I saw an Internet Teaser Headline that I thought was really going to capture the attention of all of America but I was wrong. The headline was...
Panda Loses Weight
Because of the obsession we all have for the center attraction of our zoos the Chinese Pandas, I had real fear that this Internet Teaser Headline meant Zing Goo Po (or whatever our Atlanta Panda is named) was ill. Since Pandas have not been known to go on diets, losing weight would surely have to have been the result of some kind of dire illness.
I breathed a sigh of great relief when I read the article and found out that it was a story about a baseball player named Pablo Sandoval (nicknamed “Panda”) who is losing weight for the upcoming baseball season. Google him if you want to learn about his ongoing struggles with his weight. There are lots of articles about him being fat, losing weight, going on a diet, going off a diet, etc.
I know Pablo’s fatness is of great concern to the San Francisco Baseball Fans but a sick Panda anywhere is big and ongoing news in the city in which that particular Panda takes up residence. It has been this way in all of the cities in which I have lived.
If Atlanta’s Panda were ill, we would not have heard anything about the Australian Floods, the Arizona Shooting Aftermath, North Korea’s Bomb, Iran’s Bomb, Brittney Spears and such until that cute little fella was fully recovered.
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It’s not just Pandas. In Atlanta we had an obsession with a Gorilla named Willie B. who died in the year 2000. I remember that when he died a radio commentator said the following, “He was a great Ambassador for all of Gorillakind”. You think I made that quote up, don’t you?
Our obsession with Willie B. continued after his passing. In doing my research for this posting, I looked him up in Wikipedia. It was worse than I thought...
- More than 8,000 people attended the memorial ceremony held in his honor.
- The zoo now has a life-size bronze statue of him on permanent display outside the Gorilla exhibit.
- His remains were cremated. 80% of his remains were kept in a bronze box in the bronze statue at Zoo Atlanta and the other 20% were flown back to the African jungle.
You also think I made these 3 bullets up don’t you? When will you learn that I only make things up when it is absolutely necessary? It is not necessary to make up foolishness when foolishness abounds in the world around us.
Would I kid u?
More: If I had any kind of significant city wide readership in Atlanta, do you realize how viciously I would be attacked for having made light of Willie B.? Sort of makes me glad you are the only person reading this Foolishness...Or Is It?.
Still More: Some are being critical of President Obama saying he did not get much of anything out of the visiting Chinese President Hu Jintao. To that insinuation I say Hogwash! Don’t these people read the newspaper? In today’s paper it plainly states that China has granted an extension to the Washington D.C. Zoo to keep their two pandas another 5 years. What more could we ask of a president of these United States?
