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… but I’m sure glad it did. Did anyone else notice how much the Preds’ Martin Erat was offside before he assisted on David Legwand’s goal in the second period tonight? The Preds went on to beat the Anaheim Ducks 5-4 in overtime, but I could tell watching in real time that Erat was either much faster than everyone on the ice or past the blue line before the puck. I didn’t hear Pete and Terry point out the missed call, but maybe they were just being nice.

The DVR didn’t lie: Erat was easily five feet ahead of the puck into the zone. I think the ref must have missed the offsides call because he was busy avoiding the puck. His head was turned away from Erat, and by the time he recovered Erat and the puck were even.

I’m happy the Preds won against the NHL’s current best team, but these two points should come with an asterisk attached. Regardless, go Preds!!

I am amazed how fast the news cycle has shortened. I just received an email from the City Paper reporting the breaking news that John Wilder is no longer speaker. My first thought was that this news is no longer breaking because I read about it 150 minutes ago. Granted, I’m a news junkie, so I’m essentially wrong: This major, first-time-in-35-years news is still breaking, and plenty of people still haven’t heard about it. Note that I just wrote “still.”

Newscoma has an interesting and related post today about, among other things, how news is (or isn’t) evolving. It begs the question, what is all of this going to look like in 5, 10 and 20 years?

Marrying the new media with the old media is a conversation I’m having with a lot of folks. You see, I may run a bi-weekly paper but the thing is, I would like to see how to arrange this effectively where everyone wins.

There are people in this world (I’m one of them) that loves the smudged ink stains on the tips of my fingers, the smell of a newly printed paper still toasty from coming off the press, reading the cutlines with an editor’s words describing their interpretation of a picture and opening the box of a newspaper box, the change clicking into the small box offering me a little slice of the world.

I also love the blogging community I’m in. Instant feedback, intimacy, dialogue and slices of worlds that I used to not have access to.

There has been plenty of ink and plenty of pixels devoted to the notion that newspapers are gradually dying out (some claiming not so gradually), but I’m not sure that’s the whole story. Too many of us still like to read, even if a future newspaper doesn’t look the way Newscoma describes above sooner or later, so I don’t think we’re headed toward an all-video future, as some have suggested. Hopefully, there will always be room for the written word alongside the spoken word and the image (moving or still).

[Thanks to Nashville Is Talking for pointing this post out.]

Related case in point: Even the media we choose to consume is changing. Despite the drawbacks that come from an encyclopedia that anyone can edit, Wikipedia is a favorite site of mine. The entry regarding John Wilder that I have been referencing recently in my posts has already been edited to refer to his tenure as speaker in the past tense. Aside: Does Wilder know about the series of tubes??

I’m relieved by the State Senate’s decision today to replace John Wilder as Lt. Governor. I applaud Senator Rosalind Kurita for following her conscience, as she explained, in voting for Sen. Ron Ramsey for speaker. Whether there were the usual machinations behind the scenes to bring about this result, I have no idea, but this is a good change for the state. In my opinion, voting against her party, regardless of other political implications, was the right thing to do.

Reportedly Sen. Jerry Cooper voted for Wilder, but not before privately urging him to step down as speaker. I would have liked to see him vote against Wilder, but I still respect his direct request of the former speaker. I like the sound of that last phrase.

It is a sad situation that Sen. Mike Williams, who many thought might be the deciding vote, likely made his decision only after seeing Kurita vote against Wilder. With Wilder unable to get the required 17 votes regardless of what Williams did, Williams did the politically expedient thing and voted with his party rather than for Wilder. If the speaker election were a secret ballot announced only after the counting instead of a public roll call vote, Wilder’s tenure as speaker may have ended a long time ago. That’s a shame.

Bob Krumm isn’t as optimistic as Kleinheider. Is he right?

My best guess is that the legislative session will begin as it has for the last 36 years–with John Wilder at the helm. And if that is the case, my sincerest wishes are for the old man to do his job well over the next two years. The future of our State depends on it.

I hope he is wrong, and Bob does, too. He goes on to raise an even more significant issue:

I made John Wilder’s leadership a center piece of my campaign to change the culture on Capitol Hill. The majority of people seemed to agree that he was incompetent. But acknowledging that Wilder needed to go was not the same thing as making Senator Douglas Henry precede him out the door…

Based on what I have read in the past few months, I would have to say that nearly everyone outside of the State Senate (and many within its walls) realizes that having John Wilder as our Lt. Governor is not in Tennessee’s best interest. Making that assumption, why is it that a small group of men cannot act in the best interest of six million people whom they serve? It is disappointing to see, though perhaps no surprise, that we struggle as a society to create positive change through government. Here’s hoping that Wilder’s tenure as speaker ends today and that we inch toward a government better suited to serve as many of its constituents as possible.

Today may (or may not) be decision day regarding the next speaker of the Tennessee State Senate. Whenever a verdict is reached, I sure hope Kleinheider is right:

They say in Tennessee Politics never to bet against the old man [incumbent speaker John Wilder], but I am tempted to this morning. My out on a limb prediction is that a week from now, John Wilder will no longer be Speaker. It may be [Sen. Ron] Ramsey or it may be someone else, but it will not be Wilder.

I think this would be a very positive development for Tennessee. In my opinion, Wilder has succeeded in establishing some level of bipartisanship that may well not have existed without him. That is a good thing. He has failed, though, in doing much other than maintaining his position as speaker, and he is largely responsible for the quagmire that the State Senate often is.

Here’s one question I can’t answer yet: Would Ramsey make a better speaker? Unquestionably, I think he would be a more credible figurehead for this governing body, but his ascension would likely lead to a much more partisan atmosphere.

I also wonder how much that atmosphere would change if Wilder is no longer the speaker. Regardless, I think having someone other than Wilder as Lt. Governor would be a good thing for the state, but how would the Senate operate in the wake of such a big change? Keep in mind that Wilder has served as speaker since 1971, so suffice it to say that there’s a well-worn, if undeniably eccentric, pattern of (or lack of) leadership in place.

I am holding out hope that Randy McNally emerges as the speaker, as Kleinheider speculates may be the case.

If no one can bust through the gridlock, someone very well may put McNally’s name in the hopper. He is a Republican, which would be fitting since the GOP holds a numerical majority. Also he is viewed as a Republican that Democrats can work with. If no one is able to achieve 17, I would look for a Lt. Governor McNally on a third or fourth ballot.

All of this leads me to a larger question: Is there anything that can reasonably be done to improve either legislative body of the General Assembly? There appears to be plenty of cynicism, self-interest and corruption to go around for quite some time, and I would sincerely like to see things change for the better. Unseating Wilder would likely be at least one solid step in that direction.