Molly Ivins' Last Request

I'm sitting in an Internet cafe while traveling and just read Molly Ivins' last column forwarded to me by my father. My father is a conservative man - he was born and raised in Waco, TX, and worked as a banker and real estate developer. He's also one of the most pragmatic, level-headed people I've ever met. And he sure loved Molly Ivins.

And for good reason. Back in Jan. 16, 2003 she wrote:

“I assume we can defeat Hussein without great cost to our side (God forgive me if that is hubris). The problem is what happens after we win. The country is 20 percent Kurd, 20 percent Sunni and 60 percent Shiite. Can you say, ‘Horrible three-way civil war?’ ”

This should have been obvious to all of us, and I wish I'd read it back then. I was a reluctant supporter of the war, because of my terror of nuclear terrorism. All the more reason to honor her last request:

"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."

Most people I know aren't hell raisers by nature, and all of them are busy. But if you had time to read this, you have time to do something.

If, like me, you have more money than time, I ask that you start by making a donation to the Texas Observer, the paper she made great. You can do it via PayPal here.

I'm not affiliated with the Observer, but it's one of the things that makes me proud to be from Texas.

If you leave a comment stating how much you donated, I'll do a two to one match up to a total of $25,000.