Boys and their petty turf battles

After a few weeks of raw weather, we're back to muggy with a chance of afternoon mildew – springtime in New Orleans. Suburban folk around here have a really long growing season for America's number one crop, grass clippings. Lawn care is mindbogglingly wasteful and stupid, but the weekend harvest is pretty funny. That's when untold thousands of adult men ride little clown cars with spinning knives underneath, collecting tiny green shoots to be sealed in plastic sacks and discarded. Future civilizations will probably view this with the same sick fascination we have for Aztec sacrifices or the feasts of Elagabalus.