Hunter S. Thompson, the infamous Pulitzer prize winning writer and American social icon impacted generations of readers with his humorous, caustic, revelatory and sometimes rabidly poetic work.  The list below is an attempt to capture the man in all his audacious splendor. The fact the list of quotes compiled spans some 46 years is a testament to Thompson’s  relevance and iconic status in both America and literary culture as a whole.

Thompson was an widely acclaimed journalist, but also worked both professionally and non-professionally in the fields of deep sea fishing, politics, pistol and rifle shooting, as well as a tour of duty in the US Air Force. His often adventurous and sometimes wild exploits were well documented by himself (and others) as Thompson has often been referred to as the godfather of gonzo journalism.

His death in 2005 was a colorful as his life, when Thompson was found dead in his home from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound. Many however, immediately cried foul. Thompson had earlier exposed a CIA drug smuggling ring and in the weeks leading up to his death was researching a story about the suspicious uniform collapse of the World Trade Center buildings on 9/11.  Thompson often said that people should not take the Bush Administration’s  explanation of the events of September 11, 2001 as the truth.

Writer Paul William Roberts of the Toronto Globe and Mail has repeatedly gone on record as saying Thompson called him the night before his death to tell him about the WTC story he was working on and that he was scared for his life. He told Roberts he had  stumbled across hard evidence showing the towers were brought down by explosive charges set off in their foundations. Now he thought someone was out to stop him from publishing it. Roberts has quoted Thompson as saying during the call, “They’re gonna make it look like a suicide. I know how these bastards think.”  As compelling in his death as he was in his life,  Hunter S. Thompson’s  work continues represent independence, swagger and the (North) American Dream.

• 1. Slaves to Fear
• “We are turning into a nation of whimpering slaves to Fear—fear of war, fear of poverty, fear of random terrorism, fear of getting down-sized or fired because of the plunging economy, fear of getting evicted for bad debts or suddenly getting locked up in a military detention camp on vague charges of being a Terrorist sympathizer.”

• Extreme Behavior in Aspen, 2003

• 2.  Sheep and Swine

• “In a nation ruled by swine, all pigs are upwardly mobile—and the rest of us are fucked until we can put our acts together: not necessarily to win, but mainly to keep from losing completely. We owe that to ourselves and our crippled self-image as something better than a nation of panicked sheep.”

• The Great Shark Hunt, 1979

• 3.  Rain is Poison and Sex is Death
• “There are times, however, and this is one of them, when even being right feels wrong. What do you say, for instance, about a generation that has been taught that rain is poison and sex is death? If making love might be fatal and if a cool spring breeze on any summer afternoon can turn a crystal blue lake into a puddle of black poison right in front of your eyes, there is not much left except TV and relentless masturbation. It’s a strange world. Some people get rich and others eat shit and die.”

• Gonzo Papers, Vol. 2: Generation of Swine: Tales of Shame and Degradation in the ’80s, 1988

• 4. The Armed Forces
• “Be a beachcomber, a Parisian wino, an Italian pimp, or a Danish pervert; but stay away from the Armed Forces.”

• In a letter from Eglin Air Force Base while serving, 1957

• 5. Either Binge
• “We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a saltshaker half-full of cocaine and a whole multicolored collection of uppers, downers, laughers, screamers . . . Also, a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls. Not that we needed all that for the trip, but once you get into a serious drug collection, the tendency is to push it as far as you can. The only thing that really worried me was the ether. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge and I knew we’d get into that rotten stuff pretty soon . . .”

• Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, 1971

• 6.  Used Car Salesmen
• “America… just a nation of two hundred million used car salesmen with all the money… we need to buy guns and have no qualms about killing anybody else in the world who tries to make us uncomfortable.”

• The Rum Dairy, 1988

• 7. Disco
• “I feel the same way about disco as I do about herpes.”

• Speech to Graduates, University of Colorado, 1977

• 8. World of Thieves
• “In a closed society where everybody’s guilty, the only crime is getting caught. In a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity.”

• Rolling Stone, 1971

• 9. The Writer
• “As things stand now, I am going to be a writer. I’m not sure that I’m going to be a good one or even a self-supporting one, but until the dark thumb of fate presses me to the dust and says, ‘you are nothing’, I will be a writer.”

• In a letter to Roger Richards in The Proud Highway, 1959

• 10.  The Absolute Truth
• “If I’d written all the truth I knew for the past ten years, about 600 people—including me—would be rotting in prison cells from Rio to Seattle today. Absolute truth is a very rare and dangerous commodity in the context of professional journalism.”

• The Great Shark Hunt, 1957

Journalism involves truth, truth can be relative, sides are thus taken and morality is then measured. Journalistic integrity involves openness to multiplicity and a willingness to engage perspective, whatever those perspectives may be. At times, when standing across the deep and cavernous valley of relativity, one person’s truth may seem like another’s lie, but as difficult as it may be, both sides must be addressed - both regions of truth must be heard. It is only then all concerned can arrive at their own conclusions and the freedom to release and thus add to our wide and wonderful world’s library of multiplicity can be employed. For RELATIVITY OnLine’s David Anthony Hohol, this is how things all come together and this is where the battle lines are drawn.

This past summer, I was offered the position of staff writer by an up and coming political website, donklephant.com. Named after the age-old symbols of the American two-party system, the Republican Elephant and the Democratic Donkey, the site professed itself to be the moderate middle representation of the dual-natured political landscape of the United States.

I was invited on board and given the unofficial title of Middle Eastern correspondent. Site editor and founder, Justin Gardner, an early 30s University of Missouri graduate and self professed Democratic blogger, extended me the invitation with enthusiasm. The process involved several emails and links to several of my editorials from RELATIVTY OnLine. He asked me to provide a genuine and “insider’s perspective” of the Arab World and touted my arrival as a contributor even before my first post:

David Anthony Hohol of RELATIVTY OnLine has lived in Dubai the last six years and during that time has also spent time in Syria, Iran, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, and Sudan. He’ll be giving us an insider’s perspective on issues facing the Middle East and beyond.

I looked forward to getting started and upon receiving “the keys” to his WordPress posted four blogs. The next day I was fired.

The post that led Gardner to kick me out the front door was one that cited the Israeli action in Palestine as “ethnic cleansing” and Arab World perspective of Israel as being “scheming thieves”. The subject line in my pink slip of an email message was “Scheming Thieves?” Below comes from Gardner’s message the following day.

I’m not sure what was unclear from my invitation to the site… Donklephant is about balanced coverage, not blatant advocacy.

Given that, I think it’s best we just called it a day on this partnership and left it at that. I simply can’t risk the integrity of the site.

There’s no question, Gardner’s brief and very quick reaction caught me off guard. The term ethnic cleansing was something I’d seen used several times over in publications all over the world. That very week, Time magazine used the phrase to describe how “much of the world” thinks of Israeli settlements in the West Bank.  And his distaste of my stating that the Arab World perspective of Israel is that of thieves who are plotting to take Palestine away from the Palestinians was even more unexpected. I mean, this is exactly what they think and believe me, Arabs describe Israelis in far more colorful terms than scheming thieves. “What does this guy expect? Didn’t he read anything from RELATIVITY OnLine or was he desperately trying to add writers without getting to know their perspective?” I asked myself.

With a jab thrown my way, I thought it only fair I throw one of my own to even things up. Below was my response:

Hello Justin,

I must say that I am quite surprised by your reaction…. You wanted me to write about the Arab perspective (review your own description of me as an upcoming writer) and that was what I did.

My words in the article were “many in the region” (i.e. the Middle East) look at the Israelis as “scheming thieves”. That is the side, the perspective, the opinion, that offers the balanced coverage you say you want.

Balance is about both sides, not one side being free to say what they want and the other being forced to be politically correct. And when you then say, “Okay, I don’t want you to write anything at all anymore,” it makes me wonder why you even invited someone to offer you the Arab perspective in the first place. By telling me, a secular Canadian, that you don’t want me or my stories about the REAL Arab perspective on your site after asking me to do so, is COMPLETELY inappropriate and that, Justin, is where the integrity you say are trying to protect is lost.

Best of luck.

With that, I thought we each could move on in our own directions. But Gardner could not accept each of us having our own say. He wanted more. Below was his response.

David,

Actually, I said you’d be giving us an insider’s perspective, not a one-sided Arab perspective that accuses a Zionist Israel of ethic cleansing. I mean COME ON. How would you ever think that’s appropriate to post…?

What’s more… if you, as a writer for this site, use the words “scheming thieves” and then link those words back to an editorial written by you where you call the state of Israel a terrorist state, well, guess what…that makes it seems as if Donklephant is endorsing that view.

And yes, balance is about both sides. That’s why I invited you. Because I thought you were going to offer a perspective that took a look at the situation colored by more of the realities of a foreigner living in the Middle East. I can tell you that it (my post) has absolutely no integrity on the site. Think of that what you will.

And so, I once felt it only fair to even things up, and respond:

Hello Justin,

I recently posted an article about the Burka and was thinking of your last email. In the end, I guess I couldn’t resist replying to you.

It may be a rhetorical question, but when I asked you to read over my editorials so as to get a better perspective on my writing style… did you even read one article form beginning to end? If you had you would have seen where I come from and what transpired could have been avoided. You would not have wasted my time… or yours for that matter. It was unprofessional on your part not to know who it is you invite to write for you. Perhaps now you’ve learned your lesson and will be more thorough in the future.

Saying you wanted an “insider’s perspective” as opposed to a “perspective of the region” is just semantics, by the way. That phrase could be defined any number of ways. At NO TIME did you ask me for a foreigner’s viewpoint, as opposed to the Arab perspective.

Further still, calling what I wrote a “one-sided Arab perspective” is flat out wrong and prejudiced. There are many in the international community, not Arab, and not even Muslim, who hold these views. I mean COME ON, you must know this.

And this point I went on a bit of a citation rant, linking articles, news stories and even Jewish groups that hold a similiar view. I included everything from a Pulitzer Prize winning writer Chris Hedges to a story on 60 minutes. I even quoted a passage from the aforementioned Time Magazine article from July of 2009:

“And yet to much of the world, the Katzes (a family of West Bank Israeli settlers) are participating in illegal land grabs forbidden by the Geneva conventions, which do not allow an occupying power (like Israel) from settling its own civilians on militarily controlled land.”

I ended my response with the following:

The world media as a whole is shifting. You can join the fearful herd and be a follower Justin; some are better suited to do so than others. But I will join the others in the distance and lead. Being against Israeli actions in Palestine, calling them bullies… is NOT anti-Judaism. This is a manipulative lie whose shelf life is finally and thankfully reading its end. Think of that what you will.

Best Regards

Gardner once again could not simply allow each of us to have our say. He craved the last word, he needed to be one up on me, and so he let loose one more long email. In it he disputed every source or citation as isalotory or radical, even claiming the Time Magazine article was representing only one Jewish family (when the article was about the inhibiting process of Israeli settlements). I thought about evening things up one more time, but decided to just leave it. A couple of months later, the idea to write about the experience crept into my head and here we are.

I concluded my evening of writing this piece by returning to the About Us section of RELATIVITY OnLine. I read it though once more and afterwards closed my laptop for another day. A sense of purpose soon rolled through me. It also seems to be the best way to finish this discussion:

RELATVIVTY OnLine seeks to promote global citizenry through the respect, awareness, and recognition of individual perspective. Specificity over stereotypes, tolerance over dogmatism, and justice over bigotry- RELATIVITY is about the deconstruction of ethnocentrism, and its dangerous tendency to compartmentalize and diminish. There are many paths and not only one, and the values and beliefs of any single culture will never be universal.

RELATIVITY seeks to expose the bias nature of the media and the socially programmable disposition of cultures the world over. From the earliest ages, populations across the globe are conditioned into believing news coverage is both objective and factual; that television and film are agents of truth. The reality is our hard drives are bombarded with massive uploads of over-simplified, dogmatic, prejudiced information on a near daily basis. We are systematically programmed to believe what we believe and all too often, leave the act of discovery for others. The truth is found when it is sought, lies will die when they are exposed, and the beauty of freedom is often born from slavery.

Today the world is smaller than it has been at any point in human history. An international Culture War has begun and victory will come only through hope, tolerance, and understanding. RELATIVITY OnLine will stand at the front lines and we hope that you will join us.

And so the battle rages on…

Born in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, Staff Writer Lute wa Lutengano is RELATIVITY OnLine’s elder statesman. With his extensive international and humanitarian background, we count ourselves as priviledged to have him with us. Lutengano has a Bachelor’s Degree in Literature and Thearte Arts from the University of Dar es Salaam and studied journalism at the University of Berlin in Germany.  His diverse career includes stops in the feilds of marketing, public relations, and publishing, and he now works for the United Nation’s Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. With his geopolitcal and media based background, Lutengano offers RELATIVITY OnLine a pure and well-seasoned perspective of our ever-changing world.

Born and raised in Uganda’s Western District of Mbarara, Staff Writer Arinaitwe Rugyendo is a young media entrepreneur. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Sociology from Makerere University in Kampala and is currently working towards a Master’s in New Media and Society from the University of Leicester in England. Rugyendo has worked in the field of journalism for more than a decade and currently is co-owner and operator of ‘Red Pepper’, Uganda’s leading daily tabloid newspaper. He maintains his country has as a unique and important story, grounded in its fervent support of liberation movements in the DRC, Rwanda, Southern Sudan, South Africa, Burundi and Somalia, that needs to be told. Outspoken, undeviating, and unafraid to the speak the truth, Rugyendo represents RELATIVITY OnLine’s candid search for realistic portrayals of the world in which we all live. Rugyendo’s newspaper can also be seen online at  http://www.redpepper.ug/

Born and raised in the cultural mileu of London, England, Staff Writer Nora Fakim is daughter to a Moroccan mother and Mauritian father. The mix of traditional North African values and European cultural diversity has privileged her with a unique and informed global perspective. Fakim has a BA in French Literature from the University College of London, and a Master’s in North African Dialects, Culture and Hebrew, from The National Institute of Language and Culture in Paris, France. (INALCO) She is currently working on a second  Master’s, an MA in Journalism from City University in London, and speaks French, English, Arabic and Creole. Multicultural, diverse, eclectic, and forthright, Fakim is a breathing example of RELATIVITY OnLine’s multiplicity of perspective. Fakim runs her own blog at http://abfd211.wordpress.city-1.vsccreative.com/