I was not unhappy at that case of mistaken identity and thinking more about it later I wanted to believe that the real rabbit salesman is a really smart rabbit salesman and picked me to help boost his sales.

He was unlike some other so-called rabbit salesmen I saw on Sharma TV on Wednesday night, including a former Information Minister who tried to pull rabbits from a hat, like those magicians on TV.

Those of you who know me by now know that I am not averse to being associated with bunnies.

I have not yet had the good fortune to be invited by Playboy magazine to pose with or be with their centrefold bunnies – those hot, hot women dressed as rabbits with furry little tails and ears and hardly anything else. Get the picture?

I enjoy Bugs Bunny’s antics in the TV cartoons but I’ll dump those for the Playboy bunnies any time.

That’s why I suspect that the real rabbit salesman spotted me as I waited for a taxi on the Fogarty’s pavement yesterday and decided to seize the moment to make some sales.

You really can’t beat Fogarty’s as one of the best spots for shopping and passing the time in GT. It’s in a prime location and after five minutes on the pave, or in the store any working week-day or a Saturday morning, you are bound to run into people you know and may not have seen in years.

Fogarty’s is just a great spot to be and there I was on the pave, waiting for the taxi and watching the traffic go by (who’s talking about vehicles?) when the rabbit salesman stopped right next to me and parked his cage with some really cute white rabbits with pink ears, and a brown one.

“The heat must be really getting to them”, I said to him and he replied “You bet.”

Within seconds, women were gathering around me asking how much for a rabbit.

They weren’t flocking the real rabbit salesman – they were jostling me for the rabbits!

For a fleeting minute I thought it was because they thought I was cute, but then I began to wonder if they were after me because they felt I looked like a softie and could smile and get free rabbits from me.

I once tried selling life insurance policies and managed to sell only two to friends who felt sorry for me before I gave it up, realising I am not cut out to be a salesman. So I sensed that the women sensed that I was no real rabbit salesman and would have given away the rabbits for little or at giveaway prices.

I don’t know if the rabbit salesman managed to capitalise on his brief association with me and sell his cage of rabbits after I left. I would have loved to stay to enjoy the rabbit salesman limelight but the taxi came shortly after and I had to head back to work.

Maybe it’s the heat wave that’s driving some people silly too but I also saw some scared media rabbits on CN Sharma’s Channel Six TV Wednesday night and could have almost predicted the headline in yesterday’s Kaieteur News.

Mr. Sharma aired a recording of the US Embassy-sponsored public discussion on `The Principles of Press Freedom: the U.S. Experience’ at the Pegasus Hotel Wednesday afternoon. That session featured a presentation by visiting American journalist Herb Frazier and remarks by former Information Minister Moses Nagamootoo and TV journalist Enrico Woolford.

Mr. Frazier made some points from his working experience as a journalist, including the need for hard work and perseverance in going after stories, forever striving to be balanced and getting all sides before publishing, which I feel local journalists have to take seriously if they want to be taken seriously.

A lot of what he said was food for deep thought by the local media corps but that was not reported on by the Kaieteur News yesterday.

Instead and true to my self-prediction, it seized on the remarkable remark by Mr. Nagamootoo, who was a journalist at the Mirror newspaper under the government of the late President Forbes Burnham, that there is greater fear in Guyana today than during the Burnham reign.

Nagamootoo, a practising attorney and Member of Parliament of the governing People’s Progressive Party/Civic, claimed he is seeing in Guyana “large doses of fear” by the media in reporting stories that could be deemed offensive to the administration. He said he is sensing in Guyana an “unease” that was never experienced before.

Mr. Nagamootoo is an old and close friend, but I, who also battled for my very survival as a journalist during the Burnham era and after, am dumfounded by what he said he senses in the media here today.

Father Darke, a photographer for the Catholic Standard newspaper, was murdered in broad daylight not far from the Brickdam Police Station during the Burnham era. Journalists like Rickey Singh, Hubert Williams, Ulric Mentis and others had to leave the country because Burnham saw the media as his nemesis and brooked no dissent.

Because he did not like my reporting for the then Caribbean News Agency, now the Caribbean Media Corporation, Burnham leaned heavily on the news agency to get rid of me as their Guyana correspondent and I bore the brunt of his attacks and even threats to my life.

It was not much different under his successor the late President Desmond Hoyte, with agents from the Police Special Branch detailed to tail me, among others.

I am sorry friend Moses – but I just don’t see the media fear you see.

Your fear fright might have sounded like a good sound bite but I don’t see scared rabbits in the media, and trust me – some people think I can sell rabbits!

And at least you are free today to say what you feel in public. Can you imagine Enrico Woolford or Adam Harris doing the same under Burnham?