The rules of the game.

Bernard Suits (1925-2007), a philosopher of sports and games (nice work if you can get it, right?), wrote in 1967 that “playing a game is simply the voluntary attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles.” And that's an interesting way to look at it. 

People who play for money, either gamblers or professional athletes, may pooh-pooh such a flowery description. Winning in those instances may yield a gusher of money -- as well as the rush of defeating an opponent -- so their game may hardly seem to be something as ordinary as voluntary attempts vs. unneeded obstacles. I would hesitate to put that description to either Tyson Fury or Oleksandr Usyk, who fought a brutal boxing match last week to decide the first undisputed heavyweight champion in 25 years. Usyk, the winner of a split decision, was unable to speak to the press afterward, as apparently he also won a split jaw. 

And yet Suits is correct all the same. Whether it's a brutal boxing match or a game of Crazy Eights with your kids, no one has to play, but if you do play, you must overcome the obstacles imposed by the rules. If I'm playing poker for funsies, I still can't reach over and grab the deck and find the cards I want. At that point I may be doing something, but I'm not playing poker. The rules are intended to be obstacles to surmount and a definition of victory over them. 

Of course, there are always those who have the attitude that pro sports is war, and all's fair in love and war. It's not cheating if you don't get caught. If you ain’t cheating, you ain’t trying. 

We love our rascally rogues, but only if they’re our rascally rogues. When the other guys are deflating footballs and stealing signs, we squeal like pigs. It's satisfying to think that the only reason they were winning was their wickedness. 

We instinctively know that if everyone is cheating, the game is ruined. Major League Baseball's steroid scandal shows that. None of those proven juiced-up muscleheads are going to make the Hall of Fame. (On the other hand, steroid use is no impediment to election to the Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame, because that's not a game -- it's theater.)

I want everyone to play by the rules, but that doesn't mean I don't understand the temptation. If I were a player getting my behind handed to me on the field, seeing my dreams of wealth and glory dwindle, and I thought I could get away with some kind of illegal edge, what would I do? I honestly don't know. But I fear what I would do is talk myself into believing everyone else was doing it, so why not?

One last thought: I think it's kind of excellent that a guy who made a living as a philosopher of games was named Suits. Too bad his first name wasn't Dex. 

First time lucky: home repair edition.

It has been my experience as a homeowner that the first time something goes wrong, and I have no idea how to fix it, I do a little research, get the tools and parts, and blam! Fixed. But every subsequent time the exact same situation comes up, something goes horribly wrong. 

I guess the worst case to date was when a valve needed replacing on the water heater. The first time I did the job was on a rainy Sunday afternoon, scared to death that I would blow the house up. Easy Peasy. The second time I did it, the new valve didn't fix the problem, which got worse, and I had to call a plumber. Who did exactly what I did and it worked and has continued to work. 

It doesn't make any sense, but then, beginner's luck never did (except as a means to gull some sucker into losing his paycheck gambling; "You're so lucky! Come on, you got a streak going!"). 

It happened again this past weekend, with a leaking kitchen sink. There's no washer, just this pricey Delta insert, which I procured. Last time, the job was a breeze. This time? Got multiple parts removed only to find that the last piece, the bonnet nut, was completely stuck. Liquid Wrench could loosen it -- maybe. But it was now six o'clock on Sunday evening and dinner had to be cooked, and it was better not to maybe break everything. So, back all the pieces went for now. 

All exploded diagrams look like this to me. 

Not that I'm always first-time lucky. This past winter I noticed that the storm door's latch was not latching adequately when shut. This is a problem because we live on a very windy hill. If the door does not shut properly, it can be blown open and BANG into the light fixture aside it. 

It took me THREE TRIES to get new hardware for the door. I would have replaced the door entirely, but they don't make that model anymore. I was very lucky even to find, on the ground, the sticker with the door's serial number so that I could get the right handle. The sticker had fallen off at some point and it was miracle I found it. So, with all hope gone, I assembled the new hardware, and it fit. But guess what? The latch still doesn't snap shut well. If it's really breezy I have to use the deadbolt. 

My wife says our next place should be in a condo where all repairs are covered by the homeowners' association fees. I think I'd rather live in a zoo at this point. Come see the captive middle-aged man! In a simulated natural environment. And they handle all the food and repairs. Genius! 

Sharks, sharps, flats.

We played a lot of card games in my house when I was growing up, and if someone were to have a particularly good run my mother might call him a card shark. Interesting to note that was kind of a misnomer, except it wasn't. 

The term card shark is well-known, and was the name of a popular game show, but it doesn't make much sense. While the term shark is used for someone very driven at work (especially lawyers), we don't usually append the term shark to an activity to show someone is good at it. A good cook is not a kitchen shark; a great writer is not a word shark. But a pool shark is someone really good at pool, and for the same reason as the card shark -- it comes from cheating.  

We're gonna need a bigger pot.

In centuries past, sharks were not considered the magnificent beasts that the aquariums tell us they are now, but rather were considered parasites, ones that fed on others, as with loan sharks. So we might think that a card shark is either a mighty beast or a parasite that lives on smaller prey, but that may not be how the term originated. 

The word sharper as a noun likely came to the English language from the German schärfen, for sharpen, a way of calling someone a cheater, at least according to Grammarist. I suspect it may come from cheaters doctoring card decks by trimming or notching particular cards in a subtle way so they could tell what their opponents were holding. Oddly, I haven't seen that possible explanation online, but we know that deck doctoring is why new cards come in sealed boxes -- to avoid such tricks. 

Over time the card sharp, a kind of odd phrase, seems to have accidentally become card shark. But while the card sharp may be a cheat, a card shark is more often someone who's just really good at card games. (Different dictionaries, however, will define the terms differently.) It has been my experience in the real world that calling someone a card sharp is an accusation of cheating, but calling him a card shark is not. Whether the player is a card sharp or shark, though, he's not someone you want to go up against. Or at least, you'd best be a master at either method of play to go against him. 

Personally, that's why gambling has been the one vice that's had limited attraction for me -- there is no limit to the amount you can lose, and in a short time. What fun is that? I work too hard for my dough.

Lucky strikes.

There's an old saying in sports, especially baseball, that it's better to be lucky than good. That may seem odd, since you can't even play the game unless you develop some consistency with the needed skills. The point, however, is that even the best skills will fail sometimes, but good luck by definition never does. Although unlike skills, good luck will abandon you without warning.

But what is luck, anyway?

In the Silver Age Justice League of America comic, the League was menaced by a scientist named Amos Fortune, who discovered that humans had a "luck gland" -- yeah, I know, I know -- and that manipulating this very rational, very scientific biological feature could give him unbeatable good luck and the League terrible luck. 

Comics have had a number of other characters whose abilities are luck-based, or to make it more sciencey sounding, they had the ability to influence probabilities. Originally Marvel's Scarlet Witch was not a magician, but rather a mutant with the ability to influence probabilities. Domino is another mutant with luck powers, but since she keeps getting killed, I'm not sure how lucky she actually is. 

Definitely the most interesting use of a fictional lucky character I know was Teela Brown, the luckiest known person in the galaxy, brought along on a very dangerous mission to the Ringworld (in Larry Niven's classic science fiction novel) simply because of her massive good fortune. That was it. She had absolutely no other qualification to be on that mission. It's as if they stuck a lottery winner on Apollo 11, just in case. It's impressive to see the way her suspected good fortune plays out (or does it?) in the course of the story. 

In a rational sense, luck is nothing more than numerical chance coming together in a particular time and place. It feels like a blessing, and one that can be influenced by totems or chants, but it's just the way things shake out. Little about probability feels normal. If probability says I'll get heads 50 coin flips out of 100, and I flip 50 heads in a row, there's still just a 50% chance of tails on the next flip. Tails isn't "due." It doesn't work that way, although it feels like it ought to. 

All the same, is that coin normal? I'd check. 

While the Christian is expected to believe in Providence, and that those of a mathematical bent should study probability, he is not supposed to believe in lucky objects or gods of luck. That's paganism, and it's usually invoked in places like the poker table, and it's right out. Sacramentals (crosses, medals, etc.) are intended as a means of keeping us focused on Him from whom all good things come. They are not lucky charms, even if worn with frosted oat cereal. (It should be noted that there are curses and blessings in disguise in this life, and one needs to exercise the virtues of prudence, temperance, and justice to handle the good and bad that come one's way.)

But if there is really such a thing as luck, I think the best kind has to be dumb luck. Dumb luck is so completely out of the blue, so totally unmerited by the recipient, that he can take no pride in receiving it. A man who has been fortunate in business can thump his chest about his smartness and dedication, but a man who finds a Rembrandt in the attic of an abandoned building cannot. He may pat himself on the back for acting promptly to secure his rights to the property, but he certainly can't puff himself up as being a genius for his investment skills. 

Dumb luck is as rare as red diamonds, and should always be appreciated with humility, even if it's just a trick of probability. Now, is that a two-headed penny, or what?

Getting ready for Monday.

My wife keeps one or two scratch-off lottery tickets in her workspace, the kind that pay off money in installments for life to the jackpot winner. She's not a gambler at heart; what she is is someone who finds creative ways to blow off steam. When she gets frustrated or tired at work, she has a ticket handy as an escape hatch, either to look at it and dream of retirement or to scratch it off and hope for the big dough. Just having it there gives her a smile. 

As a friend of mine learned in statistics class, it's worth buying one lottery ticket but no more, because the difference between 0 in 1,000,000 and 1 in 1,000,000 is infinite, but not between 1 and 2 in 1,000,000.

It's a way to deal with Mondays. 

Another, older friend once told me that he called the attack of nerves on Sunday night Ed Sullivanitis, because when he was a kid his parents never missed The Ed Sullivan Show, which ruled Sunday nights through the fifties and sixties. When the show was on, he knew his weekend was dead and it was back to school in the morning.

Yet another friend tells me that the closing theme of Car 54, Where Are You? can still make him break into a cold sweat sixty years later, because when that show was going off it was nine o'clock on Sunday night in his house, and that meant bedtime and school on Monday.

The hatred of Mondays is not only deep, but starts early, and is pervasive. 

I don't mind Mondays as much since I work from home now. I spent decades schlepping into Manhattan from places outside Manhattan, and that alone was enough to make me dread the start of the week. The Census Bureau says that the average time to commute into work in the United States is 27.6 minutes; from the time I got my first job in publishing to the time I started work at home, my one-way commute was between one and two hours. I got a lot of reading done in those days, but it made for early mornings. Not to mention delayed trains, broken-down ferries, heavy traffic, and everything bad about subways.

These days my weekends are so busy that I almost prefer the workweek. All I have to worry about is work. Plus, I often have to work on weekends anyway, which is forced in among the other weekend commitments. So since I'm working anyway, it might as well be Monday. 

Bring it on! We fear no Ed Sullivan in this house! Well, I don't, and my wife has her lottery ticket. 

Wheel of HELL?

If you play a "free" game on the phone or online, you are usually bombarded with ads. As they say, if you didn't pay for the product, then you're the product.  

Most of the ads I see are for other games. I feel somehow if I got a game advertised on another game, and a game advertised on that one, eventually it might lead me to One King Game that rules them all. But more likely it would just lead me back to the first game. It takes about 250 million years to orbit around the galaxy center, though, and it might take me that long to get around to the original game.

Some ads make me wonder just what everyone involved was thinking. Such as this.

The Wheel of Fortune game is definitely related to the popular TV game show; they have the same logo. But while the TV show is a relaxing half hour of puzzles and prizes, this game looks like it's a wheel of fire in some dark section of hell. Explosions and bursts of flame take up the whole 30-second ad. It's like where bad gamblers go when they die.

I haven't seen the TV show in a long time. I'm pretty sure that's not the vibe one gets from that, though.

However, I have been to a few casinos, and I know that they love to have slot machines that are dolled up with pop culture icons of the day, just the way pinball machines used to be. But they have to have that excitement-after-the-dark feel that casinos love. So, wheels of fortune become wheels of flame, I guess. 

As I've noted in this space before, gambling is about the one vice that doesn't tempt me much because I am a skinflint, from a long line of skinflints, and I hate the idea of money flying away, leaving nothing behind. However, I do see the appeal of a fast-moving game with something on the line, so I'm not entirely immune. The other appeal that I understand that many upright folks don't is that seediness, darkness, and decay are not bugs but features for those whose minds bend that way. The grim little bar, the greasy buffet, the sweaty dance floor, the dirty magazine, the disgusting shooting gallery, and yep, the hellish gambling den have a kind of pull that defy good sense and good taste. Therefore, a dark, flaming Wheel of Fortune for a gambling game, rather than the cheerful, sunny TV show, makes a kind of sense.

I don't speak from any moral tower here. It's my good taste or good sense that keeps me from gambling, just my cheapitude, which is a vice all its own. Moral uprightness is trickier than it looks. 

Perils of inflation: entertainment.

We all have heard how bad inflation is, although some people seem to have trouble comprehending the idea. These are people for whom the term "fiat currency" is alien. They still expect to walk up to the treasury building and trade in a dollar note for that amount of gold. They'd better bring a microscope if that's the case.

There are two equations of economics that everyone ought to know, but seem to be mysterious and inscrutable even to those who supposedly do:  

Greater demand or lower supply = higher prices

Too many dollars chasing too few goods = higher prices

The latter is exactly what's happening now, as the government runs off sheets of delicious money that are each worth less than the dollars printed before them. 

But is inflation really bad? Yes, to those who remember stories of little old ladies on Social Security eating cat food to survive before benefits were pegged to you-know-what. My savings cannot possibly keep up with the rate of inflation as it is now.

 

I thought, since people pay more attention to entertainment and celebrity than reality in our culture, it might help to look at inflation in another way, using the Bureau of Labor Statistics' helpful Consumer Price Index inflation calculator (costs as of January 2022). Here we go:

The Six Million Dollar Man -- TV show premiered 1973; man now costs $38,958,152.42

The Millionaire -- TV drama where a man gave random people a million bucks premiered 1955; now would now give $10,529,887.64

50 Cent -- Rap star born 1975; now costs $2.59

"Bet-a-Million" Gates -- American gambler earned nickname in 1900; now would be "Bet $33,470,000" Gates*

Marshall Crenshaw's "A Hundred Dollars" -- Song released 1987; now would be $250.80

Two dollars demanded by psychotic paperboy in Better Off Dead -- Film released 1985; now demands $5.28 

Sweepstakes -- Short-lived TV drama ran 1979; million-dollar prize now costs $3,768,739.95

The Million Dollar Duck -- 1971 live-action Disney comedy; duck now costs $7,028,700.00

Two Cents -- expression re: one's opinions originated 1939; now opinions worth 40 cents

A Fistful of Dollars -- 1964 Spaghetti Western; a fistful of singles (approximately 10) now worth $90.40

Million Dollar Baby -- Another Eastwood film, from 2004; baby now worth $1,480,505.53

 

$1.98 Beauty Pageant -- Prize dispensed in 1978 mock-pageant show now worth $8.37

Shoeless Joe Jackson -- Admitted to being paid $5,000 to cheat in the 1919 World Series; now worth $77,665.19 (current Major League Baseball minimum salary is $570,500.00) 

Total 1944 US Government spending --  $91.3 billion; worth $1.462 trillion today, which is a small bit compared to our actual 2021 budget of $6.818 trillion, and we were fighting a World War on two fronts in 1944* -- US population has not quintupled since then

*For these, I had to go to another site as BLS doesn't go past 1913 or over 10 million bucks.

💸💸💸💸💸

Everything looks more valuable with inflation, but that only means that the money is less valuable. Does this illustration help? Probably not. Some people can't see the crocodile that's biting them on the butt.

Die!

I'm thinking of opening my own casino. I think it's a pretty good investment. I'm a little short on cash for the actual building, but I have the prototype dice:

Ha ha! No, of course this is not a prototype for my hotel casino project. Rather, it is a six-sided die (only a dork would feel obliged to point out the number of sides) that a relative got for me as a kind of "Someone Went to Vegas and All I Got Was This Lousy Souvenir" type gift. And I love it. You just don't find a lot of Fred merch among the name souvenirs.

I find gambling to be fun, but I'm too cheap to do it seriously. It's about the only vice that doesn't grab me. I keep thinking of exactly how hard I had to work for that C-note that just went flying into the croupier's drawer.

But owning a casino is another matter. Somebody's got to make money from all that gambling, and that's the house. Slot machines particularly line the house's pockets. Why not mine?

I might feel a little bad about it. I've seen real dedicated gamblers in action, and when they're in the zone, winning or losing, they are on Planet Gamble. Old ladies playing six machines at once would probably have to be pulled bodily from the chair in the event of a fire. I wouldn't want to be the fireman who had to try it. So maybe I'm too softhearted for that kind of thing.

Well, I don't have a good name for it anyway. "Fred's" might be okay for a barbecue joint but not for a classy casino. If I were to open it in Vegas, I'd have to find a gimmick. Maybe all Googie stuff; turn the page to the New Frontier era and keep it there. Space-agey but still Rat Pack friendly. Maybe we could call it Planet Gamble.

Hey, I'm starting to like the idea after all! Anybody got a spare half billion?

Filling time.

I kill time playing games on my phone. I think I ought to find something more productive to do.

One game keeps chucking ads at me because I refuse to pay a subscription for it. I got a screenshot of one of the ads, because it made me a little sad.

First of all, it's not a good idea to stay awake for three days straight. I'm sure that's not news to you. And yes, I know they're trying to get across the idea that this game is so fun it's addictive. But is that really a good thing?

Anyone who's been to a casino has seen the unsmiling focus of the people playing games. They may be having fun, in a way, but they are working hard. The stimulation that takes us out of ourselves seems to be the biggest draw for addictive activities that don't involve ingesting chemicals. Despite having no physical addictive component outside the body, degenerate gamblers will follow that addiction to ruin as certainly as any alcoholic or drug addict. Is portable gaming becoming the same way, so much so that advertisers can joke about it?

Some games try to make it seem that they are downright healthy for you:

To say the least, the jury is out on whether games sharpen the mind. Some studies say maybe, some say maybe not. Am I going to put in 30-60 hours a month to find out? I think not.

Who the heck has the time for this? Most of us have work or school or just a lot of things to do to keep the joint in order. Everyone I know who has happiness and purpose in life has things to do. Games don't count. I like to relax with something dumb, but at some point it stops being relaxing.

I've seen this kind of behavior before. It could be someone who ignores what he or she ought to do and just does crossword puzzles or Sudoku. It usually strikes me as a crutch for depression -- when nothing seems worth doing, but you're awake so you have to pass the time somehow. And this game will keep you awake for three days!

I don't know if app games are going to be linked to America's drug and/or obesity crises. I'm just saying that they don't help.

Of course, what people ought to be doing is reading books on Kindle and Nook and other apps. Specifically, my books! My books make you smarter, healthier, and better looking. It's scientifically proven! Are you going to argue with science?

Blow up.

Yesterday I stopped down at the supermarket for a few quick items -- you know, mousetraps, lye, gunpowder -- and noted that the customer service counter was appropriately festive for Cinco de Mayo. 

¡Hurra! 

Everything is a balloon now. You go down to the store, thinking, "I hope I can find a nice Get Well balloon for poor Sam, still suffering from infection from his cut-rate septoplasty. Gee, I wonder if they might have a square balloon?"

Nailed it.

I like balloons, sure. They're festive. They float. They're colorful. It can be a little sad when they get deflated and it's three weeks after the party but you just don't have the heart to bust the Mylar and call it a day. But really, what's not to like? Things that float are always fun.

Last year I followed with interest the Twitter feed of an orange balloon trapped on the ceiling of St. Albert the Great Parish in Calgary. It had lasted past Christmas and I wondered if wagering was going to break out among the followers -- I counted myself as one, even though I'm not on Twitter. Anticipating a fever pitch, I considered reactivating my PayPal account. But before I could get a pool together, the balloon lost its heavenly vantage and returned to earth.

The problem with balloons is, are they wasting helium? Most people aren't aware of the fact that we can't make helium. There's a whale of a lot of it in the universe... but what we have is what we have. And some folks are worried about it.

For years the U.S. strategic helium reserve was cited as a waste of taxpayer money, and following the Cold War, the program was finally killed. But helium does have a lot of uses besides our little floating containers of joy. As Forbes reported in 2017:

Since it's both non-reactive and inert, it can be used at high temperatures and in oxygen-rich environments without a risk of explosion. The speed of sound is almost three times greater in helium than in air, leading to acoustic applications. And at atmospheric pressure but at low temperatures, it liquefies but never solidifies, making it the ultimate coolant for particle accelerators, MRI machines, and superconductors.

And yet when this useful element makes it to the atmosphere, it gets kicked out into space.

I don't know what we can do to solve the upcoming helium crisis. And if I did, no one would listen to me. Even the dogs don't listen to me.

Oh, helium, most noble gas! Number two on the Periodic Table, number one in our hearts. You float our balloons, you float our hearts. What shall we do if you are gone?

Live and let die.

Liar's poker.

 A bunch of the boys were whooping it up in the Desk Jockey Saloon when I took a stool next to "Stapler" McGee. McGee was looking at a dollar bill with a quizzical eye, as if wondering if that little of a tip would get him a buyback anytime this century.

"What's up, Stapler?"

"Just lookin' at this here bill, Faxalong," said McGee. He rolled it up in his huge fist, a fist that had pounded many an IBM Selectric in its day, and said, "You ever play liar's poker?"

"You always lie in poker," I said.

"Naw, the game with dollar bills," he said. "It's real simple, kid. Take a buck outta your moth-eaten wallet and I'll explain."

I did.

"The object is to get the best poker hand with the serial number on the bill," he said. "Mebbe I see two 3's in my number. So I bid that. Then you have to beat that. You might see three 5's, which would be better than mine, so you could bid that. Or you could say you only have two 5's; you wanna hold something in reserve. Then I have to beat your pair. We go back and forth, or around and around if there's more of us, until someone's got to start lyin' to beat the last bid. If you think I lied, and call me on it, and I did, you win. But if I didn't lie and you call me, you lose. If you figure I told the truth and you can't beat me, you can either give up or try to lie yourself."

"Heck, might as well lie, then."

"That's why it's called liar's poker."

I gave him a squint and a grin and said, "You're on, Stapler."

He peered at his bill and said, "Two 6's."

I peered at mine. To my shock, I realized I didn't have a single pair! Eight digits and not two of them matched!

Looked like I'd have to start lying already.

"Two 8's," I said with artificial confidence.

"Two 6's and two 2's," he said.

"Three 8's."

He gave me a sidelong glance and said, "Full house, 6's and 2's."

Should I believe him? Should I bluff him with four 8's?

And then I saw it.

Smiling broadly, I said, "Straight flush to the 7."

His jaw dropped. "What? No way!"

I dropped my bill on the bar. "Read it and weep."

"I see the straight, but..."

"They're all green!"

Stapler smacked me in the back of the head, took my dollar, and said, "Go home, Faxalong. You're too dumb to drink today."

You can't get good customer service anymore.

"Hi, excuse me?"

"Yes, sir?"

"I'd like to return this for a refund, thanks."

"Um... I'm sorry, sir, but you cannot return that item."

"Why not? I just bought it here on Tuesday."

"But--"

"It was very busy, but surely you remember me. And doesn't one of these little codes say where it was purchased?"

"That's not the point, sir. You can't return these."

"But it's faulty."

"I don't understand. It looks correct to me."

"No, no, you see, when I was here on Tuesday I specifically told you I wanted a winning ticket. This is a losing ticket, you see? You sold me the wrong item."

"We don't sell winning or losing tickets. We just sell the tickets."

"Yes, but this one didn't win."

"The drawing did not happen yet when this was sold. There was no way to know it would not win."

"But I asked for one that would win and you sold me one that would lose. I mean, I hate to bandy words like incompetence or bad merchandise or probably sells beer to children or anything else to the gang on Yelp, but..."

"Please do not threaten me with the Yelp, sir. This is not my fault."

"Then why did I wind up with this bum ticket? Look, only one number came up. Is that fair?"

"The lottery has nothing to do with fairness, sir. The odds of winning are very poor."

"And there you go with the attitude again. Are you calling me a loser? Seriously, I think you need to acknowledge your part in this."

"Sir, I don't know if you know how the lottery drawings work. We don't know what the winning ticket is going to be in advance anymore than you do."

"I didn't say you had to know what exact numbers were going to win, silly. That's why I got five chances. You see how generous I was here. I gave you five opportunities to get it right and you failed five times. Don't you see how your actions have disappointed others?"

"I assure you, if I had known what the winning numbers would be, we would not be having this conversation right now because I would be far away from here."

"Your attitude is beginning to irritate me. Let me speak to your manager."

"I own this shop, sir. I work here fifteen hours a day. That's how I plan to prosper."

"Maybe we could compromise. Look, I'm not demanding we run the machine with the little balls in it again."

"Good of you."

"Let's just assume that if things had gone the way I asked originally, that I would have hit the jackpot, right? Now I know things happen, and I'm not an unreasonable guy. Suppose we just split the difference and say I got five of the numbers. You give me a million bucks and we call it square. Surely that's equitable."

"Sir, I am dialing 911 now. Please leave my shop."

"Um... Can I have a pack of Twinkies?"

"Yes but go."

One for the bats!

A few weeks ago I reported that here in the Hudson Valley, specifically in the wealthy area known as Tuxedo, residents were beating back plans for a casino, and using bats to do the beating---that is, the endangered Indiana Bat, whose bailiwick includes the Tuxedo area. Frankly, I don't know if the Tuxedoans give a hoot (to bring in other nocturnalia) about the Indiana bat, but whatever.

The update is, Orange County---in which Tuxedo proudly sits at the southern tip---has been denied any of the new casinos that the state ballot initiative permitted. According to the Times, three proposals were accepted, in Schenectady, the borscht belt, and the Finger Lakes. The story notes, and a friend of mine who is a local reporter confirmed, that because Orange County is close to the city, it was seen as a threat the existing and proposed gambling parlors of Yonkers and Sullivan County.

I think the state made the right call, and the Indiana bat didn't have much to do with the decision, although the threat of lawsuits over the little fellow likely made the prospect of a casino here more expensive.

As I wrote in that earlier entry, I dislike casinos and find they do nothing for the areas in which they are dumped; further, industry experts describe the Northeast as "saturated" (according to the Times story) with gambling already.

Hasn't proven great in Atlantic City lately.

The whole casino thing is a big stupid mistake, all ginned up to try to extract money from losers at the tables and slots, funnel it through the casinos by taxes, and give more money to the government of New York State, which, when it comes to money, cannot spend it slowly or wisely.

Whenever the state government does make a decent decision I have to assume it was pure luck. And luck is what we have had here in New York, for a long time. But that luck is running out. We've eaten the seed corn; we're licking the husks. Gambling does not bring in a single dollar to the community; it just expropriates it from one part and moves it to another (with a cut for the out-of-state casino operator, by the way) (in fact, I believe the main winner in the casino stakes in New York is an out-of-the-country operator).

In other news, New York just voted to outlaw fracking, meaning there's no chance we'll get in on all the petrodollars that are making other states the envy of the nation.

Good job, New York! Good-bye, wealth!

(Anyone know a good Realtor in North Dakota?)

Indiana Bat vs. Tuxedo Anti-Gamblers.

A bat is standing between the town that gave the world the tuxedo and casino gambling. And that's how the town likes it.

It's complicated.

In a nutshell: Voters in New York last year approved a casino bill, allowing for casinos to be built in the state. Voters may have been thinking it would be great to revitalize the many crappy areas, like the old Borscht Belt---but these voters have apparently never seen a real casino and its environs. Even if the casinos, which invariably can maintain peace only with the most thuggish means, is not itself a cesspool, the area around it is. Or it will be. Add to that the fact that we're so overloaded with gambling in the northeast that four of 12 Atlantic City casinos have gone bust this year, with more on the way. No American community I have ever seen was made happier with casino gambling.

Tuxedo seems to feel the same way.

Tuxedo is a town, and it contains Tuxedo Park, which itself is not a town so much as an enclave, and an enclave of people with lots of dough at that. It has been that way since even before the railroads started running north of the city. The Lorillard family built a castle there on tobacco wealth. Griswold, one of the later Lorillards, started the fad in 1886 for the new men's dinner jacket named for the town that later swept the world.

Tuxedo Park is still loaded with people who are loaded, and they do not want to host a scummy casino full of people in sweatpants playing nickel slots. A Malaysian resort company named Genting wants exactly that. Maybe they intend to do something more high class, but it's like running a liquor store in a city---you want a twee little place with wine or artisinal vodka tastings, but to make ends meet you sell Night Train Express and Wild Irish Rose. It's all booze in the end, right?

Well, this little dude wants to put a stop to it.

Indiana Bat; photo thanks to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

He doesn't actually care, but he is an endangered species and he is in the area, and foes of the casino have latched on to the plight of the Indiana Bat as a means of stopping the casino from being built. They may really care about the bat, or some of them may, but I think it's a case of: when you got to beat a dog, any stick will do. Even a bat.

And that's what environmentalism has become in this country now---nothing but a means of stopping some people from doing what other people don't want them to do.

As you can gather, I'm not a fan of casinos. Of course I live nowhere near Tuxedo---I'm no tobacco millionaire---but I don't want a casino there or any closer than that to me. But it makes me uncomfortable to see the way care for the environment has become nothing more than a means of forcing some people to conform to the will of others in the land of the free. One could easily begin to wonder if environmentalism ever meant anything other than forcing other people to do what you want.

Well, go get 'em, Indiana Bat, I guess. I don't like the bugs you eat and I don't much care for the casinos you prevent. Just stay away from my attic and we'll be fine.

UPDATE (12/18/14): No casinos in Orange County; see follow-up entry here.