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Rufus di Rafineschi appointed Toe-Hair Contest’s head judge

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The Park’s Department of Holidays, Festivals, and Celebrations announced early this morning that Rufus di Rafineschi has been appointed head judge of today’s Toe-Hair Contest.

The event, which is in its 17th year, is set to commence at 10:00 a.m. Park time at the Ancient, Open-Air Theatre.

Di Rafineschi, who won the 2004 Toe-Hair Contest, will head a group of five judges in total. According to the Contest rules, di Rafineschi will vote along with his peers, but his vote also has the potential to end a tie among the other four judges.

“The position is an important one,” said a spokesAnimal for the Department. “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,” she said.

The other four Contest judges are Oskar Sloth, Gabriel B. Bear, Kyle P. Caribou, and Duggan C. Raven.

Ask a Poodle: Far from the mating crowd

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DEAR POODLE: Now that mating season is upon us, I was hoping that you could offer some tips to those of us who are not so season-savvy. – HOPEFUL

DEAR HOPEFUL: This is a subject about which it is extremely difficult to generalize, since mating habits, preferences, and timing differ so greatly from species to species – not to mention from female to male, and from individual to individual.

That old adage, for instance, about the Goose and the Gander…well, that hasn’t held true for generations – yet it’s the first thing out of everyone’s mouth at this time of year. Some Geese can attract a mate with a honk and a wink, if you know what I mean – and then there are those who must work harder. Other species find they are at their best in a group situation, whereas I, for one, like to stay far from the mating crowd.

Some females I know go for looks as well as scent but, statistically, that’s still a rarity. Where I come from, we have a saying: “La nuit, tous les chats sont gris.” That translates as, “At night, all cats are grey.” Which means, of course, that if you’re trying to attract someone for the sake of perpetuating the species, you’d darned well better roll around something a little more persuasive than a mirror. Bonne chance à tous!

Ask a Poodle is a regular feature of The Mammlian Daily and The Mammalian Daily online. If you have a question for the Poodle, please e-mail it to her at askapoodle@mammaliandaily.com. We regret that the Poodle cannot send responses directly to you.

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.

Six days left in Poetry Month

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There are only six days left in Poetry Month, our celebration of The Park’s creative citizens. Today’s selection was written by renowned Park poet, Herbert K.T.L. Cat, III.

 

 

 

Down by the Broop ‘n Miaow

Down by the Broop ‘n Miaow
my love and I did meet;
She passed the Broop ‘n Miaow
with little, snow-white feet.
She bid me take life easy,
as the birds do in the trees;
But I, being young and tabby,
with her would not agree.

In a field by the blue pond
my love and I did walk,
and on my stripe-ed wither
she laid her snow-white paw.
she bid me take life easy
as the catnip on the plain;
But I was young and tabby,
and now am full of shame.

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.

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.

Poetry Month: On the Perspicacity of Inspector Martin

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This excerpt from The Way to Dr. Bourru: A Watson Mystery starring Inspector Martin appears courtesy of Tall Tail Books.

 

On the Perspicacity of Inspector Martin

It seemed that if ever a stalemate occurred
with respect to some grave situation,
the Inspector depended for wisdom and counsel
on the effects of a strange visitation.
And the form that this took was far sillier still,
for whenever he was in a pickle,
inevitably, from its base to its tip,
his small finger would start to tickle!
This happened each and every time,
And then his words would start to rhyme.
And next, the pounding in his chest
would give him cause to hold his breath.
And while he pondered his decision,
all at once would cross his vision…
The answer — Yes! — so plain to see!
And once he knew the route to go
his finger would inform his toe,
and then his toe would tell his chest,
which allowed him to expel his breath.
When all of this was said and done,
the Inspector and his choice were one!

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