Tonight an actress is on television telling a ghost story through lips as false as her tale. Plastic, plumped, and collagen-filled lumps grotesquely flapping up and down; she looks absolutely clownish. What I would like to know, is how do you get paid for telling lies through a fake mouth? And if the tenor is the idea (or lie) communicated, and the vehicle the vessel used to convey, then, indeed, we have a metaphor. Maybe if you were a chronic liar (we all know at least one) your lips could become your conceit. But rather than write your conceit into a poem, you simply wear it on your face, a scarlet letter of sorts. And as we travel through life, and we become wiser, we can employ humor when stricken by lies, conceits, of those who simmer in comtemptuous buffoonery, greed, and who conspire to destroy our relationships and opportunity.

Down through time our ancestors have argued the folly of human indignity--we have asked for merciful, and honest appraisal, and acceptance of facts not changed by a fake mouth. And even at those darkest of times, our facts, our truths, often will speak for themselves.

And from Proverbs we receive some words of beauty, grace, and you are advised to follow:

Wisdom cries aloud in the street;

in the markets she raises her voice;

on the top of the walls she cries out;

at the entrance of the city gates she speaks:

"How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple?

How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing

and fools hate knowledge?...."