Hey! Over Here!

Once again, we get dissed over here in the flat, humid part of Tennessee. The website BusinessTN.com did a story on the Tennessee "blogging system" that mentions a double handful of blogss... all of which are in Middle and Eastern Tennessee! Not one from the Western Grand Division.

Now I must be honest and admit that I think I got an email from these folks asking my thoughts on blogs and why Tennessee was such seemingly fertile soil for blogging. But I was on blog hiatus and never replied. Why talk about a dormant blog? (As you can see, I'd never make a good PR person.)

So I bear a measure of responsibility. But jeez, couldn't the guy just... I don't know, read my blog? Or any of the dozens of great blogs we have in and around Memphis? An afternoon of work would yield a healthy crop.

I'm not terribly impressed with the story, as the writer seems to have had his hook before he did his research. One of the blogs he features has been dead for two months now. I don't buy his thesis that Tennessee has some edge on blogging. The only thing I'd grant is that we had a great organising principle early on (SouthKnoxBubba's website and the Rocky Top Brigade) that drew our energies -- and those all-important eyeballs -- together. It was remarkably free of rancor and divisiveness for a long time, which helped us all to develop.

But that was then. Nowadays, it seems there's come a real division between the poles of politics in the blog world. Most of the leftists I read rarely, if ever, read on the right, except maybe when someone else is pointing out some perceived stupidity and they have to go add their mockery. Right-side bloggers aren't nearly so bad, but they tend to keep to their own, too.

Fortunately, we have some bloggers in Memphis who have come to function like social glue, helping provide a place where we can all get along. Rachel and the City is one, in my opinion. The common feature is that whatever the politics of the blogger, their blog's focus is their daily adventures in the City of Good Commodes Abode.

But anyway, my point was that once again we have another Memphian bitching about another slight against our city by those damned stuck-up folks in the rest of the state.

No, no! Wait! I mean... oh, you know what I mean.