Mothers Day and variety

Saturday May 9, 2009: Mothers Day and the great general interest of peace
and some variety.

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Folk Plus is a mostly lyrically and theme based show of contemporary singer-songwriters, some older cuts and perhaps a spoken word or broadway entry, all based on a theme. It has been hosted since 1993 by Angela Page. Check out years of playlists for Folk Plus at http://www.wjffradio.org/FolkPlus . It airs Saturdays from 11:00 am to 1:00 pm on WJFF,
at 90.5 fm in Jeffersonville, N.Y. and 94.5 in Monticello N.Y. following Car Talk.

Thanks to staff and station management for accommodating my health issues which allow me to continue to volunteer Saturday mornings

Mothers day was meant to promote "the great general interest of peace" . Three woman are credited with it's creation, and then later disgust with what it became. The first was
Anna Jarvis senior was a young Appalachian homemaker who had attempted starting in 1858 to improve sanitation through what she called "Mothers' Work Days." She organized women throughout the Civil War to work for better sanitary conditions for both sides, and in 1868 she began work to reconcile Union and Confederate neighbors.

This effort influenced Julia Ward Howe, author of the battle hymn of the republic. She was angry over the death, disease and financial devostation brought on by the civil war. She worked with women and orphans of families lost to war from both sides. In 1870 was the beginnings of the Franco-Prussian War. Julia Ward Howe became determined that peace was one of the two most important causes of the world. The second was equality in all forms. She issued a declaration, Here are some famous people reading that declaration:

** Gloria Steinem speaks about the proclamation and Julia Ward Howe's vision of Mothers Day
http://codepinkalert.org/article.php?list=type&type=401
Felicity Huffman, Christine Lahti, Vanessa William
Julia Ward Howe: Mother's Day Proclamation
Mother's Day For Peace Robert Greenwald

Now songs from a grandmother, a wife and a mother.

1. Faith Petric - (Irene Paull, Barbara Tilsen) Grandma's Battle Cry 515- Faith's Favorites
"I can't even look away my children are the pawns"
Born on September 13, 1915 in a log cabin on a homestead near Orofino, Idaho and the Clearwater river. She remembers singing in her church at 3 years old. Her dad was the preacher.

In 1872, she went to London to promote an international Woman's Peace Congress. She began promoting the idea of a "Mother's Day for Peace" to be celebrated on June 2, honoring peace, motherhood and womanhood. In the Boston Mass, she initiated a Mothers' Peace Day and it became an annual event and practiced for at least 10 years.
So Mothers day was originally meant as as a call to unite women against war.

2. Vance Gilbert - Front Porch Song - Unfamiliar Moon - Disismye Music
"they hand me this letter... folded up flag...they tell me he was brave and I say, tell me something new
he made me feel so safe and secure .... protecting us from something..."

The first Anna Jarvis had a daughter of the same name. When her mother died, this second Anna Jarvis started her own crusade to found a memorial day for women. The first such Mother's Day was celebrated in West Virginia in 1907 in the church where the elder Anna Jarvis had taught Sunday School. And then it caught on — spreading eventually to 45 states. Actual mothers day was declared 1912 and states adapted the idea, and in 1914 Woodrow Wilson declared the first national mothes day.
Finally the holiday was declared officially by states beginning in 1912, and in 1914 the President, Woodrow Wilson, declared the first national MOthers Day.

Nine years later after it's commercialization Anna Jarvis herself became a major opponent of what the holiday had become and spent all her inheritance and the rest of her life fighting what she saw as an abuse of the celebration. She criticized the purchasing of greeting cards, which she saw as a sign of being too lazy to write a personal letter. She was arrested in 1948 for disturbing the peace while protesting against the commercialization of Mother's Day, and she finally said that she wished she would have never started the day because it became so out of control.

Mother's Day is one of the most commercially-successful U.S. occasions. According to the National Restaurant Association, Mother's Day is now the most popular day of the year to dine out at a restaurant in the United States. For example, according to IBISWorld, a publisher of business research, Americans will spend approximately $2.6 billion on flowers, $1.53 billion on pampering gifts and another $68 million on greeting cards. Mother's Day will generate about 7.8% of the U.S. jewelry industry's annual revenue.

3. Gerri Gribi - I Didn't Raise My Boy to be a Soldier
WomanSong collection -
"10 million soldiers to the war have gone, who may never return home again"

4. Carol Williams - Empty Boots - One Omik Music - carol@carolwilliamssax.com (write for a copy!)
"don't give us empty boots, dont make more empty boots, we are wounded we are weary.."
A caller said he was crying, but thanked me for making him cry with this song.

"And so sometimes I think that if you just put the mothers in charge for a while, that things would get resolved" - Barack Obama

5. Anne Walker - Thats What Im Here For - Labyrinth - Quiet Waters Music
"when youre not quite sure where the road might lead
anytime you call, theres an open door... thats what Im here for"

6. Pat Humphries - I'll Be There - Hands - Appleseed
"you can always find sanctuary here"

7. Richard Shindell - I Saw My Youth Today- Reuinion HIll - Shanachie
"A moment please my bgoy, don't you know my name, do you remember when...?"

8. Cheryl Wheeler - 75 Septembers - Driving Home - Philo
Julie Gold told me that when Cheryl sang that to her dad for the first time, her dad was silent. Then he asked "75 cent what?"

9. Capitol Steps - Help Me Honda - Obama Mia - www.capsteps.com/
"help me honda... azuzu .. toyoata... subaru... mazda..."

10. Bruce Piephoff - Eavesdropping in Eckerds - Clockwork - Flyin' Cloud Records
"the best defence is a good offence"

11. Capitol Steps- Subprime Mortgage Holders - Obama Mia - www.capsteps.com/
Subprime Mortgage Holders were so happy. Subprime rates so low, they made you high" (to the tune of John Denver's Sunshine)

12. Captiol Steps - 401K - Obama Mia - www.capsteps.com/
"4 0 1 K... " to the tune of YMCA

13. Willie Nelson - Where Do You Stand - Naked Willie - RCA Lagacy
"Its time for a showing of hands, whats your plan, where do you stand?
Surely theres someone with courage to say...."

14. Simon and Garfunkel - Bridge Over Troubled Waters
Live 1969 - Legacy recordings - Columbia
Live performances from 1968 and 1969, new release from Legacy.

15. Trout Fishing in America - Lullaby - Big Trouble - Trout Music
"Close your eyes and Ill sing you a song, lullaby, sleep til morning comes"

16. Kate Wolf - Across The Great Divide- Close To You - kaleidoscope Records
"counting trouble instead of counting sheep, where the years went, I can't say, I just turned around, and theyd gone away"

17. Abi Tapia - Let the Lover Be - Beauty in the Ruin - MoonHouse Records
"when it comes to who they love, give the lovers a choice"

18. The Cast - What's the Buzz - Jesus Christ Superstar - MCA
"It seems to me a strange thing, mystifying, that a man like you, can waste his time on woman of her kind"

19. Garnet Rogers - Small Victory - All that Is - Red House
"they raced her past her time, she had the heart but her legs were gone"

20. Tamarack - Fields of Rock and Snow- Fields of Rock and Snow - Folk Era
"don't you ever try the farming life ... in north ontario"

21. Karen Savoca - On the River Road - Alcove Music
Karen and Pete will be appearing locally at the Tusten Theatre May 23, 2009.

22. Story Hill - Give Up the Ghost - Storyhill - Red House
"find your way back to the shore, I've loved before, loved you the most, give up the ghost"

23. Lynn Miles - 1000 Lovers - Lover Sweet Love - True North
"1000 mothers could sing hush now don't you cry, theres nothing in the world tonight thats gonna take away my pain"

24. Ken Theriot - Son of the Sea - Human History - Raven Boy Music
"I'm the wind on the ocean - I'm one with the land"

25. Erica Wheeler - Good summer Rain - Good Summer Rain -Blue Pie Music ericawheeler.com
"YOur children won't knwo it the way I did, up the river road, how I used to live"

26. Sara Thomsen - A Woman's Place - Everything Changes - sarathomsen.com
"We are change makers, tenders fo the earth
woman giving birth
Doctor, Dancers, Scientist Carpenter Journalist.... "

27. Priscilla Herdman - I'll Love You Forever - Forever and Always - Flying Fish
Based on Robert Munsch's kids book "Love You Forever"

28. Clannad - Nil Se'n La- Clannad in Concert - Shanachie
A drinking song - Its not yet day....

** 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 bosom 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 out 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.