EDITORIAL

In some Animal languages, “hope” and “expect” are the same word.

But today, when the Archons and the new Park Finance Officer deliver their annual Account of the State of The Park, we may find those words have two very different meanings.

The hope that most Park Animals feel these days is rooted in our respect for the new head of the Park Finance Office (PFO). Valentina Abeja is thoughtful in a way that former PFO head Milton Struts ceased to be, if ever he truly was. She is not given to habits or rules and sees beyond what is to what she believes ought to be, and she seeks to achieve it through prudent stewardship and responsible fiscal policy. While her first budget was far from perfect, it spoke more to Park citizens’ aspirations than any of the four previous budgets had. It addressed our core beliefs and, yes, our core hopes. And, yet, it managed to hold our expectations at bay, if only for a year.

The flip side of this, of course, is that the last few sets of Archons have done very little of this in the political sense. They have kept the worst at bay but have not, to date, offered any real solutions to the growing problems of our maturing zoocracy. While we hope that we can recapture the harmony that was Jor’s vision and that led to the founding of The Park, our leaders have not forged any path for us to follow in order to achieve that. Thus, we are left to our own devices (literally and figuratively) to solve the enormous problems that face us.

Today’s Account will include an update on the “Report on the State of Hate in The Park” that the Archons requested of the Department of Well-Being and Safety (DWBS) four months ago. It speaks to our sorry state of affairs that so many of us are anxious to hear the interim results, if only to know where we stand and what measures must be taken to quell that rising tide.

If there is one aspect of today’s report that we can know for certain ahead of time, it is that something must be done to address the growing specism in The Park. The desire of an overwhelming number of us to deal with this problem head-on and to solve it, which was the impetus for commissioning the report, is the one bright light in all this darkness. We can only hope that, with the help of our leaders, we will be able to harness that desire and turn it into positive change.