Word: cats
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...trouble with a kitten is THAT Eventually it becomes a CAT. -Ogden Nash...
...American cat of any age or gender enjoys semisacrosanct status approaching that of the holy cow in India. There are some 25 million pet felines in the U.S.; their care and feeding cost up to $1.8 billion a year, which is more than the defense budget of Brazil. Yet, deep in the American psyche, there is evidently a bristling resentment of Felis domestica. This has erupted in a litter of books that celebrate a new and fast-growing cult of ailurophobia (hatred or fear of cats...
...most controversial is 101 Uses for a Dead Cat (Clarkson N. Potter, $2.95), which has sold 600,000 copies since publication last April and has headed the trade paperback bestseller list for twelve straight weeks. It is a collection of mordant and often macabre cartoons by English Artist Simon Bond, who is violently allergic to living cats but has no end of ingenious notions for recycling cadavers. The Charles Addams of ailurophobia, he sees deceased tabbies as admirable substitutes for more conventional objects ranging from anchors to wine holders (not to mention cat's cradles and cat...
...cruelest is to be published this week. Cat Hater's Handbook, subtitled The Ailurophobe's Delight (Avenel; $2.98) and illustrated by Tomi Ungerer, goes after cats as if they were creatures of the devil (some people think they are). Ailurophobe Author William Cole contends that cats are cruel, treacherous, unloving, smelly and parasitical. Cole assails the vaunted feline IQ, quoting a scientist at the American Museum of Natural History as saying that "a judgment from the literature would put the intelligence of cats below dogs and above rats." According to another researcher, the cat "is no philosopher...
...sudden, should sick cat jokes prove so appealing? For one thing, since the triumph of Poland's Solidarity union movement, Polish jokes are out. For another, many people are being made aware of long-hidden resentment of the pampered pets and their golden-eyed contempt toward the humans privileged to support them. Pop Psychologist Joyce Brothers regards ailurophobia, at least in its literary form, as a harmless put-on. "If you get upset at this," she says, "you have too much emotional involvement in your pet." Harvey Mindess, an authority on the psychology of humor, sniffs: "101 Uses proves...