from latimes.com
Writer Cathy Seipp died yesterday, at 2:05pm Los Angeles time, after a long struggle with lung cancer. She was a non-smoker. Seipp was a tart and funny writer, opinionated as hell with few punches pulled and little tolerance for incompetence or pretension (she wasn't a fan of liberals, either). I didn't know her personally, but I became aware of her via a small clash via ETP (see here, here, and here) and, after checking out her blog, Cathy's World, was forced to conclude that she was sharp and funny, even though I rarely agreed with her.
Agree or disagree, she had many fans, as is clear from the hundreds of comments on her final posts, first to wish her Godspeed, and then to post messages of remembrance and condolence. Many fans and friends have posted memorial entries to their blogs, and she is currently the #2 most-searched term at Technorati.
Seipp's passing marks the first such loss by the blogging community, I believe, and shows the level of reach one person with a computer and a voice can have online, and how that can become meaningful for a community linked only by, well, links. Seipp's good friend Kate Coe of FishbowlLA was a fan who became a correspondent and then a friend; same goes for Susan Estrich, who describes their relationship in today's farewell column: "We e-mailed. She posted. We lived in a new world, by the old rules. It may be the best of both."
There's a great excerpt from a 1997 Seipp column at Salon over at Infotainment Rules where she recalls trading zingers with her aunt, with whom she shared "a siblinglike closeness built on years of insults, and we wouldn't have it any other way." She goes on to remind the reader: "So if I insult you in print, please remember, it's only because I care."
Well, she clearly cared about a whole lot of people, but it seems like they wouldn't have had it any other way. RIP.
Cathy Seipp 1957-2007 [Kate Coe, FishbowlLA]
Remembering Special Friend, Conservative Columnist Cathy Seipp [Susan Estrich, Fox News]
Catherine Seipp, 49; critic took on Times [LA Times]
Profile: Catherine Seipp [Luke Ford]
Cathy Seipp, RIP [Infotainment Rules]
