hagin' by me

for zoo atlanta’s pandas that is. the lease on the giant pandas is up next year and zoo atlanta announced today it needs to raise $500,000 to reach the $2.5 million they need in order to renew the lease with the chinese on lun lun, yang yang and xi lan (mei lan is going back to china no matter what.)

it sucks that zoo atlanta doesn’t have the cash on hand to do this, but you know the drill, economy bad, corporate sponsorships are down, etc. etc. so anyway, the zoo is coming to you and asking for a membership or a donation or whatever you can do. they have set up a web site, give so they can stay, and you can check it out for more info.

i realize there are so many worthy causes hurting for money right now, but pandas, pandas are one of the things that make us big-time, in select company. and they are awesome.

you guys know how much i love these pandas. during the winter when i was going through a rough patch one of the things that got me through the day was pausing for a mintue and watching p-dizzle on the panda cam. i even bought a membership to the zoo so i could walk over there any time and see them. those animals are to me citizens of this city and part of us.

i hate this panda lease game with the chinese, but it is what it is. maybe this is the same kind of blackmail professional sports teams play with cities to get new stadiums, but damn does it work.

i think they are worth trying to keep here.

so who would come to a “keep the pandas here” party if we at the atlanta metblog were to throw one. maybe we could raise a few bucks.

who’s with me?

i just got a “breaking news alert” from the atlanta journal-constitution that zoo atlanta has named the latest panda cub xi lan, or “atlanta’s joy.” this to complement sister mei lan.

leaving aside for the moment the ajc’s rather loose definition of what consists of breaking news, i have a question. are we required by virtue of contract to have to name these pandas with chinese names?

surely we could do better. maybe something highlighting atlanta’s rich hip-hop tradition, like “young pandizzle.” or “shawty pandah.”

or we could highlight atlanta’s rich sports tradition, maybe “the highlight panda” or “john rocker.”

i’m just sayin’.