The Real Mother's Day

Mother's Day as we know it did not start out as a "day off" or "tribute to motherhood." (And that tribute is often wrapped in patriarchal stereotypes of the mother and the backassward notion that 364 days of free labor is paid off in one day. I'd rather get paid some of the $134,121 a housewife gets paid; I figure I'm owed about half.) It was a day of activism and pacifism -- sanitation and world peace. I'd rather have that than a card, a dinner...though I won't turn down shoes.

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The only white woman I hate more than Cokie Roberts is Ann Coulter. I hate her so much I can't even feel it anymore, frozen solid. And her increasing calls for fascism in the light of the Bush Administration's many violations of and flat-out disregarding of law and the Constitution should make us all wonder if Bush and Co. are pushing us toward fascism.*

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I read 2 student "drafts" this morning so horrible, I told both students never to send me anything they hadn't looked at first. I wanted to tell them it was a waste of my time but I was able to hold back. It is time for the school year to be over, not for it to start up again. If it weren't for hysterical laughter and my grammar class, I wouldn't make it through the week.


* Stew Albert's list of signs of fascism:

• weak labor unions and eroded right to strike
• erosion of civil liberties
• weak and divided opposition
• warlike and "criminally aggressive'
• propaganda, esp. of the leader as A Big Man
• racism (rise in anti-Arab sentiment especially)
  
• lack of free, fair elections