Strategic Defense.... Asheville: Part II

Asheville, N.C.
 ... A Must See !

OK, so here we go.... When we left off on Wednesday, the hotel was crawling with police and security and the hotel receptionist were trying to act like everything was normal in Asheville .... 

Anyway, the hotel was hosting a convention of biotech firms which specialized in DNA coding, gene splicing, and particularly in the genetic modification of plants and animals. The thought of modified plants and animals had created a lot of concern among "the tattooed


 and pierced set" in Asheville - and they had gathered across the side street to make a fuss.  

Walked out to survey the standoff.  
The

"Tahrir Square",
Asheville, N.C. 

protesters were a colorful group - mainly outfitted in t-shirts & REI - with beards, bandanas, and braids prevalent.  They had chosen to rally at the historic home place of Thomas Wolfe,  North Carolina's most distinguished writer (Look 
Homeward Angel and all that...). 

They held the high ground in the confrontation with the sun at their backs, highlighting the flutter of banners and signs. Their chanting however was noticeably unpracticed and their "2-4-6-8, we'd prefer to irrigate" wasn't all that convincing. Thomas Wolfe would have come up with a more rhapsodic verb...

Asheville cool...

Across the street, backs to the hotel boundary were some of Asheville's finest also dressed out appropriately, for the "eyeball-to-eyeball", in black with designer-matched helmet and nightstick accessories.  Being Asheville, the uniforms were finely tailored in body-sculpting, black Corinthian leather, accented with faux-silver metal brads and studs. The dark glasses appeared to be YSL.

But, that's not the "strategic positioning", I wanted to tell you about. 

SERIOUSLY...

The "Only In Asheville" feature to all this was that dead in the middle of the street, in between the two opposing camps, were stationed a dozen bicycle policeman wearing short pants and those - also silly - pointy, yellow and orange, space cadet, plastic bike helmets. 

" PULL OVER,
YOU'RE UNDER ARREST..."

As you can imagine, it is very difficult to look formidable, standing in the middle of a  city street, behind your big-wheeled mountain bike, in pretty much short-shorts, while wearing a bike helmet which makes you closely resemble a duck! These guys were doing the best they could "to bulk-up" by crossing their arms and trying to look stern, but - much like the protesters' chanting - it was not overly convincing.

So, here are the strategic positioning questions:
 

1) What the "H" were the bicycle guys doing there anyway?

The Blue Light
Special...

          A: Beats me! 

2) What were they supposed to do if the tree huggers charged down into the street? 
           

A:            a) Throw down the bikes and cry.
                b) Jump on the bikes and ride away.
                c) Join the protesters and sing Kumbayah.
                d) Call the police.
                e) Forget about it and head down to the French Broad Chocolate Lounge.



... and don't try to give me any feminist gif about "the french broad"... it's the name of the river (Really! can't make this sorta stuff up!) which flows thru Asheville.

( All this seem a bit strange?)

Welcome to Asheville ?