It was, perhaps, inevitable that with the much-heralded decrease in personal luxuries like salon visits, some people should forgo dyeing by their own hands and let their hair revert to lower-maintenance gray. As Kathleen Clary Miller writes in the Los Angeles Times, she was tired of the hassle.

But you'll look older!" protests a friend. Guess what? I am older. And I'm tired of trying so hard to deny it. The once intermittent weave has graduated over the last few years into an every-six-weeks procedure that involves low lights, highlights and overall root color. Toxic fumes fill the salon air as I try not to breathe too deeply for the hours it takes to maintain what has, over time, resembled less and less natural blond and more and more an oddly greenish or orange hue, depending on the light I'm standing in.

Although she claims that "this is not about "letting myself go," unless going gray is that," her tone, and that of her friends, certainly conveys the idea that going gray is somehow giving up and giving in. I've heard that attitude before, not least from a chestnut-locked lady in her tenth decade to whom I may or may not be related, and while I support anyone's wish to look in a way that makes her feel good, I think that rationale's outmoded. So is this notion that hair-color automatically makes one look younger, which anyone who's glanced at a tabloid in their lives knows not to be true. Going gray, the author seems to feel, is bold. And maybe she's right: certainly those few who've embraced their silver hair - Emmylou Harris or Helen Mirren - are regarded as ageless exceptions doing something special, besides being the same two examples who people always have to go to. When was the last time you saw a woman with prematurely - or not - white hair on TV? The Golden Girls?

It's true that not everyone's hair goes as beautifully silver as these women's, and many don't want a crop of wiry white strands in an otherwise youthful mane. But going gray, generally, doesn't look that weird or daring. (Obviously no one in the 18th century thought so.) Well, depending on where you live - Miller draws the distinction between her appearance-conscious "Southern California friends" and her home in "the backwoods of Montana now where rumor has it that if you have all of your teeth, you're a beauty queen." So, it doesn't matter, you see, if she looks defeated and old!

My mom is passionate about her gray hair - although it should be said that she's lucky enough to have had it age very uniformly and in a very silvery manner, Like many things in her life, she invests this with an unwarranted sense of moral superiority. And that, is of course, as futile and judgmental and irrelevant as the high-horse parenting debates that clog parenting boards, proclaiming the superiority of all things natural. Unfortunately, the discussion has frequently been couched in moral terms (see: Anne Kreamer's Going Gray of 2007), and I worry that actually impedes acceptance. Hair color is not, nor should it be, a moral issue - we have a bevy of (increasingly earth-conscious) dye technologies at our disposal to help women choose their choices, whyever they might chise. And by the same token, going gray should not be regarded as any kind of surrender to grim inevitability. And maybe as that stigma dies, a little of the perception of all the signs of age as scary and ugly will go away too.

She's Good With Gray Hair [LA Times]

Related: Are You Woman Enough To Go Gray?

The issue, which CNN reports will arrive at comic book stores in August, features Archie proposing to Veronica in a jewelry store and will reveal what happens to Archie and company after they graduate college.

Veronica already blogged about the proposal, saying:

I am so excited, I am getting married to Archie. There is so much to do, so many plans to make. I wonder if Betty wants to be my Maid of Honor? I bet she is so happy for me!

No such luck, Veronica. Betty posted on her blog:

I am so sad, I don't even know what to say.

At first glance Betty, who is described in her online profile as, "completely unaffected, loyal and sweet," seems like the more logical choice compared to Veronica, who is, "very conceited, usually fickle, and extremely flirtatious." But in addition to surveys that indicate more billionaires have brown-haired wives, and most men would rather marry a brunette, a look back through the annals of pop culture shows that the sassy, dark-haired girl is more likely to come out on top than the boring, blonde girl-next-door.

Allow us to illustrate with the highly scientific study below:

Marissa Cooper vs. Summer Roberts
Summer: Sassy brunette marries Seth in series finale. Moves on to feature films.
Marissa: Blonde girl-next-door dies in a fiery car crash at the end of season three. Will appear in yet another CW series premiering this fall.

Point: Brunette.

Gabriella Montez vs. Sharpay Evans
Gabriella: Gets Zac Efron in High School Musical and real life.
Sharpay: Consistently humiliated in song. Ends up on cover of this week's OK! talking about her decision to dye her hair brown.

Even when the roles are reversed and the blonde is the bitch, the brunette still triumphs. Point: Brunette.

Lauren Conrad vs. Audrina Patridge
Lauren: Leaves The Hills, fashion line cancelled.
Audrina: Gets bigger role on The Hills, is dating Chris Pine (a.k.a. the new Captain Kirk).

Point: Brunette

Joey Potter vs. Jen Lindley
Joey: Loses boy, gets boy, dumps boy for his best friend, people stop watching Dawson's Creek when she goes to college, ultimately chooses sassy brown-haired boy and moves to New York.
Jen: Dies in final episode.

Dawson's Creek blurs the blonde vs. brunette sterotypes, making this a hard call. Jen lives next door to Dawson and is blonde, but she's a bitchy sexpot too. Joey is more of a "good girl," yet she is also sassy. Taking Dawson vs. Pacey into account as a tie breaker, in both scenarios the brunette gets the guy/girl. Point: Brunette.

Serena van der Woodsen vs. Blair Waldorf

Feud still in progress: Disqualified.

Tina Fey vs. Amy Pohler

Also disqualified, based on mutual awesomeness.

Jennifer Aniston vs. Angelina Jolie
Angelina: Won an Oscar. Has six absurdly cute children. Is either happily married to Brad Pitt, feuding with Brad Pitt, pregnant with Brad Pitt's baby, or some combination of all three.
Aniston: Dated and broke up with John Mayer. Marley and Me was a box office hit and earned more than Angelina's Oscar-nominated film The Changeling. But, she's also so lonely.

Point: Brunette.

Elisabeth Hasselbeck vs. Rosie O'Donnell
Elisabeth: Ongoing feud with Rosie culminates in split-screen argument on The View. Survives to argue her conservative points another day.
Rosie: Said the right-wing media portrayed her as a bully attacking "innocent pure Christian Elisabeth." Broke her contract to leave The View.

Technically, Elisabeth wins, but she loses a point on grounds of general obnoxiousness. Tie.

Luke Skywalker vs. Han Solo
Luke: Becomes a Jedi, tries to kill his dad. Loses girl on account of incest.
Han: Completed the Kessel run in less than twelve parsecs. Survives being frozen in carbonite. Gets the girl on account of being a scoundrel.

Point: Brunette.

While many have viewed Veronica and Archie's engagement as yet another triumph for the dark-haired, is marrying Archie really much of a prize? It's taken the man 67 years to graduate from high school. Plus, he stupidly ignored Dylan McKay's advice that picking either girl would just lead to trouble. Why were Betty and Veronica sitting around and waiting for Archie to pop the question anyway? The New York Times points out that the issue in which Archie asks Veronica to marry him is only the first part of a six-part-story, so presumably anything could happen. Hopefully both Betty and Veronica will come to their senses and reject Archie, and the widespread, idiotic notion that their personalities should match their hair color. As for Archie, there's always his third love interest, Cheryl Blossom, the redhead.

Comic Suspense: Archie Andrews Pops Question [CNN]
Archie Makes His Choice (Or Does He?) [The New York Times]

Earlier: Want To Marry A Billionaire? Be A Brunette
The Marrying Kind
An Open Letter To Archie Andrews From Dylan McKay

The mockery of "Ginger Kids" is nothing new: one could argue that a famous South Park episode, wherein Cartman attempts to remove all Ginger Kids from the planet, claiming that they have "no souls," sparked a resurgence in Ginger mocking: police are investigating the 14-year-old founder of a Facebook group promoting "National Kick A Ginger Day," which was loosely based on the episode. The leader of the group, which currently has roughly 5,000 members, claims that the whole thing is a big joke, but police see it differently: "We do treat this sort of thing seriously," a police spokeswoman said, "This is sort of inciting hate. It's a hate crime, really."

Simon Hattenstone, the father of a red-headed, freckled daughter, agrees with the notion that "gingism" is a hateful thing. In this week's Guardian, he writes: "Why do so many seemingly decent people - the type who would hate to be considered prejudiced - think gingism is perfectly acceptable?" Hattenstone brings up his own experiences with his daughter, recalling that he used to affectionately refer to her as "his ginger darling," before he realized how hurtful his words were to her. "Because I was her father, because I thought I was being funny, because I loved her? Whatever, there was no excuse. When we met other gingers, I'd smugly announce, 'Look, one of yours!' and expect the both of them to crack up at my sparkling wit. Thoughtless bastard. Worst of all, I travelled the road euphemistic. Despite my "banter", I told Alix her hair was copper, Titian, russet - anything but ginger."

Hattenstone is also quick to point out historical prejudices against Gingers, including witch burning, Satan having red hair on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, and the fact that "Egyptians burned gingers alive, and the Greeks reckoned they turned into vampires when they died." But the theme that runs through the article, and rings the most true, is the notion that Hattenstone is worried about people making fun of his daughter, who he obviously loves. He brings up sad stories of Gingers being harassed, screamed at, and victimized, noting that people seem to give themselves a free pass when it comes to taunting red-heads, as if the entire world agrees that Gingers are weird and mock-worthy.

Many gingers, Hattenstone notes, "say they've been bullied or harassed because of their hair; many believe that in a politically correct world this seems like the last acceptable ism. 'The G word is an anagram of the N word,' says Richard Tyrone Jones. At primary school, he was defined by his hair colour from day one. He was shown his peg, and because some of the children couldn't yet read, they were denoted by pictures - his was a flame-haired gingerbread man running away (from life, from gingerdom?). He still looks traumatised today."

The title of Hattenstone's article, "Does Gingerism Remain the Last Acceptable Prejudice" seems a bit dramatic: the answer is clearly no, as MANY prejudices are still "acceptable" to many people out there. And on a very small level, as someone born with platinum blonde hair, I can tell you, dear Ginger Kids, you are not alone in hair-color mockery. Where you are seen as "weird," the REAL blondes of the world, (I'm not talking bottle blondes here) are seen as "dumb."

So what say you, commenters? Are you guilty of Gingerism? And for those of you born with red hair and freckles, have you ever experienced such things?

RCMP investigating Facebook group over 'Kick a Ginger' day [Canada.com]
Facebook Kick A Ginger Campaign Prompts Attacks On Redheads [Telegraph]
Does Gingerism Remain The Last Acceptable Prejudice? [The Guardian]

I'm not even talking about the first fifteen years of my life, my legitimately blonde phase, also characterized by tininess, enormous flannel dresses and extreme self-righteousness. Rather, I'm referring to a particularly low moment a few years ago in which I agreed to go blonde for a feature in an alleged women's magazine I'd never heard of. Being unemployed at the time, it was no problem for me — along with a blonde and a redhead, neither of whom seemed especially jazzed — to show up at a salon somewhere in Manhattan for our gratis metamorphoses.

The first doubts began to intrude when we learned that the makeover was a promotion for an at-home haircolor line that shall remain anonymous. Basically, someone would be dyeing our hair, but using the same stuff you buy at the grocery store. The smelly, stinging ordeal commenced. I was excited to see myself transformed into a glamorous sex kitten — it was one of those deals where seeing ourselves would be a big surprise at the end - but my fears mounted as colorist after colorist walked over to my chair, went into hurried consultation with the stylist, and gave me a wan smile that I didn't find reassuring. An assistant styled my hair in silence, refusing to meet my eyes.

They assembled us for the reveal before a bank of mirrors. One by one they turned us towards our reflections. Everyone enthused over the former blonde's maghgany mane and the redhead's ebony crop. When they reached me there was an awkward silence. They turned me to face the mirror. There, atop my head, was a pile of Velveeta-hued straw. I burst into tears. Chaos ensued. The beauty editor screamed that she couldn't run a picture of the atrocity; someone else demanded they repair the damage. The "repair" meant an additional three bleachings which left the Velveeta marginally paler and my hair utterly destroyed. A makeup artist gamely blotted at my tears with a powder puff; the hairdresser sprayed me with some silicon-based product to create an illusion of glowing good health. The khaki pants they made me wear were several sizes too big and needed to be cinched in the back with a diaper pin. I heard the words "Photoshop" and "color correction."

Of course, further coloring was out of the question; I would have to live with what resembled a cheap doll wig. Which would have been fine, except that next day I got called in for a job interview. There was nothing for it; I would have to make the best of it. What I found galling — besides the way it looked, of course — was that I looked like a moron who a) had wanted to be incredibly blond and b) had totally fucked it up. There was no way this color was deliberate; too horrible to be deliberate, too conventional to be cool, it simply looked like the worst dye job in the history of the world, a canned corn-colored pile atop my small, sallow face. On the day of the interview, I screwed "hair" into a knot on my head and resolved to keep my beret on until the last possible moment. It is a testament to that boss's open-mindedness that she hired said hair to be her assistant. I suspect no one at that job was ever quite able to take me seriously, even when I was able to color it brown again. As to men "preferring" it, well, if you count jeering references to troll dolls or the hilarity of bums as signs of marked preference, then yes, I suppose they did.

Do Gentlemen Really Prefer Blondes? [Houston Chronicle]

Related: Want To Marry A Billionaire? Curl Up And Dye.
Do You Get Dumber Around Blondes?

If the billionaires were women, and 62% of their husbands were dark-haired, would you think, those smart ladies are on to something? Or would you think, coincidence? The truth is, worldwide, dark hair is more common. So whomever you meet is more likely to be brunette anyway. But when it comes to pitting women against each other, there's always a new angle. Thanks, random dating site!

Brunettes Bag The Billionaires, Blondes Get The Barmen [Times]