Thursday, February 01, 2007

We have one less heroic woman in the world... as of yesterday, when Molly Ivins left us to join the likes of Ann Richards and Barbara Jordan in the Great Beyond. Just try to imagine that party! Tributes to Molly's spirit, courage, and joy in living are blooming all over the web, like a field full of Texas wildflowers... [Thus, this post is continuing to be updated.] Foremost among them is the page dedicated to her at the Texas Observer, her spritual and political home. It is a must-read, and also has some wonderful photos. (Sometimes the server is a bit slow, due to the high traffic.) Yet, the tribute at Creators.com should also not be missed, if only because of Anthony Zurcher's poignant memories of his friendship with Molly, not to mention the navigable archives of her 2006 columns. You'll find more at Alternet by John Nichols, and at Clever, Clever Girl, where the tribute includes a link to the video of Molly's (televised) appearance at the 2003 Book Expo (which also featured that spat between O'Reilly and Franken). Other sites with appropriately effusive (to my mind) tributes include: Salon's profile,earlier multiple interviews, and a collection of memorable quotes from Molly, and Joe Conason's more recent profile, in which he also provides a link to some fine prose in Lewis Lapham's salute to Molly; a post by scarecrow at FDL, which also includes a generous sampling of her writing; and, not to be outdone, the Huffington Post has pieces by Arianna herself, Barbara Ehrenreich, Robert Elisberg, and Mona Gable; and Truthdig has a tribute by Robert Scheer. ...and, of course, the usual pieces in the mainstream papers, including the Washington Post, and the New York Times (whose editor, A. M. Rosenthal, had the delusion once upon a time, that he could sand Molly Ivins down a bit, in order that his then much stuffier paper might then benefit from the freshness and irreverence of her writing... Hah! ...and still have her "fit in.") (You can find those links on your own.) However, her last column is also being quoted widely, and you will want to read it over and over again... at least until WE have made the men in power stop this war. With or without our pots and pans. 6:35:31 PM    humor me... ~~

© Copyright 2007 Karen Murphy. Last update: 3/25/2007; 12:27:02 AM.