REFLECTIONS ON CASINO GAMES

   


      IT'S SAD TO SEE HEADLINES LIKE the one on gambling that appeared recently in a local newspaper. It said: "Millions in shady transactions reported at provincial casinos."
      The story below the headline in The Vancouver Sun detailed the fact that the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's news people had uncovered hitherto secret information on suspected money-laundering through casinos in the province of British Columbia.
      This information was in the records of the provincial finance department, but we apparently wouldn't have known about it except for the diligent efforts of the CBC, backed by freedom-of-information laws.

      USING CASINOS FOR MONEY-LAUNDERING is an old trick: people with ill-gotten gains take the cash to the casino, buy credits in large amounts, make a couple of bets then cash in the credits so that they can claim they won the money at the casino, should any law authorities inquire.
      It seems to me that the provincial authorities who are supposed to keep an eye on gambling transactions aren't particularly attentive, and/or have little interest in publicizing irregularities. After all, it took not the government but the CBC to shine the light on this.
      Our provincial government is supposed to represent the public interest and see that licensed gambling places operate on the up-and-up and keep "shady transactions" out of their premises. It is the B.C. government that should have brought this information to public attention.  Why it didn't in this case is therefore open to speculation.

      THREE YEARS AGO the government indicated it saw a need for anti-laundering measures. Perhaps I've missed something, but I can only conclude that so far little or nothing has been done.
      Provincial politicians seem to be quite lax when it comes to handling the gambling file. One wonders why.
      Personally, I haven't visited any casino for a long time, and have no plans to -- they are strictly places for losers. Sure, sometimes casinos display interesting performers on their show stages, but I can never escape the feeling that such entertainers are simply shills, often ones in career decline, and in any event are there just to draw in the local yokels so they can be separated from their money.

       I'VE SAID IT BEFORE, AND I'll say it again: I'm not against moderate gambling, and I'm just as inclined as the next person to wager a few bucks on the lottery. But when it comes to the casinos, well, when you've seen one, you've seen 'em all. In addition, and I cannot note it often enough: You don't find many happy faces in a casino. Which ought to tell you something.
      Let me close this editorial with what I regard as some sensible quotations on the subject of gambling.
   
      WASHINGTON: "It is the child of avarice, the brother of iniquity, and the father of mischief."

      HORACE (Roman lyric poet): "Curst is the wretch enslaved to such a vice, who ventures life and soul upon the dice."

     ZIMMERMANN: "Gambling houses are temples where the most sordid and turbulent passions contend..."
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SO, HOW'S YOUR GRAVITAS, WHAT'S YOUR NARRATIVE: ARE YOU GOING FORWARD, OR WHAT . . . ?

   

                                            DOES ANYBODY REMEMBER the word "gravitas" and its exhaustive political use a few years back? Yes? No? Well, how about the word "narrative," also widely employed a couple of years ago in a political sense, and still hanging in there to quite a degree? Surely it rings a bell.
      Perhaps it's impossible to pinpoint exactly who first employed those words in the political events of yesteryear. But, originally, they somehow became vogue words in the U.S., particularly among hosts and panelists on public affairs TV shows, as well as among political observers in newspapers and magazines.
      And since American political terminology has a tendency to sneak across the border and somehow filter into the minds of our own Canadian commentators and politicians, both "gravitas" and "narrative" did indeed make that trip.
      You could scarcely turn on any one of those programs without hearing an "analyst" or commentator say something like, "Well, (candidate) Jones seems to be a nice fellow, but he just lacks gravitas, and that will be a big drawback for him with voters."
                                                                 
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                                           ALSO, WHEN IT CAME TO TALKING about political campaigns, their issues and controversies, and the prospects for the contending parties and candidates, the viewer and reader would come across such phrases as "the narrative has taken an unexpected turn" for X or Z party or candidate.
      My impression is that "gravitas" (very much a pomposity word) did not last long in Canada. I think this was because most people were suspicious of it, its meaning not being terribly clear, politically speaking. Readers and viewers would note that it was usually meant in a negative way -- "he lacks gravitas" -- since they would never hear any commentator or politician use it in positive verbal formations, such as "say, that candidate has a lot of gravitas."
      The voting public would, I think, prefer clearer terms like, "that candidate is a lightweight" (or heavyweight).
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                                          AS FAR AS "NARRATIVE" is concerned, my view is that the word is pretentious when used by reporters or commentators to cover the way a political event or situation is developing: the clearer word in its place is the plain and basic "story." But then, maybe I'm old-fashioned and too appreciative of the ancient City Desk admonition to "keep it simple, stupid."
      By the way, I have consulted a number of word sources and am able to inform the reader that "gravitas" is from the latin, and comes to us through Spanish. It apparently is applicable to people of high seriousness, or those who show authority and expertise, and have intellectual weightiness.
      Does anybody know of, do I know of, a politician today of such description? Hmmm . . . let me think . . . Uh, well, it's a subject that might need further consideration and contemplation . . . will get back to you . . .

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                                          AND FINALLY, let me deal with one of the worst phrase forms ever dreamed up by the twisted and fevered minds of word-disadvantaged business people, political people and, yes, even of a few (quite a few) media people.
      Its use must occur millions of times daily among the English-speaking peoples of the world, in both oral and printed ways -- and it's use should be banned, outlawed, condemned, eliminated, scourged, blown up (you name it); anything to get rid of it.
      The term of which I speak is going forward. Let me repeat that so as to avoid any possible misunderstanding. We must destroy GOING FORWARD.  We must kill Going Forward. We must devise jail terms and worse as penalties to be meted out to those public figures and writers and scribblers who continue to use the term "going forward." Because what's usually in the minds of those who use it is a great deal of directional confusion.  And it doesn't mean a damn thing, anyway.
      So, in the interests of promoting (in my own small way), intellectual clarity in public discourse, I hereby offer myself as a Charter Volunteer and Supporter of any organization that might bear a name like "The Holy Crusade to Condemn To Everlasting Hell And Perdition The Term  'Going Forward'  (or, THCTCTEHAPTTGF)."

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BOUNCING OFF THOSE CRAZY AND SOMETIMES VERY OMINOUS HEADLINES

      

      JUST WHEN WE WERE BEGINNING to think that a degree of calmness was moderating tensions in the Middle East, along comes our federal government with a decision to send an indeterminate number of additional forces to Iraq. We are, it seems, piling into a new war -- the one against Islamic State militants.
      Many Canadians will be wondering what on earth our government is doing. Our citizens will be forgiven for having thought that that war was over, and for believing that if the various Muslim groups in Iraq wish to continue battling it out amongst themselves, fine, it's their business. But no, we have to keep sticking our nose into other people's affairs, more or less copying the good old U.S.A.
      What, we must ask, is this all about? Could we be in a war of Christianity vs. Islam? Quite a few Muslims do ask that question. They will not find the answer to be a religious one. No, it's much simpler: It's about the oil, stupid, it's still about the oil. As a number of others have observed, there'd be much less fuss centred on the Middle East if the area happened to be the world's biggest supplier of Swiss chard, rather than of oil.

      ONE OF THE ODDEST HEADLINES of recent days was the following (from The Vancouver Sun of Sept. 11):  B.C. school shutdown has China 'concerned'.  At least, I found that headline odd. But, on reflection, I have to note that B.C. has, long since, opened its schools to other nations, taking non-Canadian students because they, or their parents, can pay big bucks for the privilege of obtaining Canadian learning.
      To which I can only respond: It's not all about learning for our kids, stupid, it's about marketing. Of course, it also does say something positive about the quality of our schooling.

      'MIXED FEELINGS' would have to be my answer if someone asked me for my view on the report that Canada, along with Germany, has balked at the demand by NATO (dominated by the U.S.) that member nations commit two per cent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to "defense" spending. I put the word defense in quotes, because it really isn't for defense, it's for war-making; I mean, who are we defending against? Is Russia going to attack us? Well, that's a pretty far-fetched notion . . . except that . . . what?
      My mixed feelings come from the fact that in balking at the proposed NATO commitment, Canada's Conservative government has my support. That's hard for me to say, though, because I'm not in favor of much else that the Tories stand for when it comes to "defense".
       Canada is currently spending (according to Postmedia News, Sept. 3, 2014) approximately $19 billion per year on the military (a paltry 1.3 per cent of GDP, says the U.S.). Which means outlays on great supplies of guns, bombs, aircraft, fliers, soldiers, sailors -- all expenditures that Canadians have to cough up in taxes. I'm sure such spending creates joy in the hearts of the people who own and run the international arms industry, but for me, well, it just turns my stomach.
      What worries me is that history has shown any nation spending this kind of money on armaments will be more inclined to use the force so purchased.

      BUT WAR CLOUDS DO SEEM TO BE FORMING "over there," in what seems a serious way.  What other interpretation can one place on the growing hostility being shown against Russia by "the west"? The European Union and NATO (which basically, I repeat, is the U.S.), applying "sanctions" against Russia does bring back certain precursors to war that the world has seen in the past.
      Does anyone remember the economic conflict between the U.S. and Japan that preceded the Second World War. I was around then and one thing I remember is disputation, before Japan went to war against the U.S., concerning scrap metal -- which Japan was buying up in a big way, from wherever it could find it. Some Americans said things like "they're building up a war machine."
      There was also the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity scheme Japan was promoting within its economic orbit, and which also upset American competitors.
      And so, again, today, we have economic events of a kind we've seen before. Are they forerunners to war? Stay tuned, folks, stay tuned. In such matters, things can get out of hand very quickly indeed.

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ON NEIL YOUNG -- AND ISAAC ASIMOV

                             
                LET'S HEAR IT FOR NEIL AND ISAAC 

      When I became aware of rock star Neil Young's recent criticism of Alberta's Athabasca tar sands projects, I could not help but think of an American science fiction writer who was also a professor of biochemistry -- and a leader in defense of the environment. His name was Isaac Asimov, and he lived from 1920 to 1992.

      Neil Young made headlines by labeling the Athabasca tar sands projects, in total, as a huge environmental disaster, declaring at the same time that they are crushing First Nation rights in the several regions involved.

      In touring the area "to see it for myself," Young (we're not related) likened the effects of the tar sands development to the devastation caused by the Second World War's U.S. nuclear bomb attacks on Japan.

      Young was not suggesting, as some of his critics try to hint, loss of life from the tar sands in any way resembling the scores and scores of thousands of Japanese killed by the American atomic bombs of World War Two. But he was saying that the Athabasca oil-development region looks as if it has been stricken by atomic explosions. And he suggested that the tar sands pose a distinct threat to human health in the tar sand regions, and possibly beyond.

      In issuing his dramatic warning about the continuing and growing dangers of the world-wide dependence on carbon-based energy, taking the tar sands as a prime example, I believe Young was acting as a sincere, prudent, and environmentally responsible citizen.


                FROM ATHABASCA TO WHAT FUTURE?

      The dependence to which he referred, we must note, is a dependence much beloved by the giant worldwide oil companies, and one we can expect them to promote and cultivate, even to the day there's little oil left.

      In discussing the Young story I want to state that it did not merely remind me of Isaac Asimov -- it also led me to search out and find, in a corner of my overloaded bookshelves, an old volume by that great man himself. It is a book that long ago showed where humanity was being led by governments and energy corporations.

      And, so, in support of Neil Young's case, I wish to review the Asimov book, especially one key chapter in it. (I urge the readers of this Blog to try to find a copy of the book -- in a public library, or a book store. My copy came from a 1998, Richmond, B.C., library book sale. Price: one dollar. Perhaps it was considered by local librarians to lag behind the times, and was therefore tossed into the discards for sale. But, as the reader will see, I look upon the book as being very much still with the times. It was one of the best dollars I've ever spent.)

      Prof. Asimov gave his book a slightly ominous title: "TODAY AND TOMORROW AND . . ."

      Published in 1973 by Doubleday & Co., the book is a compilation of many articles that had been previously printed in a variety of publications. The book is divided into two sections: Part One is entitled "Today" and covers the basics of biology, astronomy, chemistry and physics.  Part Two, which he headed "And Tomorrow," was divided into chapters covering space, the computer age, science fiction in the future -- plus a part labelled "On Earth."


                ISAAC'S KEY: LIMITING POPULATION

      I found the "On Earth" section to be the most arresting part of the book. In it, Asimov declares that the greatest threat facing humanity is the apparently never-ending increase in human population. And he does this in his own direct, clear-eyed style, and supplies plenty of science to support his findings.

      Prof. Asimov wrote this, remember, at a time when the world population was about 3.7 billion. In case you haven't looked at the figures recently, I can reliably report that we now have 7.2 billion humans on our globe (give or take a couple of million). This would sadden him greatly, I'm sure. He writes that in the environmentally best of all possible Earths, one billion people would be just fine, possibly even ideal. Much beyond that, though, he deplores as terribly dangerous for humanity.

      Prof. Asimov detailed some fascinating figures on, of all things, human tonnage. He said that if the current rate of population increase continues for 1,560 years (dating this from 1973, of course), by then the mass of humanity will be equal to the mass of the earth, which he placed at 6,600 billion billion tons (you read it right -- that's "billion," two times after 6,600, and you couldn't count that high if you could live without  food or sleep  for 200 normal lifetimes, counting one at a time).

      Such a human increase is, says Asimov, "Impossible." I will quote him directly as he expands on this. He describes certain fundamentals of the earth and its place in the universe.


                HERE' S THE NITTY-GRITTY

      "Let's search for a more realistic limit, then (Asimov wrote).  The total mass of living tissue on earth today is estimated to be something like 20 million million tons, and this cannot really incrrease as long as the basic energy source for life is sunlight.

      "Only so much sunlight reaches Earth; only so much of that sunlight can be used in photosynthesis; and therefore only so much new living plant tissue can be built up each year. This amount built up is balanced by the amount that is destroyed each year, either through spontaneous death or through consumption by animal life.

       "Animal life may be roughly estimated (Prof. Asimov continues) as one tenth the mass of plant life or about two million million tons the world over.  This cannot increase either, for if, for any reason, the total mass of animal life were to increase significantly, the mass of plants would be consumed faster than it could be replaced, as long as sunlight is only what it is. The food supply would decrease drastically and animals would die of starvation in sufficient numbers to reduce them to the proper level.

      "To be sure, the total mass of human life (Prof. Isamov's italics) has been increasing throughout history, but only at the expense of other forms of animal life.  Every additional ton of humanity has meant, as a matter of absolute necessity, one less ton of non-human animal life."

      But be quite certain, says Prof. Asimov -- something (my italics) will happen before we get to the state of impossibly dense population levels the globe over (all 200,000,000 square miles of it). Except that we can't make it that far, he implies, not nearly that far.  He concludes that humanity is unlikely to avert some sort of disaster, as it keeps growing to ultimately immense numbers, unless humanity achieves international cooperation in reducing births. I'll repeat that: Disaster! Unless we achieve international cooperation in reducing births.


                WARMING UP IS THE SUBJECT
   
      But that is not all -- there are other problems.  Energy, for instance.  More people means that more energy is needed.  Yet, more energy means more pollution, does it not? More pollution means more greenhouse gas, thus eventual overheating of the planet. Will that be overheating to the point of human extinction? Will we be able to overcome the negative elements of conflicting cultural, regional, religious and national interests on birth-control?

      Prof. Asimov, by my study of his writings, and on the basis of his scientific facts, figures that if we keep carrying on the way we've been doing, population-wise, then we've got about 400 years left as the dominant creature on Earth. Unless . . . something . . . is done . . . to slow down population growth -- with its accompanying huge, increasing demand for such things, don't forget, as tar sands oil.

      I believe we are all indebted to the late, great Prof. Asimov for his contribution to human understanding of an existential threat. And we are obliged to Neil Young, for standing up to the environmentally-challenged federal government and its corporate buddies on the tar sands issue.

      We wish Neil Young and his supporters good luck, and hope their work will encourage Canada and the rest of the world to find and develop cleaner, safer alternatives to the ultimate disasters lurking in carbon-based energy.

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