MOTHER'S DAY: Its Surprisingly Dark History

from National Geographic:

…In the postwar years Jarvis and other women organized Mother's Friendship Day picnics and other events as pacifist strategies to unite former foes. Julia Ward Howe, for one—best known as the composer of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic"—issued a widely read "Mother's Day Proclamation" in 1870, calling for women to take an active political role in promoting peace…

"Mother's Day," Not "Mothers' Day"

…Anna Jarvis never had children of her own, but the 1905 death of her own mother inspired her to organize the first Mother's Day observances in 1908.

On May 10 of that year, families gathered at events in Jarvis's hometown of Grafton, West Virginia—at a church now renamed the International Mother's Day Shrine—as well as in Philadelphia, where Jarvis lived at the time, and in several other cities…

Storming Mother's Day

…Anna Jarvis's idea of an intimate Mother's Day quickly became a commercial gold mine centering on the buying and giving of flowers, candies, and greeting cards—a development that deeply disturbed Jarvis. She set about dedicating herself and her sizable inheritance to returning Mother's Day to its reverent roots…

Born of war, Mother's Day grew to horrify its own mother, whose fight to fix the holiday "cost her everything, financially and physically."

 

read complete article

I Love Your Hair: Updated & Reposted from 2012

Below is my version of this video dedicated to my daughter and nieces.  GlennDL

 

 

“A little Muppet girl has started a sensation. The unnamed puppet with an afro sings a love song to her hair. ‘I Love My Hair’ debuted on the Oct. 4 episode of Sesame Street. It was posted on the show's YouTube page — and then women began posting the video on their Facebook pages. African-American bloggers wrote that it brought them to tears because of the message it sends to young black girls.

 

Here is the original Sesame Street video and story.
'I Love My Hair': A Father's Tribute To His Daughter

Joey Mazzarino, the head writer of Sesame Street, is also a Muppeteer who wrote the song for his daughter. Mazzarino is Italian. He and his wife adopted their 5-year-old daughter, Segi, from Ethiopia when she was a year old. Mazzarino says he wrote the song after noticing his daughter playing with dolls. "She wanted to have long blond hair and straight hair, and she wanted to be able to bounce it around," he tells NPR's Melissa Block. Mazzarino says he began to get worried, but he thought it was only a problem that white parents of African-American children have. Then he realized the problem was much larger. In writing the song, he wanted to say in song what he says to his daughter: "Your hair is great. You can put it in ponytails. You can put it in cornrows. I wish I had hair like you." That simple message has caused an outpouring of responses from women. Mazzarino got a call from an African woman who told him the song brought her to tears. "I was amazed, 'cause I sort of wrote this little thing for my daughter, and here this adult woman, it touched her," he says.

Mazzarino says he's happy to report that Segi loves the song — and her hair.”

2021: Penalizing Black hair in the name of academic success is undeniably

racist, unfounded, and against the law

95

The Coat Hanger In The Closet:

by Glenn Littrell

UPDATED [3-23-2016 see bottom] and reposted from 3-16-2011:

For those who are to young to be aware of it, the wire coat hanger in the closet was the tool of choice for performing abortions back when it was illegal. It was used by back ally abortionist and by those foolish enough to try and and perform their own abortions.
The term "back alley abortions" come from two practices, one being that you never wanted to be seen going in the front of a suspected abortionist residence. These abortionist were seldom doctors. In the case of people who had connections that could obtain an abortion from a legitimate doctor also wouldn't go during business hours because it was still illegal. In both cases you would come in through the backdoor from the alley. The second practice was that when the procedure went wrong, and it did so often, the body of the child, mother or both would be dumped in an alley. This was true even if the mother, child or both were still alive. The illegality led to unsanitary conditions, death, infection, mutilation, and a vast array of medical problems for the survivors. WHEN PROBLEMS OCCURRED THE LAST THING THE ABORTIONIST WAS GOING TO DO WAS INCREMINATE THEMSELVES BY TAKING THE PATIENTS TO THE HOSPITAL.  Finding mothers who had bled to death was not uncommon. In that environment, then a part of American culture, the abortionist was usually part of the criminal underbelly comparative to pimps and drug pushers.

I believe abortion is wrong, but I believe a return to back alley abortions is 'wronger'. The reversal of Roe v. Wade would settle nothing. If you are not prepared to settle the questions of cradle to the grave social issues, or to deal with the financial consequences of single motherhood, or the stigma of single motherhood, or the choice of life or death then you are not ready to solve the problem.
It is within this context that I support a women's right to choose.

Don't believe that we would go back to back alley abortions? Don't believe that there is still a stigma attached to teen or unwanted pregnancies? I heard a story on the news earlier today, sorry details didn't register, about a girl who was crowned queen of something at her high school who has been criticized as 'unfit' to hold the position because she is a mother. Would they prefer she had an abortion? No, those who are criticizing her are probably the same 'abortion is murder' contingent. “One of the leading causes of death amongst teenagers is suicide. The Centers for Disease control report that it is the third leading cause of death, behind accidents and homicide, of people aged 15 to 24. Even more disturbing is the fact that suicide is the fourth leading cause of death for children between the ages of 10 and 14.”      source: http://www.teensuicidestatistics.com/ “There are as many as eight to 25 attempted suicides to one completed suicide - with the ratio even higher in youth.” So the threat is even higher.                         source: Ohio State University Medical Center These are kids with futures who are killing themselves because they dented their fathers car, got a 'C' on a test, got dumped by a boyfriend or girlfriend, where bullied, depressed, parents divorcing, victims of abuse, couldn't deal with the stigma of their homosexuality, or suffered from unrequited puppy love! They are choosing suicide in frightening numbers for ridiculous [to us] reasons.

Coat Hanger Abortions Are Fine, Says Mississippi Lawmaker, Because ‘Hey, You Have To Have Moral Values’ By Annie-Rose Strasser on May 15, 2012 at 10:35 am ThinkProgress     …read more  What’s the Answer to Abortion in the Age of the Prison-Industrial Complex? Lock Women Up and Throw Away the Key? by Farah Diaz-Tello, National Advocates for Pregnant Women July 12, 2012 - 3:15 pm A mini-documentary on YouTube from 2007 has recently gotten a new lease on life. The filmmaker asks protesters outside of a women’s health clinic in Libertyville, Illinois whether they think abortion should be illegal. They do. What should the penalties be, he asks? What happens next is fascinating: they fumble…      …read more

When Sarah Palin’s daughter Bristol got pregnant and ‘chose’ to have her baby she was applauded for ‘doing the right thing’. Did she really choose to do anything? What dilemma did she face? She had:

• successful parents
• a strong family structure
• the support of complete strangers [a political party who set aside their constant call for the promotion of shame]
• access to ‘nanny care’
• and sudden notoriety from her, her mother’s and her baby-daddy's shenanigans.

As well as the wealth these things have brought her. SO what was the big choice she had to make? Holding that poor girl up as a shining example of doing the right thing just ignores the real choices that most women face. What if she wasn’t who her momma was? What if she was from a broken dysfunctional home, a violent drug infested home, was kicked out of her home, was a victim of spousal abuse or incest, lived in a drug invested crime ridden neighborhood, had no access to pre-natal care or basic health care, had no diploma, no skills, no employment future and no life skills for dealing with a very scary and most uncertain future for her and a child she would very much like to love and raise? These are the factors Bristol Palin and many women never have to deal with, but they are the factors that overwhelm many women leaving them seeing very few options. Their choices unfortunately become a dismal future for themselves and their child, suicide or legal abortion. Where some kids kill themselves irrationally over getting a ‘C’ on a test an unwanted or unplanned pregnancy becomes a no brainer since they see no good choice. Making abortions illegal will not help them make the right or best choice it will just drive that already irrational behavior back into the ‘back alley’. We can only solve this problem when we start making more and better choices available to those who have too few options now.

Glenn D. Littrell

3-23-2016: The coat hanger abortion is back, and that’s scary for all women

Top 10 Shocking Attacks from the GOP's War on Women

by Glenn Littrell

It has been awhile since I have had the time to update or supplement this list (FEB 2011). In the time since posting this the right-wing has continued to create potential additions to it, the numbers are huge and to back track and list them would be a monumental task. They continue to put their foot in their mouth even though they have made so many apologies that it is clear they know its damaging them, but their problem is, and many of their apologies bare this out, they apologies for saying it out loud not for believing it. It should concern female Republicans that their male colleagues continually let the cat out of the bag so much that they should wonder what the guys are saying when they aren’t around.

It is too close to the election to take the time to compile the many additions and updates to this list… I will just list the most recent egregious ones in the following FaceBook post of mine following the Murdock statement in the Indiana Senate debate and a recent bill in Pennsylvania:

With right wing Republican candidates practically endorsing various forms of rape (Akin/Murdock) in their anti-abortion stance of protecting the fetus as a morale obligation they then show their hypocrisy by not extending the same moral obligation to the born child. They would condemn contraception to protect the yet un-conceived child, condone rape and incest to protect the unborn fetus, but deny a newborn child medical, and nutritional support simply because the mother had the indiscretion and poor judgment to conceive something as beautiful as a child, while being poor. There was a time in this country were poverty was not seen as an impediment to producing as family.
"...Mourdock ignited controversy when he said that pregnancies resulting from rape are "something that God intended to happen" during the final Indiana Senate debate on Tuesday evening. The president's campaign denounced the remarks earlier Wednesday, calling the comments "outrageous and demeaning to women...."
According to Murdock wouldn't the pregnancy of a single impoverished woman also be "something that God intended to happen"? The list of great people born to impoverished women, married or single would be endless.        

GlennDL

• Obama Condemns Richard Mourdock's Abortion Remarks: 'Rape Is Rape'

• Pennsylvania Bill Includes Provision Requiring Women To Prove They Were Raped

1)  Congress just voted for a Republican amendment to cut all federal funding from Planned Parenthood health centers, one of the most trusted providers of basic health care and family planning in our country.

2) A state legislator in Georgia wants to change the legal term for victims of rape, stalking, and domestic violence to "accuser." But victims of other less gendered crimes, like burglary, would remain "victims."

3) In South Dakota, Republicans proposed a bill that could make it legal to murder a doctor who provides abortion care. (Yep, for real.)

4) Republicans want to cut nearly a billion dollars of food and other aid to low-income pregnant women, mothers, babies, and kids.

5) In Congress, Republicans have a bill that would let hospitals allow a woman to die rather than perform an abortion necessary to save her life.

6) Maryland Republicans ended all county money for a low-income kids' preschool program. Why? No need, they said. Women should really be home with the kids, not out working.   [personal not: What do the morons propose that abandoned mothers do?]

7) And at the federal level, Republicans want to cut that same program, Head Start, by $1 billion. That means over 200,000 kids could lose their spots in preschool.

8) Two-thirds of the elderly poor are women, and Republicans are taking aim at them too. A spending bill would cut funding for employment services, meals, and housing for senior citizens.

9) Republicans not only want to reduce women's access to abortion care, they're actually trying to redefine rape. After a major backlash, they promised to stop. But they haven't yet. Shocker.

10) And if that wasn't enough, Republicans are pushing to eliminate all funds for the only federal family planning program. (For humans. But Republican Dan Burton has a bill to provide contraception for wild horses. You can't make this stuff up).

Sources:
1. "'Forcible Rape' Language Remains In Bill To Restrict Abortion Funding," The Huffington Post, February 9, 2011
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=206084
"Extreme Abortion Coverage Ban Introduced," Center for American Progress, January 20, 2011
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=205961
2. "Georgia State Lawmaker Seeks To Redefine Rape Victims As 'Accusers,'" The Huffington Post, February 4, 2011
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=206007
3. "South Dakota bill would legalize killing abortion doctors," Salon, February 15, 2011
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2011/02/15/south_dakota_abortion_killing_bill
4. "House GOP Proposes Cuts to Scores of Sacred Cows," National Journal, February 9, 2011
http://nationaljournal.com/house-gop-proposes-cuts-to-scores-of-sacred-cows-20110209
5. "New GOP Bill Would Allow Hospitals To Let Women Die Instead Of Having An Abortion," Talking Points Memo, February 4, 2011
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=205974
6. "Republican Officials Cut Head Start Funding, Saying Women Should be Married and Home with Kids," Think Progress, February 16, 2011
http://thinkprogress.org/2011/02/16/gop-women-kids/
7. "Bye Bye, Big Bird. Hello, E. Coli," The New Republic, February 12, 2011
http://www.tnr.com/blog/83387/house-republican-spending-cuts-pell-education-usda-pbs
8. "House GOP spending cuts will devastate women, families and economy," The Hill, February 16, 2011
http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/economy-a-budget/144585-house-gop-spending-cuts-will-devastate-women-families-and-economy -
9. "House passes measure stripping Planned Parenthood funding," MSNBC, February 18,2011
http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/02/18/6080756-house-passes-measure-stripping-planned-parenthood-funding
"GOP Spending Plan: X-ing Out Title X Family Planning Funds," Wall Street Journal, February 9, 2011
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2011/02/09/gop-spending-plan-x-ing-out-title-x-family-planning-funds/
10. Ibid.
"Birth Control for Horses, Not for Women," Blog for Choice, February 17, 2011
http://www.blogforchoice.com/archives/2011/02/birth-control-f.html