gull
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Beards.... (caution, long)
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Nov 19 15:33 UTC 2003 |
A friend of mine brought this Usenet post to my attention. It was too
funny not to share. The thing is, I can't figure out if it's a
deliberate attempt at humor, or if the person posting it was dead serious...
Lines: 358
X-Admin: news@aol.com
From: professormunyan@aol.com (Professor Munyan)
Newsgroups: misc.education
Date: 27 Sep 2003 13:40:56 GMT
Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com
Subject: On Beards And Evolution
Message-ID: <20030927094056.10024.00000159@mb-m25.aol.com>
ON BEARDS AND EVOLUTION
I am an educator and an American.
As an educator, I fulfilled a dream two years ago by becoming principal
of my high school. Prior to that time, I taught American history for
over twenty years.
I taught with a passion for the patriotism and traditional American
values that made our country great. As a member of our local American
Legion, I was also the faculty sponsor for our Boys State Club.
I made damned sure that our members dressed and groomed themselves like
clean cut American boys. This meant no punk or hippie haircuts. No
earrings, no tattoos, and no beards.
Today, I want to talk about beards.
We have just embarked upon a new millenium, one whose beginning marks a
critical juncture in the evolution of human civilization. In order to
facilitate its progress, it behooves modern men today to abstain from
the wearing of beards.
I will grant three exceptions.
First, I will excuse our actors. Sometimes, an actor is called upon to
portray a historical figure who wore a beard.
I can relate to this personally. About ten years ago, I was offered the
opportunity to play the role of General Stonewall Jackson in a school play.
Normally, I would have considered it a dream come true to play a man
like Stonewall Jackson. But with deep regret, I had to turn it down.
It was early in life when I learned that my face was not cut out for the
beard I would have had to grow for the part. During a survival camping
expedition during my twenties, I went an entire week without shaving.
It was just about all I could stand. My face itched to high heaven
until I was able to seek the relief of a razor.
Second, I will excuse certain religious groups. The Amish, in
particular, have earned my highest admiration for their old fashioned
morality and simple way of life. They deserve a lot of credit. Other
religious groups I deem worthy of their beards are the Orthodox Jews and
the Sikhs.
Finally, I will excuse the liberals. If they want to look like the
washed up over the hill hippies they truly are, then I won't stand in
their way. At least, they look the part.
On the other hand, any good conservatives out there who are still
wearing beards would be well advised to shave them off. Our cause can
only be strengthened with such a united front.
Otherwise, I see no other legitimate reason for any modern man in this
day and age to wear a beard. Any man who does so without just cause is
obviously suffering from a deep seated personal inadequacy.
If a man is truly content with his manhood, then why does he need to
grow all that excess hair?
What is he trying to hide?
I never cease to be amazed at all the male high school students I see
who are wearing beards. Misguided parents who allow this to go on are
guilty of the worst form of permissiveness.
These parents need to be teaching and modeling the true ways of manhood,
instead of inciting their sons to flaunt such false symbols thereof,
under the phony banners of freedom and self-expression.
Let me make it clear that the grooming standards I am promoting apply to
the twentieth century and beyond. Before then, we did not have the
knowledge of good grooming and personal hygiene that we have today.
Many Americans lived under very adverse frontier conditions. By
necessity, daily survival itself was more important than shaving.
Indeed, pre-twentieth century man was guided by a different set of
priorities. Most honorable was our noble quest to fulfill our divine
mission of completing our western expansion. Our mission of manifest
destiny.
The many savage Indian tribes who were squatting on our land before we
arrived fought us every step of the way. Shaving was the least of our
worries.
As Americans, we prevailed. God shone the light upon the glorious path
which led to the formation of the great nation we enjoy today.
God blesses American because God blessed America. It's that simple.
Therefore, I fault no man for wearing a beard prior to the twentieth
century. After all, many of our most famous Civil War generals wore beards.
Yet, I cannot help but wonder if the Confederacy might have survived if
some of Robert E. Lee's military blunders at the Battle of Gettysburg
had been made without the itchy distraction of his beard.
I also suspect that Abraham Lincoln's judgement was similarly clouded by
his beard when he conceived and put forth his Emancipation Proclamation.
It wasn't until the early part of the twentieth century when our armed
forces finally wised up. They adopted the practice of giving all
recruits a decent haircut, and a shave if necessary, on their first day
of basic training.
They finally realized that they can more effectively tap into and train
the "inner man" into the fighting machine he was meant to become without
a lot of superfluous hair in the way.
History has shown us that military decisions are best made with a clear
head. Indeed, a clear head goes hand in hand with a clean shaven face
and a decent haircut.
For one of our earliest examples, the Roman warriors favored clean
shaven faces, in order to give their adversaries less area to grab hold
and pull during hand to hand encounters.
The Romans were also among the first to adopt the "high and tight"
hairstyles that most of our recruits wear with honor and pride in our
military boot camps today. It is most unfortunate that our Civil War
heroes failed to follow their example.
The twentieth century marked a major turning point in the history of
grooming habits of our leaders. The last U.S. president to wear a beard
was Benjamin Harrison, who served his term from 1889 to 1893.
Since then, not one of our presidents has ever sported a beard. Not
one.
Indeed, the first sixty years of the twentieth century was a golden age
of grooming among men. Most men were clean cut and shaved on a regular
basis. Barber shops fluorished in practically every town and city in
America.
Sadly, this glorious era was interrupted during the turbulent and ugly
decade of the sixties.
Perhaps, the first omen of what was to come took place when Richard
Nixon failed to give himself a proper shave before his televised debates
with JFK in 1960. His five 'o clock shadows clearly did him in, as he
looked like somebody on a wanted poster instead of the dedicated
communist fighter he truly was.
As a result of being duped by a more clean shaven and charismatic
Kennedy, the American electorate had to endure eight years of Democratic
rule and all the turmoil that it wrought.
Shortly after this fateful election, the Beatles came along with their
mop style hair cuts. Teenage boys everywhere began to forsake their
Brylcream and started growing their hair like the mangy sheepdogs their
heroes emulated. Popular American culture was just beginning its rapid
descent into depravity.
The cancer grew even worse with the emergence of the hippies a few short
years later, with even longer, more unkempt hairstyles and beards. Their
influence on our American youth was devastating. Clean cut young men
everywhere were seduced into their ranks, taking up pot smoking,
internalizing anti-American ideas, and protesting our nation's gallant
efforts to stop the spread of communism in Southeast Asia.
Instead of listening to President Nixon and Vice-President Agnew, they
began to emulate the likes of Jerry Rubin, Abbie Hoffman, and scores of
other radical political agitators who were glorified to high heaven by
our liberal news media.
Rock stars with beards and long dirty stringy hair began to multiply
like cockroaches. Clean cut wholesome musicians like Lawrence Welk, Pat
Boone, and Slim Whitman became passe.
Something was wrong. Our nation was going to hell. The chaos and
decline of traditional moral values the hippies wrought was absolute
proof that long hair and beards were clearly inappropriate for modern
twentieth century man.
Even the courageous victory of Mayor Daley's Chicago police force
against the hippie demonstrators at the 1968 Democratic National
Convention failed to bring us back to our senses. It wasn't until
Ronald Reagan assumed the presidency more than ten years later that much
of our dignity and national pride began to return.
Today, we are blessed with the knowledge that beards are unsanitary.
The excess hair of a beard on a man's face causes the underlying skin to
secrete oils at an accelerated rate, clogging up the pores of the skin.
These oils can lead to increased productions of harmful bacteria,
resulting in formations of acne and other skin problems. A beard does
nothing more than obstruct the surface area of the face, preventing it
from getting the thorough cleansing that it needs.
Common sense says that the cleaning of any type of surface is best
achieved in a succession of layers. For instance, consider the task of
cleaning a floor that is cluttered with dust balls.
One would not rush right in and mop the floor without first sweeping or
vacuuming all that dust. Doing so is just as senseless as trying to
wash a face that is cluttered with the stubbles of a beard.
One only needs to examine the face of a man who has just shaven off his
beard to see what I'm talking about. What you typically see is a pallid
pasty skin tone, populated by the presence of one or more unsightly pimples.
In addition to all the oil and bacteria they generate, beards prevent
the facial skin cells from receiving the amount of circulation and
sunlight they need. A bearded face is not a happy face.
Don't bring up Santa Claus. He doesn't exist. And even if he did, I
would never let him in my house anyway.
The scalp is different. It was designed for hair, and that is where it
belongs. God made it that way.
With the hard bony surface of the skull directly beneath, there are
fewer subcutaneous layers of skin where bacteria can grow. This is why
pimples hardly ever grow on the scalp.
I will say nothing derogatory about nose hairs. They play a vital role
in keeping bacteria and dust from entering one's respiratory system.
Ear hair also plays an important function in helping to filter out
foreign bodies from entering too deeply into the ear canal, thus serving
to prevent harmful infections.
Armpit hairs serve their purpose as well. They work in synchronocity
with a man's sweat glands in regulating his temperatures during times of
physical exertion and stress.
Unfortunately, evolution has yet to eliminate the unneeded armpit hairs
of women. They look a lot better without them, and they certainly don't
need them for their housework. A truly feminine woman in this day and
age keeps her armpits shaven.
Hair is good. As long as it is kept in the right places and at the
right length.
Finally, the most compelling reason for modern man to shun the wearing
of beards is to humbly cooperate with the evolutionary pattern of human
civilization which has been destined for us.
I herewith present a bioracial basis for this argument. But before I
do, let me make one thing perfectly clear.
Contrary to a lot of popular suspicion, I am not a white supremacist.
Being a Caucasian male, I do not consider myself to be a member of a
superior race.
Instead, I believe this distinction may very well belong to the
Mongoloid race, which includes the various peoples of Asiatic descent.
The Chinese and the Japanese are our best known examples.
Marco Polo expressed this view in the year 1290 when he said: "The
Chinese are the wisest people in the world." It is no secret that
Asians have generally overwhelmed the other races in the academic arenas
in our nation's public and private schools and institutions of higher
learning.
According to Professor Phillipe Rushton of the University of Western
Ontario, who is one of our leading scholars in the scientific
investigation of racial differences, there exist various indices of
significant and striking Asiatic superioity.
When compared to identical average measures for Caucasians, for example,
Asians have been generally shown to possess larger brains, more brain
cells, and higher average IQ scores.
They have also been shown to have higher marital stability, greater
tendencies to abide by the laws of their governments, and better mental
health and administrative capacities.
They also put us to shame when it comes to sexual restraint. As a
whole, the Asians display a significantly reduced proclivity to sexual
promiscuity in comparison to all other racial groups.
Indeed, comparative studies have shown that Asian males are, on the
average, the least "endowed" of all the racial groups.
If you don't think so, try watching some of their porno films sometime.
Another difference is that Asian males have fewer beards and beards of
less thickness than do males of other races. How often do you see a
Chinaman with a thick full length beard? My guess would be hardly ever.
There is a chef in one of our local Chinese restaurants who has worn a
beard for as long as I can remember. Although it has reached a
considerable length, it is of a very thin and wispy thickness and
texture. Such is the case of every beard I have ever seen worn by an
Asian male.
The reason for the lower incidence of beards and reduced beard thickness
among Asian males is not entirely clear. One theory holds that the
early Mongolian people used to burn the faces of their young male
children with heated metal, in order to stop the growth of facial hair,
sparing the lip areas for the growth of mustaches.
The Egyptians also possessed an incredible revulsion for facial hair.
Many of them would depilate their entire bodies, pencil in their
eyebrows, and wear elaborate wigs made of human hair or wool.
All of this demonstrates that much of the wisdom of the ancients became
lost with the advent of later civilizations.
I shall now come to the final phase of my theory. For the past several
years, I have become personally interested in a body of research which
points to the possibility of the existence of extraterrestrial aliens.
I have read extensively the works of a number of noted scholars in this
field. Among them are Dr. John Mack, David Jacobs, Whitley Strieber,
and Budd Hopkins.
While reviewing the vast number of sketches that have been made of these
alien beings, whether you want to believe they're real, imagined, or
intentionally fabricated, one common denominator among them stands out.
Out of all these sketches, not one of them depicts an alien wearing a
beard. Not one.
I believe that there may very well be a connection between these alien
beings and the Mongolian race. A careful study of these sketches
reveals that these beings resemble the Mongolian race to a greater
extent than the other races.
The most obvious similarity is that both tend to exhibit a sloping
pattern to their foreheads. More significantly, they both appear to
exhibit a trait which is clearly indigenous to the Mongolian race.
This trait is known as the "epicanthal fold." This is the biological
trait that accounts for the distinctive shape of the eyes that the
Asiatic people possess. This same trait also appears evident in many
the alien sketches I have studied.
Could it be that the Mongolian race is our closest genetic human link to
these extraterrestrial beings? I don't know. We are probably eons
away from finding out.
However, the physical similarities between the Mongolian race and the
alien sketches I have studied are certainly compelling enough to warrant
further investigation in this direction.
As stated earlier, members of the Mongolian race wear beards to a lesser
frequency and of lesser thickness than do males of any other race. If
the sketches of the extraterrestrial aliens I have seen are any
indication, they don't appear to wear beards at all.
In my considered opinion, these advanced beings are trying to send us a
message. That message is to shave off our beards.
In keeping with the spirit of the new millenium, I now join hands with
my extraterrestrial comrades by calling upon bearded men everywhere to
surrender to the will of evolution and shave them off.
Our cooperation will surely facilitate the evolutionary pattern that our
Creator, in His divine wisdom, has set in motion for the future course
of human civilization.
Arthur Claude Munyan, Sr.
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