Since The Zone is preempting ESPN programming when its local shows are on the air, the net gain in sports programming is zero. I’m all for keeping local shows around, but I still miss having national ESPN broadcasting as an option whenever the Zone resorts to outdoors or auto racing shows. I’m happy that George Plaster and company won the sportscaster slugfest at WWTN-FM years ago, but that victory came at a cost.

Eddie very much enjoyed conversation, loved holding court, and his Banner office next to mine was a favored between-deadlines spot. Craig Leipold, then the owner of newly introduced Nashville Predators, was gracious enough to accept an invitation to the staff’s annual holiday luncheon potluck (what turned out to be our last before the paper folded a couple of months later).

Leipold filled a plate of food and joined Mr. Russell — the Banner’s legendary sports editor, Fred Russell, who to this day I can refer to as nothing but Mr. Russell many years after his passing — in Eddie’s office. With very little begging from Eddie and me, who had practically memorized the stories by now, Mr. Russell proceeded to regale us one last time with his infamous practical jokes, and personal tales about his buddies Jack Dempsey, Bobby Jones, Red Grange and Bear Bryant. We laughed until we cried, as always, and Leipold practically choked on his baked ham, giggling.

I only met Eddie once briefly in 1995 as a confused and clueless recent college graduate, but I quickly learned that he and I shared a profound devotion to (at least) two things: the city of Nashville and our alma mater, Washington and Lee University. It’s nice to see someone who loved this city so much receive so much love in return.

Related: The City Paper, The Tennessean (Gail Kerr), Pith in the Wind

Welcome to the Tennessee political blogosphere: where citizen journalists, amateur pundits and wiseacres with broadband access endlessly type and snipe. It’s a well established, highly organized and highly readable subculture with a devoted following among political junkies, casual Web surfers, politicians and reporters alike…

“There are a ton of Texas bloggers … but they don’t ever seem to talk or know each other,” [Betsy] Phillips (aka Aunt B) said. By contrast, Tennessee bloggers seem to have a much stronger sense of group identity, as she learned after [a] would-be attack on her identity. “It was one of the first lessons I had in that kind of cohesive spirit of the Tennessee blogosphere,” she said. “There’s a sense that we all do this, and we can have our fights and still stay kind of nice.”

Thank you, Mike Sechrist and Brittney Gilbert, for helping us all get to know each other out here. If you’re looking for another example of Tennessee’s blogosphere rallying around one of its own, look no further than Katherine Coble.

One comment compared the malfunctioning equipment to the Russian Space Station Mir and jokingly proposed keeping log entries for the unwelcome indoor heat wave: “Day 87: “The sweaty journalists at 1100 Broadway endured high-decibel fan volumes while waiting for chiller operations to be restored.”

Staffers have suggested holding a bake sale and giving the building’s three chillers names (so that the devices will feel more human) in order to remedy the situation. As of late last week, a post to the group’s wall suggests that help may be on the way. In the meantime, here are several suggestions from the group for keeping cool:

• Wear a sleeveless shirt, so you don’t have to worry about armpit stains. Watch out for male reporters wearing muscle shirts.
• Wear shorts and flip flops.
• Use a hair clip to keep your neck cool.
• Hire a cabana boy to “fan you with palm branches and keep you plied with frozen cocktails.”
• Buy a photon lumbar pack from the North Face.
• Consume spicy foods and herbal teas, because they will make you sweat and cool you off.
• Wear loose clothing made of cotton, linen or any other breathable fabric, which allows air to circulate. (This one and the one before it were borrowed from a list of tips for enduring the heat in Southeast Asia.)
• Work in the news conference room or the cafeteria when they aren’t occupied: “If you sit in the middle where those big blue vents can reach you, it’s like being in a wind tunnel. Hold on to your napkin!”

Having had to work in an office in the past when the air conditioning stopped working, I can definitely sympathize. It  can be a challenge to get things done when even stapling can induce sweating. Since the temperature is going to be near 100 this week, take precautions when you’re exposed to the heat, whether you’re outdoors or inside.

The Tennessean seems to be implying that someone upstairs, or at least some of his followers, needs to take the edge off. In its calendar listing for Belmont University’s Lead Like Jesus seminar scheduled for tomorrow (Aug. 1), the daily newspaper’s Web site includes “$1 off Beer,” “2-for-1 Cocktails” and “$5 Martinis and Appetizers” promotions at nearby local bars as “Similar Events.” During a summer when the paper’s Web site has also predicted snowfall, I’d say the odds are good that this is an unfortunate consequence of an automated event calendar. It’s probably not a bad way to spend a Friday afternoon, though.

I’m disappointed that the entries I compiled will not make the pages of the latest YASNI issue, which makes its debut today. (It isn’t online as of this writing, but it should be appearing later today.) It would be a shame to keep these silly notions of what makes our city such an eclectic and intriguing place to live under wraps, though, so here they are. Enjoy.

• Your Messiah didn’t speak English, but your landscaper sure better.
• You can’t decide what scares you more: turning into Atlanta or turning into Memphis.
• The closest your SUV has come to off-road is the Hill Center parking garage.
• You think that Orange County and New York have nothing on the Real Housewives of Green Hills.
• You wonder whether Bill Hobbs has a soul.
• Your Juvenile Court Clerk spends more time in his bathrobe than his office.
• You’re outraged that Davidson County voter registration data was stolen, but relieved because you’re not registered.
• Your gay community opens its doors to churchgoers marching for family values, not the other way around.
• You hear Out Loud is an excellent stereo shop.
• Vanderbilt is the team you hate to love.
• You wish Catherine Darnell were still around to distinguish the Harding Road “Hill Center” and the Green Hills “Hill Center” in snooty socioeconomic terms.
• You’re hoping Karl Dean will have a chance to address the non-hockey items on his mayoral agenda by his second term.
• Your solution to homelessness is destroying panhandlers’ natural habitats.
• Your blue blindfold obscures your view of the Hustler Hollywood store–and the homeless man begging for lunch across the street.
• You brag about switching to Green Power–and your second place finish in Metro’s annual holiday lights contest.
• You’re OK with Gaylord building a new convention center of their own, so long as it features a Flume Zoom.
• You carry your iPhone as a badge of honor because *you* stood in line for it at the mall–instead of having your record label’s intern do it for you.
• You’re outraged that Microsoft Word thinks “Opry” isn’t a word. (WordPress agrees.)
• You have season passes for the Schermerhorn *and* the Music City Motorplex.
• You’re thrilled that Bart Durham finally landed Nashville its “first soap opera.”
• You’re concerned that Nashville can’t possibly support Ghost Ballet for the East Nashville Machineworks *and* the Nutcracker.
• You find yourself wondering just how hot the Hot Yoga really is.
• You’ve started cheering for the ghosts instead of rooting for Pacman.
• You think Pacman has had a few too many power pellets.
• You fondly recall the era when Pacman was just a video game, not a public nuisance.

There’s only one reader who really counts, though, and I doubt he’ll be impressed. The Decider isn’t in the habit of letting mere facts get in the way of blind conviction…

The document concludes with 79 recommendations, most of which are eminently reasonable and none of which will get us out of Iraq overnight. The president will probably reject some out of hand — talking directly with Syria and Iran, for example. And while it would be good if the president finally realized that solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would lower the temperature throughout the Middle East, I’m pretty sure it will take more than a phone call to persuade the Israeli government to give up the Golan Heights.

[Group member Vernon] Jordan said that when the members of the panel met with Bush on Wednesday, the president’s attitude was encouraging. “My mama used to say that a lot of people listen, but they don’t hear,” Jordan said. “Bush both listened and heard us.”

I genuinely hope that the U.S. can made an authentic and innovative change in its Iraq strategy that will gradually and eventually lead to a safer, more prosperous and ultimately independent nation where Iraq now stands.