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Five Park innovators to watch

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Gaggle logoFirst in a series

A recent technology conference held in The Park highlighted the enormous amount of talent that exists in this tiny space we call home.

“It’s amazing what’s developed here over the last decade,” says Fikret Kartal, President and CEO of KartalTechSolutions. Kartal’s company brought the Verifyzer™— a device that helps Animals distinguish between news and entertainment—to The Park three years ago.

“When we started, we had no real competition,” Kartal says. “Now, there are times when we feel like we’re just hovering.”

Consuela Tapir, who runs the tech rumour web site, TikTekTok, understands the feeling.

“It’s an industry that’s just exploded over the last few years. I remember when these ideas had trouble getting off the ground. But these days, it doesn’t take long for them to soar,” she says.

So, just who are these new technological wonderAnimals and what great feats can we expect from them?

Tapir gave us a list of five to watch. Today, we highlight the first:[pullquote]I felt like a rare Bird at times. — gaggle founder Kawena Palila[/pullquote]

1. gaggle
The tech genius at the core of this new social media site is Kawena Palila, an alumna of BirdBrains, The Park’s first Avian mentoring programme, which was founded by the late Cesar Emilio Gander.

Palila calls gaggle the “social networking site with a difference.”

“All the other social sites focus on the individual and try to get you to connect with other individuals. Gaggle is for groups—families, charities, even educational institutions. We want to serve the collective community in whatever form,” she says.

The minimum number of members a group must have to join gaggle is five because, Palila says, “I don’t like even numbers. They’re so restrictive and they make Animals feel left out.”

gaggle itself took five years to launch, partly because it was difficult to get outside funding.

“I felt like a rare Bird at times,” she says. “It seems unbelievable now, but I had a hard time getting Animals to understand the concept.”

Up next:

2. FoodFinder

PFO head on 2015 budget: “We can’t have tomorrow’s lunch today.”

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PFO head Abeja: “We can’t have tomorrow’s lunch today.”

The head of the Park Finance Office has a message for Animals who, she says, may have unrealistic expectations of the 2015 budget.

“We can’t have tomorrow’s lunch today,” she said in a Mammalian Daily Radio interview this morning.

Valentina Abeja, who took office less than a month ago, was responding to a question by a listener about a “more equitable” budget.

Abeja said that after spending the past two weeks mulling over the results of the December public consultations on the budget, she had “renewed faith in the goodness of The Park’s population.”

Still, she cautioned that many of the items that Park Animals listed as “important” or “essential” will be impossible to include in the next two budgets for which she is responsible.

“I would say unequivocally that the future will be rosier, but I am dealing with the present and we have to rein in our expectations,” she replied.

As we are already into the third month of the year, Abeja said her first priority is to present a feasible budget.

“After that, we will have longer to think about 2016 and how to meet both our economic and political goals,” she said.

Uneasy writers: will Squeakeasy scuffle put Polar Bears’ picnic in jeopardy?

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owl_reading_sketch.jpg

Park poet Mirella Gufo reads her poetry at The Squeakeasy

Tuesday nights might never be the same at The Squeakeasy.

Once known as the night when Animals sway to the rhythm of poetry at the busy Park pub, last night’s scuffle, which ended in a number of injuries and arrests, may well make the evening synonymous with violence and interspecial tension.

According to Park Police, the commotion began when Mirella Gufo flew down to the microphone to read from her latest work.

“Some Animal made a remark about her beak and that’s what started it, according to witnesses,” Inspector Antonia T. Fossa of the Park Police’s Interspecial Investigations Unit told The Mammalian Daily. “And it devolved from there.”

Herman Wasbeer, who became involved in the fighting by accident, agrees that it started out almost innocently.

“It was a bad remark, for sure. And so unnecessary. But there was no violence attached to it at first. So, I told them to be quiet. We go there to hear poetry, not to hear what other Animals think of the way we look,” he says.

Unfortunately, Wasbeer’s intervention just added fuel to the fire.

“The next thing we knew, a whole flock of Geese descended on the place. Personally, I think they were just itching for a fight because they don’t even know Mirella Gufo,” he said.

Wasbeer says he tried to stop the Geese, but they turned on him.

“They were spewing hatred, honking about ‘stupid stripes’ and some other stuff that I couldn’t even understand. Then, a couple of Tabbies got in the act and you know it can’t be headed anywhere good when the Felines start fighting. The Geese told them to go to The Tabby Club, where they belong, and the thing just erupted into a room of flying fur and feathers.”

Wasbeer was bitten, though he says he doesn’t know by whom.

“I was arrested at first, but when they saw I was bleeding, they took me to the [Park] hospital. I guess it was later on that they found out I wasn’t one of the perpetrators.”

While he was released this morning, six more Animals remain in hospital, one in critical condition. Four others face charges, Police say, and will appear in court next week.

Meanwhile, the organizers of the Polar Bears’ Poetry Picnic say their event will go on as planned.

“We have no reason to think that our annual festival of poetry will be anything but peaceful,” says the event’s chief organizer Seymour K. Worthington Polar Bear.

Gossip site: “We have official special invitee list from Park Museum opening.”

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headsNtalesThe gossip site headsNtales claims to have in its possession the names of all the Animals who were specially invited to Saturday’s opening of The Park Museum.

In a post dated today, the site’s co-founder Hortencia Guacamayo says that headsNtales will be publishing the full list on the site later this week.

“It’s our right to know which Animals the Board of Governors felt were special enough to invite to their exclusive opening,” Guacamayo says. “Their slogan says that it’s our museum, but on Saturday it was a little bit more their museum than ours.”

Museum of Contemporary Art announces appointment of curator

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Park Museum of Contemporary Art

Aamuun Maroodiga will become the PMoCA’s head curator on Monday

The Park Museum of Contemporary Art (PMoCA) has appointed a new head curator.

In a communiqué released today, Aulikki Norsu, president of PMoCA’s board of directors, confirmed that Aamuun Maroodiga will assume the duties of head curator beginning on Monday, March 2.

“After an exhaustive search, we are pleased to announce that we have appointed Aamuun Maroodiga as head curator of the museum.

Maroodiga will bring to the job her extensive experience as an artist and her many years spent teaching the Tuskan technique at the Hani Gajah School of Art. We look forward to working with her and we are excited about this new era in the museum’s life,” the communiqué says.

Maroodiga succeeds Dorika Pumi, who left the PMoCA to become head curator at The Park Museum, which opens this weekend.

Pumi was responsible for a great deal of the innovation for which the PMoCA became known, including its first art installation in 2013, entitled, How Much Was That Doggie in the Window?  She was also responsible for the Museum’s K-NONical Kismet exhibit and the controversial but well-received series of sketches entitled, Better To Be Lost Than Loved.

Maroodiga is expected to follow Pumi’s innovative path. Her first exhibit will be the 2015 art installation which Chef Tab Tricolore is collaborating on with a number of artists. Its unveiling is expected in the late Spring.

Noreen to collaborate with DWBS on guide to “Safety in the Soppy Seasons”

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lovely-to-look-at-front-cover

For even more insight into Humans, buy Noreen’s book! Just click on the image above.

“We’ve all come to understand just how soppy Humans can be, sometimes,” says Noreen, Mammalian Daily advice columnist and adjunct professor of Human Studies at the University of West Terrier.

“But what many of us don’t understand is how to cope with that and how to keep ourselves safe in the face of such an onslaught of emotion.”

There is help on the way though, she said, at a press conference held early this morning.

Standing beside Cornelius Kakapo, director of public relations for The Park’s Department of Well-Being and Safety, Noreen announced her collaboration with the department on what she called “the definitive guide to staying safe in the soppy seasons.”

“Animals need to acquire the skill sets to cope with the ‘two-legged Lions,'” she said. “Especially when they try to give us Bear hugs.”

Kakapo concurred.

“Several times a year, we [the DWBS] issue a safety alert, telling Animals to beware of Humans looking for temporary—or even permanent—Animal companionship. And The Park has devoted the entire month of June to spreading awareness of enforced domestication,” he said.

“But, clearly, that hasn’t been enough. The number of Animal kidnappings has increased dramatically over the past few years. We’re now even seeing cases of Animals being returned to The Park after these events. They are often in very bad shape, both physically and mentally. Some of them are altered for life. We have to put a stop to this. And we feel the first step is to arm Park Animals with the information they need to keep themselves and their loved ones safe.”

The printed guide will be published this Autumn, Kakapo said, and will be available free of charge through the DWBS offices, the Park Hospital for the Afflicted and Infirm, and the Park’s Extinction Anxiety Clinic. A pdf copy will also be posted on this web site.

Park Museum releases schedule of opening weekend events

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Park MuseumThe Park Museum has released the schedule of events for its opening this weekend.

The Museum will open its doors to the public on Sunday, March 1 but a special opening ceremony will take place on Saturday, February 28.

The special ceremony will be attended by the last ten sets of Park Archons, as well as by a group of dignitaries and special invitees. According to a source close to the Board of Governors, the invitee list includes the architects, engineers, construction workers, and others whose work resulted in what Chief Archon Abayomi Cuckoo has called, “the greatest feat The Park has achieved since the establishment of zoocracy.”

The Museum will open to the public at 10:00 on the morning of March 1. After a short welcoming speech by the Board of Governors and the Museum’s architects, attendees will be treated to an orientation tour and a buffet-style lunch courtesy of the PurrBoy Café. Souvenirs will also be available free of charge.

The Museum, which chronicles the social, cultural, political, and economic history of The Park from 3000 years before zoocracy until the present time, was conceived of in 2007. Plans were set in motion by the 2008 Archons and construction began in 2012. The Museum has received financial support from both the Archons and the private sector.

The full schedule of events is available here.

Is the collar on the line?

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Collar on the line

The Park is in an uproar over the sale of collars at Footpad Heaven

The Park is in an uproar after the announcement yesterday that Footpad Heaven plans to expand its inventory to include collars.[pullquote]The collar … It is, quite simply, slave jewellery. — Angus Deerhound of Runaway Rovers[/pullquote]

The announcement came in the form of an advertisement that ran in many Park newspapers, including this one. The ad calls the items “Jewellery for the sophisticated Canine and Feline set.”

“It’s an outrage,” says Angus Deerhound of Runaway Rovers, a group that offers assistance to formerly Domestic Canines.

“It’s an affront to our species, as well as to others,” he says. “This object …  the collar … it isn’t clothing and it isn’t ornamentation. It is, quite simply, slave jewellery. It is something that was designed by Humans so that they could have control over us. I can’t imagine why such a wonderful shop as Footpad Heaven would even think about selling them.”

Many others are wondering the same thing. Footpad Heaven, which is The Park’s oldest shop, originally catered to the needs of Animals whose footpads and toepads suffered injury because of unpaved roads. Josiah Bandicoot, an immigrant sculptor who had dabbled in chemistry and aesthetics, established the shop 47 years before zoocracy and it has been owned and operated by his descendants since his death. A few years ago, the shop expanded its offerings to include cutting-edge fashion and trendsetting accessories, but none of those items bears the same connotation as does the collar.

According to Deerhound, a meeting of dissenters is scheduled for tomorrow night. They plan to petition Footpad Heaven to cancel its sale of collars.

“Taking the collar off is a symbol of freedom to every Domestic Canine who finds refuge in The Park. Why, then, would we who live here and have fought for freedom and the right to govern ourselves, want to put one on?” asks Deerhound.

Archons enact legislation designating March as annual “Museum Month”

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Park MuseumThe 2015 Archons have enacted legislation designating the month of March each year as “Museum Month” in The Park.

At a press conference held early this morning in front of the soon-to-be-opened Park Museum, Chief Archon Abayomi Tanishia Cuckoo made the announcement. Flanked by all 34 Archons, the Cuckoo spoke on behalf of her colleagues:

“On behalf of my fellow Archons, I proclaim the month of March as annual Museum Month in The Park.

In making this proclamation, we are recognizing the importance of documenting and understanding our history and celebrating our triumphs. At the same time, however, we must acknowledge our ongoing struggles. We hope the formal establishment of a Museum Month will facilitate just that and that the month of March will be a time for us each year to take an honest look at ourselves as a Park, to assess our accomplishments, and to rethink our goals as they relate to The Park as a whole and to each other as fellow citizens.

To that end, in conjunction with the Park Finance Office, we have made a change to The Park budget and set aside funds so that all Park museums will be able to welcome guests free of charge throughout the month of March each year. We hope this will help present and future generations to understand the history of The Park and the rôle that they themselves may play in its future.”

The legislation to which the Chief Archon referred goes by the formal name of “The Museum Month Designation Act” (“An Act to designate the month of March as annual Museum Month in The Park”). The legislation was signed February 23, 2015 and takes effect on February 26, 2015.

Opening ceremonies at The Park Museum will begin at 10:00 a.m. on Sunday, March 1, 2015.

Radio host Yannis Tavros announces stellar lineup for “March Madness”

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YannisTavros

Radio host Yannis Tavros announced a stellar lineup for “March Madness”

Toro Talk Radio host Yannis Tavros announced a stellar lineup today for his upcoming “March Madness” broadcasts.

Tavros took a break during his show this afternoon to rattle off a list of guests that is sure to triple or even quadruple his listener audience.

Among those confirmed, Tavros mentioned beleaguered Rodent Commoner reporter Gunnar Rotte, controversial Nesthetics designer Romulus Bowerbird, Park Historical Society president Clark Cascanueces, and newly-appointed head of the Park Finance Office, Valentina Abeja. Dorika Pumi, The Park Museum’s new curator, choreographer Herman Stoat, rapper Will.o.be., and Beasts of Burden lead singer Alfredo Ox will also be joining Tavros in March.

The list continued with director Douglas Cheetah, Dr. Berthilidis Strix, head of The Park’s Extinction Anxiety Clinic, Hieronymous Hedgehog, and historian Pieter Paard. As well, Tavros confirmed that renowned chef, restaurateur and author Tab Tricolore will join the radio host for his first interview since his return to The Park.

“There’s something for everyone in this lineup,” Tavros said, as he concluded. “And we have even more to tell you in the days to come.”

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