One thing you have to admit is that Tim Bayly of “Out of Our Minds” sometimes sounds like he is out of his mind. Remember all those ‘beard-o weird-o’ posts he made over the last five years or so, trying to define what is a manly man, and what leads directly to a Whammo Slipnslide greased with dish detergent to homosexuality? He’s ranted and raged against hipster beards, skinny jeans and so many cultural things as being determinate of sexuality.

All it took was Bayly learning of an old book promoting the idea that beards are good because they are a God-given sign of secondary sexual signifiers. Something else to prove you are filled with testosterone and not girly things.

But then he links the old belief that beards protected against bad air and toothpicks with the ideas that climate change science is false. Yes, right when Africa and Australia have suffered continent-changing fires that have wreaked havoc on the species from the changing climate.

Somehow Bayly believes that Australia suffering an extinction level event is just some sort of weird coincidence instead of the catastrophic failure of man. Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. Currently I am reading a book on the 1930’s Dust Bowl phenomenon that was entirely created by way farmers stripped the High Plains of all grass by over-farming. It’s called “The Worst Hard Time” by Timothy Egan and has echos today in many of the things we see happening around us that Tim Bayly chooses to say are just not true. Side ramble over, back to Tim and his new embrace of the weird beard thing.

Health benefits from a beard? Bayly posted a host of old ones, but really the only health benefits are –

1. Insulation from cold weather
2. No razor burn or infected bumps from shaving.

That’s it.

As to all this other nonsense Bayly is trying badly to link to beards, it is a stretch at best, a crazy nonsensical overreach of the desperate.

Dearest Tim, fill any of us females with enough testosterone and there would be some beard growing. The ability to grow hair on your face is only indicative of possessing large amounts of testosterone. Nothing else.

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A little housekeeping. Don’t freak out if I disappear for a day or two. We’re having high winds in Guanacaste and lost power for much of yesterday. It’s starting to flicker again today and I will not be surprised if it happens again.