> February 20, 2005
> Author Hunter S. Thompson Kills Himself
> Filed at 11:42 p.m. ET
>
> ASPEN, Colo. (AP) -- Hunter S. Thompson, the acerbic counterculture writer
> who popularized a new form of fictional journalism in books like ``Fear
> and Loathing in Las Vegas,'' fatally shot himself Sunday night at
> his home, his son said. He was 67.
Dreadful news. Thompson was one of the greats - sparkling, styling prose, and though he slowed down in his later years, he still managed to deliver the occasional thunderbolt against (usually deserving) miscreants. He was a canny reader of mass-cultural trends, and maybe he had an inkling of the horrors the oiligarchy is unleashing. Possibly that's what drove him over the edge.
The suicidal riptide of the Empire is strengthening. Not to sound melodramatic, but I've felt that undercurrent myself, ever since 2003, mostly because I work so much with geopolitics and the media culture (it sensitizes you to these things). The Shadow of Mordor is not a metaphor. The goddamn thing is real. It is the bane of the US Empire, in its hour of decline. We -- and by this I mean the global collective -- must resist that Shadow, by practicing the solidarity we preach.
-- DRR