In an increasingly theocratic America, an anomalous dispensation has been granted to gambling, a vice that was once grouped with excessive drinking and fornication. Deep in the Bible Belt, the Mississippi legislature and Republican Governor Haley Barbour have allowed the state’s casinos to come ashore (and expand) in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
My local newspaper, a mediocre product typical of the Gannett chain, gave over most of its front page Wednesday to feeding an idiot’s frenzy over the $340,000,000 Powerball jackpot. Although the story duly noted that the odds of winning were 146,000,000 to one, most of the piece read like an ad, comparing buying a lotto ticket with “buying a license to daydream.” It’s a sad commentary on America that people no longer think the system will give them a fair shake and the only way to get ahead anymore is to be struck with Lotto lightning.
The New York Times had gambling on its front page Wednesday, too but its story was about the Pentagon’s bingo games and slot machines, which net the Department of Defense $127 million a year from military personnel. The Times quoted a woman who studied military gambling for the Pentagon. Chaplains told her gambling addiction plagues one in three soldiers who visit them, but the padres are afraid to speak out “because they will be dishonorably discharged.” The Department of Defense says it cannot do without the gambling revenue, which is used to fund military recreation programs. Can’t take any money away from the no-bid Halliburton contracts to maintain a golf course for the soldiers, I guess we’ll just have to keeping keep swindling it out of the soldiers themselves. The Defense Department does have a treatment program for problem gamblers – it treats 25 patients a year – from all branches of the service.
I’ve never understood gambling addiction; I get it on a conceptual basis, but the likelihood of losing money always looms too large in my mind for me to enjoy games of chance. If I play and lose, I walk away, but the addicted gambler only finds a greater incentive to keep on, to recoup the losses and come out ahead. It’s easy to see – even for me – how gambling fever can unhinge an otherwise rational person.
Take Karl Rove and Lewis Libby (please). Two of the most powerful men in American government were seemingly willing to bet they could expose covert CIA operative Valerie Plame as a petulant payback to her husband Joe Wilson for telling the truth about the Bush administration’s bogus claims about Iraq and nuclear weapons. They probably thought that by 2003, the media and the judicial system had been so bullied by the White House (not an outrageous supposition) that they could get away with it.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, conversely, hedges her bets. (The phrase comes from the practice of English bookmakers standing in the hedges near racecourses, where they were not allowed to be. Bettors having second thoughts as post time approached could quickly “go to the hedge” and place a bet on another horse.) Testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Wednesday, Ms. Rice said that although the Iraqi army now has 91 battalions (68,250 troops) trained, the U.S. cannot afford to pull any soldiers out of Iraq. As the American death toll hit 1,975, she declined to predict whether or not the U.S. Army will be in Iraq in 10 years.
George W. Bush, with the lowest approval numbers in history and needing a big score, has wild bets all over the board. Harriet Miers, his choice for a lifetime appointment to the highest court in land has no experience as a judge, no experience with Constitutional law and cannot, apparently, complete a questionnaire. The Democratic and Republican leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee called her responses “inadequate,” “insufficient” and “insulting.” The confirmation hearings don’t open for another two weeks.
Hurricane Wilma, with winds stronger than any ever recorded now blows toward either Florida or Yucatan. The unlucky winner of that contest will see more destruction, but Mr. Bush keeps betting on oil to drill, to burn to feed global warming. Global warming will send more storms crashing against the coasts of Louisiana and Texas and Mississippi, causing more damage, costing more money and clearing the way for more casinos.
We Bet Your Life
In an increasingly theocratic America, an anomalous dispensation has been granted to gambling, a vice that was once grouped with excessive drinking and fornication. Deep in the Bible Belt, the Mississippi legislature and Republican Governor Haley Barbour have allowed the state’s casinos to come ashore (and expand) in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
My local newspaper, a mediocre product typical of the Gannett chain, gave over most of its front page Wednesday to feeding an idiot’s frenzy over the $340,000,000 Powerball jackpot. Although the story duly noted that the odds of winning were 146,000,000 to one, most of the piece read like an ad, comparing buying a lotto ticket with “buying a license to daydream.” It’s a sad commentary on America that people no longer think the system will give them a fair shake and the only way to get ahead anymore is to be struck with Lotto lightning.
The New York Times had gambling on its front page Wednesday, too but its story was about the Pentagon’s bingo games and slot machines, which net the Department of Defense $127 million a year from military personnel. The Times quoted a woman who studied military gambling for the Pentagon. Chaplains told her gambling addiction plagues one in three soldiers who visit them, but the padres are afraid to speak out “because they will be dishonorably discharged.” The Department of Defense says it cannot do without the gambling revenue, which is used to fund military recreation programs. Can’t take any money away from the no-bid Halliburton contracts to maintain a golf course for the soldiers, I guess we’ll just have to keeping keep swindling it out of the soldiers themselves. The Defense Department does have a treatment program for problem gamblers – it treats 25 patients a year – from all branches of the service.
I’ve never understood gambling addiction; I get it on a conceptual basis, but the likelihood of losing money always looms too large in my mind for me to enjoy games of chance. If I play and lose, I walk away, but the addicted gambler only finds a greater incentive to keep on, to recoup the losses and come out ahead. It’s easy to see – even for me – how gambling fever can unhinge an otherwise rational person.
Take Karl Rove and Lewis Libby (please). Two of the most powerful men in American government were seemingly willing to bet they could expose covert CIA operative Valerie Plame as a petulant payback to her husband Joe Wilson for telling the truth about the Bush administration’s bogus claims about Iraq and nuclear weapons. They probably thought that by 2003, the media and the judicial system had been so bullied by the White House (not an outrageous supposition) that they could get away with it.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, conversely, hedges her bets. (The phrase comes from the practice of English bookmakers standing in the hedges near racecourses, where they were not allowed to be. Bettors having second thoughts as post time approached could quickly “go to the hedge” and place a bet on another horse.) Testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Wednesday, Ms. Rice said that although the Iraqi army now has 91 battalions (68,250 troops) trained, the U.S. cannot afford to pull any soldiers out of Iraq. As the American death toll hit 1,975, she declined to predict whether or not the U.S. Army will be in Iraq in 10 years.
George W. Bush, with the lowest approval numbers in history and needing a big score, has wild bets all over the board. Harriet Miers, his choice for a lifetime appointment to the highest court in land has no experience as a judge, no experience with Constitutional law and cannot, apparently, complete a questionnaire. The Democratic and Republican leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee called her responses “inadequate,” “insufficient” and “insulting.” The confirmation hearings don’t open for another two weeks.
Hurricane Wilma, with winds stronger than any ever recorded now blows toward either Florida or Yucatan. The unlucky winner of that contest will see more destruction, but Mr. Bush keeps betting on oil to drill, to burn to feed global warming. Global warming will send more storms crashing against the coasts of Louisiana and Texas and Mississippi, causing more damage, costing more money and clearing the way for more casinos.
© Mark Floegel, 2005