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TERRY’S TIDBITS

By Terry Gray

POWERBALL

What would happen to the jackpot if nobody ever won the Powerball again?

GAMBLING

I was watching the news and saw a short story about a guy that was arrested for promoting gambling.  I had to laugh.  In the year 2003 with all the legalized gambling going on around us, this guy was arrested for promoting gambling.

We have scratch offs, pick four, pick five, lottery, lotto south, powerball, and I’m sure others that I’m missing, all government sponsored.  We have bingo.  We have casino gambling and Indian reservation gambling.  We have gambling at the track. 

HELLO.  It’s 2003 and we have wars, starvation, murder, and a myriad of other serious things in our lives and gambling, like any other personal, victimless activity needs to be left alone. 

Whoa, my second editor just jumped me like an IRS agent at the $600 window.  “Gambling,” she informed me “Isn’t a victimless activity.  When someone gambles away the pantry money, there are victims.”  I concede.  However, if the gambler is an adult and knows the risks, are we as a society responsible for his or her actions?  Secondly, if this activity has victims, why is the government promoting it through state sanctioned games and reaping the rewards of hapless victims?

I ask once again, will we begin to see and understand what is important, what is true freedom, and the importance of accepting responsibility for our actions and the consequences, or will we continue to coddle and subdue our society to the point of docility or explosion?  Something will eventually have to give.  Wanna bet?

GUBERNATORIAL RACE

Wave3 reported at 11:00 Wednesday night that in looking at fund raising for this year’s race, contributors “seemed” to favor Republicans over Democrats by 7 to 1.  Seven-to-one “seems” like favoring as much as 10 below “seems” like freezing.

GRAY DAVIS

Both sides of the political fence are against the recall of the Governor of California.  Why?  I’m not saying that all the Republicans and all the Democrats are against it but from what I’ve read and heard, it seems to those in power that a recall sets a dangerous precedent.  Dangerous for whom?  For those being represented or those doing the representing?  Hey, if you don’t like a sweater you take it back, or at least I do.  Some people just hang the sweater in the closet and learn a lesson from the purchase.  How do you hang a Governor in the closet?

Politicians don’t like this recall stuff because they fear for their jobs.  Exercising the recall may prompt some campaign promises to be realized.  It might cause candidates to say, “Hey Mr. Campaign Manager, I can’t say that.  They’ll recall me in a heartbeat.”  Whoa, does that approach a bit of truth in campaigning?  Maybe some realistic “promises” and some responsibility for what one promises?  Hmmm, I bet they’d still lie.

ECONOMICS

We never had a surplus.  We could give the government all we have and that wouldn’t be enough.  Who do we owe?  Why a deficit?  I don’t know, and I’ve thought about it often.  I’m not an economist and don’t want to be.  I’m an earner and consumer, and the science of high finance and economics mean little to me.  Where it starts to knock on my door is when I’m told to tighten my belt because some federal yahoo wants to spend my money on stupid projects, fund another country’s projects, or put on a war.  For some reason, the blame is put on me, and I’m expected to fix the problem when all I did was contribute to it financially -- by force.

The dollar means nothing, and if the government could paint rocks in intricate patterns and with special, secret paint we could trade those instead.  It would be great during a financial windfall to be able to say, “I’m so stoned.”  This dollars-to-rocks modification of our currency would make other changes in our language, too.  We wouldn’t throw rocks at people we didn’t like; probably not at those we like, either.  You wouldn’t hear, “He’s got rocks in his head,” unless he was always thinking about money.  Or, “She was so ugly that I threw rocks at her.”  Skipping stones would take on a whole new meaning.

I like the barter system.  Even on a very big scale it could work well. 

On a small scale, bartering has always worked well.  I’ve traded the installation of a telephone system for a vasectomy.  The doctor didn’t think I had the balls to do it.  I’ve traded some labor for some institutional frozen food, lots of it.  I’ve bartered communications consulting work for flying lessons.  It’s instinctive to trade.

 CRIME

Do you want less crime?  Do you want fewer criminals?  Are you tired of paying for prison expansion, feeding and clothing those guilty of victimless crimes, and politicians using prisons as a campaign feature?  Demand fewer laws.

LADY AND THE LOG

An elderly couple was on a road trip recently and felt the need for a McDonald’s hamburger.  They pulled off the freeway and grabbed some of those tasty bites for the road.  On the way back to the interstate, the lady got in the backseat so she could feed her grandbaby.

“Suddenly a log fell from Heaven,” her husband said.  A logging truck had overturned on an overpass and a tree had fallen onto the interstate, piercing the car’s windshield on the passenger side.

On television, the lady proudly and sincerely thanked McDonald’s for saving her life.  I don’t get it.  If they hadn’t stopped at McDonald’s, they would have been twenty miles past the scene of the accident, and a giant toothpick wouldn’t have skewered their car.

Terry Gray

Strider1@insightbb.com  

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