It's been a long time since we've visited with our black-and-white (and a little dirty brown) friends, the panda. National Geographic's cover story this month is Panda, Inc., the million dollar industry behind having pandas on U.S. soil. It focuses mostly on Tai Shan, the adorable, nearly year old scamp in DC, and has many cute pictures and video. Of course, Gothamist hopes that panda leasing prices come down (China charges $2 million now), as we dream that a pair can come and breed in NYC. more ›

It's been too long since our last panda post, so we must congratulate our DC-based blog, DCist, for managing to give baby panda Tai Shan his American nickname, Butterstick. The National Zoo's announcement about their "Black and White Night" benefit included mention of "Butterstick" in case people didn't know who Tai Shan was and the tagline, "Everything goes better with Butter." It sure does, especially when it's a mound of fuzz leaving scent markings near city sewer lines (we're not making this up!). And the Washington Post confirmed the National Zoo's move, with a quote from zoo spokesman Peper Long:

"It's not an official acknowledgment. We still call him Tai Shan. But we realize people all over the world love this little guy and probably have a variety of nicknames for him -- and this is a very popular one."

It's so obvious that the NY Times wishes New York City had pandas of its own, because they resorted to putting a HUGE photograph of DC's own Tai Shan on the front section of the Science Times today. And to justify this act, Natalie Angier wrote an article about "The Cute Factor," explaining what Gothamist has secretly suspected: People love round, fat things. Babies? Check. Pandas? Check. Baby pandas? Check. Extra zeros on a paycheck? Check. There's the obligatory mention of the Japanese "kawaii" phenomenon and scientists explaining why people like cute things.:

Observing that many Floridians have an enormous affection for the manatee, which looks like an overfertilized potato with a sock puppet's face, Roger L. Reep of the University of Florida said it shone by grace of contrast. "People live hectic lives, and they may be feeling overwhelmed, but then they watch this soft and slow-moving animal, this gentle giant, and they see it turn on its back to get its belly scratched," said Dr. Reep, author with Robert K. Bonde of "The Florida Manatee: Biology and Conservation." more ›

Finally! It's as if our Christmas wish was answered early, for we must hail pandafix, the only website (that we know of) that aggregate all the insanely cute pictures of pandas DC, SF, China, and more in . Pictures of sixteen panda cubs from the breeding center in Wolong? Check! Somewhat embarassing photos of Bass's 25th birthday? Check! Side by side comparisons of Tai Shan and Su Lin climbing outside? Check! Thank you, Kris Kringle, Hanukkah Harry, Kwanzaa Kanye, et al for making it happen.
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The current NY Times above-the-fold/ breaking news photograph is of Tai Shan, the National Zoo's four month old panda, who made his media debut today. Obviously, this is a call for New York City to stop shuffling our feet and to finally get our own set of pandas who can breed (naturally, artificially, who cares?!) and make adorable little pandas for us to coo about. Otherwise, we'll be heading out of town to DC every possible weekend (the first 13,000 tickets to see him are already gone!) to see this little fella until he turns two and is shipped back to China to mate with some lady pandas in the Wolong. more ›

">in one hour. That's one popular panda! more ›