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All opinions are those of The Republican Gazette and its editor, Gary Abernathy, except letters or commentary signed by others, and do not reflect the views of anyone else, including clients of Abernathy Strategies.
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Having Fun
With Mojo
Why I have an
official photographer!
Hey kids! Mojo here! Today I want to explain the importance of having a professional photographer! See those two pictures at the right? They were both taken at the same event last week -- a Kanawha Valley Senior Services picnic!
But the top picture was not taken by my official photographer! And you sure can tell! Notice that the people I'm talking to don't seem very happy with me, and I don't seem happy with them! Plus, my tie looks like a divining rod that just found water!
But look at the picture on the bottom! My personal photographer did take that picture! Everybody is smiling and happy to see me, my tie is in place, and I look happy, too!
That's why I need my own photographer! Any questions?
The NBA, gambling, & WV table games
As a lifelong NBA fan, the recent allegations of an NBA referee helping shave points has brought a barrage of comments and questions my way from friends who have never shared my love of pro hoops.
Always looking for a way to toss another insult at my beloved sport, the charge that NBA ref Tim Donaghy may be guilty of affecting the point spread of NBA games to get himself out of hock to mobsters in the gambling racket only provides more fodder to anti-NBA types who need little excuse to lambast the play-for-pay cagers (cagers -- there's a term that dates me).
When you have a lifelong love affair as I have had with the NBA, nothing will quench that flame. And frankly, I have never been an NBA fan because of who wins and who loses.
To me, the NBA is a Jerry West jumpshot off the dribble, an Oscar Robertson fadeaway from the foul line, a Wilt Chamberlain finger roll, or a Bill Russell block. It's a Julius "Dr. J" Erving fly-to-the-hoop, with ball in one hand power jam, a Kareem Abdul-Jabbar sky hook, a Larry Bird in-your-face three-pointer, a Magic Johnson no-look pass, a Shaquille O'Neal power dunk.
Frankly, the winners and losers in the NBA are secondary to the athletes and the moments. There are years when I cheer for one team or another, but other years -- like the season just completed -- where I could really care less who won. I just love watching the games.
All of this is not to say the allegations that a referee was on the take are not important. They are hugely important. But pay attention -- the allegation is not that the ref was deciding who won or lost; the allegation is that he was making sure some teams "beat the spread," which is only important to gamblers.
In other words, if the betting line going into a game says the Lakers should beat the Suns by four points, gamblers can win big if the Lakers actually win by more or less than that, depending on which way they bet. The outcome is the same in the win-loss column, but hundreds of thousands of dollars are made or lost on the margin of victory.
Vegas betting lines exist for all sports -- baseball, football, hockey, basketball and many others. Beating the spread has become a game aside from the actual game, and it is this wholly unhealthy side-game that has opened up all sports --- but especially basketball because of how important every official's call can be -- to chicanery.
College basketball has already endured a couple of notorious point-shaving scandals, all involving players who were in the clutches of gamblers. A great book called "Hawk" about former star Connie Hawkins offers a wonderfully detailed account of how gamblers get their claws
Capito says she'll be voting 'no' on table games
Congresswoman Shelley Moore Capito participated Monday night in a "town hall" forum by telephone with constituents in the Second District, and one of the questions she fielded was in regard to the upcoming table games vote in Kanawha County.
Capito didn't dodge the question, and replied that she, as an individual, would be voting against allowing table games at Tri-State Racetrack.
into poorly educated, impoverished youngsters. (Hawkins was banned from the NBA during his prime years until he was cleared of involvement in the point shaving scandal in college basketball in the early 1960s.)
So what we have reinforced more than anything with the Donaghy case is that gambling leads to more misery, more corruption, and more societal destruction than just about anything else in modern life.
And so it is with overwhelming sadness that we witness some of our most high-profile leaders practically begging voters to approve the addition of table games to state racetracks. The justification is jobs and the economy.
"I'm waiting for someone else to come up with a plan to create 1,000 new jobs," says one high-profile advocate, as though anything that creates new jobs is therefore justified. Why don't we just open up a cocaine factory? Jobs galore, and customers waiting in line.
Of course, the plan to create 1,000 new jobs -- or 100,000 new jobs -- is already on the table. It's called getting government out of the way, immediately ending repressive business taxes, and following the model established by states like Tennessee to truly become open for business. So far, West Virginia and its political leaders want no part of that. They want table games.
Gambling and its addictions are not the stuff of fiction. The two go hand in hand like seven come eleven. Mia Moran-Cooper has bluntly spelled out the efforts by the state Lottery to downplay and dismiss the growing issue of problem gamblers. How many families torn apart by a father or mother's gambling addiction is worth the expansion of gambling, even if it creates a million new jobs?
The NBA will suffer a public relations problem as the Tim Donaghy case moves forward. But Donaghy will be a tragic human story -- a father and husband who lost his integrity, his respect, his family and his profession because of his addiction to gambling. How many jobs does it take to make up for that?
Unger tries to claim answer from state ethics board before GOP complaint was even filed
John Unger is apparently trying to claim a favorable opinion from the state ethics commission on a complaint by the West Virginia Republican Party -- even before the party filed its complaint.
Unger reportedly released this week a statement from Lew Brewer, exec director of the state ethics commission, telling Unger that filing
an amended financial disclosure statement "would not meaningfully change" what Unger had previously filed. Unger is claiming some sort of vindication.
The letter from Brewer is dated July 16, according to the websites carrying Unger's water. The WVGOP complaint against Unger was not even mailed until July 17. Go figure.
