Today I put my first entry in to win one billion dollars. Yes, you read that right. One billion dollars. The contest is sponsored by Pepsi, which gives you an idea of how much money these soft drink companies make. I hate the stuff myself, but my wife likes a Diet Pepsi now and then, so I can get the pieces necessary to enter.
(Yes, it's true, Pepsi: I don't like your beverage. I hate Coke too. Not only do I not like the soft drinks of you and your competitor, I hate the way you both have steamrollered your way into being global beverages, how you buy up local brands of soft drinks around the world, how you suck up the increasingly scarce water supply in so many poor countries, how you fill our children with sugar and caffeine, I hate your asinine lifestyle advertising that wants us to believe that drinking Pepsi will make our lives better. No, I don't like you. Nevertheless, according to the law, none of this should have any bearing on my eligibility for your sweepstakes, and if I win your billion I'll take it. And if I don't win it and somehow evidence leaks that you blackballed my entries because I publicly declared my loathing your shit-brown sugar water, I'll sue you for ten billion bucks.)
Oops! Did I write that? Oh my God, I didn't mean it! For a billion bucks, I'll do anything. I'll even drink a Pepsi live on international TV, giving a smiling, satisfied burp afterward. I'll bathe in it, I'll name my firstborn Pepsi, I'll swim 500 laps in a pool filled with it, I'll wear Pepsi-labeled clothes 24/7, I'll live on nothing but Pepsi for the rest of my days. Just please please please give me a chance. I really need that billion dollars to pay off my credit card debt.
Just kidding. You decide which of the above two paragraphs I'm just kidding about.
I'm sure you're dying to know how you can get your own shot at a billion dollars. Just go to www.BillionSweeps.com to find out. The billion is to be given away on live television in the fall...it is not yet clear as to what indignities the final contestants will have to subject themselves.
A billion dollars! When I was a kid, there was a TV game show called "The $10,000 Pyramid," and that was a big deal. Then the prizes went up to $100,000. Then came "Who Wants To Be a Millionaire," though even a million bucks wasn't rich enough for me to take being in the presence of Regis Philbin for even thirty seconds. And now someone is giving away a billion dollars. Talk about inflation.
Thursday, May 08, 2003
Monday, May 05, 2003
William Bennett, Public Moralist, Craps Out
I see in an article in Newsweek Online and in the Washington Monthly Online that William Bennett, the tsk-tsking, finger-wagging conservative moralist, author of The Book of Virtue and The Death of Outrage, has a little gambling problem.
No, make that a BIG gambling problem, with losses estimated by casinos at over eight million dollars over the past decade. Last July 12, he dropped $340,000 at Caesars in Atlantic City, and just a month ago gave up half a million bucks at the Bellagio in Las Vegas. Over one two month stretch, he wired a casino 1.4 million dollars to cover his losses. The play this high-minded public intellectual evidently favors is the most mindless sort of gambling: $500 a pull slot machines and video poker machines.
Although he has built his career on castigating people for giving into their weaknesses and society for coddling them, Bennett sees no problem with his gambling. When asked about it, he spouts responses that are astounding for either their hypocrisy or their self-delusion: “I’ve gambled all my life, and it’s never been a moral issue with me. I liked church bingo when I was growing up....I view it as drinking; if you can’t handle it, don’t do it."
Though casino records show his substantial losses over the years, Bennett perceives himself as a winner: “I’ve made a lot of money and I’ve won a lot of money....Over 10 years, I’d say I’ve come out pretty close to even....You may cycle several hundred thousand dollars in an evening and net out only a few thousand.”
And there is nothing wrong with sitting in front of a slot machine between midnight and 6am 'cycling' several hundred thousand dollars? Says Bennett: “I play fairly high stakes. I adhere to the law. I don’t play the ‘milk money.’ I don’t put my family at risk, and I don’t owe anyone anything.” In other words, he's falling back on the same "it gives me pleasure and it's not hurting anyone else" arguements that he has so scathingly condemned in other people and for other vices.
Well, I have good news for you, Mr. Bennett. Outrage is not dead. I do not care that you gamble. I am, however, outraged at your hypocrisy. You devote your days to criticizing people for actions you deem immoral. You have devoted your career to shaping public policy to penalize those who don't conform to your biases. Nevertheless, you choose to spend your nights wallowing in what many thoughtful people consider and many academic studies show to be a socially harmful activity.
I also consider your waste of money to be shameful. It doesn't matter that you are wealthy enough that your vice does not threaten the "milk money," as you put it. It does not matter that you give some of your occasional winnings to charity, as you claim. It happens to be possible to gamble for several hours without cycling through hundreds of thousands of dollars. Perhaps you aren't aware that there are slot machines you can play for less than five hundred dollars a pull. With this nonchalant and unnecessarily profligate gambling away of millions of dollars, you demonstrate an arrogant and willful disdain toward the financial situation of the overwhelming majority of people on the planet. This further destroys your credibility as moral spokesman.
I think Bill Bennett's income needs to be subject to a 90% tax bracket. He clearly has too much money, and it might as well be put to better use.
No, make that a BIG gambling problem, with losses estimated by casinos at over eight million dollars over the past decade. Last July 12, he dropped $340,000 at Caesars in Atlantic City, and just a month ago gave up half a million bucks at the Bellagio in Las Vegas. Over one two month stretch, he wired a casino 1.4 million dollars to cover his losses. The play this high-minded public intellectual evidently favors is the most mindless sort of gambling: $500 a pull slot machines and video poker machines.
Although he has built his career on castigating people for giving into their weaknesses and society for coddling them, Bennett sees no problem with his gambling. When asked about it, he spouts responses that are astounding for either their hypocrisy or their self-delusion: “I’ve gambled all my life, and it’s never been a moral issue with me. I liked church bingo when I was growing up....I view it as drinking; if you can’t handle it, don’t do it."
Though casino records show his substantial losses over the years, Bennett perceives himself as a winner: “I’ve made a lot of money and I’ve won a lot of money....Over 10 years, I’d say I’ve come out pretty close to even....You may cycle several hundred thousand dollars in an evening and net out only a few thousand.”
And there is nothing wrong with sitting in front of a slot machine between midnight and 6am 'cycling' several hundred thousand dollars? Says Bennett: “I play fairly high stakes. I adhere to the law. I don’t play the ‘milk money.’ I don’t put my family at risk, and I don’t owe anyone anything.” In other words, he's falling back on the same "it gives me pleasure and it's not hurting anyone else" arguements that he has so scathingly condemned in other people and for other vices.
Well, I have good news for you, Mr. Bennett. Outrage is not dead. I do not care that you gamble. I am, however, outraged at your hypocrisy. You devote your days to criticizing people for actions you deem immoral. You have devoted your career to shaping public policy to penalize those who don't conform to your biases. Nevertheless, you choose to spend your nights wallowing in what many thoughtful people consider and many academic studies show to be a socially harmful activity.
I also consider your waste of money to be shameful. It doesn't matter that you are wealthy enough that your vice does not threaten the "milk money," as you put it. It does not matter that you give some of your occasional winnings to charity, as you claim. It happens to be possible to gamble for several hours without cycling through hundreds of thousands of dollars. Perhaps you aren't aware that there are slot machines you can play for less than five hundred dollars a pull. With this nonchalant and unnecessarily profligate gambling away of millions of dollars, you demonstrate an arrogant and willful disdain toward the financial situation of the overwhelming majority of people on the planet. This further destroys your credibility as moral spokesman.
I think Bill Bennett's income needs to be subject to a 90% tax bracket. He clearly has too much money, and it might as well be put to better use.
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