Alas, Dr. Thompson shot himself at his home in Colorado on February 20, 2005.

We will continue to post his reportage from the next incarnation as communications are received.

***

There is an ever-growing appetite for Violence as Entertainment in this country...
Right. Blood & guts, bread & Circuses, human brains all over the asphalt. The people of Rome demanded more & more Death & Cruelty on their Sunday afternoons at the Coliseum -- until Nobody was left to Sacrifice. They ran out of Victims. And so will the NFL, the NBA and NASCAR. That is what makes people nervous about the meaning of Dale Earnhardt's death. It is the American Dream run amok. Watch it & weep.

--"Death in the Afternoon," Hunter S. Thompson's February 20, 2001, Hey Rube column on ESPN.com

***

For once, I'm going to editorialize. Hunter, if violence and spattered brains are something you feel like weeping when watching, why did you shoot yourself? Particularly on a Sunday afternoon?

***

Should've stayed for the sunset, if not for me.
--Ed Vedder

This is Oscar Acosta, the Chicano activist attorney who was Hunter Thompson's great friend. Oscar wrote two excellent books, Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo and Revolt of the Cockroach People.