Let your mouth speak archive

Manne wrote: In the summer of 2000, John Gregory was an Ontario Provincial Police detective, respected for his undercover work investigating illegal gambling. That was before he was fired. It seems the 29-year veteran had stolen $16,000 from the force, money he used to support the gambling habit he'd developed. The father of six had already burned through more than $100,000 of family savings.

Around the same time, 66-yearold Pearl Byrd, a longtime supervisor with a solid employment history in Connecticut's Department of Social Sevices, was convicted of embezzling more than $187,000 from her employer -money she poured into the slots at her local casino.

This spring in Ottawa, Father Joe LeClair, the charismatic pastor of Blessed Sacrament parish, voluntarily resigned after an investigation raised questions about the source of his gambling money. Le-Clair, who'd received more than $137,000 in credit card cash advances at the Casino du Lac-Leamy in 2009 and 2010, confessed to saddened parishioners that he did indeed have a significant gambling problem.

Anybody see a thread? I mean, apart from the shared problem that upended these three lives?

Here it is: like countless others in our brave new world of legalized gambling, all three were otherwise conscientious citizens who became unlikely addicts after a degree of exposure to gambling. Some fateful number of casino visits created the monster in Byrd and LeClair, while repeated job-related exposure did it for the undercover cop.

Did they know better? Undoubtedly. Yet it's easy to imagine them saying, "Just one more hit (or hand, or roll of the dice). I'll make it all back."

That's the magic thinking of addiction, the kind of disordered thought that pits the giddy power of irrational hope against human nature's capacity for common sense -and wins. No "harm prevention" strategy in the world is a match for it. In the case of slot machines, it's abetted by electronic wizardry that goes straight to the brain, scrambling normal patterns and pumping up the desire to bet just one more time, again and again.

In a society where gambling opportunities are either governmentsanctioned or government-run, exposure is difficult to avoid. From promotions for the next mega-lottery to glitzy come-ons for the exciting glamour of the nearest casino, the allure of "gaming" (as the sanitized version now has it) is ubiquitous.

And exposure to gambling, in all its brightly-lit mainstream appeal, is breeding more and more problems.

Seriously, can you picture any of those people -the detective, the office supervisor, the priest -slinking down alleyways looking for a little backroom action? Of course not.

There are more gamblers now -and more resulting tragedies -because there are more easy opportunities to gamble. It's no accident that Nevada, where legal gambling has been king for 80 years now, has the highest pathological gambling rate in the United States. (At six per cent of the adult population, it's roughly double both the U.S. and Canada's.)

Which should raise concerns about the likely expansion at Ottawa's Rideau Carleton Raceway. Currently restricted to racing and slots, the facility is set to add table games next fall if the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Commission approves. The recent enthusiasm from provincial and municipal players suggests a go-ahead is in the works.

It seems that Ontario and Ottawa are losing gambling revenues to Quebec and Gatineau, which is unacceptable. Provincial coffers will not be denied, no matter how many tales of loss, woe and tragedy end up as sidebar casualties.

Yes, everyone knows that gambling is profoundly stupid, a foolproof way to lighten your wallet.

But it is also a willing suspension of the rational. Flashing lights, jangling noise and crazy hope trump what the head knows, every time.

Nor is it selective. The most unlikely people -detectives, supervisors, priests -are testament to that.

Everyone who gambles is, over time, a loser, though certainly not everyone who gambles is an addict. Problem gamblers are a small percentage of the overall population. But they are a growing minority, both in numbers and in the negative impact of their personal and collateral damage. And they're growing because gambling availability is growing.

The conclusion is inescapable. Anyone who operates and expands gambling facilities is complicit in the increasing tragedies occasioned by gambling. That includes our government.

But because government is so vast and amorphous, countless bureaucratic layers and accountabilities overlapping one another, no individual ever has to take responsibility for decisions that destroy lives and wreak incalculable social damage. Too bad.

So Rideau Carleton will no doubt expand. And once again it will be a win-win situation, for both province and municipality. But it will be a losing proposition for everyone else. That includes those unsuspecting first-timers lured down Albion Road with the promise of uncomplicated fun. Because such fun can turn out to be very complicated indeed.

Manne wrote: Academy Award winning actor Robert De Niro is reportedly in talks to star in the HBO remake of Diane Henrique’s book about the life of shamed financial Ponzi schemer, Bernie Madoff, entitled The Wizard Of Lies: Bernie Madoff And The Death Of Trust. The book debuted at No. 10 this weekend on The New York Times bestseller list and HBO just optioned the book.

Madoff, who is currently serving a 150-year prison sentence for his Wall Street firm Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC., which stole approximately 65 billion from investors, which included celebrity victims like Kevin Bacon, Kyra Sedgwick, Steven Spielberg and John Malkovich.

Madoff was caught when he confessed to his sons, Andrew and Mark Madoff, who blew the whistle on him to authorities. Tragically, on the two-year anniversary of his father's arrest, 46-year-old Mark was found in his Manhattan apartment hanging by a dog leash. He is survived by his wife Stephanie and his two children.

Meanwhile, Bloomberg reports that a play entitled, Imagining Madoff, is opening in Washington this summer at Theater J. In Hollywood.

Deadline reports that De Niro may be the perfect choice to play Madoff, since he was the victim of freud himself back in 2009 when Lawrence Salander, a prominent art gallery owner, was charged with ripping off high-profile clients, including De Niro, out of $88 million on high-priced art deals throughout a 15-year period.

mr0033 wrote: Something big is going on at the website Oil Trading Academy. I think there is a secret out about Oil, that it's rigged by a computer, and they are making fortunes there.