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SANTA ROSA, Calif. (AP) Sonoma County musician Doug Bowes will remember this Easter season as the one where he happened upon the Easter Bunny, and it attacked him. Bowes was walking near his home at about 11 a.m. Wednesday when the attack occurred. A small, gray jack rabbit bounded toward him from a nearby fence. ``I thought, 'Gosh, this is somebody's pet,' '' Bowes said. He put his hand down in a friendly gesture and the bunny lunged and bit him. Bowes began to walk home, nursing a sore hand with broken skin, but the rabbit followed him. A short...

The Easter Bunny Hates You.

Another tradition is making some people uneasy: the Easter Bunny. Some folks, worried that the Easter Bunny correlates too closely with Christian traditions and is therefore offensive to non-Christians, are abandoning the little fellow. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the town of Walnut Creek renamed its Easter Bunny the "Spring Bunny." The Spring Bunny participates in the town's storied annual tradition, the Spring Egg Hunt. Some malls across America are changing the Easter Bunny's name, too. According to WorldNetDaily.com, some store managers are calling their bunny "Baxter the Bunny," "Garden Bunny" or "Peter Rabbit." Peter Rabbit was the name...

Spring Egg Hunt   Spring Bunny  

April 7, 2007 — A Rhode Island public school has decided the Easter bunny is too Christian and renamed him Peter Rabbit, and a state legislator is so hopping mad he has introduced an "Easter Bunny Act" to save the bunny's good name. "Like many Rhode Islanders I'm quite frustrated … by people trying to change traditions that we've held in this country for 150 years, like the Easter bunny," Rhode Island State Rep. Richard Singleton told "Good Morning America Weekend Edition."

EAST HARTFORD -- Maybe Ian Lawrence was hoping the police officer who stopped him Wednesday night on Main Street believed in the Easter Bunny. And maybe Lawrence was hoping the 16 plastic sandwich bags of marijuana police said they found inside the pouch of a stuffed bunny on his car floor would be mistaken for the grass that rabbits like to munch. But the 25-year-old town man was not that lucky. After police searched his car and found more marijuana and a digital scale, police said, Lawrence was charged with possession of marijuana, operating a drug factory, possession with intent...

The fate of 12 German giant rabbits delivered to North Korea is in doubt. The breeder who sent them suspects they have been eaten by top officials rather than used to set up a bunny farm. Berlin's North Korean embassy denies the allegation. One thing is sure: the country will have to find another seller. A German rabbit breeder who sold 12 rabbits to North Korea to breed giant bunnies said he won't be exporting any more to the reclusive communist country because he suspects they have been eaten. Karl Szmolinsky, 68, sent the spectacularly huge rabbits, which are as...

It's been nearly five years since Walnut Creek renamed its Easter Bunny the "Spring Bunny," but the name change became news on Thursday after a resident wrote a letter to the editor protesting it. City spokesman Brad Rovanpera said he was surprised by the media buzz and TV news trucks outside City Hall Thursday, attracted by a change instituted in 2003 with no controversy. The city's Spring Bunny reigns over annual "Spring Egg Hunts" in two city parks. "This will be the fifth year we are doing it that way," Rovanpera said. "This is the first complaint that I have...

A Colossal Leap of Faith In Fight Against Famine North Koreans See Potential in German Breeder's Giants By Craig Whitlock Washington Post Foreign Service Friday, February 2, 2007; A10 EBERSWALDE, Germany -- Few people raise bigger bunny rabbits than Karl Szmolinsky, who has been producing long-eared whoppers since 1964. His favorite breed, German gray giants, are the size of a full-grown beagle and so fat they can barely hop. Last year, after the retired chauffeur entered some of his monsters in an agricultural fair, word of his breeding skills spread to the North Korean Embassy in Berlin. Diplomats looked past...

Caption this moment from the White House Easter Egg Roll "Hefner, eat your heart out - I have the cutest Bunny !"

APRIL 17--A Florida mall dispute ended Saturday night with the arrest of the Easter Bunny on battery charges. The rambunctious rabbit (aka Arthur McClure, 22) was nabbed after he allegedly struck a mall visitor who beefed about the early closure of a photo line on which kids and parents waited for a snapshot with the cuddly character. According to Fort Myers Police Department reports, patron Erin Johansson complained to the Easter Bunny's assistant (Crystal Frechette, 25) and the two women began to argue. That's when Frechette (who's married to McClure) allegedly punched Johansson in the face. At that point, the...

It happens twice a year, at Christmas and Easter. The newsweeklies sometimes carry cover stories. The newspapers print items calling the reason for these seasons into question. This Easter is no exception, but the intensity level seems to have increased. This year's first attack came from St. Paul, Minn., a where local officials decided to ban the Easter Bunny from City Hall. They said it might offend some non-Christians, as if the Easter Bunny has anything to do with Easter's real significance. Apparently it escaped the notice of the city council that the Easter Bunny might offend Christians, because, like...

A German man has taken legal action against the Easter Bunny for grievous bodily harm.Karl-Friedrich Lentze, from Berlin, has filed a complaint with prosecutors, accusing it of causing addiction to chocolate which leads to heart attacks, obesity and strokes. Lentze said: "The Easter Bunny is a sadistic and unscrupulous offender who preys on people's sweet tooth. "Find this evil bunny, handcuff his paws and remove him from shops in time for Easter." Public prosecutor spokesman Christian Avenarius said: "We will act upon the complaint with speed and diligence."

Well, here comes another religious holiday, and with it another slew of slanders and lies against the church; wild accusations put forth first by pagans, Satanists, and anti-Christian atheists, but popularized in Christian circles by greedy preachers trying the practice of “market differentiation” to continuing their money-making. This time, it’s Easter. The truth is that we don’t really know why Easter is called Easter. It’s unique to the English-speaking peoples of the Earth. The rest of Christendom calls it “passover,” or some similar word, such as “pasqua.” The Christ-haters teach that Easter is a pagan festival, really. But men such...

March 25, 2006 -- Here's the opening sentence from the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star-Tribune: ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) - A small Easter display was removed from the City Hall lobby on Wednesday out of concern that it would offend non-Christians. The story went on to explain that a secretary decorates her area, which is apparently near or in the office lobby, for each holiday. This time it was "a cloth Easter bunny, pastel-colored eggs and a sign which said 'Happy Easter.'" This, apparently, enraged the city's human rights director because it negated, damaged or threatened somebody's human rights. This tower of...

A day after the Easter Bunny got the boot at St. Paul City Hall, Peter Cottontail's gigantic ears must be burning. The story of the bunny's eviction from the lobby of the City Council offices was the talk of the town on public airwaves, in skyways and on websites throughout the country on Thursday. Even Fox's Bill O'Reilly asked about it. Those who agreed with the decision to pull the "Happy Easter" messages kept a relatively low profile; several city employees who applauded the move asked to remain unnamed.

ST. PAUL, Minn. - The Easter Bunny has been sent packing at St. Paul City Hall. A toy rabbit, pastel-colored eggs and a sign with the words "Happy Easter" were removed from the lobby of the City Council offices, because of concerns they might offend non-Christians. A council secretary had put up the decorations. They were not bought with city money. St. Paul's human rights director, Tyrone Terrill, asked that the decorations be removed, saying they could be offensive to non-Christians. But City Council member Dave Thune says removing the decorations went too far, and he wonders why they can't...

A cloth bunny and pastel-colored eggs with the words "Happy Easter" were taken down from the lobby of the St. Paul City Council offices Wednesday after someone questioned whether it was appropriate to note the Christian holiday. "It's not about being politically correct or anything else. Someone complained, everyone stopped and said, 'We ought not to do this,' " said Council President Kathy Lantry. "As government, we have a different responsibility about advancing the cause of religion, which we are not going to do." The decorations belong to one of the council secretaries and were not bought with city money....

The Easter Bunny has been around since the 1500s, but, according to too many Web sites to list here, its origins go back much further. Rabbits and eggs have been part of springtime religious festivals before the Christian celebration of the resurrection of Jesus Christ was called Easter. In pagan Britain, for example, a spring celebration in honor of the goddess of dawn, Eastre, has been traced back almost 3,000 years, and the rabbit -- a symbol of life and growth -- was prominent in Eastre's yearly festival. To avoid persecution, Christian missionaries in Britain gave Christianity's major spring celebration...

BAY CITY, Mich. (AP) - The Easter Bunny is hopping mad. Bryan Johnson, who portrays the furry character at the Bay City Mall, says he was pummeled in an unprovoked attack on the job. Police say the attacker was a 12-year-old boy who sat on Johnson's lap the day before the March 18 incident. Johnson, 18, suffered a bloody nose. He kept his cool during the attack, deeming it inappropriate for the Easter Bunny to fight back. But he's not willing to forgive and forget. "They (the sheriff's deputies) told me it was up to me, and I feel that...