Pandas Shmandas

What's black and white and overrated?\nIf you're about to retort, "Hey! I love pandas!" think it through. What have pandas done for you lately?\nI'll wager it's a whole lotta nothin'.\nYou can't be a productive member of society when you spend 12 hours per day eating bamboo. I've tried.\nEveryone's all excited because a baby giant panda was born at the zoo in Atlanta last week. Welcome to the world, baby panda. It's a world where everyone will love you, assuming you survive the high baby panda death rate. \nAccording to the China National Tourist Office, the "giant panda craze" began after 1869 when a French priest named Armand Pierre David thought it would be a good idea to introduce a big, furry raccoon wannabe to the Western world.\nIn preparation for the world's newest raccoon wannabe, CNN.com hosted a "Name that panda" contest. CNN said of the names suggested by readers: "Some are serious, some are silly, but all show originality and thought."\nStop being diplomatic, CNN. "Originality and thought" is merely a code for "incredibly dumb."\nFor example, Linda RyanJames of Oakhurst, N.J., wrote, "I would name the Panda 'Oreo.' Pandas are black and white like Oreos, sweet like Oreos and everyone loves PANDAS AND OREOS."\nSpeak for yourself, Linda.\nWhy do we have to love pandas? Is it because they're endangered? Is it because they're a symbol of racial harmony? If Oreos were endangered, would you love them more?\nZoo Atlanta's baby panda was born to mother Lun Lun and father Yang Yang through artificial insemination. Pandas have the hardest time getting knocked up, scientists are rumored to have said.\nThe zoo pays China $1 million per panda each year. Ouch. I can think of better ways to spend money than $1 million worth of Yang Yang. According to CNN, the money goes toward research, bamboo salvation and creating environments "conducive to breeding."\nWhy doesn't the zoo just save $999,984.44 and buy China a cheap bottle of wine and Barry White's greatest hits?\nAccording to the San Diego Zoo, giant pandas, despite being called "giant," are only about the size of a stick of butter at birth and about a million times less useful. (Well, I added that last part.) \nBelieve me, if you try to use a baby panda to grease up a griddle, you find yourself in some serious trouble.\nUp until 1997, a person convicted of killing a panda could be executed under Chinese law, according to the World Wildlife Fund. Now the penalty for panda poaching is more than 10 years in prison.\nThat's a lot of panda-monium for bears who don't do anything.\nBut baby pandas are so cute, you say.\nYou have low standards. The New York Times reported last January that the "human cuteness detector" is set at a low bar and will find cuteness in anything that remotely resembles a human baby or parts of a human baby, including the young of almost all mammalian species and even "a big round rock stacked on a smaller rock."\nAwww.