Acid Away, Touchplay Dismay

My little purple pills are working wonderfully. Just as the doctor had predicted, about 72 hours after the first dose of medicine went down, so did the acid. I'll finish out the month and hopefully be in the clear.

Thought I'd weigh in on the Touchplay controversy. For readers outside of Iowa, here's the skinny -- a couple years ago the Iowa lottery authorized the use of machines that let you buy pull tabs in video form. The gizmos look like a slot machine, and spit out random patterns of symbols that you would see on pulltabs, or slot machines. These machines have apparantly been purchased by thousands of businesses that would not otherwise have a license to offer legalized gambling -- convenience stores, nighclubs, bowling alleys, etc. And now, SURPRISE, we're finding that people of all ages and income levels are running to their local tavern and playing the slots -- er, Touchplay.

There are three sides to the whole gambling issue. Side A is that gambling is just another form of entertainment, and there isn't much difference between spending $10 on gambling vs. $10 on a movie. And, maybe I'll even win my money back, or really beat the odds and strike it rich.

Side B is that gambling can become an addiction, and hurt lives. By legalizing gambling, and then providing access to gambling, you feed a hard habit to break. And then there's the statistic that some who plunk down $10 on the nickel slots don't have $10 to buy groceries or pay their heat bill.

Side C is that this is all a moral issue -- that gambling in and of itself is a bad thing. Regardless of affordability or entertainment value, gambling is folly, even sinful, and leads to a path of destruction.

My statement on gambling is not about A, B, or C. Instead, its the absurdity that our government officials and voting population are so shortsided as to not predict that a little gambling leads to a lot of gambling. What started 20 years ago as a greyhound track or two has turned into Touchplay, riverboats, horseracing, casinos, and Indian-reservation gambling. And this is a surprise? Why? And it is apparently a shock that a 14 year-old might try to sneak some time on the Touchplay machine at Handimat, or the lotto machine at HyVee? Why?

"Build it and they will come," is the saying from the film "Field of Dreams." That's not just referring to baseball in Dyersville, Iowa, but to blackjack in Tama, dogracing in Dubuque, and Touchplay in Toledo. They'll come as long as there is money to spend and winnings to be lured by.

A shock? No. In fact, it is the one facet of gambling that's a sure thing.