{"id":696,"date":"2004-04-05T21:35:52","date_gmt":"2004-04-05T21:35:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tommangan.net\/printsthechaff\/?p=696"},"modified":"2004-04-05T21:35:52","modified_gmt":"2004-04-05T21:35:52","slug":"h-s-thompson-in-s-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tommangan.net\/printsthechaff\/2004\/04\/h-s-thompson-in-s-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"H.S. Thompson in S. Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Well, not really. He&#8217;s merely mentioned in <a href=\"http:\/\/allafrica.com\/stories\/200404050589.html\">this column from Business Day, a Johannesburg business pub<\/a>. The story laments the lack of frivolous contestants in the  nation&#8217;s  elections, and points to you-know-who as an example to the voters of the world:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>On a smaller, more menacing scale, famed US gonzo writer Hunter S Thompson &#8220;scared the bejesus&#8221; out of the staid population of Aspen, Colorado in 1969 with his Freak Power Party bid for mayor.<\/p>\n<p>\nReasoning that apathetic 18- to 25year-olds were the main cause of a low voter turnout in recent contests, Thompson believed that if he could capture this part of the electorate, he could take on the established political players at their own game.<br \/>\n<P><br \/>\nThe Freak Power Party candidate, a young hippie biker named Joe Edwards, lost the race by one vote. A year later, Thompson stood as sheriff, on a pro-drugs, anticapitalist platform, and gave the incumbent a run for his money.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><i><br \/>\nThanks to Doc-watcher <a href=\"http:\/\/www.adequacy.net\">Bob Patterson<\/a> for the link. <\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Well, not really. He&#8217;s merely mentioned in this column from Business Day, a Johannesburg business pub. The story laments the lack of frivolous contestants in the nation&#8217;s elections, and points to you-know-who as an example to the voters of the&hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"more-link-p\"><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/tommangan.net\/printsthechaff\/2004\/04\/h-s-thompson-in-s-africa\/\">Read more &rarr;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[14],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tommangan.net\/printsthechaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/696"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tommangan.net\/printsthechaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tommangan.net\/printsthechaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tommangan.net\/printsthechaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tommangan.net\/printsthechaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=696"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tommangan.net\/printsthechaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/696\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tommangan.net\/printsthechaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tommangan.net\/printsthechaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tommangan.net\/printsthechaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}