Another Development in the Condemnation Case

The Nov. 25 fromtheeditr post (here) is still having repercussions, according to WDBJ7 and the local daily. While the local daily has written almost obsessively about Carilion CFO Nancy Agee's simple re-assertion that the health care organization wasn't interested in acquiring additional property near its Riverside development in Roanoke, lawyers apparently have seen an opportunity and are jumping at it.

The attorneys for the owners of the three acres, who have reportedly turned down a $1 million offer for the property, say they will ask the court to reconsider its condemnation of the land. An Arlington law firm that specializes in this type of case wants to join the fray. A client recently lost a condemnation case based on cities being able to condemn land and sell it to private buyers that went before the Supreme Court and sent ripples throughout the land.

I found it interesting that the local daily's retail beat writer, Jenny Boone (a fine reporter) wrote this story with help from Laurence Hammack, who has been covering it for a while. Hammack was covering a trial, but Jenny's work is first-rate.

Tea Partiers Demand Perriello Move His Office

The building in question (above) houses Tom Perriello's (right) office^

Honestly, now, I thought I'd seen audacity before, but this one's outside the ring so far that it borders on the fall-down funny. And you can credit those Laff-Riot Tea Partiers:

Tom Perriello, the U.S. Representative from a district that runs from redneck Southside to granola Charlottesville, is being asked by the Tea Party boys and girls to move his office from a building that is not accommodating to protesters to one that is. In his Huffingtonpost column, Jason Linkins (who writes about the funniest stuff) tells us that a report in The Hill says it's so. You're getting this third hand, so go to the source here.

A letter from one John Whitehead of the conservative Rutherford Institute ("citing the concerns of a local tea party group and the University of Virginia College Republicans") says that "your choice of office location ... has hindered the ability of citizens to effectively communicate concerning issues of the utmost importance." Well dang my britches! Sounds like a sinister plot to me. Doesn't want these lovely people standing in the parking lot, screaming slogans and holding signs with pictures of Barack Obama dressed as Hitler. Says it would disrupt the other business offices in the building. Well, shoot on them. This is about RIGHTS! man. Tea Party rights!

Says Whitehead succinctly, ""The First Amendment clearly guarantees individuals the right to speak out publicly and address their government representatives on the important issues of the day," and that means the protestee has to make it easy for the protester. Says it right there in the Constitution over there between the part about everybody being required to have bazookas and the one saying abortion is illegal. It say something like "You gotta move your office to a nice, shaded comfortable place with ample stadium seating, suitable for gatherings of groups of Tea Party peeps when they feel inconvenienced." Thomas Jefferson wrote that.

Good Journalists Keep Bailing on Newspapers

Linotype operators in an 1891 drawing; they're setting type for a newspaper^

The evidence of the impending death of newspapers just keeps piling up and Julie Moos of the Poynter Institute--which has become something of a Bible for journojockeys (especially now that Editor & Publisher is toast)--gives some specifics of a number of veteran, accomplished newsies who are leaving papers without leaving news. Here's her column.

I don't know if you'd call this a snowball effect, but I'm just not hearing many good arguments from newspaper people about why they should stay where they are. The local daily in Roanoke, which has fired so many of its best journalists in recent months, has lost 10 percent of its circulation in a year, according to the monitoring service ABC, but it keeps denying anything's amiss. It is even pouring scarce resources into its failed business publication, promising great things from a bi-weekly whose earning potential is ever-so-minimal, even if it succeeds.

Newspapers have been accused of everything but good decisions in the past five or so years and those decisions are pushing the best of their products' producers--the top journalists--into niches, the 'net, television, radio, anywhere but the delivery system that has served this nation since its founding. But, like so much that was around in the 18th century, they are out of touch, out of date and they're fading fast.

Infrom Yewr Frinds: Best Sines of 2009

Best signs (my wife calls it "signage") of the year. This is entirely too funny not to share. Go here at the Huffington Post.

Luna, Hansen Reach Settlement

In a huge business development for the Roanoke Valley and surrounding areas, Luna Innovations and Hansen Medical have reached a lawsuit settlement that will include a supply and development agreenent over a period of years that will integrate Luna's fiber optic sensing technology into Hansen's surgical products. Get the full story here at moreFRONT, our sister blog of the Valley Business FRONT.

Government vs. Religion II: Cecil Bothwell's Balls

Cecil Bothwell>

Regardless of Cecil Bothwell's religious beliefs, he should retain his office on Asheville City Council based primarily on the size of his brass testicles: roughly the diameter of basketballs.

This is a guy who wrote a book criticizing hometown hero Rev. Billy Graham (The Prince of War), then ran for council as an avowed atheist in a small Southern City. And he won.

The Asheville Citizen-Times (my first newspaper job) has a story today here that tells you some are not all that happy Cecil's being seated as an unbeliever in a state whose constitution requires a belief in God in order to preside over anything where the official is elected. They want him canned. 'Course the U.S. Constitution, which trumps state constitutions, says otherwise. Maryland found that out a few years ago in a similar case.

Still, this one's mostly about a guy who apparently has no fear. I say three cheers for Cecil.

A Truly Crappy Obit for a Good Pub

I'm not sure, given the 2009 business environment, that the announcement could have come any other way, but here it is:

"This move will allow us to strengthen investment in our core businesses - those parts of our portfolio that have the greatest potential for growth - and ensure our long-term success. We remain committed to building our trade show group and affiliated brands. These assets continue to be a key part of The Nielsen Company's overall portfolio and we strongly believe they are positioned to grow as the economy recovers. In addition, we'll continue to assess the strategic fit of our remaining portfolio ..." and blah, blah ...

That is not about a bank divesting a health club. It is the jettisoning of a journalism institution: Editor & Publisher magazine. Neilsen sold Adweek, Brandweek, Mediaweek, The Clio Awards, Backstage, Billboard, Film Journal International and The Hollywood Reporter to something called e5 Global Media Holdings, LLC, but closed E&P and Kirkus Reviews.

It's a bitter pill for the newsie industry, but this stuff is happening so frequently and so devastatingly (look at the New York Times newsroom just since yesterday) that when some of us say "stick a fork in newspapers, they're dead" it has something of a hollow sound. Sure they are, BUT WHAT'S NEXT? WHO'S GONNA FILL THE GAP?

We'll get to that soon enough. Right now let's just take a few minutes to mourn the passing of E&P, a very good industry publication that deserves a better obit than it got.

So, How About Forced Christmas Carols?

This is the pleasant- and deceptively-harmless-looking Merry Hyatt^

A woman with the ironic name of Merry Hyatt is on a Mission From God in her small town in California to force school children to sing Christmas carols--against both Constitutional requirements and her own stated beliefs.

Merry is a member of her local Tea Party unit. Tea Partiers are the people who are hell-bent on getting the government out of our bid-ness ... unless, of course, they want it in our business, as with abortion and Christmas carols.

The Redding, Calif., Searchlight reports (here) that Miss Merry wants to collect 433,971 signatures so she can get the issue on the California ballot next year. She has to have them by March 29. California's great for these oddball initiatives and this one will certainly rank with the initiative to outlaw marriage (organized by pissed off gay people who didn't like the result of the gay marriage initiative recently).

The Searchlight reports that "The initiative would require schools to provide children the opportunity to listen to or perform Christmas carols, and would subject the schools to litigation if the rule isn't followed." Schools can allow--get that: allow--children to sing carols now, but they have to be part of some kind of learning program in the same way they would study, say, Buddhist chants.

So, will it pass? Who knows? California's California. But as to Merry, let's all wish her a happy Kwanzaa.

(My pal Mike Kennedy wrote this reply on the Facebook promo for this post: "I'm thinking they should force the kids to sing 'Adeste Fidelis.' L.T. Anderson, late of Charleston, W.Va., was one of the best columnists who ever put pen to paper. He said all the West Virginia legislators who'd introduce bills to mandate school prayer would shut up if the mandated prayer were the Hail Mary.")

A Nice Piece of Work, Mr. Casey

Dan Casey gets it. His column in Roanoke's local daily newspaper this morning on the economic fallout of the Roanoke Redevelopment and Housing Authority's lawsuit against property owners near the Carilion development on Riverside Drive puts the round peg into the round hole.

His piece is informative, insightful, balanced, nuanced and fair, unlike so much of the sensationalized and lopsided coverage we've seen to this point. Casey is a columnist and a column contains opinion, but in this case(y)--a hotbutton issue, if there ever was one--he has the wisdom to tell you what's going on and let you use your own value system and the facts at hand to judge it.

Over the years, it has become apparent to me that like any institution where people work in close proximity, a newsroom has its own subtle pressures and expectations. I've seen feeding frenzies over certain stories where truth dares not trample upon fact. Those pressures and expectations are difficult to resist--it's so much easier to just go along--and I respect those who do.

(A reminder: Carilion public relations director Eric Earnhart speaks today at the Public Relations Society of America/Blue Ridge Chapter's luncheon at the Hotel Roanoke and Conference Center. It'll be interesting to get his take on the last two years of waking up to headlines and stories he believes to be untrue, incomplete or distorted. Starts at noon and costs about 30 bucks.)

Honoring Our Writers at the FRONT

Award-winners David Perry, Alison Weaver and Kathy Surace^

Kathy Surace (editor's award) and Jill Elswick (December's Contributor of the Issue)^

Publisher Tom Field, writer Jill Elswick, moi^

That's me again (in my Cash McCall disguise*) telling our writers how great they are ... and meaning every word of it^

We held our Writers Awards Luncheon today and, I swear, it remains my favorite event after all these years. It is one of the very few elements of life in the publishing business we carried over from the Blue Ridge Business Journal when Tom Field and I started Valley Business FRONT (and brought almost all of our freelancers with is) 18 months ago.

This is an event where we can recognize effort, talent, commitment, loyalty and, sometimes, eyebrow-raising accomplishment. Our writers come in all forms, from the much-honored veteran journalist to the novice, but all of them have one thing in common: they deeply care about what they do when they sit down to write. It shows and it makes my job as editor a sheer pleasure. I love going to work (and staying at work until 11 p.m. most nights).

Today's award winners--David Perry, Most Outstanding Contributor; Alison Weaver, Best Story; and Kathy Surace and Rachael Garrity as the Editor's Award winners--are perfect examples of what I'm talking about. David and Kathy are newcomers who had always wanted to write, but had not been given the opportunity. They dug in quickly and have been learning sponges for us.

Kathy's Business Dress column has a big, loyal following and David's feature stories are a highlight of every issue. He has become something of a default setting for profile assignments.

Alison was my assistant editor at the Business Journal some years ago, but went with the local daily paper as a copy editor for a few years. The daily never recognized what it had in its own newsroom (as is often the case): Alison is a fine writer and a marvelous digger. Her cover story in next month's magazine (January) will knock your shoes off. We're already discussing book potential for it.

Rachael is a veteran writer who never lost her enthusiasm--which often leads to a loss of skill. Her writing is simply superb and Rachael has a way with people that is enviable.

But there were a room full of stories like theirs today and I'd love for you to know all of them. They're marvelous people and I feel fortunate not only to have them helping us put out a top-notch magazine, but just to know them.

(*If you have to ask who Cash McCall is, you couldn't handle the answer.)

And a Partridge in a Rocking Chair

Wanna know why I so thoroughly enjoy being married to Christina Koomen Smith? Here's an example in this e-mail from her today:

"I just got an e-mail from our office surplus coordinator. Among the available items are '2 rocking footstools.' Which made me wonder: Is that anything like 2 groovy ottomans? HAR!"

Macaca Contestant on 'Jeopardy!' Yesterday

Yep, it was him: Macaca^

My eagle-eyed wife, Christina, spotted S.R. Sidarth for who he was imediately as "Jeopardy!" started last night. As the middle contestant was introduced, she got that look on her face and said, "That's macaca! I swear!"

And she was right. Sidarth didn't win the "Jeopardy!" game, but Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia will tell you he's a winner--at least for Webb.

Sidarth is the young (24 now) political "follower" who elicited the "macaca" comment from former Sen. George Allen in the 2006 election, an ethnic slur that helped send Allen back to his law practice. Sidarth was assigned to the Allen campaign to, in essence, catch the candidate in some kind of blunder. He did.

Later Sidarth, attempting to get into a competitive Larry Sabato class at UVa (Sabato is the political professor and pundit), wrote an essay that said, in its entirety, "I am macaca." He got in. He's at Georgetown Law now.

His macaca moment was not mentioned on "Jeopardy!" and his first-round loss assured it would not be. But I can tell you.

WSJ Columnist Cites John Anderson's Book as One of Year's Best

Laura Landro, a columnist with the Wall Street Journal, has cited (here) Roanoker John Anderson's book Stand By Her as one her Best of 2009 selections. Anderson's book presents methods to help support cancer patients in the family. Four women in his life (wife, mother, sister, mother's best friend) all had cancer and the book is based on his experiences with them.

John will be among the teachers at this year's Roanoke Regional Writers Conference Jan. 22-23 at Hollins University. You can get more information and register here. John, with his wife Sharon Rappaport, own The Farm, a public relations and advertising agency in Roanoke.

If the Book's About the Writer, It Can Be BS, Right?

An old friend of mine once owned a book store in downtown Roanoke and I once asked him in magnified surprised, "Why in the hell are you selling Ann Coulter's book, man!?!"

"It keeps me in business," replied with an embarrassed smile.

Ah, the reality of the marketplace. My pal was a liberal making money off a nutjob (I like conservatives too much to call Coulter a conservative). Now that's capitalism a Republican can understand.

This morning Stanley Fish, the old professor at the New York Times, has a piece on Sarah Palin's new book and he concludes that, based on what the book is (an autobiography, not a biography) and how it's done, he thinks it is a worthy effort. He says, however, "Do I believe any of this? It doesn’t matter. What matters is that she does, and that her readers feel they are hearing an authentic voice."

So, bullshit is fine as long as it is authentic? I guess so. It's the basis of my own memoir, Burning the Furniture*, so I'll have to agree with Stanley that the point of a book about yourself is that it is your perspective and it is told your way. As I've said to family members and friends for the last couple of years, "If you want the story told your way, write your own damn book. This one's mine."

(*If you're wondering why I run a cover shot of my book and not Sarah Palin's, it's because I want to sell my book, not hers and my guess is that you already have made your decision on her book.)

Pay Cut for UT and Tech, But the Chick-fil-A Matchup is Great

When Virginia Tech and Tennessee meet in their long-anticipated matchup in the Chick-fil-A (The Bowl Formerly Known as Peach) Bowl game Dec. 31 in Atlanta, their payout will be significantly less than the $20 million they were offered by Bristol Motor Speedway owner Bruton Smith for a game in 2005, but it's one of the better paydays for a secondary bowl.

Payouts range from $325,000 in the New Orleans Bowl and $398,000 in the Hawaii Bowl (Hawaii pays teams to come?!?) to the $17 million each for the BCS games. That huge payout is why there is such a scramble by teams like TCU and Boise State to be in the mix. Them's bucks, baby, even if they have to be shared with the teams' respective conferences. All the payouts are here.

This is one of two games where the participating conferences take home different paychecks. The ACC rep (Tech) gets $3.25 Large and the SEC check is $2.4 Mil. No idea why, though Tennessee has a 7-5 record and Tech is 9-3 in an inferior conference. Tennessee is a blocked field goal against undefeated and national championship game-bound Alabama and a fourth down yard against UCLA from being 9-3 in Lane Kiffin's first year--rebuilding from a 5-7 mark. Tech's record and third-place ACC finish is a dramatic disappointment for the Hokie Nation. There were visions of a national championship rematch against 'Bama swirling around in the Techies' heads a few weeks ago. Tech opened with a loss to the Tide.

Techies have a tendency to over-expect from their team, their conference and their national reputation. The local daily in Roanoke this a.m. made this hilarious statement: "Taken out of any long-shot consideration for a BCS bowl bid Saturday when unbeaten Boise State whipped New Mexico State, No. 11 Tech (9-3) will face ..." The paper didn't mention that this "long shot" would have likely required plane crashes for about nine teams. Tech finished third in a weak conference. Third. Third. Third.

Still, the Chick-fil-A gets a quality bowl here. It has a marquee name in Lane Kiffin, two teams with top-level national identification and a grudge match (from Tech's standpoint; it lost to Tennessee in 1994 by an embarrassing 45-24 at a time when the Hokies thought they'd arrived on the national scene). The teams are close enough to Atlanta to sell out the building and the all-alone slot on New Year's Eve assures that college football fans will be watching without distraction.

Late week speculation surrounding the Chick-fil-A was that if Clemson played well and lost a close ACC title game--and if its All-American running back had a great game--the Tigers would play Georgia in this game. That would have meant the bowl was run by morons, taking an ACC team with two straight losses and the worst Georgia team in many years, over an anticipated matchup that had already been announced by some top-rank publications (Atlanta Journal, for example) and by this blog (though the local daily didn't tell you until today). Can't butt heads with fromtheeditr, man!

Anyhow, those of us with UT or Tech ties have the best possible match we could have hoped for this bowl season. I have strong ties to both schools (Dad played ball at Tech) and my brother and son went to UT (where my brother was a quarterback). Now, if we can find a party.

Carilion: An Opportunity To Explain

Carilion Clinic, which has faced a daunting amount of negative coverage of its every move from both local and national newspapers during the past two years takes a small opportunity Thursday to try to explain its approach with the media.

I have contended for some time that Carilion is not nearly assertive enough in telling its story--or that the newspapers aren't listening. I'm not sure which, but Eric Earnhart, the director of media and community relations and a former television newsman, will talk to the Blue Ridge Public Relations Society of America luncheon at noon at the Hotel Roanoke and Conference Center. Cost is $22 for members and $30 for nonmembers and students.

You can call 342-0411 or visit here to make reservations.

I have not envied Eric his job with newspapers playing "gotcha" with every move Carilion makes and playing even the most inconsequential stories (niggling and even routine safety violations, for example) above the fold, Page 1 with writing that accuses, rather than reports. I am not and never have been a big corporate defender (I grew up in newspapers and like most of my colleagues have a strong distrust of large organizations), but the more I see of the Carilion coverage, the more I understand why people accuse newspapers of slanted coverage.

Since I reported a little over a week ago that Carilion has no interest in buying or occupying the Burkholder property at the Riverside Center, a Roanoke daily newspaper has written three different stories, first reporting Cairlion's assertion (after ignoring it for years), then trying like hell to debunk it. An e-mail to the Housing Authority telling it that Carilion might like to put a road on the property (which it put somewhere else) if the case is ever settled is the latest hard evidence of corporate bad-boy activity. Eric is the only Carilion official directly quoted--as he most often is. The story fairly screams, "Aha! This time we've nailed you bastards!" The reporting on the story is quite good: thorough and with the use of the press's power to get to public documents. The structure and writing, however, leave you absolutely no doubt where the paper stands in this.

I have found that the upper level executives at Carilion are approachable, knowledgeable about what goes on, willing to talk about it and open and detailed in their revelations. Eric is smart, but he is not the guy steering the ship. I am eager to hear what he has to say. My guess is that this PRSA talk will draw well.

A Good Idea For City Market Vendors

City Market Building (above) and Councilman David Trinkle>

A chat with Roanoke City Councilman David Trinkle during a lull at an event today turned up an interesting idea from him regarding the Roanoke City Market vendors who are feeling a pretty distinct level of anger at Roanoke these days. They've been expressing their strong disapproval of the city's plans to shut down the building in order to do a major renovation, effectively closing their businesses for a year to a year and a half.

They have good reason to be mad because this has not been handled as well as it could have been and the city has made mistake after mistake in its approach to major market renovations and even closing the building because of an infestation of mice.

Fact is, though, that this renovation is at the heart of any future the City Market has as an economic driver for downtown. With all the development in the center of the city, the Market becomes more important with each different building upfit surrounding the center of the city. That's why, as important as these vendors have been in the past, they cannot be allowed to be the determining factor as we move forward.

It's hard for me to say that because I know most of the restaurateurs and eat at their businesses on a regular basis. They're good people, salt of the earth and they deserve consideration. But they can't be allowed to stop or even delay the renovation.

An option has apparently been opened to these restaurant owners by Tanglewood Mall, which, according to Roanoke's daily newspaper (whose name escapes me) would like to re-open a food court with the market vendors at the core. David suggests that if that is the case, "The city should pay their moving expenses to go to Tanglewood and, if they decide to move back to the Market Building when it re-opens, the city pays the moving expenses back."

We're talking a few thousand dollars spent and a bizillion dollars worth of good will (something in short supply these days) and public relations. This is not a solution that will negate all the ill will that has built up in recent months, but it's a good idea that should be considered strongly.

Woody Allen vs. Football: No!

I want to be in a position to propose a new law or even city ordinance:

Television can't show Woody Allen movies on days when football is being played. Better still, Woody Allen movies can't be shown on the big screen TV in the main room of the house during football season. Oh, hell, let's just go whole hog on this one: Woody Allen Movies must be shown on television screens of 20 inches or less. At any time, not just during football season.

I'm sitting here waiting to get the big-screen TV back so I can watch Carson Newman play Grand Valley State or Florida-'Bama or Fresno State and whoever it played ... anybody ... in a football game and Woody Allen is telling me about his analyst and his neurosis and ... oh, you know. I'm not even certain which movie, since they're all basically the same: Woody gets girl, Woody gets another girl, Woody goes to therapy, Woody gets another girl, Woody goes back to therapy, Woody acts glib, Everybody else acts glib ... And it's driving me nuts. I already went out to the kitchen to make pimento cheese, then to throw together some vegetable soup. Now I'm thinking about making mayonnaise and humus.

Now Here's a House for You

I hesitate to do what I'm getting ready to do, but Scott Martin's my pal and I'm going ahead with it, so if you don't want to read about a house for sale, go to the next thing you want to do.

Scott, who was the primary economic development guy in Franklin until just recently when he took a job in Kentucky, doing pretty much the same outdorsy stuff he was doing here, has a marvy house for sale out in the woods. Here's his description:

"If you know of anyone looking to go rural, but doesn’t want to give up the convenience of accessible health care, shopping, and city services, forward our house to them. This is a totally kewl home. Frankly, the house alone is what kept us in Franklin County for a number of years. 11 acres comes with the house and it’s entirely surrounded by another 200 acres of mature oak/hickory forestland. Tons of wildlife and you feel like you are way out in the country, but it’s less than 5 minutes from Kroger, and Carilion Franklin Memorial. 20 minutes to Roanoke."

Look at the photo. It's a pretty place. It costs 285 Large and it's on Redbud Hill Road. It's 3,000 square feet and sits on nearly 11 acres.

Holiday Offering From Studio Roanoke

"Yes, Svetlana" poster (above) and writer Jeff Goode

Studio Roanoke’s first holiday offering is being put on by a couple of No Shame Theatre veterans, writer Jeff Goode and director Todd Ristau.

Goode, who is visiting for the production, was in Roanoke two years ago as a guest artist for the Playwright’s Lab, and returns in the summer of 2010 to teach classes in adaptation and writing plays with music. He is a co-founder of No Shame Theatre, founding artistic director of No Shame Los Angeles, and guest faculty in the graduate program in playwriting at Hollins University. Todd is on the theater teaching staff at Hollins University and is also a co-founder of No Shame. He'll also teach a class at our Roanoke Regional Writers Conference Jan. 22-23 at Hollins and you can find out more about that here.

The play is “Yes, Svetlana, There is a Grandfather Frost” and it will run Dec. 8-13 with tickets going for $5 at a special showing Dec. 7 and $15 during the run. The play is to be published by Original Works Publishing and the production is the world premier, which will be listed as such in the published volume due out in 2010.

"Yes, Svetlana” is the story of a state-run Russian newspaper, operated by a cynic who is asked to defend the Soviet version of Santa. You can order tickets here.

Documentarian Subject of Hollins-Grandin Film Fest

British-born, Hollins University-educated producer-director George Butler is the subject of a film festival scheduled Jan. 10-12 at Hollins and the Grandin Theatre in Roanoke. Butler is the producer of notable documentaries, including his first "Pumping Iron" from 1977, which has become something of a cult classic.

He has produced/direct/written nine major pieces since graduating in 1968 from the Hollins graduate program in creative writing. The documentaries scheduled for the festival include "Pumping Iron" (Jan. 1o), "Pumping Iron II" (Jan. 11), "The Good Fight" (Jan. 11) and "Roving Mars" (Jan. 12) all at Hollins in addition to "The Endurance: Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition" (Jan. 12) at the Grandin.

It's free and open to the public.

Carilion's Involvement: Finally Some Understanding

This morning a Roanoke daily newspaper finally has a story detailing Carilion's lack of interest in a three-acre piece of property on South Jefferson Street, quoting a post that appeared in this blog Nov. 25 as a source. In that piece, Carilion CFO Nancy Agee said bluntly that the health care organization had no interest in developing the property.

It wasn't the first time somebody from Carilion had made that assertion, but it may well have been the first time somebody listened (WDBJ had a similar story on during last night's newscast and even had the professional courtesy to say that I work for Valley Business FRONT magazine. The local daily called us "a regional business magazine," not mentioning that we compete with its own business magazine).

The paper consistently refers to documents from 2000--before the current administration at Carilion was in place (Ed Murphy was appointed CEO in 2001)--as being relevant to what is taking place today. Today's piece quoted neither Agee nor Murphy. In 2000, Carilion was being told by Roanoke City Manager Darlene Burcham that its housing authority would acquire the property and consultant Brian Wishneff, who worked on contract for Carilion as a consultant, said Carilion needed the land. Consultant later became a Roanoke city councilman.

There seems to be great surprise across the land at this development, which is not a development (so to speak) at all. A lack of interest in developing the small piece of property has been Carilion's position for some time, but almost nobody listened when that was stated. There also seemed to be a misunderstanding of what Agee meant in this passage: "... she was opposed to the condemnation of the property and had requested it be dropped." The request was not official because Agee has no official standing in the suit. She had simply expressed her opinion as an observer.

I think that what we can take away from this is simple: Carilion is not involved in this lawsuit and its interest in the outcome is only marginal. The land in question is hard against Carilion's development of the large and important Riverside Center, but is not necessary to any current needs. If the land becomes available at a market price, Carilion might bid. It also might not.

One would hope that references in the future to the court case would not be led with Carilion's part in the process, since it doesn't have one and hasn't for some time.

Children's Theatre Production for Dec. Set

My buddy Pat Wilhelms is back with yet another Roanoke Children's Theatre play production at the Taubman Museum of Art, Dec. 15-23. This one's the Tony-nominated musical "A Year With the Frog and the Toad." Tickets are $15 and $20 and you can find out everything you need to know about it here.

Looks Like UT-Hokies in the Chick-fil-A Bowl

Hot-damn. Looks like the stinking creeps at the Outback Bowl, who've made a living trying to screw my Tennessee Vols, have actually done them a favor this year by picking Auburn from the SEC West division (they're supposed to pick the second-place finisher from the East, which is UT this year). What we get for the Vols will likely be a Chick-fil-A Bowl (formerly the Peach Bowl) date with Virginia Tech, a 9-3 team with an excellent national reputation, in Hotlanta.

The Knoxville News Sentinel (and the Atlanta Journal, among others) projects (here) the Chick-fil-A showdown between the teams that are four hours away from each other with a kickoff of 7:30 Dec. 31, New Year's Eve. As a guy who avoids going out on the Eve with a passion, this gives me a great excuse to stay in and be safe from all the amateur drunks on the road.

Tennessee will have a good opportunity to get some serious healing done in the month before the game and should be at the levels of ability that Alabama saw a month ago (and that Alabama almost regretted seeing; it blocked a field goal on the game's last play to win).

Tech finished 9-3 with an easy win over Virginia and Tennessee posted a 7-5 record with its overtime victory over a very good Kentucky team in its finale. UT won four of its last five games. The ACC has some 'splainin' to do about its ineffectiveness against the SEC (think title contenders Clemson's and Georgia Tech's losses this past weekend to mid-level SEC teams South Carolina and Georgia). Tech is capable of rectifying that, but in this household, we're looking at piling on the ACC.

There has been talk for years of a Tennessee-Virgina Tech game at the Bristol International Speedway--before nearly 200,000 fans--but UT has always avoided that regular-season game. This game will be one of the more attractive pairings of the bowl season, I think and the damn Outback will get Auburn vs. either Wisconsin or Northwestern. Woopee. Biggie, huh? You go Outback. Hope the blimp falls on you.

Art and Tolerance at the Taubman

Art and talk at the Taubman Museum Thursday^

My pal Bruce Bryan of B2C Enterprises in Roanoke sent me the following announcement for a downtown art event you might be interested in. It combines art and the notion of art and tolerance--two worthy areas--for you to take part in. Here's Bruce's note:

"A Quick e-mail to tell you about "Wine and Wonder" Thursday at Norah's at the Taubman Museum of Art in downtown Roanoke. Each week, the staff at the Taubman Museum offers a wonderful experience at 5:30 p.m. on Thursdays at Norah's. A hosted discussion about a piece of art in the collection takes place and it is open, informative and enlightening. It's accessible and free.

"You have access to a tapas menu and drinks at Norah's if you would like to partake. Then, towards the end of the hour together, you get to take a field trip to view the actual piece of art up close and with a knowledgeable guide. Be careful though, "Wine and Wonder" (5:30pm on Thursdays) can be addictive.

"This Week the Taubman Museum is teaming with S.T.A.R. (Spirit of Tolerance and Art in the Region, one of the four Community Connectors programs) to look at a specific piece of art. To learn more about the specifics of this week's session, you can visit the S.T.A.R web site here and read up on what we've been doing and see about this coming Thursday night's program. It's a great partnership and a great way for us to support an ongoing educational program at the Taubman Museum of Art."

So be there.

A Step Toward Removing the Tobacco Yoke

One last restaurant blow and it's all quiet--and smoke free^

Let me offer my condolences to all you smokers who won't be able to light up in most restaurants and bars in Virginia beginning today. I realize that you believe your whole life will change, that you will become less interesting and that you will no longer have a social life. I felt like that when I quit smoking, then a year later when I quit drinking.

Didn't happen. In both instances, the freedom from addiction offered much more of a life than I had and the smoke-free-dom began when Jim Lindsey, the publisher of the Blue Ridge Business Journal, where I worked at the time, banned smoking from the office. I had to stand outside in all kinds of conditions, on display to the world, sneaking a puff like a crack addict trying to hide his addiction. The embarrassment of that helped me decided to quit. Maybe the restaurant ban will help you break your addiction.

The problem with smoking is not so much that it hurts you, but that it imperils me. Frankly, I don't care if you choose to kill yourself slowly--it's none of my business--but if you're killing me, it becomes an issue. The second-hand smoke kills a large number of people--despite what my old pal Glynn Loope says. Glynn, who puffs on a big cigar much of the time, is a tobacco lobbyist. Never have figured out what made a decent guy like Glynn a tobacco lobbyist, but my guess is that we all have to be something.

When I was growing up, most adults--by a wide margin--smoked. Smoking was promoted everywhere (ads, movies, television) and even soldiers' K-rations contained cigarettes. I always equated the tobacco companies intrusion into our soldiers' meal times with drug dealers hanging out on the corner near the junior high giving away free samples to potential customers. Addicted an entire generation, the tobacco boys did. I got hooked in high school, smoking cigars on road trips with my friend Turk and later became a three-and-a-half-packs-a-day cigarette smoker. Yes, I lit one on another. Yes, I smoked in the shower, in the bed, on the john, everywhere.

And no, it wasn't a "habit," as my mother called it; it was an "addiction," just like my alcoholism. I couldn't leave the house without taking two packs of cigarettes with me. I didn't go to the homes of people who didn't smoke and I didn't venture anywhere that smoking was banned. I smoked as I drove cars with the windows closed and children in the back seat. I smoked in the presence of people I knew were allergic to it.

I hope some of you smokers will consider today your first day out of the self-made prison and will take steps away from it and toward the freedom you can have. My promise is that it's a whole lot better where I sit, breathing without the wheeze.

The freedom I get to enjoy beginning today will be the freedom from having to ask the waitress to move me as far from the smoke as possible because if I get a whiff of smoke, I projectile vomit. Amazing how much quick action that little assertion brought.

Journalism: The Basics, According to Poynter

The Poynter Institute, which journalists turn to for answers, has been Tweeting "things journalists should and should not do” lately (here), and following are some of my favorites, whether or not I agree with them. My comments in parenthesis/italic (I will leave the atrocious spelling, punctuation and the total disregard of AP style in presenting this as it was written. The Poynter might take this under consideration, since clear communication is the goal of any journalist and the rules to reach that goal, regardless of the delivery system, are clear).

Know the audience, what information they want/need & how they want to learn & share it. News is an activity, not a product. (This is vital, especially for a niche publication where the audience is not a general one. Getting out among readers and asking questions is required. Journalists might also learn about singular and plural pronouns and how to use them.)

Journalists should be active community members. If you aren't of the people, you aren't by the people or for the people. (Many publications discourage participation of their journalists in the community and I fully disagree with that. If a journalist sits in the office and talks on the phone, he knows almost nothing about the people of the community. You have to be one of them. No news happens in a publication's office. It's all outside.)

Get out of the office & out of the house. Don't hide behind your job or computer. Rediscover the "local" in "hyperlocal." (See above.)

Be responsive. When a reader gets in touch, listen & follow up. Without an engaged audience, you're talking to yourself. (I'll add, be respectful when criticized. Listen and understand why the complainer is so angry. If you let the reader complain unimpeded, then respond with respect, you earn his respect and the two of you can reach an accommodation that suits both your needs. If you're wrong, don't get defensive; get busy making it right.)

Journalists should never stop learning ... Learn a new skill or sharpen an old one. (Hear! Hear! I am 63 years old and in the last year have learned to blog, Tweet and use Facebook and Linkedin. All have been value personally and professionally. In the book Printer's Devil, the assertion is made that during Mark Twain's lifetime, printing changed more than it ever had before or since. That's unfiltered bullshit. Our industry has changed more in the last 15 minutes than it did during Twain's time and will continue to do so. If you can't learn the new ways, do something else. You'll be far less frustrated.)

Journalists should never plead ignorance about the business of news, who pays, how & why. It's not purist, it's irresponsible. (I'm not sure what's being said here, but it sounds like a lie to me. If you don't know something, admit it and learn it. No shame in not knowing; just in not being willing to learn. "I don't know" opens the door to "I know now.") (Update: David Perry, who writes for us at Valley Business FRONT, offered this insight on a question that obviously confused me, even though I'm both a journalist and an owner of a publication these days: "My take on this is: don't pretend you don't know that advertising pays your salary. The purist would regard the ad sales department with disdain; the responsible journalist would understand it, appreciate it for what it is and try not to let it interfere with his reporting.")

Never say you're unbiased. You are biased. The best journalists mitigate their biases, they don't deny them. (Indeed. If we had more of this openness, we'd have fewer people with suspicions about our biases. We have them. There's no shame in that. The shame is in allowing them to color what we write if we're claiming to be writing news.)

Never forget journalistic values when you're using new tools. (First, though, understand the journalistic values, No. 1 of which is fact and truth are not always synonymous.)

Impress people with your openness. Learn from everyone. Knowledge is collaborative. Questions & answers are communal. (I'll buy that.)

Understand why "good writing may be magical, but it's not magic." Use the process. (The process means that you have to work. Good writing is hard to learn and hard to accomplish with consistency. Lean on your editors; good ones are as valuable as your mama.)

Tautou's 'Coco' a Fine Performance

It occurred to me pretty quickly that Audrey Tautou is entirely too old to be playing a 20-year-old, but it took minutes for me to forget that this marvelous actress is 34 and looks every minute of it. It was the intensity of the effort, the ease with which she slipped into the personae of one of the 20th Century's icons of couturier, Coco Chanel (think "little black dress" with another Audrey, Hepburn, wearing it) in the French movie "Coco Before Chanel." It's at the Grandin Theatre in Roanoke.

It is difficult, if not impossible, to watch Tautou in this formative years biography without recalling the astonishing 2007 performance of Marion Cotillard in "La Vie En Rose," for which she won an Academy Award for playing Edith Piaf, another strong, accomplished French notable who came from humble beginnings.

Tautou is stark and severe, even prickly, in this role, playing against a softer type she nearly perfected in movies like "Amelie," but I believed her and recognized the spark of what must have become a consuming ambition in Chanel's later years. Tautou is supported admirably by two lovers, played by Benoit Poelvoorde and Alessandro Nivola.

This is a slow story of the development of a lost soul into a woman completely fulfilled not by romance, but by her driving need to work and to accomplish. I liked it. Probably no Academy Award for Audrey Tautou, but a solid and capable performance, I think.

If you're interested in this French subtitled movie, get there this week. It's already in the screening room (where subtitled movies often find their homes) and my guess is it won't be around much longer.

Some Reasons for Gratitude

Happy Thanksgiving from Christina and me^

Perhaps the single most important lesson I've learned in my decade and a half of membership in Alcoholics Anonymous is that gratitude trumps anything else that is going on at the time. If I'm grateful, there simply isn't room for negative emotion.

It is an almost impossible lesson to learn for a sober person, so imagine coming to it as a recovering drunk. It means taking responsibility for everything that happens in my life--everything, no exceptions. If I'm hit by a bus, it's on me. That's the only way I can be in a place where I can make the most of the situation. If I own it, I can change it by changing me or the way I look at it and gratitude sets that up nicely. It's a simple acceptance of the world as it is, not as I would have it be.

If that sounds a smidge fatalistic, it isn't. Why argue with a force as powerful as God or nature or however we choose to frame that power greater than we are? Fatalism is expecting the negative. Gratitude is being thankful for ability to see the opportunity.

I want today to live with gratitude in the following:

1. I don't get to see all of my family often enough, but I love them all and they complete me with their returned love. I am full because of that.

2. Our country is deeply flawed, but for the first time in eight years, I have the feeling that even though we're involved in a number of wrong policies (war, for example), I'm seeing so much more good being accomplished, especially internationally.

3. Valley Business FRONT is not as financially stable as we'd all like, but we're paying our writers and the magazine has been greeted with a kind of enthusiasm that evolves into excited anticipation each time we have a new issue go online. This has been 45 years in the creation for me and it is as much fun as I've ever had doing anything. I really love what I'm doing and the people involved in it with me.

4. (This one actually supersedes and makes possible all before it.) I'm sober and drinking is not a daily issue for me any longer. I don't smoke, either (16 years) and my diet is finally leveling out without meat. All these changes have been happy challenges, met head-on.

5. I have friends that I absolutely treasure; smart, good people who make me smarter and better.

6. My Tennessee Vols are coming back strong in all the sports I care about (OK, this probably doesn't belong here, but if you looked at the amount of orange in my wardrobe, you'd understand).

7. I get to fight for things I think are right, without fear. Thanks, AA, for that one, too.

8. I'll stop here for no reason except that there are so many more, it would take all of my Thanksgiving Day to give thanks for them and we'd be late in picking up Christina's mother to go to the Peaks of Otter for Lunch.

I hope your day's as good as mine.

'Art Stands Alone as Only Art'

'A profound lack of understanding of what public art should be.' The trash can above at the Patrick Henry shelter is a perfect example of nice art, lousy public works. It doesn't hold trash.<

A guy who has a reasonable reason for wanting to remain anonymous asked me to pass along the following thoughts of his about public art, as applies to the new bus shelter at Patrick Henry High School, mentioned here Nov. 15. I will give him his say without my own opinions, which, frankly tend toward his conclusion in the case of the shelter anyway. Here ‘tis:

"I don't think that art and certain public works projects can be joined because I think that public art and public shelter are absolutely mutually exclusive. This isn't to say that architecture can't be beautiful and inspring ... The City [of Roanoke] needed to hire someone to design and build a bus shelter ... This was a waste of public art money and a waste of transportation money. It's neither art nor functional.

"True art isn't architecture (or craft or therapy, etc.). True art stands alone for its own purpose of enlightening humanity, and whether it is William Faulker's 'Light in August' or Rene Magritte's 'The Six Elements,' art stands alone as only art.

"An artist serves humanity by producing a work that acts upon us through allegory. To be clear and brief on what art is, I defer to the definitions in the book The Philosophy of Art by Stepen Davies. A copy can be read here.

"To be clear, I am saying: Genuine art can't exist in another plane in a futile attempt to serve a second master. Architecture can be influenced by art, but not to the point where its function is diminished. Genuine art is just that, and if it's public art, it needs to stand alone. I find most public art lousy.

"This bus shelter is a $40,000 waste of public funds and its not exactly Ed [Dolinger's] fault. He's an artist with clear self-interests, and if the City of Roanoke wants to throw some money at him, he may not have the critical judgment to refuse the money. Hell, he's probably just trying to make his mortgage payments and will take what he can get. ...

"The problem starts with the City or because it made poor decisions, due to a profound lack of understanding of what public art should be and what public shelter should be and how the two should never be merged.

"We need a good architect or contractor on this project. It would have cost less and served us more. But, first we need clear public policy that defines what public art is and what public works are, and I don't think we should be merging the two."