Happy Mother's Day! It was in 1908 that the first Mother's Day was celebrated in Grafton, West Virginia by Anna Jarvis.
In case you were wondering, Jarvis was very particular about the placement of the apostrophe in "Mother's Day," wanting children to celebrate their specific mother, not all mothers or the idea of "motherhood." Later in life, Jarvis became unhappy with the commercialization of Mother's Day and spent her time fighting the very holiday that she had helped create, according to this article in National Geographic.
Jarvis incorporated herself as the Mother's Day International Association and tried to retain some control of the holiday. She organized boycotts, threatened lawsuits, and even attacked First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt for using Mother's Day to raise funds for charities.
Texas state lawmakers are taking Mother's Day off after a bruising Saturday of "parliamentary trench warfare" over a tort reform bill. But they might be right back at it tomorrow, when the House is scheduled to resume debate on the so-called Sanctuary Cities Bill, reports Julian Aguilar with our reporting partner The Texas Tribune.
The bill,HB12, by state Rep. Burt Solomons, R-Carrollton, would prohibit cities, counties and other governmental entities or special districts from adopting a policy that prevents law enforcement from asking persons lawfully detained or arrested if they are in the country legally.
Also in the week ahead, President Barack Obama will be stopping by Austin on Tuesday. Obama will not be making any public appearances, he'll be here for a fundraiser. But he will be speaking in El Paso about "border trade and security issues."
Ever have computer trouble? It's probably not the same kind of trouble as one special machine at UT Austin. Researchers there have afflicted a computer with computer schizophrenia. The virtual computer model is called DISCERN.
After being re-trained with the elevated learning rate, DISCERN began putting itself at the center of fantastical, delusional stories that incorporated elements from other stories it had been told to recall. In one answer, for instance, DISCERN claimed responsibility for a terrorist bombing.
Might sound spooky, but researchers say the experiment could lead to a better understanding of the human brain.
Finally, if you're looking for something to do this Mother's Day, you could head to 6th Street in Downtown Austin for the 33rd annual Pecan Street Festival. Organizers say that the festival is the largest of its kind in Central Texas, attracting over 300,000 people and "generating over $43 million in economic impact."
