Feline attraction … Ernest Hemingway eats breakfast in 1954, with cats for company.

In these crazy times, sometimes it pays to stop for a while and reflect on the REALLY IMPORTANT ISSUES!
 

Many of you out there are cat owners and understand the special companionship cats bring... I can attest to the joy and aggravation our family bengal, Cougar, brings to our everyday life. Apparently Ernest Hemingway also loved the felines ( as well as the ladies?)

So, courtesy of the SMH is a story about descendents of the pets of Hemingway:
 

A catfight has broken out in America's southernmost town over the future of some of its famous citizens - dozens of six-clawed felines descended from a pet that belonged to Ernest Hemingway.

It is believed that 46 of the unusual cats roam the grounds of the author's former home, at Key West, which welcomes hundreds of thousands of visitors each year as a museum to "Papa" and the classic novels he wrote there, including To Have and Have Not and For Whom the Bell Tolls.

The US Department of Agriculture wants to fine the museum's owners up to $US200 ($267) a day for "exhibiting" the animals without a licence, according to a lawsuit filed in Miami. The trustees insist that tourists pay to see the house, of which the cats are merely residents.

"They're comparing the Hemingway house to a circus or a zoo because there are cats on the premises," said Cara Higgins, the museum's lawyer. "This is not a travelling circus. These cats have been here forever."

About half the cats are mitten cats, meaning they have extra claws on their front or back paws. Often named after actors, artists and philosophers, the popular feline residents include Archibald MacLeish, Pablo Picasso and Simone de Beauvoir.

Hemingway received a female cat called Snow White as a gift from a ship's captain in Key West in 1935, and its descendants have enjoyed free rein at the house since it opened as a museum in 1964, three years after the author committed suicide.

The dispute has reached Miami's district court, where the museum wants a ruling on whether it needs a licence under the Animal Welfare Act.

"We're asking the judge to let us know whether this act applies to the cats, and if so why that is if the animals are not in commerce," Ms Higgins said.

Steve Trogner, a guide at the house, said the cats were hugely popular with visitors. "They're unique. Each one has its own character, and they're fiercely independent," he said.