I’m having trouble caring about Balloon Boy…and everything else
The assembly hall of the Swedish Parliament (Image via Wikipedia)
Balloon Boy: Listen, this was nothing but the old kid-down-the-well story turned upside down, except he wasn’t, and I don’t care. I don’t care if it was a hoax. I don’t care if it wasn’t a hoax. I didn’t care when the balloon was up and I didn’t care when it came down. I don’t care if Balloon Boy blurted the truth to Wolf Blitzer or just got confused and forgot his lines and ad-libbed badly. I don’t care that he threw up on his brother on the Today show and Meredith Viera didn’t notice. If she had, maybe I would have cared but she didn’t. She could have said something like, “Hey, father of Balloon Boy, your son, the one with the ridiculous name—what kind of idiot names his kid Falcon Heene?–just threw up on his brother on live television. Isn’t that a first of some kind? Most of our guests don’t do that. Did you prompt him to throw up? Or did he do it on his own? Maybe the boy has swine flu. Wouldn’t that be something? Then we could call him Swine Boy and start a whole new freakazoidal death watch.” She could have said that. But she didn’t. But even if she had, I still don’t think I would’ve cared.
Health Care: I should care about health care. I really should. There was a time when I did. At least I think I did. Health care has gone on so long, I’m not sure I care any more. Who can keep his addled attention span engaged this many months? The legislative process has gone berserk. It never ends. Big news: bill gets out of committee! Oh, joy. Health care at last. But wait! Now it has to go through another committee. Or another house of Congress. Or the Swedish Parliament. Or something. Public option in? Out? Who can remember? What’s a Baucus? Does he caucus? I’m sorry. I’m tired. Leave me alone. Pass it, don’t pass it, I don’t care. We’re all gonna die anyway. It’s just a matter of when.
Afghanistan: I should care about Afghanistan? It’s gone on even longer than health care. Eight years! But wait, now, only now, not three or six years ago but just now, the generals have figured out what we’ve been doing wrong in Afghanistan and by God, from now on we’ll get it right. Unless we pull out, which we ought to because–and you may not have heard this in six or seven minutes–but Afghanistan is the graveyard of empires. And there’s nothing as smelly as a dead empire. And yet if we do pull out, the Taliban will take Pakistan. Unless they’ve already taken it because what was that huge explosion just now in Rawalpindi? I don’t know and I don’t care. Take it, Taliban, you want it, it’s yours. You try governing Afghanistan. Who needs it? I don’t need it. I’m past caring about it.
Swine Flu: Hey, all you people who are refusing to take your swine flu shots, because you read something brilliant on the Web, you’re all gonna die. Quicker than the rest of us. You think I care? Nope. Don’t care. You want to die, you’ll have to do it without me.
Meghan McCain: Shows cleavage on Twitter. Big furor. Stupid people call her stupid names. McCain valiantly fights back against double standard. Admits she has breasts (“For those of you who didn’t know, I have two.”) and is not ashamed. (Father in hiding till the thing blows over.) I’d like to make a comment about this controversy. Ready? Here it is: I don’t care. I know you’re surprised to hear that but I don’t. I. Do. Not. Care.
Maybe you’re wondering, have there been times in the past when I didn’t care with this degree of intensity, when this wanton and spectacular lack of care soared high above and beyond the normal threshold of caring not? Sure. But this time I really don’t care. I don’t know, maybe the uncaringness is just temporary. Maybe it’s a condition that will pass after a few days and then I’ll be able to care once again as much as I ever did. Maybe it will…but I don’t care.
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[...] I’m having trouble caring about Balloon Boy…and everything else True/Slant [...]
YEAH! And I don’t care about Wall Street and the economy! I might have cared, had they let it crumble to the point where people got angry, got off their asses, and demanded REAL change. But they didn’t. They just gave it enough of a boost to get us through to the next bubble and, well, I don’t care about bubbles either!
I don’t care about True/Slant either! Bunch of intelligent, articulate, talented writers running off at the keyboard, trying to tell me what I should care about! And smart-ass, foul mouthed fucking members, wasting their time commenting on every stupid issue that comes up on their screens! All they want is to get their latest called-out comment so they can feel all validated and shit! Who cares about any of it?!?
(please call out both of my comments. I need a double shot of validation today.)
You think I care whether your crappy comments get called out or not?
In response to another comment. See in context »Don’t care about the news? There’s an app for that.
For all you don’t care about this stuff, you sure seem familiar with the details of it.
You noticed, eh? This is known to science as Grossberger’s Paradox.
In response to another comment. See in context »AHAHAHHHHAHAAAAA (choke) ahahahaAHAH (gasP) Article = funny Comments = funny Great! stuff guys. Thank you. Better than medicine.
I so appreciate this article because I was stupefied to find this story on every major outlet for at least two days. marcbolton – at least with True/Slant and keyboard reportage, you can immediately vent back. As every mainstream news outlet treated this story as major news, we all were helpless to do anything with our frustration with it except maybe throw up.
i got flagged for abuse, but i thought it was because of my comments – then i found out this camera on my laptoop is on all the time and that trial subscription turns out it is automatically renewing and i accidentally got back online to see if it still worked for another 30 days – Jesus how embarassing, or should i care? Or should i charge for subscriptions?
Thanks for caring.