[the OlLine Rebel]

It’s happened before, just didn’t get national headlines when we are in a craze hoping every shooting is a mass murder.

A few years ago some gangbangers (in Kolumbia? NO!) got in a fight outside JCP and people died. Many years ago, I think before the huge renovation, an armored truck was robbed in the parking lot outside Sears (i.e., near mall entrance where the shooter was located today) and driver killed or such.

Oh, it happens. Kolumbiites just pretend it doesn’t in their oh-so-perfect diverse Heaven made by God Rouse.

[bus man]

It’s happened before, just didn’t get national headlines when we are in a craze hoping every shooting is a mass murder. A few years ago some gangbangers (in Kolumbia? NO!) got in a fight outside JCP and people died. Many years ago, I think before the huge renovation, an armored truck was robbed in the parking lot outside Sears (i.e., near mall entrance where the shooter was located today) and driver killed or such. Oh, it happens. Kolumbiites just pretend it doesn’t in their oh-so-perfect diverse Heaven made by God Rouse.

Oh, I know it happens here. But when it happens in a place that you regularly visit, at a time of day when you would normally be there -- at a place which seems so safe -- it's unsettling.

I'm not a Columbia cheerleader, but you do have to admit, the utopian illusion isn't all that hard to maintain. After all, the typical resident is a well-to-do professional, rather than a welfare parasite; there's the long-standing reputation of being tolerant of interracial relationships; and everything seems so tidy and well-manicured. (Take a drive through Harper's Choice or Oakland Mills or Long Reach; they don't look like slums, do they?)

Dig beneath the surface, and one can find Columbia's dark underbelly. Or, don't dig, and pretend that all's well in paradise. But it's a little harder to maintain the illusion when there are bloodstains on the shiny floors of our upscale mall.