Earlier this week, the Buncombe County Commissioners called an emergency closed meeting to purchase land on Bent Creek from Henderson County. The media was told the crony* would work with the county to provide a greenway. Now, Buncombe County and the NC DOT are holding an emergency public input session on what kind of greenway they want to run through the property.

Meanwhile there is an advocacy article in the Mountain Xpress for sidewalks, those impervious pavers that counter childhood obesity by making people walk. Asheville City Councilman Chris Pelly is disappointed the city, with his offer to double, would only build about two miles of sidewalks a year. Complicating the matter is the fact that cities can’t just put down concrete squares like they did in the old days. No. Complete streets must have wide turning radii for wheelchairs, ramps to make my friends fall and become handicapped, meanderings to make obese children lose weight, street trees and street furniture to assist in the even the obese children poop out going the extra mile, and all kinds of placemaking so planners don’t lose their jobs.

And running down a third parallel path would be that Hendersonville has won an award from the state for tearing up its downtown, wrecking up flowing traffic to provide streetscapes. Why, lookie at the picture, it looks just like a watercolor rendering with all those spring leaves and all.

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*Manipulating the language as is so often done anymore, I am using the word “crony” to describe an act and not a person, since I don’t know who is involved. The county gave an interest a special favor. Although you will be told our government was created to beat female slaves, it really was supposed to work against privilege, favor, aristocracy, tyranny, and all that corruption in the Old World. I am here inventing a term, “crony,” as in, “He committed a crony,” because I don’t have words to say how much I detest acts of cronyism.

I do not approve of name calling. We humans are all in the game of life together. It would only hurt us to tackle one of our team members because he fumbled, right? Instead, we seek to wrest erroneous notions, cankerous roots and all, from the precious minds they infect.