May 29, 2015

NESN: Far From Professional

Screengrabber:
[Thursday's] NESN broadcast of the Red Sox-Twins game featured a mid-game interlude of the announcers discussing their memories of the dear, departed Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome. It also featured video of the Metrodome being imploded — something that never happened.

The video NESN aired is of the implosion of Seattle's Kingdome in 2000. Stranger still, the video was digitally edited to add a roof and other elements of the building that did not exist when the Kingdome was blown up ...
This is completely bizarre, especially the lame Photoshopping of a dome onto the building, a dome that instantly vanishes as the implosion begins.

This raises several questions. If the brilliant minds at NESN knew the Metrodome had a roof and they had some footage of a stadium without a roof, wouldn't that have suggested to them that perhaps that stadium was NOT the Metrodome? Nope. They just clumsily added a roof to the video. ... And then got busy thinking of a follow-up to the Wally Wave.

22 comments:

Maxwell Horse said...

What with the controlled demolition aspect, I'm waiting for the inevitable unsolicited smirking wisecracks about how there are loony nuts in the world that don't believe the official 9/11 story. ["And aren't those people silly? I personally don't know any facts about that event. I've done no research. I have no grasp on the science involved. I'm also completely ignorant to how such false flag events are the rule rather than the exception throughout human history (including widely accepted modern U.S. history) when justification was needed to invade another country. Yet despite my ignorance, I have no problem smirking over such ideas. Just so long as whoever I'm smirking at has a minority view, I figure everyone else will laugh along with me and applaud my intellectual bankruptcy. Amirite?"]

If this sounds like an odd concern, it's not baseless. Under literally every deadspin article I've deigned to look at (admittedly not a lot), such lazy mindlessness has popped up in the comments. Randomly so. It doesn't really matter what the topic of the story is, apparently. It's become an easy, lazy talking point in the Deadspin community when you want to get the all-important internet "recommendation star" from your fellow ditto-heads.

Ernie Paicopolos said...

Just another in a long list of examples of NESN's second-rate status. Anyone who's been abel to sample the other regional sports networks covering baseball knows how lame NESN truly is.

laura k said...

M Horse for President.

allan said...

inevitable unsolicited smirking wisecracks about how there are loony nuts in the world that don't believe the official 9/11 story

1) I prefer to call myself a "realist".

2) To which of the (at least) 10 official stories are you referring?

allan said...

Under literally every deadspin article I've deigned to look at (admittedly not a lot), such lazy mindlessness has popped up in the comments

Actually 9/11-related comments?

Well, the professional sowers of disinformation/ridicule are incredibly effective.

Maxwell Horse said...

"2) To which of the (at least) 10 official stories are you referring?"

I didn't realize there were 10 different stories. However, I was aware that the commonly accepted details on some things have been ever-changing. Also that some of the more unexplainable issues have never even addressed or publicly acknowledged in any form.

It brings up an interesting point that I've often thought of myself. If you ask the average schmoe if they believe the official explanation of 9/11 (and/or how the 3 WTC buildings fell in the manner they did), they would of course say yes. Emphatically. And they'd be affronted that anyone could think otherwise. (!!!)

But if you ask them, okay, so what exactly IS the official explanation of those things, they have no clue. They don't even know what it is they're claiming they agree with. Basically their stance is, "Whatever it is polite society says I'm supposed to believe, I believe it."

This is like asking someone to correct a math paper. And they give it an A+ without actually looking at the work.


"Actually 9/11-related comments?"

Yes, specifically 9/11 comments. It could be about a completely unrelated story. But when a commenter wants to make fun of someone in the article or paint someone as an idiot, they'll compare it to the 9/11 truthers, and everyone smirks along knowingly in their replies.

The sad thing is, I don't think these are professional disinformation people. Just typical non-inquisitive Americans. People whose entire worldview is defined by the media and herd mentality--rather than by logic, facts, personal agency or curiosity.

allan said...

I didn't mean disinfo people are on Deadspin, just that they have polluted the general public discourse on 9/11 - and promoted insane theories as things that are widely believed by doubters of the government's line - so people feel free to criticize what they don't know/understand. They did wonders in diverting attention from damning information.

I was aware that the commonly accepted details on some things have been ever-changing.

That's more of what I mean. Certain aspects seemed to get a new story around them every time they were repeated. I researched Bush's movements on 9/11 and I found 7 or 8 different versions of how he found out about the first plane (including seeing it on TV). The excuses for the lack of military response (on 9/13, the acting Joint Chiefs of Staff said that no military plane moved an inch until the attacks were over; after that, the story began changing, but still never making sense) total close to 10. And there are timings of various events that morning that were rewritten in the Commission's Report to make the official story make more sense.

allan said...

Just recently, there was a news item about books found in OBL's lair when he was supposedly murdered by the US. The report said there were dozens of conspiracy books, including many about 9/11.

allan said...

Just another in a long list of examples of NESN's second-rate status.

NESN has:
- cameramen who cannot follow the baseball
- a director/producer who continually chooses bizarre in-play camera shots
- a chronic inability to show an entire game without missing pitches
- no ability to determine what is a good replay versus a worthless one
- an announcer who describes things that are not happening on the field
- an analyst who apparently refuses to analyze
- a seemingly bottomless desire to pander to the stupidest non-fans tuning in

allan said...

NESN's graphics are quite nice, however - very sleek and appealing. But they are like a new coat of paint on a house whose foundation is rotting away.

laura k said...

But if you ask them, okay, so what exactly IS the official explanation of those things, they have no clue. They don't even know what it is they're claiming they agree with. Basically their stance is, "Whatever it is polite society says I'm supposed to believe, I believe it."

I think this applies to most subjects.

Yes, specifically 9/11 comments. It could be about a completely unrelated story. But when a commenter wants to make fun of someone in the article or paint someone as an idiot, they'll compare it to the 9/11 truthers, and everyone smirks along knowingly in their replies.

I don't know if this happens in the US, but in Canada "truthers" are linked with "birthers". Because if you question anything, you believe everything. Where in fact the opposite is true.

The sad thing is, I don't think these are professional disinformation people. Just typical non-inquisitive Americans. People whose entire worldview is defined by the media and herd mentality--rather than by logic, facts, personal agency or curiosity.

It is the case here, too. Although I will say, I have been heartened by the number of people I have met who understand that something else happened, other than what we were told, and are very willing to believe there has been a cover-up. Intelligent, thinking people who may not have studied the issue (although I'm surprised at how many people have!), but have absorbed enough to know that the official story(ies) are crap, and the whole thing is part of the propaganda machine.

Maxwell Horse said...

"...although I'm surprised at how many people have [studied the problems of 9/11]..."

I wonder. Do you think there are more or less people like this around these days who question 9/11? (Obviously, this is rhetorical, since the incredibly small sample size would make any answer statistically worthless.)

From my end, it's hard to say, as I haven't "actively" researched this stuff for several years now. But sadly, I have the sense that as time has passed from the event itself, people seem even *more* accepting of 9/11 as the media portrayed it, and less motivated to question it.

I know that seems counter-intuitive. You'd think if anything that people removed from the immediate fear and confusion of the event would be more open to alternate possibilities (alternative possibilities such as the idea that maybe, just maybe all laws of physics in fact were not magically suspended that day). Yet I sense the opposite has happened. Maybe it's just the odd lazy comment on Deadspin swaying me, but I get the feeling that it's now "comfortably entrenched" in society that 9/11 truth equals something to be mocked.

A similar (bewildered) thought occurred to me the other day when NESN was mindlessly, dogmatically romanticizing our perpetual wars over the Memorial Day weekend. More than ever I think people realize that those wars were based on nothing. And yet ironically, the childlike mantras of "the soldiers are fighting for our freedoms over there!" seems stronger than ever. (This contrast is a prime example of George Orwell's "doublethink.") It's kind of crazy. People are more comfortable than ever admitting that Saddam wasn't the threat he was portrayed as, yet they seem more uncomfortable than ever to criticize the war itself.

Maybe with Obama becoming president it suddenly made the wars seem warm and fuzzy to those that would otherwise object to them? Or maybe it's like everything else in life--people become accepting of just about everything over time. Even awful things.

allan said...

It seems to me that if more people realize that the Middle East wars were for nothing, it would make sense that they would hold onto that "fighting for freedom" mantra even tighter. Admitting that it was all a waste of money and human life and didn't do anything except make war profiteers more wealthy and murder hundreds of thousands of people - and that they were obviously duped into believing otherwise - might be too much to accept. Because once you start questioning that, you might start questioning other things too. And then what happens ...

allan said...

One reason I think Obama is worse than Bush is that he suddenly made all the evil Bush/Cheney evil that so many people protested be a-okay - because a Democrat was doing it. He neutered the entire anti-war protest movement, killed it dead. (Or I should say that was one huge benefit for the PTB in having him "elected". Obama is nothing but a willing servant.)

And I firmly believe that in 30 years if it came out that the U.S. absolutely allowed 9/11 to happen and actively facilitated the attacks, the public would not react in shock and anger, but would simply nod their heads at the headlines and go about their business.

Maxwell Horse said...

"I firmly believe that in 30 years if it came out that the U.S. absolutely allowed 9/11 to happen and actively facilitated the attacks, the public would not react in shock and anger, but would simply nod their heads at the headlines and go about their business."

I think I might've said this before, but I'm so cynical I actually believe that if it was announced NOW that 9/11 was a lie--as long as it was disclosed in a nonchalant way, cueing the public that they're supposed to think it's no big deal and just part of our necessary war on terror--that most of the public would just shrug.

I know that sounds crazy, but think of the completely inconsistent way people respond to various stories--all based on the way the issues are framed for them. If dark-skinned people kill a couple innocents, people are morally outraged (as they should be). But if the U.S. assists in the intentional razing of a whole hospital full of children as part of an ethnic cleansing, then it's all good. One guy *may have* been playing with footballs that are a fraction under regulation PSI, it's the biggest international scandal of the year. Another player openly admits to skirting the PSI regulations, he wins MVP.

And I completely agree about Obama. (He's basically just a less mentally-handicapped version of Bush. He's only paid to show up on TV and recite lines. He's the good cop to Bush's bad cop.) I remember at the time he was first elected, various alternative sites I was visiting at the time even "called it." It was obvious then, as it is now, that the swell of protest that Bush incited would now be quashed.

And I can tell you, the shift in the emails that Move On started putting out when Obama came into office kind of exposed them for frauds--at least for me. Suddenly the war wasn't so bad. Patriot Act, hey, let's give it a chance! Etc, etc. It seems that their biggest concern in the world these days is GMO labeling. Not that I'm against that, but you get my point.

laura k said...

And I can tell you, the shift in the emails that Move On started putting out when Obama came into office kind of exposed them for frauds--at least for me. Suddenly the war wasn't so bad.

Yup, if you didn't know before, you certainly knew then. They are more sickening to me than the Tea Party.

laura k said...

AND... they're doing it all over again with Bernie Sanders!! Bernie will save us! He's the man! This is the saviour we've been waiting for!

I didn't understand AT ALL why (almost) everyone appeared to be fooled by Obama, why their hearts were broken. What were they expecting?? But now, a minute and a half later, they're doing it all over again!

!!!! a million times over

allan said...

At Democratic Underground - a message board which was a valuable source of news during the Bush years but a place I no longer visit - the most common excuse given for Obama's immediate hearty embrace (and expansion) of all of Bush's criminal activities was that there were Bush holdovers in his circle of advisors and he couldn't do anything about it. They were forcing him to act the way he was acting. Seriously, I read that for at least 3 years!!!

allan said...

Honestly, the extensive mental contortions those DU posters have to put themselves through - or the volume of news stories they must have to actively ignore - to continue cheering for Obama and hoping for the best from HRC would make an interesting psychological study.

Maxwell Horse said...

Reading back on these comments, I think it's safe to assume that all three of us have our profiles included in every "person of interest" watch-list across the northern continent.

laura k said...

I can't speak for you, Horse, but I'd be insulted if it were otherwise.

Anonymous said...

WTF haha, my Vikings do not appreciate that