"Tennessee Valley Talks"

Farewell to the TimesDaily Forum as we knew it. It departed Shoals cyberspace yesterday after a relatively short run of four years and five months. When it was born in November 2006, the New York Times syndicate announced it as a glowing replacement for the crude forum that had then been in existence for approximately 18 months. Now, according to the Decatur powers that be, this second incarnation was no longer state of the art and badly in need of an update.

Judging by the name of this latest forum, we may now be sharing the new site with Decatur and Moulton readers. Is this a bad thing? Not in itself, but no longer would it be a forum dedicated to local Shoals news. One might even call it a distraction from local news. The jury is out...

*****

A friend recently called us hyper-local; is this a bad thing? If you've been reading our blog long enough, you know that our premise is to fix what's wrong in the Shoals first--then work on state and Federal problems. Yet, are we not part of the Tennessee Valley?

Yes, we are...but just because the Tennessee Valley is prospering, it does not mean the Shoals is prospering. Just because the Shoals is doing well or improving in various areas, it does not mean Sheffield is doing well or improving. Just because Sheffield is improving doesn't mean Baptist Bottom is looking fantastic. Feel free to insert other names into this paragraph.

We all know that 100% of any population is not going to function at what one could term normal levels. Similarly we know even fewer of the population is going to excel. That doesn't mean a majority can't function at or above normal levels, or that many in this college town area can't excel. Let's stop waiting for the state and Federal governments to intervene. If they give us aid in whatever form, we can take it, but let's not wait for it...



Shoalanda