Like many other cities in America, Chesapeake Virginia has laws governing how high you can let your grass grow. If your grass grows too high, they come by and give you a ticket. If you fail to take care of the problem, they'll mow your grass for you and send you a bill. Each year hundreds of citations are handed out to people who let their grass get too high.

Of course, none of this would sound unreasonable, if Chesapeake wasn't guilty of violating their own mowing laws.

On a piece of city property off Colony Manor Road in Deep Creek, the grass had grown so high that a resident erected a sign: "Mow Chesapeake Mow.'' On Johnstown Road, near Cheshire Meadows, a similar complaint was registered about weeds growing out of ditches along the road.

In Great Bridge, Wayne Johnson stood Friday on another piece of government land near his home and wondered how the city could ignore its own high grass and weeds - yet cite hundreds of homeowners whose grass has grown too high.

I don't wonder about it. Governments are constantly passing laws that are meant only to be obeyed by the peons.