But the History of Mothers’ Day in America is a much more interesting story than “let’s take mom to Pizza Hut tonight so she doesn’t have to cook”.  And since it has a Unitarian Universalist tie, I thought I’d take a moment this morning to quickly review how we got here.

Mothers’ Day was originally proclaimed by Unitarian Julia Ward Howe in 1870. Nine years earlier, Howe had written the lyrics for The Battle Hymn of the Republic after a meeting with Abraham Lincoln.  The song went on to become one of the most popular Union songs during the Civil War.  But as the war progressed, Howe became increasingly distressed by the human toll of the war.  Not just the deaths of soldiers but the devastation those deaths wreaked on the families of the soldiers on both sides of the conflict.

In 1870, Howe made the first Mothers’ Day Proclamation calling for mothers on both sides of the Civil War lines to work tirelessly for an end to the conflict.  Her proclamation is powerful and moving even today.

 

Arise, then, women of this day!
Arise all women who have hearts,
Whether your baptism be that of water or of tears
Say firmly:

“We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands shall not come to us reeking of carnage,
For caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of
charity, mercy and patience.

“We women of one country
Will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.”

From the bosom of the devastated earth a voice goes up with
Our own. It says, “Disarm, Disarm!”
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice!
Blood does not wipe out dishonor
Nor violence indicate possession.
As men have of ten forsaken the plow and the anvil at the summons of war.

Let women now leave all that may be left of home
For a great and earnest day of counsel.

Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.

Let them then solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace,
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God.

In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality
May be appointed and held at some place deemed most convenient
And at the earliest period consistent with its objects
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions.
The great and general interests of peace.

Here are a few links to further reading, if the spirit moves you:

• Mothers’ Day Central – The history of Mothers’ Day
• UUA Biography of Julia Ward Howe
• Wikipedia Mothers’ Day Page

The student was showing the ability of the laptop and handing out Linux disks. After confiscating the disks I called a confrence with the student and that is how I came to discover you and your organization. Mr. Starks, I am sure you strongly believe in what you are doing but I cannot either support your efforts or allow them to happen in my classroom. At this point, I am not sure what you are doing is legal. No software is free and spreading that misconception is harmful.

His response is a little affronted as well but somewhat level headed considering the ignorance demontrated by the teacher.

Blog of helios: Linux – Stop holding our kids back.

Drescher, 51, is best known for her starring role in the 1990s television comedy “The Nanny” and an adenoidal voice that could strip the rust off an engine block — a talent that might come in handy during a Senate filibuster.

But since a bout with uterine cancer, she has become an activist for better health care for women and was named a State Department public envoy on the issue in September. Drescher recently toured Eastern European countries to raise awareness of the issue on behalf of the State Department.

CNN Political Ticker: All politics, all the time Blog Archive – ‘Nanny’ state: Fran Drescher seeks Clinton’s Senate seat « – Blogs from CNN.com.

• Watching the trivia game at Dave and Buster’s crash and discovering it runs on Windows XP.
• Random Stranger handing us free passes to the comedy club next door to Dave and Buster’s. thereby extending the evening by two pleasant hours.
• Installed the next phase of the Ultimate Desk by adding large shelves above the current desk to accommodate all the board/card games.
• Watched my fantasy football team go down in flames for the second week in a row thus ensuring I won’t have to worry about the playoffs this year.
• Scored a cheap goal at the soccer game (goalie didn’t squeeze it well enough and it trickled in).  They all count the same though.
• Managed to somehow allow a 15″ LCD monitor to fall on my head.
• Re-discovered the joys of a well placed ice pack.

I’ve never had an at-fault accident before.  I have slid off the road in icy conditions and smacked a curb.  I’ve been rear-ended two or three times but I’ve never made a driving error that damaged someone else’s car.

First time for everything I guess.

Peter Schiff is really smart.  See a better write up of why he is so smart.

This is getting a little silly on a couple of levels.  First, it appears that Subway’s credit card processing problems are spread all over the metro area.  Second, apparently they couldn’t get them resolved between Friday and Sunday which is an awfully long time for such a thing to persist.  Last and certainly not least, Subway appears to be incapable of hiring anyone who can exercise proper word choice.  See earlier example.

Please, read a book this weekend instread of watching the parade.  We will all thank you for it.

If you do this, your KVM will not work.

That is all.  Thank you

farcebook is an anti-social network for people looking to keep track of their enemies, remind their enemies that they’re still out there, and to generally annoy their “friends.” It has many features that you’d expect in a modern web application. We’ve whipped up this bad boy in just a handful of hours and can’t wait until we get our share of that $15 billion!

Even better for me is the fact that you can download the source and run your own anti-social site.  This may have to go on the home server tonight. In the meantime I am now going to invite all my foes to join the site.