But wasn't she a baby boomer, and thus not worthy of your respect?

I will say just what she would have said:

Bite me!

Jan Knaus

CVille what is the point of your comment?

The fact that EJ said we should get over the 60s means you should say something disrespectful to her when she pays tribute to someone who died?

See Molly Ivins at her satirical best in a video called "The Dildo Diaries"...here:

www.thoughttheater.com

Shock and awe shit at Molly's passing. We've lost a ray of light that could penetrate the darkness of this regime. You say breast cancer. Did anyone check for Polonium 210? Putin's a personal friend of Shrub, and the way she barbecued the boy King from Texas over the years I wouldn't be at all surprised.

Don't stay away. We all need to keep on living as best we can, just as Molly and very many of the rest of us did or do.

Your comment above was justified.

Hoppy in Sacramento

This is outrageous.

It's bad enough that featured bloggers slide uncommented down-ratings in on people who respectfully disagree with them, but to have the damned referee taking sides in a rating war in favor of the blogger and in opposition to an ordinary contributor is just beyond the pale.

Are you still stinging from the way Schumer tooled you yesterday, Andrew? Did he promise to buy you a nice steak after he fucked you, then only came across with a Wendy's Single? Is that what's buggin' you, Bunky?

Maybe your problem is that Josh spanked you good for the sorry and shabby way your live interviewee used you to shill his content-free book and then took on only the softball questions.

Whatever it was that made you cross the line between honest broker and partisan, it cost you my respect, Andrew. If you are going to be in a fight, then don't run the Cafe. If you're going to run the Cafe, stay out of the fights.

Jan is a thougtful and valuable contributor to this blog, and she was justifiably upset by a deliberately provocative posting from the day before. Your 1 rating was out of line.

Be a mensch. Apologize to your readers and kiss Jan's ass all over until she agrees to come back. Or be a sleezy jackass like Bush and tell us you can't think of any mistakes you've made.

Truly, monumentally, spectacularly, awesomely ironic coming from you, Mr. Golis.

J. McCutchen

I'll miss her

The noise above is unbecoming the great loss. People like Molly Ivins are what makes this country what it should be and are our hope to a much better future. Terrible loss.

A 1 from wmd. I wear that as a badge of honor!!

Tom

I suppose death takes us all, but this one is hitting me pretty hard tonight. Ivins' columns were the kind that I could never read out loud to a friend sitting next to me -- I'd always break up laughing in the middle of it, making it incomprehensible.

I got a chance to see her when she came to Carleton while I was there. Just as damn funny in person as she was in writing.

She probably taught me more than any other national writer on how to be an unapologetic liberal and unapologetic southerner at the same time. Her insights into Bush were not only the most biting, but frequently the most forgiving and human. Her refrain, even after ol' Shrub had been revealed as Worst President Ever in all his glory, continued to be, the poor man means well, but he's simply in way, way, way over his head. This, of course, after she'd rhetorically filleted the latest mass of administration crap.

I always have an odd feeling about how we get attached to public figures who don't know us from Adam's housecat, but I'm not going to apologize here. Molly, I'm going to miss you terribly.

oh, those uncivil liberal bloggers! why can't they follow the example of the gracious and well-mannered conservatives who left notes on the msnbc message boards about the passing of molly ivins?

.

.

skippy

SeeDee
oops! last line in p-o-e-m should be 'glad'.

must be all shook up!

Better yet, she also covered some of the State Legislature in St. Paul, and it was really her first turn putting her wit into play in describing the goings on down river. At a later date she would say the Minnesota Leg was really too serious, and didn't give her the hooks she eventually found in Texas.

There are some classic Minnesota pieces by Ivins, I particularly remember her early "review" of the Mall of America. Hopefully someone finds and re-posts.

Molly was a good and close friend of Paul Wellstone's -- and it might be good to also dig back and find the pieces she did on Paul over the years. After the tragedy, Molly was a member of Wellstone Action -- Paul's memorial that teaches folk how to run for office or be valuable campaign staff and the like. It was Molly who proposed, about three years ago, that Al Franken should run for the "Wellstone Seat" in 2008 at one of their Board meetings. I hope to hell that Al had the chance to say that he had decided, Ja, (good Norwegian) before Molly Checked out yesterday.

Molly was the first Female non-society non-food reporter on the Minneapolis Tribune and while she was here for only a few years, she had a major impact on local journalism. She was here when Humphrey was VP, and when Gene McCarthy decided to run against him in 68 -- when Minnesota decided it had a race problem after we had a couple of riots, and when protesters were in the streets over Vietnam.

Last fall when I discovered she had really bad health news I tried to get the Minnesota Historical Society to move quickly and interview her, and collect her Minnesota materials. But with the Trib merged with the Star now, and both having been sold and re-sold, I got ten excuses why it was not possible from Historical Society Staff. But it still needs to be done.

Let us see whether a bit of analysis can unearth the source of your difficulties as a moderator, Mr. Golis.

The problem could be that you are unable to read, and that the person who recited my earlier complaint to you got it wrong, either through ignorance or spite.

Alternatively, you may have a comprehension problem. Perhaps you are not able to understand that my complaint was, in fact, an attack on your behavior rather than an attack on you, personally.

Maybe you simply do not understand the expression ad hominem. You may have pulled it willy-nilly from some source in the belief that it makes you sound bright and injured.

On second thought, let's not bother to figure out why you fail so dramatically as a moderator and simply acknowledge that you do. As a second remedial step -- the first being the apology that any deci-ethical person would offer without being asked once let alone twice -- see if you can figure out why my earlier comment was NOT an ad hominem attack and this one is.

This lesson was brought to you by the word "bite" and the word "me," who invite you to put them together and have a pleasant day.

KJ, we've a post here on Molly Ivins, whose sense of humor and political commitment I'm sure going to miss reading. Seems like we owe the occasion a degree of mutual respect, a light enough tone to match how she'd respond to death, and a focus reasonably close to the topic, like her own ability to cut through the you know what. Seems like half the comments here have been sneering at one another, especially yours. Besides, we got our licks in with Schumer, Andrew did his job well, and he isn't responsible for Schumer's centrism regardless.

John

http://www.haberarts.com/

Very well. I'll take it up elsewhere.

I agree with you that this thread is a terrible place to carry on this disagreement.

LOL..."trying to mantain a certain level of respect in these comment sections"?  Good luck Andrew, LMAO!!  First rule is "respect" can't be maintained or enforced.  And there will always be semi-ugly exchanges when it comes to discussions of politics.  My 2 cents, fwiw, don't try to be too heavy handed in trying to maintain control of the "tone" of the comments or you will lose all control and respect...

I believe she was about a year older than the boomers since she was born before WWII ended.

Tom

The Baby Boom arguably began in 1943.

Arguably ... Schmarguably...

BTW -- your actions continue to underscore your petty, insolent vindictive nature.

~OGD~

ps: Now you and you're ever-present enabling ankle-biting side-kick can go tag-team and nip someone else's heels... yip yip yip...

J. McCutchen

Why Hillary Clinton Won't Get My Support in 2008 (by Molly Ivins)

1/7/06 - "Campaign '06 -- Goodbye and Good Riddance"

"...While this perfectly insane dialogue has been taking place, Congress stands before us so hopelessly corrupt that the stench has washed all over the country. Perhaps my least favorite excuse for cheating is, "Everybody does it." NO, everybody DOESN'T do it. Nor does the system make you do it, or alcohol or drugs or Jack Abramoff. I do not want to hear one more excuse -- apologize and go.

On the other hand, I am really going to miss the stories this Congress provided. Remember Terri Schiavo? I mean, you wake up one morning and there it is, kind of like finding Fidel Castro in the refrigerator. And you listen to these people who do hold high elective office having this debate -- as though they know, as though they have any idea, as though they have any right. And then there are some of the troops, like Randy "Duke" Cunningham, semi-owner of the houseboat "The Duke-Stir." Some days you couldn't wait to get up to find out who'd been indicted. I miss watching Katherine Harris from Florida wear less and less blue eye-shadow as she went through her Senate race.

Well, it's been rank -- racist, sleazy, lying and full of insinuating scare tactics. Thank God it's over."

10/06/06 - "Where There's War, There's Kissinger"

"AUSTIN, Texas — The Old War Criminal is back. I try not to hold grudges, but I must admit I have never lost one ounce of rancor toward Henry Kissinger, that cynical, slithery, self-absorbed pathological liar. He has all the loyalty and principle of Charles Talleyrand, whom Napoleon described as "a piece of dung in a silk stocking."

Come to think of it, Talleyrand looks pretty good compared to Kissinger, who always aspired to be Metternich (a 19th century Austrian diplomat). Just count the number of Americans and Vietnamese who died between 1969 and 1973, and see if you can find any indication he ever gave a damn.

As for Kissinger's getting the Nobel Peace Prize, it is a thing so wrong it has come to define wrongness — as in, "As weird as the time Henry Kissinger got the Nobel Peace Prize."..."

6/29/06 - "Maybe If We Tried a Slingshot"

"AUSTIN — — Y'all, this isn't gonna work.

North Korea is threatening to launch a long-range missile against us, and we're threatening to reply with an anti-missile missile.

Sorry to remind you, but our "missile defense system" does not work. Good old Star Wars flopped again when tested in 2004 — in fact, it failed to launch. Since then, several tests have been delayed or cancelled due to technical problems. Just because we spend $130 billion on a bad idea doesn't mean we can ever get it to work. The latest Bush budget has $10.7 billion for Star Wars, almost twice as much as Homeland Security is spending on customs and border patrol.

The good news is that the North Korean rocket doesn't work, either. The last time they fired a long-range missile, it went 1,300 kilometers (807 miles) and could not put a payload into orbit.

The Korean missile was supposedly tanked up and ready to go more than a week ago, but, oops, experts now say if that were true it would have been fired by now, since the fuel is highly unstable.

If you think the "military standoff" with North Korea sounds silly, wait'll you hear about the diplomatic maneuvering. As you may recall, the United States refused to have bilateral talks with North Korea on the grounds that A) Kim Jong-Il is a nutcase and B) we were already committed to multilateral talks, including South Korea and China..."

1/8/07 - "Iraq Exit is Up to Us"

"The president of the United States does not have the sense God gave a duck -- so it's up to us. You and me, Bubba.

I don't know why Bush is just standing there like a frozen rabbit, but it's time we found out. The fact is WE have to do something about it. This country is being torn apart by an evil and unnecessary war, and it has to be stopped NOW.

This war is being prosecuted in our names, with our money, with our blood, against our will. Polls consistently show that less than 30 percent of the people want to maintain current troop levels. It is obscene and wrong for the president to go against the people in this fashion. And it's doubly wrong for him to send 20,0000 more soldiers into this hellhole, as he reportedly will announce next week.

What happened to the nation that never tortured? The nation that wasn't supposed to start wars of choice? The nation that respected human rights and life? A nation that from the beginning was against tyranny? Where have we gone? How did we let these people take us there? How did we let them fool us?

It's a monstrous idea to put people in prison and keep them there. Since 1215, civil authorities have been obligated to tell people with what they are charged if they're arrested. This administration has done away with rights first enshrined in the Magna Carta nearly 800 years ago, and we've let them do it.

This will be a regular feature of mine, like an old-fashioned newspaper campaign. Every column, I'll write about this war until we find some way to end it. STOP IT NOW. BAM! Every day, we will review some factor we should have gotten right...

And let's keep in mind that when the Army arrived in Baghdad, we, the television viewers, watched footage of a bunch of enraged and joyous Iraqis pulling down the statue of Saddam Hussein, their repulsive dictator, in Firdos Square. Only one thing was wrong. The event was staged. Taking down the statue was instigated by a Marine colonel, and a PSYOP (psychological operations) unit made it appear to be a spontaneous show of Iraqi joy.

When we later saw the whole square where the statue was located, only 30 to 40 people were there (U.S. soldiers, press and some Iraqis -- and one of several U.S. tanks present pulled the statue down with a cable). We, the television viewers, saw the square being presented as though the people of Iraq had gone into a frenzy, mobbed the square and spontaneously pulled down the statue. Fake images and claims have been a part of this fiasco from the beginning...."

5/30/06 - Molly Ivins Column

"HOUSTON, Texas — A Houston jury convicted both Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling, despite the fact that Kenny Boy packed his Bible to the courtroom every day.

Since it is a long and noble Texas tradition for the accused to fight all allegations by finding Jesus, this indicates a major degree of guilt. (While on trial for murder, T. Cullen Davis, the Fort Worth millionaire, not only found Jesus but also threw a big party to celebrate at the mansion, with piles of shrimp and BBQ and a soundtrack that announced over and over throughout the grounds that night, "The son of Stinky Davis has found the son of God.")

Meanwhile, Houston reacted as though the Rockets had won the NBA championship.

Many a thoughtful analyst has given us to understand that Lay and Skilling are guilty of arrogance and hubris. Actually, they were convicted of fraud — massive, overwhelming and monstrous fraud. They also stole money and looted pension funds. They rigged energy markets and almost drove California (seventh-largest economy in the world) into bankruptcy.

And all along the way, this monstrous fraud was connected to government. Enron bought the politicians who bent the rules that let them steal, con and gyp. Lay and Skilling talked state after state into following the California model and deregulating electricity. Happy summer, everyone.

And then, of course, there was the thumbing-the-nose thievery, the offshore partnerships tricked out with the clever names so insiders would know how slick they were.

As the late Rep. Wright Patman Sr. observed: "Many of our wealthiest and most powerful citizens are very greedy. This fact has many times been demonstrated."

The interesting thing about Lay and Skilling is they weren't trying to evade the rules, they were rigging the rules in their favor. The fix was in — much of it law passed by former Sen. Phil Gramm of Texas, whose wife, Wendy, served on the board of Enron.

Where does that sense of entitlement come from? What makes a Ken Lay think he can call the governor of Texas and ask him to soften up Gov. Tom Ridge of Pennsylvania on electricity deregulation? Not that being governor of Texas has ever been an office of much majesty, but a corporate robber wouldn't think of doing that if it were Brian Schweitzer of Montana or Bill Richardson of New Mexico..."

Golden Oldies

12/7/99 - "In admiration of Bill Clinton"

"Don't know how many of you heard President Clinton's speech at the World Trade Organization. Except for C-SPAN junkies, I doubt anyone was watching. But it is high time somebody said the obvious out loud: The son of a gun is good.

How long has it been since you heard Clinton make a whole speech? I've been catching him on the tube in snippets for so long that I'd forgotten just how effortlessly persuasive he actually is. There he stood, the No. 1 Free-Trader in the Whole World, facing all the opposition. By the time he finished, he was on their side and they were on his side. He is a superb politician.

Anyone volunteering a kind word for Clinton nowadays has to issue the obligatory disclaimer. In my case, it's easy, since I barely agree with him 50 percent of the time.

He's not my kind of Democrat and never has been. But at least I have the sense to recognize the man's merits, whatever his failings.

He is an amazingly skilled pol at the top of his game. I know -- everybody hates politicians so much that to say someone is a great one is a form of cussin' him out. Nevertheless, I do admire real political skill, and Clinton has it in spades.

I'm not sure I've ever seen anyone better. Maybe Lyndon Johnson on a roll, or Bob Bullock in good health. Too bad that Clinton had to spend most of his presidency on defense. I would have liked to see him quarterback a Democratic Congress for the sheer interest of the exercise.

Don't ask me to explain what went wrong between Clinton and the Washington press corps. I've never understood it. I don't want to drag anyone through the Late Unpleasantness again, but as near as I can tell, about half the D.C. press corps is totally wiggy on the subject of Clinton. Otherwise rational people -- like Chris Matthews, Chris Hitchens, George Will, there's an army of them -- are so obsessed by Clinton's moral failings that they cannot see his performance, what he actually does with the job.

I'm sorry that Clinton is so flawed. That's truly a shame. As Mr. Shakespeare said, ''. . . and the elements, So mixed in him.'' But I still don't see why that prevents people who presume to have some grasp of objectivity from seeing what's right in front of them.

Clinton is such a master that he has played a Republican Congress to a dead standstill for six years now -- and often with no cards at all in his hand (mostly due to his own stupidity during the Late Unpleasantness).

Lord knows, the Republicans have saved Bill Clinton. Time after time after time, they are so blinded by their hatred of Clinton that they do themselves in. I'm sure it's a mercy, but it's also a peculiar phenomenon.

When the content-analysis mavens at the schools of communication go through coverage of the Clinton administration, my bet is that they find a lot more psychobabble than they do actual reporting on what he's done:

* A seven-year economic boom (and some of the credit for that should go to George Bush the elder), marred by a terrible maldistribution of wealth, mostly caused by stupid tax policies. If Clinton had had a better Congress, it wouldn't be such a problem.

* Some nice peace work here and there -- Northern Ireland, the Middle East.

* One bozo military adventure. Clinton's bombing of the drug factory in Sudan ranks right up there with the time that Ronald Reagan invaded Grenada to save us all from some Cuban construction workers. Kosovo is a disaster, but Kosovo was going to be a disaster no matter what we did.

* Almost certainly should have done better with Russia; there was an awful lot of capitalist hubris in this country after the Cold War ended.

* Some very graceful and deft diplomatic work. The Republicans keep complaining that Clinton apologizes for our foreign policy mistakes when he goes abroad. We had a lot of mistakes to apologize for. What, you thought the Greek junta was a swell bunch?

* A big failure on health-care reform, though I still think that lobby money is what really killed that bill. But note the interesting way that Clinton works as a pol. He really is an incrementalist. He got a full children's health insurance program through a Republican Congress (much credit to Ted Kennedy and Orrin Hatch). He signed a lousy welfare reform bill and then quietly went back and fixed many of the worst provisions in it. The guy just keeps chipping away.

The best description of Clinton I ever heard was from an Arkansas state senator who said: ''He's like one of those broad-bottomed children's toys. You tump him over, and he pops back up. You tump him over again, and he pops back up again.''

Whoever wins the election next year, I give him six weeks and one good screw-up before someone in Washington has the simple honesty to say, ''You know, Clinton coulda handled that with his eyes shut.'' "

Golden Oldies

2/7/96 - "PIRACY IN THE AIRWAVES; Telecommunications bill rips off consumers"

"ICEBOUND IN TEXAS -- I am reminded of an old Guindon cartoon. The host is by the slide-show screen saying to a ground of dejected guests: ''My first words to Eunice when I heard the storm was on its way were 'Quick! The camera!' The cinematographic muse had sounded her call, and we dared not fail her. The whole story of how the blizzard affected 793 South Lilac Drive could not and, may I add, did not go unrecorded.''

The first president of the University of Minnesota once claimed: ''Shut up indoors during the long though not dreary winters, in workshops and around firesides, our people must by and by become thoughtful, serious, studious, inventive.'' Yeah, but they're Minnesotans. Have you any idea what happens when you try to keep Texans penned up?

Oh well, on the theory that there's a little Minnesotan in all of us, let's snuggle up for a few moments with the telecommunications bill that our only Congress just saw fit to pass by overwhelming margins. Since all you can do during a winter storm is: a) phone your friends; b) watch television, and c) play with the computer if you have one, you should have telecommunications on the brain right now.

Item No. 1: The most dread words in the English language are: ''It has the support of everyone in the industry.'' Translation: We've just been screwed again.

Item No. 2: When you hear a right-wing Republican like Rep. Thomas Bliley Jr. of Virginia, the tool of the tobacco industry, claim, ''Today, we have broken up two of the biggest government monopolies left, local telephone service and cable television,'' you should run screaming from the hall in terror. You know this is not a man given to breaking up monopolies.

Item No. 3: The story so far. In anticipation of the great free-for-all of market competition Bliley and others promise this bill will bring, the following has already happened. Disney bought Cap Cities/ABC; Westinghouse bought CBS; AT&T split itself into three parts and is laying off 40,000 workers (Bliley says the bill will ''create thousands of new jobs''); merger talks are already under way between two of the giant Bell companies, Nynex and Bell Atlantic; the major players, including cable and software companies, have already formed numerous partnerships, with cross-ownership deals so complex that it looks like a spider's web when you make a chart of it.

Item No. 4: Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole is a craven tower of Jell-O; if you want to see a spineless politician, watch Dole on this bill. Less than two weeks ago, he said it was a ''big, big corporate welfare project'' to give away $70 billion worth of the digital broadcasting spectrum. Hell, it's the biggest rip-off in the history of the Earth.

The ultimate worth of the digital broadcasting spectrum will probably be counted in the billions of dollars. That's the public airwaves, folks; that's our property. We could have made a hole in the national debt with that money; we could have set aside zillions for educational programming for children; we could have wired every school in the country for computer access. And what we're getting out of this is zip.

Six months ago, Dole was attacking Time-Warner for putting out tacky rap music. Time-Warner just snuck out of this bill with a pile of blue chips so big you can't even measure it.

Item No. 5: The telecommunications industry just got itself the finest bill that money can buy. Telecom has given $40 million to Congress during the past 10 years -- $1.2 million in political action committee money during the past six months of '95 alone. Politicians in key positions to affect the bill got the most.

Item No. 6: This is the most important piece of legislation since health-care reform was on the table; it will affect our lives in more ways and longer and cost us more money than anything short of health-care reform. So how come your faithful news media have told you squat about it?

Look at who owns us, bubba; look at who owns us. I'm a professional anti-conspiracy theorist, and I think there's too much paranoia in this country already, but I'm telling you, it's right there in front of all of us. The reason you know jack about this bill is because the people who own the media are the ones who are going to make all the money from it. They bought the politicians for $40 million and walked away with at least $70 billion worth of free airwaves. This bill is not going to ''increase competition,'' for heaven's sake. It's going to lead to a merger frenzy that will make last summer look like kindergarten.

When I first started doing one-minute editorials for a local television station, I wondered how I could possibly say anything useful about anything in 60 seconds. Then I realized that it doesn't take that long to say, ''Hang the bastards.'' Let's."

Molly was an original and it's so unfair that cancer has stolen her away from us. I always thought she'd still be skewering the rich and powerful when she was 100 years old. I feel sick, like I've lost a very close friend. Molly kept me informed and entertained for many many years with her wit and wisdom - how right she was about Shrub and many others.

To her family I send my deepest sympathy, a great lady has passed. Thank you Molly for brightening our lives.

LA Times Obituary

I actually meant to post this little quote from Molly, but I felt like sharing something else first. People, this is why we vote:

It's all very well to dismiss the dismal sight of our Legislature in action by saying, "I'm just not interested in politics," but the qualifications of the people who prescribe your eyeglasses, how deep you will be buried, what books your kids read in school, whether your beautician knows how to give a perm, the size of the cells in Stripe City and a thousand and one other matters that touch your lives daily are decided by the dweebs, dorks, geeks, crooks and bozos we've put into public office. (You may believe yourself in no peril of ever landing in Stripe City, but should you happen to contravene a law made by the only politicians we've got, this too will become a matter of some moment to you. For example, if you happen to possess six or more phallic sex toys, you are a felon under Texas law. In their boundless wisdom, our solons decided that five or fewer of the devices make you a mere hobbyist.)

One of the few decent things I found at Wash. Post in recent years:

"Molly Ivins Shook the Walls With Her Clarion Call
By Maya Angelou
Special to The Washington Post
Friday, February 2, 2007; Page C01
Up to the walls of Jericho
She marched with a spear in her hand.
Go blow them ram horns she cried
For the battle is in my hand
The walls have not come down, but they have been given a serious shaking.
That Jericho voice is stilled now.
Molly Ivins has been quieted.
The writer and journalist, dearly loved and admired by many, hated and feared by many, died of cancer in her Texas home on Jan. 31, 2007.
The walls of ignorance and prejudice and cruelty, which she railed against valiantly all her public life, have not fallen, but their truculence to do so does not speak against her determination to make them collapse.
Weeks before she died, she launched what she called "an old-fashioned newspaper crusade" against President Bush's announcement that he was going to send more troops to Iraq.
She wrote, "We are the people who run this country. We are the deciders. Every single day every single one of us needs to step outside and take some action to help stop this war. We need people in the streets banging pots and pans and demanding, 'Stop it now!' "
Years ago there was a fundraising gala for People for the American Way in New York, and Molly Ivins was keynote speaker. I was a loyal collector and serious Ivins reader, but I had not met the author. Another famous journalist, who was to have introduced her, had his flight canceled in a Southern city. Norman Lear, founder of the organization, asked me to introduce her. I did not hesitate. I spoke glowingly about Ms. Ivins for a few minutes, then, suddenly, a six-foot-tall, red-haired woman sprang from the wings. She strode onto the stage and over to the microphone. She gave me an enveloping hug and said, in that languorous Texas accent, "Maya Angelou and I are identical twins, we were separated at birth."
I am also six feet tall, but I am not white. She was under 50 when she made the statement, and I was in my middle 60s, but our hearts do beat in the same rhythm. Whoever separated us at birth must know it did not work. We have been in the struggle for equal rights for all people since we met on that Waldorf Astoria stage. We have laughed together without apology and we have wept when weeping was necessary.
I shall be weeping a little more these days but I shall never forget the charge. Joshua commanded the people to shout and the walls came tumbling down.
Molly,
I am shouting,
With two voices,
Walls come down!
Walls come down!
Walls come down!
Poet Maya Angelou is the author of "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.""

Huh? Calling you a momma's boy does not bring anyone's mother into it. Work on your reading comprehension, OGD.

Your comments are always so full of truth and meaning, Reece. The only thing that would make them more profound might be the occasional "nyah, nyah."

As I noted in a comment below, Molly Ivins, in one of her columns that I read yesterday referred to herself as a member of the tiny Peace Corps generation, one step ahead of the baby boomers.

yip yip yip ... nip nip nip...

 ~OGD~

Just the same one you used before, KJ.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_boomer

Try to actually read it this time.

OGD, you must have rated my comment as "unproductive" because (a) You question my reference to a Molly Ivins column (b) You don't give a flying fuck what generation Molly Ivins thought she belonged to because you are intent on continuing a series of juvenile and asnine remarks in this thread that have nothing to do with Molly Ivins, dead or alive or (c) You are playing the tit-for-tat ratings game.

I would prefer to think that (a)you question my reference to a Molly Ivins column in which she defined what generation she thought she belonged to.

Here is the column.

4/7/96 - "The Sunshine State makes room for Geritol Generation" by Molly Ivins (who is dead now in case anyone here has forgotten the topic of this thread)

"SARASOTA, Fla. -- Generational differences never have seemed particularly interesting to me. A lot of trees have been sacrificed in analyzing generations or extolling the virtues of one set of folks over another based on their chronological progress through life. Young folks, old folks -- once you make it through the horrors of teenhood (a truly excruciating experience, calling for endless patience and sympathy from all who have survived it), I figure only character counts. Great people in their 20s, great people in their 80s -- I just don't see that much difference.

True, there are certain identifying characteristics; no one touched by the Great Depression seems to have escaped without ... how to put this ... a touch of excessive thriftiness. OK, let's face it: They're all cheap in some funny way. You can't let those Depression folks loose in a Sam's Club without them coming out with a lifetime supply of something just because it's such a bargain.

For your WW Two-ers, the War was and always will be the defining experience. The Good War is something that the Vietnam generation will always envy them; it gave them a sense of purpose and confidence. All we got was a sense of bleak reality and a permanent distrust of government bull.

I should confess that I have been racing through life just ahead of this enormous demographic tidal wave called the baby boomers. Too late for the '50s, too soon for LSD. I think we may actually qualify as a generation, but we're so tiny that most sociologists miss us entirely; we were the Peace Corps Generation. Although a lot of us went to 'Nam, our political baptism was actually the civil rights movement. As for the boomers, too much ink has already has been spilled on them; the only unifying characteristic I can identify is the funny expressions they get when certain old rock songs are played. Put on the soundtrack from ''The Big Chill'' and they start to boogie -- can't help themselves.

But there's nothing like Florida, home of the Old Folks, to get one thinking about generations. If one wanted to be unkind, one could consider Florida sort of our national Elephant Burying Ground, where the old folks, wise but feeble, come to die.

What interests me about the place is that in a culture notorious for worshipping youth and denying death, Floridians seem to have it together on this subject better than the rest of us. One rarely finds a younger Floridian (this seems to mean anyone under 70 here) who is impatient with old folks. Seniors plod along the roads at a cautious 30 mph, but almost no one honks at them; the youngers steer around them as though these slower-moving creatures were a natural part of environment, no more worthy of comment or upset than a pickup truck in Texas. I hate to say this, but it is not like that during Dallas rush hours. Because Florida has so many seniors, and a lot of them still work, its pace is slower and more civil -- sort of the South Plus.

I could be wrong -- I don't visit Florida that often -- but it seems to me that there is considerable respect for the wisdom of the older elephants. Talking to newspaper colleagues here, I never hear dismissive remarks like ''just some old geezer'' when an unpleasant letter to the editor citing some long-forgotten episode appears. All hands stop, consider and sometimes amend their ways if the criticism is well-founded.

A fellow I met on an airplane recently observed that he felt he was ''in the legacy phase'' of his life. Children raised, home secure, still working but not so keen on climbing the greasy pole of ambition, starting to consider what larger legacy he might leave.

I have recently done a tour of my own aged P's, each of whom is contributing more to the civil sector now than I can recall their doing when they were younger. My mother in Maryland is a dedicated volunteer; my father in Florida ponders how to reform the schools and teach ethics to the young. (Great -- I get to middle age and find out I've got Bill Bennett for a dad.) My stepmother does her bit to keep up civilization by being rather exigent about standards of service and courtesy.

As all regular readers know, I am optimistic to the point of idiocy. Everyone else contemplating the impending avalanche of aging yuppies has tended to run screaming from the thought: Aaaarrrrgggghhh -- a zillion wrinkles! Providing that we can cure our tendency to try to keep people alive past the point when the Lord is clearly inviting them home, I think it could be good for the country. Great herds of older elephants, no longer capable of damaging the environment or needing to battle one another, might just have accumulated enough wisdom to head the civilization in a better direction."

mrs panstreppon :

Are you fully aware that my comment referring to the "...one primary unnamed specialist in our midst..." found here, was actually referring to this individual here? Or do you think I was referring to you and your comment?

~OGD~