Something about light sure does get Athenians all riled up.

You all surely remember the legendary Streetlight Crisis of ’08. And Sunday, my profile of Commissioner Carl Jordan and his quest for a beefed-up outdoor lighting ordinance ranked as the most popular story on our Web site that didn’t include the words “Knowshon Moreno.”

And, unlike the Streetlight Crisis of ’08, most of the feedback was positive. Don’t dare turn any streetlights off, but I guess it’s OK to make them dimmer.

Or, Free Dance Classes for Everyone and a Streetlight in Every Pot.

Athens-Clarke Commission Carl Jordan only has three months left to bang heads with Manager Alan Reddish, and he relished the opportunity at the commission meeting Tuesday.

First it was an excruciating word-parsing exercise over getting an option for a 15-miles-per-hour roundabout placed in a Tallassee Road corridor study (Jordan wanted it; Reddish said OK and Jordan made him rephrase it about 30 times just to be sure).

Then Jordan tore into management for bringing the commission a request to add $5 million to a bond issue that will fund new sewer treatment plants. He accused Public Utilities of “coming in through the back door” to get $9 million worth of new water meters approved without a proper agenda item.

Light in August

Last week, Athens-Clarke commissioners begged Manager Alan Reddish to save them from their pitchfork-wielding constituents by figuring out a way to keep the streetlights lit. But judging by how Reddish plans to bail them out, they may get just as much static from their liberal base.

Reddish will recommend that the commission find $101,000 to keep the streetlights on by canning a $93,000 affordable housing trust fund.

For a city with so many educated and sophisticated people from all over the world, Athens often strikes me as oddly provincial.

The frenzy over tiered water pricing was one example – Athens was way behind the metro Atlanta curve but most people just couldn’t wrap their minds around it – and streetlights are another.

According to a February Daily Mail article I came across while researching crime and streetlights, several British towns are also turning off streetlights to save money and reduce air pollution. And guess what: people there are worried about crime, too.

B-sides, demos, outtakes and rarities from Thursday’s National Biological Armageddon Facility hearing hearing.

• The AJC’s Ken Foskett picked up on something I may have missed: it looks like the cost of building the NBAF rose from $525 million to $680 million. The higher figure is found here (click on site cost analysis and scroll down to page 27) in virtually illegibly small type buried at the bottom of an otherwise redacted chart. I guess that explains how I skipped over it, and why AJC reports make the big bucks. The Homeland Security guy I talked to today plead ignorance and said he’ll get back to me. I should have something for y’all early next week.

A-C Commissioner David Lynn might be canceling his subscription soon.

Conspicuously not heeding that shopworn advice about picking fights with people who buy ink by the barrel, Lynn tore into the Banner-Herald over this editorial on no fewer than three occasions during a 90-minute discussion about streetlights Tuesday night.

“ … faced with the possibility they'll anger constituents in neighborhoods that might lose some streetlights, at least some (commissioners) are looking for ways to backpedal, and beseeching government staff to protect them from their unthinking earlier decision on the lighting issue,” editorial page editor Jim Thompson wrote in the July 21 editorial.