THE LOTTERY
Shirley Jackson's great short story was one of the highlights of my American Lit class. Until grade school teachers started stealing my thunder and teaching it in middle schools. It wasn't a wise choice on their part for the story deals with some maturation issues that only come with life experiences. Plus, it ruined it for my class.
Other lotteries such as State Lotteries for big bucks and big losses are for suckers. No one wins, except the states and we all know how honest they are. "We'll use the money from lottery tickets to fund education to the level that we couldn't afford without the lottery," is what Illinoisans were sold before instituting its gambling wild shot in the dark games three decades ago. Did the state see an increase in education spending? Nope. If they indeed used money for education from lottery sales, then they took away an equal or more amount from the general fund.
Now we are coming to the end of brackets and another NCAA basketball tourney. Only 4 teams remain. When 16 remained there were only 12 people out of nearly 5 million who had correctly selected the top 16 and submitted their choices to Fox Sports. I wonder how many of those 12 are still in the running? Is it a lottery? Kind of.
I heard of a place in Illinois where for $9,500 you could place a bet on one of the top seeds to win the tourney. The pay off--$37,000. Only one of the four remain. If the gambler chose any other top seed than Duke, he could kiss almost 10 thou good-bye.
I usually don't take the advice of a friend and former MTV High head coach who never cheered for the underdog because they had no pressure on them. I'm more like my co-owner in fantasy football who says he is riveted to the tourney this year because of so many upsets. I'd love to see Butler win it all.
Did I pick them. No. I picked Duke. But it didn't cost me a dime. And I won't collect if they win. But winning the lottery isn't always a good thing. Is it Ms. Jackson?
Shirley Jackson's great short story was one of the highlights of my American Lit class. Until grade school teachers started stealing my thunder and teaching it in middle schools. It wasn't a wise choice on their part for the story deals with some maturation issues that only come with life experiences. Plus, it ruined it for my class.
Other lotteries such as State Lotteries for big bucks and big losses are for suckers. No one wins, except the states and we all know how honest they are. "We'll use the money from lottery tickets to fund education to the level that we couldn't afford without the lottery," is what Illinoisans were sold before instituting its gambling wild shot in the dark games three decades ago. Did the state see an increase in education spending? Nope. If they indeed used money for education from lottery sales, then they took away an equal or more amount from the general fund.
Now we are coming to the end of brackets and another NCAA basketball tourney. Only 4 teams remain. When 16 remained there were only 12 people out of nearly 5 million who had correctly selected the top 16 and submitted their choices to Fox Sports. I wonder how many of those 12 are still in the running? Is it a lottery? Kind of.
I heard of a place in Illinois where for $9,500 you could place a bet on one of the top seeds to win the tourney. The pay off--$37,000. Only one of the four remain. If the gambler chose any other top seed than Duke, he could kiss almost 10 thou good-bye.
I usually don't take the advice of a friend and former MTV High head coach who never cheered for the underdog because they had no pressure on them. I'm more like my co-owner in fantasy football who says he is riveted to the tourney this year because of so many upsets. I'd love to see Butler win it all.
Did I pick them. No. I picked Duke. But it didn't cost me a dime. And I won't collect if they win. But winning the lottery isn't always a good thing. Is it Ms. Jackson?
posted by TQ @ 12:55 PM
1 Comments:
At 9:11 AM,
Shane Reeves said…
TQ,
Been reading some of your blog posts since I found the URL on Facebook. The Lottery was very interesting, especially since the memory of watching it in your class represents the only time I was ever sent to the Principal in high school!! I will never forget you or that class...it was a "hoot"!
Shane Reeves
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