On Fri, 09 Apr 2004 00:12:22 GMT, "Magic Mood Jeep©"
<nobody@nowhere.net> wrote:

Nobody holding a cat is in control of anything - the cat is in control
and knows it.  Just try replying to a usenet message with a cat in
your lap.  Ozy finally decided to let me type. Fluffy is controlling
(restricting) the monitor ventilation.  If I type too much to suit
her, she will come down and stop me.

T.E.D. (tdavis@gearbox.maem.umr.edu - e-mail must contain "T.E.D." or my .sig in the body)

On Fri, 09 Apr 2004 00:12:22 GMT, "Magic Mood Jeep©"
<nobody@nowhere.net> wrote:

After thinking about this for a while, I realized that the
phycological model seems to be the witch's familiar: cats being possed
by the devil make good companions for evil people, and in some
fictional cases, the actual source of the evil.

Of course the concept of witch's familiars being cats is a recent
myth: familiars could be any small animal, or even any animal at all.

T.E.D. (tdavis@gearbox.maem.umr.edu)
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I have read Lenin ... and Marx and Engels.  

The curious part is that he had to act a part that wasn't really him.
If you are shoved into the bear cage at the circus, you either act the
part of a bear tamer or you become lunch for the bears.

T.E.D. (tdavis@gearbox.maem.umr.edu)
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Its all in the Purr!!

I think some cat hatred is actually deep rooted fear.
Some people are absolutely  t e r r i f i e d  by cats. It could be because
they are unpredictable - the cats I mean :-).
But if you know cats then it's clear that a cat does not harm you as long as
you don't bother it. Whereas dogs and horses can be vicious without apparent
reason. There some healthy fear is absolutely justified.

Yeah, I knew a woman who was AFRAID of cats - and I think it may be fear
that's at the root of it.
I think the vertical pupils is the key trigger.
It may be hard-wired to some extent - but the difficulty with this is that
if you're close enough to see the pupils of a sabre-toothed tiger, it would
be reasonable to suppose that it would prolly be just be a little too late -
thereby eliminating this trait from the gene-pool.
Numerous studies have shown that serial killers have a history of torturing
animals, as children - and as they grow up, move onto arson and human
beings.
It may be that people who hat cats, hate all animals .... indeed, all life.
Anybody see the recent documentary about the 2% of troops doing 90% of the
enemy-killing .... because they're psychopaths.
And unlike non-psychopathic humans, they are not wired against killing
members of their own species.
The documentary showed that war is in fact, mainly about sabre-rattling and
intimidating the enemy into backing down - JUST as fighting in other species
is .... which is logical because populations in which there was less death
from fighting would be advantaged over populations where in which this were
not so, by dint of numbers alone.
So cat-hating may simply a pointer to some degree psychopathy.
And what's throwing things off the scent is the perception that
dog-preferrers are also cat-haters, when they're not.
They simply prefer dogs and by definition, are not psychopathic.

Some very rational guys act as if cat-hating was funny
and a manly thing to do. It's not easy to be that callous
when you've been around cats long enough to get to know
one.