Saturday, September 3, 2011

According To Cat's Paw Theory CatsPaw Is A Tool Of Gar The Monkey Boy

In the past 24 hours, give or take an hour or two, the entity known on the Internet as CatsPaw has come to the defense of the entity known on the Internet as Gar the Nerd, over and over again.

Most of CatsPaw's Gar the Nerd defending has had to do with his mullethead hair-do and his nerdiness. Both of which, apparently, CatsPaw is attracted to.

Well.

The person who goes by the name "Anonymous" made a very interesting comment to a blogging blogged a couple hours ago....

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Mysterious Ice On The Saturday Tandy Hills & CatsPaw's Nerd Comments":

CatsPaw has a meaning beyond La Fontaine's fable. See Staub v. Proctor Hosp., courtesy of the U.S. Supreme Court.

It did not take much Googling to learn that a Cat's Paw is a "tool" or "one used by another to accomplish his purposes." According to Webster's Third New International Dictionary.

La Fontaine's fable, to which Anonymous refers, refers to a French poet, Jean de la Fontaine (1621 - 1695) who wrote a fable called "The Monkey and the Cat." In that fable a rather unscrupulous monkey persuades an unsuspecting cat to fetch chestnuts from a fire. Whilst fetching the chestnuts the cat's paws get burned, while the monkey profits from the cat's efforts, gulping down the chestnuts.

Staub v. Proctor Hospital, to which Anonymous refers, refers to a Chicago court case in which Vincent Staub sued Proctor Hospital after he felt he was unfairly fired. Somehow his case involved invoking the Cat's Paw Theory.

Below is a blurb of legalese from the case......

The Cat's Paw Theory is a way of proving discrimination when the decisionmaker is admittedly unbiased; under the theory, the discriminatory animus of a nondecisionmaker is imputed to the decisionmaker where the former has singular influence over the latter and uses that influence to cause the adverse employment action.

Now, I know to a brilliant know-it-all, like Gar the Nerd, I am Purveying the Obvious with this explanation of CatsPaw's Internet moniker, but to ignorant me it was not obvious, so I appreciate Anonymous for alleviating me of my obvious ignorance about this aspect of the CatsPaw subject.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Meant no disrespect to intelligence by advising of CatsPaw alternative meanings; just pointing out odd nuance to CatsPaw / Gar dynamic.

Along those lines, the term "mullet" for many has nothing to do with really bad hair. But rather, refers to a fish considered worthless among those residing along the Texas gulf coast, particularly those residing in Portland, Texas.

Though worthless for culinary purposes, it is commonly seen because it flees predators by jumping out of the water over and over again.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/boggybayou/3247582464/

CatsPaw said...

Cute picture of me! That and an application of Occam's Razor would tell anyone all they need to know about my moniker. Simple as that.

That legal mumbojumbo made my furry little head hurt.

Your headline should get you some hits. I think there was an episode of Star Trek by that title, too. Thousands of Trekkie NERDS should be beating a path to your Google ads anytime now.