[promoted by BooMan]
Our local (Fort Worth – Dallas) CBS news just announced the death of the columnist Molly Ivins. She was recently hospitalized with a recurrance of breast cancer. She was age 62.
The world in general and Texas specifically has just become a much less colorful, lively and interesting place.
Damn! I’ll miss her writing. And I never got to meet her.
Double fucking damn..a real light went out in Texas today and we are all going to be worse off without her insightful, witty and compassionate writing.
I have a post card of a diving pig that Molly Ivins sent me in response to letter I wrote her. This was some 20 years ago. All Lone Star Flags should be half-mast. When Bush outlives Ivins, you know the universe is out of whack.
I’ll miss her. I loved her writing and her wit.
Thanks for letting us know Rick.
I might want to write more later, I’m pretty sad right now, but Molly has always been a real hero for this girl who grew up in Texas too.
My first memory of her was probably over 20 years ago when she wrote an article in Ms. Magazine about what it takes to grow up female and sane in Texas. I thought she was writing about my life.
I always had a fantasy about being able to sit on the porch, smoke cigarettes, and tell tales with Molly and Ann Richards. At least they are back together, stirring up shit and having a laugh I’m sure.
As Teach said above, Molly sent him this postcard nearly 20 years ago. What Teach didn’t say is that he and I bonded over a shared love of Molly. I think Teach wrote Molly a letter telling her he was reluctantly giving her up as a love object, to (I hope not reluctantly) go with me – as a no doubt dim substitute. (Well, I am blond, tall, and have a certain twang. Thus endeth the similarity between myself and the illustrious Molly).
Her reply was on an Aquarena Springs postcard – featuring Ralph, the Diving Pig. We still have the postcard, among our treasures.
Molly Ivins was the treasure, and I am so angry at whatever gods there be for losing her at this moment, when we need her voice, her humor, her audience.
Ave Ataque Vale. You’ll be missed.
Too sad for words.
…
there are good Americans & there are Great Americans.
Molly Ivins was a Great American. I’m so sad that she has left us; we need her still & she will be missed.
Though I had no personal connection to Molly (unlike lucky Kidspeak and Teach), I’ve loved her for years, ever since I first saw a copy of The Texas Observer in the bathroom of a former professor of mine and was exposed to her unique brand of incisive political analysis and rapier wit.
I’ve read her over the ensuing years and always marveled at how she could recount the most serious and downright depressing political doings with such an enormous degree of wit and passion. She made me laugh while I learned … to me, the true sign of a genius teacher.
Tonight I am more than saddened. I am still crying at the incredible cruelty dealt to her by a clearly unfair world. I’m sure, however, that she’d find a really funny way to spin it all and make me smile, but for now, I’ve lost that capacity.
Fare thee well, Molly … your time upon this earth was too short, but your contributions to it far surpassed those of the lesser mortals who fell within your incisive purview. And thanks for your final message, which was relayed to me by The Texas Observer tonight:
Raise More Hell!
I miss you already and will cherish your memory and do my best to honor it.