Bryan W. Alaspa 1The amazing hiding-in-the-attic-puke-on-TV-boy
October 16th 2009 13:35
Well, it is hard to know what to think about the amazing display that we witnessed just yesterday on the all-news channels. Thankfully I was at work, so I missed the nearly-all-afternoon-long coverage of what looked like a giant metallic mushroom floating through the skies of Colorado. I follow people on Twitter, however, even during the day and the frantic updates I was getting there was enough to get me to check out some news websites.
What are we to make of this? So, the initial reports were that some six-year-old had crawled into a homemade weather balloon that his nutty, reality-show-appearing, storm-chasing, whack-a-mole father had made. I don’t know about you, but when I went on family outings they were to places like amusement parks and museums. Not once did my dad pile us into the car and hope to chase storms and tornadoes.
The news sprang into action. Nothing is more exciting than the possibility of getting a little boy falling out of a balloon about a thousand feet in the air. Of course, the newscasters all acted like they were worried and concerned, but you know if he had tumbled out like some ragdoll, that shot would have been on the cover of Time and Newsweek and replayed again and again and again on every newscast and on those various news networks.
Everyone wondered what to do? You couldn’t just shoot the thing down if the kid was somehow inside. You also didn’t want the balloon to drift into critical airspace. Thankfully the balloon slowly drifted to earth in an empty field and rescuers sprang into action. They used pitchforks to deflate the balloon and then looked inside. Like some kind of David Copperfield magic trick, the kid was not in there.
Then came word that there had been a box affixed to the bottom of the balloon. This box was no longer attached. Now came the image of the kid falling from the balloon. A massive search was initiated.
What was the result? The kid was hiding in the attic in the garage playing with his toys. He was, indeed, in a cardboard box but it was nowhere near the balloon. Then came the press conferences as the kid was paraded in front of the media.
The morning dawned and things got even stranger. The family, with the child, named Falcon (of all things), appeared on the morning news programs. What happened there? The kid began puking. Not once, but twice, first on one morning news show and then on the next one.
It makes you wonder. Was it all a publicity stunt? Some have suggested that this was just to get attention in the hopes of a new reality show featuring the father and his storm-chasin’ family. It certainly seems like a tremendous amount of stress was put on the kid, to the point where he was puking on national TV.
It just has to make you shake your head. I guess I am going about things the wrong way trying to get attention by writing books. If I had spent the time building a Zeppelin in my parent’s backyard and pretending like my niece had crawled inside while I set the thing free, I could have gained instant fame. Once again, however, it sure shows that the 24-hour news channels need to discern their news a little bit better.
One thing you should learn, as news that the cost of the rescue effort will come out of tax-payer pockets, is that if your next door neighbor starts building large Mylar balloons for experiments I am going to suggest one word to you. That word is: sabotage.
What are we to make of this? So, the initial reports were that some six-year-old had crawled into a homemade weather balloon that his nutty, reality-show-appearing, storm-chasing, whack-a-mole father had made. I don’t know about you, but when I went on family outings they were to places like amusement parks and museums. Not once did my dad pile us into the car and hope to chase storms and tornadoes.
The news sprang into action. Nothing is more exciting than the possibility of getting a little boy falling out of a balloon about a thousand feet in the air. Of course, the newscasters all acted like they were worried and concerned, but you know if he had tumbled out like some ragdoll, that shot would have been on the cover of Time and Newsweek and replayed again and again and again on every newscast and on those various news networks.
Everyone wondered what to do? You couldn’t just shoot the thing down if the kid was somehow inside. You also didn’t want the balloon to drift into critical airspace. Thankfully the balloon slowly drifted to earth in an empty field and rescuers sprang into action. They used pitchforks to deflate the balloon and then looked inside. Like some kind of David Copperfield magic trick, the kid was not in there.
Then came word that there had been a box affixed to the bottom of the balloon. This box was no longer attached. Now came the image of the kid falling from the balloon. A massive search was initiated.
What was the result? The kid was hiding in the attic in the garage playing with his toys. He was, indeed, in a cardboard box but it was nowhere near the balloon. Then came the press conferences as the kid was paraded in front of the media.
The morning dawned and things got even stranger. The family, with the child, named Falcon (of all things), appeared on the morning news programs. What happened there? The kid began puking. Not once, but twice, first on one morning news show and then on the next one.
It makes you wonder. Was it all a publicity stunt? Some have suggested that this was just to get attention in the hopes of a new reality show featuring the father and his storm-chasin’ family. It certainly seems like a tremendous amount of stress was put on the kid, to the point where he was puking on national TV.
It just has to make you shake your head. I guess I am going about things the wrong way trying to get attention by writing books. If I had spent the time building a Zeppelin in my parent’s backyard and pretending like my niece had crawled inside while I set the thing free, I could have gained instant fame. Once again, however, it sure shows that the 24-hour news channels need to discern their news a little bit better.
One thing you should learn, as news that the cost of the rescue effort will come out of tax-payer pockets, is that if your next door neighbor starts building large Mylar balloons for experiments I am going to suggest one word to you. That word is: sabotage.
| 26 |
| Vote |
