Bring Back Beards!

"It's a sign of the times," Mr. Martin said. "People are into beards right now."
-NY Times

As we all know, the New York Times has a tendency to pick up on trends just after they've become the strongest. Think back: last spring, all they talked about were long skirts. But long skirts weren't new, we've been wearing them for years. Think back to when they wrote that article about guys wearing pointy shoes: guys had been wearing pointy shoes for ages before then! Anyway, my point will likely appear in the following paragraph.

I, Dina P., am an awesome trendsetter. That's right, moooooonths before the New York Times had anything on beards, I started the Bring Back Beards Campaign. With representatives in New York (Randy, Zvi), Israel (Michael, Zac), Oregon (Logan), and Ohio (Gene), and a fast growing rate of joinage, the BBBC is the hottest thing now.

I will now point to a paragraph from one of my very own articles on Punks titled "Good-Bye Beards"

Yes, I love beards. I was speaking to a friend last night (formerly the spokesperson for my Bring Back Beards Campaign*) who remarked, "oh, so you must love Sean Connery." In fact, I don't. Sean Connery may have a beard, but he's an older man. Beards on older men are just older men beards. Beards on young men are hot. There's no denying that something like this isn't amazingly gorgeous. Why are beards on younger guys hot? I don't know, but they are.

And back to the NYTimes article:

"This is some sort of reaction to men who look scrubbed, shaved, plucked and waxed," said the designer Bryan Bradley, who stepped onto the runway after his Tuleh presentation looking like a renegade from the John Bartlett show, at which more than half the models wore beards: untidy ones that scaled a spectrum from wiry to ratty to shabby to fully bushy.
"It's less 'little boy,' " Mr. Bradley said. "For a while men have looked too much like Boy Scouts going off to day camp."

But I have one tiny problem with the article and that's that they didn't come to me for a quote. As the authority on beards on guys, I'm in shock. And don't think that they didn't know, only a short month (February is the shortest) and nineteen days ago, I sent a letter to the editor of the NYTimes about beards in which I mention my status:

Date: Tue, 14 Feb 2006
Subject: Sometimes Things Aren't as Difficult as They Seem
To: letters@nytimes.com

I just wanted to inform you that there is a mistake in Josh Foer's op-ed "The Kiss of Life". He writes, "The Germans are also said to have coined the inexplicable phrase 'A kiss without a beard is like an egg without salt.'" "Inexplicable"? I think not! It is clear that an egg without salt is devoid of taste (something crucial for eggs, lest they taste too rubbery). This is, therefore, a simple equation. A kiss without a beard is as awful as a rubbery, unflavored egg. But then, as the leader of the Bring Back Beards Campaign, I am a little biased.
Otherwise, I very much enjoyed his article. You can pass this along to him.

Thank you,
Dina P.

I am shocked. Shocked!