I checked Wikipedia after writing the title to this post, just to be sure the eminent abolitionist (and so much more) Mr. Douglass did not, in fact, ever run for the United States Senate, and learned something today: he was named (but did not really run as) the vice presidential nominee in 1872 for the Equal Rights Party. But during the era when Abraham Lincoln was famously debating Stephen Douglas, Frederick Douglass was still fighting for his brothers and sisters to be free.

Gov. Phil Bredesen has signed into law a measure to close public access to state and local government employees' home addresses and telephone numbers. The Senate voted 20-11 in favor of the bill sponsored by Sen. Raymond Finney after the Maryville Republican said he made revisions to ensure it would not include elected officials.

Imposing a typical newspaper editoral management structure to reader blogs and reader comments - putting the newspaper in charge of deciding what voices get to be heard and what voices don’t - runs 180 degrees counter to what makes blogs successful. Monitor the blogs for violations of the comments policy. Mine the blogs for story tips and a sense of what the public is thinking. But don’t manage the conversation. It can’t be managed anyway, and a media company that tries to manage it will see it migrate to somewhere else.