The NHL suspended Nashville Predators forward Scott Nichol yesterday for nine games after Nichol blindsided another player, Buffalo Sabres defenseman Jaroslav Spacek, on Thursday night. Nichol retaliated after Spacek drove him into the goalpost late in the Sabres’ lopsided 7-2 victory over the Preds.

I can understand Nichol’s response after Spacek’s dangerous play, one that could have injured Nichol. Even though fighting is still a significant element in the NHL, striking someone when they are defenseless is wrong. I wish Nichol would have gotten Spacek’s attention first before engaging him, but I applaud Nichol for how he handled yesterday’s decision by the league:

“First, I offer my apologies to Jaroslav Spacek and am thankful that he was not hurt,” Nichol said. “I have great respect for the game and my fellow players, and in the heat of the moment (Thursday) night, I lost my cool and reacted emotionally to being fouled. I am not proud of my actions, but I take full responsibility and accept the consequences. “I also apologize to my teammates, coaches, the organization and Predators fans, and look forward to returning to action and helping my team.”

Nichol took responsibility for his actions, acknowledged what he did wrong, and accepted his punishment. He didn’t pass blame or try to justify his actions. He just said, “mea culpa,” and let it go.

I think it’s refreshing to see a public figure these days just admit what he did wrong and accept responsibility without reservation. We all make mistakes, but not everyone knows how to own them when they happen. In my opinion, being a class act does not mean living perfectly. It does mean doing the right thing even when it isn’t easy.

I hope someone can appreciate the irony that I am linking to this Wall Street Journal editorial with this post. Read on if you are curious.

WSJ Assistant Editorial Features Editor Joseph Rago has strong criticisms for bloggers. We’re bottom feeders, for one: (I suppose that’s a harsher way of describing the Long Tail.)

The blogs are not as significant as their self-endeared curators would like to think. Journalism requires journalists, who are at least fitfully confronting the digital age. The bloggers, for their part, produce minimal reportage. Instead, they ride along with the MSM like remora fish on the bellies of sharks, picking at the scraps … The larger problem with blogs, it seems to me, is quality. Most of them are pretty awful. Many, even some with large followings, are downright appalling.

Honestly, I think he’s probably right. Meaningful content is a challenge for those of us who blog for enjoyment rather than for a living. So many blogs are created and then abandoned, and most of us (including me most of the time) are responding to news generated by the mainstream media, not sharing new information.

Rago playfully refers to bloggers as fools by quoting author Joseph Conrad. Blogs are, in his opinion and Conrad’s words, “Written by fools to be read by imbeciles.” I wonder if this is the whole truth, though. Will it always be this way? If blogging is peaking, as has been recently reported, will the cream rise to the surface of the crop? As Technorati has pointed out, “sheer dedication pays off over time” when it comes to blogging, and that may mean that blogging will improve as serious writers stick around and continue to get better at it. Let’s hope so.

That’s what I’m trying to tell myself after a conversation about the Tennessee General Assembly last night. A well-connected friend tells me that Lt. Governor John Wilder is more than likely to retain his Senate speaker post in January. Tennessean columnist Larry Daughtrey seems to agree.

In my friend’s opinion, that may not be a bad thing because of the bipartisanship Wilder has maintained by granting Republicans committee chairmanships in the past. Ron Ramsey, the current Republican challenger, isn’t known for building bridges to the other side. Maybe my friend is right, but I have a hard time hoping for Wilder to remain in office.

According to this friend, there are two senators who can land the 17 votes needed to serve as speaker: Wilder and Randy McNally, a Republican who is more moderate and bipartisan than Ramsey, from my limited understanding of the Hill. Here’s hoping McNally gets a shot.

What about Joe Haynes, who is attempting to unseat Wilder as the Democratic opponent? Here’s where things might get really messy. If Ramsey were to run against Haynes, a 16-16 tie might leave the current speaker, Wilder, to cast the deciding vote. Guess what happens if Wilder refuses to vote? He remains as speaker, leaving Haynes and Ramsey on the outside looking in. Yep, that’s the Tennessee State Senate for you.

“It’s like fourth grade, with beer.”

Someone used this phrase to describe adults playing kickball to me last night. I think that’s a hilarious and accurate description. My last kickball game was surely in the 1980s, but I think it’s great and quite amusing that kickball has been experiencing a resurgence over the past few years.

It’s hilarious to me that there is a World Adult Kickball Association, but don’t laugh too hard:

Whether it’s the game itself or the drinking, WAKA now has leagues in more than 20 states — from New Hampshire to New Mexico — with more than 20,000 players on 1,000 teams in 100 divisions. In the summer of 2005, the association even helped set up a league for Marines stationed in Fallujah — the Iraq Semper Fi Division…

And, as with any playground-style pursuit, kickball isn’t without its shouting matches. WAKA and DC Kickball, a smaller rival league, are currently caught up in a federal lawsuit, with WAKA charging the competition with copyright infringement (for using their rules) and defamation. WAKA is suing DC Kickball for more than a few weeks’ allowance — seeking $356,000 in compensatory and punitive damages…

WAKA held its ninth annual world championship, the Founders Cup, in Miami last July, and attracted more than 300 fans to most games.

I’m not sure why WAKA and DC Kickball haven’t agreed to settle their differences on the field, but I guess it’s really none of my business. The Nashville Sports League offers three separate divisions to help you with your kickball fix if you live here in town. The fellow who coined “fourth grade, with beer” was an NSL kickball veteran.

My memories of kickball are of being a pretty average player. I wasn’t picked first, but I wasn’t picked last. I remember demanding “re-rolls” when pitches weren’t smooth enough–a common occurrence on our playground at school–and the rush of seeing the ball heading your way. It was a thrill to feel a kick send the ball rifling through the air. Those were the days.

I’m encouraged that the field of candidates to become Nashville’s next mayor is growing. A few months ago, there were three declared candidates, none of whom appealed to me. Now there are five community leaders who have announced for the race that have a reasonable opportunity to win next August.

This is progress, in my opinion. Nashville has been blessed with two strong mayors over four terms, and I think that these two pairs of shoes will be hard–and essential–to fill well. Beginning with Phil Bredesen’s election in 1991 and continuing to Bill Purcell’s current tenure, Nashville has had visionary leadership that has been a major factor in its substantial growth and development and its maturation into a more progressive city. It is important to continue that pattern, if you ask me.

It really wasn’t all that long ago that Nashville had a major deficit in leadership in the office of mayor. It is hard to imagine Bill Boner running the city I call home today, and thank goodness for that. (If you are interested in more information, follow the Bill Boner link and be sure to read the three paragraphs beginning with “In 1987, Nashville Mayor …”)

I have not made up my mind regarding my vote for mayor next summer, and I sincerely want to have an open mind in considering all five major candidates. I’m going to share my impressions thus far, candid and limited as they currently are, and see how they evolve as I continue to learn more in the months ahead. Here goes:

• David Briley, Metro Council member and originally a vice-mayor candidate: a progressive thinker with good intentions, but is he ready?
• Bob Clement, former U.S. congressman: a career politician and an underwhelming candidate, in my opinion
• Karl Dean, who announced yesterday: innovative, compassionate and progressive thinker who needs to increase name recognition in a hurry. (Hint: Karl, you need a Web site!)
• Buck Dozier, Metro Fire Chief: I think Buck is an honest and respectable person. I am concerned that he is too conservative for a Nashville that is much more diverse than it was 20 years ago. I do like his education proposal.
• Howard Gentry, current Metro Vice-Mayor: Howard is a well-respected leader and, by all impressions, a good man. I personally think he is not the best candidate because he is too mild and may not be able to build consensus across the city. I would be happy to see Nashville with a mayor who is a minority, but I don’t think Howard is that mayor.

Now is a great time to visit the Web sites above and learn more about each candidate. There will be plenty of news and debate to color your impressions later, but take the time to form your own before the volume rises next spring.

Update: Kenneth Eaton, a longtime Nashville businessman, will announce his candidacy for mayor next month. His Web site has more information. Dave Pelton, a self-described energy and environmental policy expert, is also running.

Blogger Nathan Moore is reporting that Democrats in the Tennessee state Senate, including Senator Joe Haynes, may be working behind the scenes to defeat Lt. Governor John Wilder. From Moore’s post, it appears that Haynes might be trying to convince party members to vote for Senator Ron Ramsey, Wilder’s opponent for the speaker election.

I hope this rumor turns out to be true. As I’ve previously mentioned, I think Wilder is a poor choice for speaker, despite (in light of?) the fact that he has held this office for more than 35 years. My impressions are that he is nearly unintelligible when speaking on a regular basis and that he is focused almost exclusively in preserving his position and power, not on acting in the best interest of Tennesseans. I am admittedly not a fan of Senator Ramsey, either, but I would prefer to see him in the position over Wilder.

Carrie and I recently visited the ICE! exhibit at the Opryland Convention Center. It’s a pretty amazing display of nearly two million pounds of ice meticulously carved into shapes, creatures and structures, including three ice slides, a train and a gingerbread house. (Yes, that’s Carrie sliding down one of the ice slides above.) This exhibit is beautiful and, of course, very cold. The staff will provide you with a blue parka to wear, but you will also be wise to bundle up on your own. This is a fun outing to get you in the holiday spirit.

The Office, one of my favorite shows, serves as a vicarious thrill for me because its characters do things week in and week out that no one under any circumstances should do. It’s like watching a car accident where the collisions are purely emotional and psychological. I often find myself simultaneously laughing out loud and wincing in embarrassment over what, typically, Dwight Schrute or Michael Scott have done.

Last night was no exception. I thought “A Benihana Christmas, Parts 1 & 2″ was an outstanding episode that featured plenty of “no, they didn’t” hijinks:

• Dwight arriving at work and planting a goose that he hit with a car on Pam’s desk. Toby revealing that Dwight has previously brought waterfowl to the office.
• Angela’s draconian party planning committee. Who expels a coworker from a party planning meeting and tells her, to her face, that all of her ideas are terrible?
• Michael photoshopping himself into a picture of his soon-to-be ex-girlfriend Carol and her ex-husband taking their kids on a ski trip and sending it out as their Christmas card.
• Michael buying an all-inclusive vacation to Jamaica and trying to surprise Carol with it with two days notice, after previously prematurely proposing in public weeks earlier. Equally bad were his invitations to Pam and to Cindy. (You have to love that Cindy still takes the bike after ditching Michael.)
• Jim (and this is for you, Katherine Coble) shooting down Pam’s Christmas present to him, a weeks-in-the-making gag at Dwight’s expense, by saying that he needs to be more mature in his new position at work.
• Kevin’s karaoke version of Alanis Morissette’s “You Oughta Know.” Ouch.
• My personal favorite: Michael not being able to distinguish between the two Japanese waitresses that he and Andy spontaneously invite to the party. I laughed and cringed when Michael leaned in to hug Cindy and proceeded to draw a line on her arm with magic marker to identify her. Wow, that was so bad but good.

One thing I love about this show is how it deals with stereotypes. It stares them right in the face and makes fun of the people who take them seriously. The Japanese waitresses weren’t the ones who looked foolish. It was Michael for not being able to tell them apart. Michael’s ignorance and awkwardness in outing homosexual coworker Oscar in the season premiere were equally funny and painful at the same time.

Our Christmas presents from The Office last night were a pair of cliffhangers to keep us interested until the show returns in January: Did Michael invite Jan to Jamaica, and was that her accepting the invitation on the phone? Will Jim leave Karen and reach out to Pam? There’s nothing like a little workplace drama, especially when it’s not your own.

According to research company Gartner, Inc., as reported by the Associated Press, blogging is so 2006. Or, at least it will be soon:

Could blogging be near the peak of its popularity? The technology gurus at Gartner Inc. believe so. One of the research company’s top 10 predictions for 2007 is that the number of bloggers will level off in the first half of next year at roughly 100 million worldwide.

The reason: Most people who would ever dabble with Web journals already have. Those who love it are committed to keeping it up, while others have gotten bored and moved on, said Daryl Plummer, chief Gartner fellow.

“A lot of people have been in and out of this thing,” Plummer said. “Everyone thinks they have something to say, until they’re put on stage and asked to say it.”

I’m curious to see whether this pans out as Gartner expects, but they may well be right. As Technorati frequently reports, only a fraction of blogs are regularly updated. Technorati estimates that 55 percent of the 57-million-plus blogs it measures are “active,” meaning that they have been updated within the past three months. I hardly consider one post within three months active. Only about three percent of blogs update daily, though that’s a pretty high standard of activity. Weekly seems like a better balance to me, or at least monthly.

I think the point above about not having something to say is accurate. In searching for available blog names, I was amazed (and frustrated) by how many good names were taken by blogs that had not been updated in years. So many of them had one or just a few posts before the silence began.

I’m curious to see what this means for blogging in general. Even if the number of new blogs and bloggers plateaus as predicted, will blogging recede from our collective consciousness. It’s awfully mainstream at this point. It seems like nearly everyone I know is at least familiar with blogging and have visited at least one or two. Many people I know are read blogs fairly often, so I don’t know that the blogosphere is about to implode under its own weight or anything. Of course, Gartner isn’t really predicting that, but their prognostications do leave me wondering where all of this is heading. I guess we’ll see.

… and I’m very relieved about that. I don’t agree with Billy Graham on every spiritual issue, but I am glad that LifeWay decided to keep his likeness (above) clothed in the new statue unveiled yesterday downtown. I have to say that it does look very much like Graham, at the very least.

I honestly think this sculpture is pretty gaudy, though I am sure it is well-intentioned. Christianity places so much significance on humility and compassion–as does Graham–so it seems odd to me to create a colossal version of the beloved evangelist to tower over passersby for years to come. It seems a bit ironic, and almost intimidating, to me, and that really isn’t Graham’s nature, in my opinion. As I said above, there are plenty of things I don’t agree with Graham on, but I do think he is a dedicated, sincere and kindhearted man. I’m not sure this attempt at tribute lives up to that legacy.

(For the record, I love that Musica is on Music Row, if for nothing else that it offends some local folks with sensibilities that may be a bit too conservative. I just don’t want to see Billy Graham naked, and I think I’m in the majority on that issue.)

According to the City Paper, Lieutenant Governor John Wilder claims he will be re-elected speaker of the state Senate in January. I hope he is wrong.

Wilder (D-Mason) has served as speaker of the Senate and therefore lieutenant governor since 1971, surviving attempts by both Republicans and Democrats to oust him. The most recent effort came in 2005 when, with the Republicans holding a 17-16 majority, the GOP tried to oust him, but two Republican senators crossed party lines and voted for Wilder.

In January, another vote can be held to elect the Senate speaker, and again the Republicans hold a 17-16 majority. One Republican who voted for Wilder in 2005, Sen. Mike Williams (R-Maynardville), remains noncommittal on whom he will support in January – Wilder or the Republican nominee, Senate Majority Leader Ron Ramsey (R-Blountville).

Senator Williams has every right to vote for whichever candidate he thinks is in the state’s best interests, and I sincerely hope that he will not vote for Wilder on those grounds. As I’ve previously mentioned, in my opinion it is time for someone else to hold this important position. This is not a partisan issue for me: It’s more important to me that the speaker be someone other than Wilder than anything else. I very much agree with Liz Garrigan’s recent column on this subject.

… by News2 faith and ethics videojournalist Jamey Tucker:

But then again, there’s nothing Christian or even religious about the Christmas tree. Is there? Its roots are in paganism. A tree is nothing more than a traditional Christmas symbol. Saying a Christmas tree represents the birth of Jesus is like saying a bunny represents the crucifixion.

I’m all for the public display of religious symbols. Faith is a fundamental part of our freedoms in America. Put up a menorrah. Put up a winter solstice plaque. Put up a Christmas tree. We shouldn’t be offended by seeing these symbols.

I agree, and Jamey’s words remind me of author Robert Fulghum’s advice in his book All I Ever Really Needed to Know I Learned In Kindergarten:

Share everything. Play fair. Don’t hit people. Put things back where you found them. Clean up your own mess. Don’t take things that aren’t yours. Say you are sorry when you hurt somebody. Wash your hands before you eat. Flush. Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you. Live a balanced life. Learn some and think some and draw some and paint and sing and dance and play and work everyday.

Take a nap every afternoon. When you go out in the world, watch for traffic, hold hands, and stick together.

Thanks for the good reminder for all of us, Jamey, that maybe we shouldn’t take things quite so seriously. (Psst…don’t tell anyone that Fulghum is a Unitarian. That will really freak the War on Christmas crowd out. They love buying and reading his book until they discover the truth.)