The Well-Manicured Lawn: A Global Menace

It's spring. The lilacs are blooming and perfuming the air. The birds are singing. Here in Rodgers Forge, we hear them intermittently -- whenever there's a pause in the roar of lawn mowers, weed whackers and grass blowers. What a friend of mine calls "lawn assault weapons."

Indeed, when my neighbors fire them up, don goggles, and fill the air for hours with their deafening din and noxious fumes, I begin to think of grass as a greater threat to our collective happiness and security than terrorism.