GANDHI IN THE GARDEN

Who says Gandhi is dead? His spirit keeps popping up in the unlikeliest places — most recently in the pages of Smith and Hawken, the high-toned gardening catalogue for yuppies who want to pretend they enjoy getting their hands dirty. This spring, Smith and Hawken is offering an electronic mosquito catcher called Insectivoro. At $ 130, it’s a steal. And of course this bug catcher has, so to speak, a catch. “A powerful fan,” says the catalogue, ” sucks [the bugs] into a filter drawer, where they desiccate over time — or they may be released back outside at the end of the day.” Catch the bugs and release them? This is a bug-catcher as designed by the U.N. — and if it catches on, watch for an outbreak of malaria in Scarsdale.