Fecund Stench to the Greensboro blogging community: "I am reluctant to write this post. Even so, I shall. All is not well...  ...the Meetup last night illustrated that there are factions and feelings bordering on enmity between them."

Stench goes on to say"...the local media has no clue how to address blogging. They are throwing bodies at it ... but as usual, they have no sense of vision and are mainly reacting out of fear. Their days are numbered. ...Ross Myers, Tara Sue, theShu and their associates represent the real force for blogging in GSO and perhaps the world.   ...The new paradigm, as it has been explained to me, welcomes my kind. "

My kind?  What the hell is that about?

I, too, have sensed the "factions" he mentions and I have never really understood the reason for it except paranoia.  I feel no threat from either "side", but apparently others choose to see things that either don't exist or things that are too etherial for my feeble mind to grasp.

To me, the new paradigm of blogging is complete transparency, not secrecy, and I sense only one "closed shop" of the two only-in-their-mind camp of local bloggers.  Sure... Ross, Tara Sue and the "Revolution Mill" group have their own ideas about what the future holds for local blogging, but I sure don't see them as being diametrically opposed to the bigger picture of continuing to grow this extraordinary thing we've got going here.  But, talk like "my kind" is detrimental to the whole ideal of building a community.  We need inclusiveness, not division.

So, Fecund, ... to that end... could you or someone please explain what this "new paradigm" is the same way it was explained to you and why you feel you are being "forced to choose sides" and lastly, who is doing the forcing? 

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A new item was just added to the silent auction offerings over at the HoggFest planning site.  For real.

"Hinnis for County Commissioner" license plate.  A rare collector's item.

For those who don't know, Hinnis was the guy who brandished what turned out to be a fake bomb from the speaker's podium at a County Commissioner meeting several years ago.  Sometimes it occurs to me he had the right idea although his threatened manner of removing Commissioners from office was a bit, just a bit, over the top.

While the Hinnis plate is not quite as sexy as the Fender Strat the Music Loft is offering at auction, hopefully this will spark a few more such items.  Anybody have a "Tom Phillips for Mayor" bumper sticker?  How's about "Don Vaughan for House"? 

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Mr. Sun thinks Allen Johnson's post on the Jenks Crayton matter kinda sucks...

Bickering, tantrums, sideshows ... I damn you and your paper as a sinner of just a slightly lesser degree for the attention you pay to these things.

After you read what The Emitter of Solar Wind has to say, you'll have to agree with him on this point, "Leadership is about what you pay attention to as much as anything else..."   Well, yeah...

But.... The Crayton mess - like the the City Council meltdown over the Truth & Reconcilliation non-endorsement before it - make for salacious reading.  And salaciousness sells.

That said, it would behoove the N&R to take Sun's advice use its considerable resources to do more of what the local alternative media can't easily do: add depth on local issues.  The Greensboro blogosphere is perfectly capable of propogating salaciouness and pointing out governmental silliness all on our own.

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Yes! Weekly on the arrival of Craigslist in Greensboro:

"The fragmentation of traditional media markets is accelerating.

In Greensboro it began 15 years ago with a pugnacious right-slanted weekly, The Rhinoceros Times, making a grab for a segment of the daily News & Record’s readership, and in more recent years has picked up momentum with the development of a nationally noted blogging community, the launch of citizen journalism forum Greensboro101.com, the publication of alternative weekly YES! Weekly, and in April, the arrival of Craigslist.org." (links added)

Writer Jordan Green interviewed Craigslist "customer service rep" Craig Newmark (blog) and noted that this shaker-up of status quo media "has taken note of the thriving blogging community in Greensboro".  Newman  goes on to say that he would like to reshape the editorial side of journalism but doesn't yet know how or if he might break in to the world of opinion dissemination but he does believe that main stream media jobs are on the line.  He offers a little advice to those who might find themselves out in the cold unless they evolve with the times...

"...When an industry goes through a major shift, sometimes people lose jobs. I don’t have anything smart to suggest, except that news professionals start looking hard at the blogging phenomenon and try to get ready...”

Indeed...

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In other Yes! Weekly news, Page Three should have been on page one this week.  She is simply lovely.

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