Keep The Word Ho Sacrosanct

Last year I heard someone bemoaning the fact that we might have to not use the word "Ho, ho, ho" as Santa's default laugh. This, because some idiotic ne'er-do'wells have preempted it as a shortened version of the word "whore."

That's ridiculous on many levels, which I probably don't need to specify entirely. It basically comes down to, If we don't know the meaning from the context, and if we can't separate these things out, and if we can't guess which meaning came first, blah blah blah, then we're stupider than I thought.

We used to play the game "Horse" with our dad and uncles. And we were kids, we didn't know about whores in those days. Probably kids do today, but back then, let's just say it was a more innocent time. If you know the game, you know you need to keep track of what you have. I can't think of how it goes exactly. But you step through the letters of "horse" after having shot the basketball. You come to "hor," and the kid, me in some cases, is going, "I've got a HOR." The adults are looking very uncomfortable. "He says he has a whore."

Personally, I would like to get rid of this ruining of our language by calling a whore a ho. If you're going to refer to whores, just say whore. Don't ruin Santa's laugh. He shouldn't have to change to a chuckle or a snicker. A good old fashioned Ho Ho Ho is just right.

The War On Christmas Knocks Off Peanuts

The idiocy of the far right is reaching new levels of absurdity. Can this be serious? I'm seriously asking, Can this be serious?

Search for the details if you want to know more. But I read at least the headlines today that some politician in Tennessee thinks that President Obama's speech the other night at West Point might have been an islamofascist plot, some kind of nefarious manifestation of the War On Christmas.

Why? Because apparently the Charlie Brown Christmas show was supposed to be on one of the channels and it was preempted by the president.

Stay tuned. We're waiting for the next idiot. We want to see if any of these morons can top that?

Now That's What I Call Christmas

Christmas in June? 'Fraid so. At least on the music front.

In my never ending (foolish) quest to gather up all the decent castoff CDs of other people, I see a lot of Christmas ones. I can't even remember if I've bought any recently. There's nothing real memorable that sticks out.

Except this one ... "Now That's What I Call Christmas," a two CD set from 2001 that has "36 classic songs from Christmas past and present."

I was a little reluctant to get it since I already have lots of these songs on other CDs. Certainly Nat King Cole's "The Christmas Song." And I'm drifted in with copies of Bing's "White Christmas," including a 78 rpm of the first version somewhere, unless it's broken, a few 45s, maybe on an LP, and then CD. Elvis' "Blue Christmas" I think I have three or four different copies. Perry Como's "Home For The Holidays" is probably on the Christmas CD I have by him, and just this last season I made an MP3 of the 45. Brenda Lee's "Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree" is a slightly different story. I only had a 45 till this past Christmas, at which point I bought her Christmas CD. Now here it is on this collection too. The Beach Boys' "Little Saint Nick" I have in rich abundance. So for the first CD, I have most of these elsewhere. Maybe not Elmo & Patsy's "Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer." And I certainly don't have anything by Kathy Mattea. I'm not too sure who she is, although I've heard of her.

The second CD is more up to date, meaning I don't have too many of them. John & Yoko's "Happy Xmas" is pretty old, so I have that on the 45 and on a CD. But most of the others are probably new to my personal collection. Paul McCartney's "Wonderful Christmastime," I don't believe I've ever owned that, which is hard to believe. I don't really like it that much. Michael Bolton's on here. I wonder what that'll sound like. Band Aid's "Do They Know It's Christmas," I always avoid stuff like that and didn't get caught up in it at all at the time. Mannheim Steamroller. I see their Christmas albums all the time, dime a dozen. Now that I mention it, I believe I did buy a couple of them in the last year. There's someone on here just called Joe, a track called "This Christmas." I don't know Joe or the song. But if it's a "classic song," I look forward to hearing it.

I hemhawed a little over spending a couple bucks for this one. But here it is.