{"id":363,"date":"2009-10-20T10:28:17","date_gmt":"2009-10-20T10:28:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/drnorrischumleysatisfiedlife\/2009\/10\/balloon-boy.html"},"modified":"2009-10-20T10:28:17","modified_gmt":"2009-10-20T10:28:17","slug":"balloon-boy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/drnorrischumleysatisfiedlife\/2009\/10\/balloon-boy.html","title":{"rendered":"Balloon Boy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This whole Balloon Boy story (and seems like it was a fictional story) in some ways is shocking, but it is also not a surprise that someone would lie so thoroughly, and do almost anything to be famous in this inflated media circus culture.&nbsp; Yes, without a trial and presentation of both sides it&#8217;s only an accusation right now, and here in America we&#8217;re innocent until proven guilty.&nbsp; In my opinion, it&#8217;s just part of a whole tapestry, no, a gigantic fabric of lies and dishonesty.&nbsp; Media is out-of-control, and irresponsible, our culture is too weighted on money and fame as indicators of success and happiness, when people go to such lengths to attain it.<\/p>\n<p>If indeed the Balloon Boy, Falcon Heene, was part of an elaborate scam to land a reality TV series, what does this say about his parents, brothers, and the world of illusion and inflation that we live in?&nbsp; It is just another indicator of how we cannot trust what we see and hear.&nbsp; We cannot believe in news media, and especially &#8220;reality&#8221; TV.&nbsp; It&#8217;s not real.&nbsp; We are being sold, consumed, and commoditized, and the truth be damned.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s our culture of illusion and lies, and inflated images that flew this likely-fabricated story.&nbsp; We had our confidence and caring betrayed, yet again. If there was any reality TV in this story, it was allegedly the &#8220;reality&#8221; of con-artists.&nbsp; Were the parents to blame?&nbsp; On the surface, if it was a hoax, yes, they should be accountable for preying on our public compassion and concern for a little 6 year-old boy&#8217;s safety, and spending emergency personnel&#8217;s time and expense.&nbsp; We watched in horror, thinking that a child&#8217;s life was in danger.&nbsp; That says something good about society: at least we still care. Supposedly everyone wants to be rich and famous.&nbsp; What lengths will we go to attain it, though, is the real question.<\/p>\n<p>The real reality of this story is the honestly that little 6 year-old Falcon displayed on TV.&nbsp; &#8220;We did it for the story,&#8221; he told Larry King on CNN.&nbsp; I love that.&nbsp; The truth prevailed; his innocence and honesty won out.&nbsp; This stark childhood truth gives this whole false world of empty images, over-ambitiousness and clamoring for fame and riches a lesson. The truth always wins out.&nbsp; God bless you, Falcon, for being the only reality on TV that day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This whole Balloon Boy story (and seems like it was a fictional story) in some ways is shocking, but it is also not a surprise that someone would lie so thoroughly, and do almost anything to be famous in this inflated media circus culture.&nbsp; Yes, without a trial and presentation of both sides it&#8217;s only&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":171,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,9,10,22,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-363","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-entertainment","category-happiness","category-lifestyles","category-politics","category-relationships"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Balloon Boy - Dr. Norris J. Chumley Satisfied Life<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/drnorrischumleysatisfiedlife\/2009\/10\/balloon-boy.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Balloon Boy - Dr. Norris J. 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