Perspective: Neighborhood bunny bouncers

St. Petersburg's upscale Snell Isle neighborhood, of all places, is being plagued by roving gangs of rogue rabbits, of all things. The feral former pets are turning flower gardens into rabbity salad bars, and the Tampa Bay House Rabbit Society (I swear, there's an organization for everything nowadays) has been trying to round them up -- with scant success. Seems the creatures are too fast and shifty to be easily netted.

I hear Snell Isle is thinking of renaming the main drag Brightwatership Down Blvd.

The volunteer hare herders have harvested a dozen head of bunny on the cottontail trail so far. That's just a drop in the bunny bucket when you remember these little hoppers can multiply faster than Univac.

"I don't understand it, Eugene. We sprayed for rabbits just last week."

Refriger-Gators on Parade: Speaking of animals in the news, entrepreneurs in Husavik, Iceland, got the idea of punching up the faltering fishing economy by creating an alligator farm in one of their volcanically steam-heated ponds.

What a wonderfully foolproof plan. The gators could attract tourists, stay tropically warm in the pond, live on waste from the fish-packing plants and -- when they get kinda big and scary and want more than packing-house table scraps -- get cooked and eaten. The surrounding cold, of course, would serve as an invisible fence to keep them from wandering from their toasty digs.

Sounds good, but has Iceland considered the possible negatives? Gators like to get up on the banks of swamps to sun themselves. Will it be warm enough up there on dry land -- or permafrost? Will the relocated saurians be too lonely without moccasins, snapping turtles, pond cooters and other fellow Floridians for company? Do the locals know enough to realize these reptiles are not appropriate for petting zoos?

Also, I read somewhere that the sex of alligators is determined by the temperatures surrounding the eggs. Mama gator would never know if she was raising all boy babies, all girl babies, a nest full of golf ball-sized hailstones or just plain poached eggs.

I'd give it more thought, Iceland. Let's put this ice sculpture on the back burner for now.

Speaking of questionable decisions, security was tight at the Bucs-Vikings game in Tampa, but I feel it may have been overdone in the instance I saw on the TV news. A little blond girl was barred from taking her purple plastic toy horn into the stadium. (I know I would be quick to give up if someone held a toy bugle to my head.) I suppose the zealous security personnel took one look and said, "Hmmm. She certainly fits the al-Qaida profile."

I Seed My Duty And I Done It: Speaking further of questionable decisions, how about the new law just passed by that distinguished deliberative body, the St. Petersburg City Council (later shot down by the mayor), to limit the feeding of birds in public parks to one ounce of seed per donor per day. I want to see the scientific study that told them this particular amount would be just right to avoid health hazards caused by excessive bird droppings. What if everyone in town went to the same park to deliver his/her ounce of seed? Our birdy friends would be up to their scuppers in future manure, but it would be legal. I'm sure the only ones more annoyed by the ordinance than the pigeons would be be the enforcement branch, St. Petersburg's Finest -- armed with measuring spoons.

Can't get over those folks who are so eager in time of torment to give up our cherished American freedoms to preserve a nation that's great because of those freedoms. Same logic, I guess, that once moved someone to say, "We had to destroy that village to save it."

Says here on my can of V8, "100% vegetable juice . . . with added ingredients." Well, come on, V8, which is it?

Underheard: "Beauty is only skin deep. But that's all it has to be."

Never trust the words of a man who begins his argument with "Obviously . . ."

In Savannah, Ga., school officials have banned "lewd gestures" and "vulgar movements" by cheerleaders and in dance routines, adding that the ban extends to glee clubs and wrestling teams, too. Glee clubs? A lot has changed since I, in my stately maroon robe, sang the Hallelujah Chorus with the rest of the South Broward High School Choraleers. Wrestling teams? Well, those guys do tend to grab one another in overly familiar places. Let's hope they don't take away vulgar-movement rights from baseball players. If those guys couldn't scratch themselves, it just wouldn't be baseball.

You know it's the end of an era when Chiquita Banana declares bankruptcy. The Carmen Miranda of Fruitdom blames it on European Union trade restrictions. Once Chiquita could say, "If there's a sounder outfit than ours, I'll eat my hat." Good thing there's a lot of nutrition in fruit baskets.

Carolyn Risher, mayor of Inglis, Fla., issued a proclamation under the town's official letterhead, banishing Satan from the city forever. Apparently abandoning standard punctuation as well as concern for the concept of church-state separation, she asserted it in Jesus' name. She went on to declare the devil powerless as a result of her decree.

Now why didn't America's leaders think of this simple measure before going off half-cocked, deploying rockets and Marines all over the place?

Let us know how it works out, Your Honor.

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