A censorious audit of government's role in the recent proliferation of legal gambling. Drawing on research done during his tenure as director of the US Gambling Study (a three-year project funded by the Ford Foundation and Aspen Institute), Goodman (The Last Entrepreneurs, 1979, etc.) offers a damning rundown on the factors that have contributed to gaming's astonishing and lawful spread. At last count casinos were either authorized or operating in more than 20 states (up from two in 1988). Inclusive of state-run lotteries, moreover, Americans legally wager over $400 billion per annum not only at the theme-park pleasure domes in Atlantic City and Las Vegas but also in electronic slot machines (now fixtures in rural Montana's and South Dakota's bars), riverboats plying the heartland's waterways, tribal-run casinos on Indian reservations, and plush clubs in the Old West's moribund mining towns. Expansion of gaming's domestic franchise has brought precious few of the financial benefits promised by the pols who sponsored it as a panacea for the fiscal woes of their constituencies. Indeed, as the author documents, legalized gambling imposes significant costs on host communities. In addition to ongoing investments in infrastructure and security, for example, gaming drains revenues from local businesses; it also begets expensive pathologies and social problems. In Goodman's informed opinion, however, opportunity costs levy the highest toll, meaning the resources allocated to attract or retain gambling enterprises could be employed in more productive and abiding forms of job-creating economic development. The author closes with a series of uncommonly sensible alternatives to what has become a zero-sum game rather than the bonanza widely heralded by its commercial and political promoters. An absorbing and authoritative canvass that puts paid to any beguiling notion that legalized gambling provides either a quick or durable fix for depleted municipal and state treasuries. (Author tour)
Pub Date: Oct. 11, 1995
ISBN: 0-02-912483-2
Page Count: 220
Publisher: Free Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1995
A memoir begging for an editor.
An epic autobiography that’s part chronicle of American life gone-by and part diatribe against controlling men.
Caless begins her diary-style memoir with an account of life on a poultry farm during the Depression. She recalls a secure childhood with enough to eat and, eventually, modern conveniences–oil lamps give way to electric lights, a radio and, at long last, a refrigerator for her mother. All is not well on her homestead, however–her father molests and exposes himself to her, and her brother physically abuses her. Her parents spoil her brother but give her often-grueling jobs, even leaving her alone working their roadside stand at night. By the time she was 18, she’s had enough, and takes a bus to her boyfriend’s home in New Jersey. She’s out of the familial frying pan, but soon becomes infuriated by her new husband’s stingy and cruel ways. After he returns from World War II, she leaves him and her young son and aimlessly heads off to make a new life. For decades, she works at an insurance company and meets men at the Jersey Shore–some of whom are married and some aren’t. In her 50s, Caless is visited by a man from her past, but that relationship too has an unhappy ending. His story is woven in between the author’s interminable battles with lawyers and banks, after deaths in her family. Caless can be spunky and sparkling, and some of her stories are engrossing, notably those of reconciling with her son and caring for her dying mother. Her details about the ’20s, ’30s and ’40s are historical treasures. However, those attributes are ruined by her wordy, redundant writing. Caless belabors her points, repeating small establishing details constantly. As the massive page count indicates, she includes far too many long, extraneous stories, even devoting two pages to the story of French revolutionary Jean-Paul Marat. The author’s life story has compelling moments, but they are buried under an avalanche of unnecessary recollections.
A memoir begging for an editor.Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2008
ISBN: 978-1-4257-3185-4, 9
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An anthology containing some of the most amusing, insightful, and moving sports writing from the past year. Sure, series editor Stout and guest editor Boswell (Cracking the Show, p. 294) might not have extended their search to every hamlet with a sports page, as the preponderance of Sports Illustrated and New Yorker pieces clearly indicates. However, the fact that nearly all of the submissions faithfully depict athletes and their exploits as part of a grander choreography clearly establishes that many of the authors included are famous (or infamous) for good reason. Among the best entries are Bruce Buschel's ``Lips Get Smacked,'' a profane, Runyonesque trip to an Atlantic City casino with Philadelphia Phillies outfielder Lenny Dykstra (``Watching Lenny Dykstra gamble is like having an orchestra seat at a one-character David Mamet tragicomic- psychodrama. You are appalled and delighted by the language and the largesse''); Davis Miller's ``The Zen of Muhammad Ali,'' a touching portrait of The Champ battling the march of time and Parkinson's Syndrome—possibly the result of taking too many punches—with a generosity and dignity that fans seldom attribute to sports heroes; and Frank Deford's ``Running Man,'' an examination of the far- reaching effect of Phil Knight and his $3.7 billion sneaker-making, sports-marketing, and entertainment colossus, Nike. Nearly all the selections display uncanny wit and flourish, and these writers have the imagination to shun the obvious ``feet of clay'' athlete profiles to deliver realistic, humane portraits of people who, like many of us, have either risen to face life's adversity or turned tail and fled. Not just the best sports writing, some of the best writing anywhere. Period.
Pub Date: Nov. 3, 1994
ISBN: 0-395-63326-5
Page Count: 303
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1994
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
