Journalist Hunter Thompson fatally shot himself tonight. Aspen Sheriff Bob Braudis, a close friend of Hunter's, has confirmed the sad news. He was found by his son, Juan Thompson. Family Spokesman Troy Hooper told the LA Times that "Thompson had been in pain from back surgery and an artificial hip. And he had broken his leg on a recent trip to Hawaii." The Denver Post and the New York Times have more.

Here is Hunter's latest Hey Rube column, dated February 15, 2005. It ends with this line:

So long and Mahalo.

Update: I've decided to write a few lines about the last two times I saw Hunter. One was five or so years ago at Thansgiving in Aspen, at the home of his very good friends Gerry and Chris Goldstein. It was a small dinner, as compared to the huge party that would follow later in the evening. At dinner were Gerry and Chris, Hunter, 60 Minutes' Ed Bradley with one of his daughters and New York lawyer Jerry Lefcourt. No, there weren't any drugs at dinner, but what we all talked about afterwards was how Hunter had been the most lucid person at the table that night. In fact, he was downright eloquent.

by TChris

The post below describes the pain that a judge experienced after being accused of telling a rape victim to "get over it." He denies saying those words, although he may have said something like "she needs to get over it." Even that compassionate suggestion may be politically incorrect in today's society.

In addition to being a "prison nation," we've become a "victim nation." Crime victims are a staple of afternoon talk shows, and their stories are often horrible. But victims (or those who claim to be victims) sometimes find the attention and sympathy they receive so rewarding that "victimization" becomes a way of life, and an excuse to avoid recovery. Too often families hear: "You can't expect me to [return to work] [be a supportive mother/father/wife/husband] [feel love] because I'm a victim." And too often "support groups" for victims validate those statements rather than encouraging victims to get on with their lives. That may be one reason that so many false accuations are made: victims receive attention, sympathy, and sometimes celebrity -- responses that many find appealing.

A psychotherapist reminds us that we aren't helping victims by encouraging them to dwell on their personal tragedies.

Those who choose to allow painful events to negatively determine the rest of their lives stand in their own path to healing. Yes, we never recover totally from the loss of a child or the loss of a limb. However, we also do not want to allow that event to turn us into bitter, angry people whose bitterness creates a downward spiral where more and more evidence for negativity can so easily be found.

The Frieder Brothers of Cincinnati, long deceased, are receiving some well-deserved recognition for their heroism and good deeds in rescuing more than 1,000 Jews from the Nazis by bringing them to the Phillipines, which welcomed them and provided safe haven and employment.

The brothers from Cincinnati had taken turns going to Manila for two-year periods during the 1920s and '30s to run the Helena Cigar Factory, started by their father in 1918. While they were there, they established a Jewish Refugee Committee and worked with highly placed friends - U.S. High Commissioner of the Philippines Paul V. McNutt and Manuel L. Quezon, the first Philippine president - to help the mostly German and Austrian refugees get passports and visas, then find employment and homes in Manila.

Update: (by TL)Buried in the latest Post article is this piece of information:

The judge awarded only $1 for damages, even though he could have given the plaintiff lost wages and the cost of new motion- sensor lights for her porch and more. She had itemized about $3,000 in all.

We're talking about Durango, Colorado. This is a town so sparsely populated that it doesn't even have taxis waiting at the airport to drive arriving passengers into town. What would motion-sensor lights attract besides wild animals? Did she want a scare every night? Lost wages? This is beginning to sound more and more like a scam.

by TChris

Actor Ossie Davis, who frequently played key roles in projects that depicted racial injustice -- including Roots and Do the Right Thing -- died Friday at the age of 87. A Kennedy Center honoree, Davis was active throughout his life in the struggle to achieve social justice and racial equality. Read more about his achievements here and here and here.

Ouch. From the 50 Most Loathsome People in America:

#3. You.

You gaze idly at the carnage around you, sigh, and go calmly back to your coffee and your People magazine. You can't stop buying useless crap, though you're drowning in a deepening pool of debt. You think you're an activist because you bitch all day on the internet, but you reelect the same gangsters at a 99% rate. You consider yourself informed because you waste a significant portion of your life watching the same three news stories cycle over and over again on your gargantuan, aerodynamic television set while you eat processed food. You really thought everything would be okay if Kerry won. Not only do you believe in an invisible man who magically farted out the universe, you also excoriate and marginalize those who disagree. You have a poorer understanding of your country's foreign policy history than a third world peasant, but you can't wait to see what Julia Roberts will be wearing at the Oscars. You cheer as Ukrainians challenge an election based on exit poll data, but keep waiting around for someone else to fix your problems. You can't think, you can't organize and you won't act. This is all your fault.

Too funny...#2 on the list, Donald Rumsfeld:

Carries himself in press conferences like a cranky grandfather who is sick of hearing his daughters whine about how he molested them every now and then.

[link via Poor Man.]

Go ahead, splurge, waste five minutes and take the quiz: What kind of Sixties Person are you?

You are a Folkie. Good for you.


What kind of Sixties Person are you?

[Link via that 60's radical Makes Me Ralph ]

Watch out for where you go and what you do on the Internet when using a wireless conection at a hot spot. This is London reports on a fraud scheme called "the evil twin" in which a phony base station that latches on to your laptop.

In essence, users think they have logged on to a wireless hotspot connection when in fact they've been tricked to connect to the attacker's unauthorised base station. The latter jams the connection to a legitimate base station by sending a stronger signal within close proximity to the wireless client - thereby turning itself into an 'evil twin'.

Please take a few minutes today and re-acquaint yourselves with the words of Martin Luther King.

My favorite: "An eye for an eye leaves everybody blind."

Update: Kevin Drum has an excellent post on the biblical meaning of the phrase and how it relates to proportional punishment, not revenge.

CrimProf blog has a roundup of the court cases MLK was involved in, and a link to this letter that he wrote from the Birmingham jail.

Our commemorative post on Martin Luther King, Jr. from last year is worth reading again for the links.

And yes, Gandhi said it first, as we pointed out here, when writing about Kathy Boudin receiving parole.

If you bought cigarettes online and had them sent to New York, you may get a visit from the tax man. New York's Mayor Bloomberg is unhappy that residents are going online to get cigarettes and avoid the $3.00 per pack tax and obscene $7.00 per pack price in New York. So he went after the online cigarette brokers. But several had gone out of business. So he sic'd the tax department on the purchasers, and is charging penalties and interest. Thousands of people are getting letters telling them to pay up.

First off, how did he know who they were?

New Year's Eve is a stressful time for many. You can tell by the increased numbers of sirens wailing. It reminds me of the line in Don Henley's New York Minute, "Somebody going to emergency, somebody's going to jail."

Sometimes, you don't know which. Around 8:00 Friday night, New Year's Eve, a 16 year old threatened to jump from an overpass on Denver's Interstate 25. Police blocked off the highway, an almost unprecedented move for the city. It caused a bunch of accidents and motorists were yelling at the teen, shouting "loser" or curses.

Anyway, the teen didn't speak English, he was from Juarez, Mexico and reportedly upset about family problems. He stayed up on the bridge for 2 hours. Denver Police brought in two Spanish speaking negotiators --and counselors--and a team of police, and they eventually brought him down in a bucket.

The teen was taken to the hospital and police haven't decided whether to file charges.

Actor Jerry Orbach, a star of the hit tv show "Law and Order" died last night at 69 following treatment for prostate cancer. We're not much of a "Law and Order" fan since it's so prosecution oriented, but Mr. Orbach made it watchable the few times we have seen it.

Our favorite role of Mr. Orbach's was that of Baby's father in "Dirty Dancing."

R.I.P. Mr. Orbach.