Outcats

As I've surveyed the human political scene here in the lovely Kingdom of Northumbria, I've become increasingly aware of a monstrous disparity and injustice - and I haven't been alone; other felines and vulpine creatures have expressed a similar disquiet. This isn't the result of a sudden revelation, I might add - it's rather the result of a gradual awakening in my consciousness.

The fact of the matter is this: while moggies like Lareow (the Supreme Allied Commander-In-Chief of the Rodent Elimination Department in Caedmeron's household) and myself are keeping a vigil on the political life of the Kingdom and applying our own feline perspectives on the mind-numbing idiocies of the human elite, we're not regarded by human society as valid participants in their world. This is most unfair.

I've been blessed with the ability to smell their bull business from a distance of three thousand miles - and can easily discern when a politico is lying through his or her teeth, or simply talking meaningless gibberish to confuse and confound their hearers. And I can categorically state that whatever proceeds from their mouths is one or the other.

But as I've often stated in my posts - I'm only a cat - and that's as far as it goes as far as they're concerned. Just. A. Cat. And therein lies my grievance - and that of my four-footed peers. We're second-class citizens, endowed with intellectual discernment and a modicum of articulacy who have the potential to make a valuable contribution to the life of the Kingdom. But I'm not taken seriously, and I often find myself very bitter and twisted about this. When I consider how much imbecility ordinary Northumbrians could be spared if we were consulted about the political decisions of Those Who Know Best, we could be valued consultants with governments in fear of our insightful opinions. Instead, my fellow cats are ill-treated, pelted with stones and subjected to all manner of indignities by those pathetic victims of their own ignorance and narrow prejudice. After all, we're only cats. Fortunately for me, I have a kindly master who cares for me. But I'm still only a cat..

Well, we're getting sick to the back teeth of this discrimination, and at one of our feline conferences recently, we resolved to launch a concerted campaign for Equal Rights and legal parity with the human majority. After all, this is what the disabled humans had to do; this was also the case for the Moors, Bactrians and other exotic humans who've settled within these shores. Even homeopaths can parade their bizarre form of alternative medicine with the full protection of the Northumbrian legal system without being subjected to ridicule or open contempt. Nobody can mock or discriminate against them any more for fear of Severe Retribution and business.

We're living in a discriminatory world, and we're outcats. My vulpine friend Feaxede has often grumbled to me about institutional foxism in Northumbrian society, so we're fighting on the same side.

The times are changing, people. Mark my words - our day will come, and we'll play our part alongside everyone else. Then we can exact our sweet revenge...