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Monday, August 27, 2007
Kiss this? British newspapers take a look at a hairy new American cultural debate
The United States is viewed by many Britons as a place where people generally fight over guns, gays and God.
But there’s a new cultural battle being waged in America, several British newspapers noted this past weekend.
It is the struggle over Americans’ right to bear hair on their upper lips. The newspapers highlighted the American Mustache Institute’s fight to stop discrimination against those with mustaches.
The articles cited a recent poll showing that more than half of American women would refuse to kiss a man with a mustache.
But the newspapers claim it’s tough to rally around a cause in which the poster boy is John Bolton.
Sam Leith, a columnist for London’s Daily Telegraph newspaper, said that a more sympathetic world cause would be the one pushed by the Italian Association for the Protection of Animals. That association is fighting to stop the killing of 60,000 black cats a year by superstitious Italians.
“It is definitely bad luck to be a black cat when an ignorant peasant crosses your path,” he said.
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