Richard Heene pleaded guilty to attempting to influence a public servant; Mayumi pleaded guilty to making a false report to authorities. So how did Mayumi Heene manage to steer clear of detention and deportation?
I got the opportunity recently to spend time with two of America's most talked about Dads: Jon Gosselin, of the "Jon and Kate plus Eight" television ...
So it's the morning of Halloween, and you don't have a costume. You were going to be Kanye West, but the friend you were counting on to be your Taylor...
The great cliché of our age is that we are sinking into a lobotomized celebrity culture where we worship the worthless. But is it true?
Everyone from Scooby Doo to Princess Fiona to Elvis had a tail-wagging good time at Animal Fair's 9th Annual Howloween Costume Party, which benefited the Humane Society of New York.
The music teacher found out that I played piano and asked me to play in front of the class. In a panic, I chose the most masculine piece I could think of -- the Marine's Hymn. Apparently, it wasn't butch enough.
The desire for notoriety is as old as humanity; we confuse a lot of attention with a lot of love. But recently people seem to be unable to distinguish between wanting it and earning it.
Richard Heene's type of abuse is a glaring example of a largely ignored aspect of violence, emotional abuse. If not addressed emotional abuse easily morphs in physical and sexual violence.
The mystery surrounding the flight that strayed 150 miles from its intended destination was resolved today as Northwest reported that the two pilots were never in the cockpit to begin with.
The Octomom is getting a show. Even that crying kid imploring the world to leave Britney Spears alone was in line to get a TV show. Everyone wants to get on TV these days. Heene's no different.
Fame is like alcohol. Some people can handle it and others can't.
Where once the King of Halloween confection was Candy Corn -- selling 8.3 billion kernels a year -- planners of today's Halloween parties lobby their new faves: the latest in gross and disgusting party food.
Not long ago, cable news cameras turned their focus skyward to an almost celestial body hurling itself across the sky. Was it a bird? Was it a plane? No, it was a hoax.
In light of the balloon boy fiasco last week, cable news outlets need to review their methods of verification. The public must know that what they see on television purporting to be news actually is.
Mayumi and Richard have separate legal representation. In other words, if the Heenes are going to go down like their little Mylar balloon for this hoax, they're not going to go down together.
It might have been smarter for the media-crazed Heene to have simply threatened to send a puppy up in his balloon, and you can bet he'd have gotten a lot of media attention.
I'm not sure what life-lessons we're supposed to learn from this whole crazy mess, but the episode of the boy in the balloon tells us a lot about what we want in stories, and how to tell a good one.
The biggest Web series news last week was the publicity for The Psyience Detectives produced by Richard Heene, the Balloon Dad. It never got off the ground, so to speak, but the genre will survive for sure.
Did any of the networks wonder, while scraping the bottom of the news barrel, if creating a climate that mistakes entertainment for news seduced the Heenes into believing they're entitled to their 15 minutes?
Many know how natural it is to go ballistic when we realize we've been duped. When we lose our way, it is all too easy to place hopes for happiness onto the outer world, for fame, money, things.
