Monday, July 28, 2008
Media Gail Kerr and Peter Cooper: Rocking the Sunday Tennessean
Posted by Matt Pulle on Mon, Jul 28, 2008 at 1:37 PM
"The little building is neat and clean and tidy; her flower boxes are gorgeous. Inside, there's a sprawling conference table, an office with black leather furniture and paneled walls lined with photos of stars.”As long as we’re on the uncomfortable topic of heaping praise on the daily... Let’s give kudos to Peter Cooper, who penned an incisive profile of Nashville Sounds pitcher Lindsay Gulin, a 31-year-old career minor leaguer. Although Gulin has won at every level of the minors, major league teams aren't interested because he can't light up a radar gun. While so many Tennessean features pile up one sentence after another with all the care and precision of a Cub Scout foraging for firewood, Cooper’s story actually flows. That makes reading enjoyable. Here’s one passage that could have been lifted from a well-crafted magazine piece:
"The knock on him has always been that he doesn't throw very hard," said Sounds pitching coach Stan Kyles. Here's the knock on the knock: Lindsey Gulin gets the job done. He weighs about 170 pounds, and in his own assessment he's "kind of goofy looking," but he gets hitters out. To hit a baseball, a person must anticipate where the ball will be at a split second in time and then swing the bat so that it meets the ball in the correctly anticipated spot. Gulin's game is about deception: His windup, countenance and arm motion are the same when throwing the 82 mph fastball as when throwing a 71 mph change-up, and his pitches dart in unpredictable directions. That turns an at-bat into a guessing game, and hitters find guessing games neither enjoyable nor productive.So there you have it. Two strong stories in the same Sunday Tennessean. Let's keep this up, guys.
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Then I should add, in case anyone at 1100 Broadway was planning on giving me a call, that the Tennessean's business section was about 10 times less newsy and interesting than the City Paper's was today. That's the case every Monday actually. The Tennessean should just direct its readers to the CP.
"Kerr shreds that case with one simple paragraph:
"The little building is neat and clean and tidy; her flower boxes are gorgeous."
Unfortunately, there was a lot of window dressing for the press conference Ford held at her office last Monday (7.21.08). If Ms. Kerr had driven by her office two months or two weeks before that, she would have seen barbed wire surrounding a dismal looking structure. The flowers and the flags are new. Ford has had ten years to fix that place up and could never be bothered until a week ago.
I've been driving past that place for years and not once did I ever think "gosh, that building looks blighted." I can't imagine everyone did. If every business had to have the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval to prevent it from being seized, then we all better buy some flower pots for our homes and stores.
I don't recall there being any exceptions for "blighted" property listed in the text of the 5th Amendment prohibition on the taking of private property.
Nor is there anything in there explaining that private developments that would bring in more tax revenue than is being collected from current property owners counts as being a "public use".
Matt: "Let's keep this up guys"? First, what will we have to write about on the blog if they keep it up. (And Peter Cooper is typically a strong writer.) Second, is Gail Kerr a guy? Do you see how your vernacular is consumed with sexism? Do you want me to sick Tracy Moore on you?
