I can’t tell you—or maybe I don’t need to tell you—how disheartening the world is right now. While I am not panicking myself over the election, it is tiring to watch Democrats freaking out about nothing, and to keep doing it for weeks. And while the GOP presidential candidate slowly melts on stage into a pile of goo, our old guard press can’t be arsed to report it accurately.
Through all of this we’ve kind of forgotten about the current president, as he’s not as relevant to the ongoing discussions. But back in November 2023, Joe Biden worked his diplomatic skills on the Chinese president, and President Xi said that just maybe DC could have another gia t panda pair.
And today the new panda pair arrived, complete with cameras following them every step of the journey from the airport to the zoo, like the celebrities they are. Here’s some footage of their introduction to their new home:
Now they won’t be in their public enclosure until late January 2025, but I was pretty happy to see them arrive because they are a throwback to a time when we didn’t constantly have to deal with a world where tragedy and awfulness were always within striking distance.
I haven’t memory-holed the horrible TFG years. I remember being shocked and angry and upset a lot of the time. I remember both the things he tried to do and the things he managed to do. I remember the first year of the pandemic when TFG was happy to let people die. And I remember the insurrection.
I also remember that things were still pretty dire when Biden took office, but at least the vaccines got rolled out and the tremendous loss of life and health from Covid were acknowledged. But Biden’s honeymoon was short-lived once TFG announced he was running for president again.
The past is never as perfect as we sometimes remember it to be, and there was plenty to be worried about back then. But I don’t remember this constant buzz of anxiety. For me, the giant pandas at the zoo are a link to a time when half of the politicians in this country were not batshit crazy treason weasels. And today that’s a memory I need to remember.
Here’s a song about enhanced memories:
