Lev Lafayette's journal

Early this morning, Erica made the very hard decision to euthanise Manannan mac Lir. He had a bad fall the day before, and it had become apparent he had underlying neurological issues, and there was no chance of recovery. This is quite a devastating and sudden loss, as the gentleman feline always seemed to be such a close part of our lives. To meet Mac was to love him, such was his noble disposition and pleasing charms. Indeed, from the very moment were collected him he showed such temperament. It was early March 2009, that on a Wednesday morning I agreed that Erica could get a cat, as long as it was a Manx (I had to express my aesthetic preference). By Friday we were in a regional suburb making a choice; the mother had absconded with one sibling, Mac's sister hissed, whereas Mac simply flopped on my shoulder and started purring: "I think we're taking this one", I remarked. He sat on my lap the entire rainy journey home, purring in happiness, being removed only for a short time when the car stalled and need to be pushed from localised flooding.

What would follow would be happy years in Ripponlea and Willsmere for Mac. At first, we thought he would be an enormous cat on account of his legs and paws; it turned out he simply had longshanks, which he would use to great effect bolting about the Willsmere Estate; I have never seen a domestic cat run as fast as Mac could. Another characteristic was his enjoyment of being upside down; following a hug, he would prefer to get back on the ground via a backflip and really liked stretching his legs out to do it at distance onto a bed or couch. Sharing a house with other animals, he was always well behaved. He bonded with the rabbits and guinea pigs with ease and, quite curiously, also with the various pet rats over the years. Mac considered the pet rats to be part of the household (but woe to any wild rats on the Estate), and on two occasions (December 2013, April 2016) protected them overnight when they had escaped to the front garden. Never prone to anger, he would nevertheless protect a neighbour's younger feline from the predations of a local rough cat through an ambush. It was one such circumstance that he received a nasty head wound. His sense of adventure greater than his wisdom would lead on two occasions becoming quite stuck; one on the roof of our three-story townhouse and once almost 6m up a tree. On both occasions, I somehow managed to get him out of trouble.

It is not death that brings me to tears. That has always struck me as a natural and inevitable part of living. Rather, it is how humans treat the lives of others, how they treat themselves, and how they treat the environment, that generates melancholy within. I will grieve privately and quietly, reflecting on the memories and experiences that brought joy to life. I feel a great deal for Erica, who was even closer to Mac than I was, and whose disposition will bring great sadness to this event. Her new Manx kitten, the appropriately named Fragarach, the sword of Manannan mac Lir, will have to step up to being the cat of her life and will have to live up to his name. As for Mac, the mythology tells us that he will sail to the paradise of Mag Mell, the Celtic Otherworld, and rule there with wisdom, strength, and noble bearing; just as he did in life.

Many people think they are servants for a strange cat. Well, our cat truly is special. He keeps pet rats, or at least his thinks he does, differentiating between indoor rats (his friends) and outdoor rats (tasty invaders). Last week, for the second time, one of our rats (the appropriately named Scamper) managed to sneak out the front door and spend a couple of days in front garden. Mac Lir protected the area until the rat was located and rescued. I heard once that Manx were once kept as guard cats, a seemingly ridiculous notion. Nevertheless, if that is true, Mac is living up to his history.

Today is caseopaya's birthday, not quite making her a poisson d'avril. As a little gift I found a shell and rhodium cameo with marcasites. Tonight we're planning on going to see a comedy troupe who were big in the 1980s and early 90s but have been largely forgotten now; the Doug Anthony All-Stars, which I guess will mean another review on the ever-growing pile for Rocknerd.

On Thursday evening wrote a short article on issues that I've been considering for quite a while; that is the relationship between the model of perfect competition (and resultant 'free market' political orientation that results), and it difference between the model and actual markets. The assumption that free markets generate perfect competition is probably the worst intellectual fallacy of our modern age, but I am not convinced by anti-market ideology that many opponents have. Rather I am leaning towards the notion of interventions from without that encourage the conditions that perfect competition is meant to have.

It's been a fairly quiet past couple of days at work; the two clusters humming away without much drama, which is really good for the new system with its first 100 beta users giving it a run. It's given me the opportunity to get an abstract in for Questnet 2016, complete some workplace training, work through the planned compute cloud training modules and so forth. Finally, pleasant surprise was the planned new edition of Barbarian Kings looks like its coming back again after a short hiatus, for which I'm writing some material.

My final results have come in for Tertiary and Adult Education Policy; a frankly remarkable 87%. Remarkable because this was the course that I had been seriously mis-assessed for my major project. The only way that I could have achieved the grade I have been given is if I achieved full marks for every other course component and 97.5% for the exam - which is possible, but honestly I am feeling more disturbed by the result than elated. I am in the peculiar situation where I think the mark I have received is too high and for the wrong reasons.

I'm currently rat-sitting for a neighbour who will be away for a few months. Because I don't think rats should stay in cages too much, I give them plenty of free range time. Two nights ago however the visitor rat went missing, which was quite distressing. This evening I spotted her by the front door; she had managed to get outside where she's spent the past two nights in the rain and with plenty of neighbouring cats prowling the estate. It was our cat who flushed her out into view. Mac the cat really likes his rat companions and has bonded quite strongly with the visiting rodent. So, hooray - cat saves rat. I'll be watching her very carefully from now on.

Like many, one supposes, I have been reflective over the past several days on the life of Nelson Mandela. Others have spoken of the greatness, the courage, and humility of this man and some grim determination to put to an end the racist state of apartheid. Others too have recalled how those how political conservatives used to argue for his execution, or contemporary chutzpah. Of course, Mandela was but one leader. There were others who names must also be remembered, such as Steve Biko, Ruth First, Joe Slovo, and Bishop Desmond Tutu - all truly heroic people, along with the millions who worked to dismantle the regime.

The anti-apartheid movement was the first political campaign that I was seriously involved in, from around the ages of 15-18 - a long time ago now. I recall the endless petitioning, planning meetings, the stalls, the daily picket line outside Coles (they stocked South African produce - which after a year they eventually cancelled), and of course, Artists United Against Apartheid. It was also my first experience of political burnout - I have become better at pacing myself since then. I remember shuddering at The Art of Noise's Instruments of Darkness which sampled Pik Botha's claim "Your agony must endure forever". Fast-forward to April 1994, just after I had moved to Melbourne. I awake to the Radio National news to hear that Nelson Mandela and the ANC had been swept to power. Amandla Ngawethu! All the work had not been in vain.

caseopaya and I would like to welcome the newest member of our household. An, as yet, unnamed Manx kitten. He's integrating well with the rabbits, but hasn't met the rats yet. Help us el-jay! Help us name our cat.



Went to see Watchmen last night. It has some changes from Allan Moore's classic comic series of superheroes and the very real fear in the early 1980s of nuclear war, but the changes don't alter the storyline or theme and indeed the one big change at the end actually makes much more sense (big credits here to the screenwriters, who must had balls of steel to try this). It is that the core content was included in the 170 minutes and the charactre portrayals as pretty good well, especially Jackie Earle Haley as Rorschach. I suspect that history will largely absolve Zack Snyder's pretty average effort with 300 with this film. A genuine pity that Pop Will Eat Itself's Def Con One wasn't included in the soundtrack.

An inordinate amount of time was spent this week writing Normative and Postive Economics: An Isocratic Sketch, an attempts to reconcile, or at least find appropriate types of economic activity for socialist and capitalist means of ownership and planned or market means of distribution and exchange, and at the same time recommending the socialisation of income from natural resources. Comments invited. This week I also joined Amnesty International Australia. This is an organisation I joined and let my membership lapse several times over the past twenty-five years or so. This time, I've checked the box for 'renew every year'; the wonders of modern technology!

Recently lokicarbis had a good idea for extending the functionality libraries; I have been playing with since Koha since then, which is great one you get the right version of Perl installed (*mutter*, *mutter*). In more Loki-related news, I'm looking after several crates of RPGs for him; at the same time, I've finally gotten around to cataloguing many extras that I have and am putting these up for sale on RPG Review. I also have a big collection of stuff that I just want to give away; including an Encore W255 Acoustic Guitar, a whole bunch of VHS videos (including series one and two of Friends.. uh, yeah), a lot of IT books including Microsoft MSCE NT books, Visual Basic books, MCDBA SQL server 7 and Oracle 8 books, a collection of 3D Studio Max guides etc. etc.