Sure, we want slots. Why not? According to the poll this newspaper commissioned, nearly six out of 10 Marylanders who can vote in the fall say, sure, slot machines - let's get about 15,000 of them and set them up from the Allegheny Mountains to the Eastern Shore. What the hell? We've been talking about this since the last time the Orioles made the playoffs - yeah, that long - and the issue is not going away. The suits who shoot their cuffs when they walk into a room won't stop until they have what they want, and neither will their duly elected accomplices in Annapolis.
So, slots.
Sure.
Why not? If it means an end to the debate, we're fine with it.
Look, I gave up the fight a couple of years ago, out of boredom more than anything else. You get sick of hearing the same old arguments all the time, and I heard them in three media - print, radio and television.
Plus, there's a certain inevitability about slots - you know it when you see it, and I've seen it coming for several years.
Against what doctors recommend for middle-aged white American males in the era of George Bush, I remain an idealist. I actually think we're going to lick global warming, and I firmly believe the Orioles will make the playoffs again while Peter Angelos owns them.
But on the subject of slot machine gambling - a precursor to full-fledged casinos, including one in Baltimore, with the highest concentration of poverty in the state - I am as cynical as the mangiest, pasty-faced blogger in the blogosphere.
In Matthew 26:11, it says, "For you always have the poor with you." I would like to add the following: "And the forces of gambling and greed right there alongside 'em."
According to polling data, attitudes have shifted in recent years - from a majority disapproving of slots in The Land of Pleasant Living to a majority saying OK.
The guy who does the polling for this newspaper wants to attribute that shift to Bobby Slots, the former Republican governor, Robert Ehrlich, who talked slots until he was blue in the face and his sideburns disappeared.
Of course, Bobby Slots didn't get want he wanted - neither slots nor re-election - but he made the point, ad nauseum, that revenue from them was necessary for the survival of horse racing in Maryland.
Sorry, I don't give Bobby Slots credit for convincing us slots are necessary.
Voters are just tired of the issue - and cynical about the inevitability of more gambling here.
