the boy who cried balloon
others have spoken much more eloquently than i could about how repulsive it is to force your children to collude with your lies until they are physically sick with fear when questioned, and how the entire heene family will probably be a lot better off with a potentially abusive husband and father behind bars. apart from richard heene's obvious moral failings, though, what really strikes me is a his staggering, overwhelming, and nearly uncreditable STUPIDITY.
i mean, seriously...your son is SIX. six-year-olds can't lie for crap; and you expect him to keep your bullshit story straight when a whole crowd of strange scary grownups sticks a bunch of cameras and lights in his wee little face? you should have just kept him out of it...not only would the reporters have understood if you said he'd been through a lot and you didn't want to put him through the added stress of a media circus, it might also have made you look like you actually, you know, gave a crap about your son's well-being or something.
there are two things i hope, now: one, that the reality tv machine (and the viewing public in general) does not reward this sort of behavior and give the green light to the heeney's show. people say there's no such thing as bad publicity, but dude, i'd say that everyone finding out you traumatized and exploited your child for your own selfish fame would be pretty damn close. the other thing i hope is that the fable doesn't come true: i mean, god forbid something serious really does happen to one of the heeney kids, and no one responds because they've already been fooled once.
Q