Yes, Virginia

"DEAR EDITOR: I am 8 years old.
"Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus.
"Papa says, 'If you see it in THE SUN it's so.'
"Please tell me the truth; is there a Santa Claus?

"VIRGINIA O'HANLON.
"115 WEST NINETY-FIFTH STREET."

VIRGINIA, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except [what] they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men's or children's, are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no VIRGINIAS. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that's no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

You may tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, VIRGINIA, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

And I've been fool and I've been blind
I can never leave the past behind
I can see no way, I can see no way
I'm always dragging that horse around
All of his questions, such a mournful sound
Tonight I'm gonna bury that horse in the ground
'Cause I like to keep my issues drawn
It's always darkest before the dawn

Gingrich describes Palestinians as 'invented people'

It just keeps getting better with Gingrich. First he wants to abolish child labor laws and now this --

“Remember there was no Palestine as a state. It was part of the Ottoman Empire. And I think that we’ve had an invented Palestinian people, who are in fact Arabs, and were historically part of the Arab community. And they had a chance to go many places.”

Dear Mr. Gingrich, considering that Pakistan and Bangladesh were once a part of India and did not exist prior to 1947 and 1971 respectively, does this mean that it's okay to view the Pakistani and Bengali citizens as invented people as well? Are you really that simple minded?

capricho no. 43

Goya, The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters, 1797, etching. 

'Imagination abandoned by reason produces impossible monsters: united with her, she is the mother of the arts and the source of her wonders'. - Francisco Goya

I Live/I Love

Hi All, I will be exhibiting two photographs in this one week show (during a time where most of you will be away for the holidays).

This is suppose to be an event but for some reason they made an artist page:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/I-LiveI-Love-by-Richard-and-Mica-Hadar-Foundation/160745747346319

During the opening night, I will be doing a performance piece: "How to Make Light of a Situation."

You are all welcome to come to the opening. Please note that it is likely I will not be free to socialize until closer to the end of the event. Please feel free to come around 7:30 - 8pm to catch the end of my performance and then maybe we can all go out to drinks afterwards!

Details:
I LIVE/I LOVE -- Opening Reception Tuesday, December 27, from 6 - 9 pm
Second Space, 568 Broadway (4th Floor)
Between Prince Street and Houston Street

Email invite to follow

Candiru Catfish & Penises

So as I'm getting my Grey's Anatomy fix on Netflix, they mention something so absurd I had to Google it.

McSteamy and Burke reviewing an X-ray revealing the candiru catfish lodged into the patient's urethra.

From River Monsters: Candiru Catfish:

The Candiru is the star of an urban legend — which turns out to be true — of a man who was urinating in the Amazon River when a 6-inch Candiru swam up his urine stream into his penis. The fish remained there for days, until a surgeon was able to remove it.

 

What's a Prisoner Worth?

I have a stack of reading material (old copies of the New Yorker and Newsday, as well as a textbook on skin carcinomas I picked up from a local thrift store) piled on top of my toilet's tank, and I often earmark really good reads that I want to share with my friends. Sometimes, I'll post links to the articles on my Facebook (which go largely unnoticed in that platform of useless status updates about being hungover, heartbroken or some other uesless shit), but for the most part, I carry these notable reads on my mind and rarely ever get a chance to discuss them at length. But now I'm going to create a new label on Rough Draught called "poop reading material."

During my last bathroom session, I came across "What's a Prisoner Worth?" in the October 24 Newsday edition.

1,000 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for 1 Israeli. Does anyone else find this shocking? It never occurred to me to do research on the number of prisoners on either side.

Interesting points from the Wikipedia page on Palestinian Prisoners in Israel:

• "...as of 31 August 2011, there were 5,204 Palestinians imprisoned in Israel, of them 272 in administrative detention."

• "...between the years after the Six Day War (1967) and the First Intifada (1988), more than 600,000 Palestinians were held in Israeli jails for a week or more."

• "Between October 2000 and April 2009, approximately 6,700 Palestinian children between the ages of 12 and 18 were arrested by the Israeli authorities, according to Defence for Children International's Palestine Section (DCI/PS). The number of Palestinian children held in detention and interrogation centers, as well as prisons, both in Occupied Palestinian Territory and inside of Israel, was 423 in 2009. In April 2010 the number was 280. DCI/PS reports that these detentions stand in contravention of international law."  

• Read their whole section on notable Prisoner Exchanges and Releases.

 
Now I know that there are two sides to this story (that's your cue to opine here), and I acknowledge that some of these prisoners were incarcerated because of acts of terrorism, etc., but take one second (or several) to think about this -- ONE THOUSAND INDIVIDUALS for ONE INDIVIDUAL. How did the Israeli government choose which prisoners deserved freedom?

Wikipedia (as well as various news articles and websites) might not be the greatest or most reliable source for my information, but I find that it quenches my thirst for a discourse on this topic. I'm getting tired of friends who tell me "Politics bore me." It's not boring, people! Wake up! Where is the compassion? These events are happening and being experienced by individuals, people with families, previous careers, and aspirations of all sorts.