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Charities want say in distribution of funds from Beats of Burden music fest

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Park Charities

LynxLink, CatsCare and Tortoise Immigrant Aid are among charities that want a say in music fest’s funding distribution

Some of The Park’s charities are demanding a say in the distribution of funds raised by the Beats of Burden Musical Festival.

In an open letter published on Monday and addressed to the Beasts of Burden, the festival’s creators and hosts, the presidents of six of the Park’s charities call for a meeting with the Beasts and the festival’s financial managers to discuss fund allocation.

“We wish to congratulate you on the success of the Beats of Burden Musical Festival,” the letter begins. But it goes on to say that now that the festival is well-established and has become a big money-maker, the charities feel it’s time they had some input into how the money is spent.

The three-day-long festival, which is now in its third year, was conceived of by the Beasts as a way to aid The Park’s refugees. In addition to their performances at the festival, the musical group has donated two songs in support of that cause, and other Park musicians and artists have made similar donations. The festival also includes auctions and other events aimed at raising money for our ever-growing refugee community.

While the charities say they appreciate all the fundraising efforts, they believe they know best when it comes to funding allocation.

“Because we are at ground zero when it comes to working with The Park’s refugees, we feel our expertise is invaluable. And because this is a timely matter, we would very much like to offer our assistance at your earliest convenience,” the letter concludes. It is signed by the presidents of LynxLink, Runaway Rovers, Home to Roost, CatsCare, Rodents at Risk, and the Tortoise Immigrant Aid and Mentor Programme.

Although the Beasts of Burden have made no public statement since the letter was published, their manager Ignatius Herder confirmed the group has read it.

PFO head Valentina Abeja: “Don’t hesitate! Pollinate!”

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PollinatePark Finance Office head Valentina Abeja took some time off today from talking about her 2017 budget to discuss what she calls her ultimate passion: pollination.

In an interview on Mammalian Daily Radio’s Sunday morning show, Abeja, who presented her second budget on August 17, strongly encouraged her compatriots to “get out and pollinate for the good of The Park and its residents.”

“I implore all who are able to get out and do your job and pollinate, for the sake of our survival,” she said.

Abeja also took the opportunity to unveil an initiative that she and A.P. Civet, president of the Society of Concerned Park Cultivators, Planters, Growers, and Farmers (SCPCPGF), collaborated on. Called “Pollinators’ Progress,” the initiative helps pollinators keep track of their efforts and rewards them through a points system.

“It’s simple,” Abeja said. “The more points you receive, the more rewards come your way.”

Although Abeja did not elaborate on the nature of the “rewards,” the PFO head was quick to quash any notions that this was a system of payment for pollinators.

“We are not in the business of paying Park citizens to pollinate. Not at all. What we are doing is trying to encourage those who can to get out and do their part for The Park,” she said.

Park Museum to host major exhibition dealing with rôle of sport in Park life

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Park MuseumThe Park Museum announced today that it will host a major exhibition dealing with the rôle of sport in Park life.

In a post on its web site, the museum said the exhibition, entitled, Flyball and the Importance of Balls in the Everyday Life of Park Animals, will feature more than five hundred works including oil and watercolour paintings, photographs, sculpture, works in metal and glass, and textile impressions, “all celebrating balls and the way they inform Park life.”

Co-curated by The Park Museum’s resident curator, Dorika Pumi, and Mammalian Daily Balls columnist and sports historian, Bailey, the exhibition is scheduled to open in the Spring of 2016.

“This is the first exhibit of its kind anywhere in The Park and I am honoured that we have been invited to assist in its assembly,” said Clark Cascanueces, president of the Park Historical Society, in an interview on Mammalian Daily Radio this morning.

Cascanueces praised the museum for its “foresight” and called the upcoming exhibition a “major breakthrough.”

“For the most part, we have ignored the importance of sport—and of leisure activities— in the lives of Park Animals, “he said. “We’ve chosen to focus on survival and prosperity, but sport has great historical importance to Animals and, I would venture to say, is a necessary component of a good life.”

More information on the exhibit will be available in the new year.

Fowl Ball face-off: Police to be stationed outside grooming houses this Sunday

By

FCSW President Gareth Shepherd

Grooming houses to have police stationed outside on Sunday

Park Police have decided to station at least one officer outside each of The Park’s grooming houses on Sunday, May 31, the day of the second annual Fowl Ball.

The decision was announced this afternoon in the following communiqué:

“In an effort to prevent a repeat of last year’s difficulties, and after consultation with the Archons and with the Department of Well-Being and Safety (DWBS), Park Police have taken the decision to station at least one officer outside each grooming house during the hours of 6:00 a.m. and 6:30 p.m.”

Grooming house owners were swift to react to the communiqué.

“This is outrageous,” said Tano Pagun, co-owner of The Pluming Room.

“I don’t understand why they consulted with the Archons and the DWBS, but they didn’t consult with us,” said Tallulah, owner of Tallulah’s Toilettage, the grooming house at which 68 Animals were injured in last Spring’s “stampede.”

“We don’t want police at our door,” she said. “We have businesses to run and our clients are not going to feel comfortable with this situation.”

Amoltrud Poedel, owner of Amoltrud’s Aesthetics, echoed that sentiment and went even further:

“We dealt with this ourselves, subsequent to the disaster last year, in an open and honest fashion. We worked with PASS [Park Asssociation of Shops and Services), held public consultations, and announced our findings along with our report. We had no problems during the Park Interspecial Film Festival (PIFF) and, up until now, we considered the matter closed,” she said.

Wellington Whistlepig, current PASS President, agrees.

“We worked with the grooming houses, before and after the report was released, to make sure they had adequate resources and employees for big events such as this. I see no reason to involve the police ahead of time and, quite frankly, as an Animal in business, I am offended by this aggressive move,” he said.

See also: Grooming house stampede “logical outcome” of changing times: PASS

Stereotype Sundays go bold: “Hello, my name is Filthy Pig, Stupid Sheep…”

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Stereotype SundaysAre you a Dirty Rat?[

While you may not view yourself that way, apparently that is how many others see you.

That much was made clear yesterday, when The Park’s Stereotype Sundays took a bold turn and encouraged Animals to participate in what many were calling a “grand experiment.”

“We handed out name tags and told the attendees…go bold…write down the vilest thing that you have ever heard about yourself or your species. Don’t think about it too much. Just write it down and wear it around and see what happens,” said one of the event’s organizers.

The experiment, or “initiative,” as organizers prefer to call it, was the idea of Dewi Rhinoceros, whose tenure as Chief Archon in 2013 included establishing the weekly event in order to foster interspecial harmony.

Rhinoceros, now Chair of the Board of Directors of the Centre for Interspecial Harmony (CIH), says she was moved to intervene in the weekly project when she realized it had stalled and was no longer serving its purpose.

“We established Stereotype Sundays to foster interspecial harmony through honest discussion. It worked very well for the first year and a half. And, then, the honest approach seemed to lose its meaning and almost disappear. All of a sudden, we were just nodding our heads…as Hieronynous [Hedgehog] says, in active self-agreement. We were admitting our problems, but not moving forward. It was as if we’d accepted prejudice, intolerance, misinformation and stereotyping as necessary elements of life.”

The new approach won’t be a weekly component of the event, though, organizers say.

“We asked those who participated to come back next week and discuss the results. If it appears that it was successful, we’ll continue it, perhaps, on a monthly basis. In any case, it was well worth the effort. Everybody is talking about it today.”

Interspecial strife casts shadow over Centre’s first anniversary celebration

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Centre for Interspecial Harmony logo

As the Centre for Interspecial Harmony (CIH) prepares to mark its first anniversary, the shadow cast by the rise in interspecial crime threatens to mar the celebration.

“It’s very worrying that this type of crime is growing, rather than receding,” said Dewi Rhinoceros, the Chair of the Centre’s Board of Directors, in an interview this afternoon.

The former Chief Archon, who was the force behind the establishment of the Centre, said she had hoped that we would be seeing a decrease in the number of incidents this far into zoocracy.

‘We know that economic stress aggravates every aspect of our life here in The Park and things have been very challenging, economically speaking, over the last few years. But I don’t think we’ve yet discovered what makes Animals actually turn on each other when in crisis. That is something that we are still trying to determine,” she said.

The Centre, which has as its mission the fostering of harmony among all species in The Park, runs educational programmes, hosts events, and funds research projects in association with the University of West Terrier.

The Rhinoceros said the Centre is currently funding one research project at UWT’s Department of Interspecial Studies, which is part of the Livingstone School of Economics and Social Science. Researchers there are studying the effects of interspecial tension on second and third generation Park citizens.

“We’re hoping that studying Animals who were born in The Park and who grew up with the values of interspecial harmony will lead us to a fuller understanding of why those values are being abandoned so frequently these days,” she said.

Archons enact legislation designating March as annual “Museum Month”

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Park MuseumThe 2015 Archons have enacted legislation designating the month of March each year as “Museum Month” in The Park.

At a press conference held early this morning in front of the soon-to-be-opened Park Museum, Chief Archon Abayomi Tanishia Cuckoo made the announcement. Flanked by all 34 Archons, the Cuckoo spoke on behalf of her colleagues:

“On behalf of my fellow Archons, I proclaim the month of March as annual Museum Month in The Park.

In making this proclamation, we are recognizing the importance of documenting and understanding our history and celebrating our triumphs. At the same time, however, we must acknowledge our ongoing struggles. We hope the formal establishment of a Museum Month will facilitate just that and that the month of March will be a time for us each year to take an honest look at ourselves as a Park, to assess our accomplishments, and to rethink our goals as they relate to The Park as a whole and to each other as fellow citizens.

To that end, in conjunction with the Park Finance Office, we have made a change to The Park budget and set aside funds so that all Park museums will be able to welcome guests free of charge throughout the month of March each year. We hope this will help present and future generations to understand the history of The Park and the rôle that they themselves may play in its future.”

The legislation to which the Chief Archon referred goes by the formal name of “The Museum Month Designation Act” (“An Act to designate the month of March as annual Museum Month in The Park”). The legislation was signed February 23, 2015 and takes effect on February 26, 2015.

Opening ceremonies at The Park Museum will begin at 10:00 a.m. on Sunday, March 1, 2015.

Park Museum, ISML battle over home for beloved book

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The AutoZOEography of ZoeCat


The Park Museum and the ISML are currently engaged in a battle over the establishment of a permanent home for one of The Park’s most iconic literary works

The Park Museum is engaged in a contentious battle with The Institute for the Study of Mammalian Life over the establishment of a permanent home for one of The Park’s most iconic literary works.

The AutoZOËography of ZoëCat was written by Zoë, the sister of Jor, The Park’s first leader and the founder of modern zoocracy. The book went missing ten years ago, but was discovered last July by workers excavating at the site of the new Park Museum.

After the workers alerted the ISML to the discovery, Chief Archaeologist Catriona Cairn-Terrier convinced the Institute’s Board of Governors to provide a home for the book there.

According to Cairn-Terrier, no discussion about a time frame for housing the book ever took place.

“Our decision was never challenged and we assumed that it was permanent. We sectioned off a part of our lobby and built a display case that would protect the book from deterioration. We did all this in full view of everyone and at no time did the Park Museum voice any complaints. Now, they want assurances that we will hand it over to them. Quite frankly, I don’t know why they think we would agree to that,” Cairn-Terrier says.

For its part, the Park Museum contends that it is “intuitively obvious” that the book should be housed at the Museum.

“ZoëCat was and is still revered in The Park as a great thinker and as an important influence on Jor and, therefore, on the development of modern zoocracy. Every one of the 6,975 pages of her book is a part of Park history and the citizens of The Park deserve to be able to visit the work in the building that was constructed to house our history,” says Sukuta Rhinoceros, one of the founders of the Museum and a member of its Board.

The autobiographical tome, which is filled with Zoë’s personal, political, and philosophical musings, was never formally published. The book that was found by the excavators is believed to be the only extant copy.

Editorial: When beggars become choosers, we all become losers

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The line at the top of the CatsCare letterhead tugs at the heartstrings: “When the heart is full, the stomach rarely grumbles.”

How ironic that exhortation to all of us to feel for the less fortunate seems now, in light of the recent undoing of that charity’s board and the unseating of Bentley, its founder and president.

While it is too early in the investigation to render the final judgment, it is much too late for the rest of us to pretend that we had no inkling that something was rotten in the state of one of The Park’s oldest charities.

To be sure, there were signs. First among them was the 22 AZ decision made by the CatsCare board to accept only cash donations.

When a charity that feeds, houses, and provides medical care for needy Cats refuses to take donations in kind, what are we to make of it? And what, we must ask, is the effect of such a policy, not only on the recipients of their charitable aid, but on the donating population, as well?

In the case of CatsCare, the policy’s intentions have become all too clear in recent months. Yet, the effects of this folly have been far more profound than anyone ever intended: for, while Bentley and his board were busy fattening up their bank accounts with Ftoo siphoned off from donated funds, they were, at the same time, violating the trust of those who rely on them, abusing the trust of their donors, and shattering the confidence of all Park Animals in the idea of assisting each other by means of institutions set up for that purpose.

The breach is wide. The healing will take much time. But profound changes must occur.

No matter what the courts find, it is clear that CatsCare violated the code of ethics. Yet, where, in law, can we find this code of ethics? Alas, we cannot, for we have not committed it to law. This we must do, now. We must inscribe in law what we believe to be the proper behaviour for our charities. We must also imbed in any definition of “charity” this simple but essential idea: that we must take from our donors and give to the needy whatever it is that they need in such form as they require it. Only then can we restore the confidence of the donating public.

Census Day declared amid Animal protests

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Amid protests from a number of Animal groups, Park officials kicked off their “Wee Paws” census campaign today, in the hope of persuading Animals to “count themselves in” and help Park Archons obtain an accurate reckoning of residents in The Park.

Yet, despite their good intentions and a planned media blitz, members of the Park Census Office may have a tough time convincing many Animals of the benefits of a head count in The Park.

“They can count me in as a citizen, but I don’t think I should have to declare my species,” said Nathaniel Warthog, as he marched, protest sign in hand, in front of the Wishing Well.

“Jor [The Park’s first leader] would never have pitted one Animal against another like this.”

It is just this fear—that, in the future, Park officials will use population statistics to limit the number of certain species in The Park—that has made many Animals reluctant to participate in the census.

Park officials say, however, that there is no reason to fear that results from the census will be used against any Animals.

“We need to know the total number of Animals, and the numbers of different species so that we can provide services for them. We’ve been working ‘blind’ for years, and that’s just no way to govern a Park,” said a spokesAnimal for the Census Office.

15 Karpos (June) 25 AZ (2006) has been designated as official “Census Day,” but the deadline for the submission of questionnaires is the first of Azafran (July).

Participation in the census is voluntary.

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