It is difficult to respect oneself when every week one writes the same old thing. This week, the replay took the form of a discussion by Asheville City Council about subsidizing $0.5 million in water lines for subsidized housing that upheld the current council’s vision and goals. Dr. Mumpower called it “socialism.”

Holly Jones was not pleased with his comments. The following is a paraphrase: We can promote our public goals, and the number-one goal is affordable housing, and we can do it with our own stuff, and not on the backs of the water customers. It just gives us an opportunity to invest in affordable housing above a threshold. Here we go, and hot dog. I’m glad we’re wedding affordability . . . marrying affordability and green building. What continues to be the best we can do for the environment and sustainability is building closer in, above and beyond light bulbs.

Mumpower dumbed it down an extra notch tonight for those who still don’t appear to get it. He asked Water Resources Director David Hanks who paid for the $0.5 million. Hanks replied that the money was in the water fund. Ratcheting down another level, Mumpower asked where the water fund got its revenues. After extensive probing, Mumpower established that water customers were actually paying for the water system subsidies of others, government was redistributing the wealth according to its preferences, and that was socialism.