posted on May 12, 2003 08:46:12 AM new
neon; "I thought you were all men" is not what I said. Misquoting is reserved for the handful of people, be they men or women, who consistently respond to posts (not only my posts) with insults, unwitty jingoisms and silly breast beating. (before anyone starts complaining about that term, look it up in the dictionary) When someone objects to these fatuous tactics, even mildly objects, such as the prof has done, they are ridiculed and insulted again. Who cast the first insult(s) on this thread? I am merely responding in kind.
twelvepole; I can't blow smoke up your butt, your head is in the way.
posted on May 12, 2003 04:29:07 PM new
I was wondering if anyone would pick up on this ... but the origins of Mother's Day have a bit of bearing on the discussion.
"Mothers' Day" was originally suggested by Julia Ward Howe, who wrote the "Battle Hymn of the Republic. As her song became more famous as the Union's somber anthem, she began to visit battlefields and work with war widows and orphans as well as the wounded. By 1870, she had seen enough.
As the Franco-Prussian war began, she called for all women across the world to stand up and speak out for peace. She issued a proclamation that can be read here. An excerpt:
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 solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means Whereby the great human family can live in peace...
In her attempts to start a Mother's Day, Howe was playing off the earlier efforts of a woman named Anna Jarvis. Anna's daughter (also named Anna) and Howe kept working toward the establishment of a national holiday, which was finally declared in 1914. In 1923, distressed by the commercialization of the day - originally meant to be a day of prayer and activism - the younger Anna Jarvis sued the governor of New York and protested, for which she was arrested.
So this entire discussion is a bit more relevant than the flying insults might suggest.
