Hunter S. Thompson, 1937-2005

Sasha Frere-Jones, writing in the New Yorker a few weeks back, made an interesting remark concerning the oft-repeated platitude that songwriter Conor Oberst is the new Bob Dylan. If there is a new Dylan, wrote Frere-Jones, he won't be a songwriter.

I mulled that over for a while, wondering what he meant, and what the new Dylan might be. And I pondered a similar question reading this week's coverage of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson's suicide, in particular this piece by Mary Schmich in the Chicago Tribune, which asks in its first line: "Who's the Hunter Thompson for this college generation?"

I wonder if the new HST, if there is one, wouldn't be a journalist.

I first encountered Hunter Thompson as a college freshman when some upper classmen in my fraternity would joke about, and quote from, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. I confess, after reading it I didn't really get why it was a classic and why its author was such an icon. It was shocking to read such frank confessions of drug use. And the style was certainly original. But I couldn't fathom what significance HST had beyond being the producer of some marginal drug culture literature.

Fortunately, my education didn't end there. I've since recognized gonzo journalism - the style of first-person reporting HST is widely credited with originating - is far deeper than it might appear. Beyond its veneer of careless abandon, lies a profound postmodern insight - that the act of observing something changes the thing itself.

HST diagnosed this paradox of contemporary journalism in the introduction to his groundbreaking book on the 1972 presidential campaign (thanks to HairofBlog, whose copy I still have):

The most consistent and ultimately damaging failure of political journalism in America has its roots in the clubby/cocktail personal relationships that inevitably develop between politicians and journalists ... When professional antagonists become after-hours drinking buddies, they are not likely to turn each other in ... especially not for 'minor infractions' of rules that neither side takes seriously.

Hunter, as he often did, nailed it.

Before and after HST's heyday, journalists had the audacity to think politicians were being their normal lying selves in their presence. But HST pulled the tarp right off that one. Rather than hide behind the fiction that journalism is some cold, dispassionate craft, he embraced it as an antidote, hurling himself to the center of the action. I'd like to say nothing has been the same since, but we humans have short memories. Like September 11th - another event after which supposedly nothing was the same but which just a few years after we awake to find precious little that isn't - reading political coverage today seems like we're right back where we were, only now the politicians are in on the scam. Perhaps they've learned something from Hunter too. Their current skill in spinning journalists and controlling the news cycle is testament to how quickly they adapted.

All this runs headlong into another inescapable feature of the modern age - nothing happens until it's written about. This rule has a rather unfortunate corollary: whatever is written about, happened. And so the administration can pretend like all is rosy in Iraq, that social security is headed for an imminent crisis, that No Child Left Behind has been a rousing success - so long as the newspapers and pundits and talking heads say it is. And if you need to pay them off to say it, so be it.

Schmich quotes a journalism student who nominates Lewis Black, from the Daily Show, as the HST of his generation. Black is a weak candidate, but the student might be on the right track. Jon Stewart might be a better one. He speaks fearlessly, is irreverent as a rule, and wildly funny. And, as he loves to remind us, he's no journalist.

That's the sad fact of it - journalism, like music, is no longer a platform for exposing the untruths of government, of rallying the masses, or of inspiring much of anything. That job, it seems, has fallen to comedians.

Get your Jew on

This is beyond funny. (With compliments to EINY)

Yiddish with Dick and Jane

Running on Empty

An old friend of my family recently finished work modifying the diesel engine in his van so that it runs on pure canola oil. Check out the pictures. The advantages are fairly obvious - veggie oil is cheap, basically clean, plentiful and renewable. This friend, mind you, is no gearhead or techie and modified his car by himself from his own research. Imagine what the big car companies could do. With a solution to a growing global energy crisis this obvious, only an idiot could be blind to it.

The Green Light

In a press conference yesterday, George W. essentially gave the Israelis permission to bomb the hell out Iran, advancing us further down the inexorable road to a showdown over Iran's nucular program . In response to a question, Bush had this to say:

Well, of course the -- well, first of all, Iran has made it clear they -- that they don't like Israel, to put it bluntly. And the Israelis are concerned about whether or not Iran develops a nuclear weapon, as are we, as should everybody.

But clearly, if I was the leader of Israel, and I listened to some of the statements by the Iranian ayatollahs about -- that regarded my security of my country, I'd be concerned about Iran having a nuclear weapon, as well. And in that Israel is our ally, and in that we've made a very strong commitment to support Israel, we will support Israel if -- if there's a -- if their security is threatened.

The U.S. would like nothing more than for someone else to take care of a problem it has neither the military resources or political capital to address. Of course, the regional fallout (Tehran has vowed to respond harshly, and has the long-range missiles to do it) will be America's to clean up. And American forces will likely be at greater risk than Israel, the only country in the world with a viable missile shield.

A lynching in Cambridge

The quantity of bullshit being shoveled in Cambridge right now is staggering. Harvard Prez Larry Summers caved to faculty pressure and released a transcript of his comments regarding women in the sciences and all it did was feed the lynch mob out for his head. According to the Times account, Summers theorized about a number of reasons women may be underrepresented in the sciences, among them perhaps innate aptitude, a controversial proposition to be sure, and one that Summers reportedly qualified repeatedly by saying he might be wrong.

The eminences that are the Harvard faculty are now out for blood. One of them was quoted as saying: "It's crazy to think that it's an innate difference." Why, I wonder, is that view any less "crazy" than Summers' thinking there might be? Why is that view acceptable and Summers' view renders him unfit for the Harvard presidency? And most of all, what the fuck is up these professors' asses that a challenge to the conventional wisdom gets them all in such a twist? If Summers is so horribly wrong, then prove him so and I'm sure the man will humbly apologize.

I wish Summers would fight these mobsters. Instead, he has bowed to political correctness by "apologizing", using the standard political playbook of apology, public displays of contrition, and assertions that his comments were taken out of context. He's better than that and he should have told these fuckers to go to hell.

Meet you halfway

It's no secret that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon isn't particularly sincere about seeking a lasting accomodation with the Palestinians, but you'd think he would have made a bit more effort for the camera's sake. Mubarak and Abbas are practically falling over to shake the little troll's hand. Though who knows what monumental effort it takes to bend over a belly of such monstrous proportions.

Who to Believe?

Mark your calendars everyone because it will be a LONG time before I weigh in on celebrity gossip again, but browsing a newstand at the Port Authority bus station yesterday, I came face to face with these two mag covers, and the cognitive dissonance was totally unbearable.

If all this talk of bringing democracy to Iraq gets you hot ....

.... then check oout this site, from the people who brought you retartedsingles.com (for the mentally challenged and those who love them) and nazidate.com (for the fascist fetishists among us).

If you can't beat em', retire em'

In one of her first moves as the new American Secretary of State, Condoleeza Rice has proposed giving a $100 monthly allowance to terrorists who would agree to lay down their arms and 'retire' or find another profession.

Right. Cause that's all that's motivating these guys after all -- it's a living. I'm sure the leaders of Hamas would like nothing more than to retreat to a quiet life in the country, or maybe take some job retraining courses to become mechanics, courtesy of the American-supplied monthly stipend. I seriously hope this woman is kidding, cause this does not bode well for her tenure at State.

Let them eat paper

I know this was in the Times, and so you've all seen it. But seriously -- is he fucking kidding? And why the Circuits section?

Everything you need to know about France

Poking fun at the French has become something of a national pastime and shouldn't even merit a mention anymore.

But ridiculing their pomposity while also giving step-by-step instructions for knocking them off their Gallic perch - well, that's something else entirely. See how it's done in this great piece from the London Guardian.

One man's pleasure is another man's sport

Those crazy Brits can't help but measure everything. Check out the new must-have for the geeky techno set (note: it's only available in the UK. Don't think the Bush administration would be too happy about these imports).

http://www.bigpockets.co.uk/product.php?product_id=2175

(Thanks JJ)