Who sucked all the masculinity out of politics?
Where have all the cowboys gone? Singer/songwriter Paula Cole wanted to know in 1997. Now I’m asking. Once upon a time this country was imbued with a survivor’s mentality: either kill, or be killed. And while I don’t mean going as far as to advocate pillaging or murder, the idea of taking your neighbor’s land because you have a larger rifle/musket/pitchfork harkens to truer times. Remember that book you read in sixth grade, Into the Wild, by Jon Krakauer? It’s the non-fictional account of Chris McCandless, an affluent East Coast boy who gave up the prospects of a quiet, comfortable life in favor of the rugged Alaskan wilderness. Lately, that frontier mentality has been nagging at my subconscious like Jennifer Lopez on a lonely Friday night. Now that I’ve disgusted a large portion of my readership, I can talk mano-a-mano with the rest of you. In our high-tech, hustle-and-bustle 21st century society, the frontiersman seems more myth than man. The emasculation process begins at birth, whe
