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Show fToijgucs I iayWamsley CCCkS J CBS news correspondent Charles Osgood, on his CBS Radio Network NEWSBREAK series, reported one of this months major news stories in the form of an allegory. It's worth repeating. Here is what he said: Once upon A time, a little boy got caught with his hand in the cookie jar. For this he could get into trouble. But as things turned out, he got into worse trouble. Having been caught, he felt that perhaps he could limit or undue the damage that had been done by denying that he had been guilty of any spankable offense. Exercising a well-known principle of juvenile logic, the little boy employed the technique known as "when in doubt, deny everything." So, when his accuser accosted him and said, "Aha, caught you with your hand in the cookie jar," the little boy said, "I am not a cookie snatcher." "Well, weren't you caught in the pantry with your hand in the cookie jar and doesn't that prove that you are a cookie snatcher?" "No", said the little boy, "that is your interpretation, but it is not my interpretation. True, there may have been times, when I was in the pantry and there may have been times, when, for reasons of checking on the cookie inventory, or straightening out the arrangement of cookies within the jar, I might have reached into the cookie jar. But what counted was my intention and my intention was not to take out any cookies." "But why then do you have that cookie in your pocket? Is not that a cookie I see hanging out?" "You might call it a cookie hangout," said the little boy. "But I would call it a limited modified hangout. The cookie in my pocket is one that I intended to carry out into the garden where the tulips are in bloom to feed to a little bird that I noticed there who seemed to be hungry. Now some people might find that wicked, I suppose. Perhaps I was being too kind, too soft-hearted, too carried away by my love of little animals. Yes, 1 11 plead guilty to that." "But then, how did those cookie crumbs get on your face?" "Cookie crumbs on my face? Are there cookie crumbs on my face? In that case the crumbs must have come not from the cookies in the jar in the patry, but from some other cookies I remember eating some time ago. The exact circumstances of i those other cookies I can't recall exactly right at this point in time. Perhaps they were from the Girl Scout cookies I was helping little sister to sell." "But I thought you had refused to help her." "That's no longer operative," said the little boy. "And though it may be in some respects at variance with the facts I did have little sister's best interests at heart. I wanted her to benefit from the experience of selling cookies and I tasted one only to encourage her that the product was indeed fresh, wholesome and saleable." "Another thing I notice," said the adult to the little kid. "All the cookies were intact when they were put into the jar, but I notice that there's a good size chunk missing out of one of them now. How did that happen?" "I'm glad you asked me about that," said the little boy. "I too am mystified by the missing chunk in that cookie. In fact, that was one of the other reasons why I was examining the jar. I wanted a thorough and full and complete investigation of it to t see whether perhaps some kind of cookie monster had been at work or whether, by any chance, some other little kids. ..I'm not making any accusations, of course. I wouldn't accuse anyone specifically of purposely doing it, but I thought just possibly some little enemy kid of mine might have purposely botched the cookie-snatching job as a means of getting to me. I mean they'd do anything because they hate my guts and I , guess if I were in their position I'd do the same thing. " "You deserve a spanking," said the adult. "No need," said the little boy. "I spanked myself just before you came in here." With that the adult gave the little boy a sackful of money, which pleased the little boy no end becuase, if there was anything in this world that he liked better than cookies, it was a sackful of money. |
