"It's a bobcat, attacking my wife!"

This was a wild 46 seconds pic.twitter.com/jIHQg0G4qU

— Sada (@Evi3Zamora) April 15, 2021

FROM THE EMAIL: Nathan writes: 

This seems worthy of a “men in shorts” tag, and you may even consider adding a “men in shorts wearing boots” tag. 

And this is another reason for men not to wear shorts. What is some man/beast confrontation suddenly befalls you? Something with teeth and claws? This man did all right, but if you knew something like that would happen, you'd put pants on.

AND: I'm getting a lot of email saying that's not a bobcat, but a regular house cat, but I can't believe this man would put up the video if it were because he grabs the beast and hurls it hard into the ground. If you'd done that to a house cat, you'd know not to expose yourself to the world. People would cry out about cruelty to animals. I presume he's getting criticized for throwing a bobcat, even though he was acting in self-defense. It's possible that it's not his doorbell camera, and it wasn't his decision to put this video out there, but it looks like it is.

"Men are exposing their legs in public as a reaction to our public behaviour being so tightly policed in public for the last year. They want to feel the wind’s tactile caress on their skin."

Said Prof Andrew Groves, the director of the Westminster Menswear Archive at the University of Westminster, quoted in "Micro shorts for men: how short is too short?/With lockdown easing, will you be following Paul Mescal and Harry Styles and baring more leg than usual this summer?" (The Guardian). 

This isn't just another men-in-shorts article. This is the news that men are going back to the kind of short shorts runners wore in the 1970s. 

And it's a Gen Z thing. So says Shane C Kurup, a Men’s Health’s editor: “They are the most socially aware, health-conscious generation we’ve ever seen. There’s a strong emphasis among this generation of being comfortable in your own skin and not blindly conforming to a prescribed body type.” 

Great! I'm looking forward to a clown show of atrocious fashion. And I intend to enjoy the fun of the Z kids annoying the millennials. 

FROM THE EMAIL: Amadeus 48 writes:

Your short note on shorts impelled me to dig up the following quote from George Orwell’s “Road to Wigan Pier.” Orwell got so many things right he seems like a prophet:

“One sometimes gets the impression that the mere words ‘Socialism’ and ‘Communism’ draw towards them with magnetic force every fruit-juice drinker, nudist, sandal-wearer, sex-maniac, Quaker, ‘Nature Cure’ quack, pacifist, and feminist in England. One day this summer I was riding through Letchworth [a new model town favoured by progressive intellectuals] when the bus stopped and two dreadful-looking old men got onto it. They were both about sixty, both very short, pink and chubby, and both hatless. One of them was obscenely bald, the other had long gray hair bobbed in the Lloyd George style. They were dressed in pistachio-coloured shirts and khaki shorts into which their huge bottoms were crammed so tightly that you could study every dimple. Their appearance created a mild stir of horror on top of the bus. The man next to me, a commercial traveller I should say, glanced at me, at them, and back again at me, and murmured, ‘Socialists’, as one should say, ‘Red Indians’.”

So, the kiddies of Gen Z may find that their ideas have consequences.

I've been monitoring men in shorts for a long time, and I have my standards... my evolving standards...

So what am I to make of this?

Ron Paul spotted wearing a pair of Daisy Dukes for interview https://t.co/r8GO4XbFEP pic.twitter.com/IghHvrOGp2

— New York Post (@nypost) April 7, 2021

At the link:

The 85-year-old Libertarian inadvertently gave the glimpse of his liberally cut short shorts in the last seconds of a video chat on political issues with host Doug Casey. The men had finished discussing the future of personal liberty, when Paul rolled his chair back from the camera and showed just how much liberty his tiny jeans allowed his slightly tanned, thighs to enjoy.

First, I'm more bothered by the comma after "slightly tanned" — "his slightly tanned, thighs." My guess is they had another adjective after "tanned" but they took it out for some reason. Maybe it was "slightly tanned, skinny thighs" or "slightly tanned, hairy thighs" and they backed off, ashamed of their body shaming. "Tanned" was okay, but the rest — I imagine they decided — was the kind of judgementalism that could get them in trouble. But the telltale comma remained.

Second, I'm going to give Ron Paul a pass. It's a totality of the circumstances analysis: 1. He's 85, so I give him extra room to find whatever ways he can to greater physical ease. 2. He's at home, not out in the world displaying disregard for the aesthetic experience of others. 3. He didn't intend his lower body to be seen, but he refrained from outright nakedness or mere underpants. 4. He's a libertarian, so his theme is freedom, and the shorts express his idea of freedom (though if I were looking for freedom in a pair of shorts I'd pick something more pliable and flowy). 5. He amused us.

***

There is no comments section anymore, but you can email me here. Unless you say otherwise, I will presume you'd enjoy an update to this post with a quote from your email and I'll identify you with your first name only. 

IN THE EMAIL: A reader named Julie writes: 

Best men in shorts post to date! Not only has it been a funny little joy for us all to have you share this shorts obsession with us for years, but also because we COVID weary souls in our home offices totally relate with Ron Paul. I spend hours every week in video conferencing, often with executives I have never met before. Whenever the mood at the start of a video call is bright enough and I am looking for an ice breaker, I make a joke of the fact that my professional on-camera blouse does not match my fraying sweatpants off camera. EVERY SINGLE TIME the professional on the other side reveals a similar predicament and we have a good laugh. It's become a new form of rapid trust building.