Atomictumor

So, I’m finding a distinct lack of things to post about.  Actually, seems like theres a lack of things to TALK about.

My thinking is that its post election blues, but I’m not sure why that’d be the case.  However, looking through all of the local blogs, we all seem to be suffering from the same thing.  Interesting.

I started doing this blogging thing late into the game, not even a year ago (almost a year ago… we’re gonna have a party, but Eaves is in charge of that…), and at the time the only online game in town that I knew of was the one on the Oak Ridger Forums.  Today we’ve got 4 Oak Ridge centric blogs (that I know of, if there are more, please lemme know), and probably a half dozen Anderson County blogs, along with the old OR forums crib.  Most of the AC ones are political, and purely political blogs are, in my eyes, kinda boring, and sometimes just downright weird.

By god, I think we’re getting ourselves an online community.

And thats damn good.  Oak Ridge, is, to me, an example of what an American city COULD be.  Its got a small town, comfortable feel, but enough amenities to where you really don’t have to leave town if you don’t want to.  Traffic’s not that bad.  Kids can ride bikes to where they’re going.  Highschoolers can meet up with classmates at the park for a massive game of frisbee, or they can head to see a movie (with cheaper matinee prices than Knoxville theaters, woot).  Theres a local pizza shop with great atmosphere (and overpriced, somewhat bland pizza, alas), a slowly growing local shop scene, and almost a counterculture (if you mention the skater kids).

Its the perfect town.  Yeah, we can bitch about the schools, and the politicians, but all in all, its damn good livin.

Problem is, its in the shadow of Knoxville.

Knoxville, to me, is like an old broken Vegas showgirl.  She had plenty of chances to hit it big, and failed at each one.  Hell, the last World Fair (which used to mean something, read Devil in the White City) was in Knoxville, and the town doesn’t give a damn anymore.  It is trying to do a downtown explosion in the same vein as Chattanooga’s downtown rebirth in the ’90s, but just can’t seem to get it right.  All of the factors are there, they’re just not mixing.

Its the home of a massive college, but gets few cultural events (concerts, showings, unique stores).  Its like a southern Des Moines.  The Simpsons completely called it right.

And, unfortunately, its the town that Oak Ridge orbits, although it does its best not to notice.  It seems that Anderson County, and Oak Ridge news rarely makes the paper.  The paper advertises Blount County, and Maryville, almost as if it is part of the metro area, but you have to dig a bit to find anything about Oak Ridge other than the occasional news about the labs, or the high school football team.

Do I have a point?  Probably not.  Its been that kind of week, tho, and I feel like picking a fight with K-Town.  Bring it…

Ever since reading Thomas Cahill’s book, How The Irish Saved Civilization, I’ve been interested in ancient Irish civilization, especially the Christian influence there. It is fascinating to me because the culture developed so richly and off in the hinterlands of the decayed Roman Empire. Eventually Christian Rome brought the Celtic church in line with itself, but not before Irish Christians sent missionaries through out the British Isles and much of Northern Europe.

A man digging peat in an Irish bog uncovered a psalter sometime this month. Evidently he was out using his bulldozer and saw the little brown manuscript unearth. He had the sense to cover it back up with moist dirt and take it to the authorities. The bbc reports on it here.

It is ironic that a book written near the end of one empire should resurface at the seeming end of another.