Twenty years ago I attended a book party for a friend of mine, Nancy Holmes, who had just written a novel. She was being honored by an old acquaintance who had booked the party room at Chasen’s in Beverly Hills, one of the long standing celebrity restaurants of that era, now defunct. It wasn’t a large group, no more than forty people, many of them celebrities and former high officials of the government.

The atmosphere was friendly and congenial. One of the guests was James Stewart, an iconic figure who had graced the silver screen for most of my life. He put out his hand and introduced himself to me.

“I’m James Stewart,” he said, as if I didn’t know.

Of course, I knew a lot about James Stewart and I was tempted to show my knowledge of his background by addressing him by his military title, General. I demurred and in those few brief moments of conversation, we touched on a topic that, for some reason, engaged us both in a strange male bonding experience.…

Read more: A Brief Encounter

My normal level of skepticism is reaching paranoid proportions. Who can one trust, truly trust?

Can you trust the regulatory agencies charged with protecting you from thieves like Bernard Madoff who got away with his Ponzi scam for decades?

Can you trust the idiots in Congress who allowed Fannie and Freddie to get away with buying mortgages that were clearly credit unworthy, while the executives of these institutions enriched themselves with giant-sized compensation?

Can you trust the incompetent government intelligence services who failed to detect the truth about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction programs?

Can you trust the bankers and brokers who sliced up credit unworthy mortgages, packaged them with allegedly more secure mortgages and sold them off to other banks and investors who are equally guilty of stupidity?

Can you trust the pharmaceutical companies who pay off doctors to plug their wares, doctors who don’t reveal their ties to these companies?…

Read more: Who Can We Trust?