Katie Allison Granju signed off for the last time at Knoxville Talks yesterday. She did a fantastic job creating a great new local media sponsored blog and set the bar high for her successor.

Katie blogs on, though, at her personal blog and at Mothering Magazine.

Belmar, NJ, just south of Asbury Park, is an apparent party town in the summer. The mayor has been blogging in order to get the word out to renters "about what is and isn't allowed in Belmar".

He included "humorous" comments about specific incidents:

like the group who left their marijuana-smoking water pipe out on the table while police responded to a noise complaint at their address.

Another entry regarded a fight between two ladies, one from Staten Island who kept holding her drink while fighting.

"Now, we're not sure if the glass was stuck to her hand cause of all the hair spray, or if this is a technique Staten Island girls learn in Brownies, but we are thankful she left her brass knuckles and straight razor in her other purse."

The mayor will be blogging no more. He has issued an apology, sort of. Guess he needed Rodney Dangerfield's help writing the jokes.

Winston Rand, a Tennessee blogger at Nobody Asked, passed away unexpectedly Saturday.

He was a hell of a good writer whose "stream of consciousness" style of observation was sometimes amusing, sometimes enlightening, and always entertaining. After reading him for a while, you felt like you knew him even if you never met him.

Here's "Roomie's" announcement and tribute: Voice, Stilled

SEE ALSO: The styrofoam cup post.

Silence: Realtor taking business blogging plunge

...Knoxville Realtor Suzy Trotta has taken the plunge and offers a professional, fun and informative blog that I've liked from the first day I saw it.

Suzy Trotta's blog is All Around K Town. There's lots of interesting info on the local real estate market and the business in general.

The latest roundup, at TennViews...

In the ongoing dispute between AP and the bloggers who quote them that prompted a blogger boycott of AP material, AP now says it will meet with the Media Bloggers Association to establish guidelines for "fair use" of AP content on blogs.

The Memphis Commercial Appeal profiles Memphis blogger Left Wing Cracker. (By way of NewsComa.)

Blogging is the 21st century version of … ?

Early American pamphleteers, 1940s government propaganda, 1950s tabloids, 1960s underground newspapers, that crazy guy hollering on the corner of Market Square, unhinged radio talk shows, Cas Walker's Watchdog, the annual holiday family letter from your wife's cousin updated daily, letters to the editor without the letters or the editor, Edward R. Murrow bucking the corporate media system - all that and lots more.

Blogging can build community. Part of the return shock from Florida was the conservatism we encountered. Through blogging it has been a relief to find many kindred spirits in the area. Thanks to Randy and everyone for breaking the progressive liberal barrier and allowing Democrats a say.

In case you missed it, Michael Silence's new column in which he writes about blogging about blogging debuted in the KNS's Sunday editorial section.

Michael says it got the third highest number of page views online. I'm guessing that it has less to do with widespread interest in blogging and more to do with bloggers mentioned in the article linking to it, mainly Instapundit. Heh. Indeed.

My other community blog, BlountViews, is discussed in this Maryville Daily Times report on blogging in Blount Co. There are also remarks by yours truly.

Too funny - a new Roy Edroso feature in the Village Voice profiles various right-wing blowhards, just in time for the 2008 election season.

Glenn Reynolds profile here.

Heh. Indeed.

(VRWC = vast right wing conspiracy)

I'm glad Edroso reads this stuff... so I don't have to.

Caught this on the WBIR RSS feed. Interesting that they are going the citizen blogger route, rather than expanding their reporter/blogger presence.

The Mrs. and I had the pleasure of meeting up with Fletch, the legendary photo blogger and self-proclaimed high-tech drifter. He's a super nice guy and just as peaceful and laid back in person as his photo blogging suggests.

We had breakfast at the Flagler Beach Pier Restaurant, and took a stroll around Flagler Beach and down to a nice county park on the Intercoastal Waterway. Fletch then took us a few miles further up A1A for a tour of the Washington Oaks State Park.

It's always nice to finally meet bloggers in person, especially someone who you feel like you sort of already know after five years in the blogosphere. Fletch's home base is in the Smoky Mountains and ours is in the foothills, but for some reason we had never met up before today, in Florida of all places.

Fletch and Bubba

Jack Lail's op-ed column in today's KNS opinion section. (KnoxViews is mentioned!)

Some recent additions to the blogroll and the blog-o-rama feed:

• Liberal writer/blogger Carole Borges

• WNOX news man Michael Grider

• The Halls Shopper Tabloid Boy (aka Larry Van Guilder)

Check 'em out.

After reading countless blogs, I've come up with "R. Neal's Information Value Hierarchy", listed here in decreasing order of value.

1. Facts
2. Analysis
3. Opinion
4. Feelings
5. Your cat

Facts: Nobody can argue with facts. Well, they'll try.

Analysis: Trying to make sense of the facts, to answer the question "what does this mean?"

Opinions: Theirs is right and yours is wrong. Except, informed opinion backed up with facts and analysis can sometimes be persuasive, especially coming from experts on a subject.

Feelings: Nobody cares about your feelings. Don't just say "This pisses me off!" Explain why using facts and analysis. Convince people why they should be pissed off about it, too.

Cats: Would somebody please get those cats a freaking cheezburger?

Adapted from a presentation on blogging I gave a while back

We've been invited by Knoxville News Sentinel Online Managing Editor Jack Lail to participate in an innovative election news project at Publish2.

You'll notice a new "TN Election News" section over on the left with headlines from election related articles that have been tagged by editors and bloggers from around the state.

Read more about the project (still in beta) here. Michael Silence has a list of participants here. Jack Lail has more background here.

The weekly Tennessee Liberal Blog roundup is posted over at TennViews.

Also, check out the TennViews exclusive state legislature preview.

A TennViews "Jingle Bells" edition of the weekly sampling from some of Tennessee's best and brightest bloggers.

WBIR has launched a new metablog, KnoxvilleTalks.com:

KnoxvilleTalks.com offers lively and opinionated conversation for East Tennessee’s lively and opinionated blogging community. Hosted by WBIR, KnoxvilleTalks is managed and edited by WBIR.com Online Producer and newsroom blogger Katie Allison Granju.

A weekly sampling from some of Tennessee's best and brightest bloggers:

The East Tennessee SPJ chapter is sponsoring a workshop on shooting video for the web. The workshop is Nov. 29th at 7PM at the Knoxville News Sentinel.

John Cole:

You know, it has barely been a month since the Malkin/Limbaugh/Wingnuttosphere freak-out over the MoveOn ad, but I think it is worth noting the clear message:

Questioning a political General is treason, bullying a 12 year old is patriotic.

Indeed.

This Friday's Blount County Democrats luncheon included a presentation on Blogging 101. Our gracious KnoxViews and BlountViews host was the presenter.

The meeting was quite fascinating. This is the first one we have attended. Fridays are very busy for us. Customers!

Read more here.

The Atlas Society and its Objectivist Center have an article with a brief history of blogging (in their opinion), Atlas Mugged: How a Gang of Scrappy, Individual Bloggers Broke the Stranglehold of the Mainstream Media.

There is also discussion on the future of blogging with Glenn Reynolds, the Instapundit.

The Knoxville News Sentinel recently issued a call for bloggers to help cover the upcoming KNS v. Knox County Commission trial. The reasoning was that because the newspaper is the plaintiff, they needed independent coverage.

Jack McElroy announced on his blog that three bloggers have been selected. They are Rich Hailey, David Oatney, and Russ McBee. From McElroy's description, it sounds as though they will mostly be covering the coverage, not necessarily the trial itself (maybe Russ can elaborate on how that will work).

Anyway, its an interesting experiment in citizen journalism. I'm not sure a newspaper has ever done anything like this before. Once again, the KNS is way out front in working with the the local blogger community.

Here's some interesting local blog news. The KNS will launch a new site this afternoon called "Knoxville Blog Network" (a/k/a Knoxville Blog Buzz). You can preview it here.

It's a centralized blog aggregator/blogroll for area blogs similar to the old Rocky Top Brigade, and it's done in partnership with BlogNetNews.

Stay tuned to Michael Silence's blog for the official announcement, expected later this afternoon.

UPDATE: Here's the announcement, with some background on what it is and how it works from Jack Lail.

PayPerPost.com was a startup just last summer. "Advertisers pay to post details about their "opportunity," specifying, among other things, how they want bloggers to write about, say, a new shoe, if they want photos to be included, and whether they'll pay only for positive mentions. Bloggers who abide by the rules get paid; heavily trafficked blogs may command premium rates."

They were able to get $3 million in funding last fall. "...Josh Stein, venture capitalist with DFJ, who led the deal, and he’s steadfast in his belief that the company is doing a "good, valuable" service. He concedes it’s controversial: "Like many things, if you look at the most cynical interpretation of it, you could see how it could be a source for bad."

Something must be working, PayPerPost has now received an additional $10 million in venture capital. "PayPerPost has about 8,700 advertisers and 50,000 bloggers. Most advertisers choose neutral reviews because bloggers are more likely to take those, company officials said." ... "Videoblogger Loren Feldman has called PayPerPost "capitalism at its finest."

I don't know about capitalism at its finest. They certainly have done the job right to get $13 million in venture capital in a year. I'm working on my idea to get $13 million. I'll let you know as soon as I know what that idea is.

(ED. NOTE: Making this sticky for the afternoon. Rikki and Betty are providing running commentary in the comments...)

The County Commission meeting is moments away from starting and it appears to be a good crowd in the audience. A couple of quick links here I found on the online version of the KNS today.

Jack McElroy weighs in today on lawsuit:

“Thoughts on settling sunshine suit”
Link...

News Sentinel reporter Scott Barker will be live blogging from Monday's County Commission meeting. Stay tuned for his updates.

Link...

And we all hope Commissioner Harmon will be online as well.

LET THE FUN AND GAMES BEGIN!

It's spreading like a virus.