The Globe and Mail is a wonderful newspaper. But I am outraged at this link.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/Page/document/v4/sub/MarketingPage?user_URL=http://www.theglo
beandmail.com%2Fservlet%2FArticleNews%2FTPStory%2FLAC%2F20050226%2FHUNTER26%2FTPFocus%2F&ord=222
79385&brand=theglobeandmail&redirect_reason=2&denial_reaso
The link provides a first paragraph of a column written by Paul William Roberts that seems to indicate Hunter S. Thompson was murdered -- that is until you plunk down the $4.95 to read the whole article ...
It says this: (FROM GLOBE AND MAIL) Hunter telephoned me on Feb. 19, the night before his death. He sounded scared. It wasn't always easy to understand what he said, particularly over the phone, he mumbled, yet when there was something he really wanted you to understand, you did. He'd been working on a story about the World Trade Center attacks and had stumbled across what he felt was hard evidence showing the towers had been brought down not by the airplanes that flew into them but by explosive charges set off in their foundations. Now he thought someone was out to stop him publishing it: "They're gonna make it look like suicide," he said. "I know how these bastards think . . ."
Now, this link has been used by conspiracy theorists all over the planet to suggest that the Globe and Mail is hinting that Hunter S. Thompson was murdered. The column by the way appeared Feb. 26 on page F9 of the Globe and Mail.
Want to read further, you must pay the Globe and Mail $4.95 ... and THEN you find ....The very next sentence in the story is:
That's how I imagine a tribute to Hunter S. Thompson should begin.
Being a curious sort, I plunked down the $4.95 and was "shocked" that the lead on the Globe and Mail's Web site was so misleading. In the very next paragraph (after you buy the article) the author indicates that he is convinced Hunter did INDEED kill himself ...As he said to more than one person, "I would feel real trapped in this life if I didn't know I could commit suicide at any time."
Frankly, I am outraged at the Globe and Mail for such a sloppy Web site. It undermines their credibility and is a ripoff to consumers. If I just had read the VERY NEXT LINE, I would have realized the first paragraph was in essence a HOAX.
Globe and Mail: I want my $4.95 back!!!
And PERHAPS worse than my loss of $4.95, the misleading link is being used by conspiracy nuts who use the Globe and Mail as a "source" for the story that Hunter was murdered. Sheesh.
I should mention I knew Hunter S. Thompson while I worked in Aspen in the early and mid-1990s as a newspaper editor there. I too am convinced it was suicide.
I only bought this story from the Globe and Mail because I was so intrigued that such a fine paper would print such stuff. Lo and behold, the Globe and Mail's deceit -- whether purposeful or not -- on its Web site bilked me out of $4.95 plus credit card charges.