Where the Wind Blows

Because you've been sleepless worrying over what my take is on this news story, here's what I think of the whole balloon boy controversy.

This balloon thing—a scaled-down model of a vessel designed to lift an adult human being—was accidentally released. (There's video footage of the balloon lifting off and the father going completely ballistic that it wasn't securely tethered.) Right after it goes up, one of the kids says that the other kid was actually inside the balloon. The parents ends up looking for the missing kid, calling his name, scouring the place. No sign of him. They think he may have actually been in the balloon. They panic, they call the police.

Yes, they've been on a reality show. Yes, they've done television. I don't get the idea that this was a hoax that they purposefully put out there. What would they stand to gain from this? It's a juicy idea: that there's a family so starved for media attention, they created this elaborate disaster. Evidence of the grotesque warping of American values. But it just doesn't add up.

The questionable facts:

1) a balloon that size clearly couldn't lift a boy. The scientist father who designed the balloon should have known that.

But he was a panicked father. And they couldn't find his son after looking for him.

The boy was in the attic. The police themselves scoured the house and didn't find him.

2) the kid misspoke on air and suggested that he hid to "put on a show for the tv".

He's a little kid. There were reporters all over the place. He didn't understand the question.

The father has a bad temper. Admits to yelling at his boy too much. The boy says he hid because he was afraid of getting into trouble. The media coverage exposed a dysfunctional family but the idea of some staged hoax beyond that just seems like an excuse for the media to extend the story and wag a finger at a family that just went through a mortifying ordeal.