In Memoriam: Molly Ivins

When Molly Ivins - born on this day in 1944 - succumbed to cancer in January 2007 we liberal loudmouths lost more than just a spokeswoman, we lost a friend...

What gets me about Ivins' work is how she could spend a lifetime writing about not only politics but Texas politics and not 1) blow her head off with a rifle, 2) be more outraged than she is, or 3) lose her sense of humour.

I'd like to think her work has taught me an alternative way to express my outrage over corruption. While the Carl Hiaasen method is more fun (and undoubtedly attracts more attention, at least in the short term) Molly Ivins' homespun way of looking at the eternal spiral of greed and graft among our overlords is probably best designed for the long run. After all, given enough time even the worst outrages fade; what ought to remain is a reminder that even though names change, human nature doesn't.

In time there will be scandals that not even Molly Ivins herself could have predicted. Thankfully she left behind a recipe for us to deal with it without losing our heads.
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