The Perdido Key Disaster

For the second time in two days, we read that gambling venues are multiplying in Pensacola.

First, Escambia County commissioners approved setting up poker rooms at the dog track. It's just to keep the jobs, don'cha know.

Now, a Texas developer has announced he's partnered with the "Perdido Bay Tribe of Lower Muscogee Creek Indians" to build "a first-class bingo facility and resort" exceeding anything from here to Biloxi.

"Perdido Key Tribe of Lower Muscogee Indians?" Who knew?

If they haven't already, you can be sure enterprising local developers will soon stumble across descendants of a hitherto unknown knot of Native Americans, probably to be called something like the "Sabine Bay Band of West Santa Rosa Island Apalachicola" Indians. Frightened away by Tristan de Luna's expedition, it may be explained, they fled their native homeland, which we now call Pensacola Beach, before a lawful treaty could be negotiated.

"Compensation must be paid!" will be the scream. "How about a casino boat off Quietwater Pier?" will be the settlement proposal.

We don't want to be a Cassandra, but though our Indian story is fanciful it sure looks inevitable that Pensacola Beach residents will soon, again, be facing a referendum on legalizing casino gambling in Escambia County. Over the past decade we've seen at least two of those on ballots that we can remember, and the state narrowly missed a third.

Expect a new, well-financed campaign to authorize casino gambling in barrier island communities like Pensacola Beach. Greed will be the driving force, of course. It always is. But fear of another Great Depression will be the public argument pushed by gambling proponents.

Such is the history of gambling in America. As a California revenue department study observed a few years ago:

The great depression led to a much greater legalization of gambling. The antigambling mood changed as tremendous financial distress gripped the country, especially after the stock market crash of 1929. Legalized gambling was looked upon as a way to stimulate the economy.

Indeed, Las Vegas practically owes its existence to the Great Depression. As Thomas Barker and Marjie Britz wrote in their book Jokers Wild: Legalized Gambling in the Twenty-first Century
(Praeger 2000) --

In 1931 the Nevada legislature, reacting to the effects of the Great Depression and the decline in the price of silver, passed two revenue-generating devices.*** Gambling proponents argued that the taxes would bring in sorely needed revenue and reduce property taxes. *** The "Wide Open Gambling Law" started the modern era of legalized gambling in the United States.

Personally, our objections to gambling on Pensacola Beach have nothing to do with religion or morality. It wouldn't matter if they did. Along with the excesses of Wall Street and consumerism run wild, the past twenty years have seen such a proliferation of government sponsored lotteries and other forms of legalized gambling -- from bingo halls and race tracks to on-line gambling and casinos -- that most folk don't have far to walk to find some place to throw away their money.

Our objections are rooted mostly in concerns about maintaining the environmental sustainability of our fragile island paradise, the heightened risk of public official corruption that inevitably follows legalized gambling, the certainty that desperate poor people will become even more vulnerable to exploitation, and the increased vulgarization of American culture.

Widespread gambling inevitably cheapens an entire community. If you doubt it, visit Atlantic City. Or, Perdido Key in a couple of years.

As for Pensacola Beach, open gambling and the tourist theme of a "family friendly beach" are wholly incompatible. But that won't stop certain interests from arguing otherwise as the local economy deteriorates and more shops, restaurants, and businesses close.

Beach residents need to begin organizing, now, to have any hope of avoiding the same kind of disaster that is about to befall Perdido Key.

Jim Paul: 'Champion of Travel'

Intrepid investigative journalist Michael Stewart reports in today's Pensacola News Journal that disgraced school superintendent Jim Paul has been racking up more out-of-state conference trips -- and expenses -- than any other school chief in Northwest Florida. In fact, "Paul spent more money on travel than the five other superintendents combined."

Since January of last year, Escambia County School Superintendent Jim Paul has spent 66 days away from work attending 17 professional conferences — an average of one trip every three weeks.
* * *
[A]n examination of Paul's travel records last year compared to members of the Escambia School Board and five other Florida school superintendents shows he is the champion of travel.

Paul's defense seems to be that Pensacola is such a backwater burg, who wouldn't want to escape it for a little lobbying action elsewhere? He told the News Journal, "We live in Pensacola on the edge of Alabama. Nobody comes here."

Tell that to the tourist bureau.

This latest bamboozle is about as convincing as the excuses Jim Paul put on offer after being arrested on drunk driving charges. Especially when you notice that so many of the cities he 'conferenced' at -- Boston, Las Vegas, Tampa, and New Orleans, among others -- happen to be within easy driving distance of gambling casinos.

On the other hand, maybe he just needs a lot of parking lot naps.

The Dead Yeltsin Pool

In 1995 Boris Yeltsin fell ill and underwent a second heart operation. For weeks and weeks he hovered on the brink of death, his every (not very sober) breath the subject of breathless worldwide news bulletins.

A cynical cadre of Pensacola trivia buffs tired of the constant media attention. They started among themselves a "Dead Yeltsin Pool." For one dollar you could buy a number from 1 to 31. Winner take all -- the proceeds went to the one who bought the exact day of the month Yeltsin finally died.

Sick? Undoubtedly. Iconoclastic? Yes. Disrespectful of human life? Perhaps, but unintentionally so.

The Dead Yeltsin Pool calendar was circulated among patrons of Damon's, then a local sports bar and one of the first venues where NTN Trivia could be played. The restaurant manager held the calendar of bets and the money. Relying on media reports, everyone assumed Yeltsin would die soon.

But he didn't. Instead, he lived on and on and on and on.

In the intervening years, one president was impeached. Another should have been. The U.S. started an imperialist war and can't figure out how to end it. Damons' Pensacola manager quit once, was rehired, and quit again. Damon's itself eventually closed. A new and fancier restaurant, without the distraction of electronic trivia games, took its place. NTN Trivia changed its name to the awful-sounding, cacophonous "Buzztime." The gambling trivia buffs scattered to new restaurant venues from Pensacola to Destin. The 1995 U.S. dollar fell to about 67 cents.

And now, sad to say, Yeltsin has died. On April 23.

We want our money.