Bin Laden is dead buzz, Pittsburgh style

Here is a take on the buzz about the reported death & burial at sea of ObL.

Some of you might appreciate how the sports-talk nature of this view is spot on for things that do or don't get the attention of many Pittsburghers. In other words, for many Pittsburghers, if there is not a sports context to an incident, for all practical purposes it either didn't happen OR happened but is not worthy of them wasting any time deliberating. It goes like this.

There is a nigthly Pittsburgh sports talk show that airs 7 days a week, hosted by a secondary outlet " CW " of KDKA television, which, in Pittsburgh, has been affiliated with CBS since all the way back when KDKA was known as one of George Westinghouse's many wildly successful state-sponsored experiments. It is for this reason that the W in CW is said to represent group W, also known as the kinda long defunct "westinghouse broadcasting" corp. This talk show runs for nearly 1/2 hour prior to the 11PM local news slot and is usually hosted by 2 personalities from a revolving short list of local sports experts. The show usually begins by one or both of the hosts putting a hot issue or two out there for debate followed by 20 - plus minutes of viewers either emailing commentary OR dialing in live to the show. One of the interesting aspects of the latter is the high frequency of viewers calling in being censored by the one host who can generally be seen sitting in front of the camera with his one arm extended somewhat awkwardly so that the hand is always resting on the kill button, which, when pressed, generates a 10 to 20 second " oops, please stand by " dead air graphic sent out to the viewers.

Last night the main expert host was Bob Pompiani, sports Anchor for KDKA, and Gene Collier, who's spent the better part of the past 30 years or so as a local newspaper journalist working the Pittsburgh sports beat. The first topic they put out there turned out to be quite the hot one and my guess is, will run for several days and nights on the local sports talk circuit; Twitter and or Facebook commentary recently posted at the account of Rashard Mendenhall, Steeler running back.

The summary of Rashard's comments, paraphrased, is that he is questioning how quickly people have jumped on the media bandwaggon to celebrate a death ( bin Laden's ) when the average person would not know bin Laden from a hole in the ground and instead is inclined to take their queues from the government/media apparatus.....and he went on to further question the official explanation of 911, specifically the absurd notion that the WTC towers fell due to plane crashes.

The summary of critique from Pompiani and Collier is that the former believes that the " sensitivies involved " with 911 ( IE> because some people lost loved ones at the main sites of 911 activity ) demand that Rashard not be allowed to air such questions / comments in public because it might hurt some people's feelings, and the latter, while highly critical of Rashard, at least drew the line and said that depsite " these infantile comments " he deserves his First Ammendment right to make them.

The commentary of viewers allowed to go out over the airewaves was somewhat mixed, at least, it was on last nights show..... who knows what another day of this percolating will bring ? The nay sayers were like Pompiani, at the drop of the hat they were ready to skewer and or trade and or rid the city of Mendenhall, but there were a few that called for some rationale understanding and allowing, on principle, such comments to happen. My take is that I am no longer surprised at how quickly the masses will accept media say so " OBL is dead...cause we say so.... the body is gone, buried at sea, because we say so.....this proves we were right to take our nation to war over 911, because we say so, and anyone who disagrees, is a pathetic unamerican person, cause we say so"


Precious!

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