Steven Wells, 1960-2009

Just when Philadelphia needed more voices, the city has lost one of its best, the British-American journalist Steven Wells, who found a home in the City of Brotherly Love and wrote frequently for Philadelphia Weekly. This is from his last column:

Life isn't about grit and grime and squalor. Life is getting angry at destroyed cat jigsaws. Life is the amazement at seeing the Vanity Fair title erupt as a scarlet mohawk-cum-quiff across a dainty Johnny Depp's forehead, and the drooling anticipation of watching a Brian McManus-recommended terror-comedy on my computer later tonight. And of course the sight of tireless, tie-less and tire-burning liberal rioters taking to the streets of Tehran.

I speak as someone whose greatest craving at this exact moment is not world peace and universal democracy or a rational and global redistribution of wealth, but a can of ice cold ginger ale.

He leaves us with a great body of work, and one more thing: His hellish tales of the American health care system where he did battle in his final years. That's a tale that our policymakers in Washington need to hear, so that the next generation doesn't have to endure what some of Wells went through.

(Photo from Philadelphia Weekly.)