The Fairness Project

Mother's Day, and A Lot Else, Ain't What It Used to Be

    Nations have a habit of sanctifying people and events that might otherwise disturb the system by cleaning them up so that their memories actually celebrate and promote the status quo, especially its business. When President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed May 9, 1914, the first Mother's Day, asking Americans on that day to give a public "thank you" to their and all mothers, the holiday was sanitized so it wouldn’t challenge our socio-economic system but actually further its consumerism.
    Activist, writer, and poet Julia Ward Howe first proposed the idea of an official celebration of Mothers Day in the United States in 1872. She was best known for her famous Civil War song, "Battle Hymn of the Republic.”
    In response to the American Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War, Howe proposed that June 2nd be celebrated annually as Mothers Day so that on that day mothers could rally to end all war. In Boston in 1870, in a “Mothers Day Proclamation,” -- which would never make it onto a Mother’s Day card -- she set the stage for the holiday by appealing to women to leave their housework for a day in order to stand up against the forces that send men off to kill each other...

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LJWorld.com Dr. Minor on November 10, 2012, again responds to a
Lawrence Journal World "Faith Forum" question:
"Does the Bible Say Anything About Serving
One's Country, as in the Military?"

Read Past "Faith Forum" Answers Here.

"Arguing About Families - Gay, Straight or Neither"

Dr. Minor's keynote address, "Arguing About Familties - Gay, Straight or Neither," given at the Symposium "Legally Gay" at the Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law at Arizona State University on March 9, 2012, is now available in print and online in the Law Journal for Social Justice.

"A lot of very bad arguments take place using the word 'family.' By that, I mean they are based in falsehoods about the history and psychology of families. They are steeped in very creative, and current-position-affirming mythology, and void of what we historians call data. And they are found in every sphere, from religion to politics to law...."

You can download the complete article here.

If I Had Time to Read Only One Article This Week,
The Most Helpful One for My Work Would Be —

George Lakoff: "Speaking Out Is at the Heart of Being a CItizen"
(February 16, 2013)
"Speaking out is at the heart of being a citizen, speaking out is political action, and only if an overwhelming number of us speak out, and live out, this American vision, will the president and the Congress be forced to do what is best for all.
By all means, discuss the policies. Praise them when you like them, criticize them when they fall short. Don't hold back. Talk in public. Write to others.
But be sure to make clear the basic principles behind the policies."

Read George Lakoff, "Speaking Out Is at the Heart of Being a CItizen"

The Fairness Project On-Line Activist Tool Kit

The Fairness Project is in the process of making available the handout materials from Dr. Minor's popular workshop: "Being an Activist Without Being a Victim." These materials are chosen because they encourage activist leadership to proceed from a progressive, healing model which contradicts the models of leadership found in most popular forms, models that are meant to keep the system in place rather than to make changes that support humanity, and result in burnout among leaders.

To access the current materials in The Fairness Project Tool Kit for activist leaders, click here.

Dr. Minor on Love, Dating, and Relationships
A Column at 50PlusPrime.com

   "A basic building block to long-lasting relationships is one of the hardest to keep in mind. And it requires both partners to regularly recommit to it in spite of all the messages we get from the relationship industry all around us that wants us to buy what it has to sell to make it all better.
    The word often used is growth. People and relationships are not static entities. They grow.
    But that word is deceiving because we think of growth as a movement in a linear direction through what we are even, at times, told are stages of relationships. Growth sounds as if we should be able to see where we are going, just as babies turn into toddlers, then children, then teenagers, and finally “full-grown” adults.
    Even that is an artificial fiction, for it often assumes that there is an endpoint to the growing process. Turning people into “adults” seems to be a goal, as if we have said something everyone knows when we say, “let’s all act like adults.”..."