The Mammalian Daily

Satirical fiction in newspaper form

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OTD in 2016—TMD policy could harm Park media’s Month Without Metaphor: Tinamou

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MonthWMThe Mammalian Daily’s longstanding policy of not revealing the names and species of its reporters could jeopardize the success of Park media’s third annual Month Without Metaphor, says Alvin Tinamou.

In a front page piece that appeared in his newspaper today, Tinamou—the publisher of The Avian Messenger and one of the organizers of the May event—called on TMD managing editor Orphea Haas to “modernize” and to “get out ahead of your colleagues’ criticism.”

“We are living in an age of incredible transparency, yet Haas runs her newspaper from the darkness of a cave. Those old ways of wielding authority in that manner have given way. It’s high time The Mammalian Daily let its readers know who is reporting their news so they can judge its quality and its authority by themselves,” he wrote.

Tinamou also accused The Mammalian Daily of being hypocritical by participating in Month Without Metaphor (MWM), saying the annual media event was meant to strip news reporting of its “fiction, obfuscation, and obscurity” and replace it with simplicity and clarity.

“How can this event be taken seriously by other media and grow in to the movement it was meant to be when one of its major participants refuses to stop pulling the wool over its readers’ eyes?” he asks.

OTD in 2013—Otter Ice Slide in jeopardy as victim released from hospital

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The future of the Otter Ice Slide hangs in the balance, as representatives of The Park Weather Office meet tomorrow with the 2013 Archons, Park Finance Officers, and officials from the Department of Well-Being and Safety to discuss the coming year’s budget and planned allocations for weather purchases.

The special meeting will occur just four days after the release from hospital of Boldizsar Vidra, whose tragic accident on the Ice Slide in early January forced the shutdown of that recreational facility for the remainder of the season.

Vidra faces a long convalescence but is expected to make a full recovery, according to a statement released by the Park Hospital for the Afflicted and Infirm. But the Ice Slide may never be deemed safe to reopen, after a DWBS investigation found that weather conditions in The Park for the past few Winters have failed to meet the standards for maintaining natural ice surfaces.

“The past few years have seen increasingly warm temperatures in The Park, which we believe are due to budget cutbacks and the misallocation of funds. These funds, which should be going to purchase weather, are being used instead for celebrations and other frivolous things,” said a spokesAnimal for the PWO. “If the Park Finance Office doesn’t get its priorities straight, the residents of The Park will end up paying dearly for their [the PFO’s] mistakes,” the spokesAnimal said.

Winter weather has become increasingly expensive, experts believe, because there is much less of it available now.

“In the old days, it was the cheapest weather we could buy and we bought lots of it,” said the PWO spokesAnimal. “We had some Winters that lasted from October to May. But the price has become prohibitive and the PFO has become stingier and we see the results of that — not just our poor Otter or the loss of our popular Ice Slide, but the rise in deaths from premature awakening, food shortages due to drought, and the increase in domicile destruction,” the spokesAnimal said.

Tomorrow’s meeting will be a historic one, as it marks the first time the Park Finance Office has agreed to sit down with the Park Weather Office to discuss funding decisions. The results of the meeting may not be made public until July, however, when the PFO releases its annual budget.

See also: Park weather office blasts budget, proposes radical change

OTD in 2014—Fourth quarter gains prove hibernation a drag on economy, say some analysts

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Fourth quarter gainsProponents of abolishing hibernation in The Park may discover they have a new friend in their corner: the latest figures released by The Park Finance Office and The Park Association of Shops and Services (PASS).

The most recent reports show significant fourth quarter gains in all sectors of The Park’s economy, but particularly in the retail and construction sectors. While these gains were predicted by most analysts and are believed to be a result of 2013’s extended pre-hibernation period, there are some who feel these figures highlight the precariousness of The Park’s economy during the periods of hibernation and estivation.

“How can we expect the economy to function properly when a significant portion of our citizens exist in a state of torpor in both the Winter and Summer seasons?” asked Xavier Dingo, chief financial analyst at A. Corn and Partners, at a recent economic forum.

Dingo has never publicly suggested that hibernation should be abolished, perhaps because his company offers specialized financial services to The Park’s large hibernation and estivation communities. But at the recent forum, he was forthright in his reservations about continuing with the status quo.

“Our economy has stagnated for the past few years and, eventually, The Park will have to face up to its unique problems. We are not singling out any group, but our economic challenges here [in The Park] have become significant. We need to engage all our citizens in a serious conversation about how best to grow the economy. Otherwise, we will become vulnerable to forces that do not have our best interests at heart,” he said.

OTD in 2012—Park’s grooming houses to fund new School of Aesthetics

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The Park’s grooming houses announced today that they are banding together to fund an independent school dedicated to the teaching of aesthetics. The school, which is as yet unnamed, will be the first of its kind in The Park and will offer a certificate to those who complete its two-year programme.

The announcement was made this afternoon, when representatives of The Park’s five leading grooming houses gathered at The Pluming Room to outline their vision of a school that teaches multi-special grooming techniques, skin and hair care, and hygiene, “as well as the beautification techniques that have become so popular lately, such as Featherrection™.”

“There is a gap in The Park’s educational system, and we are looking to fill it,” said Elspeth Rinder, who holds a specialist certificate in Bovine Lumpy Skin Disease and practises at Amoltrud’s Aesthetics on a part-time basis.

The grooming houses, which together employ more than 300 practitioners of aesthetics and their assistants, say they have had trouble finding qualified staff and not one of their current employees trained at a school inside The Park.

“This is nothing short of embarrassing,” said Amoltrud Poedel, owner of Amoltrud’s Aesthetics, The Park’s oldest grooming house.

“I think that, as a Park, we are mature enough now to educate our own groomers.”

Tallulah of Tallulah’s Toilettage said that funding for the school will come “directly from our collective revenue” and that, initially, the school will be staffed by the grooming houses.

“In the beginning, all the instructors will be in active practice at our establishments. They will not receive any pay for their duties at the school, but their hours of work at the grooming houses will be reduced to accommodate their new responsibilities,” she said.

In addition, the school will invite guest instructors from outside The Park to teach classes and give demonstrations.

“Breadth of experience and technique is extremely important and we aim to provide a well-rounded education in the aesthetic arts,” Tallulah said.

Although a location for the school has yet to be determined, the founders are confident they will be ready to welcome their first class of students in the Autumn of 2013.

OTD in 2017—Mob swarms biographer at book launch

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3d-tabby-king-croppedYesterday’s launch of Yoshita Tigru’s biography turned ugly as an angry mob swarmed the author the minute she arrived at The Literary Apothecary.

A scheduled book signing inside the store was cancelled and Tigru was escorted by Park police to a safe location, where she gave a series of interviews via the web to Park television and radio stations.

According to Wyuna Winkle, the bookstore’s owner, Tigru had just arrived at the door when they rushed her, “grabbing at her tail and spitting at her.”

Other witnesses said some members of the mob were holding signs calling Tigru a traitor and an “unzoocratic Animal not fit for Park citizenship.”

Winkle said the mob members were angry at Tigru’s assertion that Jor, The Park’s first leader, initially had planned to rule The Park as king, instead of establishing zoocracy.

“That idea is abhorrent to them and they refuse to believe it,” she said. “To them, Jor was a perfect specimen of Felinity whose brilliance resulted in the reality of Animal self-rule. What Tigru reveals in her book, though, is that zoocracy was the result of a long process of thought on Jor’s part. What we ended up with as our government was not his first idea, but it was his best. For some reason, they think that revealing that fact is disrespectful to him.”

Momoko Yamaneko, Editor-in-Chief of Prionailurus Press, the book’s publisher, has confirmed that there are no other events planned at this time for Tigru.

OTD in 2017—Designs by Holstein puts stripes and spots up front this Spring

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Holstein FashionDesigns by Holstein’s 2017 Spring Collection will feature stripes and spots, according to a company statement.

In the release dated today, President and CEO Balbina Ko says the company took as inspiration for the new season the work that their charity EQUALSS has done, as well as their designers’ tribute last Summer to Zuberi Tembo, the murdered Endeka Elephant Band bass player.

Ko founded the EQUALLS charity almost two years ago to support the full equality of striped and spotted Animals and others in The Park. Since the charity’s birth, Designs by Holstein has included at least one striped and one spotted item in its seasonal collections. Last year, Holstein Fashion, the parent company of Designs by Holstein, hosted a fashion show during Enforced Domestication Awareness Month (EDAM) in June. The show’s fashions were created to highlight the perils of domestication for all Animals.

The Spring collection, which is bound for the stores in April, includes footwear as well as body wear and, for the first time, rainwear, because as Ko remarked at the end of the company statement, “What are the first spots any Animal sees? Raindrops!”

OTD in 2016—Wilkommen, Bienvenue: A guide to welcoming back our hibernating friends

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WelcomeMy, time flies!

It seems like it was just yesterday that we saw our hibernating friends off for the Winter and tomorrow they’re scheduled to return to us!

We’ll be thrilled to see them again, but how many of us understand this aspect of their lives? Do we know how they will feel—physically, mentally, and emotionally—in the days after rising?

“Probably not,” says Dr. Gudrun L. Gibbon, a Park psychotherapist who is also on staff at The Park’s Extinction Anxiety Clinic.

“I don’t think most of us even think about it. We just say, ‘Welcome back’ and expect them to resume their lives as they were. We don’t stop to think about the toll that hibernation takes on the body and mind or the length of time it takes to get up and running again,” she says.

For that reason, Gibbon decided to write what some are calling “the definitive guide” to welcoming back our hibernators.

The guide, which is available free of charge throughout The Park, was funded in part by The Department of Well-Being and Safety.

“They got on board right away. They thought it was high time we produced some educational tools on the subject. After all, a significant portion of our population hibernates or estivates. It has an impact on all of us, not just our personal relationships, but on our economy and our political life,” says Gibbon.

So, what should we know about our post-hibernating friends? Gibbon gave us a list of five things to remember when welcoming home post-hibernators:

  • Remember that they are not fully awake at first, even if they appear to be
  • Remember that hibernation is not rest, per se, and that they will be quite tired for a long period, post-hibernation. So, save the welcome parties for later in the Spring!
  • Don’t be insulted or alarmed if they don’t remember some important aspects of your life, or even their own. The deeper sleepers can experience significant memory loss, but this will improve with time
  • Give them some time to catch up on what they’ve missed. It’s difficult to take it in all at once
  • Don’t try to feed them too much at first. Their stomachs won’t be able to handle it

“I think it’s important for non-hibernators to understand the process,” says Gibbon. “And if you just understand these five things, you’ll be a fantastic friend to a hibernator.”

OTD in 2015—Many Animals blame calendar harmonization for economic woes

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Original Park CalendarMany Animals blame calendar harmonization for both their personal economic woes and the persistent sluggishness of The Park’s economy, say the results of a recent survey.

The late Autumn questionnaire, which was conducted jointly by The Park Association of Shops and Services (PASS) and the Park Finance Office asked five key questions regarding personal finance and the state of the economy. The results show a significant number of Animals, though not a majority, believe it was a mistake to harmonize the calendar with that of those living outside The Park.

“It’s an idea that took hold in Animals’ minds well before harmonization and it stuck,” says current PASS president Wellington Whistlepig, whose group began lobbying for calendar harmonization six years before it took effect.

“I don’t think it’s been fully understood by some but I also believe that the hardship experienced over the past few years has made Animals more likely to blame one thing rather than to look deeper at the number of different factors that might have led to our problems,” he says.

A cornerstone of the 2010 Archons’ “Agenda for Modernization,” The Park’s original Varrian calendar was fully retired in December, 2012. The calendar now in use is known outside The Park as the Human Gregorian calendar. The last printed copy of the Varrian calendar will reside permanently in the Park Museum, which is set to open on March 1.

In a statement released yesterday, the new head of the Park Finance Office said she is taking some time to review the results of the late 2014 public consultations on the budget. After that, she will begin making recommendations for a 2015 budget, which she intends to present before the end of the first quarter. No mention was made of whether reverting to the original calendar was among the suggestions tabled.

OTD in 2016—Directors’ Guild ousted me as prez due to my politics: Douglas Cheetah

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Douglas Cheetah photoRenowned director Douglas Cheetah claims he was ousted as president of the Park Directors’ Guild (PDG) because of his vocal criticism of The Park’s political system and especially because of his opposition to the continuation of sortition as a method of selecting The Park’s governing body.

“My politics offended them [the PDG) and for that I am not sorry. But the issue is that political beliefs have nothing to do with my ability to serve effectively on behalf of The Park’s directors,” Cheetah told host Yannis Tavros of Toro Talk Radio yesterday.

The director, who is best known for his award-winning film Black Cats Can’t Jump and for a moving and insightful documentary about an interspecial family, became a spokesAnimal for The Park’s pro-election group, Coalition Against Sortition in The Park (CASP) last April.

“The only way that I can see to stop the ongoing erosion of the principles of zoocracy is to establish a system in which we choose our leaders directly,” he said at the time.

The Park Directors’ Guild has made no comment on the situation other than to announce that Varden I.W. Spaniel will replace Cheetah as president on the fifteenth of this month. Spaniel is best known for his film, Stuffed Dogs Don’t Shed, for which he received the Golden Cap, the Guild’s highest honour, in 2009.

OTD in 2016—Park shops get green light to stay open Groundhog Eve, Groundhog Day

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Groundhog Day specialsIn a stunning reversal of its longstanding policy, The Park Finance Office has given businesses the green light to remain open late on Groundhog Eve and into the early afternoon on Groundhog Day.

The news was announced simultaneously this morning by PFO head Valentina Abeja and by Wellington Whistlepig, president of the Park Association of Shops and Services (PASS).

In a separate announcement, Whistlepig praised Abeja for her willingness to listen and for her “forward thinking.”

“We are extremely pleased that the PFO has listened to our concerns and shifted its position on this issue. Groundhog Eve and Groundhog Day are not just a time for us to come together and celebrate. They hold enormous economic potential and we are grateful to the PFO’s forward thinking head for the opportunity to demonstrate that fact,” Whistlepig wrote.

In a radio interview this morning, Abeja said her decision to change the policy was based on practicality.

“In the past, we believed that if we allowed our shops to stay open, it would somehow take something away from the celebration of Groundhog Day. But after significant study of the issue, we came to the conclusion that that would not be the case,” she said.

Abeja also stressed the need for the PFO to view economic issues through the eyes of those on “the front lines of business.”

“It is our job to support Park business, not to stand in the way of opportunity.”

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