” This, itself, has two entirely different meanings which are easily confused. Take 100 couples with children. Of those couples, 75 are (at the moment) happily married, while 25 have marital difficulties — some severe — and are on the brink of divorce. Let’s say 20 of the 25 couples actually go through with the divorce.

The notion that “Children GENERALLY do better with parents together” could be taken to mean that, out of the 100 families described above, children from the 80 non-divorcing families end up being mentally and emotionally healthier (as a group) than the children from the 20 divorcing families. That is very easy to believe. Indeed, there are any number of studies that show this, and these are the studies that are typically trotted out to misleadingly imply that divorce hurts children. In fact it’s just another rather banal observation that children from happy families do better than children from emotionally fraught ones, and hardly worth the price of a billboard. It’s almost like saying, “People with money are less likely to have difficulties making ends meet.”

But the other meaning of “Children GENERALLY do better with parents together” is quite different: namely, that the children in the 20 divorcing families would have been better off if those parents hadn’t gotten divorced. THAT notion is purely speculative as far as I know.

Via Alas.

I saw this bumper sticker yesterday:

Text:

If you can read this, thank a teacher. If you’re reading it in English, thank a soldier.

It reminded me of when Lisa and I visited the Atomic Testing Museum here in Vegas last year (inspired posts here and here). There was a video about atomic testing in Nevada with a lot of scientists who took part talking about it. Several of them said things to the effect of, “Yeah, ok, so it turns out testing nuclear bombs had some negative effects for people, and we’re sorry about that. But we had to do it, and if we didn’t, you’d be living in the Soviet Union right now!”

I understand that the point of the bumper sticker is that speaking English means we haven’t been taken over by some other country that doesn’t speak English (apparently we don’t have to worry about Britain, Canada, or the many former colonies where at least a large minority speak English or where it is the language used for official government matters) and haven’t been forced to adopt their culture. But I have to say, when I think of things that would worry me if some other country took over the U.S., whether we’d continue to speak English wouldn’t be my top concern.

At one point in U.S. history, sodomy was illegal in every state. In the penal codes (no pun intended), sodomy was sometimes defined as anal sex, sometimes as oral sex, and sometimes both. In some cases, the laws applied only to same sex partners, in other cases to any two partners (even husband and wife).

This map (found here) shows when each state repealed its law:

In 2003, the Supreme Court made all such laws unconstitutional. This image (found here) shows which states had sodomy laws that applied to same sex couples and those that had laws that applied to all couples:

Velanie W. sent me this video (found at here), in which the parents clearly think it’s funny that when their toddler daughter says “sparkling wiggles,” it sounds like she’s saying something very different:

(after the jump b/c it automatically plays and that gets annoying)…
more...

Both Cole S. and Toban B. found this Nestle’s candy bar (Cole saw it at World Market):

The Yorkie website was down (the error message said for routine maintenance) when I tried it, but Toban managed to snag some quotes from it earlier that indicate how the bar is being marketed to men. The bar is described as “a big, solid, chunky eat, uniquely for men,” and the site goes on:

Yorkie is positioning itself as a chocolate bar for men who need a satisfying hunger buster. With five solid chunks of chocolate, it’s a man sized eat…

[Earlier] advertising reflected this with macho imagery – lorry drivers who take it one chunk at a time…
Yorkie still holds these values today but was relaunched in 1994 as a hunger satisfying bar.

It’s similar to the way that Hungry Man frozen dinners are marketed: the association with working-class male appetites, which presumably require big, “solid” meals to satisfy them after their hard days of work. Clearly any candy bar this serious isn’t appropriate for women. Oh, excuse me…not a candy bar, a hunger-satisfying bar. Women eat chocolate for emotional reasons or to bask in the luxury of the taste; men eat chocolate just to fill their stomachs. Notice that the advertising doesn’t focus on the types of things we generally see in Dove or Hershey’s ads for chocolate bars: the chocolate being rich, smooth, delicious, etc., which imply that eating chocolate is an indulgence rather than just a practical way to satisfy your hunger.

Also, in our comments Trevor pointed us to a conversation about a pink version of the Yorkie.  I am completely perplexed.  Along the top it says “VERY LIMITED EDITION.”  Along the bottom is says “5 HUNKY CHUNKS OF MILK CHOCOLATE.”  Along the top, diagnolly, it reads: “GET YOUR LIPS AROUND THIS!” 

So is it a girl version?  I can’t tell.  The female figure is still crossed-out with the “no” symbol.  I don’t know what pink thing she is holding.  I am perplexed.

Also note, Men’s Pocky (thanks Lis Riba): 

Candy, like other high-sugar products, are often gendered female.  Perhaps that’s why this candy marketing is making such a big point of making candy manly?  Notice that the Men’s Pocky is “bitter,” i.e., not too sweet.  That seems to be happening a lot these days, as in the new Snickers and Twix marketing, see here, here, here, and here.

NEW! Keely W. sent in a commercial for Mars’ new candy bar aimed at women, Fling (found here).  The message: You shouldn’t (sexually) indulge a lot, but you can (sexually) indulge just a little… with the help of Mars Co., of course.

First, thanks to all of you for making 2008 a great year for Sociological Images!  Our list of 152 blogs that link to us is one tiny way that we try to show our appreciation.  Browse through our list, if you like, and if you link to us in your blogroll and aren’t on there, please send us a note at socimages@thesocietypages.org to let us know.

Second, as usual, we have been up to some stuff behind your back!  Here it is:

Remember how the swastika didn’t used to connote total evil?  Neither did we. We added several more examples of pre-Nazi uses of the swastika to this post.

The Canadian Centre for Diversity put out an interesting PSA along the lines of the U.S. “I am African” campaign (so brilliantly parodied).  Find the link here.  Thanks to Julie C. for sending it in!

Our post about rape as hyperconformity to masculine norms sparked a ton of comments, many of them negative.  Maybe these screenshots of a whole series of recipes for a drink called the “Liquid Panty Remover” will influence you one way or the other.   Enjoy!  (Thanks to an anonymous commenter and Vidya for pointed us to a hoax billboard that led us to discover these.)

We added another example of an image of sexualized dominance, this time women’s dominance over men, to our post on the theme.  Thanks to Stumblng Tumblr for the submission!

Still on the topic of sex:  Laura at The F Word posted a video of a commercial that just begged to be added to our post on ejaculation imagery.

You wine drinkers are all sissies!  We added another set of ads to this post on messages about masculinity in Jim Beam ads.  Also on the theme of masculinity, we added a Gillette shampoo ad that tells men to “take charge” of their hair to this post about masculinizing beauty products.  And a reader sent us a link to more antics from Dmitri the Lover (I feel gross just writing his name).

We added a series of furnishings shaped like female bodies–mostly tits and asses really–to a post on in-no-way-theoretical objectification. Click here for the post.  Here’s a teaser just for fun:

Relatedly, we added an image of a pole-dancer alarm clock from a catalog to this post featuring the “Bitchcruiser.”  Yeah, you gotta take a look at that one.

On the theme of using women’s bodies to “sell” stuff, here’s another image showing how PETA sexualizes women as a way to advocate vegetarianism.

On gender and socialization, we added a screen shot of an Amazon webpage showing what to buy “for her” and “for him” to our post about gendered holiday gift marketing (sent in by Sofia A.) and we added an image of the video game Imagine: Babies to this post about how Miss Bimbo socializes girls into traditional gender roles.

Speaking of banal stereotypes, Jasmine sent us some more examples of truly boring uses of stereotypes.  This time they are used to promote eye care.  Find them here.

We added an image comparing a Brazilian brand of rum to Brazilian waxes (you know, those kinds of waxes) to make the claim that the brand is authentic to this post.  Because there’s nothing more authentic than a woman waxed to look like a child.  What!?

Finally, what better way to end our list than with a post about animals, “love,” and babies!  A bonded pair of male penguins at a zoo were replacing the eggs of male-female couples with rocks and sneaking off with their eggs.  The zoo keepers helped them legitimately adopt and now everyone’s happy.  We added a picture of this couple to our post about actual “homosexual” pairings among animals.

Recently Lisa posted some photos of what resource extraction looks like. I thought I would show a different side of this phenomenon: what an oil bust looks like. I grew up in the Middle of Nowhere, Oklahoma. The area has been through two oil booms, one in the 1920s and one in the 60s through the 80s.

But with any energy boom eventually comes the energy bust. I took some photos I took showing what communities looks like if their economy is disproportionately based on oil and the oil companies leave, which were reproduced at Business Insider.

Oil wells that have never been installed sit around on empty lots, slowly rusting. Many oil wells that were in use at one time now sit motionless. Because of high oil prices in the last few years, some oil wells have been put back in production; it’s the first time since I was a kid that you can look across pastures and see many of the oil wells actually pumping. Pipes crisscross the landscape, often slowly tumbling downhill from lack of maintenance. When they get old and rusty enough they start breaking apart, leaving jagged edges that occasionally lead to trips to the doctor for a tetanus shot. An old storage tank, long past any usefulness, slowly rusts.

In an energy bust, real estate prices plummet. If there aren’t many other industries in the area, there’s no way to attract buyers, and houses flood the market as people move looking for work. Houses, many of them perfectly serviceable, slowly decay from lack of upkeep. Families that became wealthy from oil lose their fortunes. The house below was owned by a family that became wealthy from the 1920s oil boom. When that oil bust hit, they lost everything. Their house sits far out in the country and slowly crumbles. Downtowns die and the buildings sit empty and deteriorate over time. Towns don’t have enough children to run independent schools, so rural school districts consolidate. This school was sold off and a local resident told me that it has been, at various times, a bed and breakfast, internet cafe, and beer-only bar, between bouts of sitting empty.

Ponca City is centered around the Continental refinery plant. Continental was owned by Conoco until 1984. There used to be a significant Conoco presence in the town, and as with Bartlesville, it has faced hard times since the Conoco-Phillips headquarters moved to Houston. Some neighborhoods were polluted by the refinery, leading the company to buy out homeowners and tear down the houses (some owned by private individuals, others by the Ponca tribe). In one area where this occurred, the land is now a park. Local residents have heard that Conoco is planning to tear down a lot of its old administrative buildings so it doesn’t have to pay insurance or maintenance costs, meaning there will be even more large swaths of empty land scattered around the city.

There’s nothing exceptional about the experience of these communities. They simply represent a story played out in many towns as oil booms fade and corporations move their headquarters to larger cities. Now, as the Keystone XL pipeline project goes forward, many such communities gear up for their next ride on the energy roller coaster.

Gwen Sharp is an associate professor of sociology at Nevada State College. You can follow her on Twitter at @gwensharpnv.