Atomictumor

A roadblock has manefested in my mighty search for schooling, and it comes from my rough and ready past…

Apparently, I’m on what they like to call “Academic Probation”, on account of I kinda sorta accidently failed out of a semester back in 1999 instead of dropping out…

The story goes back to the heady days of 1996.  Machine had pulled one over on man by beating chess champ Gerry Kasparov (although he would later come back to beat Deep Blue in a rematch, but ultimately lose once again, ensuring our place in the eventualy cyber pecking order).
The Chicago Bulls, under Michael Jordan, set an NBA record for most wins in a season, with 70.
The British rock band Oasis made UK history by playing the biggest free-standing rock concert.  They would later infurate GAC by claiming to surpass the Beatles, earning her lifelong enmity.

And a young AT and GAC both dropped out of college in UT, madly in love, and pretty damn pregnant with their first child.  It would be the first of many poor college attendance choices for AT, but all with at least somewhat of a good reason.

Yes, thats right, I’m a college dropout.  Four time, college dropout by my count.  And yes, for most of those times, I was being funded by government money.  No, I’m not proud of it.  Yes, if I had to go back I would have made the same choices.

Unfortunately, Roane State disagrees.  I received a BBHMM phone call from a nice lady at the admissions office this evening, informing me that, in fact, my Pell check did not go through, would that be cash or charge?  Yikes.  And this after I had received my soothing green “Its all clear, dude” postcard.
Is higher education ruled out for AT?  Will he be be doomed to a life of mundane banality, never to fulfill the MIGHTY EXPECTATIONS the world has for somebody who has switched unforgivably from first to third person no less than 1 time during this post?

Well, maybe.  Evidently, I have until noon tomorrow to get an appeal filed with the Lord of Financial Aid.  The beast has been written, and is smooth enough to talk Khrushchev into keeping his shoe on, sitting down, and shutting the hell up, but will it be enough?  And will it get there in time?

Lives hang in the balance.

Cuz I sure can’t afford $750 for two classes at a community college.

I believe in freedom of speech, both as a believer in basic rights as an American citizen and as a dirty liberal Bolshevik hippie. Every one of us, even the most spiteful, hateful son of a bitch has the right to his or her opinions, and a right to voice them in a public forum.

But atomictumor.com is not quite a public forum. Sure, it’s public, and sure, it’s a forum (when you people decide to say something.) But it’s privately owned(ish) and operated, thus making it and any content herein subject to our scrutiny and censorship.

But even considering that, I have a hard time rationalizing the censorship of any person who deigns to grace us with their presence on the ol’ ‘tumor. Without contrarian ideas, how would we be challenged in our own thinking? Without public discourse, open to a wide variety of people, how would we come to understand opposing viewpoints? The short answer is we wouldn’t.

But. But. There are times, aren’t there, when censorship is appropriate? Spam is an easy and obvious answer. What about comments or commenters who cannot seem to stay on topic? They may come into a thread and write one or two sentences about said topic, and then veer off into some random and distant idea of their own. Because, by God, Oak Ridge needs a senior center.

What about commenters who might be on topic, but their inane ramblings are so convoluted and hard to follow that you just can’t be sure? Should we let them use our webspace to propound upon their paranoid delusions? It can be entertaining, so sure, let them talk about the power of the time cube.

What about assholes? What about assholes? I’m not talking about some guy that comes in to makes a comment and does it in a snarky, rude way. I’m talking about people who are mean for mean’s sake. They resort to name calling and belittling instead of making any valid points. Why do they come? Probably because they have no friends and nothing better to do. And a small penis.

What about the willfully stupid? These are people who refuse to be enlightened. They ask a question when the answer is readily available to them. Then they ignore it in favor of asking more stupid questions and blaming other people for not providing the answers fast enough. Even though the answers are right there. Nothing pisses me off more than a willfully stupid person. They can’t be responsible for their own education and edification. They rely and insist on others spoon-feeding them knowledge. I have no time and no sympathy for these people. If you are unwilling to do a little fact checking on your own and to develop intelligent, fully-formed ideas, then I have no time for you. Bugger off.

So what about censorship?  Do the Ann Coulters and Fred Phelps of the world deserve their time on the soap box?  You’re damn right they do.  Do they deserve an audience?  Absolutely not.  In the case of these examples, and countless others like them, it isn’t by the grace of their unwavering fans that they maintain a place in the public eye.  It’s because people keep bitching about them and giving them an arena in which to spew their hate.

Will atomictumor.com censor again?  I’d like to think we won’t, but I know better than to make a blanket statement like that.

There’ve been lots of muttering for years now that Oak Ridge really needs something for the young adult crowd to do; nightlife, bars, clubs, something. Reading Eave’s review of 80 East really brings that to mind, because while I had a bit of hope for the place, it appears that its going to be catering to the same over 50, high dollar crowd that the rest of Oak Ridge’s independent shops and restaurants tend to cater to.

I was pondering this stuff while reading a Metro Pulse last night, and daydreaming of how cool it’d be to have some sort of hip-underground district for somebody in the 20s-30s to relax. Some of my favorite towns, like Asheville, or Guelph, Ontario, have this elusive something. You can walk around, stop for a burger in some mom and pop greasy spoon with metal signs all over the wall, and then take off for a beer in some bar with the drafts written on a chalkboard. After that, you head over to the local (independent) bookstore for a cup of coffee while you peruse the local history section.

Something I’ve found about these towns, invariably, is that these bookstores HAVE a local history section, and a good one. There’s a fierce pride in a city that has these undefinable parts of town, and its precisely for that reason, that you CAN’T define it. Chattanooga is starting to pick it up in the area on the north side of the Walker Street Bridge, where new parks and shops have started thriving. You see people walking around feeling that they are part of something bigger than they are, that they belong in a town that has a shared identity, and no matter what economic background, or where they’re from, if they live there, they’re part of the group. Almost a subconscious hive mentality.

Which is the type of mentality that’d help Oak Ridge a lot, and one that I don’t think they have.

Now, I’m not necessarily advocating head shops and baby slings to fix all of Oak Ridge’s ills. However, the town is culturally dead. Yes, it has an art museum. No, I haven’t been to it. Further, I’m aware that we have Jackson Square, which has ENORMOUS potential, but is hampered by the fact that there isn’t a place, other than Big Ed’s, to cool your heels, and that most of the shops there appear to be offering services (insurance, haircuts, law offices), which takes potential retail space away from making the joint a shopping haven.

Another part of Oak Ridge’s problem here is the fact that theres no consistency. If the art museum was within walking distance from Jackson Square, and the library, and Bissel Park, and the Time Out Deli, and Mr. K’s, we’d have that part of town I’m talking about. The center nucleus of businesses would grow, and the people heading over there to walk around, hang out, and give some identity to this faceless town would appear.

THATs when you’d have something to do.

Now, I’ve been spending all this time talking about the problems, but not offering much in the way of solutions. I fear that’s going to take a serious effort. Some could say that Arnsdorff’s town center might fix it, but thats depending on
a) The jackass ever getting it done, and
b) The place not having an artificial, plastic feel.

I think the appeal of these districts in other towns is in the fact that they’re using buildings that are 40-50 years old. Its going to be hard to duplicate that in a new construction environment. No, the new square is going to be something like Turkey Creek, at absolute best, and more than likely a glorified strip mall. I’m not holding out much hope for it.

No, theres not going to be a hero on a white horse come riding in to save Oak Ridge business, and in turn Oak Ridge entertainment. And I lump the two together, because an active town is an entertained town, and in the year 2006 what gets a person out of the house is somewhere to go, and walk, and windowshop. Its a place where you sit outside with a cup of coffee and watch something other than a parking lot, and turnpike traffic. Its shops where you’re recognized for being part of the town, and you feel rewarded for supporting it.

We need to build something ourselves out of Oak Ridge. We need to start by recognizing and promoting what we have. We need to consolidate what there is into a place where foot traffic can bring in people in. It needs to be in an existing part of town, to do homage to what has been there before.

Now, surely I’m not the first person to think of this before, and not the first person to look at Jackson Square as the obvious place for it.  So what happened?