Another major gunfight at the OK Corral Mall

How many shootings have there been at the Orland Park Mall? That's what I asked my wife this morning as she sat at her laptop and read the stories about the manhunt for a shooter who attacked a shopper at the Orland Mall, shooting the woman in the arm with a gun outside of Penny's around 9 pm Friday night.

That will be a big draw for Orland Park. Thankfully we have the best Police Department in the nation to respond to it.

As my wife read through the stories, I kept asking her to tell me what was happening. That made me think of how our society has changed in the computer era.

"Didn't you hear the helicopters flying over the mall last night keeping us awake?" she asked.

I was fast asleep. "No. What helicopters?"

Cook County sent a helicopter to help track down the gunman, who is seems, was a woman attacker. That's even worse, I think. Male chauvinism maybe?

"What happened?" I asked.

After I pestered her with a dozen questions, my wife looked at me and said open your iPad and read the stories yourself.

No. I want someone to tell me the story. "I wonder if we can invent a little box that you put in the frontroom and turn on and some guy comes on the screen and tells you everything that happens instead of having to dig for the news ourselves?

Oh yea. That's called television news, something that is fast disappearing from our daily agendas. We used to watch the TV to get all the news that the newspapers couldn't get straight. The reports and videos were informative and fast.

Now, we have to scan the Internet news sites for news ourselves. I didn't get it any sooner on the Internet and only listened as I prodded my wife to tell me what was happening Saturday morning as I drank my black decaf coffee.

Maybe that's the problem. No caffeine to fuel the energy I thought.

Yea, I'm watching some dufus trying to tell me how to make millions using the Internet. "Just let the money come to you. I have this automated system and you don't have to do anything. You build the web site, use my three step system and blah, blah, balh."

It was "Paid Programming" on Comcast Cable, which has seriously deteriorated in the past few years. Comcast charges you for everything on its channel lineup, even old movies that are junk have to be bought. It's crazy. How did I let myself fall in to this Comcast Crap anyway? I need to cancel Comcast and try satellite, I think. Although Netflix has partially replaced my movie viewing habits. Netflix downloads are good quality but the selection of movies sucks. There really isn't much. So far no one has invented a great system for TV. We've only gone backwards into the Stone Age.

I want some guy, or girl, on TV telling me the Who, What, When, Where, How and Why of the news story. The updates and the conclusion. I don't mind reading about it later, if it interest me. And anytime there is a gunfight at the Orland Park Mall, it interests me. The thought of the suspect scurrying away and around the nearby homes at night is frightening.

Maybe Mayor McLaughlin can take some of that $62 million we're giving to his developer pals and boost up security around here. Yea, a gunfight at the Orland Park Mall isn't going to attract a lot of those wealthy rich people to move into the luxurious Orland Park apartments a stone's throw from the Mall. Although maybe that might get the thieves to stop focusing on robbing people at the Mall and focus on breaking in to the apartments of the very rich who are not so bright to invest their wealth in an apartment overlooking a Metra Train station.

Okay. There's too much to process here.

Back to the Boob Tube!

--- Ray Hanania