SHAFTED!

Being deceived, duped, conned, or shafted isn’t pleasant. But if you have been you are in damn good company. In 30 BC, according to Plutarch, Cleopatra misled her protector Epaphroditus and committed suicide. Prime Minister Anthony Eden was duped by Harold Macmillan during the Suez Crisis of 1956 resulting in the latter getting the top job, although to be fair Macmillan was simultaneously deceived by his wife Lady Dorothy Cavendish who was literally being shafted by Conservative grandee Robert Boothby. In 1967 a comprehensive review stateside concluded that Harry S. Truman and Lyndon B. Johnson had both deceived the American people about the Vietnam War. Even when a shyster has a surname with red flags and yellow flares erupting around it you would think that people would be savvier, although the 4,800 investors who were defrauded out of an estimated $64.8 billion believed that Bernie Madoff had their best interests at heart. Although on this occasion the judge had a different take on the matter and sentenced him to 150 year’s incarceration in 2009.

Having such esteemed bed fellows still doesn’t make the con any easier to swallow, particularly when it dawns on you, and even more so if the perpetrator happens to be someone you trusted beforehand. But we human beings tend to be easy prey, generally wishing to see the good in people first. The infamous psychopath Ted Bundy used this trait to his advantage in the 1970s by luring many victims into a seemingly everyday situation whereupon their act of being the good Samaritan would ultimately cost them their lives. His existence was terminated in the electric chair in the State of Florida on January 24th, 1989. His particular demise was, in my opinion,