POC E zine, Issue #001 the first e zine from PoC

The Heavy, Serious Stuff

Hi, the current news worldwide is bad news, financial news. The credit crunch is affecting almost all of us. Although I didn’t foresee it, what is happening is so typical, sadly, of human nature. You know, the greed element. Going too far and trying to get too much out of a situation. The bankers just couldn’t resist dipping into the till or pushing the envelope too far.

The question is, has this kind of mentality happened in the domestication of the cat? When the wild cat first domesticated her/himself some 9,000 years ago, it could be argued that the perfect symbiotic relationship had been formed between cat and human. Both benefited. The farmer got a mouser and the cat got the mouse. The concept of cat breeds only started to become an idea in the latter half of the 19th century, extremely recently in the time line of domestication of cats.

Savannah cat – Photo copyright Kathrin Stucki

But the accelerated development of the cat breeds set against the relentless growth of the population of the feral cat has created tensions. This can be seen very clearly in the Savannah cat ban in Australia, for instance. Then there is the ever present, almost hidden, battle between the cat breeders and the animal rights people. The two groups seem to hate each other but should be working together, in my view (see Cat Breeders and Animal Rights). Here’s another post about an Ingrid Newkirk’s quote on “pets”. Ingrid Newkirk is the founder and president of PETA.

The Fun Stuff

OK that’s the heavy stuff done. If you’d like to see some interesting videos, you can do a lot worse than checking out Valley Girl’s selection on her blog, TEH KITTEH ANTIDOTE/ANECDOTE. This is a sub-domain of the PoC site. Valley Girl is an insightful and intelligent commentator on her selected videos – enjoy.

Maine Coon – Photo copyright Helmi Flick

I have also made a short video on the Maine Coon cat using Helmi Flick’s great photographs and some fine photographs by Dani Rozeboom a Dutch, cat breeder. Check out the Maine Coon cat video. The Maine Coon is probably the best looking and most popular cat breed, all round, worldwide.

The Maine Coon cat is a good example of the domestication of cats. Long haired cats imported to America in the late 17th century or earlier became mousers for farmers in Maine. These cats evolved naturally into hardy and useful barn cats. They were developed by the cat fancy in the 20th century. The breeders did a good job but was is all good? What about Maine Coon cat health?

A cat that looks very similar to the Maine Coon is the Norwegian Forest Cat; maybe they have a similar background. There may be a connection. The Vikings could have brought some NFCs over to the USA – who knows. The best video on on the internet of the NFC is one made for PoC. And you can see it here, on the broadsurf channel with the other videos made by me. You can see me too rambling on about the equality of cats and humans, back to the serious stuff again!

If you like this e-zine, please do a friend and me a big favor and “pay it forward.”

Take care, until the next time.