Share Your Memories of Molly
Please use this form to share your thoughts and comments on Molly. We’ll post as many as we can, although we reserve our editorial prerogative to weed out anything inappropriate. If you can keep them short that would be helpful. We do ask that you include your name and e-mail address (although we won’t put that up). Thank you. — The Editors
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Goodbye Molly. We’ll miss your wit, your gumption, and your smile.
O s–t. First Ann Richards,now Molly Ivins. Whose voice is left?
Every election day, my father and I go to the polls to cancel each other out.
The only political thing we ever, ever have agreed on is that Molly’s writing makes us laugh out loud. Hard. This is a terrible loss for Dad and me, but especially me, because Molly was on my side.
Good God, I’m going to miss her.
Redstone
Damn. Met her once when she stole the show at Colorado’s annual ACLU gig a few years ago. Read her all the time. Relied on her to keep hope alive. A very sad day indeed. Tonight I’ll have a shot of whiskey in honor.
I only met her a couple times, but I read her every chance I got. She’s one of the reasons I subscribe to the Texas Observer. I always loved what she had to say, even (or perhaps especially) when I didn’t like what she had to say. Which was VERY rare. She made me think, she made aware of issues I either wasn’t aware of or hadn’t thought of seriously, and - most importantly - she made me laugh. I will miss her voice and am especially sad to think that she will have missed the chance to see either a woman or an African-American sworn in as US President - a milestone I believe she would have enjoyed (for at least a week, until she would have started reading the new President the riot act!).
Wherever you are, I know you’re making them laugh - and think.
Mike Lax
Rest in peace Molly. We’ll always love you, never forget your humor, and we’ll miss you forever.
She should have been able to live to see Bush impeached and removed. She earned that.
At the Stubb’s rally at the end of DemocracyFest in the summer of 2005, we were part of a large crowd pushing outside to hear Howard Dean speak. I heard my wife say, “Molly Ivins, you are a fountain of wonder!” and turned around just in time to see a flying shock of white hair plant a kiss on my wife’s cheek.
The fountain now flows in Heaven.
Good god. I’m a 36 year old man, sitting at work crying like a baby ’cause I don’t want to live in a world that doesn’t include Molly Ivins. Please, sweet lady angel, look down on us and guide us from your guaranteed spot in heaven. And try not to spill beer on my head.
Hers was probably the first voice that really consistently sounded the way I wanted to sound. I studied with Larry Goodwin at Duke in the 70s and he referenced her frequently so I explored. I consider myself lucky to have followed her for these last few decades.
Damn.
I knew it was coming–I suppose we all did–but, still….
I came to Texas in 1967, and had the great privilege of voting for Sissy Farenthold twice in 1972. Molly, along with Sissy and Barbara Jordan, were the three women who would have been great governors (sorry, Ann, who was still superior to her successor. And we, in our folly, thought Clayton Williams was bad!).
My condolences to her family, and to everyone else who cared for her. Rest in Peace, Molly. You won’t be forgotten. And
THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH!!!!
Good Bye Molly,
I will miss you and your quick wit, your biting political humor against the other side and your smile.
Oh, crud. I was just thinking about Molly night before last; wondering if her pure hard-headedness would boost her to prevail once again. Well, damn. Molly never knew me, but I knew her. We worked at the Dallas Times Herald and at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram at the same time, though briefly at each. She was always one of my idols. I’ve read all her books, though Bushwacked almost put me in the hospital with high blood pressure after just the first chapter. The woman had a grasp of the English language and politics that was unrivaled. Who will take up the cause? Who will be able to skewer the deserving so cleanly? Who will speak for US? Molly and Ann gave this old feminist daughter of dyed-in-the-wool West Texas rightwingers hope for a better Texas.
Crap. Crappity crap crap crap. Eff off cancer! You may have taken Molly, but you’ll never be able to delete her legacy of talent.
Molly was a three generational wonder. My 83 year old mother loved her, read all of her books, and looked for her column. I’ve loved her for years as one of the few sane voices speaking truth to hypocrisy and power. And my 18 year old daughter thinks that Molly “rocks.” There you go. You don’t get much better than that. The two best to come out of Texas: Molly Ivins and Ann Richards. No doubt tippin’ a Lone Star at the moment.
Vaya con Dios, Molly.
Steve Spurgin
Marfa
I am just finishing “Who Let the Dogs In.” Like all your books, just can’t put it down.
We definitely have needed your humor to get us through the dark days of the Bush regime.
We’ll raise a glass in your memory when Shrub is headed back to Crawford for good.
A unique voice is still; Texas does tend to produce wonderful, idiosyncratic writers, and Molly was one of the best. The best tribute we can pay is to fight for the things she held dear - honesty and openness by our government and politicians, concern for the least, and to display the courage and perseverance which she did.
No other writer could make me howl with laughter about something as ugly as politics. She had the gift of cutting to the heart of a matter with wit, style, and compassion. When I would see a particularly insane report, I would think, “what would Molly say about this?” I’ll miss her.
Thank you Molly for fighting the good fight and being our voice. I, we, will miss you.
I’m weeping. After the 2004 election when there seemed no reason to go forward, Molly suggested that we heal ourselves by creating a little piece of beauty in the world. Create a flower bed, perhaps. My gorgeous flower garden will bloom this spring, and ever after, in Molly’s honor.
Goodbye and Godspeed, dearest Molly. You have meant so much to my family over the years; we’re all just in tears and feel like we’ve lost a relative. We’ll miss your lovely smile and sharp wisdom, but will keep on fighting in your name! Farewell, safe journey.
I remember when my Texas grandma used to send me her columns, just like someone’s grandmother might send clippings of recipes or self-help Dear Abby. It *was* self-help in many ways, because Molly made me think and best of all, she made me laugh.
Rest in peace, Molly Ivins. The world won’t see your like for some time.
Namaste Molly…
I lived in Texas, in Houston, for five years.
The person who made sense to me in Texas was Molly Ivins.
I lived near Houston..but I ‘got’ Austin politics..and having cut my teeth on Mike Royko and Mayor Daley, I ‘got’ Molly’s genius at political columns.
In these last years of despair due to the utter disasters that this administration has willfully created, Molly was a bright light of hope, that this too shall pass. Democracy is Messy, said Molly.
Life is messy, too Molly.
And you’ll be missed.
With love,
A family of Molly Readers. You taught me kids good political writing while teaching them about life with it’s victories and defeats…and that is a very Molly thing to do.
Our family loved to read Molly Ivins’ columns. Her comments and insight were so perfect. Want a laugh, read Molly. She made the most confusing problems as clear as could be. Her books were as priceless as any political books I have read. There are two women from Texas who deserve to be named as models of intelligence, humor, honesty, grace under pressure: Molly Ivins and Anne Richards. I am sure that they will be together in that “political arena in the sky”. Such a loss for Texas as well as the rest of the country.
It’s a very sad evening knowing Molly is gone. I’ll really miss her wit and her funny pointed columns. Ann Richards and Molly Ivins were each such larger than life charachters. Let’s all keep fighting for our country. It is the best thing to do to honor them.
Molly,
I used to write the headlines for your columns on Sacbee.com. It was the highlight of my day. I’m sad that I never got to meet you, but I did send you e-mails. I hope you read some of them and received my praise. Rest well, my fellow journalist!
–Laura Johnson
Sacramento, Calif.
Good golly, Miss Molly! Lord how I shall mist you. Your wit, your humor, your progressive ideals. No longer can I look forward to what you will have to say this week, how you will skewer the idiots whose self-importance and greed have so despoiled our country.
Good bye sweet woman. I know you are in God’s embrace tonight. I just hope He (She?) will let you send us a message once in a whle to help us on the difficult path we must walk without you.
I am so profoundly sad tonight. But I know that whenever I think of you I will smile. And I also know, today more than ever, that I will try and fight the good fight and stay involved. Thank you.
God bless you.
I was a cub reporter covering the Texas Legislature and was awe struck when I saw Molly courting and being courted during the legislative session that spawned House Bill 72. I would follow closely and get some cast off quotes for my articles. Not long into the session I worked up the courage to introduce myself. What a hoot! I met Kaye Northcutt, Ronnie, Sarah Weddington, and all the old gang because she was so gracious. We are losig the heart of what politics is supposed to be; what reporting should be and what people every where should strive to be like. I will cherish my diving pig postcard I received from her forever.
She was one of a kind. She had a gift with written words and could show the crooks and liars to be the bungling bufoons that they often were/are….bye Molly,we’ll miss you
Molly, gal, you’re gone much too soon. I’ll be wondering, “What would Molly say?” from now until election day.
I have listened, as have so many, to Ms. Ivins’ commentary over the years. So many times I have ended these sessions feeling proud to be from the same state that she represented. But she was so much more than a journalist from Texas. She embodied just about everything that is good about the people of this State and our spirit. I can hear her voice now and feel the smile coming across my face. And equally important, I can feel the cobwebs in my mind beginning to fall as her ideas and observations, more than anything, made me think. Thank you, Molly Ivins. Thank you for the laughter, for the tears, and for the honesty.
I have always truly enjoyed Ms. Ivins’ work. Her intelligence, wit, tremendous common sense, and great heart shined through her art. A true and great American has left us.
Oh God, we’ll miss you Molly!
I never met you, but feel like I know you. You’re passing is like that of a good friend.
No one can ever replace you, unfortunately.
To soon gone. Much to soon gone.
Growing up as a freethinking girl and adolescent in the 1970s and ’80s in the uber-conservative wasteland of North Dallas, Molly Ivins was my idol. She made me want to write, and keep on writing, and keep on pushing against the grain. To me, she was the tough, smart, take-no-prisoners Texas broad that I wanted to grow up to be. Many years later, she is still my idol. Irreplaceable wit and strength. My heart broke when I heard the news at my home in Washington, DC today.
any chance you good folks are starting a fund to endow a fellowship in her name? who do i make the check out to?
I went to a talk that Molly gave at Texas Tech University in Lubbock. This was around 1998, I think. Anyway, she was in full form and after thoroughly bashing the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal she opened the floor for questions.
A young woman stood up and asked her to be more specific about what was so horrible about the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal as a newspaper and to back up her earlier comments.
Molly asked her name and the young woman replied “I am the journalist from the AJ that is covering your talk tonight for the paper.”
Molly grinned really big and said, “Okay, let’s start with today’s paper.” She picks up the copy of that days paper she happened to have and proceeds to dissect every factual and flat-out stupid error being made in each story just from the front page.
She didn’t have to go very far to make her point.
I will miss her wit and prose very much.
The first and only time I saw Molly was in Dallas doing a short reading and talk about “W” and “Governor Good Hair” for her release of Shrub. I hadn’t yet read anything by her, but my boyfriend wanted to go so I joined him. I had no idea I’d be discovering a new ally and kindred spirit on this crazy planet. I’ve been reading her articles ever since and finding so much solace in her truthful wit and determination to hold our leaders’ proverbial feet to the fire. I will miss her so very much. Thank you, Molly, for all you did and everything you were.
In a world full of bootlicking toadies masquerading as journalists, Molly was a truthteller. The woman had balls of steel, and never hesitated to expose the absurd nakedness of the emperor. We’d all be better off—and probably not mired in this global mess we’ve made—if there were more brave voices like hers. She’s left some mighty big shoes to fill. We’re all going to miss you, Molly—rest in peace. Or, if you’d prefer, feel free to haunt the White House.
Molly, you and I have been through a lot together — Christmases (when I gave and received your books,) many a morning cup of tea (with your newspaper columns) and other momentous events. We never met, but we’ve been through it all together. Thank you for your wit (I remember your wonderful line - “couldn’t have been more surprised if I’d opened the refrigerator and found Fidel Castro” ) and sense of right and wrong. Thank you, thank you.
A force of nature can’t just end, can it? I feel like I did when Ed Abbey died — have one or two too many drinks, then howl at the moon. Tomorrow I’ll raise more hell. Tonight I mourn.
A few years ago CSPAN aired Molly’s speech to a library group in Phillaldephia. She told the story about the adult bookstore in south Austin. The librarians managed a few snickers while I laughed harder than I had in I don’t know how long.
I think all public schools should offer a class in Molly-Lit.
Molly will be missed….NO one could paint the crooks and liars with such an eloquent brush as Molly…she knew the were bufoons and bozos…..bye Molly
Ironically, Im sitting at my desk right now working on a breast cancer patent application. If only science moved a little quicker Molly…Im sorry we couldn’t.
Godspeed on your next journey.
I am Canadian, and I have never met Molly Ivans. But…my good friend of many years, Joann Bell (ACLU Oklahoma)has often shared Molly’s wit and wisdom with me. I feel that the world has lost someone very special. Much too soon. Rest in peace Molly, or stir something up wherever you are now…:-)
I pretty much quit day dreaming after I grew up and bought my own horses. As I grew old(er) fantasies and day dreams weren’t part of my adult schedule — except for one. I’d win a “dream dinner” from Oprah and I’d be allowed to invite 4 (sometimes 2) people that I most admired. With the loss of Molly Ivins and Ann Richards, my day dream has come to an end.
Who will speak for us??? We will! We’ll bang those pots and pans and march and write letters and stand up for what’s right and never stand down from what’s wrong.
Rest in peace, Molly. If you see us veering from the path, get the head Democrat to hit us with a bolt of lightening.
I live in Ireland, and so I didn’t know Molly’s work really well, but I did come across it from time to time/ Her humour and zest for life shone through everything I read by her. I am surprised at how upsetting this news has been to hear. I suppose that there are so few people in the world who stand up for the little guy against the big corporations and the crooked politicians, and who have such integrity, that it is a shame to lose even one of them.
My condolences for her friends and family
Mary Nugent
Molly Ivins was my favorite thing about Texas. She had the wit, wisdom, courage and tenacity to stand up to the politicians, especially regarding this stupid mess in Iraq. And her observations were dead-on accurate every time. I loved her perfect balance between sense of humor and seriousness. As stunningly, deeply sad as her passing is, she leaves me more inspired than ever to keep on fighting for what’s right. Goodbye Molly.
Dear Molly:
You make me proud to be a Texan.
Marlene Swartz
NYC
I was saddened to hear about Molly Ivins. I was hoping she could beat this bout with cancer. She was one-of-a-kind. She made you stop and think. I can see Molly and Gov. Ann Richards having a good time in heaven. My sympathies to Molly’s family.
Sincerely,
Margaret L. Jones
PO Box 129
Lorena, Tx 76655-0129
Anybody who’s grown up with generations of strong, Texan women realizes what we’ve all lost. Molly not only spoke truth to power for over thirty years. She did in such a way that even those whose hide she verbally tanning had to smile.
Like her good friend Ann who went before her, Molly’s was a voice as true and strong and clear as any we’re likely to ever hear or read again.
Texas has lost one of her brightest stars but we can’t tarry long about that. Molly won’t stand for it. We all better hoist a glass of iced tea, smile, wipe the tears from our eyes and jump back into the fight.
We’ll miss you, Molly. You & Ann give ‘em hell!
Oh, Mol, I’m so damn sad, we just lost Ann and now you. I hope you’re having a good ol’ time tonight in heaven sitting around a campfire with Ann and Barbara Jordan singing some good country-AND-western songs and laughing at the Lege. I’m glad you got to go while at home, surrounded by friends and family and that beautiful dog of yours….
Keep banging those pots and pans from up above. Speak truth to power. This liberal feminist girl from Texas always thought you were an amazing role model.
She was the Grand Dame. We have suffered a great loss that can never be replaced.
Exceptional people excel when times are bad. Those who have been paying attention during the last six years know that these have been some of the worst times for our country. These years have also been the occasion of some of Molly’s best writing. Molly and her pointed criticism of those in power is an example of what makes our country great. I will miss her terribly.
Oh My God, Molly is gone. I’ve often joked that although I’m a married man, “I want to take that Woman to dinner.” Now I never will.
Jeez, Molly, I hardly knew you. Where else am I going to find a woman so direct with the Truth? Why did you leave so soon, so fast?
Your Spirit and Voice are not the kind that we find in this sanitized America. I don’t think I can make it without you. Why. Why.. Why…
Your Unkown Friend,
Mike.
As a liberal in Iowa, I loved reading a liberal from Texas. She’s always made her points in a direct and funny way. I can’t believe she’s gone. I thought Molly Ivins would be around forever.
Thank you Molly. We will miss you.
I don’t know that enough good things can be said about Molly Ivins. Irreverant, witty, intelligent, and with sharp, sharp observations, she made politics understandable and not being active unthinkable. Her ability to translate the language of politics into the language of day-to-day life, and to shine a spotlight on exactly how what was going on in Washington (or Austin, or Baton Rouge) would impact every person in America, was amazing, and that fact that she never gave up on the people and the pols of this nation was astonishing. We have lost a great fighter.
I haven’t felt this sad about the passing of a public figure since Mister Rogers died…
Another of my hero’s taken by cancer. I will miss her wit, smarts, and charm for a long time to come.
Charles Schulz once quoted Linus in a Peanuts cartoon to the effect that “I love humanity; it’s people I can’t stand.” Molly always had the amazing ability to be strong as horseradish and fiery as hell about the various nincompoops, poltroons, and sordid evildoers she challenged, and completely sweet, gracious and unassuming in dealing with any of her legions of friends and fans. She railed at the world, but genuinely loved the people that populate it.
I was in her orbit for, I suppose, the better part of 20 years. I loved when she hosted “Final Fridays” at her house during some of those years. One hundred or more people would show up and eat and drink everything in sight. Molly would organize “an entertainment,” which was always sublimely ridiculous and over which she presided with humor and aplomb.
Molly, we’ll miss you.
I never lived in Texas, or read the Observer, but I have read every word of Ms. Ivins I could get my hands on. She was a force for good, and mankind is lessened by her passing.
I am so sad that I can’t even think of what to say. It’s not fair, and we will miss you. Thank you my dear, for being the brave, funny woman that you were. You have inspired us all.
God bless Molly! And our condolences to her family.
She taught us all so much, and we will miss her always.
I trust she is still laughing where she is now.
She was a joy and a voice for us all. She will be sorely missed.
RIP, Molly.
RIP Molly. I enjoyed so many years of your tongue-in-cheek writing, political humor and truths. You were my hero too.
Molly Ivins
What a sense of humor.
What intelligence.
What an infectious smile
I miss you, already.
There is no one who can take your place.
No one with your quick wit and writing ability.
What a loss for our world.
So many times when the arrogance and stupidity of people in power would get me down, I would hear Ms. Ivins on TV or read her comments and even the most maddening and depressing people became hilariously funny.
Thanks, dear lady. Keep ‘em laughing, wherever you are, and on their toes.
That was a life well done, Molly. We’ll miss you–but we won’t stop loving you, and we won’t stop we raising hell.
As a long-time fan of Molly’s, I feel a sense of dread to hear of her passing. Who do we turn to now? Who has the wherewithall to look the emperor in the eye and say, “he has no clothes!”? Molly, you were a source of laughter for my mother and I for years. I am thankful I got a chance to experience your humor and your insight.
You will be missed.
To the Ivins family and friends: It is with deep sadness that I read of Ms. Ivins passing. I celebrate her life and I mourn with her family. Ms. Ivins had more intelligence and integrity in her little finger than most politicians have in their entire body. She will be greatly missed.
Ride the wind…you deserve it. We love you. Susan Longley
Damn! Damn! Damn! Damn! For Molly. For her family and friends. For this country. For the world. And for me.
She was an idol to a young reporter and became a heroine with GPS-like insight and voice to an adult struggling to make sense of an increasingly crazy, walleyed-fit of a world. A friend on a cruise in the Carribean just sent me this text message:” #$%@! There’s a big hole in my brain where Molly’s mouth used to be!” Amen!
Please remember what she wrote when she was first diagnosed with cancer: “I don’t need get-well cards, but I would like the beloved women readers to do something for me: Go. Get. The. Damn. Mammogram. Done.”
AND, what she recently wrote about Shurb and the Iraq surge: “Raise hell. Think of something to make the ridiculous look ridiculous. Make our troops know we’re for them and are trying to get them out of there. Hit the streets to protest Bush’s proposed surge.” And regarding the protest march in D.C.: “We need people in the streets, banging pots and pans and demanding, “Stop it, now!’ ”
Let’s bang some pots and pans for Molly!!!
Kim Palmer Young
About 25 years ago, I came to Austin from Philadelphia to teach at the LBJ School. I met Molly a couple of months later at a neighbor’s party for Erwin Knoll of The Progressive magazine. The guests included all THE GOOD FOLKS–Jim Hightower, Johnny Faulk, a bunch of The Observer Crowd, and other Texas progressives. “This is too good to be true,” I thought. Molly kept me real: “This is about it for Texas progressives, the rest are in hiding.” Over the next few years, I got to know Molly–sometimes eating bad chili, drinking warm beer, and sharing sane ideas about politics and life. She wowed my LBJ students at lunchtime talks that she gave. She was over to our house for dinner one night with two wonderfully funny Texas ex-debs and they had a riotous conversation (lasting until about 1 AM) about debutante balls that they had gone to as teenagers. Yes, dear friends, Ivins was some sort of a deb, although the details of her teenage social life are now lost in my cluttered mind.
I kept in touch with Ivins after I moved back east, last seeing her for dinner a few months ago. I am having trouble coming to terms with her passing, but know that we all have to rally around the ideas that she believed in and the progressive causes that she championed. There will never be another Ivins and the world is considerably smaller today.
Norman Glickman
Rutgers University
Thank you for all you did, Molly. You are missed!
The reprobates and the scalawags, the bullies and the goons might be celebrating - I bet Shrub and Cheney high-five - but the plain-speaking folks have lost an important advocate. We’ll miss you, Molly!
Mom, my heart is broken.
Mom, you will always be in our hearts.
She must be looking down now, laughing at whatever the politicians are doing today. Probably keeping all the angels in stitches with her comments, too.
I won’t have a moment of silence for Molly, but I will go out in the road and bang a pot or two in her memory.
Damn, but I’ll miss you, lady.
(I haven’t cried this much since I had to put my beloved blue heeler to sleep.)
When I was in journalism school, Molly’s books of columns were my inspiration. I wanted to be like her, as funny as her and as smart as her. She was my inspiration.
Molly Ivins will be remembered for the national treasure she was and is. Thank you Molly, you’ve told the truth and have done so with good grace and humor. Texas is famous for the phrase, “remember the Alamo”, perhaps that will change now. It will be, “remember Molly Ivins!”
Molly was the sane voice of reason in an age of insanity. On a five-hour drive from Knoxville to Roanoke, I listened to her voice reading “You gotta dance with them what brung ya” and laughed all the way. I searched alternet.org for her voice. She was the only one that made sense to me in this crazy world of Bushes and power. We’ve had a rough day in Knoxville, TN, where the white men in power rolled over any public forum to continue their power and Molly was needed to comment on it. I just survived breast cancer this year and I am beyond sad to lose another friend. This world has lost a thundering voice and we are all the poorer for it. I am sad but hopeful that some how her work will continue. Please let the young people understand and know what it means to do this work.
Thank you, Molly Ivins, for this:
I think we owe Howard Dean more than a, “Gee thanks for participating in our noble political system.” Personally, I’d like to say, “Gee, thanks for helping keep democracy alive when it looked fairly dicey.”
Molly Ivins
Creators Syndicate
February 19, 2004
It meant a lot that you stood with Dean when so many people did not; it meant much more that you understood that Dean did far more than just run for President.
You’ll never know how much it meant.
Rest in peace, Molly.
I heard the news about an hour ago on News 8 Austin. Molly Ivins is dead. I had forgotten that she was even ill until recent reports had remind me of her long battle with cancer. I, like so many others, have enjoyed her work over the years. I especially liked watching her on C-SPAN. It was something about her delivery, whether in written or oral form, that always caused me to smile.
I first met her in between my working on the Dan Morales senate campaign and my own run for city council. To say that I was nervous to meet her would be a great understatement. My friends and family know me as someone who is not public wallflower. But in her presence at that bar-b-que I was truly at a lost for words. I guess I was confused by all of the things that I wanted to say but couldn’t. I liken that experience as a cross between meeting an alien and trying to ask the pretty girl in high school out on a date. I don’t remember much about that meeting except to say that she was very kind to me.
Garrison Keillor once wrote that an appropriate comment from a fan should include a nod, a smile and the words, “I like your stuff,” and then move on. No gushing and no intruding on the celebrity’s life.
Goodbye Ms. Ivins….I liked your stuff.
Gratias Tibi Ago Deus
Wonko’s Bud
You are loved, old girl.
I envy all you people in Texas. No, really, I do. You got to know Molly for many years, while I only discovered her when I read “Shrub” for the first time in 2000.It’s funny — words were Molly’s stock in trade, and are supposedly mine as well, and yet at this moment words don’t seem adequate. We all know Molly was insightful, and incisive, and vibrant, and caring; that she was able to carve right to the core of an issue in just a few strokes of her pen, and still do it with a twinkle in her eye; that she was often angry, but never hateful. But we could go on and on, saying more and more, and it wouldn’t be enough. The force of Molly’s life was greater, even, than all her words.So, instead of longer and longer collections of words, here are three short sentences to say how I feel:
But … I wasn’t done reading.I miss you already.Thank you for the light.Bruce Maples, Louisville, KY
It’s a sad, sad day when such a beacon of truth and irreverence grows dim and silent. Thank you so much for your perspective. Molly, wherever you are, rage on!!!
Thanks, Molly, and we’re gonna miss you more than we can say. America has lost one of the good ones today.
I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, and never mind the tear in my heart, but frankly, I’m just not quite ready for a world without Molly Ivins. I’m just not.
I live in San Diego, a city wholly at peace with its corruption. Republican country. When I noticed corruption at the state court level I wrote and called my federal representative, Randy “Duke” Cunningham; who did not return my calls or answer my letters.
Perhaps he was too busy counting his bribe money.
So I read Molly, who had the moral compass missing in modern reporters just doing a rote job. Journalist not fighting to cover stories about social justice and their editors who couldn’t possibly care less, either. Molly’s column provided a standard few really aspire to reach. Then tonight, as I was writing this, CBS’s Katie Couric devoted all of twenty or thirty words to Molly’s passing. Oh Katie; is it really too late for you to learn, too?
So I’d like to think of the number of people Molly inspired. She inspired me to create a website that shows how the police profit from domestic violence. (FamilyLawCourts.com/domestic.thml). I’m not nearly as funny but my Facts are spot on.
Molly believed if you just kept writing the truth; it would eventually leak out. So every time I see a blogger breaking a news story, or a website, I like to think Molly’s courage to write right, inspired them.
That she was Hilarious was just such a bonus.
So I’m not quite ready for a world without Molly. And I’m a little annoyed she’s been called home.
Molly Ivins’ columns were the highlight of the Honolulu Star Bulletin. I looked forward to Tuesdays edition. Originally from the midwest, I appreciated her straight speaking. Aloha, Molly.
I work at the Fox affiliate in Kansas City. Every Saturday morning after the news I took a break to read Molly’s column in the KC Star. After each reading if anything I had a good chuckle, more often I felt a sense of refief knowing that I wasn’t the only one, and Molly said it so much better than I could have ever done.
What am I going to do on my Saturday morning?
I was just reading the Progressive magazine today which I have been getting for a few years always saving Molly’s column for last. I recently introduced my 15 year old son to her ideas and opinions and when I told him she died his response was :”dang she was good” I feel as if I have lost a true and honest friend. This gives me more incentive to “raise hell” and continue my quest to protest against Bush and this devastating war….thanks Molly for the laughs and your wit over the years….I will miss you
About fifteen years or so ago when I was in graduate school in Tennessee, Molly came to speak at Vanderbilt, a place we grad students called the “plantation.” I stood in line so I could be one of the first ones in the door and stake out a good seat. After several years in Nashville, I was desperate to hear Molly and her tales of the misadventures of the Texas lege, and she didn’t disappoint. The room was full of displaced liberal Texans who knew that no one could make up these stories. Although the Tennesseans were laughing, we expat Texans were laughing the hardest of all. Several times during the evening I had to wipe away tears as I explained some joke or another to my friends. The tears of laughter were so much easier to bear than the tears of frustration and sorrow. I like Bill Moyers’ picture of Molly being welcomed home by so many great journalists, but I think I like the picture of Molly and Anne Richards and Barbara Jordan being reunited up in heaven and figuring out just what sort of trouble they can cause up there. I hope we can somehow manage to make them proud.
Damn. I don’t normally swear in public, but I’m going to really miss her writing and her humor. She tried, so hard, to get people to see the truth, and if more had actually read her book about Bush (and her columns about corporate America, although theirs is an entirely different America), we wouldn’t be in the mess we are today. Most of all, I’ll miss her humor. And her compassion, toward whomever was down, no matter how they lived. I’m voting for Bill Moyers, because we need some wisdom and decency.
When Molly Ivins came to St. Paul several years ago to talk to a bunch of political women, I went, of course, delighted actually to see and hear, and not just read her. When I had stood in line for a long time, I got to the front and, probably much too seriously for her, said that she was, to my mind, the moral force of America today. I vaguely remember that she laughed, probably seeing in me another of those humorless midwestern feminists. But I meant it. I am terribly sad that she is gone. I hoped she would long outlive Shrub.
Damn.
As a native Texan,now living in California,I can say that I believe that Molly was among my home stae’s best exports to the larger world. Damn,am I going to miss her!A great light has gone out! Rest well,Molly!
As a fellow Texan who has now been in California for 14 years, I was fortunate to hear Molly speak for the first time ever at a bookstore in San Francisco in late 2005. I am so grateful I went that day. What an amazing intellect, charm, wit and class… she will be sorely missed. Ah oh that prose… it’s was like melted butter on a cold winter mornin… Thanks for the Memories Molly - we’ll keep fighting the good fight for you!
Enough is Enough. You Go GIRL!
Trey
My late, great mother-in-law who was born and raised in Mexia, Texas, turned me on to Molly many years ago. They were two peas ion a pod, my mother-in-law and Molly. Tough, smart, funny Texas Democrats/liberals. I loved them both. Still do.
Molly, please enjoy a few laughs with Mary D. She’ll be glad to see you.
My late, great mother-in-law who was born and raised in Mexia, Texas, turned me on to Molly many years ago. They were two peas in a pod, my mother-in-law and Molly. Tough, smart, funny Texas Democrats/liberals. I loved them both. Still do.
Molly, please enjoy a few laughs with Mary D. She’ll be glad to see you.
W. H. Auden, when writing about the death of Yeats, said that “He became his admirers.” If that’s so, we’re all gonna have a lot of work to do when it comes to balancing anger and that cool cup of water that wit and humour provide. Thanks, Molly.
Crushingly sad for all of us who gleefully followed her writing, her wisdom,over the years. The world still needs Molly!
Molly, I cannot begin to describe how much of an inspiration you have been to me. You have been one of my heroes for a very long time. Your words kept me and a lot of other people going when we really wanted to just give up on the whole political system. My heart is heavy knowing you are no longer here with us, and while I’m sure there is a better place and you are there and all… well, dammit, I want you here! You are gone just way too soon. Rest in peace, Molly, knowing you made a difference to so many.
I had learned a few days ago that columnist Molly Ivins was hospitalized in a battle with cancer. Unfortunately, the news tonight is that she has lost that battle.
As an op-ed columnist myself, I’ve been influenced by many: Maureen Dowd, Bob Herbert, Mark Morford. But most of all, I’ve been challenged and inspired by the work of Molly Ivins. I learned so much from each of her columns, always knowing that, no matter how much I grew as a writer, I could never come close to Molly’s wit, insight, and style. No one could.
In a column last August, right-wing pundit Ann Coulter offered the following Q&A:
—–
Q: How would your career be different if you looked like Molly Ivins?
A: I’d be a lot uglier.
—–
No, Ann. Molly was a far more beautiful person in every way that matters.
Rest in peace, Molly. You will be missed.
I was a young man in my 20’s who was not even aware of politics when I read her book “Molly Ivins Can’t Say That, Can She?”.
I remember the book, but most of all I remember the chapter about the loss of her lover in the Vietnam war. It has been nearly 15 years since I read that book and I still think about that chapter from time to time.
Met her once at a bookstore appearance in Santa Monica.
The lady had (and still has) more class, heart, and compassion in a fingernail clipping than all the pundits who pollute our airwaves and ope-ed pieces will ever have in their collective bodies.
A true American icon, who leaves a tremendous void when we needed her the most.
This country has lost a great person. I have often read the columns of Molly Ivins and thought to myself “that is exactly what I would say if I were the least bit eloquent”. She had a great ability for commentary. It is a very sad day.
I shall forever miss the wisdom and wit of Molly Ivins.
I adored you Molly; your sublime sense of humor made the nightmare of shrub’s tenure bearable (barely). What a sadder world it is w/o you. My condolences to your family. I will fight on in your honor.
As a native of Northern California who grew up during the civil rights movement, I was transplanted to Houston in the 1980’s where I first heard Molly Ivins. She gave me hope for Texas and Texans - along with things like the Texas Observer, Jim Hightower and hot sauce. I’ve counted on her humor to keep me sane ever since. I think it would be fitting to design a particular national act of “Raising Hell” in her name, and organize around having millions of supporters take the action as a fitting national memorial.
If anyone or any organization (Moving On or Truthout or ???) can design a particularly outrageous act of Hell-Raising in her name, I’ll be right there. Let us know - in the meantime, my calls to my senators Thursday 2/1 in the “virtual march on Washington” will be my first act - Go Molly - may we never forget you - and may we keep on keepin’ on …
Thank you Molly - from the bottom of my heart. Go in peace dear lady…
RIP, Molly.
In your honor, I will get a mammogram every year, and I will contribute for mammograms for women who cannot afford them.
And in your honor, I will Raise More Hell.
So I was there a few years ago when Molly, banished from speaking on campus at Texas A&M (and one of her two proudest accomplishments she later said) gave her talk off campus to a huge gathering at the Unitarian Fellowship. It was Molly at her usual best–sharp, witty, wry. And in the Q an A later, asked about a Bryan politician, Molly told one of the most off-color stories that I, Army vet and former football player–in short experienced in the testosterone-laced world–have ever heard in mixed or unmixed company, certainly the saltiest one I’ve ever hear in a church. When she finished, there was a short pause, as if everyone wasn’t sure that she had just said what she did, then polite, and then loud laughter. A grey-haired lady behind shook her head, saying, “That Molly,” to which I now in laughter and sadness also say, “Oh, that Molly.”
I discovered Molly really late in the game–a few years ago–but from then on, I constantly checked her site for her next article and got antsy when they didn’t come quickly enough. Completely addicted.
I know enough to know how much work and effort goes into discovering what is really going on. She did that. And she told her stories brilliantly so the point hit you solidly, memorably. With so much passion and integrity.
And with that incredible wit. The LOL factor was in pretty much every column. I read a ton of columnists; the vast majority of them are extremely good. She was special.
I only read a few hundred of her articles and I never even saw her on TV, but I’ll genuinely miss her. I can only imagine how much she’ll be missed by family and friends and those who were lucky enough to work with her.
Thank you, dear Molly, for your eloquence, wisdom and wit. You helped bring hope and levity to me and a lot of other folks, especially during the darkness of the past six years. You’ll be greatly missed. In fact, you already are.
God Bless, Molly—we’ll miss you terribly. I always looked forward to your columns, which were a rational note in a world gone crazy. Your pointed humour, your razor wit, and your deceptively simple turn of phrase all served to dish up a much needed helping of Truth to the purveyors of political pandering. You never failed to satisfy the reader, and we’ll be hard pressed to come up with a substitute. May you be welcomed in that Press-Room-In-The-Sky, and may we keep up the good work in your absence.
Molly, I think one reason it hits so hard losing you, is that you put out there what being a Texan feels like to me — smart, funny, funny-talkin’ sometimes, irreverent, eccentric, liberal as hell. You lived big, and you were loved big. You were indeed the people’s friend and the tyrant’s foe. Damn, I’m sorry to see you go.
We became big fans of Molly’s when we lived in Austin. Always read her column, so sharp and liberal and a great sense of humor. We’ll miss her.
Molly was a great Texan,a wonderful down to earth lady and best political wit since Will Rodgers. I was lucky enought to meet her at the 94 Dem Convention at Ft Worth. I was a delegate from Cooke county. She was in the press room with Jim Mattox, I walked up to the door and she invited me to sit with them. I’m sure she could tell I was awestruck. She was so kind,she autographed my delegates badge “Raise more hell and keep laughing too” Molly was a rare and beauatiful person.
I am almost 60 years old. I don’t care much for most of the journalist of this new century. They all speak in a language that seems foreign and condecending to me. Molly Ivins spoke and wrote words that any nation, any culture, any age and any one with ears to hear, eyes to see and a heart to feel could clearly and unmistakably understand and learn. Saying “You will be missed” just does not fit the bill.
I cried tonight.
She will be dearly missed.
Molly Ivins was an inspiration to me. She had a great wit about her and always said what I wanted to hear. She will be missed by many.
Her family must be very proud of her and all she did to keep all of us informed. My sincerest sympathy to all of her dear family.
Now cracks a noble heart.
Damn. What a tremendous loss. But she was a tremendous gift, as well.
Baxter, the moon rose tonight over the Sierras…just as you said it did last night in Texas…
Your banter on numerous nights thru the years brought hours of merriment and laughter to us and infuriated others…God we will miss you, and the ache in our hearts will be slow to mend…
Your messages today and throughout the years will be carried for the rest of my life…
“Life is too serious to be taken seriously”…Molly Ivins by way of Oscar Wilde
Bang the drum slowly. Play the fife lowly. A friend, a true friend, has fallen.
Thank you for the writings and the thoughts that you gave to all of us. I am going to miss you a lot. Rest in Peace…
I feel I have lost a friend and kindred soul. I was content you were in my life through your fearless, extremely funny, sarcastic and truthful writing.
My love to you Molly Ivins. You were an important part of my America.
I am deeply saddened by this loss of my favorite journalist and the clearest and brightest voice to speak for sanity and common sense.
Liselotte Kragh
God, I’m going to miss you. Ever since I first read your words, I would search for your column to see what your take was on the latest stupidity of this administration. Many times, I would start reading in high dudgeon and end laughing, as you always seemed to have a perspective on even the worst of events. You kept us sane while keeping us involved. You’re in my heart forever.
I just want to say—and I believe Rhett Butler said it about Scarlet—What A Woman!! Molly Ivins was a patriot, a scholar, a warm, giving progressive human being. I was privileged to get to see her slice and dice William Kristol at the Arlene Schnitzer Hall in Portland, OR a few years back and bought one of her books there (autographed) to add to my collection. She was one of a kind and the world will be the worse without her wit, humor and love. Molly, we love you and always will. You left too soon.
A loyal reader,
Gloria J. Roberts
Portland, OR
Shrub. Only Molly gave the Nicknamer-in-Chief his own handle, one that highlighted his inadequacy perfectly and without rancor. She was the funniest, smartest political columnist I have ever read.
Here I sit, on a cold winter night in Boston, 18 years since I left Texas. I was there for well over a decade, one of those ‘gradual’ student stays in Austin that went on too long and still hasn’t quite ended. My friend Kevin just returned home to break the news that Molly Ivins had passed. That is the kind of news I am hearing more and more about people my age (and Molly is only two years older than I). But I feel this loss of a woman I never laid eyes on personally, and as the minutes go by and I take it in, I feel it viscerally.
How can I go on in this shrubby American forest without her?! She never failed to make me feel greater confidence in my own gut feelings about what was true. Never! I got so much comfort from her ability to keep a hold of that by picking away at the pretensions, foolishness, and outsize madness of those who strutted and stumbled across the stages of power. The minute my Observor arrived, I looked for a good place to get horizontal, checked the index for Molly’s column, and lept into her arms. Damn! I loved reading her! I admired her clear headedness. It’s been hard to see straight these past six years, and I just needed her. I am not kidding. This is a very sad day in this world and a little scary.
It makes me realize that Molly Ivins carried herself into my home and my life as though she were a tv star. I feel that intimate with her from just reading her commentary. I remember when she left for New York, with possibilites to be a big star, then came back to Texas(she remained a star). I remember when she took a job as a columnist with Ms Magazine, much to the amazement of her own not-able-to-tow-any-line self. I still tell her joke from that first Ms column,about the Texas legislator who she gave credit for being a friend to women in the law. Still, she affectionately repeated his joke about how he’d hired a buxom secretary that couldn’t type because a secretary could learn to type, but she couldn’t learn to grow tits! Why on earth do I remember that joke? I can’t remember the names of people I met five minutes after I meet them. That must have been twenty years ago.
God, Molly. That is something. You just knock me out. Is it going to sound just too sappy for me to say I love you! I miss you and I always will. That’s the truth.
Anything I say will be ridiculous. Love you, Molly. Miss you already.
As I read the notice of Molly’s passing, tears streamed down my face. I never met or even corresponded with her, but I feel as if she was a large part of my life and have surprised myself at how much I mourn her passing. Born in Waco and raised in Houston, my parents taught me to think about the world around me (with both scrutiny and laughter), and part of that included introducing me to this incredible lady.
Thanks Molly, for sustaining me with humor, wit and good cheer when I most needed it. It brightened my day to see your column. I wish I could have met you. TMJ
Another voice for truth has passed - we have a wonderful country, diverse in every way - let us take it back, NOW, for Molly… Love you my dear lady…
What a terrible loss and great challenge for all of us to pick up the sword of speaking truth to power with humor. Thank God we have her writings for guidance.
Rest in peace sweet fiesty Molly!
Molly Ivens…a grand lady. I am not a Texan, but I read her column and I agreed with her about all things political…and I share her complete disdain for Shrub. That name for George W. Bush discribed him well, tho I doubt if pleased is father overly much. I admired your wit and your wry sense of humor. Truly a great lady and I shall miss her..even if I never met her in person. Happy Hunting, Molly !
Oh, Molly, how the nation will miss your voice.
a great loss
when are they going to find a cure!!!!
Molly was my hero! God love her! I sure did! She and Ann Richards must be having a ball now ! Alice, a long-time fan in Washington State
I just learned that she had left us. Sitting up here in Pennsylvania I had no idea that she was sick. Every few days over the last few months I would look for her column and be dissapointed when it was not there. She was the queen of the hell raisers and an artist of the written word. I miss her already.
I will be sending a check to the Texas Observer in her memory and for all the free columns I had the pleasure of reading online over the last few years……..Thank you, Molly
How can someone you’ve never met seem like such an old friend? The loss cannot be measured. There is no one like her to speak the blunt truth with such humor and power.
Good on ya, Molly. You’ll be deeply missed.
I am a screaming liberal because of Molly. She never knew me but she was a mentor to me. I live currently in SC and upset people all the time with my liberal leaning. Thanks Molly for making me that way.
I had a conservative person I know tell me that I must be the most liberal person in the world. I thanked him for the compliment but told him — “You don’t know Molly Ivins.”
I also would like to thank the others that have posted so I could have a really good cry.
She will be missed but it means that those of us that love her must fight a little harder for what we believe. Molly would have wanted that.
What a gal! I know it’s not PC to use that term, and I probably wouldn’t use it for any other woman but Molly was always bigger than life and would probably appreciate it. I’m glad she was around for Texas government. I’m glad she was around for the Shrub cabal. I’m glad she was still here for the turning of the tide in Washington. And, though I never met her, I’m glad she was here for me. What a gal!
Cheers, Gil
As a Liberal, I felt the security and warmth of Linus’s Blanket whenever Ms. Ivins rose to question irrational, inhumane conservative views, expressions and actions. An amazing woman and leader, she will be greatly missed. erm
Who will speak for us now? Certainly no one with such grace and humor.
Whether you agree with the opinions that she expressed or not, it seems to me that we have all lost something when a talented writer like Molly Ivans, someone who can be extraordinarily expressive, passes from the scene. She expanded our minds and certainly expanded our language.
When we see the tortured grammar that passes for journalism in so many of our newspapers, people like Molly Ivans qualify as literary greats. We still have people like William F. Buckley, Jr., George Will, Paul Krugman, Dave Barry, Thomas Freedman, Trudy Rubin, Ellen Goodman and many others come to mind. Let us treasure each of them, even as we mourn the loss of Molly Ivins.
Words cannot express the feelings I have. “Sad” and “despondent” seem like such weak words. Yes, Molly, we will miss you terribly, your spot-on analysis, the way you say exactly what we felt, the things you saw that we saw, but which you wrote about in a style and clarity that we could only dream about. No writer I’ve read in my half-century has even come close. After reading these comments about you from all over the U.S., I see there are many like me who found inspriration/humor/hope in your writings. THAT is what I will miss. I hope one of your many legacies is that you have inspired budding journalists/writers (ncluding my daughter-student in Austin) to pick up the torch you carried and fight for truth and common sense. Thank you for all you’ve done in making our days a little brighter and hopeful by writing your columns and books.
As a Fort Worth native, I had the pleasure of reading Molly’s columns in the Startlegram. Hers was the only column that made sense in the rows of conservative commentary that flooded the paper. Now, I am saddened and heartbroken that Molly is no longer with us. May her words, wisdom and wit live on. And in her fighting spirit, let us continue to raise hell for the Shrub and his wits-lackin’ minions.
We love you Molly.
Oh yeah, and thank you, for everything.
Angelo Pena
Proud Liberal
p.s. Give Ann Richards a big hug from Fort Worth!
Molly we’ll miss you and we’ll keep raising hell. I hope you and Ann Richards will haunt the Whitehouse and scare ‘em out of office. Thank you for keeping us informed and helping us keep a sense of humor.
Love you.
What an abundant and engaging spirit Molly was (and stll is.) She was funny, effective, accurate and so very good at keeping me hopeful. So many, many of her columns just made me shout “Damn right, Molly!” It is a measure of the Shrub’s smallness as a leader that he likely does not possess the ability to see the greatness of her American character. I will very much miss her words.
She leaves millions of adoring grieving fans behind.
I first met Molly when I was a youthful journalist in the 1970s and was impressed at how she was just as witty and sharp in person as she was in print. There was nobody else like her! Later as a father of two daughters and as a teacher of students looking for inspirational voices, I would suggest they read some of Molly’s work, and thus her voice echoed out to new generations of readers. She never gave up, and those of us whose life and work was touched by her will always remember her style, her voice, and her laughter.
I have the honor of having but one of her books (You Cant Say That..is that the right title? my apologies). Having heard/read her commentary on Texas politics (of course like anyplace else on earth) I’d always wished that we in Tennessee had had someone as as insightful, irreverant and just damned funny as she was (lord knows we could have used it) otherwise there would have been alot less weakened Jack Daniels!
For me, the passing of Ann Richards and now Molly Ivins……I’m profoundly sad at their passing, but immensely grateful to be part of a nation that has given the world such amazing and wonderful people.
Our country has lost a beautiful, brilliant, and gutsy voice that spoke for so many of us.
My heart grieves your absence, Molly. May your spirit soar and lift all of us to a place of hope — to the high ground where our country can find its way to reclaiming its values and principles upon which it was founded. Keep talkin’ to us, Molly, and we’ll keep listenin’. — Ruth Marcus, PhD (in Sequim, WA)
Heaven can only be more honest, and certainly a more laugh-filled and thinking place, with her presence.
You GO Girl!! Have a blast and tell Jeannie that I love her, as if she dosen’t know. I know also that she’s waiting for you and has been for a while now. The same breast cancer that claimed you both has left me here almost twenty years to miss her. And now you too. But save me a place at that big beautiful table. My guess is that she’s got a brisket on for you, and a pot of good coffee.
The love goes on,
Ann
I teach in a religious school. I teach my students not to mourn the passing, but to rejoice what the life of the one who passed gave us. I’m old enough to have lost both my parents and my spouse and to have followed that precept with some degree of success.
But, dammit, I’m going to miss searching for Molly’s next column.
Goodbye beautiful funny smart compassionate patriotic Molly. You will be sorely missed by the millions of your fellow citizens who came to love you and your indominitable spirit and wry humor.
Thank you for sharing your life with us.
Godspeed.
Molly, I’m sorry — really sorry — that you’re gone. But I’m glad you were here.
Dear Molly…
In the past four years, you have given my family hope. Courage. The fortitude to make it through another day of depressing news about the Bush Administration and it’s wrong-headed, ill-conceived response to 9-11 and their subsequent “war on terror,” a war, that if anything, has made this world a far more dangerous place in which to live. You called it as it was and that is an event we will sorely miss. We were deeply saddened tonight to hear of your passing. We can only hope that, from whatever newsroom you post your comments from tonite, that you keep on calling a spade a spade, (or a Bush a shrub). God bless you, and your willingness to speak truth to power, as that power has shredded the very notion of what Democracy means. We can only hope that American journalists look to your passing as the watershed event they need to do their job, to truly be the Fourth Estate, and to question authority. That would be the most fitting memorial to your legacy.
You will be sorely missed, and we will hold you in our thoughts and memories for a long time to come.
You go girl…
Theresa Trebon, Howie Fox and Family
Washington State
I was fortunate to hear Molly speak on two different occasions. It was so refreshing to hear a rational voice come out of Texas. I have read her columns and books faithfully. However, the writing that made the greatest impression on me was the one she wrote after hurrican Katrina devastated New Orleans. She was so angry that the American people had put the Bush administration back in power when she had warned us that he and his cronies were so incompetent. I am devastated that she is gone.
Molly brightened many of my days over the years. I will miss her.
Texas will always be the “biggest state”, and people like Molly are the reason. She told it like it was and she will be missed. Molly always reminded me of what I was told as a young immigrant kid, recently arrived from Switzerland: “Son, always marry a Texas girl . . . No matter what happens, she’s seen worse!”
Rest in peace, Molly.
-Pete
I wish I had known the January 26th call to action would be Molly’s last column. She went out with a bang, and every word was the absolute truth. I hope Americans will heed her words and make her proud.
I will dearly miss seeing her smiling face when I read the newspaper. I’ve read her work for many years, and always enjoyed the way she spoke her piece with humor, and without fear. Rest in peace, Molly. You were a real treasure in today’s superficial, troubled world.
Teresa Merau
Odessa, MO
Molly came to Maine several years back to give one of her fund-and-hell-raising speeches for the Maine Civil Liberties Union. I picked her up at Portland Airport and listened to her irreverent stories and wit all the way up to Camden. At dinner with seven or eight local civil libertarians I heard her tell many of the same jokes and stories. And then she told them all again throughout her sardonic, but somehow curiously stirring speech. She must have done this same kind of three-act play countless times in countless places, always in support of the same shared causes which I suspect hurt her to have to fight for over and over. I don’t know whether she grew tired of it all; she must have, like any good actress on tour. But the charm, the magic of it all was how she always sounded fresh and natural, her downhome wit and drawl uncompromised by her education, her intelligence, and her forbearance. Sixty-two was much too young to lose her. She would only have grown sharper with age, like a good jalapeno cheddar: hard, dry, delightfully complex and oh so delicious. Thanks for coming, Molly. We’re sorry you had to leave so soon.
Oh Molly, how will I go on without your political astuteness dressed as humor delivered to my door. Your shining light kept my Texas heart from withering during these gray days of Oregon. These folks don’t know what ‘liberal’ really means, bless their hearts.
You could dish it out and take it too; understood that it was necessary to stand facing the wind, walking into it rather than being pushing along by it. I’ve lost two other warrior women in the last week and I hope By God that all of you will rally together and hear us when we pray. God help us all! and keep your Spirit shining like dew drops after a summer shower. Give my grandma a hug - you’ll find you’re two peas in the same pod. I’ll see you again in the sweet bye and bye.
I feel like I just lost a best friend.
When I heard on NPR this afternoon that Molly Ivans had died, I let out an involuntary ooofff and felt a pang of loss in my chest. Noone else is so spot on about George W. Bush as Ms. Ivans was. Something about her being so much ‘of’ the state that W. pretended to be from, I guess. I will greatly miss her take on the world. So few like her. Hang in there, Garrison Keillor.
Keep swingin’, Jim Hightower. May her spirit inhabit more journalists in this great land.
Ms. Ivins has been a bright ray of sunshine in our otherwise dismal political landscape for me over these “bush” years. I will miss her articulate, witty and spot-on commentary. My condolences to her family and friends.
A real patriot! ‘nuf said.
I bet Molly and Ann are somewhere whoopin’ it up and makin’ fun of us poor suckers left here tryin’ to keep the “shrub” trimmed back! I never met her and yet I feel as if I have lost a close friend. Texas will miss you Molly!
Rest in Peace!
Missin’ Molly these months, now I know why. Sad, sad, but I bet she caught and shared the upswing since November. I’m reading I.F.Stone’s biog, remembering the Weekly, and thinking Molly’s right there with Izzy. Fondly…
Milt Krieger, Bellingham WA
The Amazing thing about America is that the same country that can produce a schmuck like the Shrub can produce a gem like Ms Ivins. I’m sad that she will no longer grace us with her insight, but I’m glad she is no longer suffering. My best wishes of peace and condolences to all who knew her and loved her.
Molly, you were the friend I felt, but never knew. You came through ink and pixels and gave me respite from the madness of this time. A few seconds ago I heard you were pulled down the way. You may not want people fussing over you. But just for a moment I’m going to keep sobbing, if its ok. I miss you like a lost secret, already. You were wonderful. Christ, I’m more weepy now that when my childhood cat died. Although, he was always crapping in my house. So, you had a head start for my admiration. Back to sadness. I’ll miss you, Molly.
Look at all the comments pouring into this site! I hope that’s making Molly laugh out loud. And what a laugh it was, what a voice. With Molly gone all of our little voices will have to get a whole lot louder. The torch is passed and all that, so come on peeps, let’s step it up a notch to make sure that Shrub and the Vice are held accountable for their crimes. As we say up here in Wellstone land, “Stand up, keep fighting.” Let’s do it with humor; let’s do it for Molly.
My hero has died. And I miss her. Molly whose eloquence with words and straight barbed truth won my heart and mind. It is an honor to know her, although we never met. Molly offered warmth, intelligence, and wicked-good humor that I will always cherish. I thank you, Molly.
When I first moved to Austin in the fall of 2004, I was excited to go to an event at BookPeople featuring Molly. She was bigger in life than her words revealed. Her laugh, the honesty of her intellect and her spirit, and her intolerance for BS were an inspiration to us all. I suspect she’d want us to put our energy into being mad instead of sad, but there’s time for that. Right now, it’s a time for sadness.
To paraphrase one of the 18th-century courtiers in a German church, in awe after a famed organist transformed a “plain” musical theme into “a thousand cascades of melody”, “My God, there is one great Molly (Bach)!!!” Molly, you made my sides hurt from laughing so much, so I’m sorry, but yes, I will, and have, shed several tears in these last 20 minutes. There must be some way you can arrange to keep those golden phrases and columns coming, after all, you’ve kept Texas liberalism from becoming a pure oxymoron. I read Shrub’s “eulogy” to you, and any other reader of it can only wince at the irony in the words he spoke. It’s a sad day. A very, very sad day. You left us too early, my friend, and you will be sorely missed….
I had the pleasure of seeing Ms Ivins speak in San Francisco over a decade ago and found her as forthright and friendly as her writing. Nor will I forget the dignity she granted even her “political enemies” like Shrub and the kindness she showed toward Paula Jones. This was a woman who could shame both the left and right for their hypocrisy and willingness to demonize non-adherents. I suspect that out of all the gifts she gave us — besides the need to laugh — it’s the one lesson she would want us to carry in our hearts. Best wishes on the step in the journey, Molly.
I met Ms. Ivins at a book reading in 2003. She filled the rooms and they pumped the volume into the overflow rooms on tv and loudspeaker, but I was able to sit in a side nook on the carpeted bookstore floor. I was looking at rows of books, but could see the tv screen above me, where she was cracking jokes about Texas skunk politicians, and telling tall tales on the drunks and crooks who ran around in her side of the world. The rooms were full of smiling people, as we grieved in her rambunctious laughter at what the GOP had done, along with the consenting Democrats, to our nation.
Like a female Mark Twain, she was all wit and whistle. What a treasure. I witnessed an American great.
I gave her a copy of my book, because I wanted to connect with her, to be close to the heroine of smart remarks and sassy tales. I wanted to be like her, and make outrageous remarks about the men and women of politics and cause trouble, in the best sense of the word.
She was fearless, and no doubt inspired many an Arianna to be more outspoken and ignore the criticism of the mortals who were out to plunder and resented her unmasking.
The word Gadfly struck me as a signin name just now, but really, she was the Gadfly queen bee, and to take on that name on the day the great lady passed seemed ridiculous.
May she be as much trouble in heaven as she was on earth, for it will be a better place after she unmasks the phonies that got into heaven on poor and false credentials.
Good golly Miss Molly
She sure could write
Good golly Miss Molly
Her words shined bright
No doubt she’s turning in a column
Up in Heaven tonight.
I had the great fortune and honor of meeting Ms. Ivin’s at the DFA convention in Austin in 2005. She was backstage having a Shiner and laughing it up with that laugh that can only be Molly’s. I was nervous and asked her if I could have the honor of taking a photo with her, she of course obliged and gave my friend some advice she told him when you get your picture taken “ALWAYS show teeth!” She hung out with us and talked for a while. I have to say I was so honored that she took the time to talk to some Democrats from South Texas. Everyone I know who has ever meet her says that she had that way about her, making you feel like you were old friends cracking jokes and just making you bust a gut. We will miss you Molly. Godspeed.
Good golly Miss Molly
She sure could write
Good golly Miss Molly
Her words shined bright
No doubt she’s turning in a column
Up in Heaven tonight.
So long as there are scoundrels in the state house, the Congress or the White House,
So long as the poor are left succorless,
So long as inequity lounges in board rooms,
So long as power is abused and trust is betrayed,
So long will Molly Ivins’ spirit two-step across the land,
And laughter and hope will spring up as she passes.
Good work, Molly. Rest easy. We’ll take it from here.
As a great fan of her columns I am saddened that there will be no more. We have lost a great light.
I dreaded hearing this news. Rather than thinking of the unfillable hole Molly’s passing leaves I am going to focus the great space opened in our forest canopy that others can aspire to grow into. I look forward to finding her spirit all around.
I don’t usually cry at the passing of public figures, but I could not stop the tears. Molly’s was the voice of life itself and a sense of justice that was so down home it could be your wise grandmother talking, yet so profound, it could humble the mighty. Her absense will leave a hole in journalism that will be deeply felt.
Current and future writers and journalists should look to Molly Ivins for what is best about reporting and political commentary. She was not afraid to go after her beliefs and ideas. However, she was also able to do it in a way that made people take notice and consider what she was saying. She enjoyed her job and never stopped. So Long Molly!
Molly Ivins will be missed. Her mix of astute political insight and humor made the truthes she handed out somehow more palatable. I could learn without the cringing that most press coverage of Shrub endengered in me.
What will we do without her?
I will miss reading you so very much! I think of the wonderful movie “Network” and the great scene(I take liberties (Paddy would not mind)) ‘Now I want you all to open your windows and cry to the heavens ‘Molly will live in our hearts forever and we will always be mad as hell and Molly will always have our backs and a smile!’After reading a column I always stood a bit taller; proud to be a liberal. Molly, you came, you saw and you gave a damn!A social worker from Connecticut says “Good voyage, my kindred spirit”
Molly Ivins was one of my two great inspirations to get into journalism, and every couple of years I pull out a copy of her essay “The Perils and Pitfalls of Reporting in the Lone Star State.” It reminds me of why I got into the business in the first place and inspires me to live up to her standard. I pulled it out tonight when I learned of her death, and it brought a tear to my eye. More importantly, I still believe it all. Godspeed, Molly.
Just a second note….
The greatest compliment to Molly….
Trying to read some of the many messages/tributes/old columns at texasobserver.com and getting the message:
“503 Service Temporarily Unavailable
“The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to maintenance downtime or capacity problems. Please try again later.”
Bless her fans. It isn’t a denial of service attack; it’s a love-in…
Molly Ivins was brave, she was smart, she was big-hearted, and she was funny. It was her voice that first helped me to climb out of my despair over the two Dubya elections, because as bad as it was, she could make me laugh about it. She helped restore my hope. There will not be another like her.
Bonnie Hannifin
Las Vegas, NV
As I write this, I’m weeping like I’ve lost one of my dearest friends. There are so many times over the last several years that Molly’s voice pulled me up from the valley of the shadow of this damned administration. She made me laugh when I felt the lowest, she made me hope when I felt the least hopeful. How bad could it get if we had people like Molly speaking out? Oh, how I shall miss her. God bles, Molly–and may heaven have a need for journalism and some good places to go for beer.
My god, I will miss her! One of the few voices of sanity and decency left in the public arena of this crazed country is gone. Good-bye Molly. Gail Henigman
I feel as if a piece of my soul has been torn away. My greatest wish is that she is looking down on the rest of us with Ann Richards, laughing, free of the earthly strings, realizing that she was so right , knowing that her job was more than “well done”, having lived full of spirit and patriotism, having taught us that women are smart and strong, funny and deep, and made us laugh even through her own pain.
My best memories of Molly are her on C-Span, making viewers think while still being “salty” and a flight that I took while reading her last book on “Shrub”, laughing out loud even while sitting next to a stranger that had perhaps just drifted off to sleep. I probably woke him up. Just like Molly did! May all of the heavens open up to greet you, Molly!
A couple of years ago a fellow union journalist from southern Oregon called to say that he had a videotape of Molly from a fundraiser he’d held the day before. After threatening bodily harm, he agreed to send it to me with the caveat that I didn’t show it to anyone else, (he’d planned on putting it on a community cable channel.)
Well, when the mailman showed up at my house a crowd of family and friends were there to greet him. We were all deep into the darkest days of the Shrub’s evil doings and Molly put us all back in the saddle, ready for the next fight.
Now she’s out there, across the river, riding point.
Not mourning Molly, just organizing…
Thank you for bringing me laughter, tears and information. When I think of Molly, I always smile.
When I read her last collumn, I wanted to go out into the streets and bang pots and pans, I wanted to go march for peace I wanted to tell Shrub that Molly sent me. Unfortunately, at my age, if I had done these things, my kids would have been in court the next morning to have me certified.
So long, Molly, give my love to some other great Texas ladies Ann Richards, Barbara Jordan, Lady Bird Johnson and save some Bar-b-que for me.
I know Molly through her books and columns. She was honest. She was courageous. She was right! God bless her as God has blessed us with her wit and her beautiful heart.
I wasn’t prepared to read the words of Molly’s death tonight. My heart hangs heavy as though pulled by an enormous weight. I will miss her so.
Molly is one of the few who have made the past few (Bushie) years bearable. I will miss her wit, and insight greatly. If only we had listened to her 7 or 8 years ago…
Dang! Two great Texas ladies lost within a year. I hope Molly is up there in heaven with Ann Richards having a good ‘ol time. We’ll carry on your work down here ladies with hearts just a bit heavier. Love you both. God Bless.
I hope this is OK as I already posted something earlier this evening. At that time, I had not read all the way through the other comments.
Later I did. I was laughing hysterically at many of the posts here. That is a real tribute to Molly, that you could feel comfortable laughing at an obituary.
It reminds me of the wake held the Polo Field in San Francisco’s Golden Gate park, way back when after Bill Graham had passed away in 1991. A great big party with a quarter million guests.
Again, God bless you, Molly.
And sorry to everyone for the double post.
Molly Ivins made a positive impact in my life through her words and conviction, and her knowledge and wit was the kind that you had to tell people about. From the first time I read her work, I was hooked, and I have diligently read her columns over the past 5 years, never missing one. I encouraged friends to read her books and her columns, and I feel that she is one of the few who really make a difference for many others through their actions. Her family and friends can be proud to know that they spent time with such an outstanding human. The example she leaves us with is one that can help this world heal and make progress. Peace, friends, smile when you think of her, and let’s keep working towards sane solutions in this crazy world. Scott Griffiths - Victoria, BC
Words seem so meaningless now that my hero is gone. I first started reading Molly when I borrowed my roommate’s copy of “Molly Ivins Can’t Say That, Can She” almost ten years ago. And I hadn’t even finished the book before I rushed out to the half price bookstore (being a working college student it was all I could afford) to get my own well-worn copy of her book to cherish. I’ve since bought all of her books that I could find and read her columns whenever and wherever I could.
I was so lucky to see her speak for the ACLU in College Station a couple of years ago. Standing in line to purchase a couple of her books and to get her autograph, I realized that I was so lucky to actually be able to see a true Texas icon in action. I will miss being able to go online and find her newest column out there ready for me to enjoy. She has been and will remain an inspiration to me and other Texas women for years to come.
I’ve been carrying an article by Molly in my backpack for over 3 years. ‘Molly Ivins: North to Alaska’ July 24, 2003
I was so grateful that one of my heroes had come all the way up here and had seen it the way I do and said it the way I wish I could; “One of the oddest things about Alaska is the complete disconnect between its politics and its reality.”
In this piece she defends the salmon and the Tongass and gives me the courage to keep on defending them.
I wish I had met you Molly. Thank you for your columns that I will miss so much. Thank you for coming to Alaska. There are people here in the Other Great State wishing you God speed. Think of us when you pass the Big Dipper and the North Star.
I never met Molly Ivins, but her passing leaves me bereft, as in the loss of a beloved family member. During most of my life as a newsman, I measured my own reactions to events with Molly Ivins’. Like many Americans, I also looked to her next column for affirmation of my own attitudes. Most importantly, I expected to learn something from her, and always did. Her stated desire to die sober is mine, too.
Thank you for the opportunity to celebrate her life and mourn her passing with the rest of you.
Bob Cain
CNN (retired)
I’ll miss your writings, Molly. Thanks for sharing them. May Peace be where ever you are…
This is a sad day. Molly’s column was what I read first in every issue of “The Progressive.” Not just her wit, but her ability to cut through the inane garbage that spews forth every day from our mean-spirited ideologues who monopolize the corporate media. She could say something so pithy, and so true. Like Art Buchwald, she’s irreplaceable. Still, she’s also inspirational; so I know there will be others with their own style who will carry on the populist tradition. And some day maybe the country will have the guts to impeach and imprison that miserable little Shrub; and I’m sure she’ll smile and maybe we’ll even her that laugh!
My teenage son and I listened to a tape of “Bushwhacked” as we crossed the country, East to West, in the summer of 2004. It became the prism through which we viewed national politics after that. I wish I could make it required reading for all voters. In the meantime, my son and I will always consider Molly our personal friend.
I did not have as much contact with Molly as most, but I got to know her as a “Texas woman of letters.” She was amazingly funny with as sharp a tongue as her wit. I made the mistake of trying to remind her of who I was after we were on yet another reading stage together. She said, “Valerie, if you introduce yourself to me one more time, I’m gonna bop you! You’re the only poet on this panel that didn’t make me snooze. I know who you are, woman!” I can’t tell you the relief and the terror I felt that Molly “knew” me. And that she appreciated my poetry. I loved her for her fierce loyalty to Barbara Jordan, to Anne Richardson, and to freedom. And I loved that she loved sweet potato pie (”instead of that ‘white bread’ pale of a comparison pumpkin pie”! as she said.
May her tribe rise among us–SISTERHOOD IS STILL POWERFUL.
Damn damn damn damn damn.
This one’s gonna sting for a long long time. The collective intelligence and compassion quotient of the human race just clicked down another notch.
I’m so very sorry…for all of us. The void is just indescribably crushing.
With all the superficial hype/babble that invades our lives each day, I hope we can all take a minute and pass on to our young citizens the certainty that we were blessed to share space on this planet with a TRUE hero, Molly Ivins.
One of my favorite Molly columns from a year or two ago was loosely regarding repubs, and a hilarious story about one of her good Texas friends, and a dog he owned that had a chicken-chasing problem. The guy had a fail-safe remedy: Something to the effect “You take a dead chicken and wrap it around that dog’s neck. You make him wear that chicken long enough that he never EVER wants to forget and chase after one of those damn chickens again.” Her closing sentence was something like, “Sometimes you’ve just got to wear a dead chicken around your neck for a few years to make certain that you’ll never be tempted to vote for a republican, ever again.” (I think it was shortly after the 2004 elections when the column appeared.)
Thank you, Molly. What a treasure you will always be in my memory. There is a web-link on the Texas Observer Tribute page that allows one to contribute to the Molly Ivins Journalism Fund. I’m going to do that now, and see if we can hopefully bring forth and help encourage some more thought-provoking, honorable, populist oriented, feisty spirits like Ms. Ivins. Lord knows we are now in dire need.
As I read of Molly Ivan’s passing I suddenly felt lost—she has always been my guiding star and inspiration. I will pick up my Molly pieces and move on with her insightful and humorous spirit behind me, We owe so much to Molly—-so much that we dare not discontinue her ideals…. Count me in the Molly Parade!
Jo Maas
With thanks for all you did to keep injecting a note of reason and sanity into our lives. I’ve read you for as long as I can remember (spent 5 years in TX in the early fifties as a child and the family kept us in touch with you.) Some of my favorite memories are of hearing you and Jim Hightower go to town together.
I’ll be calling my senators tomorrow, and raisin’ hell in your honor as long as it takes to give us back our country!
I’m glad I got to be on the planet at the same time you were here.
Texas will not be the same without her.
Back in 1996 I had the honor and enjoyment of hearing Molly speak at Pittsburg State University (Pittsburg, Kansas). That evening allowed me to put sound to the words that I enjoyed reading and still enjoy reading today. This lady (and she will never allow anyone to say that about her) is going to be missed. But if we work as she wrote, then what she wrote will not be missed and this will be a better world for it.
Molly Ivins became a very special person for me through her writings. I never met her but it would have been such a privilege to do so that I would have felt “star struck” during my time with her. I knew she was very ill but I hoped and prayed that she would recover and share with us some more of her incredible and trenchant insights into the current situation as well as future times. I really hoped she would live “to see what happened,” which is the way I see the waning of my life in my older years. Tragically, she didn’t live that long but she made life richer for me and for all who loved her deeply. Truly, life won’t be the same without her and I’ll probably be hunting for ner next column and then realize, with tears, that there are no more. God bless Molly Ivins and I hope she had little or no pain at the end of her life. Sixty-two years is too young to leave the rest of us behind but neither she nor anyone else had any control over that. Bye, bye, Molly. We love you and will never forget you. Jim Hawkins, MD, San Francisco and Stanford University.
There’s something that Molly gave me one day, meeting her at a perfect supposedly quiet personal retreat for both of us. Her total interest in what I had to say, her willingness to share her thoughts, my surprise at the giant sunshine of her laughter. When I grow up, I want to be like her!
Molly made bearing these bitter years a little easier.
She had a hunger and thirst for justice. Hopefully, now it is satisfied.
Texans should be proud of what she said and how she lived.
over the past six plus years when i felt almost helpless and overburden with comic tragedy of the Bush administration, molly was there. she was there to say what i felt, with words that i could never imagine mixing together, to an audience i could not muster. her words guided me through a minefield of political obstruction. she was the spit in the spitball, the venom in the snake, the bite of the finest of whiskey, the rock in the slingshot. she encouraged us to keep swinging the arm while aiming for the head. she will be missed. thank you molly.
To many people, Molly was many things: writer, journalist, thinker, humorist and humanist.
To me personally, she is someone who I will always proudly hold up as
an example of what a human being could and should be. Especially in
these often dark times, Molly embodied so many of the qualities of a
mighty heroine, and the example of her life helps me to be proud of
calling myself an American and a Texan.
Please say a prayer for Molly and for all of us, and if you remember
anything about her, know that Molly’s enduring message is, in her own
words, “Raise more hell.”
Michael Keller
I am SO jealous of all those of you who actually knew this wonderful, politically acute and downright funny woman. I always looked forward to reading her column in our local paper (when they deigned to print it since they’re a conservative paper in a conservative town) and, when they didn’t print it, reading it online. I sure as hell hope there’s someone with a sharp wit (who’s not afraid to use it) ready to step into her shoes, willing to take over the fight against stupidity and political nightmares. We loved ya and are gonna miss ya, Molly.
Most of what I know today, I owe to Molly. As an immigrant to the United States, I opened Virginia Pilot one morning in 1995 and I discovered Molly. I followed her religiously, never left her once. She introduced me to America and I am glad it was her and not Ann Coulter. In my writings, I try to be true to her style, her humor and her passion. Sad she won’t get to read my book, Children of A Retired God. It is the kind of book she would have liked. Now, it is only Maureen Dowd who is left. Adieu, Molly.
Wow! I open my email in Prague, Czecho and find my best friend has died. A lady to love. I’m going to miss you, I can just hear her saying.
She and I last talked when she was shilling for the poor (when was that not so) in Boston. The evening was spent in the company of other speakers, Dillard, Gary Trudeau, and the like. We arrived at ahead of the other at the tiny little Club on the Harvard campus, where ‘friends’ could chat over wine and cheese.
Molly and I headed straight for the beer and started swamping ol’ Texas stories. My husband and I had been in Austin during the salad days of the Observer and we met then. So, it was remember when John Henry Faulk told the assembled folks in South Austin that ‘people in South Austin didn’t have to wait for the Adult Book Store to teach them to mastrubate - we learned that long ago in South Austin’. (sic)
We chatted about Ann Richards and I recalled the famous story of Ann telling the blow-hard (and that wouldn’t have been an unlikely thing to do if he was driving) that the man standing next to her was her husband. Love that story. Really happened at Schultz. I know
We moved to Wisconsin and for thirty years my husbands beginning Poli Sci course was known as Texas 201 because where else would you get such great examples of how to subvert a great system.
I always have one more thing I wanted to do when someone dies. One more story. I wanted to tell her how I’m reminding my Senators (more than just then just the New Hampshire ones (where I now VOTE). That the reason they were not voted out of office was because they weren’t running. Every single one down to only survivor (Andy Peterson - son of a former Governor, Senator, college president). We’re on a tear!
She was such a joy. Something to live up to.
Dorothy Mills Kohak
Sharon, NH and Prague, Czech Republic
Good-bye, dear Molly. Laugh in your sweet dreams.
Aw, shucks Molly. I am so sad tonight as I think about the days ahead without your wit, insight, and wisdom (and wickedness!) to help carry me through. The world is a darker place without you.
B. , a reader
PS, I just like to say (with apologies to Kurt Vonnegut) that I certainly DO believe that the universe must be by “Intelligent Design” because what else could have created the long necked giraff, the squat hippo and breast cancer.
Miss you Molly — and while you’r at it. Talk to that nice young officer who gave his life to Bush’s silly war. Brian Freeman was so young and accomplished. Cheer him up. (you are good at that)
Dorothy
Molly was such a beacon for me, with that razor wit, like Sam Clemens, always left us smiling while we digested most unpleasant facts. She would have us pull together now and take up the slack. Happy hunting, Molly.
This morning is a truly sad day for all of Texas and what is left of intellectual wit in the American press.
I have always looked for Molly’s columns to keep me in touch with my Texas roots these last 6 years here in Europe.
RIP Molly, you will be sorely missed.
Mario Lehmann
London, UK
About 15 years ago my husband pushed our local daily paper to include a columnist nobody here seemed to know anything about. Molly Ivins. It was a glorious day when I picked it up and there she was on our opinion page, a much needed counter balance to the red-necks and their daily rants! Since that day she was the first thing I looked for on the opinion page of our local rag and in the San Francisco Chronicle. I looked just this morning, hoping for one more. This is the last column I ever wanted to find with Molly Ivins name on it. She will be missed, of course she will be missed, we don’t even need to say it. Thank you Molly.
Sylvia Myrvold, Gilroy, California
Molly Ivins was my favorite columnist. I will miss reading her articles, they coudn’t be more welcome these days.
When everyone else was towing the Bush line, she was busy hacking the rope.
A day when I could read her comments, was always a day that gave me hope for the country.
I once had the honor of playing a game of Trivial Pursuit with Molly as my partner. That game, and winning of course, is still one of the highlights of my life. Molly gave me the strength to call myself Liberal, and I always will, with one eye to the Texas heavens and my hero, Molly. Texas is a lesser place without her, a big state with a big hole in the heart of it. May she give God a good talkin’ to.
I came to know Molly Ivins work only over the last few years. She was one of the few journalists who could inject some humor into the horrors that the Bush administration has perpetrated–actually, one of the few real journalists left in the good old USA. Sitting here on the southern coast of Portugal, where I now live, I can’t believe what a sad day it is. We’ll all miss you Molly.
Adeus,
Richard Bryant
Luz-Lagos, Portugal
What can I say but that Ms. Ivins was a bright star in a firmament of too many pretenders. The light from her writing exposed their ineptitude and
hypocrisy and did so with an edge of humor reminiscent of the recently
deceased Art Buchwald. I am a sentimental type who rest my head on my wife’s
shoulder to ease my sadness at reading this morning of her passing. I will
miss her columns which, when they appeared, I had to read just because of
her fearless capacity to point to the naked emperor and the horror show that he was part of. Thank you, Molly Ivins, for being who you were.
Molly Ivins made me think, she made me laugh, she didn’t merely motivate me to ask questions, she motivated me to demand answers. Molly Ivins moved me in a way that made me speak out AND take action. Reading Molly’s columns and books enlightened my worldview and brightened my day. Thank you Miz Ivins, for helping empower this American and making me laugh my ass off in the process. You will be missed!
As a former Chicagoian the highest complement I can pay to Molly Ivins is that she wrote with the concern for the little guy, wit, and verve of Mike Royko…with a Texas flavor.
Tonight I am reminded of these words from Shakespeare’s *Romeo and Juliet* (paraphrasing a little here, to better ‘fit’ it to our Molly):
~ Each life must wend it’s way towards death and pain.
Though she died too young, she and her stories will remain. ~
O, our girl Molly, we are so sad to see you go, you were too young and still had so much more to offer. It just does not seem right that you are gone and we will never read your wise and witty words, or see that bright and shining smile of yours again.
You were my Hero from many years ago, and I dearly loved you for your wit and charm and that wonderful biting humor. Besides those things, your honesty and integrity were unmatched as far as I’m concerned. You were a “Classy Texan Dame,” and we will not see your like again!
Godspeed, sweet, funny, brilliant Molly! Godspeed ….
(And I hope you’re “Dancin’ With The One That Brung You To Heaven” right now!)
During the past five years reading Molly Ivins helped keep me sane. I always loved reading her comments and her honesty was breathtaking. I shall truly miss her light.
Like sheep without a shepherd
When the snow shuts out the sky–
O! Why did you leave us, Molly?
Why did you die?
SO SAD to read of Molly’s passing. I ALWAYS sought out her column.
As I E-mailed her many time. Molly, you Go Girl. She would tell it.
She can’t be replaced, but we can ALL learn from her words and keep
up the PUSH for Truth and yes Justice.
Good Bye Molly.
I canceled my subscription to the South Bend Tribune when they quit carrying her column. I haven’t subscribed regularly since. She will always be one of my heroes. My best to her “family” and her family at the Texas Observer.
We discovered Molly when the (Eugene, Oregon) Register-Guard began running her syndicated columns. Yes, we discovered… there was a voice of progressive, intelligent, and wildly hilarious truth out there that felt like “coming home” family. We (my wife of 34 years, Lois, and I) looked forward to each and every column. We were saddended to hear that Molly was fighting breast cancer a few months ago. (Lois fought the same battle 8 years ago, and was planning to write a supportive and encouragment letter to Molly. Our oldest son also battled cancer, twice shortly after graduating high school). When a column appeared by Molly in the Register-Guard last week, we thought that Molly had finished her treatments and was well on her way to recovery. We were utterly shocked to hear of Molly’s passing (Lois is quietly sitting on the couch crying as I write this missive). We actually thought that she was recovering.
Molly appeared at the Hult Center for the Perfoming Arts here in Eugene a year or so ago. As I work nights, we were unable to attend and had wished that Molly had been in town on a night when we could attend. Now, how I wish that I had simply asked for a day of vacation and gone to see her. She is one of the rare people that I admire to such an extent that I would give about anything to have the opportunity to meet (Molly and Bill Moyers topped my personal list). It is excruciatingly depressing to know that I will never have the opportunity to hear her speak or shake her hand. It is also excruciatingly painful to know that I had the potential opportunity when she was here in Eugene, but failed to make the most of the opportunity by realizing just how short and fragile life is. Our sympathy goes out to all who knew and loved her. Alternately, I envy those of you that knew her personally. Oh, to have had an opportunity to break bread with her.
On payday, when we figure out the small amount we can afford, we plan on making a memorial contrubution to the Observer.
Goodbye Molly. You were a gem. We loved you, and already miss you terribly.
Gary Jarvis, Junction City, Oregon
God bless Molly, and bless Texas for being lucky enough to be her home. When I met her years ago, she had a full head of hair back, albeit white as snow. I loved her writing so much that I subscribed to Texas Observer just to see more of it, and what a world that opened me up to. I’m looking forward to seeing her in heaven and saying thanks for the memories.
my grandma gave me my first Molly book when i was in 8th grade (im almost 40 now). i still remember sittin in the school lunchroom reading it & laughing, even though a lot of it went over my head. but ive been fascinated by politcs since then, the drama & the characters of public service. she reinforced the notion that real life is aways more absurd & surreal than any fiction, & that truth, chips fall where they may, is more interesting than anything else.
my grandma loved her, my mom loves her & i love her. we always will, & we will keep pushing forward for truth & justce.
***HUGS FOR MOLLY***
My deepest sympathies go out to Molly’s family and her extended “family” here at the Observer, and throughout the world. I can only think to quote the Beatles right now, but it seems fitting “. . . and in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.”
We’ll miss you wonderful, joyous, beautiful, inspiring Molly!
THANK YOU FOR SHOWING US THE WAY!
The truly great Americans are those who have made this country worth claiming for one’s own. Molly is - and I use the word “is” because just because she’s “dead” doesn’t mean she isn’t hanging around as a guardian angel of some sort, and Lord knows we need as many guardian angels of our better nature as we can get - one of those great Americans. Bill Moyers is another, and he’s still with us. So is Jimmy Carter, thank god.
Maybe it’s part of the challenge of being the living stones of a better nation that the best among us too often are taken too soon from us. Paul Wellstone, for one. Bobby Kennedy, for another. Molly was a keystone, a cornerstone of our country: we can’t all be her, but we can all step up and take our place and assume our duty. We have to, in the face of all those who would destroy our noble experiment in pointless wars and worthless ideology. We just can’t let the likes of Duyba and the Republicans destroy this, our happy home.
when I was a young assistant district attorney in the Texas Hill Country, my boss, Joe Grady Tuck, a Republican, expressed his admiration for The Texas Observer and Molly Ivens, and I’ve followed her career ever since, including her two books on Dubya. I never knew her personally, but will miss knowing that she was looking out for us. Whenever I think of a great journalist and political writer, she always comes to mind. Good bye, Molly; we’ll give Bush a swift kick in the pants in your memory.
Lord, how I’ll miss that gal. She could skewer a politician, especially Shrub, better than anyone. I cried when I heard the news of Molly’s passing. She’s left a big hole in the op-ed pages of the nation’s newspapers, but an even bigger hole in the hearts of her many fans.
I don’t have anything witty to say or a personal anectdote to share. I was parking my car last night when I heard the announcement of Molly’s death on the radio last night and my heart sank. I have so loved hearing her voice on the radio and reading her books that it really did feel a bit like a friend had died. I had no idea she had cancer, which tells you how good a friend I’ve been. I’m a cancer survivor myself and am just so thankful that we had so many years of Molly’s wit and writing to enjoy. I’m going to miss her.
Geoffrey
I am in tears and brokenhearted. We lost a national treasure, and one of the most sharp-witted and funny women ever to grace our planet.
Molly will be sorely missed by those of us who admire a woman who is not afraid to take on the “big guys” and do it with such humor. I looked forward to her columns on the internet every day. This is truly a sad day
Lewis Grizzard passed away 12 years ago and since then, Molly was my daily dose of good old Southern humor.
Love you, Molly. Say hello to Ann for me.
I am so sad… and yet she lives on in spirit. An irreplaceable, incredible national treasure. From one of her last columns (1/5/07) less than a year before she went home: “The president of the United States does not have the sense God gave a duck—so it’s up to us. … This country is being torn apart by an evil and unnecessary war, and it has to be stopped now.” Pretty clear what we have to do to remember her by… STOP THE WAR NOW for Molly and for all the People she cared about and inspired, here, over there, everywhere.
A great lady, a great writer, and an even greater fighter. Wish all of us had half her guts.
I am sobbing in great shudders of mind-blanking grief as I grapple with Molly’s passing. I never met her, never even saw a good picture of her until today. And yet I feel like we’ve lost one of my closest family members. We’re not supposed to feel this way about some distant, faceless journalist. But her wit, compassion, and love for her readers just brings it out of you.
As a — mainly — secular individual, I’ll confess that Molly’s weekly column in our local free paper here in Norfolk, Virginia had become something of a religious ritual whose purpose was completely selfish — time I guarded greedily. The ritual’s effect was the restoration of my often waning ability to cope with and assimilate the grand farce and the abysmal tragedy that is American political life. The grief surges in me with the thought that this ritual now will be forever broken.
We will all, admirers, detractors, and turkeys miss her and be greatly impoverished in her untimely absence.
Sincerely,
Mark W. Paris
Norfolk, Virginia
Molly: I’m sure that if you find things badly run on the other side, you’ll raise hell there, too? You will be oh so sorely missed.
Molly, you have been the light in my darkness for more years than I care to count. I know that my mom and aunt were among the contingent of Texas liberal women banging their pots and pans to welcome you yesterday. We’ll keep banging ‘em here, too. Thank you.
I never met the lady
never shook her hand
never had a drink with her
never had the chance.
She always brought me laughter
often brought me tears
filled me with a passion
to last me all my years.
She wrote when others wouldn’t
she told, when all was still.
May her fighting not be forgotten.
Let us shout the people’s will
Thanks for everything Molly. Your Texas friends will miss you more than you know.
Damn.
Damn, damn, damn.
We’ve lost one of the very best among us.
Never was there a more thoughtful, intelligent, truthful journalist. I will miss her columns.
Molly had a gift that she shared with all of us and it was the gift of Truth.
In this day of instant communication she gave us more than a sound-bite…she made us think about important matters, without hype or malice. She was one of a kind … and an inspiration to me and anyone who read her column here in Chicago and everywhere else. If we clone Humans, she would be my first choice.
I have followed Molly’s wit and musings for 20 years and have enjoyed everything she wrote. I met her once at a speaking engagement and she was just what I expected- smart, charming and funny. You will be missed Molly!
Why am I, a 35 year old Indian man, who grew up in India, far from Austin, spent 2 years living in the USA and who now lives in London close to tears at the passing of Molly?
I’m not sure - there are so many reasons. I first read Ms Ivins just before the 2000 election, when I was curious to understand what Dubya was all about. That book, ‘Shrub’, made me gasp and laugh in equal measure and in later years, her comment on her old classmate (something along the lines of - Don’t complain America, we told you what he was like and you *still* voted for him!) seemed more prophetic than ever. After ‘Shrub’ I started reading every online column she ever wrote. I live in a different country now and have changed laptops ten times or more since 2000, but if it doesn’t have a link to her latest column and a local folder full of her older columns, it’s not mine.
She was funny, she was fierce, she was astute and above all, she was a humanist. Her take on politics was razor sharp and was the reason I started reading her addictively. When I found second hand copies of her older books - “Nothin’ but good times ahead”, on the previous Bush administration and “You’ve got to dance with them what brung you”, I was happy for weeks.
Throughout the Bush years, she was one of the few reasons to log on and read anything about politics. She was about the only one in the media who had the guts to keep calling it like she saw it.
I made sure I read ‘Bushwhacked’ as soon as it came out - darker and grimmer, Molly simply catalogued what the Bush years were doing to her country and let the people in her book speak for themselves. When I came to the chapter on Priscill Owen, one of Bush’s candidates for judicial confirmation, I nearly wept on a London bus.
In a column by a writer in the Guardian, Simon Hoggart, who knew her, I found out a few years ago that she had cancer. That explained the gaps between columns that grew longer but also a sense of apprehension for the health of someone I had never met in my life and would not either. Somehow, at a gut level, I loved this lady and wished she would keep writing at least as long as I lived. I wrote her the occasional mail about her column and always wishing her well and hoping she was well - I don’t know if she ever got them, but I hope she did.
I’m happy she lived long enough to see the poisonous DeLay discredited and his machine in shambles, Bush and his administration in disarray and Cheney exposed for the bullying fraud that he is.
Three of my personal heroes, for their writing and general take on politics, were Frank Zappa, Hunter S. Thompson and Molly Ivins. They’re all gone. Who will speak truth to power now?
Molly, Molly, Molly. I sit here crying for someone who spoke for me in her writings.
I met Molly when she was a reporter in Minneapolis in the late 1960’s, and I was co-chair of the Minnesota anti-Vietnam-war coalition. Molly was just so cool, so right on the money.
Molly was a good one. I feel bereft. I’ll miss her wonderfully truthful thoughts in the Bangor (Maine) Daily News.
‘Bye, Molly. See you one of these days……
- Nancy Oden, Jonesboro, Maine
The last time I saw Molly was Christmas before last. We were in Santa Fe, sitting on a banco in El Farol. I said to her, and thinking of her illness unthinkingly misquoted Swift: “Molly, you remind me of what’s on Swift’s monument: ‘he is gone where savage indignation never more can lacerate his breast.’ The trouble is you done lacerated your breast.” Molly chuckled and then said, “You can’t stop caring.” After a minute, she said, “You’ve gotta keep on caring.”
I’m writing from England where I’ve often said, “My God, we need a Molly Irvin this side of the pond!”
Her bravery and wit shielded so many from the pain of cruel politics
It wont be so easy for me to laugh at Bush/Blair’s antics now
But I’ll try to carry a tiny piece of Molly’s insight with me forever and I shall be thinking of her when time comes to bang some British pots and pans.
For now, it feels like my heart is broken
In a world that is sometimes heartbreakingly sad, Molly Ivins made me laugh. In a world where those who I wish didn’t have so much power have it, Molly Ivins writing seemed to balence that power. In a world where being called a liberal is more a slur than compliment, Molly Ivins writing and life made me proud to wear that title.
Shocked to read of Molly Ivins death- I’ve read & relished her often prophetic, insightful yet very funny articles, which served as a warning not just to those of you in the U.S. but also to us here in Canada, as I’ve watched hideous policies trickle up to Toronto and beyond.
As sorry as I will be to not be able to read her in the future, I’ll have to add that her contributions ensure that she will always remain with us.
Deep condolences to her family, friends, and the people of Texas for the loss.
Marque Brill
Toronto, Ontario
Canada
I am a recent convert to the Observer. I Usually skipped ahead to Molly’s article before reading the rest of the Observer. Many times she made me so angry I could spit. I didn’t agree with her on many occasions. But what she did do was make me think long and hard about the schemes of politicians. She never accepted at face value their actions and most of all their words. That is what she left me. A sense of doubt, a questioning of the practices of those in power. Thanks Molly. Now leave the Big Guy alone. He needs all his wits to watch over us. You will be missed.
Molly could take a boring subject like politics and turn it into something that was interesting, educational, and entertaining at the same time. That really does take talent! Thank you, Molly, for sharing that talent with all of us.
Kind Regards,
Kurt Polakoff
Clearwater, Florida
Crap and Damn! I will miss your voice of sanity in this wilderness. You made me laugh when all I wanted to do was cry for America and Americans. You reminded me that I am in charge of my life and my country…if I am willing to take up the challenge. You stood up for what was right when we didn’t feel we could. Where will we find another to take up where you left off? There aren’t many smart, fearless women out there to keep it straight for us. Well now we have to stand up and fight the good fight you left us! I guess we will have to learn from you and give them hell en masse!
I’d say rest in peace, but you never seemed to live like that. Why start now?! You will be sorely missed.
Oh me, oh my, Miss Molly, what we gonna do? Since you’ve gone and left us, who’s left to tell the truth?
I first become aware of Molly Ivins as a 20-something graduate student in Tulsa, Ok. in the early 1970’s. I read a column and was hooked, enchanted not by her political views, which I fervently shared, but by her prose. There are very few writers who have the ability to turn a phrase well enough to make a good story told verbally as funny and dead-on in timing on the inked page. Molly could. And did. She could catch the whip as it came around on a story and crack it until the reader had to throw back his or her head and roar out loud and then say, “By God, that Molly Ivins. Did you read her column yesterday?” to anyone within earshot.
I have followed Molly across the years with admiration. I mourn her as I mourned the passage of Ann Richards. These were WOMEN. Smart, sassy, and sadly part of a breed of Texas women who seem to be fading away in the twilight of political correctness and conservative hogwash.
It’s a fact that Texas men admire strong women. Most of them came from strong mothers, so while they may exercise their male chauvinism for the world to see, they secretly cheer the woman who can hold her own gun, stand and drink her brew straight, and if required turn the air blue to get her point across. Molly was all of this and more: she stripped the trappings of sham off her targets, exposing the truth, but with a scapel honed of honesty, goodness, and fairplay.
They say those whom the Gods love, die young. The line must have been written for Miss Molly. She was the ultimate journalist: she left us wanting more.
We have cried all morning since we’ve heard the news of Molly’s passing because we’re going to miss her more than she will ever know and, like so many of you, we never got to tell her face to face, up close and personal, just how much we appreciated what she has done for our country and what she meant to us.
She brought joy, laughter and insight to some of the most disturbing, complex and ugly issues in our nation’s struggles, and did it with a disarming charm that cut across regional and class differences. We’re saddened, depressed and gloomy and the only thing that brings us any happiness is rereading some of Molly’s greatest pieces. We heartily encourage you to do the same.
Goodbye, Molly - may you run with the Ancients across the galaxies - you’ll be a terrific asset to the universe.
so sad to hear of Molly’s passing. she was an authentic voice which was sorely needed in these times. May we continue to do the work that she committed herself to.
Molly always called it as she saw it. I’m missing her from faraway Wisconsin. Her liberal voice will always be in the back of my mind, nudging me to the Truth.
I never met the woman but she was one of my dearest friends, a friendship built on her writings. I will miss our conversations every Sunday, when I opened my local paper to the editorial pages and found her column. Molly- say hello to Ann for me.
God, I’ll miss her. Who will keep the drumbeat going now? Who can say what needs to be said better than Molly Ivins?
Dear, dear Molly. We will miss your humour and GOODNESS. Go with God.
My favorite quote from Molly - no doubt because it’s so inclusive and true:
“We’ve been right so many times, nobody can stand us anymore.”
Or words to that affect (effect?).
Thank you, Molly, for all the words, every one of them.
I can’t think of a columnist I will miss more than Molly Ivins. Really intelligent, brilliant humorists are a disappearing breed. An unapologetic liberal, (We lost Art Buchwald as well this week.) Molly and others on the Texas Observer sustained my faith in the human race through the 5 years I lived in Houston. I have looked forward to her infrequent columns here in Florida ever since.
Well, 30 years ago, the Rio Grande was at spring flood, and a band of lunatics from Austin shot the canyons in canoes, inc. Molly Ivens of The Observer, and Ann Richards, an Austin attorney. All the canoes upended; Molly watched her notes for the Observer piece roar down the rapids. I was just a kid, a grad student expecting an outdoorsy adventure, (this was a cliff-hanger) but got the best education of my whole time in Austin.
Those two women were funny as heck, quick on the uptake, big-hearted, and quick-striking as a snake around hypocrisy.
What’ll we do with Molly gone? It’s like we’ve lost Mark Twain - who went out with Haley’s Comet.
I was at first stunned and then so sad to learn of Molly’s death this morning. I immediately thought who is going to speak for us? How can I live out the rest of my life without Molly Ivins reinforcement of my better instincts and the way I felt called to account as she called to account others. It’s below zero here in Minnesota and raining in Texas and just a helluva day in general. You’ve got all our snow this winter but you’ve always had the humorous part of our conscience in your Molly.
For the last ten years or so Molly Ivins has been my role model — the person I would most like to be when I grow up. She taught and showed us all how to be honest and holy and human.
I feel as if we, the American People, have lost our greatest Champion and Defender of our Bill of Rights. Oh Molly, would that you could have survived throughout these coming calamitous shrub-times! Rest in Peace Darling.
Dear Molly,
I wish I had done this while you were still alive. I’m such a fool. I guess I thought nothing could ever bring you down. You’re larger than life, bigger than the rest of us, and I ain’t talkin about any physical dimensions.
While I feel my blood-pressure reach for the stars, upon reading about the latest “news” in our home state and nation, I remember you. You have taught me (and are still teaching me) to feel moral outrage AND laugh about the absurdity of it all at the same time. If we can’t have a good laugh at these misguided and even malicious guys and gals in our government and society, then we’re not going to last very long in this fight. And we have to be in this for the long haul.
I like to think you’re still alive in the way I try to look at the world now. But my heart knows you’re gone. And I’m really, really sad.
I miss you like crazy.
All my love,
Lynne Cassone
Bryan, Texas
I’m sitting here at work with tears running down my face knowing that we lost one more good one to cancer. As a breast cancer survivor myself, it seems like I am always going to a memorial service or reading one more obituary of someone we couldn’t afford to lose. I loved Molly Ivins honesty and good humor and humanity. I wish her a safe journey to the next life.
Like others here, the news of Molly’s passing hit me tremendously hard, leaving me gasping and sobbing all day at work. Even though we had never met, her presence somehow worked its way into my heart and became vital. Her voice was a fixture in my reading, a model for my political philosophy growing up, and a tickle to my funnybone. My mother introduced her columns to me in 1992 or so, when I was a high school freshman in Boulder, Colorado, and thereafer I never missed one of her brilliant muckracking roasts. She always fought for those on the bottom of the political pile, but without the pure vitriol and rancor of today’s pundits. Her’s was the more powerful anger, the kind that smiles sweetly and skewers the pretentious and self-righteous cleanly with good old-fashioned research, common sense, and a razor wit. I know she had plenty of targets to sharpen it on, from Dubya to the Texas Lege, but I always wanted to send her a sharpening stone for that Bowie knife of a tongue. Now I’ll never get a chance… Damn, time to go get another box of Kleenex. You’re a woman after my own heart, Molly, and I’ll love you and miss you forever.
-Luke
“Looking for something I’ve never seen,
Alone and I’m in between,
The place that I’m from and the place that I’m in,
A city I’ve never been.
But I found a friend, or should I say a foe,
‘Cept there’s a few things you should know,
We don’t want you to see we come and we go,
Here today gone tomorrow.
We’re only taking turns,
Holding this world.
It’s how it’s always been,
When you’re older, you will understand.”
– The Fray, “Trust Me”
I first met Molly some 20 years ago at an American Library Association (ALA) event where Molly was the featured speaker. I wasn’t a member of ALA though. I was there to see and hear the fabulous Molly Ivins. After she spoke I was so taken in by emotion that I went up to her and asked her for a hug. Without thinking about it twice she wrapped her long arms around me and I felt as though I were being squeezed by a Christmas tree. I was always in love with Molly’s mind, but to this day I still feel that she is one of the most beautiful people that I have ever met. Texas and the world have truly lost a giant.
Reading about Molly’s death was a paralyzing blow to this ex-pat Texan.
In summer 2001, she was keynote speaker at the annual meeting of the Special Libraries Association. She told us about trying to figure out the best way to inspire South Austin “Bubbas” to join a breast cancer fundraiser. Her approach? “Men, we have a serious problem today. We are losing tits.”
I think she said it worked, but we were all laughing so hard I couldn’t hear.
Oh, Molly, how we will miss you.
I loved her so much. One of her most enduring quotes to me is: “When I was young, I moved away from Texas because I wanted to go somewhere where they didn’t talk about the weather and football all the time. Then I realized that that’s all anyone talked about all the time, so I moved back.”
I read that at about the same time I had exiled myself to New England and was about to come back to the Great State. Her voice was there for me. It was always there for all of us. In her honor I subscribed to the Texas Observer this morning. I always had been meaning to, blah, blah, blah. But now is the time.
In the marvelous words of Pookie Hudson, who himself walked on just two weeks before Molly,
“Goodnight Sweetheart, well it’s time to go.
Goodnight Sweetheart, well it’s time to go.
I hate to leave you,
But I really must say,
Goodnight Sweetheart, Goodnight.”
Harsh critic of Dubbya’s folly
She’d quip with a quick witted volley
That mission fulfilled
Her voice is now stilled
Good golly, we’re gonna miss Molly
Ms. Ivins, late writer of note
Was so skilled at getting the goat
Of good ol’ boy, Shrub
That now comes “the rub”
Some may assume “that’s all she wrote”
Gary Hallock (Producer, O.Henry Pun-Off World Championships)
Molly was a big fan of the Annual O.Henry Pun-Off World Championships. She was often seen in the audience and even sat several times on our panel of Judges.
O.Henry Pun-Off World Championships
www.punpunpun.com
I loved Molly. I never met her, but I loved her. What else can I say about here that’s adequate? She was *real*. She kept our feet on the ground and our heads straight while keeping an eye peeled for those scoundrels creeping up behind! She was the earth beneath our feet and will be sorely missed.
As a fellow Texan and Smithie it gave me great pride to know that Molly Ivins was “one of us.” It gives me equally great sorrow to hear of her passing. I credit her writing with turning me on to American politics and count seeing her speak live (on a panel with Gloria Steinem no less) as one of the highlights of my college career. Her passion and integrity will be greatly missed, but I am sure death alone will not keep her from raising hell.
I’ve loved Molly since the first time I read her column. She was smart, funny and a refreshing voice when we needed her most. I can’t believe there won’t be any more columns. Whatever will we do?
At 46, I’ve been reading Molly Ivins for almost half my life. Her writing has been like a cold glass of water to someone in a desert - or to a liberal living in Mississippi as I am. Her integrity, no-holds-barred quest for the truth, and her humor have helped me through many of the more depressing political seasons of my life. I am forever grateful and mourn her loss.
Kathy Garner
It’s Feb. 1,2007 7:54 a.m. I have Insomnia again and as I have many times come to The Observer site to read some Molly only to see she has passed, you see I also have a Bi-polar disorder and even at my lowest of depressions I can read a writing of Molly’s no matter when it is from the 1970s or 2004 and still get enough of a chuckle to keep me going for just one more day. No one will fill those shoes i fear and I hope the Observer will leave Molly’s writings archived for ever as a tribute to her. Molly Ivins has left us ….this just in beer stocks plummet!! You will be missed Tom Healy
She really will be missed, who will or can ever take her place?
Molly joined our dinner table each time her colum ran in The Daily Local, West Chester, PA. Her outlook on Washington was the same as ours, so we cheered and laughed; and wished we could meet her. We bought her book! and one evening we sat at the next table (at dinner) at the Aqua Bistro in Peterborough, NH.
Molly was very special! She was a classy lady! Her friends will miss her, but the little people in the hinterlands will miss her too!
Goodbye dear Molly. We will miss you so much. I never read a column of yours that I didn’t agree with and either laughed or got downright angry, whichever emotion you were after. So now we go on, every single one of us every single day going out into the street and doing whatever we can to follow your lead and stop this insane war. We will carry your memory with us as we go and you will be there with us in our hearts every step of the way. And we will raise some hell! You fought the good fight during your lifetime. The cancer may have gotten your body but it never touched your spirit.
I cried when I heard this morning. I never met Molly, but felt like she was a friend.
She was a breath of fresh air in a time when journalists are scared to tell/report on the true state of things and jump at the sight of thier shadow.
can you imagine the state we would be in if more journalists would stand up and report events openly and honestly like Molly did?
I will continue to dream about it and will always miss her honesty, integrity and humor.
I worked at the Dallas Times Herald while Molly wrote her column for them. We (in the advertising dept.) were all extremely proud that she wrote for our paper and loved the billboard campaign they put up (Molly Ivins can’t say that, can she?)
It’s very disheartening to me that we’ve lost that wonderful voice so soon after losing that other great skewerer of the preposterously pompous–Art Buchwald. There’s just no one writing now that compares with either Molly or Buchwald and I guess I’ll just have to be grateful I got to read them.
The World has lost a brillant, fun loving pundit, which has not been seen since the likes of Wil Rodgers.
God Bless and Keep you Forever, Molly
We moved from Texas in 1962, but always depended on Molly to keep us up-to-date on Texas politics. We will truly miss her sharp wit and sharper tongue, her wonderful, raspy voice, and her wry, but loving views of the world.
Ah, Molly, what a fighter. Not to have my Molly Ivans fix is beyond imagination. Give em hell — where ever you are.
I didn’t know Molly well, but like millions who read her column, I sure felt like I did. I got to meet and talk to her only a few times: once at my alma mater, Carleton College in Minnesota, where she told some great stories about being a young woman reporter on the police beat when there were no young women reporters on police beats; and a couple of times in Austin while I was down there working on Kinky Friedman’s campaign. She was one of the good ‘uns, and her peculiar essential voice is going to be missed the way the falsetto in a doo-wop band would be missed.
I can feel the silence already.
–Bill Hillsman
(Media consutant to Jesse Ventura, Kinky Friedman, Ralph Nader and U.S. Senator Paul Wellstone)
p.s. I’m a breast cancer survivor, so I can relate to her on an entirely different level. And I weep.
A few years ago, I was listening to an audiotape of “Molly Ivins Can’t Say That, Can She?” for the first time while driving the Kansas Turnpike. One section made me laugh so hard, I had to pull over on the side of the road; I suspect it had something to do with barbecue-flavored personal products. Roadtrips will seem so much longer without a fresh installment of her twang and wit.
I never knew her — or even saw her in the few years she was at The New York Times — although she and I were both there at the same time…Then one day she was gone, fed up with the chicken shit and the heavy-handed editing we all had to put up with, or leave…And many others left, some for big money, but many because they could not abide the system…The Times obit today [thursday, feb. 1] mentions that Abe Rosenthal, then the autocratic Executive Editor, called her in, read her the riot act and transfered her to purgatory, a well-worn path for transgressors…I have always loved the Texas Observer, ever since my early years at UT J-School, and I followed Mollie Ivins because she was one who defied the system, and survived…Times stories with less-positive outcomes are legion…I am no admirer of Dubya but I genuinely admired his kind remarks about the little lady with the big footprint… “Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make ye free…
Molly, Your voice will be missed, your wit, candor and courage in daring to speak the truth will be missed. God Bless Texas and God Bless you Molly for always being authentic and showing the world what real Texans are. Thank you for sharing yourself with us. You did Texas proud Molly.
Whosever in charge wherever you are now, Molly, be sure to give ‘em hell. We miss you here already.
My dear partner put it succinctly late last night when we got the news via The NY Times: the two women she would most want to have dinner with — simultaneously — would be Molly Ivins and Ann Richards. “And Barbara Jordan,” I added, and my partner concurred.
Godspeed Molly; we need you now more than ever.
Molly,you helped so many Americans to endure the villainy of the past six years of the Bush administration. Now it is the duty of increasing numbers of us to force this administration to its knees in tribute to your legacy, which will remain of lasting significance to those who knew you only through your reporting.
How we will miss Molly Ivins. My late husband and I read her columns and books aloud to each other and to our then young children. They were political primers for them. My son and I shed tears as we spoke about her yesterday. We love you, Molly and, wherever you are, give em hell.
From now on, when I watch “the best free entertainment in Austin,” here in “the National Laboratory for Bad Government,” I’ll think of Molly.
I really hope someone gets their act together and publishes a deep-reaching collection of Molly’s columns. I know all the papers she’s worked for will have them; don’t edit, don’t expurgate…let all of us see them.
Is she the last of the great thinkers and muckrackers? Thankfully, no. Moyers, Keillor, and Pitts are still out there. But I’ll sure miss Molly Ivins.
To her family and closer friends: y’all are in my thoughts, too.
–D
Damn it, she’s gone. This lady was the go-to gal for those of us who wanted to take a swing at the mopes who run things, but didn’t know how. For those of us who aspire to write with power and grace, kick ass and still have a sense of humor, she was the ultimate inspiration. She always had gas, even when everybody else was looking under their band-aids. I feel like a mope myself because I didn’t realize she was so seriously ill, and it’s a tribute to her resting soul that after her sprited call to end this awful war, I thought she was moving into an exciting new movement. She wasn’t gonna die until they came looking for her. I love good journalism, I revere great journalism, and damn–Molly left just when we need her most. Time to raise hell, alright.
who will we get to prune the shrubs in america’s garden now?
we will miss molly
Molly could turn a phrase. She didn’t back-stab or shoot from the hip. She faced them down in the middle of the street. She told it like it was–ever truthful, a keen observer and a joy to read. I will miss her surgical literary precision. She had a way of saying all the things I thought. Molly’s words always melted on my tongue, as I read her columns to friends, like homemade ice-cream on a hot summer day. As a mere reader of her books and columns, I will miss her wit and her intelligence. I will miss that lone voice of reason in a time when others practice reportorial cowardice.
I hate to say goodbye…
Molly Ivins is the only person in the world I ever let call me honey — as if anyone could have stopped her. I left her at the Dallas Times Herald and Texas a long time ago. Today without her and Ann Richards I feel like you might as well just close the state down.
Wise, Courageous, Funny, Intelligent, Outspoken, Introspective, Humorous, Patriotic, Conviction, Action, Honest, Truthful…. these are the words that will always come to my mind when I remeber Molly Ivins. Rest in Peace Dearest Molly.
Brad
I didn’t know Molly. I saw her speak once in Colorado.
I did, however, read her books and columns. I am effected more than I would have thought by her death. Often people say when leaders die that it is a loss for the world or a loss for the nation and it mostly feels like pretense or bravado. But, Molly’s death truly feels like a loss for the world and the nation. I will miss her.
My condolences to those that knew her well and are hurting. And an acknowlegment to her peers and those that follow in her footsteps–Your written and spoken words matter and they have impact further than you realize. You effect everyday people everyday. And, in the process maybe we all change the world.
Molly’s had it right for so long, telling truth with such style, that I thought she was eternal, one of the verities. I cried yesterday, and cried this morning, reading her tributes. Wish I could have met you, Molly. Sleep the sleep of the just and righteous.
Molly Ivins was so necessary, what she wrote is all I need to show someone to make them understand what a Liberal is, what a Thinker is, what a Texan is, and what a woman is. What a woman she was. I never met her, but I had an aunt who had many of her qualities, she’d been a postmaster for a small town, a true matriarch - mother ruler - who was both cherished and resented for her humor and quick tongue. Women like that, who don’t cajole or flirt or stoop to men to get what they want, who rely on their brains and who refuse to act submissive and refuse also to harden and become cruel, those women are so few. Scarcer than rubies.
Molly’s passing hits a deep place in me as probably in most who admired and loved her wit. She touched that place where women are free to be who they are, to tell the truth without fear of the reprisals, to find supporting bosses who let them be fearless, who never had to fit into a box, who were able to express themselves whether it was politically correct or not. This is a great loss. Will be ever get anyone else to come close? We need her now more than ever.
Molly Ivins was one of the good ones. She was insightful and honest, never sugar coating the reality of things for easier digestion. But she was also a voice of hope and always of the power of each person. Her voice will be greatly missed.
As a “Tex’patriate” who left the State 20 years ago, I always relied on Molly’s writings to keep me informed about what was happening back home. When the “Texas Taliban” imposed one party rule on our fair state, it was Molly who helped keep me optimistic about this being a temporary condition… I’m glad she was here long enough to see Tom DeLay run out on a rail
I would like to think she is in heaven with those other great Texas ladies; Ann & Barb havin; a good ole time… I hope that St. Peter gives her the Velvet Rope position at the Pearly Gates… It would be a hoot to make every right-wing scalawag and jack leg preacher n TX have to pass muster with her, and unlike their ilk, she would be quite fair.
Oh, I will miss Molly. What will we do without her brilliant, compassionate, and patriotic voice. I live in Richmond, VA, where Molly was roundly vilified in the letters to the editor column of the Richmond Times-Dispatch every time one of her columns appeared. She could really make the dinosaurs roar — but she also made them think. Rest in peace, Molly.
For Molly, Texas was always open range.
A great voice for all Americans, truthful, painfully pragmatic, and an inspiration to all. A true loss, a true patriot and American. I will miss you, but will have my daughters read your works. Fresno, CA.
I first met Molly Ivins at the wake of a mutual friend, Sam Whitten. Heartsill Young, Ann Richards and I had spoken at Sam’s memorial service. She told me that what I said was good but “You damned librarians need to speak louder!” It was good advice in so many ways.
Last summer I leant Molly my arm for support to and from the podium when she came to speak at a Texas Library Association luncheon. Her core message was that we needed to raise hell LOUDLY! We later sent her a Men Of Texas Libraries calendar in the hope that she would get at least one good smile out of in it in small recompense for all the laughter she had brougth us.
Damn she was a good’un.
What I’ll always remember and admire most about Molly was her ability to cut right to the truth of the matter, saying what no one else seemed willing to say, and making it seem so simple and obvious once she’d said it. She was a compelling example of how to cut through the bull. What would the world be like if we were all so honest?
I am a huge fan of Molly’s, and was lucky enough to see her speak in San Antonio in 2001 after her first brush with breast cancer. Her courage and determination was awesome to see, and her wit was wonderful! I will deeply miss her pointed comments, hilarious writings, and charming person. The world is a smaller, quieter place now.
Molly was a very personal and special friend. Nope, we never met; I did write a few fan letters, and saw her speak several times. And I sent thank you letters to the newspapers who carried her column; blasted those who chose to discontinue them. But she was a friend of the best sort: speaking up, speaking out, causing me to think and “raise hell.” At a time when young 20-something women were balking at the word feminist, Molly gave me amunition on a regular basis with which to counter the backwash. And thanks to her, I never-ever-ever shied from calling myself a liberal. I sat and cried last night, read everything I could find about her, drank more than one toast to her spirit, intelligence, wit and wicked humor. A dear friend and I talked for hours long distance about our remembrances. And then my friend’s husband, a converted Repub, gave me the compliment of my 62 years: ” Oh, no…Molly was your alter ego! This is terrible…”
I am writing a letter to the editor today, and I will satirize the ridulous so they look ridiculous. I am no author, but I will do my best in my own small way to pick up Molly’s pen where she left off. Don’t mourn. Organize!
Today is a sad day for progressives all over the nation, although the corrupt and stupid will probably celebrate. Molly Ivins showed more brilliance, common sense and humanity in any one column than any other 10 writers combined on any given day. Man, I am going to miss her more than I can describe.
I am writing a letter to the editor today, and I will use satire to make the ridiculous look ridiculous. I am no author, but I will do my best in my own small way to pick up Molly’s pen where she left off. Don’t mourn. Organize! And get that cancer test.
We feel as if we have lost a best friend. We wish we had just once written to let Molly know how much we loved her courage and compassion and brilliance and irreverent reverence and earthy sense of humor. A thousand thanks, sweet Molly; a thousand blessings.
I sent these two paragraphs to all my friends this morning:
“I just heard of the death of Molly Ivins and feel awful. I couldn’t feel worse if I’d lost a close friend. She represented hope that things in this country can turn around. Her loss will be deeply felt by many people, and will affect far more people than anyone realizes. That such a person can be taken away from us in such perilous times is devastating for all of us.
“She was an elegant voice of sanity in a world gone stark crazy mad. I doubt that the message she brought will ever again be conveyed with such wit and humor or to such great effect. She didn’t reach everyone directly, but those she touched in turn touched everyone else, and the effect was the same whether direct or indirect. There is little doubt in my mind that she is a profound loss to every one of us whether we agreed with her or not.”
It is to Molly’s ever lasting credit taht my most conservative friend fully agreed with me.
The people have lost a voice that will be hard to replace, but replace it we will. Maybe Molly Ivins talked for us because we were afraid or unwilling to talk for ourselves. She changed all of that with her voice so now more and more of us will be willing to go into the street with our pots and pans. Thank you Molly Ivins.
Molly enlightened and inspired me to combat the apathy around me.
Rest in peace Molly.
First Ann, now this. There is a void in Texas that will never be filled.
Could the TRILLION-plus dollars we’ve flushed into Iraq have funded a cure for cancer? We’ll never know, will we?
I was raised Republican in New Orleans, went to UT Austin in the early ’80’s, lived in Dallas in the early ’90’s. Molly was a significant contributor to my political epiphany, just in time to get behind Clinton in ‘92. For that I will be eternally grateful.
I now live in DC, and I like to hope I see it as she did. The only way to keep from becoming one of the inmates in the asylum is to laugh, scornfully, at their antics, their deafness and blindness, and their sheer idiocy.
On the bright side, there is a beautiful black cat in Northern Virginia who is Molly’s namesake.
I will always remember the knowing nods and the smiles she brought me.
Thank you Molly… and see you at the party. Have a Shiner Bock for me.
Where else will we find someone to stand up to the politicians and say, hands on hips, “What in HELL do you think you’re doing?” I don’t know, but I sure hope somebody’s waiting in the wings, because we need all the loud, funny, thoughtful liberals we can get– if not IN the guvment, then outside yelling at them.
MOLLY IVINS CAN’T SAY THAT ANYMORE
Easing the pain of getting up in the morning, my touchstones have been checking the weather over the pasture and checking the paper for Molly …
This morning it was fog like pea soup outside and then I heard Molly Ivins had died (yes, she died, no passing on or over, no departing or leaving this world, the mistress of plain-speak would tell us she just plain died). The fog came inside
No more columns to clip and send to my mother to enjoy and share with her Red Cloud friends
Molly-isms came up at my first meeting with my older daughter’s prospective in-laws (from Minneapolis, which Molly had abandoned for the greener pastures of Texas - or maybe it’s the greater abundance of droppings - but those Yankee fans stayed with her)
Her words got in your brain and that elusive part of your gut where your funnybone hides - she could skewer the politicos without putting you off (if only the O’Reillys, Rushes and Randis could figure that out)
News, pea soup, remembering when that piece of Columbia fell in our yard - some days just make you want to climb back under the covers
Who’ll drag our pastures now, Molly - we’ll miss you
Annie Davis
Nacogdoches - February 1, 2007
Damn, damn, DAMN
Molly and Ann always made me wish I was from Texas.
- SEP
Have read every book. What a loss! Very Sad
Thanks for everything, Molly. You helped keep a lot of us sane through honesty and laughter. Looking at the absurdity of the world, I’ll always wonder what you might have said, and remember the power of humour.
To me, a Brit, Molly was truly the voice of America. Through all the cackle,fawning,posturing,propaganda,misrepresentation,and outright lying, Molly’s work rang through clear as a bell. She had guts, she was honest, she delivered with biting wit, and always…always with the facts behind her. A true American patriot.Thank you Molly.
We have read Molly’s columns since we discovered her wit, brains and empathy
for the common people. Molly bit the backside of every politician that she
thought (rightly) wasn’t standing up for the causes that he, or she, was elected to champion. Molly was the first place we looked every morning, in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. She either reinforced our opinions or made us think hard about the other side of the issue.
She will be missed, beyond words.
So hard to write with tears streaming down my face. My brother introduced me to Molly with her first book and I’ve not missed a piece of her writing since, so she’s been my “mediated friend” and voice on all things political for these many years. We can only hope that there is some young journalist–or, better yet–many journalists inspired by Molly who will pick up the torch and run with it.
Mike McGough
State College, PA
It was shocking to be born in Odessa, Texas and even more depressing to also realize I could not speak any language. I was completely ignorant. So I spent a great many years trying to learn by imitating what I heard and saw around me. I probably haven’t been such a great example in the 63 years since. Partly because some of the templates I used were flawed. But I have seen some good ones in my time. Molly didn’t come along until late for some of us and now she’s gone all too soon. But she left so much. Future generations will be more fortunate because she was here. For them she came at a very good time.
What a stroke of fortune to have been on this planet at the same time as this wonderful person. We have to keep up the fight that she voiced so well for all of us. It is the least we can do. Thanks, Molly. My Sundays won’t be the same.
I had a second thought this morning after listening to excerpts of Ms. Molly on democracynow.org.
First, the amount of grieving on this and hundreds of websites shows that her outspoken criticism of Bush has only made her the more beloved by her fellow countrymen and citizens.
Bush would never recieve this sort of heartfelt sorrow, and that is the ultimate revenge, living well enough that we are heartbroken for the loss of Molly.
Why not honor Molly Ivins by starting hundreds of chapters of THE MOLLY BRIGADE, where we bang pots and pans in the streets and call for impeachment and to stop the war?
Here last column has the battlecry:
“..We are the people who run this country. We are the deciders.
And every single day, every single one of us needs to step outside and take some action to help stop this war.
Raise hell.
Think of something to make the ridiculous look ridiculous. Make our troops know we’re for them and trying to get them out of there.
Hit the streets to protest Bush’s proposed surge.
If you can, go to the peace march in Washington on Jan. 27.
We need people in the streets, banging pots and pans and demanding, “Stop it, now!”
Create your own Molly Brigade!!
We’ve lost a voice like no other. Her writing gave me laughter in my darkest hours. There is nothing like a good, raunchy laugh to bring one back to the task at hand: get Bush & Co. out of the White House. I know she’s up there with wonderful Ann Richards just having a ball. Bless you, Molly, and thank you for the joy you provided while here on Earth.
Molly Ivins got me throught many dark days of the Bush Family era. She never knew me,one of millions of readers and fans,but she surely knew we were out there,taking comfort from the fact that there was someone whould speak truth to Bush and the silence of the National Press. She spoke for us all and brighted this sad time. We have lost a beautiful human being, but her spirit will live on in our hearts. She in her way was this generations’ Edwaed R. Murrow.
Good-bye Molly. You’ve made it bearable to be a liberal in Texas these past few years. Please tell me we haven’t seen the last of that special breed of Texas woman who is smart, straight-shootin’, swears like a cowboy on the range and all the while looks beautiful doing it.
Molly Ivins was not a personal friend, but I felt a sense of “sisterhood” whenever I read her columns. I will miss that Texas drawl.
My husband and I toasted Molly last night with a shot glass and then climbed into bed early–both too sad to face the rest of the night.
Guts.
That’s what we need in America today and that’s what we lost yesterday with Molly’s passing. It’s even sadder that Molly didn’t get to be here long enough to see W thrown out of office. Shine a new light on us Molly because we really need it now with you gone.
Our Molly…what a loss for the country. Who will rouse us to action in the funniest possible way going forward. You will be missed. We’ll keep up the good fight. Rest in peace.
My eyes are welling up right now. Molly was so dear to my heart. I was a naive, 18-year-old freshman from Orange, Texas, in 1971 when I went to North Texas State University to study journalism. An English teacher assigned my class to take a current topic and compare the coverage in three liberal publications to three conservative publications. I found Texas Observer in the library and read Molly for the first time. I was hooked for the next 35 years.
Even if you didn’t agree with her, she could make you laugh. In 2001 I became editor of the Orange Leader and chose to run her column. I had lots of complaints, but my answer was “If you don’t like her, don’t read her.” One man was harsh and I said “Well, I don’t agree with Hitler but I read ‘Mein Kampf.’ He replied, “I’d rather you print that than Molly Ivins.”
I’m out of daily newspapers now because I’m tired of the mega-corporate journalism in small towns these days.
Thanks for the entertainment, knowledge and fun, Molly. You’ll get a big-screen view of The Lege in Heaven, with Ann by your side. Gee, I wish I could hear those comments.
Although I never met Molly Ivins, there are tears in my eyes as I write this. These tears are not for her, because she is free of pain and the cares of this world, but selfish tears because I will miss her wit, wisdom and great writing. These are also tears for the citizens of our country, who have lost a champion of civil rights and civil liberties, of honest government and the democratic process. She was a brave woman who never flinched when speaking truth to power, but she never seemed to take herself too seriously. If she could hear me now, I’d say, “Thank you, Molly. You leave us at a time when authentic and thoughtful voices such as yours are far too few and when our need for them has never been so great. You have been an inspriation to us all. Peace be with you.”
there is a big empty sad black hole in the heart of Texas today.
We will miss you Molly
From the mountains of North Carolina comes this “hill billy” to salute Molly Ivins and the inspiration she gives me to carry on her work. What a lovely picture that mirrors a lovely heart in a beautiful person filled with the energy and wonderment of a child we were all instructed to become. A lone voice stood tall against the gathering doom and the little people were uplifted. I am thrilled to no end that she got to enjoy November 7th, 2006. God is taking notes from her now…
Goddamn it. I’m just devastated by this. I wouldn’t expect to be, I mean, we knew it was coming…but jebus onna stick, I’m sitting here in tears. Angry tears. It’s not fair. I want my Molly back!
I first met her when I was a student, taking a journalism class where she was a guest lecturer. After I started working as a writer, I ran into her off and on, as Austin is a pretty incestuous little town, really.
She always remembered my name, and never failed to ask after my “mom-an-’em”. During my divorce, when I decided to leave Austin, I ran into her. Someone had told her that I was shutting down my publishing company, and heading off to the bright lights of a bigger city. She sat down next to me and told me “Running from something…well, that ain’t what we do. But running *to* something, well hell girl, saddle up them ponies and do us proud. Always run *to*, never run *away*. ”
It’s advice that has stood me well for almost fifteen years.
I will miss her. Flibbety Boo, Molly. Flibbety Boo.
Dear Fellow Ivinsists
I remember my introduction to Molly as a clip article sent to me by mail by my mother with a note stating, “Molly has been tickling me pink for 10 years”. It was an article titled “Bush and the Texas Environment” by Molly Ivins and Louis Dubose. Responding to a quote from a once governor Bush in 1999:
“You’ve got to ask the question, is the air cleaner since I became Governor? And the answer is yes.” - George W. Bush, May 1999
Good ole Molly struck out “That’s not a stretcher — that’s a whopper.”
I immediately found myself laughing and nodding my head thinking “a straight shooter with a grizzly wit, my kind of reporter”.
I kept receiving monthly installments throughout the 2000 campaign. By the time the Shrub had won (sort of) my mother had email and was sending me article on a weekly basis.
It was damn good too. The news started getting depressing, but Molly could always put a smile on my face.
By 2002 I was writing letters to my congressional representatives every fourth or fifth article. She had me riled and informed and for the first time in my life I needed to speak out and join the political discussion.
It became a daily ritual after the start of the Iraq war to see articles faxed back and forth between my boss and his clients and associates. “Molly strikes again”, rang like a hoorah around the water cooler (if we had had one).
Molly was able to tap into the collective subconscious and say what needed to be said.
I will always be grateful for her wit and wisdom.
God Bless Molly and may we site your work with determination and a smile in long hard walk ahead.
Molly’s flame forgotten?? “….that’s a whopper”
Humbly yours,
William Ledger
I am devastated at the news of Molly’s passing.
Where will we ever find someone who is as outraged and as funny at the same time? I feel like I’ve been kicked hard.
God bless you Molly Ivins.
I feel even more inspired now, reading some of Molly’s old columns, reading Bill Moyers’ and others’ comments. She is one of a kind, just wonderful in every way. My fantasy is that George W. Bush is reading all these comments and Molly’s columns and articles and is becoming a convert to her way of seeing things, that he will rue his past and be a new person, kind of like Scrooge. Foolish me; yes, I know that will never happen; it’s just a fantasy and wish. I join others who realize how much we will miss Molly Ivins.
Loved her writing! She often appeared in our local paper, here in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. She wrote with honesty and truth, “…in the American Way”. Sleep Warm, Molly Ivins
I was a copyboy at the Minneapolis Tribune when she worked there. I did not know her well. In fact, she had so much energy that I was a little bit afraid of her, almost. Years later, Nolan Zavoral, a sports reporter at that time related the following story to my wife:
At a regular late night gathering of staffers at one of the editors houses, someone asked, “Where’s Molly?” The city editor (I think it would have been Frank Premack) responded, “I sent her out to interview some Hell’s Angels. First time in my life I’ve ever felt sorry for those bastards.”
Paul Anton
Chief Economist
Wilder Foundation
Saint Paul, Minnesota
Molly Ivins was one of the hellraisers that I grew to absolutely love and admire because she wasn’t afraid of letting people have it, and did it in an absolutely hilarious way. That’s what journalists should be like.
There’s a movement on Buzzflash to rename its “Wings of Justice” award after Molly. I encourage all of you to support it highly. Good-bye Molly, and here’s hoping you keep letting the O’Reilly’s, Malkins, Coulters, Hannitys, and other hate-mongers of Fox Noise Channel and the right running scared from beyond.
Colin in St. Louis
I never had the good fortune to meet Molly, but anyone who’s read a book of hers feels like they’ve made a new friend. Her personable style had me reading “Bushwhacked” and thinking “Yes, this is what it would be like if Mark Twain was writing about current events today”. And all should please interpret that as the high praise that it is.
Molly, you touched more lives than you can ever know. We’re all very fortunate for the time you spent on this earth.
Thank you.
She had such a way of condensing an issue and making it so clear. I feel like I lost a family member or a friend. The world has lost some of its light.
I was born in Austin, Texas twenty-six years ago to one of your biggest fans, Molly (his thoughts appear in this tribute, he is “Rick from Raleigh, NC”). I moved back to Austin a few years ago and am a student, studying journalism. My inspiration comes from writers like you, who saw that the media’s job is to hold the government accountable. I love the way you held Bush’s feet to the fire; your death is a great loss to the Texan left. I hope to achieve half of what you have in my life as a writer, and will always remember you for your wit and intelligence. I promise to raise hell in your absence.
Keep givin’ ‘em hell up there in that big ol’ press room in the sky. We miss you, Molly.
I’m sitting here with my eyes so full of tears I can hardly type. Thank you Molly for holding the bastards feet to the fire. And for making me laugh and cry and for all you’ve done to keep the light shining on the crooks, the incompent, the liars and evildoers eveywhere.
Michael
Dear Friends: Molly is dead and so are we here in Texas as she said what we felt and saw what we see. Who can do this now? J. Acord
COMMUNITY VIGIL in AUSTIN TONITE, 6pm, CITY HALL
Contact: Debbie Russell, CenTex Civil Liberties Union & CodePink
Austin, 573-6194
GLOW FOR MOLLY
Community gathering hosted by fellow Austin women peacemakers
“RAISE MORE HELL.” (MI)
Joe Hill said, “Don’t mourne, organize.” Well, Joe, us Texas-women-
peacemakers, callused, but not necessarily hardened, have a slightly
different philosophy: mourne briefly, celebrate for fuel and THEN
redouble our organizing efforts!
“I still believe in Hope - mostly because theres no such place as
Fingers Crossed, Arkansas.” (MI)
Tonight is the first of many upcoming public events to celebrate the
incredible impact on the public conscienceness, the extraordinary
spirit and the Hope, that Ms. Molly had. As an example of her reach,
after the 10pm news last night, the texasobserver.org website crashed
by midnite from 750,000 new hits!
Austin’s women working for peace have organized a gathering TONITE
Thur., Feb. 1, 2007 — a “GLOW FOR MISS MOLLY” — at 6pm, at City Hall
Plaza (Cesar Chavez & Lavaca).
Participants will come to honor Miss Molly’s life and works, bringing
GLOWSTICKS (City Hall is not fond of candlewax on the plaza, plus Molly
deserves something just a bit more festive!), musical instruments,
visuals (projected) and shared stories. As Molly would have it, there
will be hopefully as much laughter as tears.
Your spirit will always guide us, your lingering wisdom and wit will
keep us grounded and your solid dedication to democracy and humanity
will act as the ceiling for us to reach for. Thank you, Molly.
——–2 POEMS by LOCALS———
Molly
by Leigh Saavedra (CodePink Austin)
We wish you could have stayed
to see the valid close,
his smug smile gone,
drowned in full disgrace.
We wish you could have stayed
to see how sorrow grows,
our love for youwet upon our faces.
Thank you, Muse and Avatar.
Without your sharp and lilting laugh
We would have found the road longer,
the wind colder,
the fight too somber..
But with you the path was home to our feet,
wrapping around them like faith,
lifting us upward, soaring,
through a wind that told us fight
and laughter fit in the same hand.
Like Moses, you led us here,
so close,to stay and watch us from afar,
but we’re almost there, Molly,
a bit heavier with your wisdom,
the strength of your vision in our hearts,
and strangely so, a bit more swift of foot.
Thank you, Molly Ivins,
for the laughter and the passion.
We’re almost there,almost there,
just one voice short…
Oh how we wish you could have stayed.
———————————————–
by Thom “The World Poet” Woodruff
Molly WAS as of today
but Molly IS and will always remain
example of bravery and truth
independent as Texas
a one woman trace indicator
of what is possible
when truth speaks to power
in a public forumwith a private smile
and a willingness to deal with the mess
that comes when apathy = style
She was read well and often
She was our witness protection
She made it possible for opposition
to be both registered and rational
with a passionate enthusiasm as contagious
as the disease which finally silenced her
She is a gift for our future(the same politicians still hover)
and they will praise her and miss her.
For the foxes rule
the same hen house.
We are all chickens
without her.
REMEMBER MOLLY Feb 1,2007
May God be good to Molly. My connection with her, mediated by television, newspaper, and the web, feels inexplicably initmate given we never met. Her spirit somehow was not confined by any medium but moved beyond the confines of paper and electronics to touch hearts. I feel like I have lost an old friend. May the angels lead her into Paradise.
Martin J. Leahy, Ph.D.
New Hope, PA
molly will be missed. thank you molly for a wonderful life. she was and is a great a great soul
Molly Ivins was more than a journalist and humorist, more than a citizen of Texas–she was a citizen of the World. Her exceptional talent as a writer and her biting, hilarious wit allowed her to “speak truth to power” in a way that touched us deeply. Her’s was a life well-lived for she made–and continues to make–a difference. I felt she was my friend, although we never met. I will miss her and her death leaves a HUGE void I can only hope will be filled by some brave, young crusader possessing a way with words and the courage to use them wisely. We must all honor her memory by continuing to fight for freedom, our rights–and the rights of all–in short, to be involved citizens of the USA. Goodnight, Molly. Sleep well.
Like Woody Guthrie’s guitar, Molly’s pen killed fascists.
When a life is consecrated to fighting the dangerous and deranged, that life becomes part of the eternal fight against injustice, sociopathy, and plain old greed. Like Joe Hill, Molly’s brave and joyful spirit will never leave us. We have to carry it on!
I have just loved Molly for years and will truly, truly miss her voice.
Our awful local paper, the Southern Illinoisan ran Molly, every Sunday, across the page from Anne Coulter. If was maddening. It is also not lost on me, that the last column I saw from Molly Ivins was a call, to go out into the streets to stop the war.
I was watching reruns of the Sopranos last night, when my wife, who was at the computer cried, “Oh, no! Molly Ivens died!” She seemed to be in tears off and on last night.
Ninety nine percent of those who claim to be journalists should prostrate them selves begging Molly Ivins’s spirit’s forgiveness for pretending to be in the same profession as she. I’m going to call my senator, tell them to support Russ Feingold’s proposal to cut off funding for the war. I think she’d like that better than flowers.
Dear Molly Lovers Everywhere,
… just wanted to let you all know that while Molly was loved by many in Texas, and in the US of A, it’s also a sad day for this sixty-one year old curmudgeon up here in this neck of the woods as well.
david f watts
fredericton, new brunswick, canada
– 30 –
There will never be another like her. So glad I had the opportunity to meet her ever so briefly many years ago.
Molly will never know how she inspired cranky old liberals such as myself to keep fighting, even when we got tired and frustrated and wondered why we should bother. The irony of this - her death at a time when we need her so very much - is not lost on anyone.
It isn’t like we need another reason to end this debacle in Iraq, but what better way to honor Molly’s memory than to bring on everything we have and do it for her. She’d be proud of us.
I didn’t read Molly’s work till after I left Texas, in 1970. From the rarified air of New England, where I continue to be an outsider, her writing enabled me to understand why I am the way I am. We both grew up tall, with big feet, and loud laughs that we enlisted to contain our confusion and outrage at the entrenched frontier brand of sexism we endured. My mother, the daughter of Swedish immigrant cotton farmers transported to central Texas, taught me to survive and be independent. Molly gave me a chance to reflect on my childhood and to be comfortable being a bodacious broad.
And I still laugh loudly…with joy, even when I’m kicking ass. Molly will always be there with me. She is under my skin.
I first heard about Molly Ivins when I moved to New York City in 1970 from none other than Yankee Norman Pearlstine who had befriend her when he was writing for the Wall Street Journal’s Dallas bureau. The woman he described as independent, smart, funny, unpretentious and a glorious writer sounded like my kind of Texas woman. I longed to meet her. Especially since she didn’t have big hair. She didn’t belong to a sorority. She didn’t wear Kenneth Jay Lane shrimp earrings. She was her own rare person. So when Molly moved to Manhattan in the late 70’s I called her up and told her my husband and I wanted to give her a dinner party to meet some of our friends. She arrived at our Greenwich Village townhouse that night late, dishelved and angry from fighting with her editors at New York Times who were not letting her use the f*** word in her current City Hall article. And then she eyed the row of wine bottles on our dining room table where I had bouquets of flowers stuck in children’s cowboys as centerpieces and Molly stopped her rant. “What the f***? No f****** beer?” Molly snarled, causing Henry to grab a coat and head for the deli around the corner. At the sight of multiple six-packs our guest of honor grabbed two, settled in and of course became the life of our party, charming all of us with rollicking, personal tales. We were so unhappy when she left town to return to Texas. But then she went on to greatness which she surely deserved, having got there own her own magical steam.Isn’t Heaven lucky to have her as a permanent dinner guest?
Rosemary Kent, author Genuine Texas Handbook
Molly, I didn’t realize until this morning how much I lean on your words for support in this tumultuous time in our country’s history. Dear Molly, I can’t even bear to write about you in the past tense. You are a credit to our republic…
Dadgumittohell, Molly is in a whomper-jawed heaven with Ann. Texas ain’t never ever gonna be the same. Shrub done won again.
My admiration of Molly’s gutsy resolve to speak truth to power is unbounded.
She was a great and patriotic American, and I can only hope that other patriots will have the guts and bravery to follow in her footsteps.
Thank you Molly, you will be sorely missed in today’s challenging world.
Jon Mooring
San Diego, CA
I had the joy of covering Molly last when she spoke at Lamar University in Beaumont, and even though she was battling cancer at the time, she kept the audience wowed from the time she took the podium to the last standing ovation she received that night.
Wearing a hat to cover her lack of hair from the treatments, she indulged the guests with the famous pointing-gun type of humor she was famous for and pulled off the hat in a tribute “to that bastard of all diseases — cancer,” and left the audience once again desparately in love with her as a writer, speaker and freedom rider.
There’s nobody quite like her and never will be! Texas has lost a leading lady.
Brenda Cannon Stancil
For those who are surprised to find that the Bush Administration lied, that George W. Bush is a mean-spirited frat boy who has failed at everything he’s ever done, to understand that our democracy is in danger, and that politics may be funny but it is also a high calling and crucial to our nation’s future, then you haven’t been reading and loving Molly Ivins for many many years. The rest of us have a terrible sense of loss today. A truth-teller, never a Kool-Aid drinker, she made us laugh through these dark last six years, and helped us to feel a lot less alone with the sobering reality, and we are grateful.
I’ve been reading Molly for about seven years now, and I just turned 23 and 1/2. I never got the chance to meet her, but my pop was an investigative reporter for years.
Molly’s columns have influenced me from high school, through college and beyond. Last month, at the Progressive Jewish Alliance (a non-profit fightin’ for justice out West) I taped a recent piece of hers to my door.
Molly’s fightin’ words, humor and irreverence will inspire me for the rest of my days. I never got a chance to thank her in person, but I’ve always considered her a hero. Molly, thanks for the good fight. You’re missed.
Boy am I gonna miss the beautiful Molly Ivins. A great American. A great Southerner [even if not by birth], a great writer and by all reasonable accounts a great girl and woman.
My guess is that what Miss Molly wants right now is for the Texas Observer and all of the better “mainstream” and “alternative” media outlets to hire ONE THOUSAND of our best current wits and writers to step up and in to the void left by her passing. The time is now.
When Ann Richards passed away I e-mailed Molly and told her that the military brought me to Texas, my wife showed me how to love Texas… but it was the strong women i.e. Ann Richards, Barbara Jordon and Molly that kept me here!! Thanks Molly and spread your lovin wings.
Entering Molly Ivins’ home for the first time during one of her famous “Final Friday” open houses, to my surprise I was warmly welcomed by Molly herself — she must have seen my wide-eyed awe and trepidation. The stern email invite (from a friend) had mandated bringing a homemade poem, song or other entertainment to offer and so I had conscientiously written a verse about recent odd events in my neighborhood. Not pride, I hope, but definitely a desire to meet the requirement led me that evening to read the darn thing aloud, with shaking hands. When I heard Molly laugh (more than once! wow!) at my verse, I felt I’d attained glorious heights, beyond all expectation. Then, of course, an even better insight: it wasn’t my little poem that succeeded, it was Molly’s extraordinary generosity and hospitality, invigorating and inspiring us all to try — and to gather together and keep at it. Thanks, Molly, a million thanks, for leading the charge.
A fine Texas Woman with an astute sence of the ridiculous, namely politics. She will be missed by millions!
The first time Molly beat breast cancer, I wrote her a fan letter, telling her I was so glad she didn’t die because someone had to be around to give George W. Bush the holy hell he so richly deserves. I am unspeakably sad that this time, she didn’t win. I’m a former Texan myself and will forever be her biggest fan. We’re not all turkey turkey turkeys!
I never imagined a world with president shrub, but without Molly Ivins (probably because I never wanted to see that world). It leaves me with a great sense of unbalance. You brought wisdom, laughter, and sanity to a world that has far to little of each, and you are dearly missed. I’ll be taking your last articles to the next meeting of our local group of activists. I don’t know how long it’s been since people have seen an anti-war sign in Alabama, but it’s time they see one again.
I was deeply affected yesterday upon hearing about Molly Ivins’ passing. Her column has been a treasure to me in recent years when it has seemed that my country had gone mad. Reading her column has been an oasis of sanity in an environment of rampant corporate greed and senseless war-mongering.
I knew she was ill but it was a shock yesterday to hear she was mortal and that her column would not be part of my life anymore. She wrote so truthfully, so courageously, with such wit and bite that I commented to my husband more than once after putting down the newspaper that this woman possessed more courage than any other journalist alive. I’m afraid that I even referred to a certain portion of her anatomy as being made of brass, a reference that I think she would have appreciated.
This woman possessed courage to speak the truth in the face to power the likes of which is seldom seen in our current times. A few others are doing it right now (Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert mainly) and I wish that others would chime in because now that Molly has passed, we owe it to her to take the baton and run with it. I hope the journalists, satirists, writers, artists, filmmakers in this country will step up. Yes I know that many already have but more need to make some noise. Like the lady said, we need to beat the pots and pans.
Let’s do it for Molly.
God Bless you, Molly Ivins - I will miss you dearly every time I open the newspaper.
~Leslie Clark
Singer/Songwriter
I was a producer for the dreaded talk radio “right-wing conspiracy” in Dallas-Fort Worth for many years. Molly was always the perfect guest! Not only did she NEVER turn down my interview requests (even when I knew she was having a tough health day), she always left my hosts speechless, but loving her. She’d always ask me, “What’s a nice girl like you doing booking redneck shows like this??” and I believe it was so I could book smart, brave, funny women like her. I’ll miss you, Molly.
Shrub-a-Dumb-Dumb
Alas, W’s thumb is in his rear,
And with it is tryin’ to steer?
Already Missing Molly.
A Woman’s Duty
To look the world in the face with a go-to-hell look in the eyes. To have an idea. To speak and act in defiance of convention.
Margaret Sanger (1883-1966) said this. Molly Ivins lived it. Boy will we ever miss her.
molly’s writing was for me an oasis of truth and commonsense sprinkled with humor which always left me refreshed and smiling, grateful for the respite from the vast desert of deception, acrimony and hatred all around us.
I would wager that in future years Molly Ivins’ writings will still be read with interest and with pleasure when George W. Bush’s name will be remembered no better than the names Lewis Theobald and Colley Cibber are in our own time.
Thank you, Molly Ivins, for making my few years as a military spouse in Texas more bearable. Your columns gave me hope that if there was one, there had to be a few more kindred souls (outside of Boston) unafraid to speak the truth. You were an inspiration to a young female journalist. And thanks to my Austin connections, V. Glenn Cootes and Stephen Hanson, for making sure I read every column.
My son-in-law introduced me to Molly’s writings. The next best thing he’s ever done - the first being marrying my daughter. I loved her writing, felt she was in my corner, and understood exactly what I needed to know. Thank you for allowing us to pay tribute. Sincerely.
When Molly came to our town (Grand Rapids, MI), the auditorium was crammed to the rafters. It was early 2004 and we were gearing up to rid ourselves of you-know-who. We were sad, we were angry, and we were hopeful. We needed to laugh and we needed to be inspired. She strode up to the edge of the stage and drawled, “I just thought I’d come and cheer y’all up about politics”. That she did and more. She was passionate about exercising the franchise. I still use her arguments in conversations about the importance of voting and the relevance of politics.
Molly spoke the unvarnished truth to power with wit and incisiveness. We still need that voice, and now more than ever.
Peace be with you, Molly; we will miss you.
We shoulda rented the stadium.
Several years ago, the Rice University Sociology Department invited Molly to speak in its annual Walter and Helen Hall lecture series, named for the liberal Dickinson banker and his wife who, among many other good works, had helped The Observer financially. We had had a number of well-known speakers previously but anticipated an especially big crowd for Molly, so we reserved the biggest venue on campus aside from the basketball and football stadiums–Duncan Hall, the main auditorium of the Shepherd School of Music which holds about 800. The speech was at 8. By 7 the auditorium was full and a rowdy crowd was forming outside. We were able to set up TVs and about 200 folding chairs in the adjoining foyer, but folks weren’t happy. They wanted to see Miss Molly in person. And they were not nearly as unhappy as the hundreds more who couldn’t even find a place to sit or see the TV. Our department secretary fielded irate phone calls from Molly fans for weeks afterwards complaining. Molly gave the crowd inside what they had come for, and there were words uttered from the stage of Duncan Hall that night that, I am sure, had never been heard there before. I had long known that Molly had a fan club of massive proportions, but it took that experience to drive home to me the depth of its feeling for her as well. “Next time you come, Molly,” I told her, “we’ll rent the damned stadium for you.” She seemed to like the idea.
My dear Molly and my dear fellow mourners,
Let’s honor Molly with a coast-to-coast pot banging, lid clanging WAKE. A raucous celebration with peace banners and non-stick skillets and wooden spoons. Gather on the street corners, gather on the courthouse squares, gather outside the offices of the powerful and crash those kitchen cymbals and blow those whistles and yell your heads off. Bring some pom-poms, for God’s sake. Let them know we’re here to bring it on, in her memory.
Never forget.
It has been so terribly difficult and painful to face political realities in our country in these last few decades. Molly was one of the people that I relied upon to keep me able to function as a citizen working for democracy and social justice. She kept me laughing and she kept me brave. I never met her personally but I feel her loss keenly. She was one of my heroes. Goodbye, dear fellow traveller. I will remember you and be strengthened when I am tempted to give up the good fight
~ Funeral Blues ~
By W.H. Auden
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message She Is Dead,
Put crêpe bows round the white necks of the public
doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.
She was our North, our South, our East and West,
Our working week and our Sunday rest,
Our noon, our midnight, our talk, our song;
We thought that she would last for ever: we were wrong.
The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.
**********************************************************
(I don’t think the poet Auden would care that I paraphrased some words from his great poem on the death of one that was cherished.) And we did cherish Molly, didn’t we?
She was so unique and feisty, ornery at times, really — but oh, the wit and wisdom that poured from every cell of her! I often marveled at the fact that she was always able to “top herself” ~ each book, or column, and every speech was better than the last! How in Hell did she do it? Ah well, we’ll never know, but we do know, this day, that we honored and cherished her for everything that she was and all that she stood for.
We can also thank her for brightening the political scene enough to keep us interested and from turning away — jaded and tired of it all! Yes, she kept us going “back to the hunt.” Now we must carry on, if for nothing else but to honor her memory, while remembering her own intrepidity and forthrightness in endlessly going “back to that hunt.” She led the way for us, and now, we must take up that banner and follow!
Molly, may you rest in peace now, and let us carry on the good ol’ liberal fight for you and for ourselves. Thank you for showing us how!
An Inveterate Admirer,
Michael B.
I’ve read Molly’s columns for years and depending their content, I’ve smirked, felt nauseous, giggled, cried, become enraged and laughed hysterically. I’ll miss her and her insightful, salty, comical, honest, witty, in-your-face words. She was a true original…rest in peace, Molly.
First Father Drinan, now Molly… her ability to cut right to the heart of an issue was unparalleled, and her turns of phrase priceless. I treasure my audiobook version of “Nothin’ but Good Times Ahead”–hers was a voice of wit and wisdom both, and I will miss that greatly.
Though I never met Molly, my special fondness for her stems from the way her words helped my son and I through a difficult time in his life. He was 14 years old and just home from the hospital after major back surgery for severe scoliosis and still in incredible pain as we weaned him off morphine. Sleep was rare so I stayed up and read Molly’s books to him throughout the night. At 3AM you could have hear us laughing until we cried at her funny stories. Nothing else worked as well as Molly to get through those tough weeks. We both are forever grateful. She was the cat’s meow, the bee’s knees, the best of the best. No one put the nincompoops in their place better or faster than she. What a treasure!
I will miss Molly’s clarion truths. In reading her columns, I was always guaranteed two things: A new fact about the world and a good laugh. Molly seemed like the best kind of friend — the one who tells you that you do indeed look fat in that dress. I miss her already. I can only imagine the ache in the hearts of those who knew and loved Molly. My heartfelt sympathies to you all.
-Lisa in Milwaukee
My appreciation for Molly Ivins grew - but did not stop growing - in the mid-90s when she gave us the term “Shiite Baptists.” Yeah, baby.
Molly we will miss you and your wit dearly in the years to come. Thank you for telling us about “Shrub”.
We are very saddened by the loss of so rare an individual. The reading of the paper will not be the same without her candor and wit. God Bless you Molly you will truly be missed here in Montana.
I will miss Molly so much. I loved her columns on Bush. I have her book Shrub and it is great reading. She will truly be missed, a beautiful person and too short a life.
Molly alway enscribed her books, at least the ones I purchased: “Keep raising Hell!” Molly, in your memory, we will continue to do just that.
What a great lady. Down-home, smart and funny as hell, a real inspiration. Someone I wish I could have met in person. No one like her. We’ll miss you.
–Jeffrey
I was shocked and stunned when I learned of Molly’s death. Her death is sad for many reasons. For those of us alive during the years when the women’s movement was at its peak, Molly stood as an icon and a constant reminder that we could do anything that we set out to do. Her wit and literary genius will live on for many years. I feel so alone now that my personal role model and heroine is no longer with us. There are not a lot of public figures who revel in being called a liberal. It will be a colder, lonelier place without Molly Ivins to put a humorous face on the daily disasters that face us. We will miss you, Molly, for never being afraid to embrace the truth. For finding the humor in the most infuriating of circumstances. For having the courage to say that the emperor has no clothes. She and Ann Richards were special, gifted women.
I was in college when I first read her work. She was/is the most kick-ass role model–fearless, hysterical, sharp and warm. She’ll be missed.
When we moved to Texas in 1978, Molly was one of our first and favorite discoveries. We delighted in her humor and her intelligence.
When we moved to Oregon in 1998, she came with us via the internet, several
magazine subscriptions and her books.
We were worried when we found she was ill again and devasted at her passing.
She was unique; she was the best; she’ll be missed by those of us who felt
she was a friend.
God Bless and God Speed, Molly.
What a huge loss.
These notes are a wonderful tribute to how your brilliant spirit lives on, Molly. Thank you all for sharing them.
I just got off the phone with Kinky Friedman, and he made some incredibly kind comments about Molly. Your readers may appreciate his eloquence on the matter.
http://gonzomuckraker.blogspot.com/2007/02/kinky-friedman-on-molly-ivins.html
Just a thought.
Regards,
Stephen Webster
Investigative Reporter
All of Molly’s friends and admirers at the Center for Investigative Reporting will miss her presence and friendship. She was Master of Ceremonies for CIR’s 25th anniversary celebration in 2002 and knew how to say all the right things about the Center at the event while keeping the audience rolling in the aisles with her stories and wit. She was nothing short of magnificent and helped us all feel part of a great journalism tradition and vision that attempts to speak truth to power. Our thoughts are with her friends and family. She will be deeply missed.
My friend Kathi Goldmark knows every author that ever did a book tour. She thinks that everybody has a song to sing and, in her previous career as an “author escort”, she coaxed many famous authors to record a song for her record label, Don’t Quit Your Day Job Records. In 1998 she released a double CD titled Stranger Than Fiction that compiled many of these recording sessions. Did you ever think you’d hear Norman Mailer sing Alimony Blues? Or Maya Angelou & Jessica Mitford belt out Right, Said Fred?? (Let me just say that never was a record label more appropriately named.)
One of these sessions took place in Austin in the fall of 1997. Kathi had persuaded Molly Ivins to record a song, promising her professional back-up using Jimmy LaFave’s band. We gathered at Cedar Creek Studios in South Austin, not far from Molly’s house. Jerry Jeff Walker and Bob Livingston showed up to play as well. While we were waiting on Molly to arrive, the main sound board caught on fire. Smoke began billowing into the studio. Jerry Jeff quipped, “The board must have heard that Molly is coming in to sing and spontaneously combusted!”
The sound guy got the fire put out and Molly came in and recorded It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels. Though not likely to hit the country charts, she managed to stay mostly in tune and performed with much laughter and genuine modesty. I love the comment she made at the end of the session, which is included on the CD version: “If I had a sense of rhythm, I would be fabulous!”
Well, she may not have had much rhythm, but she certainly was fabulous.
I love people and especially writing people like Molly Ivins and William F. Buckley and Annie Dillard and Naomi Nye bettern’ most anything. I am very sad and my throat hurts with emotion and its hard to ‘talk’ - at the loss of Molly Ivins. There is not likely to be another like her. Hope to see you again, Molly, on down the road.
I have never cried when hearing of the passing of anyone in the media - I am crying now. The world is a much richer place with her writings and I am thankful that she shared her humor and opinions with us. She has carried me through some of the darkest times of “Shrub”. I will miss her.
It can be awful lonely being a Progressive here in Texas, it just got a lot lonelier. Thanks Molly you WILL be missed.
Late Tuesday night I got around to reading Lou’s OBSERVER review, “Kuo Vadis.” He described one particularly daft conservative as “batshit.” I laughed out loud at 2 in the morning, and thought of Lou, Molly, Cliff and my 1980’s drive-by on 7th Street.
Then this morning, I hear Molly’s moved on. I read the papers, remember and can’t help but laugh at all her roll-on-the-floor quips. I recall how incredibly kind and generous she was to me every time I saw her. I ask Eddie to say hi to her for us and tell her thank you (again) for being so special.
I’d guess I’m the only faculty member of the BYU community in conservative Utah whoever met Molly, or perhaps ever read her books. But what a loss! She was sharp-witted, insightful, full of vim and vinegar. I’m glad she lived to witness the beginning of the end of the Republican empire, its greedy excesses, corruption of power, and insane foreign policies. Exposing Shrub’s posse as crooks, con-artists, and crackpots was but one of her many gifts. But that wasn’t all. Her well-reasoned, intelligent and articulate critiques of many things wrong about political and corporate decision-making showed much brilliance. Yet at the same time, she was so doggone hilarious!
We’ll miss you, Molly. The only consolation for us mortals is that we know you’re in heaven, ranting and raving with heroic predecessors like Joe Hill, Mother Jones, and Tom Paine. I’m sure you’re stirring up conflicts, organizing labor unions, and challenging the status quo there just like you did on earth!
–Warner Woodworth
Once back in 1999 when I was working in the Texas Legislature I was having a really bad day. One of my coworkers invited me out to a party she was going to. I didn’t know where the party was and at that point I really didn’t care. Lo and behold we pulled up in front of Molly Ivins house somewhere in Austin. I didn’t know it was her house or her party until she greeted us at the door. I also wasn’t aware that the person that brought me didn’t know the difference between “invited to” and “heard about”.
Yeah, we crashed her party.
It didn’t matter though because despite the fact that two relatively low ranking legislative flunkies had invaded the turf of political gliterati (and boy were there some names there), she got us both a drink and made us feel right at home. That’s class. I’ll miss seeing her work.
I first came across Molly’s columns as a university student in the 1980′ in New Zealand. I stumbled across this magazine called the Progressive and upon browsing through it came across the column on the last page written by Molly.
I began reading it and was amazed that it was stating the very things I was thinking about Ronald Regan and the policies he was enacting. I began reading this magazine regularly waiting for the next hilarious piece from Molly. After the magazine was cancelled I tried to find alternative sources for her column but could not. However I did not despair and with the advent of the internet it meant I could continue reading her columns.
As a librarian I have attended many conferences in the U.S. and in 2001 (I think) in San Antonio I had the great privilage of hearing her speak. As we were leaving the hall a colleague asked if I wanted to come and meet her and hear her speak in a smaller setting and so for another hour I was enthralled and privilaged to hear her speak.
That day has long stayed in my memory and it will continue to do so. I have cherished her wisdom in both her columns and books and as a liberal in New Zealand have always marvelled at her great optimism esp. at this time in America’s history.
I will miss her regular columns for the wit, wisdom and as I say optimism. God speed
Kevin Adams
Christchurch
New Zealand.
She will never know what a hero she was to me, a cranky old liberal who was inspired by Molly to keep fighting. The best way to honor her memory is to start fighting even harder to end this debacle in Iraq. She’d be proud of us.
Molly, you gave the right people hell, and you had a legion of fans because of your honesty.
I’m sitting here in Wisconsin, crying my eyes out over someone I never met. Thank you Molly for helping us find our voice and for expressing our anger and incredulity in such marvelous ways. I am eternally grateful you lived long enough to see the beginning of the end of the “Shrub” regime.
My parents gave me a subscription to The Texas Observer when I was in high school in the late 80s and early 90s, and I became a devoted Molly Ivins fan from the get-go. Living in Houston, I wasn’t able to regularly read her column until the internet era, but I loved every word she wrote.
A liberal Texan, she gave me hope that I wasn’t alone in loving this Great State while hating what sometimes goes on here. And she taught me that fighting and raising hell and saying thing that nice girls aren’t supposed to say is perfectly ok. I’ve teared up several times today, reading and remembering this woman that I relate to so well. And I keep thinking that it’s going to take a lot of us to even begin to attempt to fill her role.
But if she taught us anything, we’re going to have to try.
’stina solis
GOOD GOLLY MISS MOLLY!! Please send us your thoughts from “the right hand of the Mother”. The angels will surely have someone to look up to!! Thanks for sharing your life with we mortals!
I went to one of Molly’s party’s at her South Austin home when my significant other worked as an office manager for the Texas Observer a few years ago.
She was a wonderful hostess and as always entertaining, kind, smart and most of all very funny.
This is a great loss for Texas journalism.
Just look at the picture above. She has a smile as big as Texas. Goodbye Molly.
I will miss you Molly. You always made me laugh out loud!! Plus you touched my heart and soul and ignited political passion in me for justice and peace…Keep raisin hell..I am sure St. Peter won’t mind!!
Therese Strohmer
Only in the last few years have I discovered Molly’s work. I only had to read one article to take notice and ask myself, “who is this, and why have I not heard of her?” After reading two or three more articles it was clear that she spoke the truth and was right to the heart of matter. After reading the sixth or seventh article, I was emailing CNN (where I read her editorials) saying, ‘Molly Ivins for President.”
I will miss her voice of sanity.
- Bill Price
Ah, Molly…if only I’d told you how much I respect you before this. A voice we can hardly afford to lose is gone, and the silence is deafening. Knowing you, you’ll be passing by the white, fluffy clouds and heading for the black, stormy ones, shining the light of truth on the darkness. We will miss you and will never forget you. Never.
I’ll always remember Molly for her comment that Pat Buchanan’s speech at the ‘92 Republican convention was good, but sounded better in its original German.
We’ll miss ya Molly! Between you and Ann Richards, Texas is now truly a wide open space.
I’m from Tucson Arizona. I’ve read Molly Ivins for many years. I’ll miss her writing greatly. Tucson is a mostly liberal island in a sea of Republican hell.
Rock on, Molly.
I’m a reporter in the San Francisco bay area, but I originally came from Molly’s Stompin’ grounds. I came from Texas. My family lives at just about every tip of the lone star state… From Marbel Falls to Port o’ Connor to Houston to Austin, to Longview and beyond.
Many people I know from Texas did not understand Molly. Many lined their bird cages with her articles. They have the “shrub” mentality. Until their gulf stream disappeares and the fish won’t bite, there are those Texans who will refuse to believe the irrefutable evidence of global warming. Molly, thank goodness, loved them anyway. she had an an irrepressible sense of humor, and a bellowing laugh that somehow carried her through the piles of hate mail she must have received. Hate mail is always the sign of a good journalist.
Today, journalists sometimes think they are celebrities. That dog didn’t hunt with molly. She had no tolerance for reporters who did their hair, sprayed on their high definition makeup and read the news. She wanted the dog who could hunt. she wanted to expose warts, and she wanted to laugh that throaty billowing laughter as she danced right through phoney make believe gardens planted in manure. She was a reporter. She was a teller of truth.
I once sat on a panel with Molly and heard her give one of the greatest speeches I’ve heard to date. It was a speech about separation of church and state. It is a particularly poignant speech on a timely subject in this moment in time as all the hour glasses in all our lives trickle down. The sand in Mollys hour glass ran out far too fast.She had so much more to say.
I love her kick ass spirit. I imagine she’s questioning the big fellow upstairs right now about the virgin birth and perhaps writing an article on the repercussion of such a belief.
At the end of our lives, if we can say we helped right one injustice, the fight has been worth it. Molly has reason to be proud, and so does her family and all those who loved her. She told the unvarnished truth as she saw it, and she helped us understand our Texas president’s mentality more than any other journalist around. Her life was surrounded by BUBBAS. She laughed at anything absurd. she knew her home intimately with all it’s idiosyncrasies and she loved and embraced it. She also loved to get under a Texan’s skin…just like the cackle burrs in texas fields.
My texas grandmother use to say “that man’s such a liar he has to get sonmeone else to call his dogs for him.” That’s Texas humor and that’s the kind of joke molly would have loved.
There are few originals…miss molly was one.
No one ever had to call her dogs for her!
I’m a high school newspaper advisor and my kids and I will be losing our beating heart: even our password on our server is IVINS.
Looking somewhat like Big Bird and Tweetie Bird, Molly agreed to let my colleague take a picture of us (I’d be Tweetie) at the annual ACLU dinner in Salt Lake City. She put her arm over my shoulders and gave us that smile.
I don’t know if I can find a new goddess.
We love you, Molly.
April Squires, Utah
Molly Ivins, even though a celebrity, sure did make some of us “little people” feel important. After speaking in Sarasota, and signing books for well over an hour (and I am sure being very tired), she took time at the end of the day to let several of my friends and myself have our photos taken next to her. If all Texans were like her, Texas certainly would be the greatest.
I’ll miss her writing.
I am so saddened by Molly’s death. She became like a sister to my sisters and me. We so looked forward to reading her wonderful, witty columns about politics (especially her stuff on George Bush). She has gone to join another one of our favorite Texans, Ann Richards. Both will be sorely missed and never can be replaced. Just a couple of great women!
Pardon me, but — damndamndamndamn –we’ve lost another one. First Art Buchwald;now, one of the best humans ever. I’d never heard of Molly when my dad gave me her first book for Christmas. Several months later, I started reading it, with tears in my eyes from laughing. I “attended” a couple of boarding schools and had Texas clasmates. Her ability to write in dialect was remarkable. You had to read out loud to understand it, at times.
May I humbly ask the Observer to think about compling a collection of Molly’s columns (chronilogically, please)and publishing same for those of us who have been deprived of her intelligence, wit, and humanity after the L.A.Times was sold? I didn’t see a Buchwald column in at least 7 years, either.
My parents are ecstatic: They’ve got Buchwald and Ivins full time.
Thank you Molly. You should have been President! You were brave and honest and made the world a better place for us all. Now you are our guardian angel.
After Shrub got “re”-elected in 2004, I was laid so low that I just about gave up on politics forever. It was Molly, once again, that gave me the energy to dive into 2006 with more dedication that ever before. I would like to think that she deserves a proper share of credit for taking back the Congress.
Chuck McLean
It’s almost too much to bear thinking of being without you, the great weekly laughs as you skewered the rogues, the blessings you gave the rest of us with your reminders of what really matters in this wondrous and wounded country. Molly, your leaving’s left a hole the size of Texas in the world. We’ll never forget but, with you lookin down, goddamit we’ll carry on . . .
Good Golly Miss Molly,
How can we - mere mortals - go on without you? You spoke the truth as so few do today. And even while speaking the truth about the godforsaken mess our country is in today you made us laugh.
We won’t forget. We won’t shut up. We won’t sit down.
You showed us how.
I feel as though I’ve lost a dear, dear friend. She will be missed.
Molly Ivins helped me keep my sanity during the past six years of “Shrubdom”. In her honor, I’d love to see us all get out and “bang the pots and pans” and shout that “we’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore.” I could cry with grief at the passing of such a brave, gutsy woman. Farewell, Molly.
Thank you Molly. You kept me laughing, thinking, and fighting like hell!
My grief is not just for me and all of us who loved her wry, hilarious, sharp brilliance, but for all of those who will never know who she is/was. As a woman in her forties who is trying to leave her mark in some little way, I have been in awe of her strength of character over the years. We middle aged women need to know what it means to speak loudly about what matters, right up until our death as she did. She never stopped being bold. She broke all of rules with grace and style. No one demanded we see the truth so vividly. I just hope we will all take up her burning torch and run until our knees give out on us too.
Reading your words…it’s strange to cry with a smile on my face.
A stand-up broad
peace darling,
ronny
Molly Ivins is my hero. I want to be just like her.
Once upon a time, in the waning days of 1981, the Dallas Times-Herald began carrying an announcement: “Molly Ivins Is Coming.” Since we had lived in Dallas—not to be confused with the rest of Texas–for only ten years at the time, this had no meaning; but on an unforgettable Monday in 1982 when we read her first column on the front page of section two of the Times-Herald, she won our undying fealty and gratitude We have been her fan ever since, tracking her through the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram, Ms. Magazine (in an earlier incarnation), The Progressive and The Nation, Mother Jones, and on-line, wherever we could find her column, especiallhy Common Dreams and Working for Change. On most Tuesdays and Thursdays, one would announce: “There’s a new Molly up.” She brought such freedom, such fearlessness, and such freshness to her commentary, and such exuberance to her phrasing of political realities that my perspective on Texas and American politics has never been the same. We relished reading that one fearless leader’s intellectual acumen was about equal to a box of rocks, and that another politico was not the sharpest knife in the drawer. We admired her speaking up for downtrodden minorities, working stiffs, impoverished visionaries, the rule of law, and for the so-often maligned Bill of Rights. Now she is gone, and we cannot say how much we shall miss her. All we can say is Life is not fair.
Mendocino, CA. Somewhere in the mid-1990s. Lounging in a La-Z-Boy in a lovely rented cottage overlooking the ocean. I’d found Molly’s Nothing But Good Times Ahead in a little bookstore and delightedly rushed back to the cottage to settle in and devour it. I was not even 30 seconds into the book when my traveling companions saw me virtually erupt into uncontrollable, side-splitting, gasping-for-breath guffaws. As soon as I would wipe my eyes and compose myself, another wave of hilarity swept over me and I’d be pounding the chair arms and howling once again. As they witnessed this loss of control of (apparently) my mind, I wondered if they knew how close I also came to losing control of my bladder! Only the thought of losing our rental deposit kept me from tee-teeing on the recliner.
Here’s the selection that got me so tickled:
The best description I ever found of what it’s like to be a political
reporter appeared, curiously enough, in Natural History magazine, deftly
sandwiched into an article by a female biologist who studies the diet of
the muriqui monkey. Anyone who has ever chased a politician around trying
to get a usable quote will be stunned by the accuracy of this scientific
account of the procedure:
“Occasionally the feces land neatly in my glove, but more often
they splatter uselessly in the tangled vegetation — or else fall
alongside another muriqui’s feces, so that I cannot tell whose is
whose. So even though the muriquis defecate often and, in the
case of adults abundantly each time, getting a clean sample
sometimes means tailing one muriqui for up to six hours without
pause.”
– Molly Ivins in Nothing But Good Times Ahead, 1994
Even though I’ve lived out West for many years now, I’m from Waxahachie, Texas and reading Molly was always like coming home - not only to Texas, but coming home to all that is good and noble AND funny about this crazy world. Godspeed, Molly, and thanks for everything. I will never, ever forget the uproarious joy of that afternoon in Mendocino.
It seems that as long as I have been reading about politics, I have been reading Molly’s trenchant and witty columns. There were so many different levels upon one could enjoy her work, the humor, of course, and how we all need to laugh. But I think where the brave and wise Ms. Ivins spoke to me most deeply was in her compassion for those who struggle.
To think that all this goodness came from a woman who had grown up in River Oaks, who had gone to school with a future President. Molly, you made so many of proud to call ourselves liberals and even made it seem okay to come from what your favorite publication rightfully calls ‘the strangest state in the Union.’
To say that Molly Ivins saved my life would be an exaggeration. To say that she opened my eyes to the importance of politics, inspired and educated and engaged me, and then showed me the absurdity of that world when my soul had lost hope, would not be.
Thanks Molly, and I’ll miss you.
La Donna
God bless u Molly. One of the great voices in our democracy is now silent. The legacy lives on. Thanks for all the great work AND the laughter.
Several years ago, my two best friends and I were on our annual Girls Tubing Trip down the Guadalupe. We kept seeing this group of older folks, laughing, talking, drinking beer. We said to each other that we wanted to be like that when we were older: Still tubing down the Guadalupe, laughing, and drinking beer. One of my friends noticed that the loudest member of the party, the one getting out of the river and riding the various rope swings along the route, was none other that Molly Ivins.
That was before I met Molly in person through my work with the ACLU, before my friends and I started creeping towards the age those “older folks” were that day, and before Molly, my best friend and I were diagnosed with breast cancer.
Molly had a good 20 years on us age-wise, and aeons in wisdom. When I was diagnosed the year after she was, I looked to Molly for courage, strength, and laughs, just as I’d always looked to her for her political insight. When Molly failed breast reconstruction, I had to, too. (Molly, that was a bit extreme of me, but I’ve always taken things a bit too far.)
I’ll miss you, Molly. This year’s trip Girls Tubing Trip will be the First Annual Molly Ivins Memorial Tubing Trip. And we’ll keep our eyes out for a rope swing.
Good Golly Miss Molly,
You left the party too soon. How can we - mere mortals - forge on without your truth and ascerbic wit? You never let the powers that be get away with anything.
We must learn from you - to never give up - never shut up - never put up. We won’t sit down. You showed us how to stand up.
My wife and I feel diminished by the loss of Molly. We felt that Molly was our
True Texas Voice in the world. She spoke with a true understanding of the
feelings we caring Texans have. God will bless Molly! We will miss you
Mollygirl!!
Even though I didn’t agree with many of Molly’s opinions being on the other end of the political spectrum, I found humor and a lighthearted look at politicians and a glimpse into her political world. Her columns gave me a look at the other side and a chuckle at the end. She was the last of the hardcore liberals and for what she brought to the table and offered some of us, she will be missed by many.
The first time I can ever remember talking to Molly Ivins was at the 1992 Democratic National Convention in New York City, where I was a Clinton delegate. (It was, bar none, one of the most fun and exciting weeks of my life. My then husband, Roger, although instrumental in helping me get elected national delegate, was unable to accompany me, so I stayed with my sister Jonna and she and I had a blast going to all the parties and events together.)
So we were in Manhattan, at one of the nightly parties for the Texas delegation, at some bar with the booze flowing freely and I was chatting with her as the ice tinkled in our glasses. Molly was a tall, buxom woman back then, at least 8 inches taller than yours truly, and we were standing face to boobs as I expounded on some point I wanted to make. I was gesticulating a bit too wildly and found myself suddenly mortified when I bonked her left bosom with my right index finger. I interrupted myself, cringing, and said “Omigod, I’m so sorry!!!” She continued to look at me intently, shrugged ever so slightly and graciously told me to go on, as if what I had to say was the most important thing she’d ever heard. Whatever in the heck it was.
Of course I always remembered that, especially when I heard about her breast cancer years later. During the early years of this millennium, she had a monthly party at her house in South Austin on the last Friday — these soirees were fittingly called Final Friday. I attended a number of times, and always had a good time meeting and greeting my fellow liberals and sharing copious amounts of wine with them.
In 2002, I had an army officer friend who had been deployed to Afghanistan, and he wrote me to ask if I wanted anything from that unfortunate place. I said, oh yes, I want a real burka because I just have to know what one of those unbelievably horrible things is actually like. And in due time, I got a package containing an actual lavender-colored burka, with the crocheted face thingy and all. On the Final Friday of July, and of course this being Austin it was sweltering, I attended Molly’s party and made a point of entering the house with my burka on. I walked in with my friend, Norm, thank goodness, because outside, as soon as I put the thing on over my clothes, it was apparent that I couldn’t even see well enough to walk from my car to the house; I had to hold his hand just to keep from falling over the curb. (Note to all who have never tried one on — burkas are just as horrendous as you ever imagined, and then some.)
In we walked, and there she was, right in the living room, facing the door, whereas usually I recall her being out back, or in the kitchen. I will never forget the look on her face, an expression of genuine horror and surprise, as if a truly oppressed woman had materialized in her house. Of course I had to see it through the crosshatched stuff I was looking out of, and I stayed still for a second, turning my head (since I had no peripheral vision) and getting a kick out of the horrified looks all around. Then I quickly grabbed the front of it and pulled it up so she could see who it was, and said, “Molly, it’s just me, but this is a real burka from Afghanistan!” She started laughing, and needless to say, the burka was the hit of the evening. I got almost everybody, of course including Molly, to try it on, my theory being that we all needed to know exactly what the women of Afghanistan have to experience every day. I also discovered that one’s burka gets mighty messy when one attempts to drink red wine while wearing it.
Another Final Friday, Molly and Linda Lewis and some of her other friends called themselves the Hot Flash Brigade and did this little skit and dance making fun of menopause. Another time my friend Cary Jones performed his anti-Tom DeLay rap song, on yet another occasion my sisters were both with me…..I loved every minute of all of them. She was so generous to open her home to all of us like that, and it was a really cool place, a 50 or so -year old ranch style house that had been fixed up with a spacious enclosed entry that was part sitting area and part greenhouse and a huge deck in the back for all the performances. I remember her wearing a red t-shirt covering her by then flat chest, which had a map of the USA on it, the state of Alaska highlighted off in the west, and it said “Alaska ACLU — to the left of everything!”
RIP Molly, you are in heaven with Ann now, and we will just have to wait to see you again when we get there. Yes, I do believe we’ll all make it.
Jennifer
Raise hell in the next world too Molly!
Minneapolis MN (1970) — Molly didn’t flee the Far Side of North she went out like a prairie tornado, after three yeas of sassy and serious hell-raising. I know, I shared a desk with her at the late Minneapolis Tribune, a paper she pushed to the edge, especially with her 1970 enterprising series, “The Young Radicals” still a powerful read.
She bolted town, famously leaving behind Molly the Pig, and a searing scorched-earth critique of “The Paper,” starring Feisty Frank Premack, then city edtior, as her principal ‘antagonist.’ Ivins didn’t get it — ojectivity, balance and just-the-facts. She and Frank loved the bidnz and in time came he earned her respect and affection — both purposeful hell raises with different vocabularies. Frank, Molly, and Deborah Howell, the best parents in the business.
And many special and personal nights with Molly, Jack Miller, and Mike Steele at Russell’s Bar, a 4th street bar and grill with a $3.95 steak. Intense conversation about Vietnam, the first war against which Molly raged — deeply personal conversation because that trio held me steady and in their hearts as I fought the Selective Service for conscientious objector status. Her couragous letter to Selective Service on my behalf is sealed and sacred testimony.
Molly — You rallied and railed then and now against the folly of war. You lived as a Tribune, died raging against the dying of the light. Bless us to carry on and with fervor.
Your beloved,
Fledge
pkmsr@mchsi.com
The spin doctor is all spun out. We will miss you!
We are all Mollycrats now.
Minneapolis MN (1970) — Molly didn’t flee the Far Side of North she went out like a prairie tornado, after three yeas of sassy and serious hell-raising. I know, I shared a desk with her at the late Minneapolis Tribune, a paper she pushed to the edge, especially with her 1970 enterprising series, “The Young Radicals” still a powerful read.
She bolted town, famously leaving behind Molly the Pig, and a searing scorched-earth critique of “The Paper,” starring Feisty Frank Premack, then city edtior, as her principal ‘antagonist.’ Ivins didn’t get it — ojectivity, balance and just-the-facts. She and Frank loved the bidnz and in time he won her respect and affection — both purposeful hell raisers with different vocabularies. Frank, Molly, and Deborah Howell, the best parents in the business.
And many special and personal nights with Molly, Jack Miller, and Mike Steele at Russell’s Bar, a 4th street bar and grill with a $3.95 steak. Intense conversation about Vietnam, the first war against which Molly raged — deeply personal conversation because that trio held me steady and in their hearts as I fought the Selective Service for conscientious objector status. Her couragous letter to Selective Service on my behalf is sealed and sacred testimony.
Molly — You rallied and railed then and now against the folly of war. You lived as a Tribune, died raging against the dying of the light. Bless us to carry on and with fervor.
Your beloved,
Fledge
pkmsr@mchsi.com
Molly is someone I was introduced to via television (I believe it was 60 Minutes) and I have grabbed every piece of writing I could find since that had her name on the byline so I could read it. Unfortunately, I missed too much and I am hoping to see a book of all of her work sometime soon. She was so funny and irreverent and smart and right and truthful and human. Losing her is so sad, and yet I had to laugh at the article this morning on the NYTimes web site that quoted some of her wonderful lines: “if that man’s IQ got any lower they’d have to water him twice a day”, and “When the Legislature is set to convene, she warned her readers, ‘every village is about to lose its idiot.’” I wish she could have stayed long enough to watch the current global village idiot take the long walk OUT of the White House, but I have the feeling that somewhere up in heaven, in January of 2008, an Angel will be hollering that Shrub has, at last, hit the road.
Molly and Ann, together again- Raisin’ Hell in Heaven.
I’ll bang my pots a little louder now.
We cannot believe that someone so rich in the simple awareness of life has left us mere mortals to fend for ourselves. Molly Ivins was an inspiration to us all, to us fellow travelers on the Democratic road to fairness and sanity in our country.
Molly Ivins will be missed in the coming months. Her anecdotes and intelligent analysis, sprinkled with some irreverence and humor (some of us see that as tellin’ it like it is) will be sorely missed with the broo-haha in the coming months that we like to call a presidential election process.
She was a breath of fresh air and will always be remembered with fondness and respect.
Peace.
Nick & Anna Gough
Dayton, Ohio
Molly Ivins–what can anyone say about such an incredibly smart and incisive wit? I looked forward each week to Molly’s columns when they appeared in our Tucson newspaper–then I looked forward to the conservative letter writers who would fill the editorial pages with excoriations, accusing the newspaper of a liberal bias (George Will, Charles Krautenheimer, David Brooks, among others, notwithstanding) for including Molly in their commentary page. We will miss her deeply. There isn’t anyone waiting in the wings to fill the void she has left behind. Where will we find someone so capable of revealing the failures of the Bush administration and the dangers of our complacency? I am bereft. I love you, Molly.
Even when I disagreed with her I admired her skills. She always exhibited a strong intellect with well formed ideas presented in an accessible manner. Most all she possessed a finally honed sense of humor that would draw you in and make you laugh even when your beliefs were being lampooned.
What a class act.
Her voice will be sorely missed.
My 80 year old mom lived in a Baptist retirement community in West Texas until her recent passing. She was one of only a handfull of Democrats among many ardent Bush supportors in that facility.She was known for her strong opinions and willingness to engage in heated debate regarding the wrong-headiness of the Bush Administration. She often lay in her bed watching CNN cussing out Karl Rove, Tom Delay, Dick Cheney and Bush Junior. When given a copy of Molly’s book, Scrub, she howled with laughter at Molly’s witty characterizations and applauded her truth telling. And she often referenced it during heated exchanges with fellow residents. I thank you Molly Ivins for the gift you gave my mother. And for your courage. You are one of my heros. You make me proud to be a Texan.
What does one say when a heroine has passed? Both Molly and her friend Ann, were women I adored and wished to be more like, intelligent, trash talking southern women who could eviserate you with a word and smile sweetly as they walked away. We all need to continue their fight, impeach the shrub in Molly and Ann’s names.
This may seem irrelevant, but, as Molly might have said, hang in there with me…
My mother is notorious for mentioning fairly momentous events six months or even a year after they have happened and then being utterly dismayed upon being told “First we’ve heard of it!” Births, deaths, marriages, and so on, if my mother knew, she figured she’d told us too. With this in mind, before leaving to teach in Scotland for a year, I changed all my next of kin notifications from my mother to my sister, figuring the rest of my family might stand half a chance of hearing about it if something happened to me. I’m not kidding.
Last night, January 31st, my mother called me to tell me that Molly had died. She was that important to us. I fear we shall not see her like again. My heart is heavy today. God speed you on your way, Molly. Raise a little hell wherever you can!
Good-bye and rest well, Molly. I can’t believe that your columns will no longer appear on my favorite liberal Web sites, that your plain common sense and your mordant wit have been silenced. You struggled with deep courage and conviction against injustice, inequity and just plain stupidity; you made us all better just for reading and agreeing with you. How utterly unfair the disease that ended your life; how brave your fight against it; how exemplary you will always be to your vast network of sisters.
We will miss you deeply, dear Molly. Rest in peace.
Molly,
I am living in Montreal and I am french (Paris). Saw the news on Salon (www.salon.com) and follow the link.
I was moved by your writings. I am shure all the good folks down here are going to miss you a lot.
Rest in peace.
Molly Ivins had a goal, didn’t she, to say something every day towards ending the US’s wretched involvement in Iraq? Perhaps we can carry on in her memory…. She is, and always will be, an inspiration.
In 1992, while dining late one night at an Austin chinese restaurant, alone with my three children, we unexpectedly had a brief, but delightful visit with Molly Ivins. The kids and I were tired, it was 9:30 on a school night, and we had stopped to eat on the way home from an AISD school board meeting, where I had testified about Hispanic kids getting kicked out of school unfairly. My three-year old daughter, Molly Ruth, was getting antsy, standing up in her seat and bouncing around on her side of the booth, annoying her 13-year old sister, Sarah, as she tried to finish up her dinner.
Suddenly, a tall woman, dining alone, whose back was to us in the next booth over spun around to face us, big smile beaming, as she scrunched down to rest her chin on her hands on our adjoining booth back. “Hi, Molly,” she crooned softly in her slow, Texas drawl, addressing my rambunctious daughter, inches away from her face, “my name is Molly, too!” And, for a good ten minutes she proceeded to entertain my precocious toddler with stories of her childhood. My Molly’s eyes went wide and she settled down when Ivins shared that as a small child SHE was always ready to bound from the table the minute she was finished eating, and was still pretty much that way, except when a good book was nearby. She talked about Dr. Seuss books, asking which my child liked best. Favorite lines in Go! Dog, Go! and Green Eggs and Ham were exchanged. It was hard to tell which Molly captivated the other more, as they huddled over the back of the booth chatting.
As soon as Ivins noticed that the other two children and I had finished eating, she patted Molly Ruth on the cheek and told her that she was a sweet child. Ivins then collected her purse and her book, stood up, and walked over to my side of the booth and shook my hand, saying, “Thanks for lending me your great kid for a little while.” She turned on her heel and was gone. I thought about her for days afterwards, marveling at what a kind and considerate person she was, in spite of her great talent and fame.
When she first began to turn around, I half expected an irate person to fuss at me for not “controlling” my child more. But, as I watched and listened to her talk with my little girl I found out firsthand, that behind the fame and underneath the talent, Molly Ivins was a true-blue, down-to-earth, witty and creative, “good ‘ole gal.” As the years passed and I read her books, I came to also regard her as a giant of a woman.
My Molly, away at college in her first year at San Francisco State University, just now text-messaged me on her cellphone she’d heard on the news that Molly Ivins died yesterday. My Molly has read Ivins books and knew that she was someone I admire, but she has never known this story about having met her. I’ll never forget that chance meeting many years ago when Molly Ivins heart shone as brightly as her smile.
Gods Speed Molly! You had the back bone the majority of Americas so called free press couldnt find when truths needed to be said. I always looked forward to anything you would write; or speak on the radio. You would make my wife Gayle and I laugh till we cramped. You the best example of a true patriot, a true American! We will miss you!
Thanks
Conley & Gayle Roaseau
I saw her at a Rabble Rouser. I worked up the courage to speak to her. “You are my hero”, I said. Said Molly, “Oh honey, a woman of taste and refinement”.
Such a huge loss, such a huge spirit. If there are politicians in heaven, they are in big trouble. Blessed be, Molly Ivins.
I don’t want to think about living in a world without Molly Ivins. Because she could make us mad and make us laugh during the worst of times, somehow it seemed like it would be ok.
Alice Johnson
Minneapolis, MN
I just started to read her editorials in The Progressive, she was funny and I’m going to miss her.
Molly Ivins was our best warrior. God, what a loss. There is some faulty reasoning as far as whom god chooses to take and whom he chooses to leave here. There was NO ONE who cut George Bush down to size and held his fucking feet to the fire better than Molly Ivins….she possessed an integrity and moral courage that so many others lack….There are real tears being shed for this lady.
Molly Ivins’ writing helped me get through many weeks when I felt like I had to quit life or at least move to Canada. Her devotion to democratic populism kept my drive for justice fueled. Oh, I’m going to miss her so much I may have to go right now and bang on some pots and pans. MMM
I met Molly in the Texas Legislature, which would be like meeting Brer Rabbit in the briar patch.
I was a graduate student at the University of Texas, covering the Legislature for The Daily Texan. I was aflame with idealism because I was going to watch the House of Representatives vote on not one, but two amendments to the U.S. Constitution: the ERA and the 18-year-old vote.
But instead of making history by debating and voting, the members kept greeting visiting constituents perched in the gallery, and they introduced resolutions proclaiming an armada of teachers, nurses, highway patrolmen and janitors Yellow Roses of Texas in honor of their service.
I thought it was ridiculous and said so. Whereupon this tall strawberry blonde on my left turned, fixed me with an imperious gaze and said, in her best great-lady tone, “I was a Yellow Rose of Texas once.”
Guess who.
It was the start of a 36-year friendship in which we shared our enthusiasm for journalism, our passion for politics and lost causes, and our love for our mutual mentor, John Henry Faulk, who would be the focus of my master’s thesis on blacklisting and the inspiration for Molly’s tireless barnstorming on behalf of the First Amendment.
My wife, Diana Pinckley, and I live in New Orleans. She is a communications consultant specializing in higher education, and I’m a newspaper reporter.
Molly was a frequent visitor. We looked forward to those events because each one would include a meal that would be fabulous — her favorite adjective — and laced with fast-moving talk and, of course, laughter. Loud laughter, and plenty of it.
Whatever the occasion, Molly always pronounced this toast when we clinked glasses: “You can’t have new old friends.”
She was loyal to her vast circle of friends. In the past few months, we’ve tried to return the favor.
During a visit my wife and I made last month, I told Molly how lucky she was to have so many friends on call, ready to do whatever was necessary to help out.
She looked up at me, flashed one of her brilliant smiles and said two words: “It’s magic.”
She was.
My sorrow is deep for a wonderful larger than life woman who allowed us to laugh even at the darkest political moments in D.C. as well as with the Lege. Look out for us Molly, there is yet much to fight for.
I was a regular reader of Molly’s articles. I frequently forwarded them to friend and foe alike. Any progressive-minded person who lives in Texas understands that it ain’t always easy here. Molly was always working against the wind, but she always did it with style.
Surprisingly, even to me, Molly occupied quite significant portion of my heart… and that portion feels so very empty right now. I’ll miss ya, Molly… we’ll all miss you. More than you ever thought we would.
First Ann Richards… now you. A friend of mine said yesterday, “Texas is losing its backbone.” Let this be a call to all Texas progressives and liberals… honor Molly’s memory by continuing the good fight.
You did good, Molly… we will try to continue in your footsteps.
Love,
Jen
Liberty, freedom and common sense have lost a mighty advocate.
Thank God for Molly Ivins, the one voice that I could turn to without fail in a sea of news and be sure that she would tell it straight and get it right.
Thank God for Molly, and peace and comfort to her family and friends.
My college roommate introduced me to Molly Ivins about 8 years ago. We would destress by reading passages from her books aloud to each other. Molly had such a gift for stating these truths that should be so obvious, but somehow weren’t until she said them. Perhaps the most important lesson she taught me was to never let anyone else define you. From her I learned it was possible to be a liberal feminist from Texas and still love the state and all its craziness. But more than that, that whatever your ideology of choice, you HAVE to see the humor in politics. It’s so much better than letting it make you cry.
I’m an old editorial writer, and one of the highlights of my retirement has been getting to read Molly every time she uttered, whether the local paper ran her or I had to find her elsewhere or get her via one of many friends who shared my Ivins addiction.
There just plain never was or will be anyone like Molly, and I don’t know how we’re going to get along without her. I have grandchildren growing up in Texas, forlordsakes, and I was counting on Molly to keep the place just sane enough so they won’t wind up as ranting right-wingers.
I guess all we can do is be grateful we had her as long as we did. And vow to hang in there and keep fighting the good fights and never, never, never lose our sense of humor, come Bush or come Shrub.
I first learned of Molly Ivins as a freshman journalism major at at community college outside of Houston. Some liberal leaning government teacher suggested that I would rise considerable in his estimation if I were to subscribe to a tiny lil’ publication call the Texas Observer. Needing every bit of help in leveraging additional estimation, I plunked down my money in class and signed up. I’ve been learning and laughing ever since because of Molly and The Observer.
Today, I learned of Molly’s passing because of an email from one of my former journalism students at that same community college. She wrote “such a sad, sad day. So grateful you introduced me to her work long ago.” I should have expressed the same gratitude to that “govmint” teacher 30-odd years ago.
So now, here’s to Molly. A role model for journalists, Texans, women, and right-thinking people everywhere. Just whisper in our ears, dear Molly, and we’ll be firing off letters, essays, and columns, fighting to poke and prod the puffed up bureaucrats and politicians who sully the potential of decent government here in the heartland.
peace.
I am so glad I found this website, since from the time I heard about her death, I have wanted to communicate to someone who cares my deep sorrow at Molly’s passing.
Molly was one of my idols. When she visited Nebraska I was out of state, and I was very unhappy to have missed her. For me it was like having missed a chance to see a favorite movie star. She was a star.
BUNCH OF FLOWERS. That is the bunch of flowers I would love to put on Molly’s doorstep. I would much rather see an outpouring of appreciation for her life and accomplishments than those of say, Princess Diana. I hope the people of Texas are filling her street with all kinds of memorials. and hey, JB Holston (earlier writer), now it’s up to all of us “to keep hope alive.”
I am so sad, she had so much more to say. Who will be our contemporary commentator with the real story? No one can say it like Molly! I always looked forward to her column in our small-conservative-California-town, and would think, “Well, now, that will get them riled up, and then sat back a waited for the spate of letters to the editor. Double entertainment! Though I never had the honor of meeting her, I had many conversations with her, and never thought I would have to say goodbye. Cancer has done what all her detractors could never do - silenced the voice we loved! Great lady - you will be so missed!
There’s nothing I can say about the loss of Molly Ivins’ wonderful wit, wicked charm, and homespun common sense that hasn’t been said before. But as a Texas woman who dearly loves her state and her country, I will attest to the fact that my life has been diminished because of her death. Not only will I miss her writing, but so will the scads of other people to whom I have sent copies of her books and columns. It is with a very heavy heart that I am now sending them notice of her death, along with a link to this website. We need to keep Molly’s spirit and words alive - she was a helluva gal.
She was one of the greats, and an island of sanity in this mad and terrible time. I don’t recall having wept at the passing of a columnist before. Good Lord she will be missed down here on the ground.
God bless Molly, and my condolences go out to her friends and family. Her wit was always on target and unlike many “commentators” today, she was never mean or cruel. She will be greatly missed, and the best tribute we can pay to her is to do our damndest to end this war and try to put this country back on its feet.
I only knew her through her words, but I want to go get a bumper sticker that reads, “Native Texan Pinko Liberal” in her honor. When I’d get stuck in downtown Austin traffic or read about the city council doing something stupid with luxury highrises and Town Lake, I’d get pissed, but then I’d remember, Molly Ivins still lives here; much is still possible. I felt priveleged to live in same city. In a column I think last fall she wrote her generation walked among giants, Barbara Jordan and those women who changed everything back in the 1970s. She was one of them and I feel proud to have been a Texan when Molly Ivins walked the state.
Molly Ivins was a true patriot. I cannot express how much I will miss her writing about current events–she did it with incredible grace,humor,and a
fearless approach on speaking truth to power,regardless of who it affected.
She urged us to keep raising hell and that is exactly what I am going to do.
Thank you Molly for your great work.
A girl I had a tryst with in high school first introduced me to Molly Ivins by loaning me a copy of one of her books, and I was so entranced I didn’t think of making out with the lender for at least half an hour. I can’t say I consciously aped Molly Ivins, but I can say that I did it unconsciously (and never as well as she aped herself) for years. Along with Dave Barry, but moreso, she demonstrated to me what being a columnist and a humorist and a writer was all about.
She taught me, ultimately, that politics is probably the greatest theater of them all. First, because the stakes are so high; second, because it’s preferred style is unironic melodrama; and third, because the actors are so often hilariously inept. If it wasn’t for Molly, I don’t think I ever would have braved a trip to Austin, much less given it a chance when I did. But while reading one of her columns in the Observer over mole enchiladas on Congress Avenue, in that moment it became one of my favorite places in the world.
Just as the Texas State Dish, chicken fried steak, is actually the apotheosis of a German dish, schnitzel, Ivins co-opted a grand German tradition and seasoned it with Texan flair — schadenfreude. Thank you, Ms. Ivins, for having such giant shoulders for me and so many others to stand on. I hope that Texas (or, more properly, Texans) will be able to survive without you.
With her wit and courage, and her accurate dipiction of political life, Molly
brought some desperately needed sanity to America’s op-ed pages. I will always be grateful for that clear voice.
May we honor her memory by keeping up the good fight against the insanity of the Iraq War.
Imagine this…a grown man crying. Our loss is Molly’s release. Farewell, dear person, and may our young people take take inspiration from your example. We know you loved us all.
Molly Ivins loved Alaska, where a couple years ago my wife and I watched in gut-splitting awe as Molly spoke her heartfelt brand of progressive hell-raising at the annual awards dinner of the Alaska Civil Liberties Union in Anchorage.
Alaska is a blood-red state, with its Far North version of right-wing politics that have produced such luminaries as former Gov. Frank “the Bank” Murkowski, who after winning the governorship as a sitting U.S. Senator, turned around and gave his Senate seat to his daughter Lisa. Ironically, Lisa subsequently was re-elected on her own two years later, but two years after that Daddy not only lost his own party’s primary nomination for re-election, but he came in third with just 19 percent of the vote. If only Molly lived in Alaska, she could lampoon our fearless leaders like no one else. Imagine what she could make out of Frank the Bank cutting off the state’s Longevity Bonus for old people, then buying himself a fancy personal jet.
After her most recent speech in Anchorage, an Alaskan asked Molly to sign one of her books while telling Molly: “I changed my will after I read one of your columns.” Who knows what great progessive cause this woman gave all her money to because of Molly Ivins, but she made inroads large and small for social justice every day of her life.
Molly Ivins had many friends in Alaska. She cared deeply for social justice and civil liberties. Rarely are people irreplaceable, but she is one of those rarities. I remember thinking about the impossibility of carrying on without this ragingly kind, hard-hitting, fun-loving progressive voice reaching into every corner of America, including all the way into Arctic Alaska where my family and I live. We will carry on, Molly, but we have lost one of the most effective voices for social change in this great nation.
Thank you for everything.
The world will never be the same without Mollie. She was the heart and the soul of the best of us. A friend of mine mentioned that perhaps she’ll avoid the rising horror in the Burning bush. I disagreed, hoping for her wit and laughter to carry us through.
With sadness,
Jim Crumley & Martha Elizabeth
Dear Molly… I came late to your columns. Reading them was like having a great conversation. It was easy to laugh with you, nod and un huhing, and sometimes sharing anger at what has been happening to our country. As you asked, everyday I will keep voicing my dissent about the war in Iraq.
You left it better than you found it, Molly.
Ouch! I saw the news report. You’re gone to another place where the Bush’s will surely not follow. Even though you may be high above us your heart for
America will always be with the little people and those that suffer. This bright shining experiment called America needs a hundred, no a thousand, no a million like you Molly. The bright shining hill crumbles as America in Folly continues to follow that idiot shrub you lambasted in your lifetime. Shrub may be living beyond your lifetime but his presidency is dead in the watet while your legacy will shine into the great round-up. Ouch! Dammit! It hurts.
Bon Voyage Princess of Democracy - Vaya Con Dios. All Arms Around You.
It seems like a hundred lifetimes ago now but, sure enough, over in the not-yet-dusty corner of my memory are the still-razor sharp etchings of sitting in a bar on the then-down market corner of Hennepin Avenue and 9th Street in Minneapolis after work one Saturday night, tossing back a few scotches with Dave Moore, when in flew a very young Molly Ivins.
Well, we were all very young; after all, it was only the mid- or late-1960s. Molly had just graduated from Smith College and was covering the cops for the Minneapolis Tribune, I was in my last year at university and working part-time in the newsroom at WCCO-TV, and Dave was still building his reputation as the Upper Midwest’s younger yet equally-trustworthy version of Walter Cronkite, just on a smaller stage.
Molly wanted to meet Dave because of The Bedtime Newz, which aired Saturday nights following a late movie. I helped Dave write the show so he invited me to tag along. At the time, The Bedtime Newz was becoming a cultural icon in Minneapolis. Deciding that no one really wanted to watch another serious report on the day’s events at midnight on Saturday, Dave started playing around with the stories and the commercials. The show became a satire-parody-send up of the news, and this was a full decade before Lorne Michaels and Chevy Chase created the “Saturday Night Update.”
A few things still stand tall in my mind about that first encounter with Molly: Her Texas twang – the first time I’d ever heard one for real and not in a Western TV show or movie – and her sharp yet humane witty observations that later became her hallmark. She drank ferociously yet never once teetered on the bar stool or stumbled when she politely excused herself to use the john – Molly didn’t say “powder room” or any other euphemism for peeing that proper ladies were expected to utter in those days. And she was already beginning to hone her irascible view of politics and politicians.
That evening, Molly dazzled and wowed both Dave and me. As the three of us separately drove off in the early morning bitter cold, I knew I wanted to know this woman better.
A week or two later, I called her at the Trib and asked if she wanted to meet for another drink “but at an even seedier place than Mousey’s,” referring to the joint where Dave and I had met her originally. She accepted. Whether it was for the friendship, the liquor or the opportunity for a transplanted Texan to savour more of the Twin Cities’ low life, I’ll never know but began counting the days.
We met at some dive on the edge of downtown, not far from the train yards and where hard drinking journalists rubbed elbows with union guys, down-and-outer’s and the decent, hard-working, thoroughly unpretentious Midwestern people Garrison Keillor eventually turned into American folk heroes.
Although Molly covered the cops, during her second or third whiskey she said was much more interested in politics. At the time, Minneapolis’ mayor was a liberal Democrat – in Minnesota, the party is called the Democratic-Farmer Labor party – named Art Naftalin. Before being elected, he taught political science at the University of Minnesota, a post to which he returned after several terms in office. Somehow, the conversation got around to Naflatin.
“He’s a brilliant guy,” I remember Molly saying; having gone to high school with one of Naftalin’s sons, I had a special interest. “Got terrific ideas, could really do something for the city. Poor Art’s problem is that he’s a typical academic who doesn’t have a clue how to get anything done.”
At one of those late night drinking soirees, we talked about our careers. I wanted to end up as a correspondent for CBS News, still the tiffany network with Cronkite and a stable full of really solid journalists who had been schooled in the Ed Murrow tradition. I assumed Molly would want to land at the New York Times.
“Hell, no,” she shot back. “I want to go back to Texas and cover politics. With LBJ, John Connolly, Ralph Yarborough and a legislature full of cattle ranchers, oil men, honest-to-God bigots and good ol’ boys to write about, why would I want to go to New York?”
We continued to meet about once a month. I noticed that Molly was gradually increasing the circle of people who would get together to swap stories. She included cops, people from the DA’s office, other reporters, a few gadabouts and there were always assorted hangers-on who would appear and disappear for no apparent reason. Turns out, she was beginning her lifelong habit of drawing people into her ever-widening circle.
After 10 months of being included in Molly’s salon, I accepted a reporting job on the West Coast and moved away. Molly soon returned to Texas, got lured to New York by the Times which, I suspect, was a mutually-unhappy and cheerless relationship that, fortunately, ended after a couple of years. We kept in touch with decreasing frequency, eventually losing contact altogether.
Actually, Molly lost contact with me but I didn’t with her. I became a regular reader of hers once she turned her attention from Texas politics to focus on George W. Bush – a childhood friend and neighbour in Houston – and other topics of despair. She was what every great journalist needs to be: Honest, truthful, possessing a low tolerance for bullshit and always ready to spit vinegar tempered by a gracious yet pointed wit.
Bill Moyers summed up Molly best when he paid tribute to her this morning here. He said he imagines her in Heaven with all of the other great journalists such as Lincoln Steffans, Horace Greeley, Johnny Apple and a long list of others. Moyers said he hopes they’re having a great time leaning over the marble railing and laughing at people like Tom DeLay down below in Hades.
I hope she is having fun and is building a new circle around her, drinking whiskey and giving Heaven hell.
I thought I knew Molly because she was my Texan best friend’s favorite and she thought she knew her. Wasn’t it rare that Molly could combine freshness and unpredictability with such truthful reliability? That’s what made her my friend.
For more years than I can remember, Molly has made me laugh. Now, in death, she has made me cry.
Molly, tou will be sorely missed.
My life has been enriched and my views expanded by a great writer.
My comments to a Human Rights/Justice international discussion list tgo which I subscribe:
Molly Ivins died on Wednesday 31st of January. Although her articles were ostensibly political and many involved US civil rights issues, much of what she wrote really had an underlying theme of human rights/humanitarian/justice.
Those articles I read showed an incisively analytical mind which cut to the real issues, many of which, as I have already said, dealt with issues we address here on JW. In the articles that I have read there was no self importance or sententious hubris and if there was fault it appeared to be an impatience with fools, charlatans (like the Bush administration), hypocrites or people who fail to live up to the wonderful standards they tell the world that they have (for whatever reason). (It is a fault that strikes a sympathetic chord with me.) She also had a sharp wit - most of her articles were a pleasure to read even if the dealt with things, like internal US politics which have no effect upon the rest of the world, that had little interest for me. She did not waffle but was direct and used the English language in a very telling and intelligent manner.
Her name is not up there in lights with the luminaries of the human rights/humanitarian/justice push but, in my opinion, she was an effective soldier in the cause, more effective in the long term I suspect than many who regard themselves and each other as luminaries. She was effective because she made herself heard in daily/weekly Media on issues for over 40 years and maintained the rage during that period.
Americans are fond of talking about patriotism but many do not understand the true depths of patriotism because they feel that criticizing the President or government is unpatriotic. Those type of “patriots” are found in all dictatorships and actually facilitate the creation of dictatorships. Whatever one feels about her style, Molly Ivins is much closer to what I regard as a patriot because she cared so much for her country that she spoke out when she perceived that those leading her country were abusing it rather than fearing that she would weaken it by criticizing.
America, and human rights/humanitarian/justice in America, has suffered a great loss.
Garth Cartledge
Sydney Australia
Molly will be sorely missed. She truly DID have very much left to give the world. I consider myself lucky to have met her. A legend!
My husband and I looked forward to every column that Molly Ivins wrote. She had such a great way of cutting through the “you-know-what” and getting to the heart of the matter. We will greatly miss her!
I live in Ontario, Canada and have always enjoyed reading those of her columns that were posted on commondreams.org I will miss that warm, fresh air from the south.
Hello from Australia!
Whenever I read an article of Molly’s it would always crack me up. What I liked most when reading her articles was her sense of humour and gutsy approach to the subject she was discussing.
I will miss not reading her comments anymore. She surely brightened up my day.
Somehow, I do not think she will be that far away from us. She will continue to be a shining light, and for me, an exceptional role model.
Go in peace Molly.
Marianne Hartrick
Always an inspiration, Molly nearly singlehandly gave Texas and Texans a good name, despite every effort to the contrary by Bush & Co.
Without her, I guess we will have to once again consider giving Texas back to Mexico (just kidding.)
Thank you Molly, and you Texans keep on fighting and smiling!
Dwain in Kelseyville, California.
I never agreed with anything she wrote or said but CANCER SUCKS and I wish she was still here annoying the hell out of my red neck!
I always hoped that Molly would run for (and be elected) as president. Can you imagine her brains, wit and heart leading our country? I miss her already.
August Burns
Middlesex, VT
Well, I did not know her nor have I ever read anything by her. I ran across Lance’s comments about her on Livestrong.org. But I have to tell you. I only have to see the photo of her on this site to truly feel that I missed out on something special.
I intend to find some articles of hers and try to understand who she was a bit more. The fact she did not like Bush is enough to make her good people in my book.
Rest in peace Molly.
molly will be sorely missed.what wit and candor…learned and laughed with over the years.would have loved to sat on a Texas porch with her and listened to her stories.so long.
I’m willing to bet you get a hundred thousand replies that say the very same thing as I: I never read a Molly Ivins’ commentary that I didn’t laugh out loud. Because I always laughed out loud I tried to read her when no one was around. People think that people who laugh out loud for no apparent reason are crazy. So becasue of Molly a lot of people think I’m crazy. I’ll miss you terribly Molly. Vaya con dios.
Knew Molly when I was ed of the Daily Texan and after that a Capitol reporter for UPI in the early 70s. Never missed a word she wrote in the Observer, but for some reason I remember best a travelogue she published after an extensive tour of the Soviet Union. This was probably in 1974 or 75. One of the funniest pieces I’ve ever read, and showed us life from the Sov POV. Wish the Observer would dredge it out of the archives and re-publish it.
Can’t say enough about her and how much she’ll be missed.
In 1994 Molly Ivins was the first speaker in the Ned Chilton Leadership Lecture series honoring the late Ned Chilton the crusading publisher of the Charleston(West Virginia)Gazette. All of us were there, one lightning strike would have done away with several populist,left wing, progressive movements in Charleston. We found the first four rows in the cultural center reserved for the Charleston elite who had held a drinking party(euphemistically called a cocktail party) for Ms. Ivins. That bunch, dressed in high heels, furs, coats and ties and whatever they wear, staggered in after the peasants had filled up the peanut gallery. West Virginia Governor Gaston Caperton and the Kentucky Governor took seats in the middle of the front row directly in front of and below the podium. Ms. Ivins could have been looking right down at them when she told this story–
The Texas Legislature had passed a law against homosexual sodomy when some of the smarter members pointed out that it was unconstitutional to pass a law against the activity of a group, sort of like unequal protection before the law. So they re-wrote the law to apply to everyone, not just homosexuals. After the new version passed there was much celebration and back-slapping. One of the opponents of the bill called to the sergeant-at-arms and said to him as he pointed to one of the back-slappers, “Arrest those men,it is now against the law in the state of Texas for a prick to touch an asshole.” The peanut gallery just about went into convulsions. The peasants hooped and hollered, whistle and clapped, and gave her a standing ovation–the first two rows remained stoic and seated. At the end of Ms.Ivins memorable speech, the zillionaire Angus Peyton, chair of the Ned Chilton series, thanked Ms. Ivins and said that she was the first speaker in the series and (jokingly) that she may be the last. The peanut gallery erupted again. It was better than winning the Sugar and Gator bowls combined.
I met MollyIvins in her kitchen on Halloween for a Final Friday. I called her out of the blue to introduce myself as I was to introduce her before her talk in California later in the year. She said to this stranger “Sweetheart, come on out.” I sat at her feet in her backyard while we all listened to great poems and skits. I felt I was next to this beautiful tall tree, that with the ravages of breast cancer on both of our bodies, looked like me. I felt I was not alone and I felt inspired.
She visited us at our little winery in Sonoma and we held in her honor a small Final Friday that night. It was hilarious and magical. I was able to perform my slam poem I wrote in MollyIvins honor. (For MollyIvins to me is all one word) She laughed and had a tear in her eye saying “darlin’, that set the bar too high, now we need to lower it.” And we did with laughter, yodeling, singing, talking, and drinking wiiiinnneeee. MollyIvins gives me hope, inspiration, and love of being an intelligent woman.
I hope to be at her memorial. I want to be part of a standing ovation at the end of the service. I want to show up, be a witness to this great life, and holler out while we are on our feet clapping -WELL DONE, GOOD ON YOU, SWEETHEART. To a life so well lived and shared.
She was a gifted writer and a scathingly entertaining speaker. Her wit was incisive and her analysis of the social, potilical and economic was radical. What a smile she had, and how she made all the rest of us smile. What a deep loss for those who loved her most, but also a great loss for journalism and for democracy. Few people appeared to love life more than Molly Ivans.
She was a gifted writer and a scathingly entertaining speaker. Her wit was incisive and her analysis of the social, potilical and economic was radical. What a smile she had, and how she made all the rest of us smile. What a deep loss for those who loved her most, but also a great loss for journalism and for democracy. Few people appeared to love life more than Molly Ivans.
I never knew her-just knowing about her, reading her, was enough.
I loved and admired her. We have all of her books, one of which was one of the last my husband read. She gave him Joy while he was dying of cancer, and for that alone I wish her eternal bliss. Godspeed, Molly Ivins!
I mainly knew Molly from the Mouton Hunt. She was an occasional participant and frequently a latecomer, but once she arrived she held everyone spellbound with her anecdotes. Dogs were a big part of Molly’s life. I remember Athena, terrorizing goats at the Gumberts’ ranch in Wimberly, and the story about how she got the ashes of her mother’s scotch terrier onto a plane. And of course, the famous story that ends “What was the dog’s name?”
Laura Burns
Galveston
As a way of celebrating her life, maybe you could start a tradition of re-printing one of her columns in your paper every year on her birthday.
I will second Marlene Swartz. You have made me proud to be from Texas for a very, very long time.
God, how I am going to miss reading her articles. She was so sharp and I loved how she spared no mercy for the phony politicians. Saddest thing is, that her kind will never pass this way again and for that we are all less. Sad for me is knowing I won’t have the pleasure of reading her words any longer. You, Molly, made your mark in this world and never to be forgotten.
No one could turn a phrase like Ms. Molly Ivins. No one could skewer a politician like Molly. She was incomparable, indefatigable, and irreplaceable. My only solace at her death is the hope that, if there’s a heaven, Molly and Guvernor Ann are there right now, tradin’ stories and whooping it up together. The place will never be the same.
When my husband handed me the New York Times obituary for Molly Ivins yesterday morning, I burst into tears. Her death hit me very hard on two levels. First and foremost, of course, she was one of the funniest, and sharpest liberal voices we had in the media. I relished her columns because of her unique ability to cut through to the heart of an issue with tremendous humor and clarity. On a personal level, I wept because I was diagnosed three months ago with Inflammatory Breast Cancer, the disease from which Molly ultimately died. On October 31st, when I first googled IBC, their web site included a link to Survivors and when I pulled down one of those “survivor” pictures, there was Molly, one of my long-time icons. Reading her characteristically mordant account of her illness gave me hope that if she could survive this disease with her spirit intact, then maybe I could too. I so admire her guts, her gumption, her intelligence and will greatly miss her voice.
Progressives in Texas have truly lost a voice with the passing of Molly Ivins. I first became aware of Molly when she wrote for the Texas Observer.
I’ve been a fan of hers ever since. She will be missed. But, I know she
is up there with Ann Richards and Barbara Jordan telling us to “keep
raising hell”. REST IN PEACE, MOLLY!
To Naomi Printz: whose voice is left? Yours. Mine. And millions of other free Americans. Let’s not let Molly’s voice be stilled by the grave. Each of us can pick up the tune where she left off, and like the grand choir that we all are, keep the song that was in her heart from passing away.
When I was 25 and first starting to cover a state legislature, someone gave me “Molly Ivins Can’t Say That, Can She?” I fell in love with the columns about the Texas Lege, and her gleeful explanations of legislative stupidity. Here was another woman who had to deal with all the sexism and pettiness of a legislature full of good old boys, and managed to see — and explain to readers — the humor and the fun of it all. I wanted to be her when I grew up. She was a journalistic inspiration, and I’m sorry she’s gone.
As a Native Texan (and we do capitalize it) I have known about and read Molly Ivin’s columns for years. Although I now reside in another great state, North Carolina, I have continued to read and enjoy both Molly’s columns and her books. (Even though I didn’t know her personally, it just seems right to call her “Molly”, she had that kind of warmth and earthiness.)
In loosing her we have lost one of the few (journalists or otherwise) willing to “speak truth to power.” Especially now,as she indicated many times in her writing- with Bush in the White House we need to be vocal and diligent in criticizing the government’s actions. What better way to honor Molly’s memory?
Our Molly is gone, and I don’t know what we will do without her.
Dear Molly Ivins - I’m so sorry for your suffering and you’ll be so missed - for years I’ve sent your smart, brave, funny columns to our friends and cheered our inlaws and taught my children with them.
When I think of all our sharp bright hopes I think of Molly Ivins. Your words are like Mercurochrome - unmistakeable splash of antiseptic, all hot pink and irridescent green - not like any “painless poof-spray salve” but full of gasp and sting, aimed straight at the germs, and no mistake.
We’ll never forget you.
Well, the fact that we knew this was coming doesn’t make it one damn bit easier. Ed and I saw her at the Observer do down at Zona Rosa, and she looked, well, beautiful. She let herself be wheeled up to the front of the crowd to make her zillionth appeal on behalf of the Observer, and it was as moving as any I ever heard. I went over to give her a hug and make a plan to come out for a visit in a couple of weeks when I was going to be in Austin. She asked about Edward, our 23 old pride and joy, who just graduated from UT. 23 years ago I was in the hopital due to pregnancy complications, waiting for him to be born and Molly showed up with an armful of books for me, and for Edward (we decided that there was no “age appropriate” literature for a child in utero, so she just gave him what she thought he should be reading someday) It has always been fun to say that he got his first book from Molly Ivins! She liked to say she was from East Texas, and had relatives in Lovelady, down the road from where I grew up. I get up to the east coast on occasion, and am inevitably asked if I know Molly. I told her I always feel a little like I’m bragging to say “yes, we’re friends.” But we are, and forever will be, amen.
A note from my daughter and response
On Feb 1, 2007, at 2:11 PM, Kari wrote:
Good grief–I think I’m losing it. I read the article about Molly Ivans this
morning while the kids were getting ready for school, and I started crying
and couldn’t stop. The kids think I’m crazy. When I explained to them who I
was crying over, Quintin said, “Um, Mom, do you even know her?” Then I went
on a rant about her being one of the last voices for good in the nation and
so forth, and they really started to look alarmed. I’ve never seen them run
so fast for the bus before.
That’s OK; we should grieve when such a voice for truth is lost; I got pretty teary myself but had no one to rant to!
Love, Mom
I didn’t know her personally, but I’m as grief-stricked as if I did. Knowing she’s no longer in the material and that she left way too early makes my heart sad and I will be missing her.
So young to leave us–I shall miss your editorials–your wit, the way you turn a phrase..
My deepest sympathies and prayers go out to your family during this time of great loss.
Molly was one of the few columnists I read every time I spied her byline, and even sought her out on the Web when I hadn’t seen a column for a couple of weeks. I grew up in Oklahoma. We had many characters of our own in our “lege”, and I assure you that I didn’t find them funny or endearing at all. Molly helped me see that I might have had more enjoyment out of those “God put woman on a pedastal”-type orations. We’ve got some where I live now, in California, too, starting with our Governator. I’ll have to find my own laughs now. I’ll miss her.
I didn’t know her personally, but I’m as grief-stricken as if I did. Knowing she’s no longer in the material world and that she left way too early makes my heart sad and I will be missing her.
Whenever George Bush and his pals would put me in the frame of mind to consign all Texans and Texas to the hottest, meanest corner of Hell, I’d remember Molly Ivins and Ann Richards and calm down.
Another bright Texan star is lost to the living. It’s time we stood up and followed her example. Molly was able to turn rancor and scorn for the other side into brilliantly clever and accurate characterizations of them. She has left a legacy for us to honor and mighty big shoes which need to be filled. While there may not be another Molly Ivins out there, someone must move into the space she has left to keep hammering away at the cold, hard wall of indifference that is the other side. We must all do our part, do what we can and never doubt for a moment what the power of even one small voice can achieve.
Molly Ivins was remembered this morning on Wisconsin Public Radio by host Kathleen Dunn, guest/associate editor of the Cap Times, John Nichols, and call in guests with love, laughter and much praise for her common sense and contagious laughter. A few of the adjectives used to describe her: witty, humorist, generous, progressive, decent, activist, courageous, hard working….
Want more? Listen online to the show.
For decades, Molly was the shining light who assured me I wasn’t crazy, it was the loonies running things in our country. A fabulous writer and thinker, who used the rare commodity of humor to make her point, she stripped away the illusions and exposed the parade of naked emperors. What a loss. She was a national treasure. I’m deeply saddened.
I was born in Montana, and share Molly’s visceral love of political, liberal, fun-loving, honky-tonking, follies of humanity-exposing, outrageously passionate, downhome loving western life. She exuded that spirit better than anybody. She was, literally, a soul sister. With Molly, I have (figuratively) driven in the thundering desert with the sweet smell of lightning and the taste of wet dust on my tongue, driven into a small western town at night lit up like a sparkling hamlet after miles and miles of darkness and deer, and, like Molly, I have felt the urgency to (literally) save our country. I am going to have a beer now, send her a toast, and never, ever forget the funny, spunky, charming, magic woman I have admired for so long.
In red-state Arizona, Molly’s columns were priceless & kept our sanity, especially after the 2000 & 2004 elections! Her sharp Wit, Bravado, Fearlessness, Humor, Earthiness, Courage, but most of all her SASS. We loved her! If America is to survive as a democracy, we need more Journalists like her!
I was lucky enough to work for Molly for a few months when she first went to Denver. I was a college student, the only other employee of the Rocky Mountain NYT bureau, having worked for the previous bureau chief for a couple of years. She was brilliant and funny and generous. Things I learned working with her, people I met working with her, have had a lot to do with who I am now.
Peace, Molly.
Here it is already Friday noon and the tears still come. Texas has had some great writers - first, H. M. Baggarly, then Maury Maverick, Jr., and now Molly Ivins. Who will replace (can) them? Perhaps Bill Moyers. Damn it, I really miss Molly. Gene Monroe
Always a fan of Molly’s take-no-prisoners style and hilarious characterizations, I most appreciated that it was her deeply felt love for this country and its people driving her to seek the hard truths. Her death is so painful. So much work still to do. I hope we will all continue to hear her voice inspiring us to vigilance and courage.
Sometime back in the 80s, when I was a no-longer-quite-so-young reporter for a mid-sized daily, I found myself in the same crowded room with Molly Ivins during a cash-bar reception at some journalism conference or other. I’ve always regretted not mustering the gumption to walk up and offer to buy her a drink so I could tell her just how much I admired her writing, her principles and her ability to make me laugh.
I left journalism not long after, but I kept on reading everything she wrote. Once in a while I’d send her a “you go, girl!” e-mail, probably sounding exactly like the fawning fan-girl I’d become. Nobody in my time has managed to see politics and politicians with such a clear eye, and name their foibles with such a clear sense of “You’re one of ours, Bubba - and we’re on to you.”
I still regret not having bought her that drink.
I’ve lost one of my heroes. I never met Molly, but the part of her she let us readers know was a wonderful, intelligent, and above all caring woman who never let the bastards get her down. We will keep on pruning the Shrub as she would have wanted us to, but it won’t be nearly as much fun without Molly’s running commentary. My condolences to her family, her friends, and all of us who loved her.
Having read the Observer starting in high school in the 1960s, I was thrilled by the Nortcott/Ivins editorship’s laser focus on the Legislature. When I got to grad school in Austin in 1971, I hung out in the Observer’s office a little and got to go to a couple parties where Molly and Kaye were their respective ebullient and vibrant selves. I vividly remember Molly at the press table in the Legislature looking in no way inconspicuous. Same at Scholz’. Later on in the 70s she allowed my first appearances in commercial print, some book reviews that appeared in TO in 1972-4. But like everybody else I loved her writing. She is the only national journalist of my generation who could simultaneously combine outrage and humor. (Izzy Stone and Sidney Schamberg weren’t funny enough.) Maybe that came of her pilgrimages to John Henry Faulk in Madisonville, but I think she had lots of native material already. In any case, I now need to go to Nuevo Laredo and commission a Mexican artist to do me a black velvet triple-portrait painting of Barbara Jordan, Anne Richards and Molly Ivins, with an epigraph from Willis Alan Ramsey: “Texas Women Are Texas Gold.” So long, Moll, it’s been good to know you.
I met Molly fifteen years ago in the California desert, when we were both trying to sweat out our demons under the 110 degree sun. I’m Canadian, from Toronto, so I didn’t immediately grasp that I was encountering a Legend, and I think she appreciated that. Molly was a bit of Canada-phile - our softspoken, oatmeal-eating, non-gun-toting ways offered a little respite from the bright, wild absurdity of her beloved Texas.
So many stories. Not that I saw her often, just a couple of visits to Austin, and some wonderful dinners when she swung through Toronto on a book tour. But time spent with Molly was Time Writ Large. Singing Baptist hymns at two in the morning while the tree-rats scrambled through the branches over our heads.
Backing up that monster truck of hers to fill it full of cacti, while she hilariously improvised a top ten list of Governor George Bush’s environmental crimes for that day’s column. She loved Canadian politics, and the peculiarly, well, Canadian brand of melodrama they offered her. She’d call me excitedly after the latest attempt to dismantle our country had been narrowly foiled. ‘My God, what a squeaker!’ she’d say. ‘And people think our politics are insane!’
One time she called me up indignantly to complain she was under attack by the politically correct. She’s quoted a couple of local cops during the Waco fiasco - they’d claimed that ‘the three most over-rated things in America are Mack trucks, tight pussy, and the F.B.I. It seemed that ‘pussy’ was not a word that good feminists were supposed to bandy around. She and I formed P.I.F.F.L.E. on the spot - ‘Politically Incorrect Feminists Free to Laugh at Everything.’ She wrote a column about it, and suddenly I was getting reporters calling me for details. We both invited a few funnywomen of our acquaintance to join, but life being busy, and the distance between Toronto and Austin being far, we never took it further.
Oh, that life had been less busy, and I’d been able to spend more of mine with this great, generous giant of a woman. She of the dazzling smile, the loving, capacious heart, and the wicked, wicked laughter. If I’d known how ill she’d become, I would have hopped on a plane in a heartbeat, with my deadlines on hold and my five-year-old in tow. But Molly had many, many friends, most of whom were more deserving than I to be with her at the last. I do find, though, that her death has struck me like a kick from a Texas charger straight to the heart. I simply cannot imagine a world without her.
So goodbye, Molly. ‘Bless your heart,’ as you said so often. Knowing you has certainly blessed mine.
Two great Texan ladies in the space of one year. It’s almost too much.
Ms. Ivins, you gave us belly laughs during our nation’s darkest hours and you always found exactly the right words to bring a person up short with the simplicity and humanity of what you were saying.
Your wit, tenacity, courage and unconquerable grin have made you a role model for generations. I will tell my daughters stories about you. My sons, too.
The only comfort in all of this is how easily I can picture you and Anne Richards whooping it up in heaven at this very moment.
Thank you, Molly. You will be missed.
Molly was one of the reasons I got up every morning. My soul aches.
I am grateful to have lived and been enlivened through Molly Ivins’s scathing wit and powerful satiric voice. I’m a reformed conservative Republican and I credit Molly with helping me find my truer sense of political engagement, one based on fairness and social justice rather than greed, entitlement, and cynicism.
Goodbye, Molly, and God bless you.
Molly has been my inspiration my entire adult political life. I’ve been tilting at windmills my whole adult life, a Democrat but never a mindless Yellow Dog. Molly gave me the confidence to be that iconoclast. She gave me confidence to doubt, to ask questions, to be accountable and expect others to take the highroad as well–and keep a good humor despite it all. I cried this morning when I read the tributes to her on dozens of op-ed pages in every corner of the nation. There aren’t enough words.
I first saw a copy of The Texas Observer when I lived in Austin in the summer of 1975. I thought, “Wow, people who think like this—in this state!” As the years went on, I read more and more of Molly’s work and was always found it exhilarating and/or hilarious.
We’ll miss you Molly. Your voice will never be replaced but you’ve influenced so many who will carry on, inspired by your spirit, your dedication, your diligence and your insights.
You saw Shrub Bush coming, long before the rest of us, and you warned us about who this guy was and how he thought. Sorry we didn’t listen closely enough.
Thanks for all your words and for raising our consciousness, if only a bit. We’ll remember you, always.
From the first time I was “required” to read Molly Ivins’ book Nothin’ But Good Times Ahead I have loved her humor and her practical outlook on politics. Having been raised by strong, Texas/Oklahoma women - she was always right on with her attacks and her applauds in my heart and in my mind. She will be missed!
Behind in his classes, my son opted to take a weekend off of college studies and go to Washington D.C. on Jan. 27 to protest against Iraq. Resisting temptation to remind him of his duties as a student or who pays the tuition, instead I emailed him Molly’s last column. My wish is that her voice and her vision continue to inspire his generation the way they did me. God bless, Molly, and thank you.
There are few public figures that I’ve ever mourned personally, that I’ve ever felt such a keen loss for. Molly was smart, courageous, & wonderfully bawdy. She followed the truth no matter where it took her. We will not see her like again. The left, the nation, has lost its conscience and part of its soul. May she & Ann Richards meet up again and share their friendship for all time.
I’ve been a newspaper woman for 30 years now and a columnist for the Times Record News in Wichita Falls for a decade. Often I have been a lone, liberal local voice in this very red part of the Lone Star State.
I consider it my crowning professional achievement and greatest honor to have been damned in the same letters to the editor as Molly Ivins.
God bless you Molly. See you on the other side.
Molly Ivins was a breath of fresh air at a time when I most needed it. She wrote and spoke those thoughts that I wanted to be said — and so much more eloquently. She will be missed, truly missed.
I’ve been reading and enjoying Molly Ivins since her syndication. I live in Seattle, a liberal part of the U.S., and her writing has convinced me that Texans are not all the jerks that “Shrub” and the many other Texas politicians might lead one to believe. Her writing soothed my jagged nerves during this administration’s nightmare terms. It was a sober voice (no pun intended)in a sea of madness. I most certainly attribute the fact that I have maintained my sanity in these trying times, in part to her.
I am surprised at how very sad I am at her passing, since I did not ever meet her or know her. This is a tribute to the power of her words. The U.S. and the world have lost a great light (and not one of the thousand points of light). I can only hope that she has inspired others to take the baton. Sweet dreams and thank you, Molly.
Feeling like a fish out of water in my conservative corner of North Carolina, I was delighted the first time I read Molly’s column in our local paper. I continued to be delighted every time I read the column. I will miss her.
Ruthanne
New Albany, Indiana
My late mother introduced me to Molly with “Molly Ivins Can’t Say That, Can She?” We both loved her instantly and followed her writings throughout the years. I am so glad I actually met her and heard her speak at an ACLU dinner a few years ago. I just read her commentary in the latest “Progressive” a week or so ago. There isn’t any other writer that I know of with such a well-honed bullshit detector, who could expose the “evil-doers” without losing her wonderful sense of humor, perspective, courage, and ultimate optimism in humanity. How I will miss her.
Like so many other people, I knew that Molly Ivins was leaving us but I was still shocked and saddened when she actually did. I so looked forward to her columns. I needed her to put things in perspective for me. I enjoyed not only what she said, but how she said it. She wrote like she was talking to you over a beer on your front porch.
Like Samuel Clemens, she made us laugh at the absurdity of our feckless leaders so that we could better contemplate their failings. And yet there was nothing mean about her. There was a clear sense of fairness in her writing along with a hatred of bullies and deep down common sense. And if you go back and read her books and columns, the woman was right about everything.
During my many round trips from Washington State to Texas, I always took Molly Ivins tapes with me. She kept me entertained, informed and awake. There is no one to replace her. Thankfully, she wrote columns and books and they are timeless.
May she rest in peace, and may they spruce up heaven into a fun place with some interesting gossip, just to accommodate her.
From Hawaii
Rian McMullin
One of the most solid, sane, sensible and decent voices of our generation, salted with a piercing wit, Molly is simply irreplaceable. For all she gave us, may she now rest in peace.
I just emigrated to Austin from New Orleans on Saturday, and Wednesday night when I read the news I stood among the unpacked boxes in my new apartment and cried a little, then raised a Shiner in a toast. Molly was one of my heroines, the best role model a young journalist/editorial writer could ever have for how to raise hell and make a point or two while you do it.
As an assistant editorial page editor back in about 1993 or so, I got to interview her for a Sunday opinion piece I was writing. One of my treasures that drowned when the levees broke after Katrina was the answering machine tape I’d saved that I used to record that phone interview so I’d get every word right and have it to keep for always. The clips I’d saved of the actual story I wrote washed away too. But during our conversation, Molly called me sugar, and then she blessed my heart, and I guess that goodness won’t be washed away any time soon.
Yesterday morning when I heard the news of Molly’s passing, I was devastated. I have lost my good and dear friend, my co-conspirator…even though we never met. Each Monday, I looked forward to reading her witty, knowledgeable, and ‘right on’ column with my morning coffee. She spoke so eloquently about all the issues that I find so distressing in this weary,dreary world…and she spoke to my heart from her warm, caring heart. She spoke directly to the issues with an insight that is rare in a world jaundiced with ‘good ole boy’ politics. A true progressive, she didn’t just go after Shrub and the Newts of this country but the ’sell out’, spineless Democrats as well.
She will be missed terribly.
Gayle
67 year old, retired attorney
I best remember Molly Ivins’ columns in the Dallas Times Herald. Her insight and humor were encouraging for this moderate liberal. She made an invaluable contribution to our democracy.
Too often leaders, especially politicians, take themselves too seriously. Molly helped remind them, as well as us, that 15 minutes of fame does not make a society. I will miss her writing.
She is no more; so we should ACT for the living, IN HER STEAD.
The first time I ever heard about Molly IVins was years ago on public radio. She was talking about a number of funny Texas sayings. The one I remember best was “I’ve been busier’n a one-legged man in an ass-kickin’ contest.”
Molly’s death hit me with such a shock. I didn’t know it was coming. HEr spirit is now and will be like a searchlight in these dark times. Bless you, Molly, darlin’.
She’ll always be on the top of my list of “most admired women” of my generation. She’s a hero and a roll model. Thanks for being alive when we needed you, Molly.
Molly,
Thank you and be well.
Dear Molly:
What kind of tribute can a stranger give that can have any meaning?
I have two daughters, soon to be 14 and 16 years of age. They are a joy to their parents. We love them deeply and always try to do for them what we think is best.
I have never wished them a happy or even a good life, but one of meaning. To live a meaningful life, I tell them, you’ve got to do something meaningful with it. Make an impact for good wherever you find yourself.
Your life will be held up as an example.
Thank you,
Ronnie Lee
Molly made watching politics fun and interesting, even in the most grim and dreary of times. She will be sorely missed.
So one day I was writing in the New York Times newsroom and I saw this big handsome woman walking around with bare feet. BARE FEET IN THE TIMES NEWSROOM!! Who’s that? I said. Molly Ivins, somebody said. The one with the quick tongue and big brain, I asked. Yeah, someone said. What’s she doing here, I said. She works here someone said. She works here in BARE FEET, I said: Wait ’til Abe (Abe Rosenthal the dreaded Executive Editor) sees this. I said. So we all pretended to work while we waited for Abe to see Molly’s bare feet. When he did, he looked like he was swllowing a cow. Pretty soon Molly decided that the NYT was not for her and she left us with the memory of Abe trying to swllow that cow and I’ve loved her ever since. Roger Wilkins
I was thinking yesterday a.m. about how much we will miss Molly. Who will or could take her place. In remembrance of her, I called both of my Senators and said “no” about Iraq.
I first became acquainted with Molly’s work when I was living in Houston in the late 60’s and early 70’s.
A much more recent memory is her wonderful piece a few years ago on the late, great Texas politician and human, Bob Eckhardt.
She was, and will always be, both a rose and a thorn.
Paul McShane
Port Townsend, Washington
Even Canadians appreciated Molly’s wit and her ability to cut through all the bull and just speak the truth. I always looked forward to her columns and books and the many laughs they gave me. I’ll miss her spirit, her charm and most of all her insight.
Greetings!
It’s warming that such a great person as Molly Ivins be honored as you have so done. There is more that should be done, however: set the record straight - with at least some major papers - that Ms. Ivins was not as much a satirist as she was a reporter of facts and insights of political personalities. Thus someone contacting every major paper in this country is the least that should be done for her now silenced voice of truth and reason.
As Krugman said in the February 2, 2007 issue of the NY Times, the “… obituaries that mostly stressed her satirical gifts missed the main point. Yes, she liked to poke fun at the powerful, and was very good at it. But her satire was only the means to an end: holding the powerful accountable.”
Set the record straight so that Molly’s hard work does not get twisted and turned by those who thrive on re-inventing history.
Sincerely,
James Rowe
I so looked forward to Molly’s articles in our local paper each week. No one will ever be able to take her place. She was a great writer and I so enjoyed her outlook on life. She will definitely be missed.
I will miss the words of the best friend I never met.
Ms. Ivins was an world-class member of the human race. Her public part in being a clear and rational national voice for compassionate common sense was vital to democracy. Her passing presents a loss to all of us that could affect the future of democracy in America. I guess the rest our high-visibility liberal columnists will have to work very hard to make up for the loss of Ms. Ivins. Plus, there are good local journalists who could move up to the national scene. Good-bye Molly. Farewell, America.
Her columns were the highlight of my week. Molly, you will be missed.
I first learnt of Molly Ivins from the obit. I stayed up late last night reading her old columns. I’m so crushed, I already miss her though I didn’t know of her till yesterday!
I know y’all will say there’s no one like her today, but please say there is someone who comes close?
Ohhhh Molly…….
I read your columns for twenty two years. Back then, The Post was the only Houston newspaper gutsy enough to print them. You turned me into a liberal for life. Thank you and Godspeed - you left us much too soon.
Jill Burtchaell
Houston, Texas
Molly has been a light and inspiration to me for many years now. Her ability to strip away all the dross and hype from issues and call things by their real names, in plain language, will be sorely missed. She was a great American, a true patriot and a truth teller. I never met her or even saw her speak, but the force of her being shone from her written words that filled my heart with her strength in times when things looked the worst for our country. She was a smart and witty woman; I miss her deeply.
I met Molly Ivins in 1987 at a Halloween costume party at the Sons of Hermann Hall in the Deep Ellum district of Dallas. I went as the Prophet Margin, in a old brown hooded bathrobe with a fat Wall Street Journal tucked under my arm. Molly went as–Molly, and for an unknown period of time I sat dazzled at her boots along with other Ivins groupies and drank in her presence and her laughter. I never forgot it, and I have always said she was one of the few human beings whose bathwater I would be pleased and proud to drink, should I be asked to do so as a sign of devotion.
Molly–and her sister in ink, Katie Sherrod–shaped me and molded me and taught me it was possible to be a proud daughter of the Lone Star State without being a perfect horse’s patoot about it. Also that being a Texas liberal was not a contradiction in terms but in fact would be the natural state of things in the Eschaton.
When my partner, a nice Midwestern girl, read the news to me on the train last evening I couldn’t say anything for a long time. Then I said,”Well, at last she’s gone to where the Shrub isn’t President.” And Susie replied,” She’s gone where Dubya will NEVER go.”
Rest in peace, Miz Molly, and rise in all your red-headed glory…with Miz Ann, and the rest of the saints, now and forever and to the ages of ages.
Good golly, Miss Molly…You were so damn good. Thank you. May we honor your memory by never being politically correct, by never biting our tongues and by always having enough hope and courage to speak our minds and raise more hell. May your soul soar, Molly. Peace out, ~AlaButterfly~
She was a jouralist who showed us our own faces in the mirror as we cringed in the broad daylight of truth. Who could ever take her place?
There was just nobody would could bring the laughter out of me like she did. My friends’ emails I’m getting are all grieving over this. She is a huge loss. Everybody knows it.
Thank you for giving us great laughs and even better, great hopes while we wait for a regime change south of our border. We feel privileged to have heard you when you visited Toronto.
Rest In Peace, may we live up to the standards of decency you attributed to Americans so consistantly. Thank you for your life lived through your words. God Bless and Keep you.
Thank you Molly for the belly laughs..this Yankee Boy is going to miss ya.
I’ve been a faithful reader of Molly Ivins’ columns in the Cape Cod Times for years. She was always right on top of things, and I will miss her insights terribly. Thank you for bringing her to us — we need voices like hers.
Eileen Kelley
(a proud Massachusetts liberal)
I first learned of Molly Ivins’s existence when I heard her occasional appearances on NPR. I thought she was charming and funny; I loved her Texas accent (occasionally enhanced, I thought) and her loving way of talking about her targets.
When a business trip took me to Houston, and I found a bookstore table covered with copies of “Molly Ivins Can’t Say That, Can She?”, I thought I was in heaven. That was only the first Molly Ivins book that I bought — I have them all.
I’m so sorry she’s not with us any longer. Thank you for the picture you’ve chosen to remember her.
Molly Ivins always inspired me to speak up and not be afraid.
As a woman from Texas, Molly always allowed me to cite one rational, sharp example of Texas culture to those outside the state, to counter the Bush League Shrubbery infesting the White House.
Now her voice is silent.
But mine won’t be.
Thank you Molly for everything.
The funniest, and the tallest, woman I ever met. She could be dignified, but usually wasn’t. She could be emotional, but only in defense of the underdog and to right a wrong. When she wasn’t tipping sacred cows, she was using her ascerbic wit to deflate egos, skewer pompous politicians and drive her point home through laughter. If she cared what people thought, she never let on.
Molly, you will be sorely missed. There’s nobody left who can fill your shoes.
Kathleen
I keep thinking I’m gonna wake up and this isn’t going to be real. That Molly and Miss Ann and Barbara Jordan won’t actually be gone. They were such an inspiration to me and I tremble comtemplating the fact that they are gone and my generation has to take on the enormous task of fighting the good fight and carrying on the tradition of upity Texas women. Molly was a giant.
The last time I saw her in person was at DemocracyFest a couple of years back on the day Jake Pickle passed away. It was sad…but she told the craziest stories about him. I keep thinking about that…that it’s how Molly would want us to remember her…laughing.
I am filled with sadness that Molly is no longer in our midst. I already feel the loss of her powerful voice. I take up her charge to carry on the fight and do whatever I can to make this world more compassionate and have fun in the process.
Over the last few years, Molly’s articles have become the reassurance that reason, wit and love were not dead in an American scene dominated by the political sludge of Republican politics. She wrote from the vantage of what we all should be and what the United States could be. Her passing leaves a large gap in journalism, but a major tear in the heart.
Many years ago, I had the good fortune to attend a literary “tea” in NYC where both Molly and Elmore Leonard were two of the guests of honor. Also in attendance was Ivana Trump sharing with us her beauty secrets — and “hawking” the products which would help us attain/retain that beauty. Molly said not a word — I swear — but the look on her face was priceless. I have loved her dearly ever since. Adios, Molly.
Feel just as if I’ve lost a very close friend. What a loss. What a blessing she has been.
I only know Molly through reading her always honest, straight forward, and funny columns, but I can’t think of a person I know that I will miss more. For me she was one of a kind, and no one will ever take her place. America has lost one of her greatest patriots and Journalists (with a capital J). I’m not sure how we who care about truth-telling political reporting will go on, but the responsibility to keep standing up to the powerful is now even more what we must do…maybe we can just aim for “making Molly proud of us.”
Most Missed Already Molly–
To me you are now St. Molly of Austin and I have no doubt that you will intercede for all of us still suffering through this time of captivity known as the Bush Administration.
I’ll be watching for you to lay a mighty celestial thumping on Shrub from your new vantage point on high.
After living in Texas for most of my 40-something years, I moved away three years ago. Part of my reason was personal, but another part was I just couldn’t take the Republican domination and hypocrisy of many red-state, red-blooded residents there anymore.
Molly Ivins could take it. In one of the most hard-core conservative states we have here in the union, Molly found a way to laugh about the Tom DeLays and Dick Armeys of that part of the country and poke fun at them without them even realizing it. Rather than giving the evil-doers more power than they deserved by complaining about how evil they were, Molly made us laugh at their follies, making them appear foolish and thus taking away power from them.
Sure, Molly was born in California, or as the Guvernator likes to say, Kollyfornia. And she moved away from Texas several times to work and see what the rest of the country was like. But she always considered Texas home. Not me. Once I moved, Texas was no longer my home. Sorry, cool people in Texas. I feel for you, though, if that’s any consolation.
First, Ann Richards passes in September. Now, Molly. I only met Ann and Molly a few times at some ACLU or journalism or political function, but I felt like I knew them as fellow progressive types. When people asked me why I lived in Texas so long, I could always say, “Aw, well, it couldn’t have been that bad, if Ann Richards and Molly Ivins live there.” I can’t say that now. Their passing left a black hole somewhere west of the Mississippi River.
In Molly’s last column, she was more serious than usual, urging that “every single day, every single one of us needs to step outside and take some action to help stop this [Iraq] war. Raise hell. Think of something to make the ridiculous look ridiculous. Make our troops know we’re for them and trying to get them out of there. Hit the streets to protest Bush’s proposed surge.”
As many people, including yours truly, wonder who will rise to fill the void that Molly’s passing leaves, I see a glimpse of the answer. It’s you. It’s me. Stop mourning and find a way to, as Molly said, raise hell.
I never met Molly Ivins. She was always on the last page of the Progressive and invariably when the new Progressive would arrive over the last 10 years I would read Molly Ivins’ article first. I feel a sense of loss although I didn’t know her. The only way I can explain this is that she spoke for so many of us beleaguered liberal progressives in the really dark days. So it feels like many Americans like myself have lost their voice.
I am surprised by how personally effected I feel by the all-too-early passing of Molly Ivins … who’s going to make me laugh outloud at some obscenely cynical political strategem, without having me resurrect significant symbolism from my liberal arts education (Love ya’ anyway Mo!).
My deepest sympathies to her family, friends, colleagues … and, readers. May she be kept in the Light.
Ubax
a Molly Ivins reader
Final Friday
A Tribute to Molly Ivins
Four years ago a handful of us in Sonoma County were fortunate
to spend the weekend with Molly Ivins. The occasion was the First Annual Sonoma County Breast Cancer Symposium, where Molly was the event’s evening inspirational speaker and fundraiser. Molly arrived a day early where host Jean
Arnold Sessions re-created a Final Friday salon in Molly’s honor. Back in Austin, Final Fridays were Molly’s signature events. Held the last Friday of each month, Molly turned her home into one big performance art stage. Storyteller, poets, authors, actors, singers had their 15 minutes of fame, not to mention the proverbial political rants and raves, along with her shenanigans that fueled Final Fridays.
Now as our guest, Jean threw a Final Friday Sonoma style for Molly—a wine-soaked, foodie event, full of laughter lasting until the wee small hours—one of those nights you will remember your entire life through and through. A night you bond with people you’ve never met by divulging secrets and stories (some of us are still keeping a secret or two about the evening) – something oddly personal, yet oddly familiar was told to everyone in the room. I had the feeling though, that Molly had many of these evenings during her life. She created them. She was a master storyteller who made memories. She had the uncanny ability to make you feel so very welcomed in her world, wherever her world was. Even the most reserved souls found themselves opening up around Molly. (I remember her cautioning me, “Always watch out for the quiet ones they usually have the most interesting things to say”)
By sharing herself, her deeply personal self, she took you in and out you came ready to commit to the connection, the conversation, and share. Molly wanted to know about you and about everything really. In the true spirit of a Final Friday she was able to get us all to listen and get us all to talk while we sat around the dining table that evening. She kept it human.
Just before dessert she said asked, with her long Texan drawl “Do y’all mind if I take this damn thing off?” Pointing to her wig we said, Of course not,” and within seconds Molly plopped the wig on the dining table. “Now that’s better, this thing has been bothering me all day!” she smiled. Even during her battle with breast cancer she made us all smile.
The next evening at the benefit event she began her speech with a hilarious take on attempting to find a prosthetic breast, la grande mama, while in Paris. Due to a luggage delay and a fancy dinner later that evening her quest began. She cracked us all up with what they French thought she was asking for—and our laughter did not stop there.
You might want to host a Final Friday in Molly’ s honor, a playful salon were voices can be heard, stories told, where laughter reigns as the best medicine. Make a memory and bless Ms. Ivins.
Thank you Molly for the great memories, for your courage, your playful high-jinks, and for making us all laugh. . . . and George W thought you were trouble while alive, won’t it be fun to see what mischief Molly inspires from the other side????????
Love
Maggy
It seems our great state continues to loose our brightest stars. It has been cold and gloomy with threats of bad weather ever since the news of Molly’s passing.
I found myself thinking how great it would be if I was disturbed to the sound of people in their yards, banging their pots and pans, insisting that enough was enough! Would this be a fitting tribute to Molly, our rally on her behalf?
Shhhhh- can you hear? A giant tree has fallen in Texas.
I was probably one of most who assumed that such an incredible jolt of energy as Molly was could never cease to exist in physical form. So her death was not only a horrible thud in my chest, it was a shock, a blow. Molly’s was the column I read when the news was just too awful to tolerate — by continually demystifying the egos and crimes of politicians, she gave me hope that sanity did still exist in the world. She wasn’t a goddess, although she may be one now, but she did have the power to make a good life seem worth pursuing. Not an easy, FOX news, thousands in the bank, couldn’t-care-less kind of life, but a committed, fight-the-good-fight, don’t-give-in-to-the-craziness kind of life. I know of no one else who provides that for us now. I hope she’ll send missives from the other side. I, for one, will be looking for them.
I cried when I heard that we lost Molly Ivins to cancer. I am still crying
off and on. She was a friend, and one great columnist.
Who will make me laugh, who will take the carpetbaggers and skalwags to task?
Molly was not only a great writer, she was a brilliant star, hope for us all, she made me see things I should have seen, darn if only I was looking!
But right now, I’m sad. I’ve lost a friend, a fellow “summer”,a fellow texan.
Molly made me proud to be a texan, she loved the renegade, she didn’t mind if
you were different, she gave president “shrub” hell, his father too. She
made fun of texas, but she loved it and all those texan things that are a little quirky, she made them special.
me, I just loved that she knew how to raise hell. And I’ll miss her.
We all will miss her, but even more, who will take Molly Ivins place, her irreverant necessary place?
Well my friends, it must be us. If you never read her, your life is not complete. If she didn’t make you get off your duff, then you must now.
For if we are just a little as brave, as funny, as serious, as smart as Molly Ivins, there is still hope.
So let us mourn Molly, but I for one will be a bit more brazen when I go to City Council, when I write to the News Press, when I run for office. I promise Molly, I’ll do my part to keep up the fun, to be irreverent, to be progressive, to keep my eyes open, and not to turn them away. Time to let you rest and for others to take up the pen.
None of us have any excuses.
stephanie
I just wanted to say that I read Ms. Ivin’s writings were always a reality check for political egos in Texas. I will miss her seeing wit and realism in the Texarkana Gazette.
Roy Shine
I don’t know if I’ve ever been so heartbroken over the death of someone I never met. Hell, I’m more heartbroken right now than I have been over the deaths of some of the people I _did_ know.
Bless you, girl. I know you’re not going to rest in peace - just wouldn’t be your style.
Molly’s Laugh
I was sitting between her and Jessica Mitford. On my right was the diminutive British Queen of the Muckrakers, and on my left, the Texan Giantess of Wit.
We were visiting SCI’s Funeral Museum in Houston TX. Escorted into a plush, posh antechamber, we were left to view an introduction film called “The History of Funerals”.
A view of the famous Gaza Pyramid rose on the screen and a thunderous voice intoned, “The Beginning of The History of Funerals starts in Ancient Egypt!”
Suddenly, Ms. Mitford leaned across me to Molly and chirped in her British baritone, “Now there’s a culture whose funeral directors REALLY got out of hand!”
Molly and I never saw the rest of that film. We had to go outside and lean against the building in fits of laughter.
Molly’s laugh started like a rumbling volcano and erupted like the braying of a wild donkey. It was so damn full of life
-and as absurd as reality can get.
I have tucked it away in my fondest of memories to pull it out when I feel overwhelmed by life’s downside. It’s a real cure, and reminds me to keep the spirit of
“Don’t let the Bassard’s get you down!”
I can hear it now. The world will miss these two women of wit and unconquerable charm.
Good Lord, I can’t even think of a way to thank you folks for this Full-Court Molly. I had a busy week and didn’t watch the news and so, opening Google News this morning, was run over by the Mack Truck of Molly’s death…and I use that blatant word out of respect for Molly, instead of the more soothing (and chicken-spit) “passing” or “demise”.
In what seems like a previous life, I was a newspaper and magazine writer with Twin Muses of Different Mothers: Hunter Thompson and Molly Ivins. In their essence, they could not have been more different. Hunter, the jaundiced Dark Side; Molly, the Sunshiney Assassin, whose tongue may have opened beer bottles but whose soul was firmly In The Light. When I wanted to excoriate and leave marks, I’d channel Hunter. When I wanted some even more insidious - to ravage while the victim slaps you on the back and buys you a drink - I’d go to Molly.
In the middle of my work day, sitting here with tears streaming down my face and choking around that little throat-catching sob/chuckle that happens when you’re unsure whether it’s appropriate to laugh, I read these tributes and Molly’s columns and think, Dear God, what will I ever do for a Muse, now? Luckily, we still have all these WMDs - Weapons of Molly’s Derision - that we can go to when the well’s coughing up dust.
I know I never met Molly Ivins (got into the same room with her one time, which was joy enough) but I can’t begin to count what I owe her. She was the bravest of us all, one of the toughest, and definitely one of the most entertaining. There will never be another one like her…and what an awful, stinkin’ shame that is.
Read her columns where I could find them on various websites as not in any newspaper up here in da frozen nort countree.
She was someone who one would like to go sailing with, long voyage or a daysail.
She was one grand lass, let us give thanks that she was with us. Take heart somewhere out there another Mollie is in the making.
Thank you so much for putting this site together to memorialize Molly. I was in shock on Wed night, returning from another memorial service, as I learned from Air America Radio that Molly had passed on. Seems like I spent the whole day crying. I was not even aware that she was sick.
I didn’t know Molly, but she was such an important voice of reason, and humor, about what this country has become, that for me it felt like losing a dear friend.
Only she could go out still making people laugh. What a woman!! What a Patriot!! Molly, you will be sorely missed.
Sincerely,
Robin Bloomgarden
Portland, Oregon
As the poet Yeats said, “do not go gentle into that good night - rage, rage at the dying of the light.” That’s what I thought of when I read Mollie’s last message: WE are the deciders and we must rage at the dangerous direction our country has taken. I’m writing from snowy Spokane, Washington, where I’m a journalist and a lifelong Mollie Ivins fan. Thank you, Mollie, for inspiring all of us to keep the passion for justice in our work.
My wife and I felt a terrible, terrible loss when we learned o Molly’s passinf. No one will ever take her place in our hearts and minds. picking up the Monday morning paper and knowing Molly’s column will not be there will a really empty morning. Good bye ol’ girl , you are truly a great American patriot and will be sorely missed.
It was never my good fortune to meet Molly in person; but with each editorial or with each book, I felt that she was a friend. She was bright, funny, and as far as I am concerned, very politically correct! God bless you, Molly. We will miss you!
to a great liberal,from a liberal,molly we will miss you greatly sweetheart,i know you and ann richards will be bush bashing up there,good on ya!!!!
The world has lost a remarkable person, and the country has lost a valuable gadfly. Molly’s courage and persistance in the face of political idiocy and criminality provided a much-needed counterbalance to the misleading propaganda and outright lies emanating from Washington DC, Austin TX, and everywhere that people of that ilk congregate. She made a difference, and who can ask for more than that out of life?
As a former Texan (Houston Chronicle, 1953-65) and contribuor to the Observer, I come not to praise Molly, but to ask how we can get a bunch of folks organized to do as she wished, bang pots and pans for peace out on the streets and in front of the White House to, in the words of the Ballad For Americans,disturb King George as he sleeps in his bed. Anybody?
Saul Friedman
Now writing for Newsday
saulfriedman@comcast.net
In the second season of the West Wing, Leo turns to then candiate Jed Barlett and says something like “I am tired of choosing between the lesser of who cares. People say that a good man can’t be elected President. I don’t believe that do you?”
This reminds me of our dear Molly. She is a (s)hero to me showing me time and again that apathy to our responsibilities as an American citizen shamful, but standing up and speaking out is duty that we must cherish, preserve and most of all use to find the humor in it all!
When people say to me that “all political figures are corrupt” or “it’s useless” or “there all liars and crooks” without warning I find myself unable to silence the words “No, not everyone is a liar.” and “We can make a difference” and “Do you really want to live in a world like that?”
Molly, in your memory I’ll keep speaking out. Thank you for giving me the courage to do so and reminding me it’s a sacred obiligation to all of those who have gone before me and those who will go after.
I had the great privilege of meeting some great people in Texas: John Henry Faulk, John Hannah, Warren Burnett, Kathleen Voigt (my great aunt) and Molly Ivins… thanks to another great Texan … Bill Kugle… may they dance in the bardo of bravehearts….
Molly was simply great, true, a “piece of work”.
We are the poorer for her passing.
Just wanted to add one more thing: Reading these tributes to Molly, I feel like I am more in the company of friends and kindred spirits than I do at any time in my daily life. I wish we all had some way to connect with each other, find each other. What a lot of good we all could, fired by Molly’s - and our - special vision.
Molly Ivins is one of my favorite journalists way back in forever starting in the 70’s: She and Jim Hightower were the always looked-for voices for those who were excited and motivated by the grassroots “get something done” rabble.
Molly was currently carried sporadically by my local paper “The Grand Rapids Press” (Grand Rapids, MI) which always kind of amazed me — it is a very conservative community newspaper and it was always a breath of fresh air when her picture and byline would grace the columns of local print.
I love the gal:
Thank you Molly Ivins for your generosity and grace, your wide-as-a-Texas-
sky embrace of all peoples and principles that choose to reside within the
enfolding American envelope that contains those crucial documents called
The Constitution of the United States and the Bill of Rights. Thank you
for your courage in documenting and pointing out, without tiring, the
essential truths of a Democratic and pluralistic nation that must ever be
vigilant lest it fall into the buffoonery of self-interested, divisive
and corrupting failure. And thank you Molly for your laugh-out-loud
narrative that, as a gift, came from your heart.
Karen Bidwell
Dearest Molly,
Who will speak for us now? Thank you for being my voice. My heart is heavy and I have tears in my eyes as I bid you farewell. We have a choice, you often wrote, either cry or laugh at the fools in power. Who will make us laugh now? Thank you for being in my life. Good bye sweet woman, you can rest now.
With all my love,
A friend in Boston
It’s hard to imagine living in the world without Molly Ivins in it. Her wisdom, wit, and “take no prisoners” political commentary kept my spirits up at a time when it becomes increasingly more difficult to take pride in one’s Texas roots. The good news is that Molly left quite a paper trail. Here’s hoping that future generations of aspiring journalists will read her words and realize that once upon a time, a true giant of the trade lived among us.
First Ann Richards, now Molly Ivins–the smartest, brightest and most big-hearted hellraiser Texas politics ever knew. She made me proud to be from Texas when I was catching Yankee hell in the Midwest for the administration and its escalation of this wretched war. If there is any consolation in our staggering loss, it lies in the fact that so many of the people who loved her are echoing, even expanding that brilliant wit that she bestowed upon us so effortlessly for so many years. In this way, Molly’s message will become even more powerful than any of those wingnut sumbitches could have possibly imagined. God bless Molly Ivins and god bless those of us Texas women who must now raise hell in her stead.
Been reading Ms. Molly since college. I’m so sorry that her voice is not with us. My sister is in her 3rd go-round w/breast cancer. Will keep Ms. Molly in our prayers, and hope she is at peace. - another fiesty Southern sister.
I have adored Molly Ivin’s cutting wit for a long time. I will miss her greatly. I never got the opportunity to thank her for a story she told on conspiracy theories, which I use in my classes.
Words that come to mind about Molly, courageous, wild, driven, smart.
When the insanity of Iraq began, she was one of a handful that saw though the BS. She told everyone about W in Shrub and if the majority had only listened …….. As a Yankee from Chicago, she made me realized how tough and smart Texas women can be.
I am thankful for what she gave us. I will miss her.
The world is dimmer without Molly Ivins. I will miss her.
I never had the honor to meet Molly, but I read everything I could which she wrote. She made me want to know more about politics because she had a sense of humor and I’ve never had much use for misery, tragedy, pain and sorrow (i.e. “guvment”) without it. Bless you, Molly. Bless you.
Beautiful Lofty Things
Beautiful lofty things; O’Leary’s noble head;
My father upon the Abbey stage, before him a raging crowd.
“This Land of Saints”, and then as the applause died out,
“Of plaster Saints”; his beautiful mischievous head thrown back.
Standish O’Grady supporting himself between the tables
Speaking to a drunken audience high nonsensical words;
Augusta Gregory seated at her great ormolu table
Her eightieth winter approaching; “Yesterday he threatened my life,
I told him that nightly from six to seven I sat at this table
The blinds drawn up”; Maud Gonne at Howth station waiting a train,
Pallas Athena in that straight back and arrogant head;
All the Olympians; a thing never known again.
– William Butler Yeats
IMAGINE
a Jai-Fucking-GANTIC
STATUE of Ms Molly
Statue of liberty-esq
on the south (working class)side of ANN RICHARDS Bridge
waving a ‘mighier than the sword’-PEN
1/2 between the stateman & capitol
I’m dead serious about this, austin & Molly deserve it, to be reminded 1st that she was right about iraq & that liberal austin is entitled to our icons.
after reading thousands & thousands of comments that last 2 daze, I’m amazed, reminded of the countless folks that were saved / converted / won’t now have to go to hell , because they were exposed to MOLLY IVINS
From those of us on the left coast in the blue state of washington who love and admire you. We will miss your exfoliation of the shrub and your skewering of those who needed it. Your humor and strength of purpose too soon gone. But your inspiration may cause a lot of us to get up off of our
butts and actually do something–hope so. Thanks, Molly RIP
Molly, you will be greatly missed, especially here in the blue counties of Texas. I want to share an interview with Molly that was published in the McAllen Monitor a couple of years ago.
Event promotes Texas Observer compilation
April 22, 2005
By Rose Ybarra
Monitor Staff Writer
In most regions of the state, Texas Democrat equals uphill battle, but not in the Rio Grande Valley. It’s one of the few places in the state where most political offices are won in the Democratic primary instead of the general election because there is rarely a Republican opponent.
For liberal political columnist Molly Ivins, visiting the McAllen area is the antithesis of the time she was banned from the highly conservative Texas A&M University campus in College Station.
Ivins was born in California and moved to Texas when she was 3 years old. She worked at newspapers such as the New York Times and Fort Worth Star-Telegram before setting out as an independent columnist for Creators Syndicate. Ivins has also penned six best-selling books, including BUSHWACKED: Life in George W. Bush’s America and WHO LET THE DOGS IN? Incredible, Political Animals I Have Known.
She also champions First Amendment issues, donating a speech every month to the cause.
In the Valley, the often controversial and always witty Ivins is sure to be received warmly.
Ivins is set to visit McAllen on Saturday to promote a book titled, 50 Years of The Texas Observer. A pachanga is scheduled for 5 p.m. at Fusion Martini Lounge, followed by a 7 p.m. book signing and reading at Cine El Rey in McAllen.
“It will be nice to be in another blue county,” Ivins said in a telephone interview from her Austin home.
Ivins said there will be shop talk at Saturday’s event and even some humor.
“You can’t help but be humorous when you’re discussing the Texas Legislature,” she said.
State Sen. Juan “Chuy” Hinojosa, D-McAllen, is on the host committee for Saturday’s event.
“She’s fearless,” Hinojosa said of Ivins. “She cuts through all the smoke and mirrors and tells the truth. If she writes about you and you’ve done something wrong, she makes you bleed.”
Ivins laughed heartily when she was told about recent article written by the Associated Press that analyzed the upcoming gubernatorial election in Texas.
Gov. Rick Perry and Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison were tabbed as likely candidates on the Republican side while Kinky Friedman is running as an independent. No names were mentioned about a possible Democratic candidate.
University of Texas-Pan American political science professor Jerry Polinard summed up the lack of Democratic hopefuls for the governor’s mansion, “You have to go look under, ‘sacrificial lambs’ in the Yellow Pages,” he said, referring to Texas’ strong Republican tilt.
Polinard worded the Democratic Party’s woes more creatively than other political analysts but underneath the humor, it’s the same grim story.
Still, Ivins remains optimistic that Democrats will one day dominate the Texas political landscape.
“As always, I’m full of hope despite all the evidence,” she said. “But the way the Republicans redistricted the state, it may take a generation.”
Ivins noted that the Country Club sect and big business — the Republican Party and its overflowing coffers — are hardly a match for the average hardworking Texan.
“The Republicans, they built this huge machine,” she said. “They’re like those toasters that can toast 12 slices of bread at a time. We start every campaign with a one-slice toaster and we can’t catch up.”
Texas accounts for only 34 electoral votes of the 270 needed to win the U.S. Presidency. What about the rest of the country? Where did Bush’s challenger, Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., go wrong?
Ivins said it’s not what Kerry did not do but rather what Bush adviser Karl Rove did, which was exploit God, family and moral values in the name of re-election.
“Karl Rove said he was going to go after three million Christian votes after the 2000 election and he got them,” Ivins said. “I heard two ladies talking in a small town here in Texas. One of them said she was voting for John Kerry and the other woman, responded, ‘Then you’re not a Christian and not patriotic.’
Ivins continued, “That is so grossly untrue. I used a quote by economist John Kenneth Galbraith in a column recently and it fits again here.”
The Galbraith quote reads, “The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.”
Ivins has been known to ruffle a few feathers but to her, it’s all in a day’s work, she said.
“I do get plenty of hate mail,” she said. “I’ve been a columnist for so long that I’m accustomed to it but I do keep a box of my favorite hate mail.”
Molly was a brand of liberal that does something, that pushes back, that makes fun of, and takes no gruff from the bullies. She was the Rosa Parks of the word, I see her on that Texas Observer balcony, I feel/hear that Texas heat, I think of her swilling a longneck. Molly was a scrapper, and she laughed at em, right in their face, laughed at how pitiful they were, laughed at em and kept laughing. She poked at the sacred cows and damn if they did not moooo. What was amazing was how her spirit would just come off the page. I mean it made page sizzle and crack.
One thing you can say you pompass asses out there. YOU may not have agreed with her, but you sure as hell better respect Molly, because she was smarter, quicker and tougher than any writer out there today. Sit down and take note corporate media. You will never, in all your arrogance be half the writer Molly was, and you sure as hell will not have as much fun. She could write circles around all of the lot of ya. Not only that she made you wanna do something, if that is not good writing and good politics then I’ll sure as hell slap my mama.
She was a voice that was sometimes alone, but never off the mark. She put her whole self into every letter. God Damn it and God damn it again. The day the next little conservative jackass gets indicted and when Shrub is run out of town I will think of Molly. It just ain’t fair, but rest assured girl…these times they are a changing….
I’ll see you after
I never met Molly Ivins, although I wanted to. I’m not a politician, or a government employee, or even a Texan. But I am a concerned citizen, and today I am a sad one.
I expect that you could not find two more different people - on the surface, at least - than Molly Ivins and Mary McGrory. But they are linked firmly in my mind, as the two people most responsible for helping me keep what sanity I have left as a Concerned Citizen in these troubled times. What a lot there is to be concerned about! And now that they are both gone, there will be a lot less good writing about it, and, I fear, a lot less done about it, too.
Oh, what marvelous writing! Readers of these pages are perhaps more familiar than I with the Ivins touch, “Shrub” and “Goodhair” being among the most gentle of her endearments. But she had a match in characterization in McGrory, who, way back in the days of Iran-Contra, nailed Eliott Abrams for all time as “he of the permanently curled lip.” McGrory was bamboozled by Colin Powell, but only briefly; Ivins never was. The first died before she could do much to correct her error, and the Curled Lips of Washington breathed perhaps a bit easier. I am sure that today they breathe easier still.
As Molly and Mary would both say, it’s up to us now, as it has ever been. Let’s not forget them.
I moved here from New Orleans, Bourbon St musician, after Katrina, originally from Sacramento, another capitol city filled with endless politics. I knew that I could still play music here and that Jim Hightower, Molly Ivans, and Anne Richards were around somewhere in Texas. Just like that two of best Texas women take off and I am so sad. The radio hosts at KBOO FM in Portland, Oregon always refered to Bush as “shrub” or “shrub jr”. Wow those pictures of Molly, beautiful.
Thanks, Molly…from Little DownUnder
I met Molly first in Mpls during the protest days when outrage was re-born in America. The Vietnam war was outrageous, the liberal machine that kept people poor and marginalized was outrageous, the indifference of middle- and upper-class America was outrageous. She started building her vocabulary in Minnesota and was a fun person to be with while she told the truth and that’s a magnificent combination. My heart is heavy with the loss of this voice, this heart full of hope. She was often cynical but was never a cynic. I opted out of the whole game called America, went off to live on a sailboat and I write this from Curacao, Dutch Netherlands, but I’m borne away by the free spirit that we called Molly Ivins. Thanks Molly, you’re a great gal.
Molly Ivins has been my hero for several decades now. And during our national nightmare, begun in 1990, hers is one of the few voices that has kept me from slashing my wrists in despair. I shall miss her dreadfully.
Excuse me, that should have been 2000, not 1990 — it only SEEMS that long.
Molly was my alter-ego. She had the courage which fails me. I am very sad.