Radio Galaxy

Vic Chesnutt: Runnin', jumping', flyin' in heaven.

Vic Chesnutt sings “Very Friendly Lighthouses,” on the somewhat available Left to His Own Devices, and by request on NPR.

The artist who was capable of writing that song right there died yesterday. Vic Chesnutt, 45, overdosed on a muscle relaxant earlier this week and then lingered in a coma until the Christmas twilight. Chesnutt already had a seat on the train, as they say, having made several active suicide attempts in a life defined by more passive ones.

Chesnutt was a brilliant person — a humanist, a cynic, a believer, a “sub-realist,” as he once sang. And my goodness, could he write a song.

It hurts to think that an artist with so many successful friends, not to mention so many people who loved his music, could fall into despair over $70,000 in unpaid medical bills. In this, Chesnutt was twice a casualty of our country’s health care system. He should never have faced those bills to start with, and if we’d had better care to offer maybe we’d have caught his depression in time to save him, one more time.

His friend Kristin Hersh has set up a donation page for his family, to help them cover his last expenses. You can buy his newer music from Constellation and the rest elsewhere. If you’re new to Chesnutt, just close your eyes and pick a record: They’re all good.

This is Joe Biden, who's not as handsome as my father-in-law but looks a lot like him anyway.

Richard Goodyear, my father-in-law for exactly eight years today, has been an Obama supporter from way, way back. If he’d known young Barack as a grade schooler in Hawaii, he’d likely have started canvassing for him right then.

Sr. Goodyear (lucky guy lives in Spain now) is also possessed of an exact — and exacting — intelligence. He’s brilliant, stunningly so. While the rest of us have been toying around with outcomes on the various electoral map calculators of the world, he has been dissecting the one on Real Clear Politics. Here, from an Obama proponent’s perspective, is one of the most intriguing looks at the presidential race I’ve seen so far. (Hint: He says he’s now convinced he “should leave worry as a last resort.”)

Solid, Leaning and Toss Up States, an analysis by Richard Goodyear
Bonus: He’s also a lovely, lovely photographer.

UPDATE: His latest version considers the “Palin Effect.”

Got this from @eladyland. If nothing else, it’s amazing how much work went into it. (I’m guessing whoever made it is voting for Obama.)

She was found as a feral child. (From the St. Petersburg Times)

It’s one of those stories, you know? The St. Petersburg Times follows the case of a girl found in squalor in a Plant City, Fla., home. Not quite seven years old, she weighed 46 pounds. A neighbor finally called the police, the paper reports:

First he saw the girl’s eyes: dark and wide, unfocused, unblinking. She wasn’t looking at him so much as through him.

She lay on a torn, moldy mattress on the floor. She was curled on her side, long legs tucked into her emaciated chest. Her ribs and collarbone jutted out; one skinny arm was slung over her face; her black hair was matted, crawling with lice. Insect bites, rashes and sores pocked her skin. Though she looked old enough to be in school, she was naked — except for a swollen diaper.

“The pile of dirty diapers in that room must have been 4 feet high,” the detective said. “The glass in the window had been broken, and that child was just lying there, surrounded by her own excrement and bugs.”

Now the girl has been adopted by a local family. They’re working to bring the girl back from her “environmental autism.” Cue the Pulitzer, please.

Bonus: Poynter goes behind the scenes.