Catherine Seipp, 49; Social Critic and Columnist

Catherine Seipp, 49, a social and media critic, died of non-smokers' lung cancer March 21 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.

Ms. Seipp wrote on controversial topics of the day in a weekly column, "From the Left Coast," for National Review Online and a monthly column for the conservative Independent Women's Forum. She tackled gay marriage, Hollywood liberalism and -- a recent favorite -- health-care costs.

"Cathy always had something fresh, smart and bold to say -- always honest and very often disarming," Kathryn Jean Lopez, editor of National Review Online, said in an e-mail to the Los Angeles Times. "Whether it be about Paris Hilton or the WB or parenting or war, she was always worth reading."

Her column for Buzz magazine became known for her criticism of the Los Angeles Times. Her targets considered her work mean-spirited and angry. But she saw it differently: "With American journalism, if you write something blunt, people get shocked."

On her blog at cathyseipp.net, Ms. Seipp wrote that she was fighting cancer. With characteristic humor, she said the situation "really has put a crimp in my usual Nietzschean sense of physical superiority."

Born in 1957 in Winnipeg, Canada, she moved to California as a child. She graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles.

She briefly worked for the Associated Press and the fashion trade paper California Apparel News before spending four years as a fashion writer at the Daily News in Los Angeles in the early 1980s.

She also wrote columns for Mediaweek, UPI and Salon. She was a regular guest on CNBC's "The Dennis Miller Show."

Her marriage to Jerry Lazar ended in divorce.

Survivors include a daughter, Maia Lazar of San Diego; her father, Harvey Seipp; her mother, Claire Ungerleider; and a sister.