good news about kudzu

In Tennessee, Goats Eat the ‘Vine That Ate the South’ - New York Times -- I never thought I'd see kudzu brought to heel. I've spent a lot of time in Columbus, Georgia, and in Atlanta. I've fallen asleep outside and had kudzu advance on me overnight. We still see more kudzu than we want to be seeing when we visit the kids in Knoxville. Now, there may be hope: goats.

Don't miss the part about the guard donkeys' being replaced by llamas.

We Yankees are faced with more formidable challenges than kudzu: What we have to do in Cleveland is to find something to eat all the McDonald's food-packaging detritus. It probably would be easier and quicker if we all just stopped buying and consuming McDonald's and their ilk. Not only would we have a quantum leap in public health, but we'd also experience a massive environmental cleansing.

Jack Lail in Knoxville: citizen journalism, good stuff

Random Mumblings: After the fire, everything's changed--Great recounting here of the big fire in Knoxville a few days ago and how citizen journalism worked into the mix. Here's an excerpt, and it turns out that the input/output came together as "good stuff"--

People living in the nearby downtown condos on North Gay captured the late-night-into-day fire with digital still cameras and video cameras. The results are just a search away on Flickr and YouTube and personal Web sites. Bloggers here and yonder logged in with personal tales, links and tidbits.

The city's Web site posted a slide show. The sheriff's department shot aerial video.

All the traditional media used their Web sites for as-it-happens news. At the News Sentinel, where I hang out, we had quite a bit of video, audio, tons of photos, stories that seemed living they changed so much. You can see a lot of the multimedia and sidebars attached to this story.

Email news alerts flew out. Cell phone alerts buzzed in. Page views and visits ratcheted up.The adrenaline high was palpable even in the print version, but definitely in the Web version.Journalism professor Bob Stepno rounds up some of the varied coverage. He notes:

"By afternoon, people were online writing about the fire from West Virginia to New York to the other side of the Atlantic. "

Jump the Shark, a blog about Knoxville media mostly, put it this way:

"Technology has reached the point that just about anyone, anywhere, can capture a news event as it's happening, snap a few photos or shoot home video, and have it on the local or national news within minutes."

I've believed that in the abstract as a concept, but now I've seen it in action in my town. And it's good stuff.

note the 300-mile radius, and then the 600

Knoxville - Oak Ridge Innovation Valley - East Tennessee Economic Development Agency--This regional promotion piece comes from an ad in the sidebar of Small Times, which I discovered because of Chris Varley's comment today on an Ohio ranking, and how Beautiful Ohio is being supplanted by Innovative Ohio. Note what the folks around Knoxville are thinking. We do some business down there, and we enjoy working with them a lot; they're upbeat and going places; they're very proud of their area. Maybe it's time to start building some bridges. Virtually. Actually. Physically, even though you can't fly there direct from CAK, yet.