protest

OTD in 2016—Hire causes ire: Groundhog Day organizers take flack for Fleck + Stone

October 27, 2024 By Imko Oaljefanta, TMD Archivist

The Department of Holidays, Festivals, and Celebrations has become the object of the public’s ire since announcing yesterday that it had hired the architectural firm of Fleck + Stone to design the 2017 prognostication pad.

According to Park Police, officials at the department began receiving hate mail and threats shortly after their morning press conference, during which they introduced the firm’s chief architect Vadim Kobras, and discussed the size and style of the new pad.

“Within hours, the department received an onslaught of written [hate] material, which they reported to us. We immediately deployed officers to the scene and an investigation of the material is underway at our forensic laboratory,” Inspector Maurice Addax of the Specist and Hate Crimes Unit (SHCU) told the press this morning.

Police believe the negative reaction is due to the perceived expense involved in hiring the high-end firm, which is known for designing buildings of cultural import such as the Burrow Theatre and The Park Museum.

Perhaps in anticipation of that, members of the press received a fact sheet yesterday that outlined the costs of the prognostication pad and other accoutrements deemed necessary for the popular annual event. According to those figures, the cost of this year’s pad will be only slightly higher than last year’s.

Still, optics matter, says Park Finance Office head Valentina Abeja, whose last budget reduced the funds allotted to special events by two percent.

“If they’d asked me, I would have told them to hold off for a year or, at the very least, talk about the cost first. Animals who are struggling to make a living have a hard time understanding why we need a posh pad to celebrate Groundhog Day,” she said.

OTD in 2014—Park Finance Officer goes AWOL amid calls for his resignation

September 28, 2024 By Imko Oaljefanta, TMD Archivist

Park Finance Officer Milton Struts has not made any public appearances since last Wednesday, when he allegedly made a number of specist remarks during a massive budget protest.

As a result, a number of Park citizen groups are calling for his resignation, saying he has “lost his way” and become “too entrenched” in the budget process.

“We need new blood, that’s for sure,” says Oliver S.P. Franklin, head of the Confederation of Ground Squirrels (CGS) and a long-time critic of Struts.

Small Animal Reform Group (SARG) head Mason L. Tortoise agrees.

“If he can’t face us and defend what he calls a budget, then it’s time for him to go and for us to have an Animal who understands Park life,” he says.

Meanwhile, Sylvana Rana, president of the pro-sortition group Save Our Political System (SOPS) calls the budget “a threat to our way of life.”

“I don’t know what Struts was thinking when he put this thing together,” she says. “It’s as if he was panic-stricken and couldn’t make a decision.”

Rana says Struts’s seeming indecisiveness and what she calls the “total inappropriateness” of the budget might serve as fodder for those who advocate moving to an elected system of government. Presently, the lottery system known as sortition is used annually to select the 35 Animals who serve as our government. The Archons, who are the de facto heads of the Park Finance Office, have not as yet made any statement regarding the 2015 budget.

“To say that I’m disappointed in their silence is a gross understatement,” Rana says. “If they can’t defend our political system by supporting their choice of budget head, they are effectively handing us over to the other side.”

OTD in 2014—Park Finance Officer Struts called out for “specist” remarks made Wednesday

September 25, 2024 By Imko Oaljefanta, TMD Archivist

Park Finance Officer Milton Struts is taking criticism in the media and in shops around The Park this morning for remarks he made during the massive budget protest held yesterday.

As he moved through the record crowd, many Animals say they heard Struts complaining that the protesters had no budget-planning experience, so they had nothing to offer and nothing to “grouse” about.

“Ignorance breeds ignorance,” is another phrase that many say Struts mumbled. But what really disturbed participants was the second specist remark that Struts let slip from his lips on more than one occasion.

In reference to both the organizers and the strong supporters of the protest, Animals say Struts used the term “Whistlepiggery” on more than one occasion.

“He said the protest was just another example of Whistlepiggery in The Park,” says Adeline Hedgehog, who was present at the protest from the beginning.

“He said it and he didn’t look at all remorseful afterwards,” she says.

Another protester, Elton Zebra, said Struts had a “certain glint in his eye” when he said it.

“He knew exactly what he was saying and who he was saying it about,” says Zebra.

The term “Whistlepiggery” is a derogatory term that was outlawed in The Park a year after zoocracy. It is meant to characterize an Animal as conniving and untrustworthy.

As it happened, the Wednesday anti-budget protest was organized in part by Wellington Whistlepig, president of the Park Association of Shops and Services (PASS). It was also strongly supported by Wyatt Whistlepig, Jr., the organizer of the annual Groundhog Day celebrations, as well as by other organizers of Park events and the heads of The Park’s Animal aid services. Absent from the protest were members of The Park’s environmental groups and the Weather Makers, Producers and Sellers Alliance of The Park (WMPSAP), who are said to be quite pleased with the budget.

In a statement on behalf of his membership, Wellington Whistlepig expressed “deep disappointment” in Struts’s alleged attitude and called on the Finance Officer to make an official apology.

“If he did, in fact, say those things of which he has been accused, he owes us all an apology for the very unzoocratic way in which he has dealt with dissent,” the statement read in part.

Meanwhile, The Park’s storefronts all agreed to display a very unflattering caricature of Struts with his head in the sand, signifying that he lives in the “dark ages before zoocracy.” The storefronts will continue to display the caricature, they say, until they receive an apology.

Thus far, however, no apology nor comment has been forthcoming either from Struts or from the Park Finance Office.

OTD in 2014—Dare to compare, say budget opponents calling for massive protest Wednesday

September 22, 2024 By Imko Oaljefanta, TMD Archivist

The 2015 “streamlined” budget that was presented by the Park Finance Office last month remains a contentious issue among residents, with some in the business community calling for a full re-think.

“I think we are owed some kind of explanation, as well as a full accounting, not this shoddy business that they’ve offered us,” say members of the Park Association of Shops and Services (PASS).

Also calling for a free and full public discussion of the matter is Wyatt Whistlepig, Jr., organizer of The Park’s Groundhog Day celebrations.

Not surprisingly, Whistlepig is not at all pleased with the 10% of the budget that is earmarked for “special events.” He says he has no idea how much of that 10% will go to Groundhog Day.

“Special events?” he asks. “Groundhog Day is so much more than a ‘special event.’ It’s the backbone of our community,” he says, exasperated.

“I’ve dealt with cutbacks and surpluses … back and forth. And last minute, too. But this is the most outrageous allocation of funds I’ve ever seen.”

The Department of Holidays, Festivals, and Celebrations is also calling for a re-do of the budget.

At her office this morning, Aintza Kanariar, Director of Public Relations for the department, went on record as saying her department “cannot function with only 10% of the budget.”

“Are they forgetting how important these events are?” she asked.

Though reluctant to lend her support to the idea of a full-blown protest, Kanariar said she hopes the Archons and the PFO “take note of current sentiment.”

Meanwhile, both PASS and a number of The Park’s refugee and immigrant aid groups have organized what they are calling a “massive protest” to be held on Wednesday. Plans so far are for protesters to meet in front of the Ancient, Open-Air Theatre.

“We have no doubt that we’ll be able to get our message out this way,” says Whistlepig.

OTD in 2015—Peacekeepers to attend first Stereotype Sunday since Stinktier revelation

September 13, 2024 By Imko Oaljefanta, TMD Archivist

Recent unrest in The Park’s Zebra community has prompted The Department of Well-Being and Safety (DWBS) to call on the Doves and Does of Peace to attend today’s Stereotype Sunday.

In a media communiqué released this morning, DWBS Director of Public Relations Cornelius Kakapo confirmed the deployment “in anticipation of any disturbance of the peace which the weekly event is intended to foster.”

The unrest began on Wednesday night, soon after the broadcast of the Yannis Tavros show during which SCENTient Beings singer and composer Faramund Stinktier revealed that he believed he was meant to be a Zebra.

A hastily-organized protest that started outside Toro Talk Radio, which broadcasts the Tavros show live, spilled out onto the streets in the early morning hours of Thursday and has continued to grow over the past few days. The protest now includes a makeshift headquarters for organizers Jafari Pundamilia and Elton Zebra outside the Ancient Open-Air Theatre, the site of the weekly Stereotype Sundays.

The protest centres around one issue, according to a statement released by the organizers on Friday morning—that Stinktier “knows nothing of the struggles of the Zebra community and that he has co-opted the experience of thousands of years of Zebra life for his own purposes and to fulfil his own desires.”

Signed by Pundamilia and Zebra on behalf of the worldwide Zebra community, the statement concludes, “We respectfully submit that Faramund Stinktier has committed a crime against The Park’s Zebra community by perpetuating a stereotype and using that stereotype for the betterment of his own life.”

Although Park Police are believed to be on standby this afternoon, Officer Gareth Shepherd told The Mammalian Daily that none of his officers has been formally assigned to the event.

Hire causes ire: Groundhog Day organizers take flack for Fleck + Stone

October 27, 2016 By Elspeth Duper, TMD Social Events Reporter

Still, optics matter, says Park Finance Office head Valentina Abeja, whose last budget reduced the funds allotted to special events by two percent.

Peacekeepers to attend first Stereotype Sunday since Stinktier revelation

September 13, 2015 By Thaddeus S. Loris, TMD Health and Safety Reporter

Unrest assured: Does and Doves of Peace to attend today’s Stereotype Sunday

Recent unrest in The Park’s Zebra community has prompted The Department of Well-Being and Safety (DWBS) to call on the Doves and Does of Peace to attend today’s Stereotype Sunday.

Although Park Police are believed to be on standby this afternoon, Officer Gareth Shepherd told The Mammalian Daily that none of his officers has been formally assigned to the event.

Breaking: Police called to growing protest outside Mammalian Daily offices

January 16, 2015 By Sigrún Maur, TMD Political Affairs Reporter

BREAKING NEWS
Just hours after the swearing-in ceremonies of the 2015 Archons, Park Police have been called to the offices of The Mammalian Daily as a large protest against the newspaper grows outside the main door.

“We don’t know what it’s all about yet, but the protesters all appear to be holding the same photograph of [Rodent Commoner reporter] Gunnar Rotte,” said Officer Gareth Shepherd, minutes after arriving at the scene.

Witnesses who had been there earlier said the protest began with two Rats who were holding signs and shouting profanities, calling the newspaper “specist and petty” and threatening to destroy it.

“I thought they were friends of Gunnar [Rotte], but they said they didn’t even know him. It was the principle that mattered … and the paper had broken faith with its readers,” said Marcellus Wolverine.

Log onto mammaliandaily.com for new details as this story unfolds.

Park Finance Officer goes AWOL amid calls for his resignation

September 28, 2014 By TMD Reporters

Park Finance Officer Milton Struts has not been seen since Wednesday