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Last updated on August 6th, 2017 at 05:36 pm
Texan columnist Molly Ivins has died at 62.
- Rest in Peace and sympathy to the family.Posted by 1.618 on 2007 02 01 at 03:09 AM • permalink
- O/T from Ruddio National’s
socialist of the dayperspective programme. todays leftard is Clare Coburn Associate Lecturer at the La Trobe University’s School of Law- she thinks terrorists are misunderstood and we need to be more receptive to horror (and mother earth)
‘Look at our response to the devastation of September 11. Instead of holding the tension and heartbreak which US educator Parker J Palmer describes in his essay, ‘The politics of the broken-hearted’, our leaders leapt into reaction, aggression and invasion. Rather than contemplate this horror with deep receptivity, and explore the reasons why someone may take such desperate and unthinkable action, we acted with retributive zeal and failed to consider the causes. The action of these deeply misguided terrorists was a cry writ large but did we truly hear what they were saying in their language of extremity and violence? Can we listen to our enemies, as Gandhi advised?Our globe too has also been crying out for attention. For decades, our expressive action towards the earth has seen the West accumulate material goods and comfort, yet we have failed to listen to the cries first identified by scientists as global warming. Little by little these cries have been heard more clearly by those with the responsibility to take action, yet we wonder if it is too little and too late. If instead, we can practice a deeper receptivity, we may hear the messages a little earlier, avert the crises, and learn how to respond in a more empathetic way. I don’t believe it is too late, but it will take a lot of deep listening and an appropriate response.’
Posted by eeniemeenie on 2007 02 01 at 05:10 AM • permalink
- I did not care for Ms. Ivins and her opinions. I usually read her writings with a red pen in hand, ready to circle her fallacies and fabrications.
But she deserved to live a long and healthy life. May God rest her soul.
Posted by wronwright on 2007 02 01 at 06:15 AM • permalink
- Zefal: I don’t know that she lied about anything—she seemed to have held her beliefs and ideas sincerely, no matter how much we may have disagreed with them. Then again, I hadn’t read anything of hers since the 80s, so maybe you know something I don’t know.Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2007 02 01 at 07:28 AM • permalink
- O/T
It from Reuters so it must be true….Poor widdle jihadis all upset papa Sadddams dead
No editorialising in the last line either…
“His case is straining Canberra’s staunch support for the U.S.-led war on terror, as conservative Prime Minister John Howard faces re-election later this year against polls showing 62 percent of Australians oppose the way the Iraq war has been handled.”
Bollocks rooters, which “independent” study are they fabricating from now? Or are they just being a little selective with their surveys??
Posted by thefrollickingmole on 2007 02 01 at 07:40 AM • permalink
- I have no idea who said “Don’t speak ill of the dead”, but whoever it was, he was an idiot.
If they were shitwits when they are alive, their legacy after death is to remain classified as shitwits. “Reap and ye shall sow”
Hitler, Stalin, Jim Cairns, Pol Pot, Ho Chi Minh, etc. (some from a very long list) were all evil bastards when they were alive, death doesn’t change a thing, they will be remembered forever as evil bastards.
Posted by Pedro the Ignorant on 2007 02 01 at 08:12 AM • permalink
- She used to be funny until a few years ago, when she curdled into that nasty bitterness liberals get once they realize that the whole world a) doesn’t recognize the fact that they’re smarter than everyone else, b) won’t let them run everyone else’s life, and c) won’t change reality just to suit them.
- I heard her speak at a lunch in Austin in 1996, to a group of Australians observing the US presidential elections. A lot of fun. A true Texan, I think.Posted by Alan Dungey on 2007 02 01 at 08:39 AM • permalink
for the record, she was a Californian, NOT a Texan
No, Ivins was Texan, born and bred. In Houston’s exclusive Bellaire neighborhood. Her daddy was an oil industry executive who sent her to private schools and Swarthmore, in the Massachusetts area of Texas.
Her real talent was acting, as she perfect an interesting double identity. For the national media she’d trot out the faux populist downhome Ma Kettle lefty cornpone; when the crowd was Texans (I’m an ex-longtime Austinite), she would immediately switch to a teddibly British upper class condescension.
- First Ann Richards now Molly Ivins. If I were Jim Hightower I would start polishing my spurs.
There was a time 20 years ago when those folks were genuinely funny, then the democrats starting loseing elections and they got downright bitter and vindictive and all that bile turned inward and poisoned their souls.
Posted by joe bagadonuts on 2007 02 01 at 10:01 AM • permalink
- I truly do hope she’s found peace. There will be a trifle more peace here now, and justice requires a modicum of symmetry.
Joe bagadonuts has it precisely right. Once upon a time Ivins and company were able to skewer both sides with wit. Then it became brutally obvious that the causes they espouse inevitably generate poverty and oppression, but they didn’t have the intellectual flexibility to modify their stances, and thus became shrill and fanatic. See also “Trudeau”.
Regards,
Ric
- I used to enjoy Ivins’ skewering of Texas politics and politicians. It was funny and on point, much like Tim Blair’s writing. Her sense of humor and irony at some point in the 90’s turned to bitter shrillness.
Around 1994, she wrote a column about the small city off Interstate 40 in Middle Tennessee where I went to engineering school. She complained that the strip which parallelled the highway was full of the typical chain middle-brow eateries (Applebees, Chili’s, etc.) and that their signage blocked her view of the wonderful scenery in the area.
Had she driven there while I was in school she would have complained that the two best places to eat were in the bowling alley and the airport.
Posted by Some0Seppo on 2007 02 01 at 11:02 AM • permalink
- It may be that the only hope for our country is for that entire generation to finally die off.Posted by richard mcenroe on 2007 02 01 at 11:03 AM • permalink
- For a short time, Ivins, PJ O’Rourke and another writer whose name escapes me were invited on 60 minutes to spell Andy Rooney with the closing commentary. PJ was funny, Ivins was typically shrill and (obviously) I don’t remember much about the other writer.
RIP Molly, I won’t pretend to have liked you, but I won’t let any dislike linger.
- I used to like reading Molly Ivins’ columns, but as others here have said, she took a left turn somewhere in the late 90s that was just a little too hard and screechy. Or maybe it was my own attitude changing. In any case, I could never read another piece by her, especially after 9/11. Some will miss her, but I am indifferent.
- I didn’t stumble across Molly until well after she began styling herself as some kind of leftist cowgirl. I tried reading a couple of her articles, but the axioms she had planted were all intellectual weeds, so I didn’t bother myself over her again. I do, however, pray for the repose of her soul, and I am sorry that she suffered so from cancer.
- She was mean, bitter and spiteful to the end – my local paper is the better for her column being gone.
I shan’t waste a tear for someone who chose to be that way.
Posted by Major John on 2007 02 01 at 02:06 PM • permalink
- iowahawk, not to be picky, but I’m from Bellaire and it was hardly exclusive—a middle-class enclave and a nice place to grow up, yes. These days, it could be called upscale, as developers have plowed under many of the little postwar houses and planted McMansions.
At her best, Ivins was the Ann Coulter of the left, though not as funny and never very close to the truth.
Posted by Rittenhouse on 2007 02 01 at 02:31 PM • permalink
- Having lost my mother to breast cancer some 20 years ago, it’s not something I would wish on my worst enemy. I dislike Ivins’ writing very much: I found it shrill, spiteful, illogical, and utterly lacking in both clarity and charity. But it’s a shame that she’s dead. Requiescat in pacem, Molly.Posted by Urbs in Horto on 2007 02 01 at 02:53 PM • permalink
- I’m surprised how much sadness I’m feeling over her. It’s an actual, real surprise.
I have to say I feel a tinge of anger at people who won’t let someone die in peace and have to go around pointing out what foils they had right at the moment of de-conception*. Zefal, get some manners boy.
For what it’s worth, I agree with you, she peddled conscious falsehoods. And it doesn’t matter she did, she’s dead. That was noting and raging about while she was alive. If you are part and parcel of the right, you accept civility as the basic glue of society.
As for Pedro- you need more than manners, you need a good slap. It’s how we keep naughty girls in line.
Iowahawk, yes she was a Texan, but she was born in California. I tend to agree with you to call her a Texan. After all, most people call The Duke a Texan, but he was actually from Indiana…and don’t you dare tell a Texan he wasn’t a Texan. Real Texans come from a lot of places and have a lot of silly names: for instance, Kin du Toit hails from South Africa until we got one of our better african-american imports.
As for Molly’s best writing, her best turn was, coincidentally an obit on the legendary John Tower after he died (for Oz folk: he was an extremely powerful senator and political mover in the 1980’s opposed to Ivins from the get-go). The article, titled “Principles, Not Opportunism, Inspired Tower’s Politics” was, appropriately, a model of how to approach the dead and not be a raving prick about it. I don’t think Leftists should shame rightists about what should be our forte’, meaning our civilization. We’re better than they are and should act as such.
*- There are, of course, some notable exceptions to this rule of civility. People everyone agrees are peachy keen are good targets: I admit to glee at Hitchens sneering at Mother Theresa (‘tho I don’t agree), and actually joined in the Englishs’ sad devotional to that plain and pouty princess-that-wasn’t. But Molly was, in modern parlance, “controversial”, thus all the more reason to be polite. Hatred is no excuse.Posted by mencken_cynic on 2007 02 01 at 06:40 PM • permalink
- By the by, the piece on John Tower titled “Principles, Not Opportunism, Inspired Tower’s Politics” is located in her book “Nothin’ But Good Times Ahead”.Posted by mencken_cynic on 2007 02 01 at 06:42 PM • permalink
- Re: plagiarism—well, there you go, I said I hadn’t read her since the 80s. Looks like I didn’t miss much.Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2007 02 01 at 08:49 PM • permalink
- And here’s the Florence King article! Woo hoo! Now that’s a lady I like to read.Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2007 02 01 at 08:57 PM • permalink
- I forgot to say: found via Kathy Shaidle.Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2007 02 01 at 08:57 PM • permalink
- PS: you’ll all like this—the guy who writes the Udolpho website really sinks his teeth into Ivins.Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2007 02 01 at 09:00 PM • permalink
- Damn, every time I read Udolpho I think, “I should read this guy more!” But then I don’t because I’m forgetful and lazy.Posted by Jim Treacher on 2007 02 02 at 06:04 AM • permalink
- By the by, you shouldn’t limit your reading of Florence King to merely that article: her books are all good, every last one of them.
I highly suggest for the King neophyte: The Florence King Reader. It has a lot of choice stuff in it, plus she’s got some stuff from her earlier career (when she was, ahem, a pornographer) and out-of print articles and whatnot. Plus, she was sweet and sent a very kind thank-you note for an Amazon review I wrote.
Also, ‘With Charity toward None: A Fond Look at Misanthopy’ is just good, mean fun. You can’t go wrong with it.
Confessions of a Failed Southern Lady was beyond funny. Especially you folk from Oz, you should take a gander…it shows juuuust how crazy Southerners are.
Tim, seriously, I think you’d fall in love with her if you read her.
Posted by mencken_cynic on 2007 02 02 at 06:56 AM • permalink
- Guys, the reason we shouldn’t abuse the dead is that it makes us look bad.
It’s kinda like making sport of the church. You know they aren’t going to hit you back. So what does that say about you?
Posted by Rittenhouse on 2007 02 03 at 04:07 PM • permalink
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