We are all the "Balloon Boy"...

The first woman I ever lived with was a woman named Anne. Like most young couples, we thought our love would last forever, we would grow old together, sex would always be mind-blowing and we would look after each other in our "golden years". Alas, it was not to be...

One of the most irritating habits that Anne had ( unlike me who had 1000 of them ), was to reverently follow any insipid news story that any sort of angle of "human" tragedy. ( i.e.-The fictitious story about a woman who placed her baby in a scalding hot oven while the baby screamed:" Mommy don't!", or the story of the kid on the Micheal Jackson video who broke his neck while break dancing..Another urban legend). While her concern for the "human condition" always touched me, I could never figure out why she bought these dumb stories and why they always ended up being splashed on the front page of some crappy Hollywood rag.

I wonder what my old Anne thought of the " Balloon Boy". The story of this poor young lad and his celebrity seeking, undeserving parents from Colorado, have made headlines all over North America. Basically the sordid story goes like this: Trailer trash sleazy parents claim to have built this home made balloon capable of rising to great heights ( unlike the parents). One day the balloon drifts off, Dad claims his young son ( I think he is five years old) was aboard the flight, Colorado Law Enforcement gets notified, the balloon lands without the kid aboard. Media descends like a fat kid on a Smartie, and 2 million National Enquirer readers hold their breath until the kid is found unharmed. The Dad claims his son was in the house all along, the local Sheriff knows a line of bullshit when he hears it, and conducts a full investigation. The result: The parents of the boy have concocted this Kafkaesque scenario in the hopes of landing a reality show on some American cable network.

Now, it should be quickly deduced by anyone with an IQ of over 67 that these parents are swine and have no right reproducing, voting or having a driver's license. But one has to wonder why a couple would jeopardize their family, their sleazy reputations and what ever chance they have at stardom for such a stupid ploy. By giving these types of stories media time are we creating a society of media junkies? By watching these stories on the "Fox Network" and " CNN" are we contributing to the addiction? Are we party to this type of shameless whoring?

If we are, then we are all the Balloon Boy. Our love for this type of dopey story and the fallout surrounding it makes us all guilty of bad judgment and bad taste. It is a sad fact of life in mainstream North America.

Maybe Anne was simply embracing a trend that no one saw coming.

Who's to know?.