Real Americans (TM) wear steel toed boots, don’t ya know, so that can’t be a factor in the jackboot scale.

Those Timberlands are called “stoner boots”, maan. You wear them untied and loose, and with your jeans inside them, maan. Since they are untied, you can’t really lift your feet off the ground while walking or they’ll fall off, so you need to do the “stoner shuffle”, maan.

Thorogood Men’s Structural Fire Fighting Oblique Toe Bunker Boot

I’ve worn these things quite a few times, and let me tell you that they are very sturdy, and they have a steel toe.  They are occasionally used to kick in doors, albeit in order to facilitate the ostensibly noble ends of fire suppression and rescue.  They look way cooler and more intimidating than the rubber ones with the bright yellow slip-resistant soles.
I’ll let you formulate your own ratings for these, but keep in mind that since public employee pensions are the new right-wing bugbear, and since unionized firefighters often have some of the sweetest municipal pension plans around, the mere existence of these boots on feet makes them at least a symbolic demonic liberal totem.  That could change if municipal fire departments begin to privatize or dump their taxpayer-supported pension plans en masse (look for such a thing in Chicago once neoliberal-friendly Rahm Emanuel takes the mayoral helm later this year).

Glad I went for the brown work boots instead of black.  I’m probably safe from the upcoming boot ban.

lol I love this.

Aren’t knee-high Doc Martens skinhead boots? Personally I’d never wear them in case someone got the wrong idea.

That… WAS… FUCKING AWESOME!!! I needed that to start my day. Thank you.

OK, goodbye again.

My boots:

My Colombia hiking boots
Jackboot qualities: Sturdy, reasonably weather-proof, thick sole. Good for marching through mud, hiking mountains, and recovering from ankle surgery. Not practical for kicking in doors, but will at least offer good ankle support while you attempt to do so. Brown, not black.

Freedom-loving qualities: Can help you get to the tops of America’s purple mountain’s majesty, where you can shout “WOLVERINES!” from the top of your lungs.
Jackboot rating: 3.5

My Faux-Ugg “winter” boots
Jackboot qualities: Absolutely none. These boots are about as terrifying as a baby chipmunk with the sniffles. They reach to mid-calf, are not waterproof, are barely warm enough to justify being “winter boots” at all, offer no support for either the soles or the ankles, and are brown, not black.

Freedom-loving qualities: If I were a skinny hot chick wearing these with skinny jeans and a spaghetti-strap top in downtown Philly on a Friday night in July, then there could be a case made that this is the fulfillment of all of America’s greatest potential. Alas, I am none of those, so the boots don’t even rate that. I hate these boots.
Jackboot rating: -2

My Motorcycle Boots
Jackboot qualities: Holy shit. Knee high, black, sturdy rounded cap on the toe, buckle across the ankles and another at the knee. Not especially shiny, but would polish up nice. While not particularly practical for marching (may cause blisters), would definitely be my boot of choice for kicking in doors. In fact, it came with a boot horn that looks suspiciously like a riding crop. May in fact contain magnetic qualities that will actually pull guns out of freedom-loving gun owner’s hands.

Freedom-loving qualities: Purchased at an Army-Navy Surplus store, which is second only to Wal-Mart in the bosoms of freedom-lovers everywhere. For the purpose of riding a motorcycle, which is very freedom-loving, except I had to queer it up by having a Japanese motorcycle, which is bricked anyway.
Jackboot Rating: 12.6

My Steve Maddens
Jackboot qualities: Black, shiny, lots of buckles. Rounded toe would be better at kicking in doors than a pointed toe. Huge, chunky, intimidating heel. When worn with a wig, causes gay men to call me their Transexual Hero, which may be code for “now lets take the guns and convert the children.”

Freedom-loving qualities: Only ankle-high, makes me look hotter, bought on sale at a mall.
Jackboot Rating: 6

Ashley @5: In short, no.  First of all, I haven’t seen for real skinheads in a long time, but when they actually were around, the ones I saw wore ankle-high combat boots.  Second of all, no single item of clothing was, in and of itself, “skinhead”. They also wore baggy jeans, suspenders, and had tattoos, and you wouldn’t say the mere existence of any one of those items equals racist skinhead.  You really had to cultivate a complete look to send the message.  And even then, it was touch-and-go, since they were just borrowing at-large hardcore punk fashion.  Most hardcore punks=/ racist skinheads.  In fact, hardcore first hit the scene as an anti-racist, super-liberal, downright pacifist thing (Minor Threat, The Bad Brains).

I thought it was the color of the laces that signified the bad skinheads. In our town, red bootlaces = stay the fuck away.

The inability to make clothes truly terrifying to actual grown-ups is one of the uphill battles skinheads had to climb, which is probably why they all gave up.  I imagine most grew their hair out, bought Harleys to plaster American flags all over, and started going to Tea Party rallies. Way easier to get the point across that way.

I thought it was more of a way for them to identify one another in their chickenshit way. If you don’t have the courage of your convictions to shave your head and tattoo a swastika on it, but you still think that the white race is superior, then you wear something a little more subtle that is easily identified by your fellow-travelers. Gay people have their lambda tattoos and earrings, skinheads have the red shoelaces.

Oh knock it off, Sam.

First, as I read through your post, I wanted to say, “hey! personally, I think anyone willing to run into a burning building to save it should get a great pension, lifelong maid service, a new automobile, and the lifelong right to cut into long grocery lines without receiving any dirty looks. (The same for on-the-street (good) cops.) 

Then I got to the end of your post with the gratuitous dissing of Rahm Emanuel, and realized how very often those same firefighters, as people, are willing to cut off their noses to spite their face, as, especially in the white flight suburban areas they are some of the most racist thugs around (I’ve received a few truly offensive items when an acquaintance had me on her contact list and forwarded them.  When queried about where she got them, it was “oh, from my husband and the guys (sic) he works with.”  Her hubby is a firefighter. 

Rahm isn’t going to touch firefighter pensions.  Are there some city employees who will - yup.  But sorry, I don’t have much sympathy for the patronage hacks who got their jobs because of who they know, and milk them and double dip - like the admin asst making $60K, or the streets and san guy sleeping in his truck, retiring after 20 years with a lifelong pension. 

On the other hand, it is true that public employees in any sector do not have the opportunity to make more $ by making the company more profitable, so there has to be some recompense/incentive for doing that job. 

Probably from the same article you read to give you this idea:  “After all, labor understands that Emanuel will be with them most of the time anyway. If Emanuel looks like a strong horse in the race, they will swallow their qualms and pump in cash and workers to get him elected.”

I associate Timberlands with hip hop, so their freedom loving rating would go down slightly.

My most ass-kicking boots are my cowboy boots.  Which are, admittedly, super cool and I love them.  Also, totally the real thing, bought in a farm supply store in southwest Oklahoma when I was visiting my sister last year, which I was surprised to see had a selection of pretty, not at all practical, completely awesome cowboy boots instead of the work boots that my sister and her husband wear around.  So, of course, I had to buy them immediately.

Otherwise, I have a pair of almost knee high, high-ish heeled, extremely comfortable black leather boots that I wear with slacks and skirts for work and a pair of so much less practical brown, stiletto heeled, knee high leather boots that I almost never wear because they are difficult to walk in but that look amazing with a mini skirt and were a gift from my mother.  Both bought on clearance at the mall.

So no jackboots here at all.

The inability to make clothes truly terrifying to actual grown-ups is one of the uphill battles skinheads had to climb, which is probably why they all gave up.  I imagine most grew their hair out, bought Harleys to plaster American flags all over, and started going to Tea Party rallies. Way easier to get the point across that way.
Comment #10: Amanda Marcotte on 01/17 at 10:20 AM

Yes.  ANd then the co-opting that happened.  Tattoos lost their “scariness” when the 18 y o girl-next-door types started getting them.  Then they lost much of their “hip/cool” factor when her mom and grandma did too. The same goes for the skinhead shaved head look.  In Chicago, it was Urlacher - then it was the economy that caused many a young former “jock” type to forego the barber/salon and instead took to the clippers at home - easier and much cheaper. 

Mock them by looking like them - interesting way to defeat them.

phyl, I actually would recommend you check yourself before spouting ignorant shit.  It’s not like skinheads had a monopoly on tattooing.  Perhaps you should leave the pontificating about punk subcultures to someone who actually knows something about them, and tattooing as well.

Tattoos lost their “scariness” when the 18 y o girl-next-door types started getting them.  Then they lost much of their “hip/cool” factor when her mom and grandma did too.

Umm, when did that last thing happen?  My sense of tattoos is that they’re a bit like cigarettes - people who don’t have any tattoos by the time they’re 25 are generally not getting any.  Perhaps mom and grandma got tattoos when they were young, and then had the indecency to get older while still having tattoos?

@jlk7E, I got my first tattoo at 32. I’ll have my second this year, at 34. Now admittedly my daughter is too young for tattooing, but there’s nothing particular about the passion of youth that cuts off people over 25.

Great post, especially suitable for a Monday morning pick-me-up.  I’m still laughing.

My 6 year-old daughters favorite shoes (right now) are knee-high black leather heel boots.  Between these, silver sequined shirt dress she’s favoring and the total Bowie eyeliner she applies, she’d kill a right-winger by looks alone.  Disco Nazi!!  For feminisims and health care! 

It doesn’t hurt that she’s 54” tall and working towards a women’s size 5.

Most likely, grandma got a tattoo when she was young, covered it up for decades to conform to social pressures, and then got old enough that she just doesn’t give a shit any more what you think.

What is an “assault gun”?

jlk7e - well jlke in my suburbanizing area, the local tattoo parlor which opened a shop on “main street” instead of its formerly out of the way highway exit industrial shop recently started hosting ladies night tattoo parties and mom/daughter specials. (I’d post the ad, but my local paper doesn’t archive ads).  And yes, I know quite a few women who are in their 40’s and 50’s who recently got tattoos - most seem to coincide IME, with major life exp.  1st grandchild, loss of child (death or becoming empty nesters) divorce, degree, etc.

To be perfectly honest, I have a thing for jackboots. I blame George Lucas.
They have just enough heel to be comfortable, they’re tight enough on the calf to hold the uniform pants (with Corellian blood-stripe) nice and taut, and not blousy like the Starfleet guys, who also have an unsightly zipper to contend with.

I own a pair for conventions.
(I do 11 conventions a year)

For ordinary wear, I have black, waterproof, steeltoe boots that lace half-way up my calf. Very nice when I drop your car’s column, or head or steering gear on my foot. Queer liberal pagan trucker-geek. There’s more of us than you might think.

phyl, I actually would recommend you check yourself before spouting ignorant shit.  It’s not like skinheads had a monopoly on tattooing.  Perhaps you should leave the pontificating about punk subcultures to someone who actually knows something about them, and tattooing as well.
Comment #16: Amanda Marcotte on 01/17 at 11:00 AM

Gee ‘Manda, I suggest you check yourself before spouting the ignorant shit that reveals the immature, spoiled brat you must be. 

I never said they had a monopoly on tats.  And my post wasn’t confined to tats, either.  As your entire post pointed out, one element that wingnuts fixate on is the boots, but boots aren’t ONLY skinhead now, if they ever were.  My point was currently, the same for tats and shaved heads, which in combination were supposed to be markers.  But the general population taking up the markers in whole or part, weakens the symbols. 

But hey, you’d rather kneejerk react to me than read a post with any sense of generosity.

@ 12

So, anecdata that some firefighters are racist = screw them and their pensions.

And why the right wing talking points in attacking public emplyees? The last years have seen huge cuts in state and municipal budgets.

Lastly why shouldn’t we attack a Wall Street stooge like Rahm Emanuel? He’ll enact whatever neoliberal policies he can get away with, like he has always done.

Am I the only one amused/frightened by the Reichwing’s obsession/paranoia over appearance items like “jackboots” which they claim have some hitherto unknown connection with “liberals”, the “left”, and “big gummint”, when in reality the Reichwing contains (almost exclusively) the kind of people (skinheads and St0rmfr0nt types, gun nuts, lovers/admirers/worshippers of the military and the police, the Gitmo-is-a-country-club types, hooray for racial-profiling, torture, end-habeas, love-phone-taps, no-limits-on-government-intrusion-into-your-personal-life types) who would actually wear “jackboots” while stomping your head into the curb (or cheer on those who did), as well as being the types who never met a government restriction on civil liberties they didn’t like — just as long as the government keeps lowering tax rates?  Talk about projection…

BTW, what happened to “Black Helicopters” as the go-to symbol of Evil/Big Government?  I watched Capricorn One the other day, and was reminded that the black helicopter was once the instant signifier of evil government power.  Yet the only time you hear about them anymore is when the phrase “black helicopter crowd” is used to dismiss whole groups of conspiracy aficionados on the right and the left.  Oh, how the mighty have fallen…

Most hardcore punks=/ racist skinheads.  In fact, hardcore first hit the scene as an anti-racist, super-liberal, downright pacifist thing (Minor Threat, The Bad Brains).

They were called “peace punks” in the Northeast in the 80s, and the somewhat (to some ears) oxymoronic term is perfect, since their agendas were indeed ultimately peaceful and egalitarian, but their methods as activists were quite disruptive at times. My brother was one. Most peace punks in his circle had every lace-count of Docs, from lowest (below ankle) to highest (just below knee), on point of pride.

Myself, I wear ratty sneakers all the time.  I dunno if they’d count for EvilFascistFootwear, but people can (and do) occasionally make the case that they constitute acts of biological terrorism…

“Most likely, grandma got a tattoo when she was young, covered it up for decades to conform to social pressures, and then got old enough that she just doesn’t give a shit any more what you think.”

There are a lot of 40+ women who’ve always wanted a tattoo, were constantly told that “Only biker chicks/whores/hippies get tattoos” while growing up and as young women, and now they’re getting tattoos because they’re socially more okay and also fuck that noise, they’re over forty, they can do whatever the fuck they want.  So the postmenopausal women sporting new tats is actually kind of a thing.

jlk7e - well jlke in my suburbanizing area, the local tattoo parlor which opened a shop on “main street” instead of its formerly out of the way highway exit industrial shop recently started hosting ladies night tattoo parties and mom/daughter specials. (I’d post the ad, but my local paper doesn’t archive ads).  And yes, I know quite a few women who are in their 40’s and 50’s who recently got tattoos - most seem to coincide IME, with major life exp.  1st grandchild, loss of child (death or becoming empty nesters) divorce, degree, etc.
Comment #23: phylosopher on 01/17 at 11:43 AM

I’ll agree that a lot of women who are much older than 25 and under are now getting tattoos when, at age 25, in the 60s or 70s or 80s, they wouldn’t have.  That’s because tattoo parlors are no longer places you go when you’re drunk or join the Navy or both.  There’s a real explosion in tattoo artistry and technology.

You think tattoos are now totally UNcool, because girls (stink) and then older women (double stink) are doing it.

So why do I see young men getting tattoos all the time, like the awesome work my friends at work and guys behind the counter at stores and musicians my husband works with?  Are they all uncool too?  Or maybe they’re girls?

Note:  making up nicknames for people (“‘Manda” for example) is a phylosopher tell for losing his temper.  Nothing he says after this is likely to make sense because now he’s offended at not being taken as the official expert.

What happened to hippie birkenstocks and clogs being the symbols of left-wing oppression?  I’m still wearing them . .

I wanna know where the #6 boots came from—my knee-high black lace-ups are dying.

Yeah, phyl’s good at projection. Almost as good at it as having the most unjustified case of a big ego I’ve seen in a long time. 

Tattoos: Meh, I got one at 18, one at 24, one at 28, and three more at 31.  Phyl’s ignorant assumptions about tattoos aside, I find that they’re sort of middle mainstream, at least when you’re a woman and they’re large, visible tattoos.  The only people who give me grief about it are reactionary types who are visibly jealous of people who didn’t give up on having fun at 25, but I wouldn’t say that people don’t notice them or think they’re somewhat unusual.  Particularly so in NYC; in Austin, heavy tattooing is so normal that people barely notice it.

I’m planning to get my first tattoo in the next few years, and I’m in my thirties. I’d like to get it before I hit 40, but I’m not picky about it

I’ll add that the vast majority of people, not being egomonsters with heavy projection issues, tend to take my tattoos as a sign of some affiliation with punk culture. Context is everything, after all.  A small tattoo of something cute on an ankle has a much different meaning than large tattoos on your arms.

I am wearing my sperry top-siders and my vibram five-fingers are nearby. Both get very low ratings, I’d assume (though the top-siders are water proof…)

Tattoos: Young person living in Seattle, I hardly notice them Everyone has them. My doctor has “kismet” visible on her arm. A favorite pastry chef of mine has the majority of his face tattooed. Personally, I really like the hipster take on tats. Nothing too serious, funny more often than not.

(Though I have no tats yet, I think I may get one for my 26th bday. “Dum vivamus vivamus”)

I’m getting a large thyrsus tatted down my left forearm this winter. The body police, or those who think a 40-year-old woman only gets tats for “artificial,” don’t-really-count reasons, can take it somewhere else.

My mother got her first tattoo at 50, and she has gotten three others since, and hasn’t written off the idea of more. She wasn’t coping (& by your implication, coping poorly) with a divorce or a death or menopause, & she isn’t even an empty-nester.

She just never gave tattoos a thought before, and now finds she likes ‘em. Because shock and awe! Older ladies are actually fun, interesting people who are capable of changing their minds.

Sheesh.

...public employee pensions are the new right-wing bugbear….

New?  Sam, how old are you?  I’m in my mid-40s, and it seems to me that public employees, their salaries and their pensions have always been a rightwing bugabear.  Certainly, Ronnie Raygun was gunning for them in CA when I was a very young child.

Got my first tattoo on my 40th birthday and plan to get more work done (I’m 50 now).  Perhaps the mark-a-life-moment theory works for me, but doesn’t hold true for other similar-age women I know.  I find that my tattoos can be a good first-meet filter.  Men my age often have a moment when they find out I have them; younger men think they’re cool.  My daughter and her friends all have them, and don’t think they’re a big deal. As with everything, it’s generational.

But, as with John Joel Glanton, I live in Seattle, where tattooed and pierced seems much more common among all age groups.

jlk7e @ 17:
I got my one and only tatoo as a b-day present for myself at age 30, 15+ years ago.  My daughter just got her first (and likely to be only) at 27.  I have friends with tatoos who got them at ages from teens to forties for their first.  Some have many, some only one. 
Us older 1st tatooers seem to do one of two things, make them really easy to cover with standard business attire or make them really bold and obvious, IME, and not much inbetween.  Just because that is ME doesn’t mean I would expect that to be universal.

Nobody but sailors got tattoos when I was young (I’m in my 50’s).  Just simply wasn’t done, so old ladies like me weren’t covering them up all these years.  Those tattoos are recent.  I know someone whose sons took her out to get one to celebrate her 50th birthday.  Even us old folks enjoy doing something new, trendy and different.  Hard to believe, I know.

I find the whole tattooing thing tedious and silly, personally.

I can understand someone getting one to mark some traumatic or transitional event in their lives—a friend of mine has a wristband tattoo with a Latin verse commemorating her younger brother who died in a car crash when they were teenagers. It’s not my personal cup of tea, but it makes sense, especially if you spent way too much time in grad school reading Foucault and Lacan, like I did.

But I meet way too many intown hipster types who really seem to think that their tattoos make them more edgy or interesting or special, and honestly I think it’s kind of stupid. Going to a tattoo parlor is not a substitute for actual experience. Also? Most tattoos are totally hideous.

This is of course only my personal opinion. I don’t expect anyone to give a rat’s ass about it. But since everyone is chiming in about how great they are, I thought I’d be the token voice of dissent here. Thanks for your time and attention.

Helen @ 41:  You make a great point.  I’m 43, so I’m old enough to remember Reagan shitcanning the air traffic controllers.  Teachers are a perennial target.  I think what’s changed is that after deep-sixing our national economy and then whining until they got bailed out by the taxpayers, the greedheads who are behind the public pension pogrom have the audacity to go after all public pensions.
The really sad thing is that Librarian @ 26 makes a huge point.  Now it isn’t just the GOP and their usual mouthpieces who are going after public pensions.  I have it on good authority that Rahm Emanuel has already sat down with some of our Local 2 officers and told us that when his deep pockets and Obama connections get him into City Hall, we’re going to lose a ton of bennies, and he strongly implied that the City’s contribution to our pension fund is on the chopping block.  Was he just blowing smoke for preliminary negotiation purposes?  Maybe, but we’re talking about a Democrat who was Mr. Hope & Change’s chief of staff here, so the very idea that he thinks he can get away with holding our pensions hostage is kind of a downer.
In answer to a certain person’s assholery, I’ll be the first to point out that there is a great deal of racism in the fire service.  Ya think?  I have also seen a ludicrous level of right-wing political attitude in a career that survives on generous public funding.  A lot of my colleagues are dripping with clueless arrogance and privilege.  But I think for those very reasons this should be seen as a big red flag to everyone else.  Firefighters and cops might have a lot more wingnuts in their ranks than most other public careers, and those wingnuts can see fit to piss on the rest of organized labor and the politics that support it, because they know they have been placed in a relatively privileged position for a reason.  But if the greedheads and their bipartisan political friends think they can get away with wiping out the pensions of the people they depend on to maintain order (police, firefighters, etc.), what do you think they’ll do to the ‘entitlements’ (e.g. Social Security, Medicare, etc.) that everyone else has access to?

The Jackbooted Thugs

@46 - There’s all kinds of tattoos out there.  Some look good, some look bad.  Some are supposed to be for the public presentation, others are private.  Some are decorative, some have a special meaning.  Whatever.  I don’t have one, won’t ever have one (I’m terrified of needles), but don’t really give a flying crap about what anybody else does.

Public pensions are always the ire of the private market because it draws less greedy quality workers into the government and also creates a standard for which they should follow.  The record profits being handed out is sad and pathetic when the average worker is getting a 401k.  Ironically the biggest pensions talked about are automotive yet in Japan and Korea the pensions are substantially better but the Japanese and Korean governments work with industry to create a social safety net to avoid the rag-tag capitalist approach we use. 

Tattoos are fundamentally symbolic if anything.  If somebody decorates their bodies with swallows, crosses, or writing it all means something.  Whether it is a deep meaning or not is not really important.  The act of tattooing is traditionally given more weight due to the nature of it’s permanency and pain involved.  The level of vitrol floating around over whether or not taking the shaved head and tattooing are weakening the skinhead symbol or not is silly.  If anything when I was still hip and cool and hit the punk scene weekly I was always just more confused because there was a slew of cheap guys or balding guys who shaved their heads and there were the neo-nazis.  The main difference I always saw was that neo-nazis clung to each other, safety in numbers I guess.

Also, why are we complaining for more gun control and is it a fundamentally left issue?  Since the waning days of the 1990s the left has largely dropped gun control because it was ineffective in the large part without a complete ban on guns (which is both unconstitutional and really just as equally ineffective) and it was a losing political battle.  The use of branding with the idea of “gun culture” is something I despise simply because our constitution protects it and the founding fathers were always on the look out for faster loading weapons.  It wasn’t as if they didn’t expect semi-automatic pistols eventually.  If anything a few of the founding fathers were still alive to see Samual Colt’s Single Action Army pistol arrive and I don’t remember reading any angry letters about it in particular due to it’s ineffectiveness at speed.

The argument surrounding whether laughner could be stopped is really one of whether or not are laws are proactive or reactive.  A free liberal society is reactive in laws and proactive in welfare.  So if he had been noted for his mental instability they would have administered psychiatric care long before he killed anyone but our social safety net is deteriorating while the argument is shifting into being proactive with laws in order to create a proactive police state.

I work on the security/incident response team for a few anime conventions in the Midwest. I just started this year, but I discovered that in their infancy, before current policies were in place, said team was referred to as the con’s “jack-booted thug” squad. That’s definitely not the point, though we internally refer to ourselves as “jack-booted thugs with a smile”.

Angelia Sparrow @24 - if you hit Anime Central this year, say hi :D

Re: tats - when I was 18, fresh out of Catholic high school, and yet unlearned in the mystical “tramp stamp”, I thought the lower back was a pretty place to get a tattoo, so I have a really hideous flower there. I’m saving up to get it covered up with an astronaut and a space shuttle because that’s far more awesome.

Personal Boot Survey:

Doc Martens
Jackboot Properties: Almost knee-high, sturdy, probably not good for kicking heads in, but I suppose that it would hurt to get kicked by them.

Freedom-Loving Qualities: They’re purple like radioactive grapes.

Jackboot Rating: 4.7

Combat Boots
Jackboot Properties: Well, they’re combat boots, army surplus, black, sturdy, and practical.

Freedom-Loving Qualities: They have quotes painted all over them in various colors. Worse yet, many of these quotes are from Elitist sources such as literature and music, and promote Un-American Values.
Also, I would rather avoid kicking someone with them—might wear off some of the paint.
Jackboot Rating: 3

I’m way too indecisive to get tattoos, but I have seen some utterly gorgeous ones. This is my favorite: subatomic particle trails seen in a CERN bubble chamber.

I also love the phylogenetic tree of life.

As for boots: Back in high school I had a pair of just-above-the-ankle black boots with seven buckles up the side of each one (and a zipper up the other side for easy in/out). I loved those boots. They weren’t actually very hardcore at all, and way too girly to be jackbooty, but I still liked them.

I do still have my black Doc Martens from high school. One of the original laces just now broke, more than 10 years on.

And apparently the right wing still has its rhetoric from when I was in high school, too. It was “jackbooted UN thugs” back then. (The kids in Model UN enjoyed that.)

My own experience with boots of this sort was when I took it into my head to wear what I called “Red Army boots” that used to be Grandfather Monks’ to my job as the day janitor at a supermarket. 

My manager liked them because he said I made shoplifters jittery and more nervous.

I observed how with a confident attitude and using a measured pace I would intimidate people who wouldn’t have noticed me if I was wearing my usual black soft shoes as I walked by them on my hourly sweep.

What has surprised me is the rise of body jewelry and piercings I see here in Red California and how it doesn’t seem to disturb the older folks to the point of talking about it or speaking out against it.

I’m not one of those who put down those body jewelry or tats, btw, as Frank Zappa said when he corrected Nancy Reagan, the correct response is “Say No, thank you, to drugs.”

Speaking of jackbooted thugs, this is for former POWs like Mother Avenger and todays’ innocents under durance vile today.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HM-E2H1ChJM

Back in the day, when I use to show horses, I had some lovely riding boots—shiny black and knee high.  Thrown in a pair of riding pants and voila, I was a jack booted thug.

Almost makes me want to go buy a pair, now.  Just to make a gun nut piss himself. (Nowadays, I only trail ride and my footwear consists of brown ankle high boots.)

First supposed instance of “jack-booted thugs” in a book indexed by Google books (though clicking on the result, Google says it can’t find it):

But before he could steady his aim and press the trigger the great Alsatian dog which had been observing the progress of the scene from his corner of the big room threw himself at the jack-booted thug ...

Gestapo:  instrument of tyranny
Edward Crankshaw
Viking Press, 1956 - History - 275 pages

I’m not one of those who put down those body jewelry or tats, btw, as Frank Zappa said when he corrected Nancy Reagan, the correct response is “Say No, thank you, to drugs.”

I wonder if it was Zappa or Miss Manners who said it first; I’ve heard it attributed to both.

Jackboots are basically English riding boots, so I have a pair of genuine jackboots.  If this ban goes into effect, what will I wear to ride (assuming I ever get the money to start up again)?

Serial posting—maybe there could be an exception in the law for wearing jackboots for a non-violent recreational activity?  If they were kept in a secured locker at the riding stable when not in use?

Well, something has to be stamping on a human face forever.

Doesn’t it?

A sort-of-interesting corollary to all this is that there is (and has been for some time) a thriving market in Third Reich memorabilia of all sorts in the gun-nut crowd. This stuff is almost always sold at large gun shows, and can range from china plates with swastika patterns to full SS uniforms. It’s almost always the “Real Americans” buying it up, as well. It’s not talked about often, but a good number of “middle Americans” have a very real fetish for Nazi artifacts.

I don’t know about Miss Manners, but I did hear Frank say that on the TeeVee many cycles ago, and if she said it first, I wouldn’t be surprised.

You’ll have to pry my Corcoran troopers from my cold dead, er, feet.

Re: tatts… I got my first one done when I was just shy of 30, and the other two within the next couple of years. At 38, I am seriously jonesing for more ink. My mom gave me and my sister (who is 7 years older than me) heck about, “You guys are too old to be getting tattoos” and for me, “You’re somebody’s mother!”... and then ended up going and getting one of her own at age 60-ish.

She did, however, still give me grief about the nose stud that I had put in as a 35th birthday present to myself. Sadly that had to go since Fail-Mart doesn’t allow any kind of visible body piercings. (Though huge tatts on your neck are a-ok.)

Those purple KEENs that came up in the ad are super-cute!

Jackboots are associated with walking around in all kinds of weather! That means you, Amanda Marcotte, must want to force conservatudes out of their cars!

For those who know, Roper Boots, a less decorous form of COWBOY BOOTS, look an awful damn lot like jackboots.

Just saying ...

I’m currently wearing Croc flip flops (so comfortable and cute!) in Honolulu, the birthplace of our President, where it’s 79 degrees and sunny, so you can bite me, wingnuts.

My mom was giving my brothers grief for getting inked until:

a) they got nice girlfriends who have at least as more ink, and in the case of my youngest, MORE ink than they do, and the girlfriends hit it off with my mom so she was exposed to ‘nice people’ that also got tattoos (my parents have class issues, mainly they come from rural working class families who were able to break into lower middle class thanks to social advances by the social-democratic Parti Quebecois back in their youth, so they are wary of any signifiers of their children ‘falling back’ down in class status… it’s been a source of problems with regard to their attitude towards my girlfriend, for instance, who is from a multi-generation welfare family)

b) she got herself some permanent makeup, and now my brothers like to gently tease her by reminding her that that’s still technically a tattoo

My first thought when I saw that picture was: “Hey, I’ve got a pair of those.”  So does my wife.  They look exactly like our riding boots.  Apparently all this time the wingnuts have been losing their shit over the prospect of a coup from the US Dressage Federation.

You think tattoos are now totally UNcool, because girls (stink) and then older women (double stink) are doing it.

So why do I see young men getting tattoos all the time, like the awesome work my friends at work and guys behind the counter at stores and musicians my husband works with?  Are they all uncool too?  Or maybe they’re girls?
Comment #31: oldfeminist on 01/17 at 12:27 PM

Playing shoot the messenger/observer much? For the record, “I” don’t think tattoos are uncool.  There are some I find fascinating and some I don’t, in an art aesthetic way - (it’s whoever’s body - do with it what you want, but if you show it to me, I don’t have to like all of them equally.) 

I do think that as a marker of hip/cool avant garde-ness, in the mind of someone who would have gotten a tattoo for that reason,  once Grandma does it, well, that element is diminished, especially for the under 25 crowd.  But there will always be a certain attraction to tattoos because of the pain involved in getting one (sacrifice) and their permanence (committment.)  Yes, the permanence seems to be challenged, too.

I’m currently wearing Croc flip flops (so comfortable and cute!) in Honolulu, the birthplace of our President, where it’s 79 degrees and sunny, so you can bite me, wingnuts. 

You’re safe - nobody is going to go near you while you’re wearing something so ugly…

TO well what @#50 - did you notice the “IME?”  And why, if someone decided to get a tat at a later age would it mean they’re NOT coping well?  The women I know saw them as a sign of celebration of a certain milestone of freedom - their words, not mine.  The one who got her first one on the death of a child proceeded to get one each for her living children, too.

Right Sam, a candidate for public office meets with and threatens that if elected HE will cut pensions the pensions of these very same people he is depending on to help him get elected.  You may not like Rahm Emanuel, but you would also have to be in denial to see him as being THAT stupid.  I’d be checking your “sources” to find their affiliations with other candidates.

Here we go again with the Croc bashing, but as I’ve stated endlessly, unlike the I’m-a-Little-Dutch-Boy clog Crocs clog, they sell a number of cute sandals and flip flops:

http://www.crocs.com/on/demandware.store/Sites-crocs_us-Site/default/Search-Show?q=flip+flop

Which, in my experience, are as comfortable to walk/stand in as horribly ugly athletic shoes.

And cooler to wear, in the summer, or here, in Honolulu, where it’s 79 degrees and sunny, low humidity one block from an incredibly warm ocean, and you can bite my ass.

Here we go again with the Croc bashing,

You betcha 8-)

And cooler to wear, in the summer, or here, in Honolulu, where it’s 79 degrees and sunny, low humidity one block from an incredibly warm ocean, and you can bite my ass.

Tempting, but again, I’m not going anywhere near you while my eyesight is still functioning.  So there.

Never got around to the tattoo because in 60 years I’ve seen fads come and go: so glad I didn’t get that puka shell necklace and the elephant bell bottoms permanently welded to my flesh back in the day.

Also got to see my uncle’s hula maiden from WWII on the bicep fade in an unattractive way, and I can assure you that, in time, there will be body parts you won’t want to be highlighted.

But I’m enjoying all the tats on the barechested young guys here, for the moment. So tat it up, young folks, I’ll be in the great beyond by the time they’re stretched out and fuzzy.

So happy I have one less idiot hitting on me—apparently, the croc sandals are working!

(Except they didn’t seem to scare away the last couple guys, ah well.)

I’m with you Judibrowni - I have a pair of Mario Batali’s that my feet have really been thanking me for - one aspect of my employment requires a ton of standing time.  I will appreciate that flame orange isn’t the only color they now come in when I replace these.

Re: tats.  I remember watching a documentary, oh a decade (yikes) or so ago, on women tattoo artists.  There were two tattoos in particular that I was struck by - one was a flower? halter top on a woman who had had a double mastectomy.  The other was owl wings on the back and shoulders of a woman, who, when she raised her arms, it looked like her arms were wings - breathtaking.  The emphasis was on the study of wing specimens and live owls in flight that the tattoo artist had done before the actual tattooing.  If anyone has a title or producer of the show - I’d be appreciative of a link on where to get a copy - looking for it for a research project and haven’t had luck with Internet searches.  Thanks.

Nobody calls flipflops ‘crocs’ no matter who makes ‘em.  If Birkenstock made wingtips, wingtips aren’t suddenly ‘birkenstocks’.

The original crime that are Crocs still stands: hideous, and will always be hideous.

judybrowni, Eric_RoM:

Crocs are easy to make fun of, but they do have their uses. From what I understand, medical workers love them because they’re both comfortable and quickly washable, and for people with foot problems they’re a lot easier on swollen feet than regular shoes.

Bleh. I rote u a comment but it eated it.

I’m currently wearing a pair of LL Bean snowboots (the model name was something like “Wildcat II”—I couldn’t find them on the website). They’re pretty comfortable, but still kind of stiff on account of not being broken in yet. And Velcro closures—I hate dealing with bootlaces. Always have.

Those ugly faded sailor tattoos are mostly from a time and place where tattooing was not the art form it can be now. And they weren’t cared for in the ways that keep tattoos well preserved and beautiful.

A shitty tattoo will always be a shitty tattoo, but a good tattoo is a thing of beauty and a joy forever.

(I have no tats, in case someone mistakes this for personal defensiveness.)

In fact, following the link snowmentality posted @54, I found a tattoo that made me incapable of doing interesting “ahbuh, ahbuh, ahbuh” noises with my lips for several full seconds: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/loom/2008/02/21/cousin-to-pigeons/

Mindblowingly beautiful.

dammit, that should be “incapable of doing ANYTHING BUT interesting “ahbuh, ahbuh, ahbuh” noises with my lips”.

kristin, did you by any chance click through to the science tattoo emporium?  the posing snake or the skate?  Wow!!!!

I’m 25, and thinking of getting a tattoo when I have the money. The thing I find really funny is how anti tattoo my partner is, I have a feeling that it’s a bit of classism on his part, as he comes from a upper middle class family, but he has an image of people who have tattoos as kind of dirty or thuggish. Some of this comes from the fact that tattoos are not as accepted in Western Australia as they are in other places, for example, I’m only going to get tattoos that I can hide with clothes because of employers being very anti-tattoo. But I guess that the indie music scene is full of nerds with tattoos, so I’ve never felt the way he does about them.

Just noted a cute tattoo on a back (female) while heading through town (it is beastly hot and humid here today).  It was a musical clef, with the centre piece fading into an elegant cat sillhouette

I’m currently wearing ankle-high water-resistant boots. They are black (+2 Jackbootedness) and fairly sturdy (+3 Jackbootedness) but not very high (-1 Jackbootedness) ... but I use them to walk to my elitist taxpayer-funded job and also I’m a girl so plus about eleventy-billion Jackbootedness for all that. That levels them up to Elite Liberal Jackboots of Nad-Stomping (with optional pink “Wingnut Emasculation” buffs that only the Feminist class can cast…)

The pro or con tattoo thing may well have a certain classist element; a tattoo has really to impress my upper-middle-class-upbringing self to break away from my default view of them as “tacky.” But that’s true for lots of things. I’ve always found wearing your heart on your sleeve all over the public sphere a little off-putting, whether it be figurative or literal.

(...but on the tattoo front, I’ve heard hipsters have been known to get little Hitler ‘staches tattooed on their fingers? Maybe the Reich is right about us!!! If all those hipsters weren’t so weedy and bored—and if they could raise their legs more than a foot off the ground in those tight jeans—they would definitely be kicking in doors! ;p)

phylosopher @ 75: Rahm Emanuel is arrogant, not stupid.  He’s counting on the voters to be stupid, and he’s spent enough time in Chicago to know.  He understandably sees himself as the shoo-in to replace Daley, so why not?  Furthermore, you said it yourself in your comment @ 12: a good portion of these firefighters and cops will cut off their noses to spite their faces.  They vote Republican and walk around spouting and spreading some of the most vile, inane right-wing drivel even as they buy summer homes and boats with the extra cash they earn from lucrative side gigs (gigs that are made possible by their taxpayer-funded health insurance and vacation time).  So what are they going to do come election time?  Hit the streets campaigning against Rahm and his deep pockets and D.C. connections?  A few cranks might, but most will shut their mouths and hope someone else pulls an upset in the election, and then they’ll bitch quietly and publicly take what they get if Rahm wins.  After all, our contract will likely be finalized before the election.  So most of our members probably won’t even care enough to do more than grumble and vote against the prick.  Rahm won’t care either way.  He’s not counting on firefighters and cops, he’s counting on the pro-Obama vote to carry him, and he’s got good reason to be confident.  If he gets Obama’s endorsement, that’ll get him a big enough share of the black vote (those who bother to turn out), and he’s already got the hedge fund liberals and other Obama fans, so it’ll be an uphill battle for the challengers who are trying to get votes based on policy and substance.

Phyl, you might be a Rahm or Obama fan, so I understand why you might be going to bat for the asshole.  But I’m a lifelong Chicagoan, and I know a little bit more than you do about how things work around here.  So unless you’re content to keep looking like a fucking idiot, you’re welcome to keep your ill-informed smugness to yourself on matters of Chicago politics.

And here I had always thought that the “jack” in “jackboots” meant “renegade” or “backlslider”, as in “jack mormon” or “jack buddhist”.

I just looked at the box for the black stompy boots I bought to replace the black stompy boots I’m wearing now.  They’re called…Rhinelander.

I do think that as a marker of hip/cool avant garde-ness, in the mind of someone who would have gotten a tattoo for that reason, once Grandma does it, well, that element is diminished, especially for the under 25 crowd. 
Comment #72: phylosopher on 01/17 at 09:12 PM

Where is this cadre of too-cool-for-tattoos under-25s?  I haven’t found any evidence.

You’re just pulling this out of your ass.  You might be interested to know that a lot of younger guys are not actually anti-woman, don’t hate their moms and may actually think they are pretty cool.  They may laugh at the butterfly on the ankle phenomenon, but a serious piece of body art doesn’t actually require youth to make it look good.

Hey Sam - are you stupid enough to think you’re the ONLY Chicagoan on this blog?  Unless you’re a retiree, I was involved in Chicago politics before your daddy was even having wet dreams. But your response is typical male (from your moniker) self-righteous, authoritarian cop/firefighter - “you mention “our contract” - and you call Rahm arrogant?

I think you’re plain wrong about the black vote - as long as there is an African American in the race, they will pull some votes from Rahm.  And the Obama association will hurt him with much of the white/eastern European/Irish descent Catholic who would have whiteflighted except for the commute blue collar group.

Typical overreation and reading into a post what isn’t there on your part, old feminist. 

And who said it’s just under 25 GUYS?  Women may also reject something that their mothers and grandmothers are doing if their motivation was being avant garde.  There will always be those under 25’s of both genders who get tattoos because they like tattoos.  The ones who will simply NOT get a tattoo will be those whose initial motivation may have been to rebel/be edgy/stand out in the crowd by getting a tattoo.

All I’m saying is that that particular motivation is diminished when
a) the generation you are rebelling/showing independence against is doing the same thing
b) the majority of the crowd is sporting the same tattoo/t-shirt/language/hairstyle fashion

If you deny that, well, you’re just missing millennia of human history and behavior, or trying to argue that mainstream and ubiquitous = edgy. Good luck with that.

Typical overreation and reading into a post what isn’t there on your part, old feminist.

Um…Phyl? If absolutely everyone on a thread reads condescending bullshit coming off your posts, it might be because it’s actually there. Just a thought. Especially since that seems to happen, I dunno, every fucking time you ever post anything here.

@Well what?  IDo you think it could have something to do with the fact that you and a few other posters overreact everytime you read my name, you and a few others play monkey pile even to claiming what isn’t in a post is there? It couldn’t be it’s just that you’ve got a whole lot of anger, perhaps because my posts have burst your worldview bubble in the past, or even that someone isn’t in lockstep with your thoughts?  I’m betting if I said “it’s cold out today”  you’d be willing to go out in a swimsuit in subzero weather just to prove me wrong?  Happy frostbite.

But anyway - arguing about tattoos and boots this long - enjoy yourselves.

phylosopher:

All I’m saying is that that particular motivation is diminished when
a) the generation you are rebelling/showing independence against is doing the same thing
b) the majority of the crowd is sporting the same tattoo/t-shirt/language/hairstyle fashion

Great, so it should be easy to find evidence that young men and women are avoiding getting tattooed because it’s ubiquitous and boring. 

As I asked you before.

Wow, Phyl. Your level of self-flattery is…pretty epic. Having read your response, I can’t imagine why a bunch of people might think you’re a douche.

it should be easy to find evidence that young men and women are avoiding getting tattooed because it’s ubiquitous and boring.

Right? And yet.

There must be, somewhere, people who would get a tattoo if only it were as avant garde and shocking as it used to be ... uh ... I don’t know when, actually, since the last time tattoos were daring and avant garde was probably Victorian England (and even then the fad for them was such that there must have been pretentious assholes complaining about how everyone’s doing it now).

To suggest that this group, if it even exists, is anything but a vanishingly tiny size compared to the group of people who get tattoos because they, y’know, like tattoos, is to be giggleably unaware of the real world.

Sure there are people who want their tattoos to be edgy and shocking. Those are the people who get their whole face tattooed like a skull. Or a sleeve of Jesus fucking his doppelganger and giving the reacharound. It’s the subject matter, not the tat itself.

I have basically zero opinion on the whole tattoos: cool or uncool? debate going on here, but I couldn’t resist remarking on this:

It couldn’t be it’s just that you’ve got a whole lot of anger, perhaps because my posts have burst your worldview bubble in the past

So, I know next to nothing about tattoos or the culture around them, but when you start saying, “YOU’RE JUST MAD BECAUSE YOU CAN’T HANDLE MY TRUTH BOMBS,” it makes your argument look wrong, even if it isn’t.

Well, phyl conveniently overlooks the numerous times people *have* agreed and discussed civilly on points with hir in the past. Every time someone points out that phyl is being a toerag, the reply is “YOU ALWAYS JUMP ON EVERYTHING I SAY” even though that’s demonstrably not true.

so demonstrate, kristin.  You, oldfeminist and a few others do indeed offer nothing but snide, no matter what I post. My latest, an observation, couched in IME, if anything, stating the obvious, that once something becomes mainstream, its edginess factor fades- still brought out the attack - even though about five others reiterated the EXACT same thing I originally said about older women getting tattoos - I’m told I am totally wrong and know nothing about tattoos. A few others have been willing to consider the content (on other threads) and comment on that honestly,  unlike the above named cadre and Amanda, herself.  What has been so humorous however, and what makes me bother to come back to watch your entertaining kneejerk reactions, is that this animosity has been based on an erroneous assumption created solely in your own minds to bolster your prejudiced worldview. 

Oh, and Kristin - stop with the hyperbolizing what I write to suit your by now foaming at the mouth invective.  That kind of strawman shows how weak your arguments are against what I actually said.  I made the distinction, oh at least 30 or so posts ago, that people who get tats for artistic or personal meaning are still going to get tats.  The ones who might not, now that tats have become mainstream are the ones who may have been doing it for the edgy/rebellious reasons.  Do you really want to argue that no one ever got a tat to rebel, stand out, piss off/show independence from the ‘rents and instead every single little butterfly tattooed on every single shoulder was always done for truly inner motivated, profound and artistic reasons? 

So oldfeminist - you want proof? because if it hasn’t been documented fully, it can’t exist?  Try reading a few of the tat blogs, and the comments and articles from huffpo to the American Dermatologists society on tats, and discerning a trend.  It must be weird to be someone who can’t ever hazard a hypothesis before it’s been tested and confirmed, or put together any type of analogy.       

Tell you what, you all clearly want your sandbox to yourselves, so enjoy. 

Here, kitty, kitty, kitty.

Over/under on when phylosopher will flounce a third time?

Tats?  It is your body, go right ahead.I am working up some art for a small one, something meaningful to me, and I’m 44 so there. 

My requirement for my kids? Wait until you are 18, because that shit is permanent and I don’t want the responsibility for letting you do it later.  I didn’t have my boys cut for similar reasons - their body, their choice as an adult, and then it will be none of my goddamn business.  My older son is contemplating a tattoo, but finds henna and pen ink satisfying for now because you can change your artwork from time to time.  (then again, the kid woke up the other morning with random words and designs written all over his arms!)

Maybe we should invent a special print ink for temporary transfers to be printed off of digitized art?

Phylosopher, step away from the discredited Freud and maybe people won’t react so strongly to your “hypotheses”.

My requirement for my kids? Wait until you are 18, because that shit is permanent

I keep telling my kids that as long as they wait till they’re 18 and PLAN OUT the tat they want I’ll help them pay for it. Ditto piercings. One stupid stunt with homemade or shitty under-the-table tats, one stupid stunt with home piercings, and they lose the funds.

I also make a point of showing them pictures of good tats and crappy tats, and the kinds of horrors that can ensue from bad piercings, so all said I think they stand a pretty good chance to make intelligent choices in that regard.

Looks like you can get temporary tattoo printer paper, by the way.

Meh.  I’m not going to pay for it.  Part of the “none of my business anymore” philosophy.  I will counsel them to plan it out - just like I’m sketching out designs involving kayak paddles mixed with a chainring to make a compass rose (north pointing forward, of course).

I will counsel them to plan it out - just like I’m sketching out designs involving kayak paddles mixed with a chainring to make a compass rose (north pointing forward, of course).

I’m fine with tattoos and all… but hearing someone describe the tattoo they’re planning to get might be the most boring thing in the world. ;p

Of course it is.

Or as boring as listening to a parent go on and on about their wunderkind….....................

Xeranar @ 51: you are misinformed about Japanese retirement.  Typical retirement (pushing out by one’s employer/forced often) usually occurs several years before one can begin collecting a pension.  Most companies are required to insure their employees from the time they leave their home to go to work until they return after work (unless they travel to a separate place for person reasons; so not a public safety net so much as a publicly mandated private safety net tied to employment.  They have a stricter but very similar ragtag system as we have.

Ms Kate @107, You can buy special paper backed transfers for use on regular inkjets from Cafe Press.  They go on easily, stay pretty well for several hours and then come off with a brisk soap and water strubbing.