'Worthless as withered weeds'

Countercurrents has a conversation between poets Gary Corseri and Charles Orloski.

CO: Hunter S. Thompson used all kinds of drugs, drank effusively, wrote highly literate & wild books & articles, shot himself to get away from... I'm unsure what….
GC: I didn't know Thompson had killed himself.... (My friend, Joe Bageant, hung out with him for a while....)
CO: Maybe Hunter just wanted to get out of the physical stress & strain "here," but I believe we move on… to a better place where once-brainwashed brains operate at optimal function, with clear understanding of what "I" WAS-- no kidney stones, bad tickers, shot lungs, just YOU and whatever is….
GC: I like to believe that, too; that spirit continues…, and we have learned from this life's experience. I hardly see the point if we're not learning! Kind of like "Pascal's Gamble"-- if it's not so, you lose this little life and that's that; if it's so, you gain Eternity. (Emily Brontë explored that theme in her poem, "No Coward Soul.")

And that's the most highbrow reference to Emily Brontë you can expect in today's newsround. It's downhill from there.

WEEI's Thornography reports that American football player  Rob Gronkowski is publishing his autobiography with

 More pages dedicated to stories about grown men spiking stuff than any book since “Wuthering Heights.” (Jerry Thornton) 

Jezebel looks at the tabloids. Here's drama:

Kanye and Kim had a huge fight after he told her to dye her hair blonde. An insider told inTouch that Kim’s hair “was strawlike and unsalvageable...She was crying and enraged and accused him of destroying her looks...It led to one of their worst fights ever.” It’s the classic tale of a husband being like, “Bleach your hair and then dye it something very unnatural for you personally!” and the wife going, “Ugh this is a pain!” and the husband responding all, “Well guess what I’m going to be in Paris BY MYSELF on our first anniversary because you are HEREBY DUMPED!” I mean it’s basically the plot of Emily Brontë’s forgotten novel I Was Once A Brunette. Who could forget the struggles of poor Fay and her demanding husband Aldous! We’ve all been there, Kim! (Bobby Finger)

A tidbit from the Nottingham Post:

American actor George Chakiris, best known as Sharks gang leader Bernardo in West Side Story, came to Nottingham towards the end of his acting career to play Mr Rochester in Jane Eyre.

ABC (Spain) looks at the growing trend of reading books in English rather than the Spanish translations.

La FNAC, también en Callao, es otra referencia del género. Desde su Departamento de Comunicación relatan que «los clientes son diversos: el estudiante de inglés, la persona que no quiere perder el idioma, el extranjero afincado en España. El turista en las grandes ciudades y en la costa. Cada vez más los niños, un  público creciente». Citan entre sus autores de más éxito a Paul Auster, Ken Follett, E.L. James… Y clásicos de siempre como Fitzgerald, Brontë, Salinger, Dickens, Stocker, Orwell, que en ediciones baratas tienen su público, también recomendados en las escuelas y academias». Los precios tienden a ser similares siempre que el cliente quiera, porque depende de la elección de del tipo de edición que se busque en cuanto formato y precio». (M. De la Fuente) (Translation)