Sunday, May 8, 2011

Annual Repost of Julia Ward Howe's Mother's Day Proclamation

Mother's Day Proclamation
by Julia Ward Howe
(1819-1910)

Arise then...women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts!
Whether your baptism be of water or of tears!
Say firmly:
"We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with 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, the 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 voice of a 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 our dishonor,
Nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough 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 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 someplace deemed most convenient
And 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.


(For lighter fare, check out my other retread from Mother's days past, Mother’s Day: 5 Things (still) Worth Knowing.

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Something Someone Else Said (A Brain Rage meme)

Acknowledging that I'm once again "borrowing" from one time fellow blogger and lifetime honorary nihilist* JBW, his "something someone else said" blog meme, my post.(Fair warning, Webb... This prolly won't be the last time I use the meme or otherwise put your brain on display on one of my blogs. I get why you're not blogging these days, but dude, you got skills, yo. And if you're not gonna make use of 'em, I'm gonna get 'em out there as best I can... 'nuff said.):
"Personally, I am simply against torture. In all instances. I don't care if it gave us Bin Laden's location. Torture is absolutely morally abhorrent, in the same way as rape, and something completely contrary to the standard of human dignity appealed to by America's greatest thinkers.

This post might as well be titled 'Rape Works!' and include a story about how a raped woman got pregnant."
- Richard Booth, May 3, 2011 9:51 AM comment at the American Power post, Waterboarding Works!


*We're not really nihilists... Some just think we are...