NYT's Friedman: Call Your Mother

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman has a piece of policy-free advice for readers today: “Call your mom.” His own died last month, and on his first Mother’s Day without her, he recalls her influence on his own optimism, which can be found “between the lines of virtually every column.” Without being naive, “she was the most uncynical person in the world.”

She was born early enough to serve in World War II and lived long enough to play online bridge—and though her final years were marked by dementia, she never lost her “‘Minnesota nice,’” Friedman writes. “Pessimists are usually right, optimists are usually wrong,” she believed, “but most great changes were made by optimists.” So call your mother, Friedman writes; "I sure wish I could call mine." (More Mother's Day stories.)