The Mammalian Daily

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OTD in 2015—Follow Month Without Metaphor participants on Twitter during May

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MWM

Click on the image above to follow Month Without Metaphor (MWM) on Twitter!

Members of The Park’s media who have committed to participating in Month Without Metaphor will again be tweeting throughout the month of May, it has been confirmed.

In a joint statement issued today, the participants, who work for The Park’s newspapers, magazines, journals, radio and television stations and web sites said they “look forward to surpassing last year’s experiment in expressing themselves and discussing the events of the day in a more straightforward way.”

Today’s statement also confirmed that editors would be keeping a running tally, “so that we’ll be able to see which members of the media were best able to communicate without using metaphors.”

The purpose of Month Without Metaphor is to gauge the effectiveness of reporting the news “like it really is…no embellishments, no idiotic comparisons, no ridiculous painting of pictures for the reading public,” says Alvin Tinamou, publisher of The Avian Messenger and one of the organizers of the communications experiment.

“We think all this metaphorical reporting is obscuring the facts and distracting our readers’ attention from the important issues,” he says.

Follow MWM participants on Twitter during May.

OTD in 2015—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.”

OTD in 2012—Park’s first openly aged Archon slams news media bias

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Archon Thurmond Tortoise will celebrate his 130th birthday this year

The Park’s first openly aged Archon has slammed Park media for what he calls “overt bias in their portrayal of the elderly.”

Thurmond L. Tortoise, who will celebrate his 130th birthday this year, is the oldest Animal in the history of zoocracy to serve as Archon. As such, he says, he feels a duty to speak out against the media’s depiction of The Park’s elderly.

“If you were to believe [The Park’s] press, you’d think we [the aging] were all enfeebled,  waiting to die, or…waiting to be told what is best for us by the young, the naive, and the foolish,” he said.

The Tortoise’s remarks were made at the annual Association of Media Outlets of The Park (AMOP) dinner, which was held last night.

Asked his opinion of the job that Park media are doing, the Tortoise did not hold back.

“These misconceptions about the elderly run rampant across the media landscape,”  he said. “We are being disrespected by a group of ignorant young Animals who have control over the media.We are the founders of this zoocracy; we fought for the freedom and independence that they [youth] are experiencing. We deserve to be treated properly,” he said.

OTD in 2014—Catch a metaphor, win a prize: Mammalian Daily contest begins May 1

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MonthWithoutMetaphor

Click the image for a definition of “metaphor”

The Mammalian Daily is putting its money where its mouth is, so to speak.

So committed is this newspaper to the idea of Park media’s Month Without Metaphor, that our managing editor, Orphea Haas, is offering a reward to those able to catch any slip-ups that our writers make during the month of May.

“We respect our readers and we know they will be watching every move we make,” said Haas in an interview on Mammalian Daily Radio this morning.

“If they’re willing to spend their time scoping out our prose, we will be happy to reward them for finding any mistakes that we’ve made.”

Haas denied, however, that the paper intends to slip in the odd metaphor just to keep readers on their toes…and rewarded.

“It will be hard enough for us to accomplish a month of writing without using any metaphors,” she said. “I don’t think we have to worry about cheating our readers.”

OTD in 2012—Eggie and The Pigs turn music’s business model upside-down

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Eggie and The Pigs are poised to change the way the music business is done here in The Park.

According to a spokesAnimal for the group, the four musicians have decided to allow their listening public to determine the shape and content of their next song collection.

The group’s manager released the following statement this morning:

Instead of recording songs (either individually or as a collection), ETP will be making each of their new songs available as a free digital download for listeners to enjoy.

Each song will be available for one month, during which time listeners are invited to register and vote on whether or not they wish to have the song included in ETP’s next collection.

At the end of the year, after the votes have been tallied, ETP will post another online poll that will ask listeners the order in which they would like the chosen songs to appear on the new recording, the group’s manager said.

ETP’s fans appear to be ecstatic about this new arrangement. Posting on Gewper a few minutes after the statement was released, many fans called this a “musical revolution” and some hailed the decision as granting “power to the listener.”

“I’m all ears, bring it on,” one fan wrote, succinctly, and many agreed.

Music business executives, however, have been less enthusiastic. A spokesAnimal for Rotunda Records warned of the dangers of changing the decision-making dynamic so drastically.

“Once you go down that road, there’s no turning back,” he said in an interview on Toro Talk Radio. “I think they’re forgetting about the expertise that music business experts have. Fans are important; we can’t do without them, but they don’t necessarily know the best way to produce a good musical recording,” he said.

OTD in 2012—New device may help distinguish news from entertainment

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Is it news or is it entertainment?

That is the question that many Park Animals are asking, as the boundary between the two, in both broadcast and print media, becomes increasingly blurred.

Enter KartalTechSolutions, S.A. and their revolutionary new device, the Verifyzer™, which company executives claim solves this “modern dilemma” almost instantly.

“This new instrument will tell you, within five seconds, whether what you’re reading or watching is news or entertainment,” said President and CEO, Fikret Kartal, at the product’s launch this past weekend.

On hand at the outdoor launch, which doubled as a pop-up Verifyzer™ retail store, were many representatives of The Park’s media community, as well as some faculty members of the Cuthbert School of Journalism at the University of West Terrier. Many were eager to voice their skepticism of KartalTech’s claims about the new device.

“The company bases the success of this device on a number of assumptions, the most important of which is that there is an objective — and detectable — difference between so-called news and entertainment,” said Journalism Professor and author, Ludwiga Saimiri. “This is something that journalists strive to define every day of their working lives, but it is not something about which, as yet, anyone can make a definitive pronouncement.”

Noburu Akita, Executive Director of the Centre for the Study of Newspaper Activity in The Park (C-SNAP) was even more adamant:

“There is no such thing as anything [being] objective in the newspaper business,” he said. “These definitions are fluid, they change with the seasons…with the generations; unfortunately, one Animal’s news is, sometimes, another Animal’s entertainment. And vice-versa.”

Also present at the launch was Rodolfo van de Gier, President of the Association of Media Outlets of The Park (AMOP). Among other things, he took issue with the company’s guarantee of an accuracy rate of 92 per cent.

“The only thing any device can do, as far as I know,” said van de Gier, “is detect the presence of, for instance, celebrities’ names in a print or voice report. But that isn’t necessarily an indication of the nature of the report. Whether you want to admit it or not, celebrities can be involved in ‘real’ news and, sometimes, ‘real’ news can be enormously entertaining,” he said.

In response to van de Gier’s remarks, a KartalTech spokesAnimal, issued this statement:

“With due respect to the AMOP President’s remarks, technology has come a long way from merely detecting names. I invite Mr. van de Gier to attend a full demonstration of our device and to see, for himself, what our new age has to offer.”

While van de Gier has, thus far, made no reply, the Verifyzer™  is scheduled to hit Park stores at the beginning of May.

OTD in 2017—Chitter Radio Literary Awards adds new category for 2017: speeches

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The Chitter Radio Literary Awards (CRLA) has added a new category to its already sizeable list of honours: speeches.

In a short communiqué issued this morning, CRLA director Guadalupe Tucán cited the need to expand the term, “literary,” and to continue to acknowledge the artistic elements of non-fiction as her reasons for adding the category.

“We need to continue to broaden our horizons and reward those artists whose work may not fit easily into the established categories,” the communiqué said.

Tucán, who has been CRLA director since 2015, began taking the awards in a different direction last year, when she allowed celebrity chef Tab Tricolore to serve his “Liberation Libation” to attendees. Though it was a controversial move, it illustrated what many call Tucán’s “sense of the bigger picture.”

“I’ve known Guadalupe for years and I know what she’s thinking when she does things like that,” said a longtime friend. “She believes that art and even literariness can be found as much in the mundane as in grand canvasses or great books. So, I’m not surprised by anything she does.”

Tucán said the category expansion is not expected to add more than a few minutes to the evening, which will be broadcast live on AVN Television.

The Chitter Radio Literary Awards take place June 15. Nominations will be announced in mid-May.

OTD in 2017—Hermione Hippo appointed head judge of 2017 Toe-Hair Contest

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Hermione HippoHermione Hippo will serve as head judge of the 2017 Toe-Hair Contest.

At a press event held this morning, Aintza Kanariar of the Department of Holidays, Festivals, and Celebrations, made the formal announcement:

“We are thrilled to announce that the very knowledgeable nurse Hermione Hippo will serve as head judge of the 2017 Toe-Hair Contest,” she said.

The veteran Park health professional is the head nurse at the Park Hospital for the Afflicted and Infirm and also serves part-time as Assistant Professor at the University of West Terrier School of Medicine.

“Few others have Hermione’s expertise,” Kanariar said. “We are humbled that she has agreed to take the time to participate in the contest.”

In making the announcement, the longtime Director of Public Relations for the body that chooses the judges emphasized the importance of the position of head judge:

“The position is an important one because, should there be a tie, the head judge, who is an Animal with greater expertise than the other judges, has the ability to choose the winner. It is a position of responsibility that calls for a great deal of knowledge and personal integrity. And that Hermione Hippo has in spades,” she said.

Kanariar also announced the other four members of the judging panel: Cornelio Lantra, Clementina Araña, Quinta Caribou, and Rafael Ortega.

The Toe-Hair Contest, which is in its 22nd year, is set to commence at 10:00 a.m. Park time on May 1.

OTD in 2007—25 years of zoocracy bring tears, cheers, and calls for reform

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ParkAnimalsSwaying to the strains of the Endeka Elephant Band, Ute Orangutan was moved to shed a tear when she spoke about her maternal grandparents, Zanneke and Carlton Orangutan. The Orangs, who fled persecution in their native land, were among The Park’s first citizens.

“They settled here because they believed that, in The Park, they could build a better life,” she said. “I will always be grateful to them…and I will always feel a sense of responsibility to The Park.”

Such sentiments were not unique during the two-day celebration this Winter that marked the 25th anniversary of zoocracy in The Park.

For Jacinta Kri-Kri, the highlight of the occasion was the unveiling of the monument to Jor, The Park’s first leader and the founder of modern zoocracy. With her Kids in tow, the Kri-Kri made a dedication of her own, as she placed a wreath of rosemary at the foot of the marble statue.

“I want my Kids to learn Park history so they can understand why Jor is a hero to us,” she said, between bites of one of the many treats that were on offer at the festivities.

Park history was also on the mind of Sagar Hog-Deer, whose family emigrated from the foothills of the Himalayas six years ago. For Sagar, Park history means a solid record based on the principles of tolerance and the welcoming of all species — principles that, he feels, may be hard to maintain in the future.

“The Park is being assaulted from the outside and we are just beginning to see the effects of it,” he said, pointing to the upcoming census, talk of currency amalgamation, and looming political reforms as evidence of the erosion of Park values.

“We need to take a step back. We don’t need to change [things] if there isn’t a problem in the first place,” he emphasized.

While Hog-Deer sees no problem with the status quo, scores of Animals who attended the celebrations say they see the need for immediate changes in The Park.

“We’ve been at a standstill for years. Some aspects of Park life are downright archaic and, some, I might say…were [the result of] hare-brained schemes in the first place,” complained Mason L. Tortoise, head of SARG, the Small Animal Reform Group, which has called for sweeping changes in many Park policies.

Despite the political debate, Park Animals were up for the two days of merrymaking and were quick to declare the event a “roaring success.”

“I think it was a tribute to the power of Jor’s vision,” concluded Humphrey Hyrax, the festival’s organizer.

OTD in 2015—New date announced for Park’s annual Anixi Agrarian Jubilee

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May 23The Department of Holidays, Festivals, and Celebrations has changed the date of this year’s Anixi Agrarian Jubilee.

In a brief statement released this afternoon, Aintza Kanariar, Director of Public Relations for the department, announced the change from Wednesday, May 20 to Saturday, May 23.

“The official date of the Jubilee has always been May 20, which falls on a Wednesday this year. The Department felt that a weekend celebration would be more fitting for the occasion and as a result, we have changed the date to Saturday, May 23. No other changes are anticipated,” the announcement said.

Last month, the organizers of the Polar Bears’ Poetry Picnic changed the day of its annual event, as well. After deciding to hold the Picnic on a Sunday they announced they would make a formal request to designate the third Sunday of March as the Picnic day. The Department of Holidays, Festivals, and Celebrations has not announced any plans to do the same for the Anixi Agrarian Jubilee.

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