Ode to a dead mouse

When I got home,

And opened the door, 

I heard the noise, 

And my first thought was, 

“I got you! 

The glue trap 

Worked.” 

 

Then, 

I went in the kitchen 

To open carefully 

A pantry door 

Carefully, was the plan, 

In case you were 

Agitated enough to bite. 

And then I saw you 

In the sink 

Trap-attached 

By your tail and a couple of feet. 

Powerful enough 

In your panic 

To push through 

A pantry door 

Trap and all. 

 

 I partially covered you 

With a large glass lid 

Until you quickly 

Went into panicked screeching. 

So, I pulled it off. 

 

 I went outside 

For my power walk 

Figuring you would be 

Closer to dead 

When I returned. 

 

Wrong! 

You were, rather, C

loser to escaped, 

Held only by part of your tail, 

Any feet previously trapped 

Now extricated. 

 

And so I acted. 

I first tried to trap you 

And the glue trap 

In a pot. 

But then saw 

That a 2-quart pot was too shallow 

To hold you in your frenzy. 

As you tried to scramble out. 

 

Tired of hearing you 

Scooting at night 

For days on end, 

I resolved. 

 

The pot I turned over 

And dropped you in the sink, 

Small bit of tail still trap-pinned 

And brought it down 

As best I could 

On your rodentine head 

Even as your black mouse eyes 

Stared back at me. 

 

A second shot 

Had more effect 

And a third 

Brought a trickle of blood 

From your mouth. 

Fuck you, Peter Singer. 

 

On the prose side, I reject Singer’s speciesism. I’ll kill wasps and hornets, and some bees. Flies are so-so. I’ll kill mosquitoes. Spiders stay alive, unless I know it’s a black widow or brown recluse. 

But a mouse inside the house? Or apartment in my case? Between it disturbing my sleep at times, and being a potential health hazard, it has to go. I thought I had caught it in a basket nearly a week ago. I took that outside and tossed all contents into the parking lot. It sure looked like a mouse running away. Maybe it was Might Mouse and returned. Maybe it had a partner, of the opposite sex; if it was a female left inside, it definitely needed to go. Maybe I was mistaken about what I dumped out late at night, but I don’t think so. 

I didn’t like the black mouse eyes staring at me, but it is what it is. I mulled through general animal tenderness, Singer’s speciesism and other things, after dumping dying mouse and glue trap in an apartment dumpster then walking to Walmart. 

On the way back, I thought of Keynes: 

“In the long run, we’re all dead.” 

Your long run just ended mouse-young. 

I’ll be there eventually. So will you, Peter Singer.

Leibniz: Man vs myth

The New Yorker has a full and fair look at German mathematician, philosopher, and well, polymath Gottfried Leibniz. Among other things, it argues that Voltaire took a number of liberties on his fictional portrait in Candide. The piece is a review of not just one but two new bios of him, by Audrey Borowski and Michael Kempe.

And, if either one at least half as good as the review, it's something I'll be looking out for.

In the article's telling, Leibniz comes off as a northern Leonardo da Vinci in many ways. Not an artist, but scientist, mathematician, philosopher, mix of actual and would-be inventor and more — and likc Leonardo, with an ADD-like lack of focus.

Goodreads: Borowski's "Leibniz in his World" and Kempe's "The Best of all Possible Worlds." 

Both are just over 300 pages. Interestingly, though both came out at the same time, November 2024, Borowski has yet to have a single review on either Goodreads or Yellow Satan, while Kempe has more than a dozen reviews and more than 100 ratings. (Most the reviews are in German; Kempe is German and runs the Leibniz Research Center in Hannover.) The subtitle of his book is "A Life in Seven Pivotal Days," which may add to, or detract from, its value. He is a professor of early modern history as well. Borowski has an Oxford PhD (in what, I don't know) and is a research fellow with the Desireable Digital project. More here and here, which indicates her background is in philosophy and the history of philosophy. Based on this, and what might be limitations with the "seven days" concept, if I had to pick just one of the two books, it would be hers.

A baptismal anniversary is more important than a birthday?

 I normally don't go "snark" here, but, this has seriousness behind the snark.

The idea above was a comment at a family member's Facebook post talking about their baptismal anniversary.

Bottom line is that, you can't have a baptismal anniversary without a birthday. And, for fundagelical types, you can't need a baptism without being born into a world with Christian original sin. (Mormons with pre-existing souls on Kolob need not apply. Modern Anabaptist types can caveat on baptism as needed.)

And, beyond that, it's arguable that fundagelical Christians should hasten the eschaton by going down the antinatalist road and getting rid of both births and baptisms.

If you're REALLY honest, you'd say that a good Christian's death anniversary is more important than either birthday or baptism anniversary because that has them, at least the soul part of them, "sleeping in Jesus' arms" or whatever, until that eschaton is finally here.

Good luck!

The humaste version of the 12 Divarim

"Humaste," as written about before here and here, is my secularist equivalent of "Namaste."

"Divarim"? The Hebrew word for "sayings," plural of "dabar." In the Tanakh/Hebrew Bible, or Christian Old Testament, both Exodus and Deuteronomy record a list of them. Related to USofA church-state issues, Catholics/Orthodox/Lutherans/Anglicans have one version of 10, Calvinists have a second version, and Jews have a third.

So, we're combining all three into 12, and putting the Jewish first one at the end, as this ex-Lutheran learned it in his confirmation class salad days as "the close of the commandments." (That one is "I Yahweh your god am a jealous god, visiting the iniquities of the fathers upon the children, even unto the third and fourth generation, but showing mercy to the many who keep my injunctions" or similar translation.)

The 12 shall be edited as needed to fit the "humaste" and also to count a-theistic religions like those Buddhists.

1. You shall have no metaphysical principles before humanity. Per Martin Luther's Small Catechism explanations, this means that we should fear, love and trust humans to be human above all else.

2. You shall not make unto yourself any graven image. Obviously, no metaphysical principle should be elevated, but also no human being should be placed on a pedestal unduly. Neither should any material matter, especially one artificially elevated by an "influencer."

3. Do not invoke metaphysical principles in vain. This of course does not mean avoiding blasphemy, as it doesn't exist for secularists. This means not invoking for help, nor blaming for personal or larger failures, any metaphysical entity or principle. This obviously includes non-existent so-called deities, but also includes non-existent so-called karma, "luck" as anything metaphysical and so forth.

4. Remember a day of rest and keep it sacred. Sacred may not be the best word. Maybe tabu, in its original meaning, or herem, to go to the Hebrew — something separate. Americans in particular not only don't have good work-life balance, they don't have good work-life separation.

5. Remember your elders and other purveyors of wisdom; you will live better, and possibly live longer. This includes remembering that you're entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts. Epistemic humility is the flip side of good skepticism.

6. Do not murder. Do not participate in societal systems that perpetuate murder. This includes a country's military forces, as almost any "defensive" war really is not, and is usually premeditated. This includes a country's policing forces, which are a necessary evil, but in reality are usually corrupted with class bias and race bias. Also, beyond this, do not murder the human spirit. This includes perpetuation of the soullessness of much of modern capitalistic life.

7. Be faithful sexually, relationally and more. This starts with being faithful to your own sexual self and desires as long as nobody else is harmed. Relational fidelity includes more than romantic and sexual fidelity; per Damian and Pythias, it includes being faithful to friendships. It includes being faithful to contracts and agreements freely entered into.

8. Do not steal. This includes not aiding and abetting theft whenever possible. It includes going beyond that to protecting individuals' employment rights, non-thieving ownership rights and more. In other words, it proactively means supporting strikes and other collective bargaining, doing one's best to buy food and products from companies that have good labor relations and more. It also includes supporting equitable progressive taxation — with notes that here in the US, sales taxes, goods and services taxes, and Social Security taxes are all generally inequitable in a regressive way.

9. Do not lie, perpetuate disinformation and more. Lying is more than false witness, and disinformation goes beyond that. But, claims of disinformation should not be used to suppress honest discussion, as in the origins of COVID-19.

10. Rather than not coveting your neighbor's wife, believe that personal relationships, whether yours or somebody else's, between two adults, are relations of equals and that one partner does not control the other. Beyond romantic relationships, per No. 7, this includes noting that employers do not control employees, and government regulations that try to promote that must be fought against.

11. Going beyond not coveting employees, per the 10th Commandment or the latter two thirds of the 9th and 10th combined, this includes noting that personal servants have rights just as much as any other employees. Beyond "servants," it means fighting against slavery globally and getting rid of the prison labor loophole in the US and 13th Amendment.

12. Gods do not exist, but in the cases of things like child sexual abuse, family iniquities often do perpetuate themselves across multiple generations. Taking this seriously and fighting back against sexual, physical, emotional, religious, or other abuse of vulnerable children is a serious humaste charge.