psychoceramics: Free the Pandas?

[s--@s--.ucsd.edu (Steve Lamont)]

Lately I've been seeing bumper stickers pasted on various objects
around campus (mail boxes, signs, ATMs, newspaper racks, and, most
ironically, given the text, stop signs) with either the words "FREE
LOVE" or just "FREEDOM" on them (putting them on stop signs gives
"STOP FREE LOVE" or "STOP FREEDOM" of course, hence the mild irony).

Examining them more closely, they seem to be from someone or something
called the "Free the Pandas Foundation" headquartered in Hawaii.
They're sponsoring a series of demonstrations "at a zoo near you"
sometime soon, presumably to force the zoo to set their captive pandas
free.

The San Diego zoo has at one time had pandas on loan from Beijing but
I don't think they do now [I think I would, since I'm a member of the
zoo society (it gets us in free to the zoo and the wild animal park --
a great way to entertain visitors)] -- so I'm not sure why San Diego
is being postered.

I do confess a bit of sympathy for the sentiment, given the way that
the pandas were overmarketed the last time they were here, but given
the paucity of pandas in the wild, "freeing" them would probably
guarantee the extinction of the species in a relatively short while.

Anyhow, the purpose of this posting is to see if anyone else on this
list has seen a similar movement in their area or is it just a San
Diego thing?

							spl