hey all- it sucks that this thread has degraded into a flame war. HST was an incredible WRITER. he didn't "make a movie", he wrote a great novel that the movie was based on. If some of you younger people are interested in good writing that might speak to you, I suggest picking up Fear and Loathing and reading it. Better yet, for those with shorter attention spans, read the Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved here:

http://www.derbypost.com/hunter.html

As for those calling HST a coward for killing himself- stop with the cliches. You have no idea what he was going through, but it was his life and if he chose to end it when he did, thats fine with me. Just because your religion condemns it doesn't mean its a terrible thing. I didn't see anyone mentioning the terrible physical pain he was in the past couple of years after numerous operations on his back and hips.

*politics alert*
Torog - why do you relate killing oneself to how much money or fame he had? What is the correlation? As far as your politics, to be short, I recommend a book for you called "What's the Matter With Kansas". It explains how the Republican party convinces people like you (below the poverty line, right?) to vote against their economic best interest by focusing on things like gay marriage, religion and abortion. The theory is you get so caught up in the "liberal" bashing and religious ideals, you don't notice that you're voting for people who want corporations to run the country. Your voting for people who's tax cuts go to the wealthiest 1% of the country while you're eating beans for dinner. I'm not bashing you - I think you have some courage to stand up for your beliefs in a forum that obviously is mainly "liberal", and all-in-all, although I disagree 100% with you, you're pretty polite about it, which I can respect. That being said, we should keep politics to political threads!

peace,
CW