Aphorism of the Week

Loud is not the same as convincing.

Dedicated to the Camp David G-8 Summit's rethinking of austerity vs. growth to counter government debt in the European Union, triggered by the election of Francois Hollande as President of France and by German Chancellor Angela Merkel's new willingness to consider increased spending in Greece and other EU nations to counter recession.

Parable of the Week

The Mousetrap, The Cheese
In the wall of a prim countryside cottage lived two mice.
One night, when the two-pawed giants lay sleeping in their quilted nests, the first mouse ventured out into the kitchen for breadcrumbs -- whereupon he espied a large hunk of cambozola.
There in the middle of the moonlit plain of linoleum tiles the cheese sat -- like an offering -- perched on a brass throne in the center of a raised, wooden dais.
Elation coursed through the mouse's little body like a crackling electric spark, sending his nose whiskers a'twitching.
"Oh," he thought to himself as he dashed up to the side of the white, blue-green marbled cheese, "life is so good!"
As his jaws clamped down on the wonderfully smelly cheese, the mousetrap upon which it sat sprung -- and, before he could have even one more fleeting, gullible thought, snapped all his thoughts off in an instant.
Another night, when the two-pawed giants again lay snoring in their nests, did the second mouse venture out onto the kitchen floor -- whereupon he too espied a large chunk of cambozola cheese, sitting on its brass throne and raised wooden dais.
The mouse dashed toward the cheese with elation coursing through his veins -- but then skidded to a halt before the dais, and pondered it.
"Oh," he thought to himself as he sniffed the cheese and the dais, "life is good -- perhaps too good? Where before there were only scattered breadcrumbs, now there is this, this offering? On this burnished throne? Of the smelliest, most wonderful of cheeses? And why does this wooden dais upon which it sits smell a bit like...soap and mouse pee?"
And so did the second mouse creep back from a fortune too cheesy to be true.
Thus, doubt is the beginning of truth.

May 19, 2012, excerpt from The Parables of Reason (Chapter 2, "Assumption's Denial"), Copyright © 2007-2012 by Frank H. Burton, Ph.D., Founder and Executive Director, The Circle of Reason. All rights reserved.