No Happy Landing For "Balloon Boy" Stunt

I don't mind telling you that I had real problems coming up with a blog post about the runaway balloon that drifted over the skies of Colorado Thursday.  I couldn't justify writing about what the Sheriff of Larimer County called a hoax that wasted everyone's time and resources when there was the possibility of a six-year old boy with his life in danger, only to find that he had been hiding in his room the whole time.

It belongs right up there with O.J. Simpson's slow-speed car chase and the body of Michael Jackson being transported from his home to the coroner's office in the TV Rubberneckers hall of fame.

The sheriff said in a news conference Sunday that the parents of the boy, Richard and Mayumi Heene, may soon have charges filed against them.  (Some of you might remember the Heenes from the TV show "Wife Swap".)  Richard is accused of staging this stunt to get the attention of Hollywood producers who might give him another reality TV show.  Curiously, none of the charges involve child endangerment.

The Heene family made appearances on several TV shows since the incident, two of which the boy in question got sick on the air.  Whatever is going on in that family can best be explained by the Dr. Phils of the world.

As for the cable networks that went with this story wall-to-wall, it's not worth wasting any space pontificating on the Decline and Fall of the Mainstream Media.  Big deal.  We knew that already.

What I'm saying is that this is a sad story, and it's bound to get sadder as it goes along for everyone involved.