CHAOS!!!

Well, I'd meant to keep this up to date on the situation in the Wild Fascist Dictatorship, but the communication Argantry's been receiving has been confusing and contradictory, so I was waiting until things were a bit clearer. 

So!  The deal was this: I mentioned earlier that when Argantry received her initial information about Ebenezer Popcorn's deposal, she wasn't certain which of about five different factions of the army might be responsible for it.  Over the last few days, she received probably two dozen more emails and telegraphs and this continued to be completely uncertain.  The only thing she was clear on was that things were an absolute disaster and lots of animals were just fleeing the capital.

It turns out that a lot of the chaos is due to the fact that three of the army's factions carried out the coup in tandem, and then upon achieving their goal, their alliance immediately fell apart and they started fighting each other.  The current situation, then, is basically close to anarchy.  Argantry is really worried about some of her family and her associates; apparently there are a lot of civilians barracaded into the university, hoping that the fighting won't reach there.  The only bright spot is that the army is so busy beating the shit out of itself that it hasn't been too harsh on the civilians yet.

BREAKING NEWS!!!!

Argantry received an urgent telegraph this morning from one of her secret contacts in the Wild Fascist Dictatorship.  (That is, it's not a secret that she has contacts, but their identities are secrets).  There has been a coup!  The military has turned on Ebenezer Popcorn and forced him out of office and into prison, along with his heinous righthand sadist, Dr Basil!  Not clear yet which of the military factions is responsible for the coup; Argantry says that there are about five.  She is not very optmistic that her exile is over, alas; only one of the parties that could be responsible would actually be favourable to her.  But still, excitement!

A Refugee Seeks Asylum

Those familiar with this blog should, by now, be familiar with the mess that is the Wild Fascist Dictatorship - that haven for lunacy, tyranny, atrocity, and drama where torture and sadism run rampant and the mad sheep Ebenezer Popcorn governs with an iron fist, and where Angel Joe and Winidavefred performed their stunning acts of heroism for the sake of liberty, security, and the Monarchy.

Well, guess what!  A very high-profile figure from the Wild Fascist Dictatorship has recently taken up residence in our very own Greater New Jersey chapter, upon fleeing the WFD to seek political asylum in the Wild Republic's bastion of sane neutrality.  The request for asylum was granted, and for some reason the local chapter was selected to have the honour.  We're becoming more important all the time, over here.

Argantry Iqbal Elessdill requires no introduction in the various animal kingdoms, but as this is written for a human audience, I'll go ahead and give her one anyway just in case.  She is, of course, the courageous harbour seal who began a peaceful campaign of non-violent protest against the Popcorn regime several years back, inspired by the deeds of great human dissidents like Gandhi or Mandela.  Her career began back when the Dictatorship's university was still an institution of repute; she was a professor of Economic Philosophy (specialising in Game Theory and Rhetoric) who found herself more or less accidentally the leader of the university-wide protest against the worrisome changes demanded by the then-dictator, Popcorn's immediate predecessor.  The protest was, alas, unsuccessful: the entire faculty of the university was dismissed and replaced by unqualified individuals who were friendly to the new regime.  But by the time it failed, Argantry's association with non-violent demonstrations had made her a very public figure, and she decided that the ethical thing to do was use her new reputation and her training in rhetoric for the public good.  

She's been the somewhat-unofficial leader of the local resistance movement ever since, and her fame has spread to the global level; she is the recipient of every single peace-related award presented by the animal kingdom and has written five books on various subjects pertaining to the recent history of the Wild Fascist Dictatorship.  None of the awards have ever been presented to her in person, as she's spent much of her time under house arrest.

It has come as a surprise to many of her admirers that Popcorn and his predecessor have let her live, considering her influence (both local and global) and the success she's had with highlighting the sins of her country; it's generally believed that they feared killing her and making her a martyr would make her even more difficult to deal with.  Now, however, her unexpected amnesty has come to a close: Popcorn has decided that she should be silenced.  

Argantry has friends even amongst Popcorn's adherents - she is that beloved - and therefore she was not only warned of his intentions in time to hurry away, but helped in her escape by individuals high up in the regime.  At least, that's what they told her; she suspects that actually they're hoping that her escape will weaken Popcorn's power and help them seize it for themselves.  At any rate, it apparently took some doing to convince her to flee; she at first felt it would be cowardly for her not to accept her martyrdom.  But then she realised that she could probably do more to help her country if she were alive and in the face of countries with the possible agency to offer aid and assistance to the dissidents, so she fled the country in the dead of night... and now, five months later, she's wound up here.

Alfredo, as you can imagine, is torn between elation at the recognition his chapter is getting and blind terror that this will end in utter disaster (with the help of Plouie or Beppe or the kittens).  Everyone else is delighted to have her here.  Twilby's thrilled to have another academic around; Zebulon's thrilled to have someone he can talk about rhetoric with; the pinnipeds are pleased to have another of their kind around; the Monarchy delegates are over the moon, as she is even more famous over there than she is in the Wild Republic; and there are a number of others here who have long supported her.  This is a big deal.

Not one to sit idle, Argantry is currently writing her sixth book, about the various factions jostling for power in the upper echelons of her country (apparently, Popcorn's control over the country isn't as solid as outsiders believe).  She's also working on some speeches, because she has a number of speaking engagements scheduled over the next six months.  And she's volunteered to do a little teaching, which Jasper's pretty excited about, and a series of monthly lectures on Game Theory for the adults, which has generated a lot of excitement. 

Wild Fascist Dictatorship Newsflash: DUCKS

Owing to the extreme nature of the storm presenting striking the Eastern Seaboard, Ebenezer Popcorn has ordered his entire citizenry to transfer themselves into ducks or face steep fines, thus throwing the country into panic.  Reports indicate that conspicuously non-avian animals have been seen wandering around the capital city in duck masks and fake duck flippers, the latter sometimes worn on the wrong feet or on too many feet.  No arrests have been yet made - it is possible that news of the fraud has not yet reached the proper authorities - but sources are predicting that some citizens may be forced to stand trial for duck fraud.

It is worth pointing out that the Wild Fascist Dictatorship is located somewhere in Austria, and that at this time there have been no reports that Austria has been unduly affected by Hurricane Irene.

Monarchic Nemesis Revealed

Sir Angel Joe is writing his memoirs.  He's become quite a popular hero back in the Wild Parliamentary Monarchy; apparently one of the reasons he was attached to this particular delegation rather than given a posting on his home soil was that he was very unnerved by the attention he was receiving.  The poor chap couldn't walk down the street without being recognised.  Complete strangers wanted to come up and touch him.  You can see how this would have interacted badly with Angel Joe's already fractured nerves.

But now that he's been away for a while, and is feeling a bit better, he's decided to write his memoirs.  He's hoping that people will stop asking him questions if his memoirs have been published, especially if they're published while he's still away from home.  All the details of his heroic mission will be there in the public record, but he won't be around for interviews, so (he hopes) everyone will just read his memoirs, and by the time he returns he'll be uninteresting and everyone will leave him alone.

Consequently, he's been talking a bit more about his mission. Angel Joe finds it difficult to express himself in prose, so he came up with the idea of dictating his story to himself on a digital recorder, and then he takes his own dictation.  He does a lot of wandering around muttering to himself (so does Zebulon, but Angel Joe isn't crazy), and sometimes he tries telling bits of his story to someone first, so that if he skips over something or is somehow unclear, his audience will tell him.

So we've learned where Angel Joe and Winidavefred the badger were sent on their mission.  This is something AJD and I had been wondering about.  We knew that the Wild Parliamentary Monarchy and the Wild Republic are on good terms, so it didn't make sense to us that the Wild Republic would have stolen sensitive documents from the Wild Parliamentary Monarchy; but we didn't know whether there were any other candidates for the Wild Parlimentary Monarchy's natural enemy.

Now we know: the Wild Parliamentary Monarchy is the sworn enemy of the Wild Fascist Dictatorship, which is governed by a tyrannical, power-mad sheep named Ebenezer Popcorn, whose bloodthirsty ambition is equalled only by his personal insanity.  If you're thinking a sheep could not possibly be that convincing a dictator, and that a carnivore would be a more likely candidate, think again.  Carnivores have to be very careful, you see, lest they make herbivores uncomfortable.  Herbivores have rather more laxity and sometimes feel like they have something to prove.  Ebenezer Popcorn is just such a sheep.  He carries a spiky staff and has a habit of randomly slamming into anyone unfortunate enough to be in his immediate vicinity.  He's also very paranoid, frequently spontaneously deciding that those closest to him are conspiring against him and then thinking of creative ways of executing them.

You do not want to get taken prisoner by Ebenezer Popcorn.  Angel Joe's torture sessions were overseen by the infamous Popcorn himself, and he is one of the few to live to tell about it.  No wonder his country holds him in such awe.