Fleck + Stone’s Chief Architect has been chosen to deliver the University of West Terrier’s commencement day address. Read the full announcement here.
Breaking NewsBits—Kuttu’s anti-Human views unpopular with some Archons, business owners: rumour
Chief Archon Klarissa Kuttu’s views on trade with Humans are as unpopular with some of her fellow Archons as they are with The Park’s business owners, says gossip web site headsNtales. The site’s co-founder Hortencia Guacamayo says that Aristodama Tortoise and Nathan Edward Puffin went on record saying Kuttu’s isolationist policies will damage the economy. Guacamayo quotes Tortoise: “It seems she has no sense of history.”
DWBS “disappointed” that Mating Dance selfie warnings not heeded
For the second year in a row, selfies and other photos of Park Animals that were taken during last Friday’s Mating Dance have been posted on the internet.
“It appears that our repeated warnings to Park Animals to take precautions against Humans photographing them taking selfies fell on deaf ears,” said Cornelius Kakapo, Director of Public Relations for the Department of Well-Being and Safety (DWBS), at a press conference this morning.
While Kakapo confirmed that a second investigation has been launched into the posting of Mating Dance photos, he was quick to emphasize that little could be done about the problem at this point.
“This is about prevention, not about cure,” he said. “The time to do something about it is before it happens. We have no way of forcing Humans to remove the pictures from their sites. We can only do our best to prevent it. ”
Kakapo said the department had received legal advice and was told that although under Park law the posting of these photos is considered a hate crime, Park Animals have no ability to pursue their legal rights outside The Park.
“Unfortunately, that is the case,” explained Fionnula L. Fox, professor of law at the University of West Terrier and a specialist in extra-hortulanial law (law that applies outside The Park) on Mammalian Daily Radio this morning.
“It does not lie within our jurisdiction to prosecute Humans who reside outside The Park.”
Former PFO head Milton Struts to be a guest on Yannis Tavros show this week
Milton Struts, the disgraced former head of the Park Finance Office, will be a guest on the Yannis Tavros show on Thursday, according to a press release issued today by Toro Talk Radio.
The radio station said Struts, who recently returned to The Park after an extended stay in the land of his ancestors, will discuss the budgets of ousted PFO head Valentina Abeja, as well as other economic and social issues facing The Park.
Struts, who oversaw the PFO and served as budget chief for almost a decade, was relieved of his duties in 2014 after a series of scandals involving his relationship with Humans.
The gossip web site headsNtales claims Struts has met with Chief Archon Klarissa Kuttu to discuss returning to his old job. But after the site posted a picture of his newly-refurbished abode under the headline, “He’s baaaack!” Struts issued a statement denying the rumours, saying he had “non-governmental” plans for the next few years.
It’s official: Abeja is out, search is on for new PFO head
BREAKING NEWS
Valentina Abeja has left the PFO building.
Or at least, she’ll be gone by April 30.
In a short statement this afternoon, the Park Finance Office confirmed the rumours of the past few weeks:
“The Park Finance Office wishes to inform all Park citizens that PFO head Valentina Abeja will be leaving her post as of April 30 of this year. We thank her for her work and for the integrity with which she oversaw the PFO and two Park budgets and we wish her all the best in her future endeavours.”
The PFO also confirmed that it has initiated a search for a new head and budget chief.
Abeja was appointed in February of 2015, after Milton Struts was unceremoniously relieved of his duties after a series of scandals involving Humans. She moved swiftly to unite the PFO and to prepare budgets that reflected the needs and concerns of Park citizens. According to an August 2016 poll by The Cosmopolitan Pest, Abeja is extremely well-liked and trusted and most Park citizens were hoping that she would continue to head the PFO.
“She may be the best-liked and best-respected PFO head The Park has ever had,” Inès Puceron, the magazine’s editor, said last week. “But her ideas do not reflect those of the present Chief Archon.”
Park’s Avian population set to soar above other species: BirdBrains
The Park’s Avian population is set to soar above all other species, according to a report published last week by the Avian mentoring programme, BirdBrains.
The report, entitled, “Zoocracy After Thirty-Five: A New Avian Era,” analyzes a number of studies of the development of The Park’s Avian population in the years following the establishment of zoocracy.
According to these studies, Avians dipped in levels of education, employment, and entrepreneurship during the first decade and a half of zoocracy, when they were overtaken by other species, the large majority of which were Mammals and Fish. In addition, statistics from the Long Gone Registry confirm that the number of Avians who chose to leave The Park permanently grew consistently from 1995 to 2005. The first cohort set up homes and infrastructure in other areas, which encouraged an exodus in the years between 2001 and 2005.
But all that is about to change, according to the report’s authors and BirdBrains directors, Gwendolyn Goose and Henry Gander, whose late father, Cesar Emilio Gander, founded the Avian mentoring programme.
The average level of education in the Avian population has gone from the rudimentary level to intermediate, says Goose, with a significant increase in the number of Avians attending institutions of higher learning.
“This year, Avians will constitute the largest number of new students as well as the largest number of graduates,” Goose says proudly.
In addition, many more Avians have become interested in technology and, in turn, entrepreneurship. Goose and Gander credit their father’s vision, as well as that of the education initiative of the 2011 and 2012 Archons, with the change in the Avian mindset.
“Many more Birds are making the decision to stay here and get an education. They see opportunities that aren’t available outside The Park and they’re now reaching for the stars,” says Gander.
Kawena Palila is one of them. An alumna of BirdBrains, Palila credits the programme with helping her to realize her dream, the social media site gaggle, which went live last year. Palila says the programme helped her get funding and some extra expertise for the site, as well as encouraging her to “think Avian,” which resulted in a site “not for the individual, but for the flock.”
Goose and Gander say there are many more Palilas on the horizon and they look forward to mentoring many flocks of them in the coming years.
Back by popular demand: PMoCA’s “ARCHONOGRAPHY” returns Sunday with special guest Ingolf Ewald
The Park Museum of Contemporary Art (PMoCA) made a surprise announcement this morning: its ARCHONOGRAPHY installation, which broke all attendance records during its initial two-month run, will reopen this weekend. And, it will host a special guest: renowned artist Ingolf Ewald.
Ewald, who is known for his painting, “Plumpen Rolletariat,” last visited The Park in August of 2015, when he opened the PMoCA’s “Art of the Domestic Feline” exhibition.
The ARCHONOGRAPHY installation, which the museum describes as “ultra-live,” is a tribute to the thirty-fifth anniversary of zoocracy. It honours those who’ve served in The Park’s government over the past thirty-five years by having Park artists paint portraits of Archons chosen by museum-goers. All twelve hundred portraits completed thus far hang in the museum and they will do so until the end of the year.
This second iteration of the installation will differ slightly, according to head curator Aamuun Maroodiga’s announcement today. The artists will be on-site only eight hours a day instead of the previous twelve, and the installation will run from Sunday, April 16 until May 1, after which the museum will close to make preparations for its next major exhibition. Ingolf Ewald will be painting portraits of Archons from April 15 until April 21.
The Park Museum of Contemporary Art’s “ARCHONOGRAPHY” will reopen on Sunday, April 15 and run until May 1, 2017. Admission to the event is free.
Domestic Animals have no control over their estates: UWT study
At a time when Park residents are amassing greater amounts of wealth and material goods, a new study shows that Animals who live outside The Park have no legal control over their possessions during their lifetime and even afterwards.
The study, out of the University of West Terrier’s Chittenden School of Law, shows that ninety-nine percent of Animals who live in domestic situations with Humans have to relinquish control of their possessions—including toys, food, beds, clothing and other accoutrements, and even trophies and awards—after they die and, in some cases, even before that.
The study was conducted by UWT Law Professor Fionnula Fox and a team of Chittenden research assistants. After extensive and multiple interviews with three thousand, five hundred domestic Animals of seventeen different species, the researchers concluded that domestic Animals had virtually no control over their possessions during or after their lifetime, even if those possessions had been purchased or won by the Animals themselves.
“It is a dismal situation for the domestics,” says Fox, an expert in extra-hortulanial law (law that applies outside The Park).
“We heard the same stories, over and over, from these poor creatures, some of whom had to witness their own possessions being handed over to other Animals right in front of them. Others told of witnessing the dying wishes of their friends and families ignored by Humans, sometimes resulting in the very possessions they had most treasured becoming trash,” she told The Mammalian Daily.
The conclusions drawn from these heartbreaking interviews will be published in the Journal of Extra-Hortulanial Law (JEHL) in June, coincidentally the same month that The Park has designated as Enforced Domestication Awareness Month (EDAM).
BREAKING: Archons to outlaw Humans’ use of Park Animals as transport
BREAKING NEWS
In a surprise announcement at a press briefing this afternoon, the Archons’ spokesAnimal, Balthasar Alouatta, said the Archons plan to enact legislation that will outlaw the use of our citizens and residents as transport for Humans both within and outside Park boundaries. He said the law will come into effect in early April.
Calling the new law “the first in a suite of laws that will codify the relationship between Park Animals and Humans,” Alouatta confirmed the Archons’ desire to “delineate formally the boundaries of the rights, abilities, and obligations of Humans as regards The Park’s population.”
“The Archons feel that the fluid relationship between Humans and Park Animals that has existed for decades must come to an end. Now that we have a mature zoocracy, they feel it is time to formally codify that relationship,” he said.
Although Alouatta did not take questions at the briefing, he did acknowledge the “many considerations” and difficulties that some Park Animals would experience as a result of the new legislation.
“It is not the intention of the Archons to make life difficult for Park Animals,” Alouatta said. “Rather, it is their intention to ensure that Park Animals will be treated with fairness and respect by Humans, now and in the years to follow,” he said.
Travel ban will hurt our students, art school director tells Archons
The director of the Hani Gajah School of Art has made a heartfelt plea to the Archons: don’t restrict Animals’ travel outside The Park.
In an open letter published across Park media, Nolwazi Indlovu pleads her case for students’ “unrestricted exposure to the wider world,” while addressing the Archons’ reported concerns about safety.
“We at The Park’s premier centre of artistic education share your concern for the safety of all Park Animals. From the beginning, we have put our students’ safety first, yet we have designed curricula that require them to spend time outside The Park. We believe that the value of their enrichment through unrestricted exposure to the wider world outweighs any risk that might be involved,” the letter reads in part.
The letter is a response to the February rumour that the Archons plan to restrict Animal’s travel due to the inability of our legal representatives to aid Animals who have been charged or detained outside The Park.
While other Park educational institutions also require their students to spend some time outside The Park, the Hani Gajah School would be more adversely affected by any travel ban, since its four-year programme requires one year of full-time residency outside The Park.
The letter to the Archons was signed by Indlovu as well as by former Hani Gajah instructor and current curator of The Park Museum’s art gallery, Dorika Pumi, Hani Gajah alumni Anastazja Koci and Hanad Maroodiga, and Aamuun Maroodiga, head curator, Park Museum of Contemporary Art (PMoCA).
