Im amazed at what some people will do for attention. Often the events have absolutely no socially redeeming value.

So this week, a father and son posted a video online of the two of them shocking each other with a stun gun. The son has been sent to prison because it was determined that he stole the stun gun from a police car. He pleaded guilty to possession of an electric weapon.

Now I didn’t know it was illegal to possess an electric weapon. But obviously if it was stolen from a cop’s car, the issue has greater dimension. I guess it depends on how you use an electric weapon. For instance, when I carve a ham, I use an electric knife. But I think using it as a weapon would require special circumstances and advance preparation. If you get into a knife fight in an alley, the chances of finding a plug-in would be slim to none.

Then comes Kent Couch who reached his flight destination Saturday in a unique excursion that involved a lawn chair with helium-filled balloons attached. He flew across Oregon and landed in Idaho. Idaho is a good place to land. There aren’t a lot of people there so your liability is reduced exponentially. I use the word exponentially occastionally when I have no formula for an exact number.

Flying in a lawn chair with balloons tied to it sounds like something out of a “Roadrunner” cartoon or a child’s coloring book. I once flew in a hot-air balloon. It was powered by flames from a propane tank. The basic difference between a hot air balloon and a gas grill is some nylon. And we had the added assurance of propellant in that there were two politicians aboard.

It’s very humbling to realize that you are 2,000 feet up in the air in what amounts to a picnic basket on steroids. Imagine how humbling it must be to fly across a state in a lawn chair.

Again, I see no socially redeeming value in Mr. Couch’s ride nor mine. I never said that I haven’t done some stupid things as well.

Then comes Joey Chestnut who held on to his hotdog eating title this week in an unprecedented overtime against Japan’s Takeru Kobayashi, a six-time winner.

I just don’t see the point. What do you prove when you gulp down 59 hot dogs in 10 minutes? It’s not like you can enjoy the relish or decide which is best, brown mustard or yellow. And certainly you can’t put up a case for the best wine to go with such fare. At least when those people run in front of the stampeded bulls in Pamploma Spain, the bulls have an opportunity to rid our planet of idiots who breath valuable air and take up precious parking spaces. (Socially redeeming value.)

Now I’m not here to say that everything we attempt must be of Mother Teresa strength. But if you are going to do something really stupid and post in on You Tube, you might want to think it through and make sure it didn’t involve a cop’s car.

Here’s a thought: With all the money Wiley Coyote spent on ACME products in those Road Runner cartoons, couldn’t he have just ordered some pheasant under glass? There should be more seminars on “thinking things through.” We might even get into fewer wars that way.

(Dwain Walden is editor/publisher of The Moultrie Observer, 985-4545. E-mail: dwain.walden@gaflnews.com)