November 12, 2005

Today's Reading List

The War: WKRN features Lance Frizzell, back from Iraq, in a story titled 278th blogger comes home. How cool is that? Click the first link to read the text or - better - click here to watch the video.

Politics: It's been a long time since The Tennessean had a reporter covering state government as well as Trent Seibert, who continues to dog state Sen. Jerry Cooper with questions about that seemingly unethical land deal where Cooper got a state grant - that's tax dollars - in order to make a piece of his own real estate more valuable and saleable.

Nissan to Nashville: The big story that has Nashville buzzing these days is the decision by Nissan Motor Co. to move its North American headquarters from the Los Angeles area to my town of Franklin, TN. The Tennessean presents the back-story on how Tennessee convinced Nissan to move to the Nashville suburb. Here's an excerpt:

It all started with a flashlight, or actually 1,000 of them. In January 2001, California was having a power crisis. The state was dealing with rolling electrical blackouts because of high demand and poor power supplies. State economic developers used that as a sales opportunity. They peppered California companies with a packet on Tennessee that included a small flashlight, a not-so-subtle message that power was abundant and cheaper in the land of the federally supported Tennessee Valley Authority. "The lights are always on in Tennessee" was the slogan written across the base of the flashlights.

Economic developers followed up with an early summer trade mission to meet with companies in California. There were a series of receptions, one of which was at the swank Spago restaurant in Los Angeles. Grande and Alex Fischer, who preceded Grande as Tennessee's economic development commissioner, split off from the others during the May trip to meet Nissan Senior Vice President Jim Morton at his office in the Los Angeles suburb of Gardena.

I don't mind saying I was wrong.

By the way, Mark Rose is right.