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Archives for August 2012

Douglas Cheetah at work on new documentary

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Renowned Park film director and proud University of West Terrier alumnus, Douglas Cheetah, is hard at work on a new documentary that he says will be ready for release in time for the 2013 Park Interspecial Film Festival (PIFF).

Best known for his controversial 2007 (25 AZ) film, Black Cats Can’t Jump, Cheetah has turned his attention to the interspecial family which, he says, can be found in all parts of the world.

“We think of it [the interspecial family] as existing solely outside The Park and, always, with Humans as part of the mix,” he says. “But that isn’t true at all. I found interspecial families everywhere, including in The Park. And, in many cases, it was because a conscious choice had been made, rather than as a result of some kind of hardship.”

Most interspecial families, he says, suffer from misunderstanding and there is a deep prejudice against them because they are associated with enforced domestication.

“Of course, that is the foundation of many of these families outside The Park,” Cheetah says. “But not all. And among the families I studied, there were several that had no Human members. Some had made the choice to open their homes and families to other species without any prompting; some had done so as a response to some familial or environmental disaster. Either way, these families are not what we in The Park tend to think they are. A great many of them are happy and loving groups who support each other and who have had success in their lives. They are valuable to each other and to the wider world. I think their story is well worth telling,” he says.

Archons, PFO blasted over Human Direct Investment in Park

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Human giving the boot to the food requirements of Park Animals

An investigation has concluded that Human Direct Investment (HDI) in The Park is responsible for some of the food shortages that Animals have experienced over the past year.

The investigation, which was conducted over a twelve-month period by The Park Police Force’s Undercover Operations Unit (UOU) revealed that, in January of 2011, the sitting Archons, in conjunction with the Park Finance Officers, agreed to “rent” out portions of The Park’s farmland to Humans for their personal use. The agreement explicitly allowed for use of the land for the purpose of growing food for the exclusive consumption of Humans.

“There was no stipulation as to sharing the harvest or any discussion, as far as we know, of their [the Humans’] reinvestment in The Park,” said UOU head B.N.L.Valerian Beetle at a news conference held this afternoon.

“This was a bad deal, all around,” said A.P. Civet, President of The Park’s Society of Concerned Park Cultivators, Planters, Growers, and Farmers (SCPCPGF) in an interview on Mammalian Daily Radio following the news conference.

“These so-called allotment gardens were given over for cash only, without any thought to the consequences,” she said.

It is because of those almost certain consequences that Park Animals find themselves in a state of fear this Summer, as they look at the likelihood of a truncated harvest and face the possibility of not being able to feed themselves from Park lands alone.

“Importing food is something we try to avoid at all costs…and primarily because of the cost of doing so. But, with our growing population and with the Archons not looking out for Animal welfare, it’s almost a certainty that we will have to do just that this year,” Civet said.

See also: Food production scandal rocks Park

Others in The Park, even more critical of the agreement, have turned their anger toward the Park Finance Office.

“I don’t know what they were thinking,” said A.J. Babirusa, president of the newly-formed activist group, Take Back The Park (TBTP). “You can’t eat money. They should know that,” he said.

Babirusa’s group has launched a lawsuit against the PFO, accusing it of illegally selling the rights to farmland without the consent of Park citizens.

“Archons come and go,” Babirusa said. “But the PFO should know better. They’re in charge of our welfare…or so we thought,” he said.

cackle and peck: a virtual hug around the neck

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GooseBook confirmed today that it will roll out its two new social networking sites at the end of the month.

At a press conference held this morning, GooseBook’s President and C.E.O., Lester C. Gander, announced that both cackle™ and peck™ will go live “by the end of the month.”

“Our goal is to go live on August 31, but we may be able to accomplish that ahead of time,” he said.

Before introducing the company’s two new products, Gander spoke critically of “rumour mongers who trade in erroneous information and try to bring down companies by raising consumer expectations so high they cannot possibly be met.”

See also: GooseBook opens to all species

Apropos of this, he was pleased to announce that GooseBook’s two new sister sites will “differ significantly from the earlier and erroneous reports, including those that said one [of the new sites] would be an internet search engine.”

More importantly, though, the new sites will differ significantly from the parent site, in that cackle™ will offer users a place to share “only happy and comedic events…things that you would laugh at or enjoy” and peck™ will provide a way for users to send others a “peck on the cheek or a hug around the neck.”

What will distinguish the sites even further, Gander said, is the use of language particular to the two sites. On cackle™, for instance, users will share posts, but they will also be able to “heap” their findings on their friends. Truly appreciated posts will be marked “Duperous” by senders and recipients alike. On peck™, users may make quick contact with those they treasure simply by posting “most”.

“Before we know it, these terms will become part of our daily lives,” Gander predicted before calling an end to the press conference.

Museum announces appointment of architects

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The Board of Governors of The Park Museum announced today that they have appointed the firm of Fleck + Stone Architects to design the museum building and its surrounding area.

In a statement posted on the museum’s web site, the Board of Governors said the architects have “the vision and the skill to create a beautiful building that will properly house and display the history of The Park and its residents.”

Fleck + Stone is the firm responsible for the design of the Institute for the Study of Mammalian Life and The Park’s Burrow Theatre.

The Park Museum, which will be built at an estimated cost of 5 to 10 million Ftoo, will be located in The Park’s central square. Details on the design elements are forthcoming, according to a spokesAnimal for the Board.

A groundbreaking ceremony is planned for September 2012.

Reminder: Park Art Walk

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The organizers of the 6th annual Park ART Walk (PAW) request the honour of your presence at the following event:

Park ART Walk
Saturday, August 18, 2012
10:00 am – 7:00 pm

The Park ART Walk is a one-day, juried art exhibition that showcases the artistic expression of Park residents. PAW showings will take place at participating art galleries, retail establishments, and at the Ancient, Open-Air Theatre.

For more information on this year’s event, please see: INtRT

————————————————————————————-

The Park ART Walk wishes to thank its sponsors:

         
  The Nutbar       LeTwiggery     Amoltrud’s Aesthetics

       Department of Holidays, Festivals, and Celebrations

                                         The Tabby Club
Marine Mammal Bank    Sapsucker Savings and Loan             You’ve Earned Your Stripes™                             

 

UWT, Park Hospital to open first Extinction Anxiety Clinic

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In a statement released yesterday, the University of West Terrier School of Medicine announced that it will collaborate with The Park Hospital for the Afflicted and Infirm to establish The Park’s first Extinction Anxiety Clinic.

The clinic, which will be housed within the University of West Terrier, is the first of its kind in The Park. The Clinic’s mission is to diagnose and treat the symptoms of extinction anxiety in all species of Animals and to educate the public with regard to the effects of extinction anxiety on the health and well-being of Animals.

“Extinction anxiety is one of the fastest-growing psychological conditions in The Park. Every day, we see at least a hundred new cases,” says Dr. Berthilidis Strix, who was appointed as the clinic’s head last month. “It is essential that we address the problem now, before it becomes a threat to our collective health and prosperity,” she says.

The clinic will also be staffed by Drs. Gudrun L. Gibbon and Elinore E. Owl and other faculty members of the University of West Terrier’s School of Medicine, as well as doctors, nurses, and community support workers from The Park Hospital.

In addition to diagnosing and treating Animals, clinic staff hope to conduct research on the effects of extinction anxiety on The Park’s economy, as well as on Animal behaviour.

The Extinction Anxiety Clinic is scheduled to open in January 2013.

Feral Four donate song to help formerly domestic Cats

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One of The Park’s most controversial musical groups, The Feral Four, has announced that it will donate the proceeds from its new song to the CatsCare Foundation, in aid of formerly domestic Cats who have found their way to freedom in The Park.

The song, which will be released as a digital download in the late Autumn, is titled, “I Saw Your Collar in the Hall”. No other information has been released, either by the group’s manager or by its record company, Colony Records.

The group, who is set to release a new collection of songs next year, is also working with The Canary Cousins, Eggie and The Pigs, The Beasts of Burden, Les Chiens Débraillés, Scentient Beings, The DomEstyx, The Endeka Elephant Band, NIML, and rapper Will.o.be. on The Park’s first interspecial song.

New photographs of Jor surface on gossip web site

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Previously unpublished pictures of Jor, The Park’s first leader, have surfaced on the gossip web site, headsNtales.

Previously unpublished photographs of Jor, The Park’s first leader and the founder of modern zoocracy, have surfaced on the gossip web site, headsNtales.

The pictures, which show Jor in some compromising positions, were posted on the site early this afternoon, according to PotWatcher, The Park’s foremost web-watching organization.

PotWatcher says the pictures appeared “without warning and without any mention of their provenance” on the headsNtales site.

“They were just…suddenly there,” said Rufus Gordon Gaupe, President and CEO of PotWatcher.

Posting the pictures is not technically illegal, though it is, in the words of a spokesAnimal for Park Police, “in poor taste”.

Many of the pictures were taken when George Livingstone Barnaby Cuthbert, known to Park citizens as “Jor”, was living as a domestic Cat.

“There are pictures of him with Humans, pictures of him playing with small toys and sleeping and eating with what appears to be another domestic Feline,” Gaupe says.

Political analysts have been quick to weigh in on who might be responsible for the posting.

“I think we can safely say that anti-zoocratic forces are at work here,” said Ronald Grouse, chief political analyst at The Avian Messenger. “It’s obvious this is meant to be a blow to Jor’s reputation…a way to discredit him and what he stood for, which is the concept of Animal self-rule.”

Despite requests for clarification from a number of Park newspapers, including The Mammalian Daily, headsNtales has refused to comment on the posting.

Gewper finds scents make good financial sense

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Executives at RhinoTech, Inc. had a hunch they were onto something four years ago, when they partnered with Enterprises Moufettes, S.A., makers of the popular scent-masking product, FeralNoMore™, to create gewper, a social networking site with a difference.

That difference—the opportunity for users to “smell those they know and those they might wish to know”—has made all the difference in RhinoTech’s bottom line.

Now just a year old, the site dubbed “the ultimate Animal experience in the virtual world” accounts for more than half of its developer’s real income.

“Earnings are up 175% over this time last year,” said a RhinoTech spokesAnimal at a tech conference held in The Park last week. “And we’re putting them to good use.”

That “good use” may well turn out to be the project the company says every Animal has been waiting for. In an interview last year, RhinoTech Chief Executive Officer Aldrich Nashorn confirmed that his company, which uses all its profits for research, was working on a site that would allow members to touch each other across cyberspace.

“We’re working on it, that’s all I can tell you,” Nashorn said.

The company has kept mum about the project ever since, but those in the know say they expect an announcement to be made within a year’s time.

“With all the money that gewper is making, they’ve got enough to hire the best and the brightest,” says Consuela Tapir, who runs the tech rumour web site, TikTekTok. “And that’s what it’s going to take to get this one off the ground,” she says.

See also: New social networking site to offer scent option

Let’s Talk Balls! with Bailey: The Tennis Ball

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Bailey Balls Columnist

Today’s ball is the TENNIS ball.

The tennis ball has a long history with Dogs.

Originally employed in the ancient world, cynologists (those who study Dogs) believe that the tennis ball was first used in the hospitality rites that were common among the ancient Canines.

Evidence from Canine epic poetry suggests that the balls were used in the entertainment portion of these rites. Citing lines from The Kyniad, the oldest of these poems, cynologists at the University of West Terrier have supported their belief that the balls were used in a type of “dance” that was performed in front of guests at the end of a meal. In Books VI and VII of the poem, young female Canines toss the ball back and forth, nose to nose, to the sound of string music.

These balls, which were originally terracotta spheres, were covered in vine leaves in order to cushion the blow to the Dogs’ noses. Historians postulate that, as this rite evolved, paddles fashioned from tree branches and fitted with cloth at one end were used to strike the ball. Many years later, the balls were refashioned out of more flexible material.

While this hospitality rite eventually disappeared from use, the dance became a favourite pastime in the years before zoocracy.

Since that time, Dogs everywhere have enjoyed various forms of play with the tennis ball.

Sources: The Kyniad; Daily Life in the Ancient Canine World, Volume 3: Balls; Balls of the Ancient Canine Games; Hospitality Rites and Rituals in the Ancient Canine World; From Sphere to Shining Sphere: A History of Balls Across the Ages; The Canine’s Illustrated Guide to Balls; Ancient Spherophiles and their Influence on History; Follow the Bouncing Ball: How Dogs Introduced Balls to the Human World; The Concept of Play in the Ancient Canine World; Balls: An Appreciation; various newspaper articles and reports.  

Bailey can be reached at bailey@mammaliandaily.com.

This column originally appeared in Issue #118 of The Mammalian Daily.

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August 2012
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