Bill Moyers remembers Molly Ivins

[DeepModem Mom]

Editor&Publisher: Bill Moyers Remembers Molly Ivins - And More from 'The Texas Observer'
By E&P Staff
Published: February 01, 2007

NEW YORK -- Molly Ivins' "home paper," The Texas Observer, naturally has several special offerings on its Web site today marking the passing of the writer so closely associated with it.

Included are rip-roaring highlights from her life, a photo gallery, her own writings, a readers' tribute forum, and testimonials from friends and colleagues. It's slow loading today, suggesting very heavy traffic, but it's at www.texasobserver.org.

Here is what her friend, and fellow Texan, Bill Moyers wrote:

What a foot-stompin’ reunion there must be at this very moment in that great Purgatory of Journalists in the Sky. I can see them now—Ida Tarbell, Lincoln Steffens, Ray Stannard Baker, Upton Sinclair, Henry Demarest Lloyd, Ida B. Wells, David Graham Phillips, George Seldes, I. F. Stone, Walter Karp, Willie Morris—welcoming our darlin’ to their bosoms.

Oh, my, how she comes trailing clouds of truth-telling glory! Look at her—big-hearted as ever, leaning over the balustrade and reaching down to the tormented of Hades, moistening Tom DeLay’s lips, patting down Bob Perry's hair, erasing George W's sandstone scribblings. In the celestial light she glows as irrepressibly and vividly as she did here on Earth, where she made the mighty humble, the wicked ashamed, and the good ol' boys reach for the barrel to hide their forlorn nakedness. And, oh, the stories she must be telling as we speak.

At a PBS meeting a few years ago, she ended her talk with a joke that would have gotten anyone else arrested or excommunicated. But she was carried out on the crowd's shoulders, as right now she is being ushered into the Council of Ink-Stained Immortals, where the only religion is truth. Save some room up there, Molly: You have inspired us earthbound wretches to keep trying to live up to your legacy in the hope of joining you there one day.

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003540601

[Owl]

1. What a beautiful tribute!

Thank you Mr. Moyers.

[Beaverhausen]

2. Oh that's great

and now I'm :cry: again.

[Dinger]

3. Proud To Cast The 5th Vote

:patriot:

[patrice]

4. This feels just like "losing" a sister.

(Something I do have some experience with, btw.)

She isn't gone, though, she has affected all of us. We would not be who we are if there had never been a Molly Ivins.

[Dudley_DUright]

5. It is great to recommend this great piece from a great man

in memory of a great woman to the greatest page. :-)

[northofdenali]

6. She will be so missed.

Thanks for the post.

[Booster]

7. Bookmarked so I can go back to the website and read and read

and read. Thanks for posting this.

[sarge43]

8. Rather than the great Purgatory of Journalists in the Sky, I think

Molly would like to be on the front porch of an old farm house situated in the beautiful hill country around Austin, sharing a cooler of beer and jokes with Anne Richards and Barbara Jordan. Molly would retell her story about Anne: They were on a camping trip and they spent the night near a large waterfall which Molly said sounded like death. Anne remarked it sounded like every whore in El Paso had just flushed her toilet. Barbara would look nonplus, then break into a laugh that would rattle the rafters.

Rest in peace, great souls.

[jazzjunkysue]

9. The observer server is totally trashed. It's getting inundated.

I miss her already.

[patrice]

10. Boy, their server really is struggling!

Try again again later . . .