Tom Keane

Nothing to write home about

The Fortnight That Wasn't

HOLLYWOOD WRITERS went on strike, shutting down or sharply curtailing production of many popular television shows and movies. The action-adventure show "24" was cut to "6," "Heroes" was temporarily reduced to "Hero," and late-night talk shows had to be conducted largely in pantomime. more stories like this As the work stoppage spread into its second week, fallout from the strike intensified. "We rely on these writers to provide the clever banter and repartee one then hears repeated the next day around the water cooler," said one analyst in comments that appeared to have been scripted by a scab. Office workers told tales of having to endure stale conversations about the weather and the antics of co-workers' children. "It's terrible, I know," said one woman after recounting an incident involving her 3-year-old and a mashed banana, "but without the writers feeding me material, I really have nothing else to say."

In Pakistan, dictator General Pervez Musharraf declared a state of emergency, placed opposition leader Benazir Bhutto under house arrest, and announced that he was ready to hold elections. Musharraf said that final returns from the elections would show him with 90 percent of the vote, but that out of respect for the "democratic process" he would not formally release the results until after the elections were held in January.

President Nicolas Sarkozy of France made his first visit to the White House and was warmly greeted by President Bush as the two leaders announced the two nations were once again fast friends. Caught up in the excitement, congressional leaders renamed freedom fries back to french fries, the National Park Service announced Boston's Freedom Trail would now be called the French Trail, and executors of Janis Joplin's estate released a redubbed version of her most famous lyric, "French is just another word for nothing left to lose."

In Washington, an emboldened Congress overrode Bush's veto of a $23 billion water bill that the White House said was stuffed with unnecessary projects. Democrats said the override - the first ever in Bush's seven-year-tenure - proved their mettle. "When it comes to matters of pork," said Senate majority leader Harry Reid, "we're not going to let this president push us around."

In campaign news, Republican Mitt Romney said he had decided against giving a Kennedy-esque speech explaining that he wouldn't allow faith to interfere with his secular responsibilities as president. "It turns out that it just wouldn't be true," he explained. "I and every other GOP candidate will do everything we can to kowtow to the religious right - and that's certainly not going to stop if one of us is elected president."

Retailers began advertising for Christmas immediately after Halloween in what may be the earliest start ever to the holiday shopping season. "This isn't about us," said a spokesperson for the National Retail Federation. "This is about giving Christians more time to contemplate the birth of their savior than they would get if we only allowed them the traditional four weeks."

After drought conditions reached critical levels, Governor Sonny Purdue of Georgia designated Nov. 13 a statewide day of prayer for rain. Purdue said he was sure God would deliver and was surprised the technique had never been used before. "We next plan to ask him to solve the state's budget shortfall," he said. "In fact, I'm real surprised the folks in Louisiana didn't ask him to stop that hurricane and I can't figure out why the president just didn't ask him to put WMDs in Iraq. After all, he's God - there's really nothing he can't do."

In local news, the business community cheered plans by the Red Sox to raise ticket prices for the 2008 season by 9 percent. "No matter what the price, it's difficult for our members to obtain tickets," said an official with the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce. "Our hope is that this newest increase will shake some loose from all of those families with kids that are taking up the seats we need."

And finally, the ousted head of the Boston Public Library, Bernard Margolis, slammed Mayor Thomas Menino as "anti-intellectual." Menino said that wasn't true but that it would have been nice if Margolis had let the library buy more books with pictures.

Published on November 18, 2007. "The Fortnight That Wasn't" appears every other week on the op-ed page of The Boston Sunday Globe.

Bad Bet

The governor's estimates on casino revenue fail to account for one big issue: other states have cards they've yet to play.

"Together we can" has somehow morphed into "place your bets here," as casino gambling now threatens to become Governor Deval Patrick's signature issue. One can understand why: The lure of hundreds of millions of new state dollars would make any free-spending pol salivate. Yet the whole thing is an illusion, a combination of wishful thinking and bad economics.

I don't say this because of some moral compunction. I once played bingo in a church hall and since I don't want to be thought a hypocrite, I've fallen down that slippery slope of believing that if people want to play slots or spin a roulette wheel, then they should be allowed to. And frankly, unless you've never bet in a sports pool, bought a lottery ticket, or taken a bus ride to Foxwoods, you're in the same position as me. As the old joke goes, we know what kind of people we are. Now we're just haggling over price.

And the price certainly seems right. The governor estimates three new casinos will bring in between $1.5 billion and $2 billion a year. In turn, the state hopes to collect as much as $900 million in upfront fees and possibly another $450 million annually - perhaps $5.4 billion over 10 years. Think of it as a sales tax, a stunningly high one that skims off one-third of the casinos' revenues. It sounds great, but there's a fatal flaw: Massachusetts thinks its casinos will have a monopoly. In fact, it will be just one of many competitors.

Start with this observation: Our capacity to gamble is not unlimited. In fact, it appears we already may be close to it. That explains why lottery sales are stagnant and why, despite heavy advertising, gaming revenues at the five existing New England casinos grew less than 2 percent (after inflation) from 2005 to 2006. (Indeed, imagine the outcry if the governor said that his scheme depended on persuading people who never gamble to now pick up the habit!) So where will the $1.5 billion to $2 billion in casino revenues come from? Some will come from the lottery, as those playing Keno or MegaMillions switch allegiances to slot machines. That's not new money, of course. It's just spent in a different venue.

But, casino advocates argue, there is a source of new money: Massachusetts residents who now gamble out of state. UMass-Dartmouth professor Clyde Barrow estimates that Bay Staters in 2006 spent about $1.1 billion gambling in Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Maine. Once we build our own casinos, runs the thinking, we'll no longer "lose" that money to other states.

Really? Does anyone seriously believe that Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun will sit idly by while a vast chunk of their business disappears? As the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation pointed out recently, like any good competitor, they'll fight back. They'll drop room rates, improve entertainment, and spruce up the buffet tables. Most important, they - and the states they're in - will be compelled to offer gamblers better odds. Think about it. If I were the state of Connecticut, and I saw that gamblers from Massachusetts were no longer crossing my borders, here's what I would do: I'd cut the amount I was skimming so that more of it could end up in my patrons' pockets. You see where this goes. Massachusetts would eventually have to follow suit. Meanwhile, other states - upset at "their" residents going to Massachusetts to gamble - would also start to add new casinos. New Hampshire, in fact, is already talking about it.

It's called competition. It's good for consumers, driving prices down (or, in the case of gaming, winnings up). But it means that revenues won't be as high as the governor hopes and profits - that is, the amount the state can skim off - will be a lot less. My guess is that, over time, our casinos will start to look like most other businesses, generating some jobs and some economic growth, but nothing exceptional. That's been the experience in the rest of the country, as persuasively documented in a 2005 study by Phineas Baxandall and Bruce Sacerdote from Harvard's Kennedy School. Perhaps we'll look somewhat like Arizona, where casinos generate almost $2 billion in revenue while the state collects $92 million, or about 5 percent. That's not pocket change, to be sure. But this notion of gambling magically paying for property tax relief and rebuilding our infrastructure? No way. It's as real as the jackpot dreams that crowd casino floors.

Originally published in The Boston Globe Magazine, November 11, 2007.

Fired Up

The fortnight that wasn't

CATASTROPHIC WILDFIRES in Southern California threatened the homes of dozens of celebrities, forcing many to evacuate their mansions and take refuge in Holiday Inns and other chain hotels. Actors told tales of eating mediocre hotel food, sharing hot tubs with families and children, and being forced to endure rooms decorated with Thomas Kinkade prints. "When something like this happens, it really brings people together," said one Hollywood star. "You begin to realize that we're almost the same as everyone else."

Meanwhile, having learned its lessons from Hurricane Katrina, the Federal Emergency Management Agency moved rapidly to provide assistance to those affected by the fires, delivering 10,000 inflatable boats and more than a million sandbags to the drought-stricken desert area.

For its part, the Modern Language Association said it was linguistically pleased with the rapid proliferation of the fires. "We have a crisis in clichés in America," said a spokesperson. "For example, 'to eat like a bird' doesn't make sense because birds eat up to one-half of their body weight daily. 'The sky's the limit" isn't true since we've been to the moon. But as it turns out, wildfires, well, they really do spread like wildfire."

In world news, the United Nations voted unanimously to take immediate action on global warming after news reports that autumn leaves in Vermont was significantly less colorful than in previous years. "Things like extreme weather, the melting of the polar ice caps, and a rise in worldwide temperatures seem pretty much removed from our everyday lives," said a UN spokesperson. "But a crisis in foliage touches us all."

In Washington, an FDA advisory panel recommended banning cough and cold medications to children under 6 since the medications are almost completely ineffective. However, the panel said that, while the drugs are worthless, research appeared to support claims that parental kisses of boo-boos to make them "all better" still work wonders.

On the campaign trail, Republicans assailed Hillary Clinton for saying that, while she had many ideas, the nation couldn't afford to pay for them all. The GOP candidates promised that, unlike Clinton, they would make the nation pay for every idea they had. However, they added, since they anticipated they would have very few ideas, the country nevertheless would be able to afford them all.

As polls continued to show Clinton with a strong lead, rival Democratic candidates started to attack her personally, accusing her of "double talk" and challenging her ethics, honesty, and sincerity. The men pledged their harsh critiques would continue unabated until Clinton won the nomination, at which point they would take it all back and say that she clearly was a paragon of virtue and the best person possible to lead the nation for the next four years.

In local news, Boston held a massive political rally Tuesday, a week in advance of elections for City Council. A parade of candidates made their way from Kenmore Square to City Hall, carried atop duck boats and passing through hundreds of thousands of cheering spectators. "This is the most exciting thing I've ever seen," said one onlooker as she reached across a barricade trying to touch the candidates' outstretched hands. Secretary of State William Galvin said he estimated voter turnout would be at record levels because of the extraordinary importance the upcoming election had for the future of the city.

Motorists from the South Shore said they were amazed by almost nonexistent traffic during rush hours after Wednesday's opening of the Greenbush commuter rail line. "It's like I'm on an empty country road," marveled one commuter driving south on Interstate 93 at 5:00 pm. "I now feel so embarrassed to have ever doubted the wisdom of spending a half-billion dollars just so a few hundred people a day could ride the train into the city from their beachfront homes in Cohasset and Hingham."

And finally, after the New England Patriots beat the Washington Redskins by a lopsided score of 52-7, the National Football League asked coach Bill Belichick to resume illegally filming opposing teams' defensive calls. "Our hope is that once the Patriots begin cheating again, perhaps they'll lose a game," said a league official, "or at least cut down on their victory margins."

Published on November 4, 2007. "The Fortnight That Wasn't" appears every other week on the op-ed page of The Boston Sunday Globe.