One Future, Anyway
We call your attention to a story “State Scandal,” that appears on page eight; if you haven’t yet read it we encourage you to do so. It’s relevant because, simply put, it’s more and more apparent we live in a state that’s run by a chief executive who’s either lost his mind, his ethical compass, or both. The very old standing joke in Albany - sometimes on both sides of the legislative aisle - is that New York has the best governor money can buy. We’re not saying there’s any truth to that, heck we don’t know, but where there’s smoke something’s often smoldering. And it does look like maybe that Erie Canal business is, metaphorically of course, combustible.
So we all know the governor’s decided the best way to fund education is by encouraging gambling, which is basically like encouraging adoption through teenage prostitution, or like funding law-enforcement by encouraging and taxing the proceeds of crime. It’s hard, we know, to keep track of the Governor’s positions. Yesterday he only cut deals with Indian Tribes from New York, today any old state’s Indians are fine as long as they ante up. Last week a couple of casinos statewide would have been good, this week we need a critical mass of 5 in one place because that’s what makes Las Vegas and Atlantic City fun; you get tired of one you go to another. Hey, and if you’re not Atlantic City then what are you? You’re Podunk. You’re the borscht belt. And who wants to gamble where they’ve only got, like, a couple thousand slot machines. Not our governor, that’s for sure. He obviously can see…a bigger picture.
More armored cars. Maybe that’s what we really need around here. More armored cars with big bags of money. And we need more guys, a lot more guys with pistols on their hip when they go to work in the morning. That’ll be good. And limos, big ones, that’ll take a chunk out of the DWI problem. Oh, and we’re definitely going to need prostitutes, a lot of them. And medical care; maybe Ellenville Hospital could become a world-class center for the treatment of sexually transmitted disease. And pawn shops, we’ll need them so that when people lose their homes, they can always cash out the contents. And bail bondsmen, we’ll need them, ‘cause guess what? We’ll probably fill up that huge new jail after all. Now that’s thinking ahead! And the employment potential, tons of new jobs are going to open up in crisis counseling of just about every kind. Addiction, child and spousal abuse… drugs, did we mention drugs? Oh, we’re going to need a lot more than we’ve got now to service the clientele in, like,150,000 cars a day coming through, with a decent portion of them getting off the Thruway at Kingston and heading south on Ulster County’s future longest parking lot, Route 209. And organized crime, that too. Nah. ‘Ya think?
Well that’s one vision of the future,anyway. This Friday at 11 AM, Sullivan County’s legislature will vote on whether or not to approve 5 casinos. They’ll be in the County Building, 100 North St, Monticello. We don’t know where that is either but we hope some people will try and go. We’re not going to speculate on what’s motivating the Governor, but we think people, even a little south of us, may not share his vision of the region’s future. Even our state Senator John Bonicic, long the torch-bearer of gambling in the Catskills, seems to have a finger up in the wind. All of a sudden he’s wondering out loud whether 5 casinos might not be, well, a bit much, and whether those are really the kind of jobs we want to create after all. Nice to hear a little drift of sanity on that score, a welcome flip-flop, better late than never.
We grant that what happens in Monticello or Ellenville isn’t the neighborhood. But when something’s impacts are big enough to be regional ones, we should, well, we should care, at least, and if we can maybe do something about it we should try. There’s a lot of pain and suffering in the world, and the role of government isn’t to milk the frailty of human addiction and create more of it. First and foremost, casino gambling is an ethical issue. It would be nice to see the churches take it on.
The world is hurting, we all see it. And judging from the global response to south asia’s nightmare, we’re not so wrapped up in our own problems we don’t feel it, most of us obviously do. Maybe that’s a sign of intelligent life, a reality check for our species that comes up positive, to remind us we really are on this boat together. Let’s hope so.