#molly ivins

[liquidlightandrunningtrees]

Keep fightin' for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don't you forget to have fun doin' it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cat, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through kickin' ass and celebratin' the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was.

Molly Ivins

[emperornorton47]

[usunezukoinezu]

The thing about democracy, beloveds, is that it is not neat, orderly, or quiet. It requires a certain relish for confusion.

Molly Ivins

[mumblingsage]

She stared at it and then reached out and gently ran her fingers over the letters in the cold black marble. The memory of him came back so strong, almost as if he were there on the other side of the stone, she could see his hand reaching out to touch her fingers. It had not hurt for years and suddenly, just for a moment, it hurt again so horribly that it twisted her face and made her gasp and left her with tears running down her face. Then it stopped hurting but she could not stop the tears. Could not stop them running and running down her face.

Molly Ivins, “A Short Story about the Vietnam War Memorial”

[spotlightstory]

I miss Molly Ivins. Here she is talking about Truth and Journalism in 1991.

[somethingtocallmine]

[fuckyeahquotesposts]

The first rule of holes: when you're in one, stop digging.

Molly Ivins

[mayra-quijotescx]

real No Children hours in the Lege rn

the Texas Tribune made a whole page for this latest shit

[stinkahny]

Missing my Texas liberal ladies

How I miss Ann Richards, the former governor of Texas, and Molly Ivins, a reporter for I think a Dallas paper, but I'm not sure about that. Both of them had very quick wits, and would use their wit to pin right wing idiots against the nearest wall.

[malsperanza]

The great Molly Ivins once said, "Keep fighting for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don't forget to have fun doing it. Be outrageous... rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through celebrating the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was!"

On June 26, 2015, eight years ago, the US Supreme Court issued its ruling making same-gender marriage legal. That evening I went over to Stonewall on Sheridan Square to join the impromptu party. The World Trade Center, visible down 6th Ave., was in full drag.

[mariacallous]

We are at a time in our national life where the political system is pretty frankly corrupt. I know that many of you despise organized politics. You’re young and idealistic and entitled to do that. But the corruption can be fixed and the heritage is too important to be let go. We are all of us collectively the heirs to the most magnificent political tradition any people has ever received. “We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men (and women) are created equal, that we are endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We hold that governments are instituted among men to secure these rights and that whenever any government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it.”

Those principles are so profoundly revolutionary that they still echo with great force around the world after more that 200 years. There are people today who are dying for the chance to live under those principles. They died in South Africa. They died at Tiananmen Square. They are dying today in Myanmar. And in this country we are in some danger of throwing away that entire legacy out of boredom, and cynicism and inanition. And I hear constantly people say, “Well, I really just don’t care much for politics;” “Ah well, they’re all crooks, there’s nothing I can do.” People have a million reasons for not getting involved. The thing is, you can’t back out of it, it’s not your choice. You can’t look at politics in this country as though it were a television program, or a picture on a wall that you could stand back and look at and decide whether or not you liked it.

Your entire life—the warp and woof of your life—is going to be bounded by political decisions made in city halls and state capitals and the White House, and the Capitol in Washington. How deep you will be buried when you die, the qualifications of the people who prescribe your eyeglasses, whether or not the dye you use on your hair will cause cancer. All of those, and many, many more things that touch your life everyday in a thousand ways. Whether or not your car is safe when you get into it, all of these things are affected by government. You are involved, whether you like the picture or not. And if you don’t like it, you really have an obligation to change it.

Molly Ivins, from her commencement speech to Scripps College graduates in May of 2003

[posttexasstressdisorder]

Every once in awhile I remember I'm old...

...and that I rmember things and people from decades ago vividly, as if it were, well, yesterday. It's times like this that it all catches up with me, when I realize there are at least two generations of people who have no fucking clue who Molly Ivins was, or how important she was to Texas women at the time, and to those who were aspiring writers. I was good friends with one, and remember her undying admiration for Molly Ivins, and I remember reading her pieces and just going "yeah! You go girl!" So to correct my error, here:

[whatbigotspost]

Damn, y'all. This is very, very bad news:

I have an unshakable belief that "democracy" is a joke in any place where a free media cannot exist. As I've eluded to many times, I'm a big believer in more progressive leaning sources like NPR, the Texas Tribune (the source link in that^ story), and formerly, the Texas Observer. Things are NOT in a good place right now, financially, for any of those entities.

This trend is something that anyone who cares about the threat of the rising Christofascist right wing extremists should be paying a LOT OF FUCKING ATTENTION TO. If you can, you should be donating to any entity you depend on, like this. It's why I'm a member of my local NPR station. I mean, I can't help but feel like we are about 2 seconds away from just accepting that algorithms like TikTok are going to drive all of the "information" we have, and I hopefully don't need to explain why we'll all be thoroughly fucked if that happens. Here's an Austin local writer/journalist I trust, with more behind-the-scenes input about what happened w/ the Texas Observer.

[brookstonalmanac]

Birthdays 8.30

Beer Birthdays

Samuel Whitbread (1720)

Johan Van Dyck (1975)

Stacy Marie Fuson; St. Pauli Girl 2005 (1978)

Five Favorite Birthdays

Lewis Black; comedian (1948)

Molly Ivins; writer (1944)

Fred MacMurray; actor (1908)

John Swigert Jr.; astronaut (1931)

Ted Williams; Boston Red Sox LF (1918)

Famous Birthdays

Elizabeth Ashley; actor (1939)

Geoffrey Beene; fashion designer (1927)

Joan Blondell; actor (1909)

Shirley Booth; actor (1898)

Timothy Bottoms; actor (1951)

Warren Buffett; gazillionaire (1930)

Michael Chiklis; actor (1963)

Robert Crumb; cartoonist (1943)

Jacques-Louis David; French artist (1748)

Agoston Haraszthy de Mokcsa; vineyard importer (1812)

Cameron Diaz; actor (1972)

John Gunther; writer (1901)

Jean-Claude Killy; French skier (1943)

Peggy Lipton; actor (1947)

Huey Long; politician (1893)

Raymond Massey; actor (1896)

Tug McGraw; NY Mets/Philadelphia Phillies P (1944)

John Phillips; singer, songwriter (1935)

Andy Roddick; tennis player (1982)

Ernest Lord Rutherford; New Zealand physicist (1871)

Theodor Svedberg; Swedish chemist (1884)

Frederique van der Wal (1967)

Jacobus Henricus van 't Hoff; Dutch physicist (1852)

J. Alden Weir; artist (1852)

Kitty Wells; country singer (1919)

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley; English writer (1797)

[bakewake]

I am not anti-gun. I'm pro-knife. Consider the merits of the knife. In the first place, you have to catch up with someone in order to stab him. A general substitution of knives for guns would promote physical fitness. We'd turn into a whole nation of great runners. Plus, knives don't ricochet. And people are seldom killed while cleaning their knives.

-Molly Ivins