I read the following story in the Nov. 2 issue of Forbes. It was in a piece by Amity Shlaes:
BACK IN THE 1980s a man who sat on the Los Angeles County Regional Planning Commission told a story about a Christmas ham he’d received from a local cemetery, Forest Lawn.
“My first Christmas as commissioner–when I received the ham–I tried to return it at once, though for the record, I did not, since no one at Forest Lawn seemed authorized to accept hams.” A year later another ham from Forest Lawn arrived, and this time the commissioner gave the ham to a worthy charity.
The third year the officer gave the ham to some worthy friends, who were hosting a party. The fourth year the commissioner held his own worthy party and served the ham. The commissioner recalled what happened next: “In the fifth year, about the tenth of December, I began wondering, where is my ham?”
This is why the public is so distrusting of politicians.
