National Tree Day

In a play on the age-old circus announcement, the blanket on its back reads, "The Circus Is Coming, See SHACKLES, BULLHOOKS, LONELINESS, All Under The 'Big Top'."

PETA, which alleges that circuses routinely mistreat and abuse the elephants and other animals in their care, plans to attach a shackle to the creature's leg to underscore its message once it is installed in a prominent location.

"We know that circuses do everything they can do in order to keep the suffering of animals hidden and we were certainly determined not to let the arts commission do the same thing to our elephant," said PETA legal counsel Matthew Penzer.

America's best known circus, the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey, rejects such accusations, saying their animals are well cared for as an integral and beloved part of the performing "family."

SCULPTURE MENAGERIE

The commission in May unveiled a sculpture menagerie of some 200 fantastically decorated donkeys and elephants - animals that serve as the mascots for the Democratic and Republican parties, respectively.

Despite the political allusions, the arts body says the exhibition, modeled on similar displays featuring cows, pigs and fish in other cities, was meant only to boost tourism and promote public art.

"We think the party animals display is a whimsical fun art display, not a forum for political speech," said Peter LaVallee, a spokesman for the city's legal department. "It was not intended to convey any political message."

As with most things in Washington, however, politics quickly became an issue as the Green Party filed an ultimately unsuccessful lawsuit in March against the project, which it said unfairly promoted only the two biggest political parties.

The arts body also balked at the original circus elephant design by 'New Yorker' magazine artist Harry Bliss that PETA submitted.

It showed people pointing and smiling as a man with a hammer and nails tacked a poster with the same anti-circus message onto the skin of a cowed, unhappy elephant.

But Judge Richard Leon of the U.S. District Court in Washington earlier this month ruled that the commission had ignored its own standards in accepting other designs incorporating various messages.

One elephant on display is decorated like a Monopoly game board and called GOPoly - a play on the initials of the Grand Old Party, as the Republican Party is sometimes known.

The mosaic design of another elephant incorporates a panel inscribed "Just Say No to Ivory."

This week, Leon rejected the arts commission's requests to reconsider his earlier ruling and bar the installation of "Ella PhantzPeril" pending further appeal. He ordered the two sides to agree on an exhibition site for it by noon yesterday.