Water that garden!

09/07/2007 by Lee.

This weekend I finally cut the grass in my back garden. It’s been a while, and due to poor soil, drainage and laziness it has always been a struggle to get a decent patch of grass. Earlier in the Spring I bought some Canadian grass seed, which is supposed to grow in just about any conditions. Knock me down with a feather, it bloody well has too! I know have a lawn which by no means Wembley standards actually looks OK. Contrast this with the story of a Utah pensioner that has been arrested, handcuffed and bloodied for not having a decent lawn.

The United States is rife with gun crime, drugs and poverty, yet the good people of Orem feel that maintaining a decent thatch is the secret to a good society. According to the latest available statistics (2005), murders have increased by over 21% in Utah, yet the arrest rate for these crimes is declining. The citizens of Utah are quite literally getting away with murder. Car theft is up 7.4%, and whilst larceny/theft is down, it is still above the U.S. national average.

I’m not suggesting that Utah is a worse place to live than anywhere else in the U.S. but maybe in this instance they have got their priorites in the wrong order as the 56 murders and nearly 1000 rapes that took place in the state in 2005 would seem to testify. So is the charge of “not maintaining a garden” unusually weird for Utah? Sadly not. Let’s take a quick look at the statute books for Utah.

• It is illegal to fish from horseback
• It is illegal to detonate any nuclear weapon
• It is illegal not to drink milk
• It is a felony to persistently tread on the cracks between paving stones on the sidewalk of a state highway
• It is an offense to hunt whales (this in a state with no coast)
• it is illegal to cause a catastrophe

Quite clearly, these are serious crimes. It is also worth bearing in mind that for something to be outlawed there is usually a genuine need for it. So are we to assume that all these “crimes” have been commited at some point in Utah? Did somebody once hunt whales in this land locked state? Were they using nuclear weapons at the time, perhaps whilst on horseback? If so, was it a catastrophe?

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