Roll The Dice

Council Bluffs, Iowa is just on the opposite side of the river from Omaha, Nebraska. Awhile back, I won’t speculate on how far back it was, because I’m not sure, but awhile back, Iowa legalized gambling, so the intelligent folks in Council Bluffs put their casinos right on the river, so that it would be very convenient for the half a million or so good people of Omaha to cross over and drop their dollars into the till in Iowa.

Now, Nebraska’s bible beaters work feverishly to keep gambling out of Nebraska, each time there is a vote to allow gambling within the state, it seems that they are out in force, screaming about all hell and damnation and how gambling leads to divorce and sodomy and cake and who the hell knows what else? But for crying out loud, if people are just going to cross the border and gamble anyway, it’s probably a damn good idea to keep that money within the state by offering Nebraskan’s casinos to gamble at.

Life itself is a gamble. Each day we get inside our cars and drive down the road, there is a chance we get broadsided by a cement truck, there is even the slightest chance a burning meteorite comes in from the sky and smashes the car to bits, killing everyone inside. Farmers gamble when they plant their crops, what sorts of insecticide to use, short term or long term corn and beans, that sort of thing. Everything we do is a gamble of some sort, but for some reason, when the gambling involves outright laying our money on the table for a chance to get more money, oh god no, we can’t be doing that at all!!!

There is one form of gambling allowed in Nebraska, horse racing and betting on simulcasting of horse races around the nation. I guess that is because betting on horses is usually a rich man’s folly and to take that away would be to take away something from the power elite within the state, something that certainly wouldn’t ever be allowed.

I myself don’t really care for gambling, I would never work in a casino after seeing the heartbroken people sitting on benches outside the buildings with their heads in their hands. But I have to face reality and the facts, and the big fact that all that money is rolling into Iowa instead of staying here in Nebraska is what makes me feel that it’s time to change the laws here and allow gambling within Nebraska. Not only that, but Iowa pays for gambling treatment for their residents who end up with addictions to gambling, but Nebraska is stuck footing the bill for our own residents, without a casino to even help pay for the treatment, and that is ludicrous.

The best way to look at casinos is to treat them like a movie, or a dinner, or both together. Think of it this way, “I am going to take 25 dollars to the casino tonite to spend, and if I win with it, so be it, but if I lose all 25 bucks, then I’m done. I’ll go to the buffet or catch a washed up country singer who is singing in the lounge, but I won’t EVEN try and convince myself that I will actually win big bucks and go on easy street.” That is the best attitude to have about gambling.

No Parallel

The NASA Space Shuttle program has been around since spring of 1981 when Columbia went into orbit, inspiring a new age of space travel. As Saturday morning rolled around, there had been more than 100 shuttle missions, with one previously ending in disaster. But even with the Challenger tragedy, the rewards of space travel far outweigh the risks.

The Columbia, the oldest of the shuttles in current service, disintegrated during re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere Saturday morning, and with this, the hardly noticed missions that the space shuttle routinely performs without a hitch, this mission is given the attention, the admiration, and the sorrow of an entire nation, and in many respects, the world.

Of course, the media goes to 24 hour coverage of this event with speculation and guesses as to what happened. What was known that the shuttle was traveling at mach 15, at 200,000 feet in the air, at more than 3000 degrees Fahrenheit, when suddenly the vessel came apart.

Certainly most of what I’m saying you already know, unless you spend a lot of time living in a cave. What gets me about all of this is how the media starts making correlations to this disaster and the tragic events of 9/11/01. Ignorance on the part of our news media brings about ignorant statements such as this.

First off, what happened on 9/11 was a horrible disaster that killed thousands of innocent people who died for nothing more than going to work, making a better life for themselves, doing things that should have never had a risk of death to begin with.

NASA astronauts accept a huge responsibility based on the type of job they are performing. Space travel pushes the envelope of human technology to the limit, the risks are astronomical. The very fact that we are able to perform space travel with so few problems in most cases is amazing. Astronauts know this, they accept the risks for the idea of what they are doing, pushing man’s limits further, expanding our horizons. The costs, even with tragedy like this, are far outweighed by the benefits.

Do we mourn the loss of the Columbia, the seven lives cut short by what happened on February 1st? Most certainly we do. However, it is important to remember that astronauts choose their destiny, to do what they love. For every astronaut inducted into the NASA space program, there are dozens, maybe even hundreds who are turned away. This is unlikely to change.

I guess what I’m getting at with this, is that it’s appalling to make a parallel between a tragedy that occurs from something with such expected risk, and another such as 9/11 that occurred for something of an entirely different reason, and I would hope that no one else would make such a correlation.

I also hope that whatever happened Saturday to be corrected within short order, because I believe in the validity of the space program and what it does not only for our country, but for all of humanity.