2017 Mar 11^th

If you would like to spend your summer working on a beautiful island in northern Lake Michigan, the Grand Hotel is looking for help. The pay isn’t great; some jobs will give you a take home of about 300 dollars a week after taxes.

For a guest, staying at the hotel for a weekend in the summer is an expensive proposition. Their mid-grade room for two for a two-night weekend will set you back about 1,500 dollars. That does include meals and sumptuous meals they are, too; dinners are five course. For some reason, not made clear on their website, the room charge listed does not include an extra 19.5 percent surcharge, and then of course there are taxes and so, all told, the two night stay for two will run just under 2,000 dollars. Did I say that the 2,000 dollars includes your meals?

Is it possible that the Grand Hotel can only afford to offer such a bargain for a summer weekend by keeping the pay rate for some of its employees under 10 dollars an hour? Just asking.

Livius (Livy) was a Roman historian writing about Rome from its earliest beginnings to his own time, about the beginning of the Common Era. One of his more noteworthy aphorisms was, “Men are only clever at shifting blame from their own shoulders to the shoulders of others.” That was a rather timeless political comment; another was his observation that political leaders tend to select as assistants people much like themselves. Heaven help us; but it seems to be true.

We know about Donald Trump’s peculiar allergic reaction to the truth. Perhaps it’s contagious because now Mike Pence seems to have caught it. The issue of General Flynn’s loyalties remains under consideration and it will for some time. When Trump asked for Flynn’s resignation for lying to Vice President Pence about talking to the Russians it was with genuine regret. Trump and Flynn had spent many hours together. Perhaps only when Trump was asleep was Flynn not at his side and now Trump had no choice but to dump him, so he dumped him, but the wails he made about it were loud and clear. Curiously, Trump and others in his clique knew about Flynn’s lie to Pence and Trump chose to do nothing about it until the news was out and his hand was forced. That took about ten days.

As it happens Flynn’s 530 thousand dollar lobbying gig for Turkey was also information that Trump had and that Pence must have had as well. Pence was the head of the transition team and the team had been briefed on Flynn’s Turkish connection, so Pence knew about Flynn but on an interview program just after Flynn acknowledged his connection, Pence lied to the interviewer insisting he knew nothing about it until it appeared in the news. I guess Livy was right about leaders attracting similar followers.