Aphorism of the Week

All you need to rock the boat is brain waves.

Dedicated to President Barack Obama's Second Inaugural Address' pluralistic rationalist call to "replace name-calling with reasoned debate."

Parable of the Week

The Engine, The Driver
Three race cars sat on the track.
The first race car was but a shell on wheels, its engine removed. The driver pushed the eviscerated car to the starting line, hopped into the seat, grabbed the wheel -- and bobbed back and forth behind the steering column like a wind-up toy. The eviscerated shell of the racer rocked gently on the asphalt.
The second race car was a Formula One racer, with a massive engine -- but no driver. The racer idled in neutral, its throbbing engine powerless to budge it even one inch.
The last race car was a small convertible

Aphorism of the Week

You are ephemeral -- but your works need not be.

Dedicated on International Holocaust Remembrance Day to the memory of Chiune Sugihara, "Righteous Among the Nations" -- who as Japanese diplomat to World War II Lithuania arranged for the escape of six thousand Jewish refugees from Hitler's death camps, and because of whose action 40,000 of their descendants live today.

Parable of the Week

The Civilian, The Footsoldier
Calamity befell a proud island people.
The volcano on whose shores for ages had they dwelled exploded.
Death alighted in flaming snow.
But, at the edges of the island, some survived. Local civilians scattered into boats and rafts, carrying their hastily wrapped gold and jewels in singed linens, and sailed away from the island to safety.
But one among

Aphorism of the Week

Laws must issue from reason -- for we do not share the same faith. -- via Joe Selvaggio

Dedicated in admonishment of the Mississippi Legislature's and Governor's dishonest law barring the state's last clinic to provide a legal medical right, abortion, for women.

Parable of the Week

The Moderates, The Radicals
Bordering a vast gulf dwelled the peoples of two continents.
On one continent the people lived under strict laws, set down thousands of years before, that forced them to dress, wear their hair, study, labor, congregate, and marry, in proscribed ways.
Those who did not were ostracized, ridiculed, beaten, burned, lynched or beheaded.
The people of this continent lived in constant hatred and fear, as their forebears had done for centuries.
Yet they called themselves

Aphorism of the Week

We're crabs in a bucket -- unless there's no bucket.

Dedicated in admonishment of the U.S. Republican Party's yoking its own people's disaster recovery to cuts in the national debt; and of its unrealistic push to "privatize" national disaster relief and insurance.

Parable of the Week

The Relic, The Tooth
Consternation roiled the village, which gathered at the local elder's for counsel.
The headsman begged the elder, "O Old One, we need your advice! A Shaman has finally come to our village, and he carries with him a finely woven basket. He says that those of us who reach inside it, and touch a secret Relic it carries within, will know good fortune and health!"
"But the Shaman asks us each for an ox! What should we do?"
The old man peered into their worried faces,

Aphorism of the Week (Jan 5, 2013)

You will feel it in our bones -- the scoliosis of civilization.

Dedicated in admonishment of the U.S. House of Representatives Tea-Party caucus' choice to block Hurricane Sandy disaster relief. If the government's role isn't to promote the general welfare, of what use is government or its representatives?

Parable of the Week (Jan 5, 2013)

The Table, The Mensal Ideal
Commissioned to craft a table of exquisite richness and beauty was a carpenter.
As hours merged into days, the carpenter's young son watched him lathe the finest of his hardwoods, and trim intricate inlays.
So interested grew he, that the son soon asked, "Father, may I craft a table too?"
The carpenter agreed.
Leading his son to a corner of the workshop, the carpenter gave him carving tools

Aphorism of the Week

Small steps still rise.

Dedicated to the children of Newtown, Connecticut.

Parable of the Week

The Bouquet, The Bonsai
A young woman was inexorably dying.
One uncle brought her a large bouquet of cut flowers. The woman placed them in a vase with water to keep them alive, and thought she would enjoy watching them over the next few days.
But she found herself noticing the growing signs of decay as the cut flowers slowly withered. She grew sad, and said to herself, "So, too, am I a cut flower."
But the next day her favorite uncle brought her another gift -- a small bonsai tree, growing intricately upon a clot of earth.
Other relatives chided this gift, saying, "That plant will outlive her! Why remind her of how limited her time is?!"
Yet the woman accepted the gift of

Aphorism of the Week

Do not despoil your children's house.

Dedicated in supplication to President Assad and his Alawi troops, to step back from the brink of biological warfare against the citizens of Syria; and for the Syrian people to offer amnesty for all leaders and combatants in exchange for "Truth & Reconciliation" confessions and free elections.

.مكرسة في الدعاء للرئيس الأسد وقواته علوي، إلى التراجع عن حافة الحرب البيولوجية ضد مواطني سوريا، والشعب السوري لتقديم العفو عن جميع القادة والمقاتلين في مقابل اعترافات "الحقيقة ومصالحة" ومجانا الانتخابات.

Parable of the Week

The Begrudged, The Embraced
Death stood at the

Aphorism of the Week

Be careful not to believe everything you think. -- via Jeff Herring

Dedicated to the 700 Club televangelist Pat Robertson's challenging of biblical interpretation that the Earth is merely 6,000 years old, not 4.5 billion -- demonstrating how to walk the path toward understanding that religious faith in an afterlife needn't contradict life itself.

Parable of the Week

The Infallible, The Fallible
Proclaimed throughout the land was a prophet among men.
On the day of his investiture, he strode in his dark, flowing robes through a jubilant army of followers, to a granite knoll.
Turning to look down upon the crowd, he raised high a wooden staff in his right fist.
"I am the voice of God on earth!" he cried. "My edicts are to be obeyed, on pain of imprisonment!"
The people

Aphorism of the Week: Life requires no other to justify itself.

Dedicated to the U.S. citizens of Minnesota, Washington, Maryland and Maine voting down Constitutional bans against, or voting for laws permitting, same-sex marriage; and in admonishment of evangelical religious legislators in those U.S. states, as well as in the country of Uganda, seeking to enshrine legal prejudice against -- and in Uganda's case, criminalization with life imprisonment for -- loving same-sex couples, against the foundational humane principle of freedom of religion. The Circle of Reason implores all reasoning Ugandans to choose, as did the people of the U.S., to reject as immoral anti-LGBT laws, and to lead their country from the darkness of religious dogma.

Parable of the Week: The Grey Squirrels, The Colored