The Mammalian Daily

Satirical fiction in newspaper form

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On This Day—December 3, 2012: Park citizens feigning illness to avoid Archon duty: report

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A new report released by the Department of Political Administration (DPA) paints a bleak picture of Park citizens’ commitment to participation in their government.

According to the report, entitled “Don’t Count Me In”, the number of Park citizens who feign illness to avoid having their names entered in the annual Archon lottery (known officially as sortition) has doubled since the last tally was done in 2009.

“It’s surprising, given the precarious state of the world outside [The Park], that Park Animals would take such a casual attitude toward zoocracy,” says Delia Quagga, head of the Barnaby School of Government at the University of West Terrier.

According to the rules of zoocracy, all adult Park citizens must confirm their eligibility to stand as candidates for Archon by the end of October. Illness constitutes the only exception to this rule; Animals who are ill and who believe they would be unable to fulfil their duties as Archon due to their illness are required to advise the DPA of their circumstances by submitting a Form 12.

“Because this was established as a self-reporting system, Animals were not, initially, required to supply medical documentation of their illness,” says DPA spokesAnimal Antoinette Fourmi.

“But when we noticed the Form 12 totals rising, we knew we had to take action. So, for the past five years, we have been requesting verification of illness. Not surprisingly, we discovered that a large number of the Form 12s could not be verified,” she said.

Submitting a fraudulent claim of illness is a breach of Park law, says Fourmi, “not to mention the fact that it is morally repugnant to most Park citizens.”

The question now is whether or not authorities will pursue legal action against the feigners.

“That will be up to another branch of government,” says Fourmi. “We collected the data, but we have no jurisdiction over the consequences of that data.”

On This Day—December 2, 2014: Celebrity Chef arrested outside Park

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Tab Tricolore: "You have to offer an extraordinary culinary experience or else Animals will not dine at your restaurant."Celebrity Chef and award-winning author Tab Tricolore has been arrested outside The Park, according to the staff at his fine dining restaurant, Klo.

The owner of three other restaurants, Clowder, Coda, and The Tabby Club, as well as the the soon-to-be-opened PurrBoy Café at the Park Museum, was last seen at Klo this morning.

“He left at about 11:00. He went on one of his regular trips outside The Park, to source ingredients for tonight’s special,” said Klo manager Léopard Mirepoix. He declined to say what the special was.

“I saw him leave The Park and I haven’t seen him since. He was due back within the hour.”

Mirepoix said he thought nothing of Tricolore’s lateness until Footpad Heaven manager Adamma Bandicoot arrived at Klo. She told him that she’d seen the chef cross the border and believed that he’d been arrested.

“He was picked up, in any case. I’m not sure whether it was by police or another Human service. They were wearing uniforms and they were carrying a mobile prison cell,” she said.

Mirepoix confirmed that Tricolore had left his chef’s hat at the restaurant, so it is unlikely the Humans knew who he was.

Although Klo intends to remain open tonight, Tricolore’s other restaurants will be closed so that staff members can join Park Police in their search for the chef.

“We are all outraged and frightened,”  Mirepoix said. “His well-being is all we can think about.”

On This Day: December 1, 2014: Newspaper’s front page editorial sparks furor among Park residents

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Rodent CommonerAnimals have taken to the streets, the Archons and Park Police are calling for calm, and the author of a front page editorial published in The Rodent Commoner this morning has been granted security protection after receiving hundreds of threats on his life.

The piece, written by Rodent Commoner reporter Gunnar Espen Rotte, has ignited a firestorm of protest and, according to one observer, “opened the floodgates to a torrent of interspecial hate.”

In the editorial entitled, “Why I Don’t Bleed for my Striped Brothers,” Rotte explains his reaction to the results of various studies that confirm that striped Animals in The Park are “not getting their fair share of the economic pie.”

“So why am I not banging the ‘equality’ drum and championing their cause, as so many of my compatriots have done?” the well-respected writer, who has published articles in a number of Park newspapers, asks.

This is part of his answer, written simply and eloquently:

“I come from a species that is universally hated, not just by Humans, but by many other species, who are all too happy to stand by and watch as we are poisoned, kidnapped, incarcerated, used as laboratory subjects, and suffer other similar or worse fates.”

The rest of the editorial expands on this statement and concludes with what some have described as “a condemnation of not only the promises of zoocracy, but its policies.”

“In short,” Rotte writes, “our system has failed not only the striped and spotted, but whole species. I would argue that, as a Park, we have nothing to be proud of at this moment.”

On This Day—November 30, 2014: Mammalian Daily Radio snags first pre-tour interview with Thisbe

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microphoneMammalian Daily Radio has snagged the first pre-tour interview with Thisbe, lead singer of Thisbe and the Barkettes.

Late this afternoon, Joop Neushoorn, manager of Mammalian Daily Radio (TMD Radio), confirmed that the singer will be in-studio at 2:00 p.m. for a half-hour live interview on Wednesday, December 3.

“We are very much looking forward to sitting down for a chat with Thisbe on Wednesday,” Neushoorn said in a written statement.

This is will be the first interview that Thisbe will give since the announcement that she and the Barkettes will embark on a reunion tour in the new year.

Neushoorn also confirmed that a full transcript of the interview will be made available later in the week, as a courtesy to those who are unable to receive the frequency.

On This Day—November 29, 2014: It’s official: Thisbe and the Barkettes to embark on reunion tour in 2015

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halcyondaysThere will be halcyon days again, at least for the fans of Thisbe and the Barkettes.

At a press conference held this morning, the group’s manager, Hilde Blaft, confirmed that the group will embark on a reunion tour in the Spring of 2015.

While not all venues have been confirmed, there are four concerts scheduled in The Park: two at the Ancient, Open-Air Theatre, one at the Wishing Well and one at the Tartan Crab Memorial Pond.

“We are extremely excited to bring you this news and we look forward to seeing you in the coming year,” Blaft said.

Blaft also confirmed that the group will make a “short appearance” at next month’s Celebration of the Winter Solstice.

Tickets for the first two concerts will go on sale this Spring.

On This Day—November 28, 2016: Prestigious prize goes to UWT professor for pioneering work on harrumphocytes

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UWT COATDr. Jagger Zebu, Professor of Mammalian Medicine at the University of West Terrier’s School of Medicine has been awarded the prestigious Eureka Prize, it was announced today.

The announcement came in a statement issued this morning by the editorial board of the scientific journal Eureka. The board, which awards the prize annually for “pioneering research and innovative experimentation,” called Dr. Zebu a “a meticulous scientist and a pioneer in harrumphocyte research.”

Dr. Zebu, whose name appeared earlier this month on Eureka’s  “Seventeen to Watch in 2017” list, led a team of researchers who were the first to pinpoint the location of harrumphocytes in Mammals.  Harrumphocytes are the cells that are believed to be responsible for producing feelings of primary apathy and secondary negativity in Mammals.

When the research was published in March of this year, Dr. Zebu said he believed the breakthrough would offer a “much-improved” life to Mammals who suffer from harrumphocyte imbalance.

Although Dr. Zebu has not commented on the award, the Board of Governors of the University of West Terrier posted a congratulatory message on the university’s web site this morning.

On This Day—November 28, 2014: Struts convinced Archons to encourage Human tourism in Park: rumour

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headsNtalesFormer Finance Officer and budget architect Milton Struts was the force behind the 2012 Archons’ decision to encourage Human tourism in The Park, the gossip site headsNtales is reporting.

In an article posted this morning, The Park’s “most-watched” gossip site quotes an anonymous source as saying that the creator of the controversial 2015 budget “pulled some strings with the Archons” to get them to consider the financial benefits of Human tourism in The Park.

The source, whose name and species is known to headsNtales but who wishes to remain anonymous to the site’s readers, says Struts had a “longtime” relationship with two male Humans who regularly spent their Summer lunch hours in The Park. The source claims there is video evidence of Struts accepting food from these Humans.

The source also claims that the two Humans “talked up” the financial benefits of encouraging Humans to spend time in The Park and that Struts took the idea to the Archons as early as 2010. Amaury Porpoise, who served two terms as Chief Archon during the calendar harmonization period, had no interest in the plan, according to the source.

The idea was resurrected, though, when his arch rival, George Irving Nathan Gallagher Newt, assumed the Chief Archonship in 2012 and vowed to do the opposite of whatever his predecessor had done. Despite the resistance of many of the other 34 Archons, the source says, Newt not only embarked on the plan to promote Human tourism in The Park, but he took full credit for the idea and moved swiftly on Struts’s advice to use Park funds for the purpose.

The three-prong plan that was subsequently adopted was praised by some who owned Park businesses, but it was met with opposition from many others, including The Park’s environmental groups, who vowed to fight its funding. The 2015 budget did not include tourism.

On This Day—November 27, 2015: A Hare as a spare? Park Election Office to designate runner-up in POPS election

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POPS Now that 2016 Park Official Prognosticator of Spring (POPS) Adelheid Whistlepig is safely ensconced in her burrow, The Park Election Office has rendered her election win the last of its kind.

Executing what some are calling a “momentous change” in POPS election policy, the PEO has decided to designate an official POPS runner-up—an Animal who will fulfill the duties of the POPS should she or he be unable to do so. The change in policy will take effect at the next election.

At a press conference this afternoon, PEO head Gerritt Wezel made the announcement.

“Many factors were involved in our decision to designate an official runner-up—a spare, you might say—in the POPS election,” he said.

Among those factors, Wezel cited the lack of age restriction for candidates and the precariousness of life itself. But one thing stood out for Park citizens—and particularly for The Park’s weather makers— and that was the change in climate over the past decades.

“In the few years that we have been electing the POPS—a little more than a decade, in fact—our climate has become less and less predictable,” Wezel said.

“As many in our medical community have noted, premature awakening from hibernation, which was once a rare occurrence, has become a blight on our hibernating population. This is a serious matter and selecting a runner-up to the POPS is not a solution to this dilemma. But it is a first step in acknowledging that we must accommodate to it until we can change it. It is for this reason that I petitioned the Archons last year for a change in policy. And it is for this reason that they  agreed,” he said.

Wezel confirmed that the runner-up would likely be the candidate who received the second-largest number of votes, but he said the laws surrounding the selection have yet to be written.

“This is something that will take some time and a lot of deliberation, but the wheels are now in motion,” he said.

On This Day—November 26, 2014: Chef Tab Tricolore to collaborate with artists on PMoCA 2015 installation

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Tab Tricolore: "You have to offer an extraordinary culinary experience or else Animals will not dine at your restaurant."Celebrity Chef and award-winning author Tab Tricolore will collaborate with a group of artists on the Park Museum of Contemporary Art’s 2015 installation.

Aulikki Norsu, president of PMoCA’s board of directors, confirmed the collaboration between the museum and the controversial chef in a statement released this morning.

“We are pleased to announce that renowned Park Chef Tab Tricolore will serve as creative director of our 2015 art installation. The chef will work closely with our in-house staff as well as with Park artists that he will select personally to craft what we anticipate will be a thought-provoking piece,” the statement reads.

The subject of the installation remains a “closely-guarded secret,” the statement said, but those close to Tricolore say it is safe to assume that it will be food-related.

“As you know, Tab is obsessed with food. He can barely be distracted; his mind is always going, he’s always working and reworking recipes, sourcing new ingredients, looking to other species for inspiration. He’s an artist, himself, and I can’t imagine that if he got involved in a ‘real’ art project, that it wouldn’t at least include food, if not be totally about food,” said his former saucier, Barry “Béarnaise” Burmilla.

Although a date has not been announced for the opening, the museum statement said it expected the installation to be ready by the Spring.

On This Day—November 25, 2016: Bowing to technology, hibernating community puts Tulip Map to bed

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squirrel-with-gpsIf you have a copy of this year’s Tulip Map, you might want to keep it.

The 2017 version of the map, which is officially known as the “Map of Tulip and other Bulb Beds in The Park and Environs,” will be the last of its kind, according to a spokesAnimal for the publisher.

The map has been produced annually for over a decade by the Small Animal Hibernating Community (SAHC), in association with the Confederation of Ground Squirrels (CGS), the Idiosyncratic Hibernators of The Park (IHOP), the Association of Distinct Hibernating Animals of The Park (ADHAP) and the Park Alliance of Chipmunks (PAC) and it has served as a trusted guide for a large number of The Park’s residents.

But as of 2018, Animals seeking the whereabouts of those juicy flower bulbs will be encouraged to use apps such as TulipTracker and Bulb Beacon. Or go back to using their own senses.

“In some ways, it could be seen as a step backwards,” concedes Cornelius Kakapo, Director of Public Relations for the Department of Well-Being and Safety.

“But the map itself was not infallible, so the apps, together with our own tracking abilities, should be as accurate, if not more.”

While that is likely true, the real beneficiaries of the decision might be those who still have the old maps. According to Wyuna Winkle of The Literary Apothecary, collectors will probably pay quite a lot for them. And, she says, it won’t take long for the 2017 map, which was printed only a month ago, to make it to the auction block.

“It almost gives a new meaning to the expression, ‘hot off the press,’ ” she says.

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