Thursday, July 30, 1998

Powerball mania

Powerball madness rises again.

Incredibly, the wild enthusiasm for last night's drawing was not much dimmed by the odds against winning, something like 80 million to 1.

As one researcher has noted, your chances of killing yourself by falling out of bed are far greater.

This thing is a con, and that's not OK. And it's not OK for another reason. The perpetrator of this fraud is government, which is supposed to be watching out for the public welfare, not tricking people.

Powerball scarcely marks the end of civilization as we have known it, but neither is it the mark of a mature society.