No matter how hard you try, sometimes one simply cannot get away from the "important" news of the week. Of course, the word important might not be as literal as we would like.

For instance, has anyone with a pulse not heard about the story with the famous American Balloon Boy?

Was there any newspaper, national news or radio show that did not repeatedly keep us all up to the date, minute by minute on the this story and all of its many turns and surprises?

OK, while it was actually happening everyone was praying for the little boy and we all hoped that he would be fine. However, when the balloon finally landed and the boy was not in it our prayers became even more fervent. How could we not feel for the parents of a little boy who apparently fell hundreds of feet from a balloon, to what most certainly was a horrible death?

Then we start to hear details and comments that cause the media, law enforcement and the general public to believe that the entire story was a hoax and that they boy was never in the balloon, never in trouble and actually a part of a plot hatched by his father.

Now, who knows what the truth actually is, yet, we hear that the whole thing was dreamt up by his father to cash in on an idea to make a reality show about his "wacky inventions" and the young boy was simply "an actor in a play" whose goal was to pull on the emotional heartstrings of people worldwide.

If it was a hoax- I suppose the criminal and civil courts will deal with it. However, I have another angle to discuss, one that is also bothersome, but not as obvious.

This episode shows us how far someone will go for his fifteen minutes of fame. Here a father is prepared to tear our heart from us, to cause each of us to empathize the sadness, fear and pain that the boy and his parents must feel in order to get his own "reality" TV show.

He caused hundreds of thousands of dollars to be spent, thousands of people to shed tears and the entire world to stand still, even for a moment, in fear that this little boy had died a lonely, frightening and painful death.

And, he did it so that he could get onto TV. Reality TV that is neither reality, nor TV.

This genre known as reality TV has taken our world even lower than before. Imagine, actually, you don't need to imagine, it is already happening, the outrageous things that we watch people do for a few dollars and a quarter of an hour of fame.

People actually pick a spouse based on reality TV, they repeatedly risk their lives for reality TV, they embarrass themselves and others for reality TV and they humiliate others for reality TV.

Can we imagine someone picking a wife or husband as a part of a TV show? How about having plastic surgery on national television or living with strangers as the world watches your every move?

Reality TV is our generations version of the lions eating the Roman slaves in front of a coliseum filled with people.

Do we not wonder how could a society sink so low as to be entertained by the killing of a human? Do we not condemn, with total disgust, ancient societies for public executions, fights to the death or the public humiliation of a visible minority?

Yet, are we not doing the same thing with out reality TV? What message are we sending our daughters when they see ten women offering themselves to an "eligible bachelor", whose only eligibility is that he is a multi-millionaire?

What message are we giving our children when we have television shows where women are judged on their beauty and awarded free cosmetic surgery as a prize? Should we be surprised that so many young people have low self esteem and a negative body image about themselves?

What about the message we send when we allow people to humiliate themselves by eating insects, swim with man eating predators or jump out of airplanes to make a few dollars and a few minutes of fame? Do we really believe that fame or money is more important than life or that our own dignity should be given up so that we can be on national TV?

Now we have a man who caused the entire world to feel pain over the "hoaxed" death of a little boy, so that we could have a chance to disgrace himself further for some cash.

My friends, what the Romans did in their coliseum or the matadors did in their stadiums or the people of Salem did to their "witches" seems barbaric, cruel and a denial of the dignity of man- what we are doing with our reality TV is the same thing, only in high definition, full colour and surround sound is the exact same thing.

When we allow entertainment to tell our children and our selves that "reality" is that people will do anything for money, anything at all, then we cannot question why the world is so degraded.

When we have girls who want cosmetic surgery as a Bat Mitzvah gift or boys who believe that they only can marry a super model, we should not be surprised. That is exactly what we are allowing when we allow reality TV into our homes and our lives.

The truth is, none, absolutely none of these shows portray reality. They portray a world that is prepared to sell everything; self respect, dignity, marriage and even life itself for a dollar.

That might be how the world could be, but it certainly is not how the world should be and without a question it is not the world we want for ourselves and our families.

Reality shows make it possible for a desperate person to give up everything we hold dear for fame and fortune. It is a price that we cannot afford to pay and one that we should strongly object to in every way possible.

I feel sorry for the little boy whose father used him as a way to create one of these shows. The father who is willing to sacrifice his child to the Gd of TV simply should not be a father.

If there was ever a reason to require someone to get a license to become a parent, this certainly is one.