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Kästner und Känguru – zwei meiner Lieblingscharaktere vereint.

Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus

By Francis P. Church, first published in The New York Sun in 1897. [See The People’s Almanac, pp. 1358–9.]

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

Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except 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 you 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 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, 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 lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay 10 times 10,000 years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

(http://beebo.org/smackerels/yes-virginia.html)

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yes,_Virginia,_there_is_a_Santa_Claus)

Da die Aussies gerne sehr kaltes Bier trinken (Marcel wird’s gefallen), sie sich beim Festhalten aber nicht die Finger abfrieren wollen, haben sie ein rundes Stoffbehältnis entwickelt, das die Finger schützt und das Bier schön kühl hält: den stubbie cooler. Großartige Erfindung, vergleichbar mit dem universell einsetzbaren Laptopkissen von Ikea. So sieht er (also meiner) aus:

Der tollste Stubbie Cooler der Welt

The gentle reader will never, never know what a consummate ass he can become until he goes abroad. I speak now, of course, in the supposition that the gentle reader has not been abroad, and therefore is not already a consummate ass. If the case be otherwise, I beg his pardon and extend to him the cordial hand of fellowship and call him brother.
– Innocents Abroad, Mark Twain

Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.

– Mark Twain, Innocents Abroad

Auf das folgende Video bin ich schon des Öfteren angesprochen worden. Ist ja auch wirklich lustig:

Dass Facebook für viele jüngere Menschen den Alltag zu Hause bestimmt, wusste ich ja schon. Wie allgegenwärtig es aber auf Weltreisen ist, hat mich schon etwas verwundert. Zum Kontakt-halten ist es ja schön und gut, aber manchmal geht mir das dann doch zu sehr auf Kosten der zwischenmenschlichen Kommunikation – wie ein semi-berühmter Autor ja bereits vor Jahren erkannte. (Die Hosteleröffnungsdiskussion habe ich übrigens auch schon geführt.)

Die Videos des tanzenden Matt gingen vor ein paar Jahren mal im Netz umher und einige werden sie deshalb bestimmt schon kennen. Gänsehaut erzeugen sie trotzdem immer wieder:

Ich mache so etwas natürlich nicht. Bzw. nur unfreiwillig.

Backpacker-Hostels weisen in verschiedenen Variationen auf die Dringlichkeit der sofortigen Reinigung des benutzten Geschirrs hin, gerne auch mal in deutscher Übersetzung. Wonder why? Eine interessante Aufforderung fand ich in Alice Springs, Haven Backpackers: