HUTCHINSON -- I can’t say I was surprised to learn that Kerry Granger died. Nobody I know paid less attention to his or her own health than, arguably, the most recognizable figure in our local court system. I will miss him.

He was loud, profane and unkempt, and didn’t care who noticed. His whispered attempts at conversations or observations during court proceedings carried the courtroom and our judges, at least since I’ve been around, never blinked. “That’s Granger,” was the common response.

That’s not to say Granger always had an easy ride, nor did he always deserve one. He probably received more tongue-lashings from Judge Richard Rome than any other lawyer before or since, and it took the State Supreme Court to force him to have a telephone number where clients could leave messages. It also ordered him to check for messages, but I’m not sure that ever developed the way the Supreme Court had imagined.

Granger worked out of the trunk of his car, his house and the courthouse hallways. He had no office and encouraged clients to come to his home. I asked him about that once.

“I don’t want them to think I think I’m better than them, because I’m not. I don’t want them to believe they have to have an appointment or get all dressed up to come to see me. They know where I live, and they can drop by anytime,” is the way I remember his answer.

HUTCHINSON -- A fourth man was arrested Wednesday and remains in in the Reno County Jail today while local police investigators and the KBI collect evidence they believe will tie him to the April 9 murder of 33-year-old Joshua Haines.

Chauncey Grissom, 28, was taken into custody shortly before 11:30 p.m. Wednesday and was jailed for failure to appear and violation of parole. Grissom was released on parole March 2 after serving approximately 3-½ years in the Kansas Department of Corrections for an August 2006 drug conviction in Reno County.

Investigators believe Grissom was one of several people hiding in a Severance Street apartment across from Hutchinson High School when Haines arrived at the invitation of Vasie Coons, 35, who lived there.

Grissom has, thus far, refused to talk with investigators.

"Doctor Parkinson declared I'm not surprised to see you here
You've got smoker's cough from smoking, brewer's droop from drinking beer
I don't know how you came to get the Betty Davis knees
But worst of all, young man, you've got industrial disease."
— Dire Straits
In 1962, Ronald Reagan had this to say in urging opposition to a sweeping health-care reform proposal known as Medicare: “And if you don’t do this and if I don’t do it, one of these days you and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children, and our children’s children, what it once was like in America when men were free.”

With all of the over-heated rhetoric, not to mention acts of violence, that has accompanied passage of this year's health care reform bill, I thought a little historical perspective was in order.

From the start of the current debate, Republicans have characterized the bill as a "government takeover of health care." They've maintained that position regardless of what was actually in the legislation. When it had a public option, that was a government takeover. When the public option was stripped out, it was still a government takeover.

That's their story and they're sticking to it.