Subscriber Only: If You're Focused On Balloons, You're Doing It Wrong

In the past two weeks I’ve learned more about balloons than I ever wanted to know.

And not by choice.

Everywhere I turn I’ve been swept into an incestuous cyclone of media reporting, watching as near breathless news anchors theorize on the origin of this aerial phenomena; anything from Chinese spy devices to UFOs.

The idea that these objects may be extrate…