Appreciating Thompson, The Outraged Observer

“Hunter S. Thompson died on Sunday, alone with a gun in his kitchen in Woody Creek, Colo. In doing so, he added heft to a legend that came to obscure his gifts as one of journalism’s most influential practitioners. Somewhere beneath the cartoon – he was Uncle Duke in the Doonesbury strip, of course, but Bill Murray inked him well in the 1980 film ‘Where the Buffalo Roam’ – and a lifestyle dominated by a long and sophisticated romance with drugs, Mr. Thompson managed to change the course of American journalism.”