Please, please, please, let this be true!

In case my loathing for the New York Yankees wasn't enough of a clue, I'm a huge fan of underdogs. And on a global scale, who are bigger underdogs than, well, dogs, and their fellow members of the animal kingdom? Humans, the end of the line on the evolutionary scale of bullies, have been pushing animals around for centuries and it makes me sick. I'm not even going to try to act like I don't like animals more than human beings. Animals do what they do because it is their nature. They make no pretense about this and they offer no apologies. Human beings, on the other hand, lie, cheat, and cause mayhem, pain and strife for kicks.

"What I did is not such a great harm, with all these surplus women nowadays. Anyway, I had a good time." -- Rudolf Pleil

"It wasn't as dark and scary as it sounds. I had a lotta fun . . . Killing somebody's a funny experience" -- Albert De Salvo

"Gazelles are beautiful animals. However, I kill and eat them to sustain the survival of my species. What!" -- A lion

I hate bullies, so any time animals push back, I'm all for it. That's why I'm hoping this story about a mysterious giant sea creature living in a canal in Pinellas County is true.

Now, I'm not a PETA person, although I would kind of like to be. The problem is that too often the good things they do on behalf of animals are negated when they do something stupid and annoying. They'll go after the cosmetics industry for horrible experiments being conducted on animals in the name of research but then they'll turn around and hold a candlelight vigil for a slain mosquito. There should be a PETA Lite; all the ethical treatment of animals with only half the crazy.

Since there's no such organization, I just have to sit back and find amusement in things like hunting accidents, idiots in Pamplona getting trampled by bulls and giant sea monsters suddenly appearing in canals in residential neighborhoods. One of the witnesses says it could be between 15 and 20 feet long. That's big, but I'd like it to be so big that bubbles roil furiously to the surface every time it moves and its wake slams boats against their moorings. Also, a neighbor goes missing every now and then. I've begrudgingly accepted that I'm never going to look out my window and see a T-Rex grazing on my obnoxious neighbors. But this would be pretty fair consolation.