He probably planned his suicide well in advance because of his declining health, the family's spokesman said Wednesday.

"I think he made a conscious decision that he had an incredible run of 67 years, lived the way he wanted to, and wasn't going to suffer the indignities of old age," Brinkley said in a telephone interview from Aspen. "He was not going to let anybody dictate how he was going to die." more...

Goodbyes to Hunter
**Rolling Stone Magazine: most excellent article by Hunter written after the Bush-Kerry debates, and may have been his last article... "Four more years of George Bush will be like four more years of syphilis," the famed author said yesterday at a hastily called press conference near his home in Woody Creek, Colorado. "Only a fool or a sucker would vote for a dangerous loser like Bush," Dr. Thompson warned. "He hates everything we stand for, and he knows we will vote against him in November." more

** SFGate's Mark Morford: "I am not nearly stoned enough. I should at this moment have, at the very least, roughly four Vicodin
and three Valium and two giant nuggets of phenobarbital and a few whippets and a canister of ether and a tab of blotter acid and half an ounce of premium hash and a nice snifter of gin playing naked volleyball in my addled brain right now to properly pay homage to the late great Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, which is why I ain't touching this HST legacy thing with a 10-foot line of premium Colombian blow." more...

** Tom Wolfe on HST: ..."wrote in a form that was part journalism and part personal memoir admixed with powers of wild invention, and wilder rhetoric inspired by the bizarre exuberance of a young civilization." more

** Ralph Steadman: "He told me 25 years ago that he would feel real trapped if he didn't know that he could commit suicide at any moment. I don't know if that is brave or stupid or what, but it was inevitable."

** ESPN's Page 2: "Every correspondence with the Good Doctor -- be it a phone call, a voicemail or one of his infamous FAXes -- was an adventure waiting to be lived. Many of them were worth saving, so that co-workers and friends could live them as well. more...

** William Rivers Pitt: "With Thompson's suicide, journalism lost a deeply flawed and unconventional practitioner – but one who always sought the truth with his highball." more