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OTD in 2014—Prediction’s accuracy “bittersweet for me,” says 2014 POPS Solange Marmotte

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Solange Marmotte

Solange Marmotte,
2014 POPS

MAMMALIAN DAILY EXCLUSIVE

It’s been almost seven weeks since Groundhog Day, when Solange Marmotte, 2014 Park Official Prognosticator of Spring (POPS), emerged from her burrow, saw her shadow, and predicted six more weeks of Winter.

With temperatures hovering well below the freezing mark and Spring expected to arrive a month late, it would appear that Marmotte’s prediction was accurate. In fact, according to the Park Weather Office, it is the most accurate prediction made by a POPS since 2007.

That ought to make Marmotte a happy Mammal, but that is not what our reporter found when he accepted her invitation to join her for lunch yesterday at her burrow.

Marmotte, whose prediction is the subject of a lawsuit, appeared tired and even a bit distraught when she greeted our reporter at the entrance to her burrow.

At 9 years of age, she is one of the oldest Animals to hold the position of POPS, but she is in excellent health and maintains a positive outlook. Still, it is apparent that the lawsuit, in combination with this year’s truncated hibernation period, has taken its toll.

“It’s true,” says Marmotte, as she ushers her guest into the burrow. 

“It was an accurate prediction and I never doubted that for a moment,” she asserts.

“Those who said I saw a shadow that was not my own…they don’t know me. I couldn’t make that mistake. I knew what I was seeing and I knew that I had to be honest about it. As everyone knows, there is a lot of pressure on the POPS…I’m not saying that any POPS has succumbed to it, but there is pressure. And, yes, I was feeling it. It had already been a long, hard Winter and we were all hoping that it would end soon. But that was not to be and I saw that as soon as I emerged,” she says.

Marmotte contends she is not completely surprised that her prediction was challenged, but she was taken aback by the vehemence with which the challenge was pursued. And neither the accuracy of the prediction nor the accolades she’s received from the Park Weather Office can make up for the nagging feeling that she’s been betrayed.

“It doesn’t feel like a victory to me…or even a vindication. For me, it is bittersweet,” she says.

OTD in 2017—Archons hunt for new Finance Office head to defund tourism, trade: rumour

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3280_smiled_wolf_business_man_holding_cashPark Finance Office (PFO) head Valentina Abeja’s days may be numbered.

According to a post on the gossip site headsNtales, Chief Archon Klarissa Kuttu is “not pleased” with some of the terms of Abeja’s past budgets.

In the post dated today, the site’s co-founder Hortencia Guacamayo quotes a conversation she claims to have had with a Park Finance Office employee, who says that Abeja has been under pressure since January to produce a budget that will defund tourism and extra-hortulanial trade (trade with those living outside The Park).

According to Guacamayo’s source, Abeja has resisted, even though she herself reduced the funding for both in her last budget.

“Abeja does not believe in isolating The Park,” Guacamayo says the source told her. But her resistance may prove futile because, according to the source, Kuttu has begun a search for a new PFO head who will follow her orders.

If these rumours are true, this will be the first time in Park history that a Chief Archon has interfered with a budget prior to its release. It’s been customary for the PFO head to prepare a budget and then for the Archons en masse to approve it, to request changes, or to send it back.

According to Park historian and professor Beatrice Zilonis, this action, if true, is unprecedented. And dangerous.

“We have never seen so much direct contact with the PFO head prior to a budget,” she told The Mammalian Daily.

Zilonis says that while there has always been some tension between the PFO head and the Archons, the Archons have never given direct orders to the PFO.

“It’s unheard of,” she said. “Since it’s the Archons who’ve appointed the PFO head, they’ve usually been on the same page. The budget has always been tweaked, either because of the Archons’ desires or the citizens’, but never at this stage. If this is true, this constitutes overreach on the part of the Archons, in my opinion,” she said.

OTD in 2017—Score one for Rotte: March’s Stereotype Sunday theme will be Rodents

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GunnarScore one for Gunnar Rotte,

The beleaguered Rodent Commoner reporter and part-time counsellor at The Park’s Extinction Anxiety Clinic (currently on leave), has been campaigning for years to get us to focus on the plight of the Rodent population—both inside and outside The Park—and the damage caused by the “traumatic narrative” on which his species is raised.

After a string of attempts to have the Archons and the Department of Well-Being and Safety (DWBS) declare an official “Rodents’ Day,” Rotte has finally succeeded in getting our attention, albeit on a different stage than he’d planned.

Despite that, he says he is seeing it as a win and a first step toward the “enlightenment of other Park species.”

“My campaign—if that’s what you want to call it—has been misrepresented as one that says, ‘Rodents first.’ That’s nonsense. I would more accurately portray it as, “Rodents, too,’ ” he said in an interview on Mammalian Daily Radio this morning.

Rotte, who says he hopes next Sunday’s event will be only the first of many, told host Cornelio Orsetto that he had “many irons in the fire and many surprises to unleash” in the coming months. He also confirmed rumours that he would be returning to work at the Extinction Anxiety Clinic in May.

“My work there is some of the most important that I’ve ever done,” he said.

OTD in 2017—Polar Bears’ Poetry Picnic “diminished” by concept of openness: former director

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2012 Toe-Hair contest winner Seymour K. Worthington Polar Bear will serve as head judge of this year's contest, a little more than a month after organizing the Polar Bear's Poetry PicnicThe annual Polar Bears’ Poetry Picnic has lost its way, says its former director.

Seymour K. Worthington Polar Bear, who was the chief organizer of the popular celebration from 2013-2015, says the picnic is being “led astray” by the “concept of openness” and the participation of non-poets and artists from other media and genres.

In an interview with Yannis Tavros on Toro Talk Radio yesterday, Worthington Polar Bear complained that the inclusion this year of short plays, face-painting, and acrobatics, will “diminish” the event and cloud the purpose of it, which was to celebrate the genre of poetry.

“It was established as a pure event, an event of pure poetry,” Worthington Polar Bear said. “Now, they’ve muddied the waters and it’s hard to tell what it is.”

While he stopped short of explicitly criticizing Kumaglak Nanuq Polar Bear, the event’s new organizer, Worthington Polar Bear took a direct hit at what he called “the forces of inclusion” and “the push to appeal to all species.”

“There is a reason this event was established by Polar Bears,” he told Tavros. “Polar Bears have a long and proud history as poets and as a species that appreciates poetry. Not all species are interested in poetry and that’s fine. But must we water down the genre in order to appeal to them? Surely we needn’t fill in all the lakes and ponds because some of us can’t swim,” he said.

Worthington Polar Bear was also critical of the event’s recent attempts to make itself appealing to The Park’s younger citizens.

“I believe strongly in exposing our young to the arts, not of exposing the arts to our young,” he said.

OTD in 2017—Pressure mounts as Month Without Metaphor executive committee meets

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Month Without Metaphor borderThe executive committee of Park media’s annual Month Without Metaphor will meet this afternoon, as pressure mounts to replace Alvin Tinamou as chief organizer and director.

The publisher of The Avian Messenger, who was one of the event’s founders, has been on leave since last September, after he suffered the trauma of the theft of his nest and the loss of his and his mate Adela’s eggs.

According to the agenda for the meeting, the possibility exists for not only naming a new director but for splitting the duties that Tinamou performed over the past three years. New positions might include social media director, publicity agent, and outreach manager.

Among those under consideration for the position of director are Nathan R. DiPressa, Editor-in-Chief of The Reptile Register and Executive Director of the Association of Non-Mammlian Park Newspapers (ANMPN), Senior Finance Reporter Antoinette Anhima of The Avian Messenger, Tarrance Turkey, Deputy News Editor at The Galliforme Gazette and an ANMPN founding member, Fannia di Volo, former Editor-in-Chief of The Insect Intelligencer (now The Serangga Star Adviser) and Priscilla Weevil, current Editor-in-Chief of The Serangga Star Adviser.

According to the agenda, the meeting will begin with a tribute to Tinamou, who declined the invitation to attend the afternoon gathering.

OTD in 0215—Polar Bears’ Poetry Picnic will be held on Sunday, March 22: organizers

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Polar Bears' Poetry Picnic

Annual event will be held a day earlier

The 2015 Polar Bears’ Poetry Picnic will be held on Sunday March 22, one day earlier than previously scheduled.

The announcement of the change in date, which came fittingly in the form of a poem, was carried on all Park media this morning:

Hear ye, hear ye, one and all
Spring’s almost sprung, the ice almost thawed!
By this announcement, please be advised
Our Poetry Picnic’s date has been revised.
Poems will be read, recited, and sung
Seven days from now, less just one
We hope this change will find you all
Ready to answer poetry’s call.

See you there on Sunday March 22nd!

While the event’s organizers cited a better weather forecast as the reason for the change, Seymour K. Worthington Polar Bear said in a brief interview on Mammalian Daily Radio that he thought it made more sense to schedule the event on a weekend.

The Polar Bear, who wraps up his three-year stint as the Picnic’s chief organizer this year, confirmed that he will be requesting a permanent change in the date at his next meeting with the Archons.

“Despite the fact that Park Animals have always lived on a 24/7 schedule, they do seem a bit more relaxed on the weekend,” he told TMD Radio. “For this reason, I will be requesting that we designate the third Sunday in March as the Picnic day, instead of the date of March 23.”

The event, which is in its 20th year, will begin at 10:00 a.m. Park time on Sunday, March 22.

OTD in 2018—Is your spell check software specist?

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As Park residents continue to embrace Human-made technology (HMT), experts have voiced concern about its psychological effects on Animals.

At a two-day conference at the University of West Terrier this past week, faculty members from the Torgeir School of Information Technology and the Departments of Psychology and Interspecial Studies discussed a variety of problems related specifically to language found in software used for word processing, texting, and email.

“The problem with much of the software, particularly with tools such as spell check and autocorrect, is that it still is not configured to deal with many of the nuances of Animal life,” technology expert Llewellyn Fox told the conference attendees.

Fox is an adjunct professor of technology at the University of West Terrier and president of the computer consulting company Quick Brown Fox Technologies, S.A.

Citing examples from his bestselling book, “The Lazy Dog’s Guide to Technology,” Fox lamented the dearth of Animal-appropriate software and laid the blame for many of our youth’s problems—including low self-esteem—on the species that developed it.

“The problem is that certain features of the applications, which have been designed by and for Humans, are what he termed “Humano-centric.”

“Their core functions appear to be trans-special,” he emphasized, “and, as such, they are easy for the average Animal to use, but this is deceiving.” The trouble occurs, he said, when some of the applications’ tools are used.

As an example, Fox pointed to what he considers a glitch in spell check and autocorrect, tools that are used in word processing and, more importantly, in texting and email functions: “No matter what species you key in, the word processor supplies the initial letter in the lower case. This, as we know, is the grammar of Humans, but it is not the grammar of Animals.”

“Some Animals might not see this as anything more than a nuisance,” he admitted. And, of course, the software can be set to change a lower case Animal name to an upper case one manually.

But the problem is less a practical one and more a matter of attitude, he told the academic gathering. And his colleagues seemed to agree.

“It’s not just a matter of a capital letter here or there. This is but one small example. Our young are now being raised on this software, and already they’ve started to write the way Humans do—partly because it takes less effort to let the software dictate the way you express yourself.”

Additional areas of concern that Fox discussed at the gathering were the dictionary and several other language tools. These functions, he said, provide the user’s vocabulary.

“It’s not so much a problem with the words that the software does supply,” he emphasized. “My complaint is that Animals are likely to be told by this software that the words they key in—that they use in everyday speech and writing—do not exist.”

Fox is not alone in being wary of Human software. Several newspapers in The Park, including The Mammalian Daily, have successfully negotiated with software companies to offer a choice of different Animal dictionaries in their word processing software. But not all Animals are even aware they have a choice.

“We tend to use what’s put in front of us and that soon becomes the norm. It becomes all that we know,” Fox said.

OTD in 2015—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.

OTD in 2015—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.”

OTD in 2012—Majority of Park Animals home-schooled: study

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The majority of Park Animals receive their basic education at home, according to the results of a study completed last year.

The study, which was commissioned by the 2011 Archons in conjunction with the Park Education Working Collective (PEWC), was conducted by researchers at the F. Varrah Flanagan School of Education at the University of West Terrier.

The results of the study, published yesterday in the academic quarterly, Journal of Education Theory and Experience (JETE), indicate that a very small minority of Animals take advantage of any of the educational opportunities offered free of charge by The Park.

“This is an area of great concern to us,” said head researcher Domoina Fossa. “Over the past few years, we have witnessed an increase in interspecial crime and particularly violent crime. We believe this could be mitigated by introducing Animals to other species at an earlier point in their lives.”

According to renowned Park historian, Beatrice Zilonis, currently a professor in the Department of History at UWT, the impetus for developing The Park’s educational resources was exactly that idea:

“Interspecial harmony is one of the guiding principles of zoocracy. It was one of Jor’s [The Park’s first leader and the founder of modern zoocracy] core beliefs that we must foster interspecial harmony through Animals’ knowledge of and friendship with different species,” says Zilonis.

Many in The Park believe that basic education for Animals has been neglected and that institutions of higher learning have received a disproportionate amount of attention and resources in recent years.

“We will have to attend to this unbalanced situation if we want to avoid serious problems in the future,” says researcher Fossa.

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