I Like 'Em Dumb

Some hack puppet scribbling gibberish for the Associated Press is belittling my short hair edict:

The reclusive communist country is waging a hair war, telling its male population to mow the mane to conform to "socialist style" - no longer than two inches.

Even hair-challenged, authoritarian leader Kim Jong Il has trimmed his famous pompadour. One exception, however: Comradely comb-overs are OK for older men.

The short-hair campaign was launched in October, but it reached new lengths yesterday when state-run Central TV began ridiculing nonconformists as unhygienic, anti-socialist fools.

It comes as North Korea's dictatorship struggles to ward off the influence of other nations, tighten its control over information, monitor its population and dictate cultural tastes.

State TV even derided violators of the order by name and address, calling them "blind followers of bourgeois lifestyle," and exposing them to jeers from other citizens.

"Can we expect a man with this disheveled mind-set to perform his duty well?" a narrator asked of one man shown on TV.

As North Korea's economic woes persist, more North Koreans are traveling to China - where long hair is in fashion - to seek food and are exposed to the rapidly spreading capitalist culture there. CDs and videos of South Korean songs and TV dramas - popular in most of Asia - also are reportedly smuggled into the North.

Kim's dictum claims that long hair hampers brain activity by taking oxygen away from nerves in the head.

North Korea's campaign does not mention any rules for women and gives no explanation as to why their long hair would not result in reduced brain activity.

Like I said, I like 'em dumb.

So, you ask why the edict in the first place? Teddy Bear Stuffing. Plain and simple, barber shops nationwide send the hair to collection points where our foreign currency-earning industries make teddy bears, insulated jackets, and pillows using this free and self-renewing resource.

h/t to Clayton Cramer