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Because we're a writer and spend most of
our time doing what those with real jobs call
nothing, we were, one morning last week,
sitting in our chair, smoking cigarettes and
staring out the window.
Even this is overstatement. Staring
implies intent, or at least focus, and there
was none. We were just looking at the surf.
The tide went out for awhile, then it came
back in. We found ourself smiling, thinking
about the Coeur d'Alenes.
The Coeur d'Alenes are an Idaho tribe.
After being all but ignored for 150 years,
the Coeur d'Alenes are back in the news. No,
they didn't attack Boise. It's much, much
worse than that. The Coeur d'Alenes have
announced their intent to establish a
national lottery. Hide the women and
children.
Not just another supermarket lottery, the
Coeur d'Alenes' numbers will be accessible
from your couch. Callers, a potential 200
million of them in 36 states and the District
of Columbia, will charge their bets on either
a credit or bank debit card via an (800)
number. (Industry experts suspect that,
when the Coeur d'Alenes' venture goes on
line sometime this year, jackpots will
quickly jump to the hundreds of millions of
dollars.) (Its only real competition will be
Powerball, whose jackpots, with only 19
states and the District of Columbia, recently
broke the 100 million dollar mark.) The
North American Association of State and
Provincial Lotteries is, to the surprise of no
one, squealing like a stuck pig.
"It's one thing to set up these games
within their reservations," association
mouthpiece Anthony Cooper screeched,
saliva bubbling, "but it's another thing for
them to bring their gambling outside, into
people's homes." Still another they'd
thought of it first. "Every house that has a
telephone will have a lottery terminal under
what they're doing. I suspect many states
will oppose this." If there was ever a safe
bet, this is it.
Regardless who runs them, lotteries are an
interesting business. In the bad old days,
lotteries were know as the numbers racket.
The numbers racket was run by gangsters
and played an enormous role in elevating
disorganised crime into illegitimate business.
Large financial empires were built on the
simple truth that humans love to gamble,
even when the odds are horribly against
them. The numbers racket proved
positively that people will stand in line to
bet their rent on which number will be
drawn from a hat.
The federal government, concerned for our
welfare, spared no expense freeing us from
the clutches of ruthless thugs who preyed on
our weakness without declaring the income.
No stranger to the wisdom of taking in more
cash than you pay out, the federal
government embraced the numbers racket
and franchised it to the states.
The lottery quickly demonstrated a
startling ability to separate citizens from
their money without demanding it at the
point of an audit. As Bugsy Seigel must
have said shortly after he invented Las
Vegas, it’s great when a plan comes together.
State sponsored gambling is an idea whose
time has come, and the casinoization of
America has become, next to prison
construction, the public sector's leading
growth industry.
r r
Enter the crafty Coeur d'Alenes. Like all
native tribes, the Coeur d Alenes are a
sovereign nation. Where states must comply
slavishly to the whims of the great white
father in Washington, the relationship
between the federal government and tribes
is set out and defined by treaty and 150
years of court decisions. As regards bingo
parlors and casino gambling, individual
tribes are free to conduct business any way
they see fit within the confines of their
reservation. Even so, tribes have uniformly
agreed to follow state gaming laws; in face,
in many cases, to exceed them.
Consider the lowly Pequots. By under-
handedly offering the best odds in the
country, the Western Pequots' casino in
rural Connecticut generates more profit per
square foot than any casino in Atlantic City,
a statistic that has caused Donald Trump, not
an amiable man under the best of
circumstances, to snap pencils between his
pudgy fingers and take lunch with senators.
Bingo parlors are one thing, messing with
the boys in Atlantic City is quite another.
The revenue for the Coeur d'Alenes lottery
will make the Pequots look like low rollers.
Listen to the squeals. "States want to be
able to manage their gaming within their
own jurisdictions," says Mr. Cooper, a
reasonable man, of the unfairness. In this
context, states’ rights means the great white
syndicate wants its cut. And therein lies the
rub.
The innovative touch the Coeur d'Alenes
bring to the table, aside from the world's
first dial-in lottery, is that only they and
their partner, Unistar Entertainment Inc. of
Denver, will share in the take. The
arrangement seems to conform to treaty
law, but the states and provinces allied in
the North American association are no more
amused than A1 Capone might be.
More squeals from Mr. Cooper's mob. "If
this is allowed to happen, other tribes are
going to start doing it." To Mr. Cooper,
evidently, the only good Indian is a stupid
one. "The next thing you know," and we can
nearly see Mr. Cooper lean forward, smile
grimly, and lower his voice, "you're going to
be sitting at home and a blackjack wheel is
going to pop up on you television screen,
brought to you by your nearest Indian
tribe." Not if the Donald's lawyers are bigger
than theirs, it won't.
We don't play the lottery and so don't
think of it often. When we do, we smile at
the long range odds. Not subject to
government edict, odds are set by higher
law: the law of probability whose bottom
line is a gem. Whatever can happen, will.
In layperson's terms, given enough gerbils
dancing long enough on the keyboards of
enough word processors, they will
eventually produce complete transcriptions
of Nixon's White House tapes. By the same
implacable rule, given enough Powerballs
sucked up enough plastic vacuum tubes, the
great casino of the universe must eventually
hand over 100 million dollars to Newt
Gingrich's idea of The Wrong Person.
A hundred million might be pocket
change to the Defense Department (or, for
that matter, to a single fleet of the Navy),
but given right thought, right action, and
CNN, a suddenly rich peasant with a noble
vision instead of a cheap motive could make
a lovely splash in the national forum. We
find this thought wildly amusing. Now we
have something else to chuckle about: the
thought of Indians with serious gambling
money.
There are about 1,600 Coeur d'Alenes.
Once there were more, but that's another,
less pleasant story. In the not too distant
future, they're all going to be filthy rich.
How rich? There's no telling, but the happy
plight of the Pequots lends us some
perspective. There are only 500 Western
Pequots. Next year, unless a mysterious fire
destroys their casino, their per capita
income is expected to be a million dollars.
Yes, that's one million dollars apiece. They
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T
Last week your Professor lay a-bed in
the pre-dawn hours, cosseted closely by
snug comforter and woolens, R.E.M.-ing like
a three-toed sloth. A man of my
sensibilities often sleeps fitfully, with
memories, dreams, and reality strung-out
in a Dali-esque nightscape of restless
images. Deep sleep is a dream to be
savored, a rejuvenative dream within a
dream.
Suddenly, a metallic sound and
hell-hound screaming wrenched me loose
from dream threads and spun me bolt
upright. Raccoons! The filthy vermin were
attacking my garbage can again, after
already logging-in 12 successful assaults
this month in their current night campaign.
Don't believe Walt Disney. These mini-
Sumo grapplers are tough as guts in a
scrap and would gnaw through a fence of
razor blades to get to a box of rotten
chicken gizzards.
I pulled my bed clothes around me and
bumped to the kitchen in the dark. The
howling and raging continued below my
stairs, the masked revellers engaged in a
bacchanal, bloating themselves on a main
course of crab shells and chicken bones,
followed by spoiled pork chop tartare.
Hastily filling a pan with scalding water,
I slipped to the front door, opened it, and
tried to parboil the boors. They scoffed at
me, mocked me, and hurled guttural
insults from a Rhododendron bush. In
humiliation, I closed the front door on the
sound of my garbage can ricochetting from
tree to tree down the embankment below
my house.
Faithful readers, I am at my wit's end. I
have posted, tied, Bungee-ed, lashed, and
wired my garbage can to protect it from
raccoon pillage. The Professor is a
parsimonious old hound who eats almost
any potential garbage. I will not put the
garbage can in my garage (that attracts
Mus decumanus -- brown rats) and I will
not shoot, poison, or snare.
If any among you have suggestions for
an economical garbage can restraint device,
please notify the Professor. Nothing below
ground or too complicated, please. Designs
forwarded to The Edge will be scrutinized
by the Professor. If suitable, we can notify
Edge readers.
You will render a much-needed public
service in an awkward time. Never have
we known more garbage. Never has the
raccoon scourge been more pestiferous.
CANNON BEACH LIBRARY
131 North Hemlock
P.O Box 486
Cannon Beach, OR 97110
Ou ned and operated by the Library
and Woman’s Club o f Cannon Beach
will be, to the Coeur d’Alenes, poor relations.
The Coeur d'Alenes are only human.
When their ship comes in, assuming it's not
torpedoed and sunk in federal court, these
ignoble savages are going to rush right out
and buy things. If what other tribes have
done with their bingo proceeds is any
indication, it won't be Cadillacs and
firewater. No, once the Coeur d'Alenes have
taken care of their people (a custom still
practiced by savage cultures) they'll blow
their money on land, and the loyalty of
well-connected attorneys.
The Indians no longer want trinkets; the
great white father will not be amused.
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