Casinos not just for gambling, your honor
Idea of ruling out beverages, food, entertainment unrealistic
One of the most impressive casinos in the country outside of Las Vegas or Atlantic City is right here in the Chicago area.
On a traffic-free day, it takes about 20-25 minutes to go from downtown to the beautiful and spacious Horseshoe Casino Hammond. They've got more than 350,000 feet of gaming space, incorporating some 3,200 slot machines, nearly 100 table games and the best poker room this side of the Bellagio.
If you prefer to do your gaming in Illinois, you can frequent casinos in Elgin, Aurora or Joliet, among other locales. (The Empress in Joliet reopened last summer, three months after a major fire.)
As someone who enjoys the occasional (cough-cough) gambling excursion, I've never felt deprived because we don't have a casino in Chicago. I guess it would be cool if they had a poker room at the Stretch Run OTB or if I could take a five-minute walk to a venue where they have blackjack and craps, but it's not as if you have to make a major trip if you feel the urge to play roulette or the slots. Hop in the car, take a nice drive to Hammond or Joliet or Elgin, and you can gamble away until you make a fortune or until your luck or your money runs out.
It seems like every few years for the last 20 years, there's another round of talks about casino gambling in Chicago. It's up for discussion once again. In a taped interview that aired on WBBM-AM on Sunday, Mayor Daley said he wouldn't rule out a land-based casino in Chicago.
"The last time I proposed it, [then-Gov. Blagojevich] said he was 'morally opposed' to it," said Daley. "He was legally and morally for it, then he became morally and legally against it."
Daley said if there is a casino in Chicago, it should be for gambling only: "You don't want a casino to hurt all your restaurants. You want a casino only to be a casino -- not for food and beverages . . . you go there for one reason, to gamble."
He's dead wrong on that one.
A sizable percentage of Vegas visitors don't go there for the gambling -- they make the trip for the shopping, the dining experiences, the nightclubs, Cirque Du Soleil, concerts, etc., etc. Even most of the Midwest casinos have at least one nice steakhouse. If you're going to finally build a casino in Chicago, it should be a full-service deal, with a huge gaming floor, an entertainment arena, two or three good restaurants, a couple of bars. It would be a major mistake to build a no-frills casino.
If you're going to do it, do it right.
Not that casinos are financial cure-alls for cities. Just ask the residents of Detroit.
As for the moral issue of gambling: I've said it before and I'm saying it again: I don't see how it's morally acceptable to have racetracks and lotteries, but it's somehow "wrong" if you have video poker, blackjack, slots and roulette.
In the "X-Men" stories, Rogue is a mutant who is blessed/cursed with the ability to absorb the characteristics of anyone she touches. She was given the nickname of Rogue when she ran away from home.
From Merriam-Webster, the multiple definitions of rogue as a noun:
1. Vagrant; tramp.
2. A dishonest or worthless person: scoundrel.
3. A mischievous person: scamp.
4. A horse inclined to shirk or misbehave.
5. An individual exhibiting a chance and usually inferior biological variation.
As an adjective:
1. Resembling or suggesting a rogue elephant especially in being isolated, aberrant, dangerous or uncontrollable.
2. Corrupt, dishonest (rogue cops).
3. Of or being a nation whose leaders defy international law or norms of international behavior (rogue states).
So when Sarah Palin titled her book Going Rogue, which definition do you think she was going for?
OK, so I'm not a fan of Palin's. That said, every time I see Levi Johnston on "Entertainment Tonight" or some other show, talking about posing for Playgirl or revealing another "shocking secret" about the Palin family, I'm thinking:
I wish this kid would shut up, man up, go back home and help out with his child.
Lindsay Lohan, on Twitter:
"My father is a lunatic . . ."
Do we even need to read any further?
The only thing sadder than a broken family is a broken family that publicly airs all their pain and misery.