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OTD in 2016—Toe-Hair Contest exacerbates fear of extinction in some Animals: therapist

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Rhino LoserThe Park’s annual Toe-Hair Contest may be having a devastating effect on the vulnerable in our population, according to mental health specialist Victoire Caméléon.

The part-time researcher and psychotherapist, who works at one of The Park’s two Extinction Anxiety Clinics, made the assertion this past weekend.

Speaking at a conference on extinction and mental health at the University of West Terrier, Caméléon said evidence suggests that the annual competition negatively affects those who fear for the survival of their species.

“This is not simply an issue of self esteem; it is an issue of survival and Animals’ sense of self-preservation,” she said.

The annual contest, which has come to signal the beginning of Spring, rewards those who are most able to grow long, thick, healthy toe-hairs over the Winter season.

But, Caméléon said, many in our vulnerable populations are not able to do so, through no fault of their own. Still, the emphasis the contest places on this one aspect has made some Animals feel weaker and less able to survive.

“There are a number of factors that are involved in toe-hair growth, as well as in other aspects of physical health,”  Caméléon said. “Everything from the environment to emotional stress to having the luxury of time and the resources to cultivate oneself can affect toe-hair growth. We should be cognizant of that when we reward Animals for something that they are not in complete control of.”

Yet, even despite these negative effects, Caméléon is not calling for an end to the contest.

“It began as purely a fun event, almost a farcical celebration of the post-Winter season. I think we should preserve that aspect of the contest and place less emphasis on the winning part,” she said.

OTD in 2015—Cynics to re-release Take the A Frame

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A Frame (1)The Cynics (Philosopher Dogs) will release a new version of their wildly successful collection Take the A Frame next month, according to an announcement issued yesterday.

A late afternoon press release signed by the group’s founder and lead singer, Luther “Droop” Dachshund, said the group will release a digital version of the collection at the end of May. The announcement said the collection will include a brand new version of the title song as well as the digitally re-mastered original.

The release date is meant to coincide with The Park’s observation of Enforced Domestication Awareness month in June, Dachshund said in the announcement.

“Our group has been supportive of that initiative from its inception and we want to reinforce our relationship with it again this year,” he wrote.

Last year, The Cynics donated the proceeds of their song Diamond in the Ruff to the cause.

“We’ve been fighting enforced domestication for years, but there hasn’t been much movement on the issue until recently…We want to do as much as we can to further awareness of domestication’s harsh reality,” he said at the time.

Since then, The Cynics have performed very little, save for a few concerts at The Pound, the gastropub of which they are part-owners. And, although the press release did not mention any upcoming concert dates, a spokesAnimal for Rotunda Records, the group’s label since its founding, said he thought there might be something in the works.

“They’ve been working very hard in the studio and not just on the re-release,” the spokesAnimal said. “We all think it’s about time they went on tour again.”

OTD in 2017—Mating Dance pre-registration for endangered species begins today

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Giraffes at Mating DanceIf you’re a Park citizen or resident and a member of an endangered species, today is the day to start thinking about registering for the Mating Dance.

The Department of Well-Being and Safety’s reminder, issued this past weekend in a Park-wide media blitz, cautioned participants not to procrastinate. It also warned those intending to use the pre-registration option to expect longer wait times this year, as the popularity of the programme has grown over the past two years.

“When it [the programme] was instituted, we sensed a certain reluctance to participate on the part of those in the endangered community. There was a certain stigma attached to being part of an endangered spacies, but I think this programme, along with the [Endangered Species] Benefits Programme, and the wonderful work being done at the Extinction Anxiety Clinic, has changed that significantly,” DWBS Director of Public Relations Cornelius Kakapo told The Mammalian Daily.

Pre-registration for the May 5 event begins today at ten o’clock at the DWBS offices. To take advantage of the full programme, which includes genetic and psychological counselling, all Animals must bring proof of their eligibility in the form of their membership in The Park’s Endangered Species Benefits Programme (ESBP).

OTD in 2014—Organizers hatch new plan for Fowl Ball

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Fowl ballOrganizers have finally set the date for The Park’s newest charity event, The Fowl Ball.

At a press event held this afternoon, organizer Rafael Ortega confirmed that the Department of Holidays Festivals, and Celebrations, in conjunction with the Archons of The Park, have agreed to set aside Saturday May 31 for what Ortega calls “the event of the year.”

Some small details have yet to be finalized, Ortega said, but the important ones “have been carved in stone since November.”

While the Ball’s raison d’être is to raise funds for Avian aid (and to raise awareness of the plight of many in The Park’s Avian community), Ortega stressed that guests’ enjoyment and stimulation of The Park’s economy were also objectives.

“We are committed to the notion that every Animal in The Park will benefit from this benefit,” he joked.

As for the delay in selecting a date, Ortega acknowledged that this was a difficult year to debut the Ball.

“Due to our severe Winter, so many in our community have delayed their re-entry and we wanted every Bird to be…not only present, but rested enough to enjoy the event,” he said.

As well, since the Ball’s date falls a little less than two weeks after the Anixi Agrarian Jubilee, Animals will be in a party mood.

“The Agrarian Jubilee not only marks the beginning of The Park’s growing season, but its Summer social season, as well. Having the Ball a couple of weeks after the Jubilee positions us perfectly in terms of attendance and readiness to party,” Ortega said.

OTD in 2014—Critics decry Hayberry’s appointment as Toe-Hair Contest’s head judge

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MillicentHayberry Complaints of an encroaching “culture of celebrity” accompanied this morning’s announcement that Millicent Hayberry will serve as head judge of the 2014 Toe-Hair Contest.

Many who attended the press event at the Ancient, Open-Air Theatre began to boo when they heard Hayberry’s name. They were soon joined by a group carrying hastily-made signs that bore unflattering messages scrawled in mud. Some of the signs said, simply, “No!” while others took aim at Hayberry, herself. One protester was heard shouting as he waved a sign that said “It’s a gig!” referring to Hayberry’s profession of acting.

“I was disappointed and, frankly, quite shocked,” said Aintza Kanariar as she left the event. Kanariar, who made the announcement, is Director of Public Relations for the Department of Holidays, Festivals, and Celebrations, the body that chooses the contest judges.

“Millicent Hayberry is much beloved in The Park and we thought that adding her to the judging roster would be hailed as a good decision. We never anticipated any objection.”

Hayberry, who is best known for her critically acclaimed performance in Imogen Aardeekhoorn’s one-Chipmunk drama, Mixed Nuts, is one of the most recognizable of The Park’s stage and screen artists. She is also known as a loyal Park citizen and she has participated in every major event here since she was young.

Despite the violent nature of the objections, little of the criticism of the department’s choice was actually aimed at Hayberry; rather it was related to what many perceive as her inexperience in the matter. One protester summed it up:

“The Toe-Hair Contest is a very important competition. It has a history and a focus and it should be treated with respect. I don’t mean to demean the acting profession or her species, but in all honesty, what does she, as a Chipmunk, know about toe hairs?”

The Toe-Hair Contest, which is in its 19th year, is set to commence at 10:00 a.m. Park time on May 1.

OTD in 2015—Prionailurus Press to promote the literature of the striped and spotted

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Prionailurus Press Editor-in-Chief Momoko Yamaneko

Momoko Yamaneko stifled a nervous laugh as she responded to a reporter’s question at a press conference held at her office this morning.

The question was a simple one: “Why now?”

“You’d have thought by our name that this would have been our mandate all along…our raison d’être, so to speak,” said the Editor-in-Chief of Prionailurus Press, which today became the first publishing house in The Park to respond to the plight of striped and spotted Animals.

But Yamaneko stopped short of apologizing for the company’s seeming neglect of its own community.

“A constellation of factors influence publishing decisions,” she explained, “and often we are forced, by the markets and by our readers, to put our survival ahead of even our most heartfelt desires. But we called you here today to announce that the time has come for us to live up to our responsibility in this regard. We will be putting striped and spotted writers at the forefront. That part of our agenda is set for the next three years, at least.”

The  publishing house, she said, has committed a sizeable amount of currency and all its other resources to finding and publishing emerging writers from the striped and spotted community.

“We want to welcome them to the Prionailurus family,” she said. “We want hear and read their stories of the challenges they’ve faced in the past and those they face now. We want to strengthen our own community at the same time as we work to foster understanding among all species.”

The publishing house’s new mandate begins “now,” the Editor-in-Chief said emphatically, as the press conference drew to a close.

“We have a host of new and exciting initiatives in development. You will be hearing from us very soon in this regard,” she said.

OTD in 2016—Court reaffirms right to remain stupid

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Mr Justice Augustus DindonIn a landmark decision handed down this morning, Mr. Justice Augustus Dindon of The Park’s Superior Court kept alive the vision of The Park’s founder and reaffirmed the right of every Animal to remain stupid.

The decision, which will be posted in full outside the Court House tomorrow, came after a deliberation of more than five months. The decision was in response to an action brought by a collective that included the Park Education Working Collective (PEWC), the heads of admission of all The Park’s educational institutions, professionals from the Extinction Anxiety Clinic, and one hundred Animals known as the “concerned conglomerate.”

In their action, the collective argued that increasing apathy among the citizenry and the lack of formal education undermine the survival and prosperity of The Park. They asked the court to supersede the Archons and enact a law requiring all Park citizens to attend school.

The collective’s argument before the court in October was kept a secret from all except those directly involved in the proceedings. That decision was made to prevent the collective from initiating an awareness campaign they believed might sway the court’s decision.

During the deliberation period, Justice Dindon accepted submissions from The Department of Well-Being and Safety, the Park Hospital for the Afflicted and Infirm, and from medical and psychological experts on both sides of the argument. In addition, he called on Park historians to, as he said, “help me understand the founding vision of The Park.”

In the opening paragraph of the decision, Justice Dindon said he relied heavily on these words of Jor, The Park’s first leader and the founder of modern zoocracy: “We cannot force our views upon the citizenry; we can only inspire them to look beyond themselves and aid them in their search for a just and better life for all.”

OTD in 2013—ISML confirms discovery of ancient “shedding” song

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The Institute for the Study of Mammalian Life has confirmed the discovery of an ancient shedding song. The lyrics of the song were inscribed on a stone tablet that was found near The Park’s Wishing Well during a routine dig last Summer.

At a press conference held this afternoon on the grounds of the Institute, ISML Chief Archaeologist Catriona Cairn-Terrier characterized the find as “significant” and described the tablet as “basically in good shape, with a few breaks here and there at the ends, but nothing that prevented us from reading the letters on it.”

She credited a team of musicologists from the University of West Terrier’s Zedrich School of Music with helping the Institute’s staff determine the nature and meaning of the inscription on the stone.

“We knew from the way the words were arranged that it was some type of poem or poetic structure, but it wasn’t until we worked with the musicologists that we were able to comprehend its true essence,” she said.

According to Cairn-Terrier, shedding songs (as well as molting songs) were a popular genre many thousands of years ago.

“They celebrate the natural order of things…moving from one season to another…and especially the rebirth that occurs in the Spring,” she said.

The language of the inscription found on the tablet is known as “Mammalian XII,” an ancient language that is related to Mammalian VII and, according to archaeologists, one that was in use during the Hairy Mammal Era (HME). And although the entire song has yet to be transcribed, Cairn-Terrier offered up what she believes is the song’s chorus:

Spring is sprung!
The winter’s done!
The sun’s come out to play!
Let’s shed the old,
Don something bold – 
For summer’s on its way! 

OTD in 2007—Park braces for panzootic as Small Ball Fever claims new victim

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The recent death of a Squirrel has alerted The Park’s medical community to the necessity of implementing measures to deal with the possible onset of a panzootic, according to a spokesAnimal for The Park’s Department of Well-Being and Safety (DWBS).

Kostas Apollonios Eusebios Squirrel died on 26 March as a result of Small Ball Fever, six days after he had extensive contact with a small ball which he imported to The Park from a local field.

An internal memo from the DWBS, made available to this newspaper, reveals that the likelihood of a small ball fever panzootic is greater this year than in previous years, in large part because of the proliferation of small balls in the communities surrounding The Park.

Every year, the DWBS monitors the influx of small balls. This year, the number has increased tenfold. Experts say this is due, primarily, to the early onset of warm, sunny weather.

“Small balls are the bane of our existence,” said Cornelius Kakapo, Director of Public Relations for the DWBS. “We can contain them inside The Park, but there is nothing we can do to restrict their number outside our borders,” he said.

Small balls were first sighted in The Park more than a decade ago, but their number has grown exponentially over the past five years. The balls, which are better known outside The Park as “golf” balls, harbour the deadly Small Ball Fever virus inside their dimpled surface. The SBF virus is spread when it leaks through cracks in the ball’s surface and makes contact with mucosa in the mouth or nose. Symptoms include extremely high fever, chills, aching muscles, and, eventually, pulmonary dysfunction. All Animals are at risk of developing Small Ball Fever but some groups of Animals, including Squirrels, Donkeys, the elderly, and the infirm, are at particular risk.

The DWBS’s Kakapo was quick to assure Animals that the Department is doing everything in its power to limit the spread of Small Ball Fever and to protect The Park’s population from a panzootic.

For more information, please consult The Park’s Department of Well-Being and Safety pamphlet, “What you should know about Small Ball Fever.” 

OTD in 2014—Park media organizations gear up for first ever “Month Without Metaphor”

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Month Without MetaphorWith just two weeks to go, The Park’s media organizations are gearing up for what some have called the biggest experiment in the history of journalism.

“All systems are go,” pronounced Alvin Tinamou with pride, at a hastily-organized update at his office yesterday afternoon. The subject was May’s “Month Without Metaphor,” but the Elephant in the room was the state of the industry, itself.

“It’s no secret that the modern era has presented us with a huge challenge,” Tinamou admits, but he backs away from any suggestion that the industry is on its last legs.

In fact, the publisher of The Avian Messenger winces at the term “experiment” to describe the month-long initiative of which he is one of the organizers. Instead, he refers to it as the “Grand Resuscitation,” an ambitious description that some in the profession say it could well turn out to be.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if it kickstarted interest, especially among the newspaper readership,” says Noburu Akita, Executive Director of the Centre for the Study of Newspaper Activity in The Park (C-SNAP). “Whether the media and, particularly, our newspapers, can hold that interest, though, is the question.”

Gertrude C. Owl, Dean of UWT’s Cuthbert School of Journalism and Mammalian Daily senior political correspondent agrees.

“I think it’s a brilliant idea, really, inviting the public to, almost, scrutinize the business…allowing them to feel a part of it, while still keeping the boundaries clear. I’m cautiously optimistic about it, but I think it will take more than one go at this type of thing to be truly effective,” she says.

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