Clip joint

That last post was awfully heavy on sentiment, wasn't it? If you -- like me -- tend to be of a more cynical bent, here's a palate-cleanser and/or warm-up for your New Year's celebrations.

Happy Christmas

As of 45 minutes ago, it is officially Christmas here at HNWT Towers. Hope you and yours are enjoying the holiday season to the fullest. Following in the footsteps of Christmases past, here are two of the most popular tunes to meld pop and the holiday.

The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl singing "Fairytale of New York" -- according to the YouTube page, it's "arguably the greatest Christmas song of all time!" Big shout, that.

Fans of more domestic fare might suggest The Boss has a leg up on Mr. MacGowan, especially with his rendition of "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town."

Whether you prefer your tunes from the Emerald Isle or the Jersey Turnpike, I hope you have a great holiday and many more in the future. Remember, I'm pulling for you -- we're all in this together.

Why didn't I think of that?

The past week has been a blur. I've finished two of the three college classes I'm taking this semester, wrapping up macroeconomics and psychology with As -- that's five As in five courses in the second go-around, if you're scoring at home. Not too bad considering the utter shambles that was the start of the semester.

English is proving a bit hairier, what with a 6- to 10-page persuasive paper due in, oh, 26 hours or so. No doubt I'm overthinking this, as I do with most things, but it'll be a great relief when I send this paper away. I've spent the past week poring over sources on vaccination and reading some of the most infuriating, anti-science malarkey I've ever come across on the Interwebs, all for this report. Now I find out that Dara O'Briain neatly summed up in six and a half minutes what it's taking me thousands of words to say. I guess that's why he's a comical wordsmith and I'm an unemployed hack.

This is 2012, right?

Given what I've just read, I feel the need to check. The latest update by Ashley Miller, one of the growing horde of excellent bloggers over at FreeThought Blogs, has left me literally slack-jawed in amazement. She has lost her father -- to bigotry. That man will no longer have anything to do with his only child, and all for the heinous sin of her dating a black man.

Your father wants you to know that he still loves you.  But you’ve gone too far.

She won’t say the reason.  She won’t acknowledge that it is a race thing.  Like not saying “because he’s black” makes it not racist.

Your lifestyle is just not OK with him, he has bent as much as he will bend.  He has bent so much and you haven’t bent at all.

I insist on clarification, “My lifestyle?”

Yes.  Your father is an old Southern man, he was raised like that, he was raised to believe that races just don’t mix.  It was the final straw.  He loves you, he just doesn’t like you.

The italics are the words of Ashley's stepmother, whom the father has forbidden from seeing her stepdaughter in person. So not only is Dear Old Dad a racist, he's a misogynist to boot. Wonderful.

I'm struggling to find the words. Disowning your daughter for loving the wrong person, let alone the wrong color of person? How small of a man must you be to value your hatred of those who don't look like you over your own flesh and blood? In fairness, I would be remiss if I did not concede that I, too, have a close relative from whose lips I would not be surprised to hear such hateful filth. He does have previous in that area, if you catch my drift.

Of course, this being the Internet, the kind of openness and bravery Ashley showed in revealing this personal strife cannot be allowed to pass without someone unmasking themselves as a Flaming Asshole.

Sounds like you’ve been a rebellious PITA and watching you commit social suicide was too much for him. It’s hard to watch a loved one ruin their life. He wanted white grand kids to carry on his name and now you’ve broken his heart….you have to live with that. Sorry but all these liberal idiots commenting blowing smoke up your butt isn’t helping you deal with the reality of your actions….but it gives one a false fluffy warm reassurance. I guess you have to be an older white male to understand it. Liberalism is a disease.

Compassionate Conservatism at its finest.