Posted on 02/22/2005 12:06:00 AM PST by JohnHuang2
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Outlaw, druggie, Dunhill-smoking, Chivas Regal-drinking, anti-establishment literary icon Hunter S. Thompson committed suicide after becoming depressed about the United States' shift toward conservatism, said one longtime friend who spent the weekend at the Aspen, Colo., home of the late "gonzo" journalist. "He was depressed about the state of society," said Loren Jenkins, foreign editor for National Public Radio in Washington. A vehement opponent of President Bush, Mr. Thompson, 67, "was feeling maudlin about the current conservatism sweeping the country," Mr. Jenkins said. "He felt he'd had a long run, trying to create a freer society in the '60s and '70s and he felt it had all been closed down." Mr. Thompson's body was discovered Sunday by Juan Thompson, his son by his first wife, Sandra Dawn Thompson. His second wife, Anita, was not home at the time. The family issued a statement asking for privacy.
(Excerpt) Read more at washtimes.com ...
Book stores are displaying his latest, "Hey Rube" to cash in on his suicide. It's some hysterical anti-Bush screed. He really became quaite a loathesome fellow. It seems appropriate that he killed himself in that way. Liberal hatemongers are never happy and hate themeselves first, then hate anyone trying to be decent.
Fear and Loathing apperently was nearer and dearer to him than we knew.
It'd been better if he'd simply realized he could stop being like that and turn around rather than killing himself.
Instead of pulling the trigger, if he'd set the gun down and decided to change he could have done his greatest work.
Died as he lived: a sad, fearful coward.
Fear and Loathing, Hey Rube -- all his work was about himself.
Coward.
I blame Bush.
Rather than mock the dead, I'll just keep my comments re Thompson's PEST to myself.
I don't believe this for one moment. Thompson would not shoot himself over this. I do believe he did because his body was aging and having pain and problems.
Mr. Thompson churned out a series of books, including "The Great Shark Hunt" (1975), "Generation of Swine" (1988) and "Better Than Sex" (1994).
Thirteen years between two books and then six years before the next book. I wouldn't call this "churning." Thompson is highly overrated, in my opinion.
Well, I am glad we cannot question the veracity of Loren Jenkins of National Public Radio. Else, I would wonder how Mr. Thomas survived 67 years of drink, drugs and depression, only to succumb to the effects of one lone election. Yup, and I might just think Mr. Jenkins was looking for his own 15 minutes by projecting his feelings into the death of another man.
So NPR says it's Bush's fault. I won't miss him.
His greatest work; he made the world a better place by his last act.
Oops. My apologies to Mr. Thompson, not Mr. Thomas.
That is probably closer to the truth. His fans would want to elevate this into some epic political statement instead of the actions of a sick old man. He lived a hard drink and drug fueled life. There was bound to be physical and psychological consequences, not to mention aging.
He was fed up and decided to end it.
Are his friends blaming it on Christians and the turn right the country is making ? Despicable.
..."He was depressed about the state of society," ...
The freak was the anti-Christ of civilized society.
I shoulda known it... IT'S BUSH'S FAULT!!!
OK, how many liberals will take the same action now?
Where The Buffalo Roam
He and Kerry were one and the same, cut from the same clothe. Kerry merely received a short haircut and a shave.
maudlin
adj : effusively or insincerely emotional; "a bathetic novel"; "maudlin expressons of sympathy"; "mushy effusiveness"; "a schmaltzy song"; "sentimental soap operas"; "slushy poetry" [syn: bathetic, drippy, hokey, mawkish, mushy, schmaltzy, schmalzy, sentimental, slushy]
I learn everday at FR.
Don't you just love a leftist, that will put his barrel where his mouth is?
yes, I know I'm bad...
Killing yourself because your guy didn't win an election. How pathetic is that?
You didn't see any of that crap from our side when Bill Clinton was winning elections. None of us threatened to leave the country either.
Driving around Boston, I still see the hateful and spiteful anti-Bush bumper stickers adorning liberal's cars. They just can't let it go. They are just so intolerant of others who disagree with them and are so full of hate. Or is it "fear and loathing?"
Just how free is one if one is addicted to drugs, alcohol and tobacco? As much freedom as one can handle is available if one will dare to free oneself. He wallowed in his self-induced slavery.
Good bye to a man with a little talent and no discipline.
For once you may be wrong. I'll bet it was about physical pain not politics.
---
Someone noted: Apparently the loathing overcame the fear the other day.
;-)
Most likely you are correct.
It's not hard to see that you are less than well informed about suicides and H.S.T.
Funny, you are usually so bright.
Most likely your fuming hatred for the liberal weenies has caused you to make this intemperate and foolish remark (coward).
Hey DUers. We have found a solution for your PEST.
Hope it's not too hot where he is.
Fear and Loathing, Hey Rube -- all his work was about himself. -- most people's work is. Your anger and vitriol will make you ill.
The shift towards conservatism.....the gift that keeps on giving. Hey Babs, please take note!!!
If we look to earlier periods in history, it's not so clear: were the Vikings cowards, the Stoics, the Samurai?
My second criterion for abandoning a HST thread: as soon as it becomes clear that most posters can't enjoy the writing of someone with whom they disagree.
This pathetic creature fought against God and he lost. Nothing new about that.
Yup, and I might just think Mr. Jenkins was looking for his own 15 minutes by projecting his feelings into the death of another man -- agreed. It probably was not about politics, but this being the conservative (Republican) site it is, there are a few unfortunates here luridly hovering over the thought that he killed himself over politics. Bull.
********
This was funny:
One of Mr. Thompson's more colorful antics occurred in 1970, when he ran unsuccessfully for sheriff of Pitkin County, Colo., on the "Freak Power" ticket. The gonzo candidate " whose platform included changing the name of Aspen to "Fat City" and decriminalizing drugs " decided to shave his head, so he could denounce his crew-cut Republican rival as "my long-haired opponent."
I agree...... myself, a guy who lost his father at 13 and mother when I was 28 to suicide. And to think H.S.T. was a coward and killed himself over politics is absurd, imo.
My second criterion for abandoning a HST thread: as soon as it becomes clear that most posters can't enjoy the writing of someone with whom they disagree. -- Agreed.
H.S.T. did not become the raging, obsessing lib really until his older years. As he got older and more physically ill from all the self-abuse, his anger toward those who lived "the clean life" (Republicans it is perceived) -- the life that he knew if he had lived he would be better off -- his anger toward conservatives rose as he saw his own self-destruction from over-indulgence take it's effect.
He was honest and observant enough to see that he was killing himself with his excesses, and that observance caused him to rant on about the Republicans and conservatives who he was not too thrilled about to begin with.
He was ultimately a victim of his excesses, and the few "conservatives" on here who are causticly deriding him and his death in every way are most likely pissed that they really never "let go" in their own relatively colorless, uneventful lives.
Too damn bad.
I doubt it.
LOL. Care to explain that presumptuous superciliousness?
Anyone who kills themself is a coward.
I read Fear and Loathing in college and didn't laugh that hard till I read Dan Jenkins... Kurt Vonnegut was OK also...
The alcohol mixed with drugs and chronic pain is a bad combo... then you add a love of guns and problems with impulse control..... BAM!.... He was a one hit wonder, but had a GREAT one hit.
I still laugh at the mental picture of a 300 lb Samoan attorney splashing beer on his chest, "to facilitate the tanning process"... and then waiting for the "bats to get him" as they drive across the desert in an open top whale of a car...... (still smiling)
see ya Hunter, it was one long strange trip...
LOL.
He had a great time talking about the Kentucky Derby in The Great Shark Hunt. When he was telling this one guy down in Lexington that the Black Panthers were planning on attacking the Derby that year, I was laughing out loud.
He was one of a kind, a great writer early on, not necessarily to be loved, but to just be understood.
If DU would make a stand such as Hunter, what would the world be like?
LOL.
And what do you think that sentence you wrote says about you?
;-)
....... damn straight! ;-)
The United States has always been a conservative nation. What is this supposed "America's shift to conservative" crap?
After many decades of altering one's perception of reality with drugs, the drug alcohol included, he good a grasp on actual reality would one have?
It says that I never read HST, so I can't comment on his work, and that some Vikings, Stoics and Samurai were cowards and probably had undiagnosed clinical depression :-)
Beginning with the collapse of communism in '89, and continuing with the success of welfare reform, the embarrassment that was Bill Clinton's presidency, the electoral drubbings, and now that their predictions (and hopes) that Bush would have his comeuppance on Iraq have been proved bankrupt, I can understand why someone who wasted a lifetime might come to realize it.
What a wuss. I liked Hells Angels and FALILV when I was a young rake. But this is just a pathetic way to go. I mean, we're all gonna get it sooner or later. What's the rush? I could see if you are a chronic pain sufferer.
Just has cold is merely the lack of warmth, depression is merely the lack of gratitude. Whatever adjective you put on it.
Alcohol is a depressant, we should never be surprised when someone who drinks is depressed.
It was just a poor generalization....... leave it at that.
Yes, and suicide can be the result of chronic pain over many years..... or the result of reports from personal doctors of a terminal illness. Some folks in some of the latter cases wish to save their family members from all the wickedness and sadness of caring for a very ill and dying family member.
Contrary to what some here glibly suggest, all people who commit suicide are not "cowards".
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