Double the baby panda-monium, double the gorgeous voices, plus a modest proposal

I've been watching Tai Shan, the cute little baby boy panda at the National Zoo in Washington DC, grow up on the zoo's Panda-Cam for the past three months. It's been a pleasure.

Now I've got a little girl in San Diego to watch, too! She's still too little for a name. (Along with the pandas, the zoos imported a tradition from China and won't name them for 100 days.) She even looks like she has a very sweet and friendly disposition in pictures, though that could be projecting because she's so dang cuuuu-uuute! (Yep, the panda babies are multiple syllables of cute!) See her here.

Speaking of a double dose of gorgeous, imagine being in a room where Sinead O'Connor's and Willie Nelson's two gorgeous, earnest, tender voices, both of which are lovely in speaking as well as singing and backed up by interesting (if often spliffed) brains, are talking about God and music. Ahhhh...

Read this if you're curious about what would transpire in such a conversation.

As for the modest proposal, remember that Jonathan Swift was Irish, too.

Sinead's awesome new reggae CD has only sold nine thousand copies in the States so far. That's nine-zero-zero-zero. My numeric-dyslexia's not acting up, either. That's not remotely right or fair.

Hear me out. In the past few weeks, the obnoxious American Family Association has campaigned against everything from Trojan's Elexa line (for the vibrating condom), to Target (for selling the vibrating condom and not letting Salvation Army bellringers annoy their shoppers), to the American Girl dolls (for supposedly promoting abortion and lesbianism through a partnership with Girls, Inc., an organization meant to empower young girls to make wise choices), to Walgreens (for donating a hundred thousand dollars to the Gay Games.) All of these idiotic campaigns have gotten a fair amount of media attention, both for the AFA *and* their targets. All of them have compelled people who don't agree with their idea of what consitutes "American" or "Family" to patronize their targets.

So....who wants to send the AFA a package consisting of a copy of Throw Down Your Arms and some Sinead interviews with the choicest quotes highlighted? Her sales should double in days!!!!

And my mom thinks my sociology/marketing degree's going to waste...