Christmas Traditions -- "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus."

Dear Friends, as I stated in the last two posts, a few of you have written to ask about my Christmas traditions. And as I've said, I do have a couple of personal things that I do each year at Christmas just for myself.

Almost every year, I have alternated between reading O. Henry's "The Last Leaf" and "The Gift of the Magi", and reading the Sept. 21st, 1897, editorial response by the Editor of The (New York) Sun newspaper which is now simply known as "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus."

I believe that besides reading of the account of the birth of Jesus Christ on Christmas in the Bible, these stories are very inspirational. I hope you enjoy this as it was published in 1897.

Is There a Santa Claus?

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.

Here is the Editor's response:

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 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.

-- end of Editorial.

"Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus" is a phrase from an editorial called Is There a Santa Claus?

The editorial appeared in the September 21, 1897, edition of The (New York) Sun and has since become part of popular Christmas folklore in the United States. It is the most reprinted editorial in any English-language newspaper.

Francis Pharcellus Church is the author of the famous editorial. He was an American publisher and editor. He was a member of the Century Association.

He was born in Rochester, New York on February 22nd, 1839, and he graduated from Columbia College of Columbia University in New York City in 1859.

With his brother William Conant Church, they established The Army and Navy Journal in 1863, and Galaxy magazine in 1866 which merged with Atlantic Monthly after 10 years. 

He was a lead editorial writer on his brother's newspaper, The Sun, and it was in that capacity that he wrote his most famous editorial, "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus" in 1897.

Mr. Church was a war correspondent during the American Civil War, a time that saw great suffering and a corresponding lack of hope and faith in much of society. Although the paper ran the editorial in the seventh place on the page. Even though it seemed hidden beneath ads, it was well-received by readers.

On April 11th, 1906, Mr. Church died in New York City at the age of 67.  He was buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Sleepy Hollow, New York. He had no children.

So How Did This All Start?

In 1897, Dr. Philip O'Hanlon, a coroner's assistant on Manhattan's Upper West Side, was asked by his then eight-year-old daughter,Virginia O'Hanlon (1889–1971), whether Santa Claus really existed. 

O'Hanlon suggested she write to The Sun which was a very prominent New York City newspaper at the time, assuring her that "If you see it in The Sun, it's so." 

In so doing, Dr. O'Hanlon had unwittingly given one of the paper's editors, Francis Pharcellus Church, an opportunity to rise above the simple question and address the philosophical issues behind it.

More than a century later it is the most reprinted editorial in any newspaper in the English language.

"Yes, Virginia, there is (a)..." has become an idiomatic expression to insist that something is true.

In December 2015, Macy's department store in Herald Square, New York City, NY used Virginia's story for their holiday window display. Illustrated in three-dimensional figurines and spanning several windows on the south side of the store along 34th Street between 6th and 7th Avenues. This version of "Yes, Virginia" is based on the 2010 television series of the same name, starring Neil Patrick Harris and Bea Miller.

So who was Virginia O'Hanlon?

Laura Virginia O'Hanlon was born on July 20, 1889, in Manhattan, New York. At the age of 21 in 1910, she married Edward Douglas. Their marriage was brief, and ended with him deserting her shortly before their daughter, Laura, was born. 

In the 1930 United States Census, she was listed as divorced but kept her ex-husband's surname the rest of her life -- "Laura Virginia O'Hanlon Douglas."

Virginia received her Bachelor of Arts from Hunter College in 1910, a Master's degree in education from Columbia University in 1912, and a Doctorate from Fordham University. She was a school teacher in the New York City ISD. She started her career as an educator in 1912, became a junior principal in 1935, and retired in 1959.

Virginia received a steady stream of mail about her letter throughout her life. She would include a copy of the editorial in her replies. In an interview later in life, she credited it with shaping the direction of her life "quite positively."

Virginia died on May 13, 1971 at the age of 81, in a nursing home in Valatie, New York. She is buried at the Chatham Rural Cemetery in North Chatham, New York.

In 1971, after seeing Virginia's obituary in The New York Times, four friends formed a company called Elizabeth Press and published a children's book titled Yes, Virginia that illustrated the editorial and included a brief history of the main characters. 

It's creators took it to Warner Brothers who eventually made an Emmy award-winning television show based on the editorial.

The History Channel, in a special that aired on February 21, 2001, noted that Virginia gave the original letter to a granddaughter, who pasted it in a scrapbook. It was feared that the letter was destroyed in a house fire, but 30 years later, it was discovered intact.

Every year, Virginia's letter and Church's response are read at the Yule Log ceremony at Church's alma mater, Columbia College of Columbia University.

The story of Virginia's inquiry and The Sun '​s response was adapted in 1932 into an NBC produced cantata, the only known editorial set to classical music, a segment of the short film Santa Claus Story (1945), and an Emmy Award-winning animated television special in 1974, animated by Bill Meléndez who had worked on various Peanuts specials.

In 1991 it was adapted into a made-for-TV movie starring Richard Thomas and Charles Bronson. In 1996, the story was adapted into an eponymous holiday musical by David Kirchenbaum (music and lyrics) and Myles McDonnel (book).

The last two paragraphs of Church's editorial are read by actor Sam Elliot in the 1989 film Prancer, about Jessica Riggs, a little girl who believes the wounded reindeer she is nursing back to health belongs to Santa. Jessica's story inspires the local newspaper editor, as Virginia's letter did to Church, to write an editorial which he titles Yes, Santa, there is a Virginia.

On September 21, 1997, the 100th anniversary of the editorial's original publication, The New York Times published an analysis of its enduring appeal.

In 2003, "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus" was depicted in a mechanical holiday window display at the Lord & Taylor department store on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan.

In 2009, The Studio School in New York City, honored Virginia's life and legacy. Janet C. Rotter, Head of School, announced the establishment of the Virginia O'Hanlon Scholarship, speaking passionately about their commitment to offering need-based scholarships for students of merit. 

Virginia's descendants continue her legacy.

In December 2012, radio station WGNA-FM in Albany, NY secured a never before published photo of Virginia finally meeting Santa on Christmas Eve 1969, two years before her death.

From my family to yours, Merry Christmas! May God Bless you and yours! 

Tom Correa

Christmas Traditions -- The Gift of the Magi

Dear Friends, a few of you have written to ask about my Christmas traditions. And while like many of you, I have family traditions, I also have a couple of personal things that I do each year at Christmas just for myself.

In 1976, when I was a young Marine and away from home during Christmas, I was given a book of O. Henry's short stories. I read a few stories, but a couple really struck my fancy -- especially for this time of year.

Since then, almost every year, I have alternated between O. Henry's "The Last Leaf" and "The Gift of the Magi", and reading the Sept. 21st, 1897, response by the Editor of The Sun which is now simply known as "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus."

I believe that besides reading the account of the birth of Jesus Christ on Christmas, these stories are truly inspirational.

"The Gift of the Magi" is a short story, written by O. Henry, a pen name for William Sydney Porter. It is about a young married couple and how they deal with the challenge of buying Christmas gifts for each other when they have very little money.

This moral lesson about gift-giving, was initially published in The New York Sunday World under the title "Gifts of the Magi" on December 10, 1905. It was first published in book form in the O. Henry Anthology The Four Million in April 1906.  I hope you enjoy this short story.

THE GIFT OF THE MAGI
By O. Henry

One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. And sixty cents of it was in pennies. Pennies saved one and two at a time by bulldozing the grocer and the vegetable man and the butcher until one's cheeks burned with the silent imputation of parsimony that such close dealing implied. Three times Della counted it. One dollar and eighty- seven cents. And the next day would be Christmas.

There was clearly nothing to do but flop down on the shabby little couch and howl. So Della did it. Which instigates the moral reflection that life is made up of sobs, sniffles, and smiles, with sniffles predominating.

While the mistress of the home is gradually subsiding from the first stage to the second, take a look at the home. A furnished flat at $8 per week. It did not exactly beggar description, but it certainly had that word on the lookout for the mendicancy squad.

In the vestibule below was a letter-box into which no letter would go, and an electric button from which no mortal finger could coax a ring. Also appertaining thereunto was a card bearing the name "Mr. James Dillingham Young."

The "Dillingham" had been flung to the breeze during a former period of prosperity when its possessor was being paid $30 per week. Now, when the income was shrunk to $20, though, they were thinking seriously of contracting to a modest and unassuming D. But whenever Mr. James Dillingham Young came home and reached his flat above he was called "Jim" and greatly hugged by Mrs. James Dillingham Young, already introduced to you as Della. Which is all very good.

Della finished her cry and attended to her cheeks with the powder rag. She stood by the window and looked out dully at a gray cat walking a gray fence in a gray backyard. Tomorrow would be Christmas Day, and she had only $1.87 with which to buy Jim a present. She had been saving every penny she could for months, with this result. Twenty dollars a week doesn't go far. Expenses had been greater than she had calculated. They always are. Only $1.87 to buy a present for Jim. Her Jim. Many a happy hour she had spent planning for something nice for him. Something fine and rare and sterling--something just a little bit near to being worthy of the honor of being owned by Jim.

There was a pier-glass between the windows of the room. Perhaps you have seen a pier-glass in an $8 flat. A very thin and very agile person may, by observing his reflection in a rapid sequence of longitudinal strips, obtain a fairly accurate conception of his looks. Della, being slender, had mastered the art.

Suddenly she whirled from the window and stood before the glass. her eyes were shining brilliantly, but her face had lost its color within twenty seconds. Rapidly she pulled down her hair and let it fall to its full length.

Now, there were two possessions of the James Dillingham Youngs in which they both took a mighty pride. One was Jim's gold watch that had been his father's and his grandfather's. The other was Della's hair. Had the queen of Sheba lived in the flat across the airshaft, Della would have let her hair hang out the window some day to dry just to depreciate Her Majesty's jewels and gifts. Had King Solomon been the janitor, with all his treasures piled up in the basement, Jim would have pulled out his watch every time he passed, just to see him pluck at his beard from envy.

So now Della's beautiful hair fell about her rippling and shining like a cascade of brown waters. It reached below her knee and made itself almost a garment for her. And then she did it up again nervously and quickly. Once she faltered for a minute and stood still while a tear or two splashed on the worn red carpet.

On went her old brown jacket; on went her old brown hat. With a whirl of skirts and with the brilliant sparkle still in her eyes, she fluttered out the door and down the stairs to the street.

Where she stopped the sign read: "Mne. Sofronie. Hair Goods of All Kinds." One flight up Della ran, and collected herself, panting. Madame, large, too white, chilly, hardly looked the "Sofronie."

"Will you buy my hair?" asked Della.

"I buy hair," said Madame. "Take yer hat off and let's have a sight at the looks of it."

Down rippled the brown cascade.

"Twenty dollars," said Madame, lifting the mass with a practised hand.

"Give it to me quick," said Della.

Oh, and the next two hours tripped by on rosy wings. Forget the hashed metaphor. She was ransacking the stores for Jim's present.

She found it at last. It surely had been made for Jim and no one else. There was no other like it in any of the stores, and she had turned all of them inside out. It was a platinum fob chain simple and chaste in design, properly proclaiming its value by substance alone and not by meretricious ornamentation--as all good things should do. It was even worthy of The Watch. As soon as she saw it she knew that it must be Jim's. It was like him. Quietness and value--the description applied to both. Twenty-one dollars they took from her for it, and she hurried home with the 87 cents. With that chain on his watch Jim might be properly anxious about the time in any company. Grand as the watch was, he sometimes looked at it on the sly on account of the old leather strap that he used in place of a chain.

When Della reached home her intoxication gave way a little to prudence and reason. She got out her curling irons and lighted the gas and went to work repairing the ravages made by generosity added to love. Which is always a tremendous task, dear friends--a mammoth task.

Within forty minutes her head was covered with tiny, close-lying curls that made her look wonderfully like a truant schoolboy. She looked at her reflection in the mirror long, carefully, and critically.

"If Jim doesn't kill me," she said to herself, "before he takes a second look at me, he'll say I look like a Coney Island chorus girl. But what could I do--oh! what could I do with a dollar and eighty- seven cents?"

At 7 o'clock the coffee was made and the frying-pan was on the back of the stove hot and ready to cook the chops.

Jim was never late. Della doubled the fob chain in her hand and sat on the corner of the table near the door that he always entered. Then she heard his step on the stair away down on the first flight, and she turned white for just a moment. She had a habit for saying little silent prayer about the simplest everyday things, and now she whispered: "Please God, make him think I am still pretty."

The door opened and Jim stepped in and closed it. He looked thin and very serious. Poor fellow, he was only twenty-two--and to be burdened with a family! He needed a new overcoat and he was without gloves.

Jim stopped inside the door, as immovable as a setter at the scent of quail. His eyes were fixed upon Della, and there was an expression in them that she could not read, and it terrified her. It was not anger, nor surprise, nor disapproval, nor horror, nor any of the sentiments that she had been prepared for. He simply stared at her fixedly with that peculiar expression on his face.

Della wriggled off the table and went for him.

"Jim, darling," she cried, "don't look at me that way. I had my hair cut off and sold because I couldn't have lived through Christmas without giving you a present. It'll grow out again--you won't mind, will you? I just had to do it. My hair grows awfully fast. Say `Merry Christmas!' Jim, and let's be happy. You don't know what a nice-- what a beautiful, nice gift I've got for you."

"You've cut off your hair?" asked Jim, laboriously, as if he had not arrived at that patent fact yet even after the hardest mental labor.

"Cut it off and sold it," said Della. "Don't you like me just as well, anyhow? I'm me without my hair, ain't I?"

Jim looked about the room curiously.

"You say your hair is gone?" he said, with an air almost of idiocy.

"You needn't look for it," said Della. "It's sold, I tell you--sold and gone, too. It's Christmas Eve, boy. Be good to me, for it went for you. Maybe the hairs of my head were numbered," she went on with sudden serious sweetness, "but nobody could ever count my love for you. Shall I put the chops on, Jim?"

Out of his trance Jim seemed quickly to wake. He enfolded his Della. For ten seconds let us regard with discreet scrutiny some inconsequential object in the other direction. Eight dollars a week or a million a year--what is the difference? A mathematician or a wit would give you the wrong answer. The magi brought valuable gifts, but that was not among them. This dark assertion will be illuminated later on.

Jim drew a package from his overcoat pocket and threw it upon the table.

"Don't make any mistake, Dell," he said, "about me. I don't think there's anything in the way of a haircut or a shave or a shampoo that could make me like my girl any less. But if you'll unwrap that package you may see why you had me going a while at first."

White fingers and nimble tore at the string and paper. And then an ecstatic scream of joy; and then, alas! a quick feminine change to hysterical tears and wails, necessitating the immediate employment of all the comforting powers of the lord of the flat.

For there lay The Combs--the set of combs, side and back, that Della had worshipped long in a Broadway window. Beautiful combs, pure tortoise shell, with jewelled rims--just the shade to wear in the beautiful vanished hair. They were expensive combs, she knew, and her heart had simply craved and yearned over them without the least hope of possession. And now, they were hers, but the tresses that should have adorned the coveted adornments were gone.

But she hugged them to her bosom, and at length she was able to look up with dim eyes and a smile and say: "My hair grows so fast, Jim!"

And them Della leaped up like a little singed cat and cried, "Oh, oh!"

Jim had not yet seen his beautiful present. She held it out to him eagerly upon her open palm. The dull precious metal seemed to flash with a reflection of her bright and ardent spirit.

"Isn't it a dandy, Jim? I hunted all over town to find it. You'll have to look at the time a hundred times a day now. Give me your watch. I want to see how it looks on it."

Instead of obeying, Jim tumbled down on the couch and put his hands under the back of his head and smiled.

"Dell," said he, "let's put our Christmas presents away and keep 'em a while. They're too nice to use just at present. I sold the watch to get the money to buy your combs. And now suppose you put the chops on."

The magi, as you know, were wise men -- wonderfully wise men -- who brought gifts to the Babe in the manger. They invented the art of giving Christmas presents. Being wise, their gifts were no doubt wise ones, possibly bearing the privilege of exchange in case of duplication. And here I have lamely related to you the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house.

But in a last word to the wise of these days let it be said that of all who give gifts these two were the wisest. O all who give and receive gifts, such as they are wisest. Everywhere they are wisest. They are the magi.

THE END

From my family to yours, Merry Christmas! May God Bless you and yours!
Tom Correa

The Last Leaf -- A Christmas Tradition

THE LAST LEAF
By O. Henry

In a little district west of Washington Square the streets have run crazy and broken themselves into small strips called "places." These "places" make strange angles and curves. One Street crosses itself a time or two. An artist once discovered a valuable possibility in this street. Suppose a collector with a bill for paints, paper and canvas should, in traversing this route, suddenly meet himself coming back, without a cent having been paid on account!

So, to quaint old Greenwich Village the art people soon came prowling, hunting for north windows and eighteenth-century gables and Dutch attics and low rents. Then they imported some pewter mugs and a chafing dish or two from Sixth Avenue, and became a "colony."

At the top of a squatty, three-story brick Sue and Johnsy had their studio. "Johnsy" was familiar for Joanna. One was from Maine; the other from California. They had met at the table d'hôte of an Eighth Street "Delmonico's," and found their tastes in art, chicory salad and bishop sleeves so congenial that the joint studio resulted.

That was in May. In November a cold, unseen stranger, whom the doctors called Pneumonia, stalked about the colony, touching one here and there with his icy fingers. Over on the east side this ravager strode boldly, smiting his victims by scores, but his feet trod slowly through the maze of the narrow and moss-grown "places."

Mr. Pneumonia was not what you would call a chivalric old gentleman. A mite of a little woman with blood thinned by California zephyrs was hardly fair game for the red-fisted, short-breathed old duffer. But Johnsy he smote; and she lay, scarcely moving, on her painted iron bedstead, looking through the small Dutch window-panes at the blank side of the next brick house.

One morning the busy doctor invited Sue into the hallway with a shaggy, gray eyebrow.

"She has one chance in - let us say, ten," he said, as he shook down the mercury in his clinical thermometer. " And that chance is for her to want to live. This way people have of lining-u on the side of the undertaker makes the entire pharmacopoeia look silly. Your little lady has made up her mind that she's not going to get well. Has she anything on her mind?"

"She - she wanted to paint the Bay of Naples some day." said Sue.

"Paint? - bosh! Has she anything on her mind worth thinking twice - a man for instance?"

"A man?" said Sue, with a jew's-harp twang in her voice. "Is a man worth - but, no, doctor; there is nothing of the kind."

"Well, it is the weakness, then," said the doctor. "I will do all that science, so far as it may filter through my efforts, can accomplish. But whenever my patient begins to count the carriages in her funeral procession I subtract 50 per cent from the curative power of medicines. If you will get her to ask one question about the new winter styles in cloak sleeves I will promise you a one-in-five chance for her, instead of one in ten."

After the doctor had gone Sue went into the workroom and cried a Japanese napkin to a pulp. Then she swaggered into Johnsy's room with her drawing board, whistling ragtime.

Johnsy lay, scarcely making a ripple under the bedclothes, with her face toward the window. Sue stopped whistling, thinking she was asleep.

She arranged her board and began a pen-and-ink drawing to illustrate a magazine story. Young artists must pave their way to Art by drawing pictures for magazine stories that young authors write to pave their way to Literature.

As Sue was sketching a pair of elegant horseshow riding trousers and a monocle of the figure of the hero, an Idaho cowboy, she heard a low sound, several times repeated. She went quickly to the bedside.

Johnsy's eyes were open wide. She was looking out the window and counting - counting backward.

"Twelve," she said, and little later "eleven"; and then "ten," and "nine"; and then "eight" and "seven", almost together.

Sue look solicitously out of the window. What was there to count? There was only a bare, dreary yard to be seen, and the blank side of the brick house twenty feet away. An old, old ivy vine, gnarled and decayed at the roots, climbed half way up the brick wall. The cold breath of autumn had stricken its leaves from the vine until its skeleton branches clung, almost bare, to the crumbling bricks.

"What is it, dear?" asked Sue.

"Six," said Johnsy, in almost a whisper. "They're falling faster now. Three days ago there were almost a hundred. It made my head ache to count them. But now it's easy. There goes another one. There are only five left now."

"Five what, dear? Tell your Sudie."

"Leaves. On the ivy vine. When the last one falls I must go, too. I've known that for three days. Didn't the doctor tell you?"

"Oh, I never heard of such nonsense," complained Sue, with magnificent scorn. "What have old ivy leaves to do with your getting well? And you used to love that vine so, you naughty girl. Don't be a goosey. Why, the doctor told me this morning that your chances for getting well real soon were - let's see exactly what he said - he said the chances were ten to one! Why, that's almost as good a chance as we have in New York when we ride on the street cars or walk past a new building. Try to take some broth now, and let Sudie go back to her drawing, so she can sell the editor man with it, and buy port wine for her sick child, and pork chops for her greedy self."

"You needn't get any more wine," said Johnsy, keeping her eyes fixed out the window. "There goes another. No, I don't want any broth. That leaves just four. I want to see the last one fall before it gets dark. Then I'll go, too."

"Johnsy, dear," said Sue, bending over her, "will you promise me to keep your eyes closed, and not look out the window until I am done working? I must hand those drawings in by to-morrow. I need the light, or I would draw the shade down."

"Couldn't you draw in the other room?" asked Johnsy, coldly.

"I'd rather be here by you," said Sue. "Beside, I don't want you to keep looking at those silly ivy leaves."

"Tell me as soon as you have finished," said Johnsy, closing her eyes, and lying white and still as fallen statue, "because I want to see the last one fall. I'm tired of waiting. I'm tired of thinking. I want to turn loose my hold on everything, and go sailing down, down, just like one of those poor, tired leaves."

"Try to sleep," said Sue. "I must call Behrman up to be my model for the old hermit miner. I'll not be gone a minute. Don't try to move 'til I come back."

Old Behrman was a painter who lived on the ground floor beneath them. He was past sixty and had a Michael Angelo's Moses beard curling down from the head of a satyr along with the body of an imp. Behrman was a failure in art. Forty years he had wielded the brush without getting near enough to touch the hem of his Mistress's robe. He had been always about to paint a masterpiece, but had never yet begun it. For several years he had painted nothing except now and then a daub in the line of commerce or advertising. He earned a little by serving as a model to those young artists in the colony who could not pay the price of a professional. He drank gin to excess, and still talked of his coming masterpiece. For the rest he was a fierce little old man, who scoffed terribly at softness in any one, and who regarded himself as especial mastiff-in-waiting to protect the two young artists in the studio above.

Sue found Behrman smelling strongly of juniper berries in his dimly lighted den below. In one corner was a blank canvas on an easel that had been waiting there for twenty-five years to receive the first line of the masterpiece. She told him of Johnsy's fancy, and how she feared she would, indeed, light and fragile as a leaf herself, float away, when her slight hold upon the world grew weaker.

Old Behrman, with his red eyes plainly streaming, shouted his contempt and derision for such idiotic imaginings.

"Vass!" he cried. "Is dere people in de world mit der foolishness to die because leafs dey drop off from a confounded vine? I haf not heard of such a thing. No, I will not bose as a model for your fool hermit-dunderhead. Vy do you allow dot silly pusiness to come in der brain of her? Ach, dot poor leetle Miss Yohnsy."

"She is very ill and weak," said Sue, "and the fever has left her mind morbid and full of strange fancies. Very well, Mr. Behrman, if you do not care to pose for me, you needn't. But I think you are a horrid old - old flibbertigibbet."

"You are just like a woman!" yelled Behrman. "Who said I will not bose? Go on. I come mit you. For half an hour I haf peen trying to say dot I am ready to bose. Gott! dis is not any blace in which one so goot as Miss Yohnsy shall lie sick. Some day I vill baint a masterpiece, and ve shall all go away. Gott! yes."

Johnsy was sleeping when they went upstairs. Sue pulled the shade down to the window-sill, and motioned Behrman into the other room. In there they peered out the window fearfully at the ivy vine. Then they looked at each other for a moment without speaking. A persistent, cold rain was falling, mingled with snow. Behrman, in his old blue shirt, took his seat as the hermit miner on an upturned kettle for a rock.

When Sue awoke from an hour's sleep the next morning she found Johnsy with dull, wide-open eyes staring at the drawn green shade.

"Pull it up; I want to see," she ordered, in a whisper.

Wearily Sue obeyed.

But, lo! after the beating rain and fierce gusts of wind that had endured through the livelong night, there yet stood out against the brick wall one ivy leaf. It was the last one on the vine. Still dark green near its stem, with its serrated edges tinted with the yellow of dissolution and decay, it hung bravely from the branch some twenty feet above the ground.

"It is the last one," said Johnsy. "I thought it would surely fall during the night. I heard the wind. It will fall to-day, and I shall die at the same time."

"Dear, dear!" said Sue, leaning her worn face down to the pillow, "think of me, if you won't think of yourself. What would I do?"

But Johnsy did not answer. The lonesomest thing in all the world is a soul when it is making ready to go on its mysterious, far journey. The fancy seemed to possess her more strongly as one by one the ties that bound her to friendship and to earth were loosed.

The day wore away, and even through the twilight they could see the lone ivy leaf clinging to its stem against the wall. And then, with the coming of the night the north wind was again loosed, while the rain still beat against the windows and pattered down from the low Dutch eaves.

When it was light enough Johnsy, the merciless, commanded that the shade be raised.

The ivy leaf was still there.

Johnsy lay for a long time looking at it. And then she called to Sue, who was stirring her chicken broth over the gas stove.

"I've been a bad girl, Sudie," said Johnsy. "Something has made that last leaf stay there to show me how wicked I was. It is a sin to want to die. You may bring a me a little broth now, and some milk with a little port in it, and - no; bring me a hand-mirror first, and then pack some pillows about me, and I will sit up and watch you cook."

And hour later she said:

"Sudie, some day I hope to paint the Bay of Naples."

The doctor came in the afternoon, and Sue had an excuse to go into the hallway as he left.

"Even chances," said the doctor, taking Sue's thin, shaking hand in his. "With good nursing you'll win." And now I must see another case I have downstairs. Behrman, his name is - some kind of an artist, I believe. Pneumonia, too. He is an old, weak man, and the attack is acute. There is no hope for him; but he goes to the hospital to-day to be made more comfortable."

The next day the doctor said to Sue: "She's out of danger. You won. Nutrition and care now - that's all."

And that afternoon Sue came to the bed where Johnsy lay, contentedly knitting a very blue and very useless woollen shoulder scarf, and put one arm around her, pillows and all.

"I have something to tell you, white mouse," she said. "Mr. Behrman died of pneumonia to-day in the hospital. He was ill only two days. The janitor found him the morning of the first day in his room downstairs helpless with pain. His shoes and clothing were wet through and icy cold. They couldn't imagine where he had been on such a dreadful night. And then they found a lantern, still lighted, and a ladder that had been dragged from its place, and some scattered brushes, and a palette with green and yellow colors mixed on it, and - look out the window, dear, at the last ivy leaf on the wall. Didn't you wonder why it never fluttered or moved when the wind blew? Ah, darling, it's Behrman's masterpiece - he painted it there the night that the last leaf fell."

THE END

"The Last Leaf" is a short story by O. Henry, a pen name for William Sydney Porter, and was published in 1907 in his collection The Trimmed Lamp and Other Stories. The story is set in Greenwich Village, and it depicts characters typical of other O. Henry works. I hope you enjoy this short story and its message of hope.

Since a few readers have written to ask about my Christmas traditions, I decided to post this story of hope. While like many of you, I have family traditions, I also have a couple of personal things that I do each year just for myself. 

My biggest tradition for myself started in 1976 when I was a young Marine far from home during Christmas. That was the year that I was given a book of O. Henry's short stories. I read this story and that, but a couple really struck my fancy. 

Since then, almost every year, I have alternated between O. Henry's "The Last Leaf" and "The Gift of the Magi". Besides those two short stories, I will read the response by the Editor of The New York Sun which is now simply known as "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus." It was published on September 21st, 1897, and has endured. 

Remember, those with hope have everything. 

So, from my family to yours, Merry Christmas!
May God Bless you and yours!

Tom Correa

Harvard's Placemat Propaganda -- Giving Students Liberal Tabletop Talking-Points

Democrat Propaganda 101 -- What To Do When You Can't Think For Yourself? Read Your Placemat!

Today, Fox News reported that Harvard University hands out placemats with Liberal talking-points as "Social Justice Flow Charts."

Harvard administrators decided to get students ready for the holidays by handing out pointers to help them debate their tuition-paying grownups.

Imagine that for a moment? The school doesn't trust their students to stand on what they have been taught in the ultra-Leftist Political classes, so they actually provided them with Liberal cheat-sheets that seems to be taken right from the Democrat Party's Occupy Handbook.

The once venerable school's Office for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion and the Freshman Dean's Office printed up and handed out laminated placemats described as "guides for holiday discussions on race and justice with loved ones." No kidding!

The table-setting talking points are designed to help student combat, or attack, pesky parents, aunts and uncles, when asked about what they are learning for the big bucks. The belief is that Harvard students will be able to put others "in their place" on such subjects as race, diversity and even the Syrian refugee crisis.

"Why are black students complaining? Shouldn’t they be happy to be in college?" reads one question anticipated on the "Holiday Placemat for Social Justice."

Harvard wants their students to respond by quoting the table settings, by saying, "When I hear students expressing their experiences on campus I don't hear complaining."

Placemat Propaganda Used As Passive Programming

Democrat Propaganda 101 -- Need Liberal Passive Programming? Read Your Placemat!

In the center of the placemats, which are in school dining halls, are "tips for talking to families," with propaganda instructions telling students to act interested, to act as though they are listening mindfully.

While most mature people know that politics and religion are subjects that really should be avoided at mixed gatherings, even family gatherings where not everyone is on the same page, Jasmine Waddell, a freshman resident dean, said the placemats give first-year students "strategies" for discussing issues with their families. Imagine that? She needs "placemat strategies" for discussing today's issues with her family.

She said the Freshman Dean’s Office opted not to email the placemats directly to students, instead leaving them in dining halls as "Passive Programming."

Placemat Propaganda Confirms How Anti-Conservative Harvard Really Is, Or How Their Students Can't Think For Themselves?

No, it is not a surprise that Harvard has put out such propaganda. Harvard has a well earned legacy of disregarding the viewpoints of Conservatives on their campus. A few years ago, Harvard University actually came out to tell Conservative students that they were not welcome there.

It's true, in 2013, The Harvard Crimson actually published an editorial urging Conservatives not to apply to Harvard. The editorial, titled "Warning: Do Not Enroll" denigrated famous Conservatives who graduated from Harvard.

While that editorial already confirmed Harvard's ultra-Liberal hostility toward Conservatives, the Democrat Party talking-point placemats are just more evidence that one of America's most prestigious universities is nothing more than a place where students are programmed in Liberal ideology. This confirms Harvard does not encourage students to think for themselves.

Whether Harvard students can or can't think for themselves, there is no getting away from the fact that having the door-opening name HARVARD on one's diploma is still seen as a positive.

While I believe that universities like Harvard would better serve students as "on-line schools" so that students can concentrate on core content, that will never happen. Wouldn't it be great if students were able to simply skip the Leftist-brainwashing by way of all of the standard Liberal, Socialist, Communist rhetoric coming from over-paid American hating faculty members?  Yes, but that will never happen.

You see, while those Leftist, Liberal, Socialist, Communist over-paid American hating faculty members spew their hate, they are very much Capitalist when it comes to making sure they keep getting their big paychecks and corporate contracts. And no, as much as they hate America, they love money and will never give up positions that bring them hundreds of thousands of dollars a year salaries!

Lastly, to be fair, not all Harvard students are happy with the "placemat programming." Some are even insisting that they can think for themselves.

But whether that is true or not, with this latest example of Liberal programming, one can't help but see this as just more proof that Harvard, like many Liberal universities, has students who mindlessly follow the Democrat Party line of thought. And frankly, after hearing about this, it shouldn't surprise anyone if people ask if Harvard is really producing graduates who can't think for themselves or just programmed dummies?

Are Harvard students so dumb that they really need cue-cards, teleprompters, tabletop talking-points, and other forms of cheat-sheets to hold a conversation? It does make you wonder.

And yes, that's just the way I see it.
Tom Correa


. 

Schools Of Indoctrination

By Terry McGahey
Associate Writer/Historian

By now I am sure everyone has heard about the school systems who charge kids as young as five and six years old with sexual harassment because one kissed another on the cheek or some such idiocy.

The police have even been called in some of these incidences and kids this young are even being handcuffed and taken out of school.

What ever happened to sending kids to the principals office then notifying the parents? This is absolutely ridicules and out of hand. Why? Indoctrination into Socialism in the manner of doing what you are told or else, that's why!

No longer is the public school system the place to send our children for an education. Schools today teach and preach things which are politically correct instead of just teaching reading, writing, arithmetic, and other courses of true study.

If people don't believe the schools are indoctrinating our children then why is Common Core being implemented? Why are kids at very young ages being taught about sex education in graphic forms?

Why are kids getting in trouble because they may talk about the bible or flat be told they can't even bring their bible to school, yet the schools allow teachers to speak to them about Islam. One school in New York even had the children recite the Pledge of Allegiance in Arabic.

Parents need to wake up to the fact that kids today are even being taught to spy on their parents without them even realizing it. Common Core for example, questions put to our children are such as, Does your mom and dad hit you? Does your mom and dad fight? Which way does your family vote, Democrat or Republican? Do they own guns?

Common Core opens the door to ask all of these personal questions that are none of the school boards or governments business. Then there is the environmental issues, or the "greenie" movement as many of us refer to it.

Kids are now being trained in school to watch their parents, watch them in the manner of doing something considered environmentally incorrect and then to correct the parents on the issue. If people don't believe that then just pay attention to the kids and you will find this to be true.

Then they are teaching them that same sex couples are to be accepted no matter if you agree with it or not. Personally, I don't care how you live your life but I don't want other life styles forced upon me if I don't believe in it -- and the whole point of this article is to point out that our school systems should be teaching and not preaching or pushing indoctrination of politically motivated subjects to our children.

If what I am saying isn't true, then how come many of our college kids can't read at more than a sixth or seventh grade level? If not true, then how come many of these kids can't even count back change in a store without a computer telling them the amounts to return to the customer? If not true, then why is it kids today know very little about our Founding Fathers, Constitution, and Bill of Rights?

How about history? Ask your children or grandchildren what they know about the Civil War, World War One, World War Two, Korea, or Vietnam? Ask them why those wars were fought?

I guarantee you they cannot answer those questions unless you have taught them yourself. If they do not know the history of our country and why these things took place, they cannot understand what this country stands for and how easily we could loose our freedoms in the future due to Socialism which is running rampant with the Progressives in Washington D.C..

Parents, Grandparents, it's time to start teaching our children this countries history and let them know that many of the things they are being taught in school is wrong!

If we don't do it, no one will! And think about what kind of a country our children will be living in, if they don't know right from wrong or how this country is supposed to be run.

Please, take a little time to research what your children and grandchildren are being taught. It's important for us to know so we can stop the Political Correctness and Socialist indoctrination.

Democrats Conveniently Forget Their Racist History

In the days running up to the 2012 Presidential Election, Conservative author Ann Coulter was on ABC's The View. Because she is a Conservative writer, it wasn't surprising that it was a heated meeting.

She was supposedly there to talk about he latest book Mugged: Racial Demagoguery from the Seventies to Obama.

But instead, Ann Coulter got into a heated argument with all of the co-hosts, with the exception of Conservative Elisabeth Hasselbeck. Of course, ultra-left ardent Obama supporter Whoopi Goldberg took the most offense to Anne Coulter being there.

And yes, it started out bad as Coulter began to describe her thesis that "race-mongering has been very bad for America." She went on to say how white "liberals use it to promote causes that have nothing to do with blacks and, in fact, harm blacks,"

Goldberg angrily interrupted telling her, "Please stop, please stop. If you’re going to talk about race, at least know what you’re talking about!"

Ann Coulter replied, "I write about the things I know."

That was when Whoopi Goldberg said, "Tell me how much you know about being black?"

Seeing that Goldberg simply was not capable of understanding what Coulter was saying, Coulter corrected Goldberg by telling her, "This isn’t about being black."

Goldberg then tried to spin what just happened to her advantage by saying, "You just made all these statements about how black people feel."

But Coulter wouldn't let her, stood her ground and said, "No, I didn’t."

Goldberg then shot back, "Yeah, you did."

But again, Ann Coulter stood her ground and wasn't going to bow down to the very wrong Goldberg, telling her, "This isn’t a book about black people. It’s a book about white liberals."

Have you ever see that look on somebody's face after they just attacked someone who they obviously don't like on a person level -- and their attack frizzled? Well that was Whoopi Goldberg as she tried again to steer the discussion away from her screw up, saying, "your facts are a little shaky".

But then, out of the blue Goldberg admits that she doesn’t understand exactly what Coulter’s point is. That's right, Goldberg was arguing about something that she has not read. She really knew nothing about Coulter's book.

Of course, the show blew up when Ann Coulter tried to explain to Goldberg and the others, saying, "I don’t think liberals ever cared about black people. Five minutes after the Civil Rights Act of ’64 passed, they start calling everything that has nothing to do with black people a ‘Civil Rights issue.’”

That set off another round of attacks with all five co-hosts talking over one another. At one point, ABC bleeped out Goldberg as she called Coulter's thesis "bullshit" on the air.

So what was that all about? 

Well, it was called political theater. And yes, I believe that Whoopi Goldberg was arrogant and condescending just so she can brag to her liberal pals that she took on Conservative Ann Coulter. She attacked Coulter because Coulter is a Republican, white, and for no other reason.

That seems to be the new plan of attack from the political left these days: Attack Republicans for being white, racists and wealthy elites.

Of course the whole idea that we Republicans are wealthy elites is strange considering Obama has raised more money than Mitt Romney through huge million dollar fund-raisers.

And as for the idea that we Republicans are all racists, well that's like saying all blacks are thugs. But more importantly, Democrats should look to their own history and find out who the real racist are in American History.

As for Whoopi Goldberg  talking a bunch of shit to Ann Coulter?  Well, the gal should understand that you don't have to be black to know something about racism and segregation in America.

As for legislative segregation, it is dead in America. But racism is not, and I'm sorry to say that racism has more than is more than just a black thing.

A few years back Senator Harry Reid privately described Barack Obama during the presidential campaign as a black candidate who could be successful thanks in part to his “light-skinned” appearance and speaking patterns “with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.”

What in tarnation is “Negro dialect?”

Bill Clinton said of Obama, “A few years ago this guy would have been getting us coffee.” And yes. Liberals hails him as one of the country’s most popular presidents ever.

Today, blacks like Whoopi Goldberg, Oprah Winfrey, John Lewis and Malik Zulu Shabazz are the face of black racism.

When Rep. John Lewis used his convention speech to argue that a Republican victory in November will send African-Americans back to when he and other Africans-Americans were forcibly denied access to restaurants, public transportation, restrooms, and the ballot box.

He tried to set race against race for political gain, and that is a form of racism.

When he went on and on describing his activism in the Southern states in the 1950 and 1960s, Lewis claimed, “I’ve seen this before, I lived this before!" - he was in fact trying to divid Ameirca with lies that he knowns damn well are lies.

The Democrat delegates went crazy, then Lewis said, "We were met by an angry mob that beat us and left us lying in a pool of blood. Brothers and sisters, do you want to go back?"

He openly lied to the people that night. If he didn't lie, than he is ignorant of history that he had supposedly lived.

He could have mentioned the Republican role in the passage of the Civil Rights Bills over the years. He could have been honest and said how hard Republicans worked for Civil Rights.

Republicans were the minority and Democrats were the majority - especially in the Southern States where they were called "Dixiecrats".

And yes, southern Democrats did not want to end segregation. Democrats held the power to keep whites and blacks apart and they used their power the same way Democrats owned slaves in the South before the Civil War.

Strange how Representative Lewis failed to mention that Democrats were Slave Owners while Republicans were Anti-Slavery. I guess he must have forgotten who fought to free Blacks in America.

Strange how Lewis didn't mention the very first Republican Civil Rights Acts in the 1870's which would have given blacks the right to vote and stop segregation almost 100 years before the 1964 Bill.

Its strange how he couldn't find the cojones to mention men like Republican Everett Dirksen of Illinois who worked both in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1933 to 1949, and the U.S. Senate from 1951 to 1969, to ensure black civil rights.

As Senate Minority Leader for over a decade, Everett Dirksen played a highly visible and key role in the politics of the 1960s, including authoring, writing, and passing the Civil Rights Act of 1964 - and the Open Housing Act of 1968, both landmarks of civil rights legislation.

Everett Dirksen’s role in helping to pass the bill was highly controversial among Democrats. But like the Radical Republicans of years ago, Dirksen was also controversial in his own party with Liberal Republicans.

Republicans are always having to defend what they say and do. It is a shame that even anti-segregationist like Republican Everett Dirksen had to defend his position by saying, “When it comes to the rights of others, I don’t play politics. It is the right thing to do.”

It's a shame that today's Democrats like Rep John Lewis feels they have to lie to cover-up the truth of what their own political party has done in the past. It is a shame really that lies are what they now resort to.

John Lewis should apologize for saying that "segregation would return under Mitt Romney" - it was as shameless a statement as could have possibly been made by anyone there.

Republicans have worked too hard fighting Democrats to end segregation. Lewis and others want to spread the lie that it has been the other way around when in fact it hasn't been.

And yes, I agree with what some say today in that if segregation would return that it will be under the guise of the Democrat's idea that we should observe something called "diversity" - which I see as devisive as segregation itself.

I believe that if some form of segregation did return, it will be the Democrats who will bring it back.

Maybe they have some sort of nostalgic love for the old days when they had all the political power and they forced blacks to live sparate but unequal lives. I can only pray that we will be able to stop them as we did in 1964.

And by the way, just for the record, this is for Democrat Rep. John Lewis who said he was "met by an angry mob that beat us and left us lying in a pool of blood."

I'm sorry to have to inform you that you were beaten up by Democrats.

Tom Correa

Obama's Agenda -- Hold Muslim Classes While Banning Christian Holidays

On December 13th, 2015, Fox News reported that Non-Muslim high school girls were made to wear Muslim hijab to promote acceptance of Islamic beliefs.

As ridiculous as it sounds, more than a dozen non-Muslim girls at a Chicago high school were made to wear a traditional Islamic head scarf on Wednesday as part of “Walk a Mile in Her Hijab.”

The event, organized by the school's Muslim Student Association, featured 17 non-Muslims wearing the garment and speaking with other students about the meaning of the hijab.

Vernon Hills High School principal Jon Guillaume told the Daily Herald. "I think this is an opportunity for our kids to embrace the Muslim community within the school."

"You can’t really understand or judge a person and their beliefs until you understand why they do it and what it’s like for them to do what they're doing," said senior Yasmeen Abdallah, the president of the Muslim Students Association.

So is this a part of a cultural Jihad? It has been reported that the Muslim Students Association is affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood and was a proxy named an un-indicted co-conspirator in the largest terrorist funding trial in our nation's history. 

While there was no word on whether the kids made to wear the hijab were Christians or Jews, the Muslim Students Association sponsored the "wear a hijab to school" event at Vernon Hills High School in Chicago in order to "provide a better understanding of the Muslim faith." 

I can't help but wonder how it would have went down if the school told Muslims to wear a cross around their necks or a yarmulke on their heads to "provide a better understanding" of those faiths? I don't think that would have ever happened, thus the double standard.

Besides the double standard, I have to ask if perhaps teaching the students why the Muslims see anyone who is not a Muslim as an enemy would be a way to better serve their education of the Muslim faith? 

How about dressing the girl students in traditional Muslim hijab and then taking away their rights? How about those girls find out how easy they can become candidates to be stoned? 

How about they dress as Yezidi slaves at a Muslim slave auction, or dress them as suicide bombers so they know how it feels to walk the walk of a faith that kills women and children? Would this also give them a better understanding of the Muslim faith? I think it certainly would.

While the Muslim Students Association has made a point of saying that the event was planned last May (2015) and was not a response to Islamic terror attacks in Paris on November 13th, or to the massacre in San Bernardino on December 2nd, both it and Chicago school did not make any effort to cancel the event out of respect for those slaughtered by people of the Muslim faith who see terrorist attacks as justifiable. 

Maybe the students there should have been asked if they condone those attacks?  If so, then the indoctrination may be working as planned. Maybe a better understanding of the Muslim faith means understanding their barbarism?

Of course, besides the school only giving the kids only a "good" taste of the so-called "religion of peace", the big questions are:

With the separation of church and state, why is this Muslim indoctrination class was seen as OK by those in charge at the school and city levels? Why was this class permitted in a public school when Christian indoctrination would not be OK? Is there a concerted effort by city and school officials to endorse Islam over other religions like say Christianity or Judaism? Why haven't the people responsible for putting this on been terminated instead of being allowed to stay and do this again? Will that high school give equal time to Christians and Jews in the future? I doubt it!

PS 169 Principal Eujin Jaela Kim

These are legitimate questions since a public school in New York has seen fit to ban Christian celebrations and American traditions including Thanksgiving and Christmas, the Pledge of Allegiance because of the reference to a Christian God, and banning Santa Claus.

Yes, the principal of Public School (PS) 169 in Brooklyn has banned Santa Claus, banned the Pledge of Allegiance, replaced Thanksgiving with the term "Harvest festival," and has replaced Christmas with the term "Winter Celebration." 

The school's new principal, a woman by the name of Eujin Jaela Kim, age 33, has given the Sunset Park, Brooklyn, school a Politically Correctness cleansing befitting some Communist commissar. 

In contrast to the Muslim indoctrination courses going on in some public schools around the nation, in Brooklyn at PS 169, PTA president Mimi Ferrer said administrators there told her, "We definitely can’t say Christmas, nothing with Christmas on it, nothing with Santa. No angels. We can’t even have a star because it can represent a religious system, like the Star of David."

Though 95% of the 1,600 kids at PS 169 are Asian or Hispanic and Christian, it was reported that a memo last month urged the school staff to "be sensitive of the diversity of our families. Not all children celebrate the same holidays." Yes, in other words, "Don't offend Muslims!"

Although a recent directive to all schools, the city's Department of Education stated it permits holiday symbols including Christmas trees, kinaras (candleholders for Kwanzaa), dreidels, Hanukkah menorahs and the Islamic star-and- crescent. But, displays that "depict images of deities, religious figures or religious texts" are prohibited. That doesn't seem to matter.

In a memo to staff this month added, "In case you are wondering about grey areas: Santa Claus is considered an 'other religious figure.'"

If power corrupts, this school's principal Kim is a prefect example of just how insane with power one person can become. Soon after joining PS 169 in May of 2014, her first time as a principal was to order the faculty to clear their classrooms of "clutter." 

Yes, she ordered hundreds of new text and other books and loads of supplies to be moved into the gym. Once there, she allowed parents and other community members to take what they wanted. The rest was tossed in the trash. She then had people paint over and remove historic murals there.

And with school dollars said to be tight, principal Eujin Jaela Kim dumped boxes of newly purchased reading books in the trash or moved to the the basement. Instead of books, she spent scarce school funds on seven 70-to-80-inch Sharp flat-screen smart TVs, which retail at about $3,000 each. The TVs have been mounted in the auditorium, three over the stage and two on each side. And yes, the TVs have never been used.  

​​So yes, while this principal dismantles core instruction, American tradition, and history at that school, make no mistake that Kim is behind the Politically Correctness cleansing and all out assault on the Pledge of Allegiance, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and even Santa Claus. 

Sounds familiar? Yes, it sounds like what the Communist tried to do to eliminate Christianity and Russian history after the October 1917 Communist Revolution. And yes, it sure sounds a lot like what ISIS is doing when they are destroying Middle Eastern history and attacking Christians over there. 

The reader who sent me this article asked, "Could she be a Communist or a Muslim? Or, could she be an ISIS sympathizer like President Obama?" 

Her atrocious policies of eliminating American traditions and attacking Christian celebrations are a great deal like Obama's policies since taking office. As with Obama and the Democrat Party only caring about keeping the nation divided, does she care that she's robbing her school's children of their nation's heritage and ability to assimilate into American society? Does she care that this will hurt the kids at her school? Frankly, I really believe, it doesn't mater to those with such agendas.

Is she helping to prepare that school for Muslim indoctrination? Does she, like President Obama, see nothing wrong with attacking Christian traditions to fundamentally change America into some Socialist/Communist model state? I don't know. But yes, either is very possible. 

There are more folks than just me who see the approval of Muslim indoctrination classes and the attacks on Christians in America as a Liberal agenda to undermine America as the biggest Christian nation in the world. I know that I'm not the only one who thinks that Democrats, Liberals, so-called Progressives see Christian values as a threat and in direct opposition to Socialism/Communism ideals which sees the "state as being god-like." 

And frankly I'm not the only American who now believes that Obama and his White House is actively prosecuting Christians who spread the word of Jesus Christ while looking the other way as local, state, and federal government entities sponsor the spread of the Muslim faith.

Their efforts have become very obvious. By sponsoring Muslims, the Obama White House is actively trying to change the demographics of the United States.

By changing the demographics, the makeup, of the United States, he can destroy America's overwhelming belief in Christian morality. And with that, Obama truly succeeds in fundamentally changing America for the worse.

    

And yes, that's just the way I see things.

Tom Correa

Strange But True Odds & Ends -- Part Three

Bicycles built for two apparently were not catchy enough, so why not make a tandem tricycle! That was the attitude of the Columbia Tricycle Company when they mass produced their product during the fad of the 1880s.

They claimed that they insured “absolute freedom from danger of accident.” They were more stable as they had three wheels and more support.

So what is the most magical place on earth?

Disneyland Employee Cafeteria in 1961

How about the employee cafeteria at Disneyland? Yes, indeed, seeing Snow White, Goofy, and a Native American all dining elbow to elbow must have been an interesting sight.

What at first appears to be a scene out of an old Sci-Fi flick, it is in reality London during WWII. Brits feared that the Nazi's would turn their poison gas attacks on civilians, and they protected themselves accordingly -- including their children with gas masks.

Jackie Mitchell was the only woman to ever strike out Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. In the picture above, she shakes their hand in 1931.

It's just your average Las Vegas day in the 1950s. They might as well have had a viewing party to watch atomic bomb tests. No big deal, right? After all, Las Vegas used this to their advantage to boost tourism by promoting "atomic cocktails" served at "Dawn Bomb Parties." One casino owner remarked, "The best thing to happen to Vegas was the Atomic Bomb."

Ham was not your average astronaut when he flew the Mercury mission in 1961: he was a chimpanzee! His training included working with a neuroscientist to push a lever if he saw a blue light flash. Ham not only survived the mission, but lived out the rest of this 25 year life at the Asheboro Zoo in North Carolina.

Atabrine, a synthetic treatment for fighting malaria, was used in large quantities by he US military in the South Pacific during WWII. This sign was a reminder to the troops near a military hospital in New Guinea, where nearly two-thirds of our men fell ill with malaria.

It was not uncommon in the 20s for the beaches to be monitored for swimming suit length. Women whose suits were not long enough, and considered too revealing, were asked to change. While I'm sure it was difficult to find someone to do such a job, imagine something like this happening today!

Prohibition was not our country's brightest hour. You can take the booze out of the country, but, no wait, you can't. This flood was part of disposal of illegal alcohol being poured out of a Detroit building. It's proximity to Canada made it a key location for smuggling in spirits.

This Prohibition bust by the state police included arresting the local sheriff and the Mayor!

Ever wonder how Harley-Davidson motorcycles got started? Well. here you go! The picture above is of William Harley and Arthur Davidson in 1914.

And yes, this was compiled from multiple sources.
Tom Correa

Strange But True Odds & Ends -- Part Two

en.wikipedia.org and en.wikipedia.org

Bayer, the German pharmaceutical company that produces aspirin, commercialized heroin in the 1890s as a cough, cold, and pain remedy.

What’s really shocking, however, is that Bayer marketed heroin for use in children as late as 1912, years after reports began to surface that it could be a dangerous drug. In 1914, heroin was restricted to prescription-only use in the U.S. and eventually banned by the FDA altogether in 1924.

In a 2008 survey, 58% of British teens thought Sherlock Holmes was a real guy, while 20% thought Winston Churchill was not.

Did you know that the U.S. government paid the Zapruder family $16 million for the film of JFK's assassination in 1999? They did. Or should I say, we did.

Fredric Baur invented the Pringles can. When he passed away in 2008, his ashes were buried in one.

In the mid-1960s, Slumber Party Barbie came with a book called "How to Lose Weight." One of the tips was "Don’t eat."

When asked if he knew the speed of sound, Einstein said he "didn't carry such information in my mind since it's readily available in books."

The last time a Republican was elected president without a Nixon or Bush on the ticket was 1928. That Republican was Herbert Hoover who became the 31st president of the United States a mere eight months before the Stock Market Crash of 1929.

Sea otter couples hold hands when they sleep so they don't drift apart. Yes, it's true!

In 1973, Mao Zedong told Henry Kissinger that China had an excess of females and offered the U.S. 10 million Chinese women.

There are 9 million more women than men in Russia. In fact, it is said that Russia's population has fallen by 6.6 million since 1993.

Each Russian consumes 18 litres of alcohol per year on average, doubling what experts consider as dangerous. There are more than 500,000 alcohol related deaths each year in Russia And believe it or not, beer only started being classed as alcohol in Russia in 2013.

Talking about boozers, when fruit flies are infected with a parasite, they self-medicate with booze -- they seek out food with higher alcohol content.

The Code of Hammurabi decreed that bartenders who watered down beer would be executed. 

In 1493, Columbus thought he saw mermaids. They were "not as pretty as they are depicted, for somehow in the face they look like men." It was probably manatees.

When the Westboro Baptist Church protested a soldier's funeral in Oklahoma, their tires were slashed. People in town refused to repair them.

An early ATM was deemed a failure because its only users were "prostitutes and gamblers who didn’t want to deal with tellers face to face."

The American Psychiatric Association’s DSM-V handbook classifies caffeine withdrawal as a mental  heath disorder. 

On May 15th, 2014, it was reported that Dave Harrell of Edmond, Oklahoma, caught an "Alligator Snapping Turtle" on a rod and reel at Eufaula Lake in Oklahoma. It is the biggest he had ever seen.

It is typically the largest freshwater turtle in the world based on weight and can live to be 200 years old. The beast weighed over 100 pounds. And yes, they were just out fishing for catfish.

Columbus struck land in the Caribbean and also explored Central and South America, but he never set foot on North America. Nonetheless, the U.S. celebrates Columbus Day every year.

Also, thinkers as far back as Pythagoras, a Greek mathematician in the sixth century B.C., knew the world was round. Columbus even supposedly planned his trip using a copy of Ptolemy's "Geography," which included theories about the world's spherical shape.

President George Washington did have horrifically bad teeth. He even wore multiple sets of dentures throughout his life made of ivory, gold, and lead -- but not wood.

According to the organization that runs President Washington's famed estate, Mount Vernon, President Washington did love his Port wine though. The burgundy-colored drink may have stained his teeth, making them appear brown and grainy, like wood.

The Great Chicago Fire killed hundreds and burned more than 3 square miles in 1871. Contrary to popular myth, the blaze actually started in a small alley for unknown reasons.

The journalist who attributed the blaze to "Mrs. O' Leary's cow" knocking over a lit lantern admitted he lied and made up the story. Yes, we haven't been able to trust the news media for years.

And yes, this was compiled from multiple sources.
Tom Correa

Strange But True Odds & Ends -- Part One

This photo, taken in 1919, shows Goddard Squadron honoring their fallen member Freddy Jackson shortly after his funeral. 

If you look closely at the photograph, you can see a man in the background who was identified by other squadron members as, you guessed it, Freddy Jackson.

If you think that is amazing, in 1838, Edgar Allan Poe released a book called "The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket" which tells of the four crewmen of a whaling ship who had to draw lots to decide whom they would eat after days of hunger.

The lot fell on the cabin boy named Richard Parker. Forty-six years later, a disaster at sea caused legal furor because three crewmen ate their cabin boy named Richard Parker after drawing lots.

It you think that's strange then you will like the following:

The heart of a Blue Whale is so big, a human can swim through the arteries. An Octopus has three hearts. Armadillos nearly always give birth to identical quadruplets. Hippo milk is pink. And yes, the Unicorn is the National Animal of Scotland. 

Vending machines are twice as likely to kill you than a shark is.

Not once in the Humpty Dumpty nursery rhyme does it mention that he’s an egg.

All of the men who fought in World War II were born before sliced bread. Yes, they pre-dated the day when people started selling already sliced bread. 

Sliced bread is a loaf of bread that has been pre-sliced with a machine and packaged for convenience. So what did they say before the advent of sliced bread?

Well, sliced bread was first sold in 1928, and advertised as "the greatest forward step in the baking industry since bread was wrapped!" Now you know! 

Did you know that former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill's mother was born in Brooklyn. She was.

Call him Mr Lucky! Mr. Tsutomu Yamaguchi was in Hiroshima for work when the first A-bomb hit, and made it home to Nagasaki for the second. Though he was "nuked" twice, he lived to be 93.

New research suggests that 15–20 million people were murdered or imprisoned by the Nazis during the Holocaust, much more than previously believed. All in the name of Socialism. 

Yes, Germany's Nazi Party were in fact Socialists.

Joseph Stalin, the dictator of the USSR from 1929–1953, is believed to have killed between 20-60 million people. All in the name of Communism.

In the 1970s, Cambodia's Pol Pot’s Communist regime brainwashed thousands of children into becoming soldiers who committed mass murders and other atrocities. They slaughtered millions of people. All in the name of Communism. 

Chairman Mao Zedong killed 45 million people during Communist China’s "Great Leap Forward" from 1958–1962. All in the name o f Communism.

In China, in recent years tens of thousands of baby girls were abandoned each year because of the country’s one-child policy. All in the name of Communism. 

A strawberry isn’t a berry but a banana is. And yes, so are avocados and watermelons. Peanuts are not nuts. They grow in the ground, so they are legumes.

Humans share 50% of their DNA with bananas. There is 10 times more bacteria in your body than actual body cells. And yes, 90% of the cells that make us up of aren’t human but mostly fungi and bacteria.

Before the mid-19th century dentures were commonly made with teeth pulled from the mouths of dead soldiers.

After Pope Gregory IX declared that cats were associated with devil worship, cats throughout Europe were exterminated in droves. This sudden lack of cats led to the spread of disease because infected rats ran free. The most devastating of these diseases, the Bubonic Plague, killed 100 million people.

The Aztecs made human sacrifices to the gods. In 1487, at the dedication of the temple in Tenochtitlan, 20,000 people were put to death. The Mayans also made sacrifices. The most common involved pulling a still-beating heart out of a victim’s chest. And imagine, today people try to say only the Europeans were cruel. 

People were buried alive so often in the 19th century that inventors patented safety coffins that would give the "dead" the ability to alert those above ground if they were still alive.

Approximately 750,000 men died in the Civil War, which was more than 2.5% of America’s population at the time.

The last time the Chicago Cubs won the baseball World Series, lollipops had not yet been invented, and women did not have the right to vote in the United States. 

In fact, the last time the Cubs won the world series, Alaska, Arizona, Hawaii, and New Mexico were not yet states, And yes, the Ottoman Empire still existed.

Speaking of the Ottoman Empire, its Sultan Ibrahim I had 280 of his concubines drowned in the ocean after one of them slept with another man.

In Medieval times people were put to death for being witches. One anthropologist conjectures as many as 600,000 “witches” lost their lives.

In Medieval times the accused often faced a “trial by ordeal,” where they were forced to stick their arm into a vat of boiling water. If their arm emerged unscathed, it was believed God protected them, thus proving their innocence. And yes, believe it or not, animals were put on trial in medieval times and routinely sentenced to death.

A thousand seconds is about 16 minutes, a million seconds is about 11 days. a billion seconds is about 32 years, and one trillion seconds is about 32,000 years. 

Honey never spoils. You can eat 32,000-year-old honey.

In 2006, an Australian man tried to sell New Zealand on eBay. The price rose to $3,000 before eBay shut it down.

Mexican General Santa Anna had an elaborate state funeral for his amputated leg.

Toy companies failed to duplicate the success of Theodore Roosevelt's teddy bear with William Taft's "Billy Possum."

Prairie dogs say hello with kisses.

New Mexico State's first graduating class in 1893 had only one student -- and he is said to have been was shot and killed before graduation.

If you think you always needed to make A's in school, there is one student who had a lot of satisfaction with his grade even though it wasn't an A. Our 50-star American flag was designed by an Ohio high school student for a class project. His teacher originally gave him a B–

Here’s something we’ll probably never see again in our own lifetime: the Hoover Dam without any water in it.

Last but not least, it might sound strange, but it is true that you can’t hum while holding your nose shut. Now you know you going to try it!

And yes, this was compiled from multiple sources.
Tom Correa