But let’s be honest: We as Americans have set certain landscaping expectations for our office parks, our median strips, and our suburban yards, and it involves blowing. Ours is a nation too vast to be groomed by hand tools. So we must learn to co-exist with these man-machine hybrids, the Blower Guys, as they roam the grasslands, blasting organic debris before them with their mighty nozzles. (A little-discussed complication to the arguments of anti-blower partisans: Like ripping an awesome burnout or firing a machine gun at a roadside gun range in Las Vegas, wielding a pro-grade leaf blower can be a wasteful-but-satisfying projection of power. It’s akin to being some kind of ancient wind deity.)

We won't spend the money necessary to prevent this from happening again.

"'Garden of Eden', 2007 by Wollle shows eight pedestals, each of which is covered with an airtight Plexiglas box. Via the internet, the latest air pollution levels in the capitals of the G8-countries are obtained. The system reproduces these levels artificially inside these boxes, each of which contains a lettuce that serves an indicator of the quality of the air inside the capsules."

"Wrist-slittingly depressing, yes, but there are glimmers of hope on the horizon."