Chose your sin

I’d like to think of myself of at least average intelligence.  I rarely get my shoes on the wrong feet, I know how to drive a stick shift,  and while watching cartoons, I never furrow my brow with anxious concern worrying if the Road Runner is going to get caught by Wile E. Coyote.

And speaking of cartoons, here’s what’s got me puzzled:  Joe Camel.  Someone’s thinking right now, “Kwazy, what are you talking about?  Joe Camel was retired years ago!  Congressional hearings determined that he encouraged kids to smoke!”  Yup, I remember.  But why is it just the tobacco companies that get slammed for this type of thing?

On my way into work this morning, there was a commercial from the Hoosier Lottery (Indiana’s lottery administrative bureau, as if that needed explaining).  They were promoting their new scratch-off instant-win ticket.  I don’t remember what it’s called, but it has something to do with The Jetsons (yes, those Jetsons).  It starts off with a guy parroting Astro:  “Ray Roerge, rot roo ro rown ro rarket rand ruy rottery rickets.”  Priceless.

I won’t engage in a debate upon which is worse:  training kids to smoke or training them to gamble.  I will point out one fact, though.  Cigarettes have been legal in Indiana for hundreds of years.  Non-charity lotteries only became legal in 1989…only 18 years ago.  It is now not possible to listen to commercial radio for an entire half hour rotation in Indianapolis without hearing at least one Hoosier Lottery commercial…which are now featuring Hanna-Barbera voices and themes.  Print and TV ads are equally ubiquitous.  Tobacco ads?  Almost extinct except in adult oriented magazines (no, not those “adult” magazines).

Cigarettes are probably the bigger public concern.  Don’t anyone get high and mighty on me about smoking being a personal choice, and the government should butt out (no pun intended).  If you want to sign a binding legal agreement that states you will NEVER apply for nor submit to receive any state or federal funded healthcare for conditions that could be caused by or exacerbated by smoking, great.  Light up, dumb-ass (just as I did for years)!  But if you’re not willing to sign that little slip of paper, don’t expect my hard earned tax dollars to pay for your lung cancer.  Similarly, you don’t get one of my organs if I happen to enter that clearing in the woods while some of them still work…they’re going to the kids with congenital diseases.

On the other hand, I’ve always regarded the lottery primarily as a tax on people that are really shitty at math.  The big problem here is that lower income people generally spend more proportionately on lotteries and scratch-offs than do their upper income counterparts.  It doesn’t seem to make sense to collect taxes from someone, skim off the winnings and administrative costs, then hand it right back to them again.

People are dumb.