July 10th, 2015

LeAnne Munoz, Jill Gajewski, Donna Muta

Lisa Belinsky, Kris Costa-Sakelaris

4:43am on a Friday.
Sometimes I write a whole blog entry and go to save it and then it's gone. That's just what happened on a Friday morning in the dark at the kitchen table. Oh well. Move on.

That's what I'd like to do about this whole week, really. Too much talk about violence. That's because there is just too much violence. Lauren Calvillo, 16, of Hammond laid to rest after getting shot on her porch. 17-year-old girl strangled and her body left in Emerson school in Gary.  Two teens in East Chicago killed in high-speed crash. A woman calls in Monday and says her son killed himself over the weekend. 

After a while it's not just castles burning. It's a whole lot more and as the morning news/talk funny guy at the most industrial radio station in America, sometimes it just does bring you down. That's a cheap and very deep reference to Neil Young, who I am not listening to right now.

It's very quiet at this time of morning. Soon I'll turn on the Chicago news and most likely listen to their murders and their suicides and their attacks. Sometimes that's all you sense around you is people wanting to hurt and kill each other and you can't even begin to figure out why so instead you eat corn flakes and read about Sports.

Today, Alexis comes on with me about 7am. That's all I really know as far as morning schedule. Let's see if this momentous aggregation of words saves to that there world wide web.

5:02am on a Friday.

So, predictably, the lead stories on channel 2 involve the sorrow that exists in all of us. 

Police shoot an armed teen at least five times. "The officer thought that he was in danger and engaged his firearm." 
A mother's grief after her body was found dumped in an abandoned Gary school building. Camitta Richardson, 17.
Two people found dead at Motel 6 in Arlington Heights. Police combing through the hotel's trash this morning.
Police in Elgin are looking for an individual who attempted to steal a baby from a stroller.

See what I mean?
Perhaps you're thinking - dude, that's part of your job. If there's murders, you tell people about murders and then you try to make sense of it. If there's a heroic dog who saves a kid from a burning building, then you gush about that. You just follow what's happening in the world. It's just the world. Not you.

I guess. Just sometimes by the end of the week you can feel the weight of it. The Pope stopped at Burger King in Bolivia. South Carolina will remove the confederate flag from the Capitol. A UPS drive kicked a dog in the head for no reason. At least it's not supposed to rain today... until later.