COLUMBUS: All I know is what I read in the “Columbus Dispatch”. The Legislature wants to raise money for schools by placing 14,000 slot machines at all the horse racing tracks. The Governor says he is for raising money, but he’s against the slot machines.

According to the paper, the horse tracks would keep half the gross profits (because that’s where the gambling machines would be housed), and the schools would get half. They don’t say what share the winners get.

This don’t seem quite right, after all it’s the schools that need the money, not the tracks. If the race tracks need to rake in more dough let ’em get better horses.

Now I’ve got another plan. Take those 14,000 gambling machines and divide them among the schools. That way you eliminate the middle man, and the schools don’t have to split the profits. There would be no overhead, and no need for a state education department. Teachers at the end of the month wouldn’t have to wait for their paycheck to arrive. They would just empty the machines and divvy up the proceeds amongst themselves.

The slot machines would even help the youngsters learn arithmetic, mainly subtraction. (For example: little Susan brings $10 to school, and loses $9 on the slots. How much does she have left to buy lunch?)

More parents would show up for PTA. Men that hadn’t been in a school building in twenty years would stop in every morning to try their luck.

This sounds like a good plan, and it should have the backing of Republicans and Democrats. But not the Methodists or Episcopals. Catholics are kinda on the fence: they favor gambling, but only on church property.

Ohio has tried this before. About every four years somebody puts gambling on the ballot, and it always goes down. It reminds me of Prohibition when there was lots of folks that voted dry, but drank wet, and now on gambling they vote “no”, but bet “yes”, even if they have to cross the state line to do it.

Have you seen this new campaign against SUV’s. It’s a bumper sticker that asks: What Would Jesus Drive?

Now I don’t rightly know, but I seem to recollect that Jesus mainly walked. He did ride a donkey on occasion, but he gave that up when hay went to $2 a bale.

Now I suppose the folks asking the question want Jesus to drive something. So I would propose a Model T Ford would be ideal. It was the first car ever built for the common man. No fancy frills, no options, and only came in black. It was cheap, so the Apostles could not complain he was wasting the Sunday collection.

Here’s the main reason for Jesus to drive a Model T… if he spent a full year cranking it to start it, patching punctured tires, replacing all the bolts that rattle off, and pulling it out of mud holes and pushing it up steep hills, well, that would be a bigger test of a man’s religion than forty days wandering in the Wilderness.

After watching that Victoria’s Secret show last night, the question they should ask is: What Would Jesus Wear? Or more accurately, what would Jesus pick out for Mary Magdalene to wear?

That show reminds me of Mr. Zeigfeld’s Follies. He always spent thousands of dollars on costumes, then wouldn’t let the girls wear them. ‘My’ main role was to come on stage for ten minutes between acts and entertain while the girls changed from nothin’, into nothin’.

Historic quotes from Will Rogers:

“Prohibition originally started out with us as a moral issue. It was either good or bad for you to drink. Then it drifted to economics: Did people save more when not drinking? Then into racketeering. But now it’s drifted into the worst angle of any, that is politics. American history records no return of anything once it got into politics.” DT#1855, July 15, 1932