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Thursday, Apr 7, 2016 - Posted by Rich Miller

Six-year-old Madison Pruitt, who has cancer, wanted to become a cop.

So on Wednesday afternoon, interim Chicago Police Supt. Eddie Johnson walked two blocks from the Gresham District police station to Madison’s home in the Auburn Gresham neighborhood to make her dream come true.

Marching behind Johnson were about 75 cops, including two on horseback.

“I heard your lifelong dream was to be a Chicago Police officer,” Johnson told the little girl, who was bundled up and sitting in a wheelchair as the two met on the front porch of her home where she is receiving hospice care. […]

Each officer made their way up to the front porch to see Madison, including one of the mounted patrolman — still on his horse. Another officer had his police canine — a black lab — by his side.

Madison’s grandmother, Pamlor Nelson, smiled and cried as she looked on.

Video…

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Illinois plays role in anti bailout ad about Puerto Rico

Thursday, Apr 7, 2016 - Posted by Rich Miller

* The Center for Individual Freedom, which has spent millions on GOP congressional campaigns and fought campaign disclosure laws, is now blasting legislation to bail out Puerto Rico from its fiscal disaster.

But there’s a local twist. “If Puerto Rico is allowed to declare bankruptcy,” the group’s new TV ad warns, “high-spending states like Illinois will also want to declare bankruptcy. Retirement accounts crushed. A bailout on the backs of savers and seniors.”

Watch it…

54 Comments

Good morning!

Thursday, Apr 7, 2016 - Posted by Rich Miller

* One of Merle Haggard’s last major interviews, from early February in Rolling Stone…

As he recovers, Haggard, a news junkie, has been watching Donald Trump’s campaign with amusement and concern. “He’s not a politician. I don’t think he understands the way things work in Washington, that’s what worries me about him. I don’t think he realizes he can’t just tell somebody to do something and have it done, you know. I think he’s dealing from a strange deck.”

A reader pointed out that Haggard could’ve also been talking about somebody else closer to home - but I’ll leave that determination for others.

* Here’s the Grateful Dead covering one of Merle’s most famous songs…

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Merle Haggard

Wednesday, Apr 6, 2016 - Posted by Rich Miller

* The man stomped on the terra…

Country legend Merle Haggard has died, Bakersfield, California TV station ABC 23 reports. He was 79 years old. Today was his birthday. Earlier this year he was hospitalized due to pneumonia.

Haggard was born in 1937 near Bakersfield, California. His father died when he was young. Throughout his youth, he spent time in juvenile detention centers, and throughout the 1950s, he spent a significant amount of time in jail. His first single, “Sing a Sad Song,” was released in 1963. By 1967, he was a huge country star with 37 songs charting in the Top 10 that year. His 1969 single “Okie From Muskogee” went No. 1 and stirred controversy for its anti-hippie sentiments.

Since the 1960s, Haggard has been a fixture in country music, recording and performing consistently over the years. Along with his band the Strangers, he’s considered one of the most instrumental artists in establishing the Bakersfield sound. His last album was 2015’s Django and Jimmie—a collaboration with his longtime friend Willie Nelson.

* I saw Merle perform at the Du Quoin State Fair a while back and even got to meet him for a brief moment before he took the stage. He didn’t put on any “golden oldies” show that night. He had new stuff, his voice was strong and his band played brilliantly. And despite his now infamous line in “Okie from Muskogee,” I think I may have detected a whiff of green smoke when his tour bus door opened. “Well,” a friend observed, “He’s not in Muskogee, so I guess it’s still true.”

* Dwight Yoakum once said “The only thing that vies with Haggard’s poetic genius is the gift he has as a singer who delivers those songs with one of the most pure and profoundly powerful voices in music.”

Born in a boxcar, saw Johnny Cash perform while doing hard time at San Quentin Prison (for sticking up a roadhouse), pardoned by President Reagan, always on the side of the working man, he slayed that modified Telecaster Thinline right up to the end.

A pro-war patriot during Vietnam who wrote a song protesting the Iraq War. He had his contradictions and his personal failings, but he was always honest with his audience and that’s all we ever wanted…

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