Posted by Pinky.
I just came across some trivia on the internet. Did you know there is a word - ailurophobia - that describes the 'extreme or irrational fear of cats'? I'm aware that there's lots of people out there who don't like us (for whatever reasons), but I'd never heard of that word before.
And since it's always a good idea to know who your enemies are, I also copied down some names of 'well-known cat-haters'. I think this means these people are famous and they are also known to hate cats - not that they became famous by hating cats:
Alexander the Great (356 B.C.-323 B.C.)
Julius Caesar (100 B.C.-44 B.C.)
Wu-Chao, Empress of China (624-705)
Pope Gregory IX (1147-1241)
Genghis Kahn (~1150-1227)
Pope Innocent Vll (1336-1415)
Pope Innocent VIII (1432-1492)
Elizabeth I (1533-1603)
William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
King Louis XlV (1638-1715)
Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821)
Hilaire Belloc (1870-1953)
Isadora Duncan (1878-1927)
Benito Mussolini (1883-1945)
Adolf Hitler (1889-1945)
Dwight Eisenhower (1890-1969)
Wow, look at the people on that list! (Although... doesn't Isadora Duncan seem a little out of place on that list?) I found this commentary interesting:
"It may be that men with dreams to dominate the world can't get used to the idea that cats won't submit to them." (www.rulingcatsanddogs.com)
I guess that's worth considering - it's true, we don't take to demands to submit very well (why should we?)...
Here's another bit of anti-cat trivia from www.pawsonline.info:
"Chicago banker Rockwell Sayre must have been the world's worst cat-hater. He lived in the early 1920's, and started a campaign to rid the entire world of cats by the year 1925. He offered financial rewards to cat killers.
He said that cats were "filthy and useless" and claimed to have inspired the killing of seven million cats during the first three months of his campaign. In 1925 he extended his campaign for a further ten years, as there were many cats still left. But soon after he himself died."
Seven million cats?! Even if he was exaggerating, obviously this guy had a lot of cooperation from other cat-haters. And I take offense to the "filthy" remark (I conceed that the 'useless' part is debatable).
What's up with people hating us so much they're willing to kill us? I have never heard of any cat organizing the murder of 7 million human beings. I bet even in the entire history of the planet not even sharks have killed 7 million human beings. Obviously human beings have some 'issues' that seriously need addressing...
~pinky
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Posted by Bunny: Can't prove it, but my theory is that cat-hating is closely tied to women-hating and nature-hating. History is filled with countless examples of people abusing, torturing, and killing cats. People have been projecting their fears, neuroses, anxieties, or whatever on us for thousands of years. People are crazy; we suffer the consequences.
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Posted by Mimi: We are survivors.
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Posted by Kim: "Beware of people who dislike cats." - Irish Proverb