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Bertie's Lines: A Tabby Perspective

The Cat Olympics

A few days ago, the humans started their quadrennial international competitions. They have foot races, swimming competitions, and see how far they can throw spears. As a cat, I would find these competitions more entertaining if they were done in the wilderness and were racing from alligators and lions, or trying to spear their dinner before they starve, but sadly, they are merely about fitness and not survival.

The cats have their own olympic games, of course, but they are far more casual and done not so much for medals as pure love of sport. From archery (which tests the suppleness of our backs) to yowling (no explanation needed), the cat olympics are both thrilling to watch and fun to compete in. My own sports are simple laps (at milk, in a little bowl) to the recumbent decathlon, which involves sitting on and in several different items with a panel of judges scoring on apparent laziness, relaxation, and contentment.

Lucy is engaged in the Begging competition, while Torii and Gilda are competing in the men's and women's freestyle demanding contests, respectively. Our baby girl Pippi hopes to compete in the winter olympics in 2010, in the sport of Snow Batting, which she does brilliantly through the picture window.

"LOL" Cats are not LOLly

I am an ardent believer in free speech, which I practice between 5:30 and 6:30 every morning, often while walking across the bedroom furniture. The right to free expression is extremely important, so the following is not to be taken as a move toward censorshop, merely towards more thoughtfulness and sensitivity.

I am speaking of the "LOL-cat" phenomenon in which others, mostly humans, and perhaps a few dogs, take photographs of cats and label them with poorly-spelled and agrammatical slogans. These are supposed to represent the cats fractured, simplistic thoughts. "I can has cheezburge?" the cat will seem to say, or "moar" or "nom non nom." The memes of these outrages further insinuate that cats have pretensions to greatness, that they are dimwitted, and that they are obsessed with food.

I speak as a victim of such a vile construction, as you can see here:

http://tinyurl.com/58n5zv

The truth is that thing was stuck on my head by my humans, and they took the photograph and labeled it. I did not for one second feel like an "alleyfant," mitey or otherwise. Nor did I wish to be one, or think I had anyone fooled.

It's all too easy to create such graphics, as you can see:

http://tinyurl.com/6896m7

But being a classier animal than my humans, I won't resort to that sort of thing.

As fellow mammals, I hope that we can all agree to portray our fellows with more respect.... and maybe we can all LOL together instead of LOLling at one another.

A Modest Local Food Proposal

Over the last year, Mom has been learning about the benefits of locally-grown food, and as such she has been purchasing about 75% of the food she and Dad eat from the local farmers markets.

I've found the organic, lactose-free milk she's started purchasing as a result of this effort to be far superior to the milk she had previously been serving. I decided to investigate the local foods movement for myself.

There are many benefits to buying food grown in your area. The most obvious and direct benefit is that the food is fresher than food that has been shipped from another state, or perhaps even another country. Fresher food is more nutritious and tastes better. And of course, bringing food a shorter distance uses far less petroleum than from a longer distance. The economical and ecological benefits are quite obvious.

Cheaper, greener, more nutritious and better tasting. Now, how can a feline involve him or herself in this important food trend?

The answer, I believe, lies in the study of invasive species. Birdwatching is a favorite hobby of mine, and I've noticed lately a marked lack of diversity in our neighborhood avian community. It makes for dull birdwatching, as you can imagine.

As it turns out, the birds I see most often at the window feeders, European Starlings and English House Sparrows, are invasive species. These two birds were introduced to the Americas in the late 1800's and since then have used quite aggressive means to overtake native populations of birds, in particular, the Purple Martin.

The Purple Martin is a quite delightful bird, like his fellow midwesterners, an interesting and hard-working character. He eats mainly flying insects of the unwelcome variety such as mosquitoes and houseflies.

However, the Purple Martin likes the same kind of dwelling that the EH Sparrow and the European Starling do. The two newcomers will stop at nothing to wrest a good home from the Purple Martin. Thus, the numbers of Purple Martins have dwindled to ten percent of what they were 100 years ago.

I shall now propose my thought, which I hope you will not find objectionable.

My research in feline nutrition has taught me that fresh, high protein meats are the best food for a cat. European Starlings and English House Sparrows are quite high in protein, and can be caught locally, so are therefore very fresh.

I humbly propose that we felines -- an introduced species ourselves, I'll allow -- be given the privilege of bettering our ecosystem by thinning the numbers of these invasive birds. At the same time, we will reduce the number of bags of kitty food to be shipped to our local stores, thus saving petroleum, and we will be providing a more welcoming habitat for useful species such as the Purple Martin.

Now, if you will excuse me, I must speak to Mom and Dad about the matter of letting me outside off-leash once in a while.

Yours in good citizenship,
Bertram