The "Gonzo Journalist" who is now gonzo

[Darren Dirt]

 "CitizenBrain" (nice name!) has a profound article entitled "The Outlaw Death of Hunter S. Thompson"

...we've been sold the consumer deathstyle. Because the healthcare industry can sell us more days of life, we feel morally compelled to accept the offer. We accept breathing tubes and catheters and long, lingering declines into dementia even when we might be more inclined to walk out into the snowstorm while we still can, or put a bullet in our head, because we know our role in life is done and it's time to go.

And the article itself mentions another Deep Thought handling of this recent sad but not altogether unsurprising brains-shotgunned-away situation: "Fear, Loathing, and Great Reporting"

...his death arrives at a moment when the journalism industry is finally starting to contemplate issues that Thompson was railing about four decades ago (the repeated failings of objectivity in the press). ... Geneva Overholser of the Missouri School of Journalism -- telling The Hartford Courant that 2004 was "the year when it finally became unmistakably clear that objectivity has outlived its usefulness as an ethical touchstone for journalism."

In short, Hunter Thompson was a champion of the common people... he remained to the end one of the most unswervingly ethical reporters of our generation, a man whose commitment to social justice and the public good trumped everything.

One more watchman is plucked from the wall... We can at least hope his new take on Golf catches on fast enough to make it to the Olympics by 2012... Sounds exciting. And dangerous!