Brooms. Not much noise. More precise. Less dust. No exhaust. Exercise. Cheaper. How do we get this stuff so utterly bassackwards?

Leaf blowers. We all hate them. Alas, from a professional gardener’s perspective, they are so much faster and more efficient than brooms. From the workers’ point of view, they are not bassackwards at all, but just the opposite. Time is money in their highly competitive biz. Only in cities where they’ve been banned do they disappear, and invariably that has cut into the income of the working class gardeners. Not that many people think about their gardeners. But I’ve known several gardeners, and I know even more people whose family income derives, in part, from professional gardening. I just consider leaf blowers a fact of life. Working class solidarity, I suppose. Hard to find something more emblematic of the conflict between the bourgeoisie and the working class than leaf blowers. One third of Occupy Wall Street was in the top twenty per cent of Americans by wealth. If you want to rat them out bring up leaf blowers. They love all Mexicans except the ones blowing leaves around the yard.

Assaulting America’s nicer neighborhoods with their noise, hard work and unsightly pick up trucks.