by TChris

If your mother likes to read and has an interest in politics, you might want to give her Amy Goodman's new book, The Exception to the Rulers: Exposing Oily Politicians, War Profiteers, and the Media that Love Them.

So what's the connection to Mother's Day?

Goodman says that one of her goals is to go where the silence is and fill it, to give a voice to the voiceless. In many respects, she's a motherly figure. She empowers citizens, tells those untold stories out of an honest caring for the struggle of the voiceless and is critical of injustice, inequality and war. This compassion embodies the true spirit of Mother's Day as represented by its founders who wanted much more than flowers.

The first proposition for Mother's Day in the United States came in the late 1850's by Appalachian homemaker Anna Jarvis. She organized "Mother's Work Day" to raise awareness of poor health conditions in her community. Then in the 1870's Julia Ward Howe, a Boston poet, pacifist, suffragist and author of the lyrics to the "Battle Hymn of the Republic," organized a day encouraging mothers to rally for peace, since she believed they bore the loss of human life more harshly than anyone else.

Mother's Day became an officially recognized national holiday in 1914 after Jarvis' daughter, also named Anna successfully lobbied the Wilson administration.