Topic: Media
Colorado's "Balloon Boy" Media Circus Some thoughts on the BLC (Balloon Liberation Child) and the media surrounding the incident for the past 24 hours.by Jahfre Fire Eater
(libertarian)
Saturday, October 17, 2009
I see in the headlines they are calling the BLC's father a "loon". I guess that serves him right for not having his kids on Ritalin and addicted to video games. (Maybe they are...just speculating here.) My dad was a tinkerer, a mechanic, machinist, welder, carpenter and on and on. He built things. No one called him a "loon" for welding parts from a dozen different vehicles into a "doodle bug" that he would drive around our property. (Maybe some did...just speculating here.) However, my parents taught us respect and they applied consistent discipline, so I never "launched" one of his projects on my own. Lots of neighborhood kids hung around our place because it was interesting. Most of the other dads in the neighborhood were boring...they would mow the lawn, but otherwise we'd never see them. There were several others who were also like my dad. He wasn't that unusual. They would barter parts and tools and pick each other's brains on how to do something no one had ever done before.
I heard a "state psychologist" on the radio voicing concern for the Heene children and the "viability" of the family because of their ideas of fun and adventure that often involve lots of attention from people with cameras. Why do people with cameras follow these "loons" around? Because other people want to put their feet up and watch them on the TV after they mow the lawn.
Why don't they follow the junior ROTC members at the local middle schools as they train for careers killing brown people in foreign countries? Because no one wants to watch that. Funny though, these little GI jr. kids are far more representative of how young American's live, and die, than the Henne kids are...but no one wants to see them in action. Why don't we have a reality show called, Toughest Adolescent Future Soldier? Or American Marksmen Idol?
As for the reported $2 Million-plus cost of the "rescue", I look at it this way: These folks were mostly government employees who were being paid whether or not they were doing anything. In fact, if they didn't have a real incident to pursue they were just as likely to be training, or oppressing citizens, which would incur the same expenses. In this case, I'll bet this real incident provided a far more robust training scenario than they normally stage on their own. It involved air and ground staff, several enforcement and assistance agencies, multiple counties and the Denver Airport. That isn't a training scenario they practice every day. I'll bet that incident helped them iron out communication and coordination capabilities more than a whole series of multiple million dollar training exercises could have.
I don't know any more about the truth than anyone else but it strikes me as common and manipulative for the media to plaster the little boys comment "We did this for the show" all over the headlines while ignoring the assessments from dozens of adults in law enforcement, the parents, the neighbors, etc. who all have said they believe this was an unfortunate, real emergency in the eyes of the parents.
On a local radio station they said that the boy's comment was made when the news crew asked him to show them where he had been hiding. In referring to his hiding place, he said "we did this for the show". His father said that for the Wife Swap show they had used that hiding place in one segment.
I don't know anything about the Wife Swap show; I never heard of it until yesterday and then I thought it was a clandestine sexual club until someone explained it to me. I don't know who is telling the truth but my bet is on the adults who were involved, not on the media's spinning of the boy's comments.
-Jahfre
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The views expressed in this
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On Mythbusters they did an experiment to see how many helium party balloons it would take to lift a lawnchair with a 40 lb mannequin in it. It took 4000 balloons! The UFO-shaped home-made weather balloon couldn't fly off with a child! And how could he untether it from the inside when it was designed to be untethered from the outside? It's a hoax,perpetrated by publicity-seeking parents! The gullible fell for it! "The show" the boy was referring to was on the Internet! The parents post videos regularly!
What is astounding is that "air and ground staff, several enforcement and assistance agencies, multiple counties and the Denver Airport" ... as well as multiple media outlets ... could "spend" 2 million dollars and have no one who could tell them that it was totally impossible that there was anything weighing more than 10lbs in that balloon carriage.
All of those "first-responders" should be fined a share of the alleged $2m in costs.
A interesting twist to the story is the dad believes in various conspiracy theories! I imagine if he were declared not guilty by reason of insanity,I or others who subscribe to the conspiratorial view of history and current events will be declared insane by the state!
Posted By: Mrs. Fire Eater
Date: 2009-10-30 08:08:53
People do weird stuff, which is good, because if they didn't then the "non-contributing zeros" of the world (thanks Louis CK) wouldn't have anything to watch after mowing the lawn. All the 'costs' did is justify whatever superbloated budget the agencies will beg for next year, so I don't see what they're big complaint is. Many citizens will whine about the 'cost in tax dollars' but this is misplaced - they will/have/do already spend these dollars. Had there been no balloon boy, they'd have done something really bloated and useless to justify their next budget anyway. At least, as the Bigger FE has stated, they got a real life training exercize.
What bothered me about the incident is the number of talk show folks - Dan Caplis, especially - who decided that social services should be "involved" in order to determine if the boys were safe in the home. Exsqueeze me? They are fed, clothed, and educated, and on top of that have a fascinating and fun life and are permitted to express themselves. That's over and above most of the options given to "normal" kids and they think that a bizarre stunt is some reason to interfere with and possibly disrupt a child's relationship to his parents? I think Caplis is the one needing a psychiatric evaluation - he's the one running his mouth about his imaginary friend, "God" has any bearing whatsoever on my rights as a living, willful being. Between weirdos and social engineers with control issues, I'll take the weirdos every time.
I just can't stop laughing that a guy who bases his every argument on his "God" would criticize this family for having weird ideas. That's awesome.
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