Another good person, gone too soon. Just got an email from commentor Aji:
Commenter Paddy, a/k/a Paddy Kraska of The Political Carnival, died suddenly on the morning of the 16th. Apparently heart problems; she would’ve been 53 on the 29th. She was, and her family still is, in really dire straits financially. Her cobloggers are trying to raise funds to help with cremation expenses, etc…
Aji has more about Paddy at Daily Kos, link here.
TPC‘s webmaster, Lucian Dixon, is administering the PayPal fund; link here. Cremation ceremony is this Saturday, in Indiana.
Paddy was an occasional commentor and guest-blogger here, as well as an incredibly generous person. I’m sure John will have more to say about her later, but in the meantime, if you want to honor her memory…
Elizabelle
very sad. RIP.
Aji
Thanks so much, Anne Laurie. I hope folks can give her family a hand. There’s also a sticky post at the top of the TPC site where folks can leave condolences for Laffy and Lucian, both of whom are really hurting right now.
MomSense
Oh no! I’m so sorry for her family and friends.
John Cole
Am I just a loser with blurry eyes, or is there no paypal link in that post?
Aji
@John Cole: PayPal addy:
lwdgrfx [at] gmail [dot] com
Anne Laurie
@John Cole: From the link:
Go to PayPal, find the ‘Send Money/Friends & Family’ tab, use Lucian’s email for the ‘Send to’, and make sure you put “For Paddy” in the comments box before hitting ‘Send’.
Maybe you should email Lucian, tell him how to add the PayPal button directly to his post?
max
Bummer.
max
[‘Blogging seems to be bad for the heart.’]
Lucian Dixon
Hi, everyone – when I wrote the post about Paddy’s death and the expenses of her funeral/cremation last week, it seemed strange to me to put a PayPal button right in the middle of it since we’re not looking for contributions to The Political Carnival. Many people have, however, asked for one, so I just added it to the ‘Paddy’ post which is here:
http://thepoliticalcarnival.net/2014/01/18/paddy/, on the front page, and on the ‘About’ page, which is: http://thepoliticalcarnival.net/About. The ‘About’ page links to a podcast/webcast of Laffy talking with Nicole Sandler and Cliff Schecter about Paddy and includes a segment of Paddy herself on Nicole’s show last summer.
lurker dean
peace to paddy, too young :o(
sharl
RIP Paddy.
sharl
I made a contribution over there via PayPal. I don’t {didn’t} have a PayPal account, and have long assiduously avoided signing up for one. That hasn’t been an issue before – I could always supply a credit card number to the PayPal site without having to actually sign up for an account there.
This time was different though (it may be relevant that it has been quite some time since I’ve used PayPal). This time, I was asked for a password. At first I left these fields blank and submitted all the other information, but the system wouldn’t let me proceed without supplying the password. Before doing that, I did a very cursory Google search to see if I should worry about this, but that came up with nothing alarming (though as I said, very cursory search). So I figured, huh, tighter security I guess, and rationalized this assumption based on recent events at other sites.
I completed my donation, then checked my e-mail INBOX. My donation was acknowledged in two of the three messages from PayPal that I received (notification of payment, and receipt). But I also got a separate message, “Welcome to PayPal”:
I had specifically looked for any clue that this might be the result, but I saw no indication in any of those payment pages* that I would be signing up for PayPal just through the act of donating. I most definitely will NOT be ‘activating my account’. Grrrrrrr!
*I have to acknowledge there may have been fine print somewhere that I overlooked; I get nicked on that sometimes. But still… grrrrrrr!
GottaLaff
Thank you SO much for this post.
My posts at TPC about my dear, dear friend and co-editor can be read here:
http://thepoliticalcarnival.net/2014/01/16/today-one-best-friends-passed-away-r-p-paddy/
http://thepoliticalcarnival.net/2014/01/18/blog-interrupted-shell-shocked/
http://thepoliticalcarnival.net/2014/01/21/audio-paddy-was-my-lou-grant-income-inequality-was-her-newman/
It is my hope that people will read about her, listen to her voice, and never forget her and her kindness, talents, and acerbic wit.
Lucian Dixon
Hi, @sharl: I’m so sorry that happened. If you received a notice that the donation went through, I can double-check here to be sure and then you could cancel the account. I’m a photographer and people often pay me via Paypal so it seemed to be the simplest possibility for this purpose. Did that happen through the button I put up last evening? Did it say ‘Help Paddy Kraska’s Family’ and go to lwdgrfx AT gmail DOT com?
I also want to thank everyone who has contributed and to say that I will be personally thanking all of you by email, not just via the ‘thank you for your donation’ automatic reply. We have had a wonderful response to this request and I am just now slowly catching up with my thank-you notes.
David Garber
Paddy was my co-worker on the Political Carnival. We spent numerous hours over the phone and through emails and texts. She was a guardian, a caring and loving woman who shared first from the heart. I will miss her, but keep her close inside me, guiding me as always as I continue to do the work that she and Laffy have endeavored through for so long. DG