For the last two years, a great deal has been written about the cast of characters who have promoted casino gambling, impacts be damned or more specifically a Mega Casino in Middleboro. With few surprises, the same names recur and most of us have become familiar with those who circulate some pretty dubious stuff.
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Scott Fearsome proclaims the Inevitability Theory as if it's the Theory of Gravity and that it will be finished in 18 months. Where's the road, Scotty? We're still waiting!
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And that Brockton Power Plant that's on hold? To provide power to this mighty Mega Casino and pollute surrounding communities with waste water vapor and diesel fuel particulate? Those surrounding communities were sure pleased by the prospect of increased asthma for those foreign casino investors. Not much of that waste water vapor and diesel fuel particulate is noticeable in South Africa.
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Recently, Bellicose Bumpkin wrote a blog RI disses Clyde that described Mr. Clyde Barrows as Perennial casino cheerleader and pro-casino study-producing machine.
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Well, Rhode Island merely confirmed what we already knew about Mr. Barrows and it was pretty unremarkable stuff. Selling professional credentials for Oh, Yea, Trust This Man on Casinos!
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For the most part, it's amusing that a google search of CLYDE BARROWS produces only Bonnie and Clyde results.
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Cape Cod Times described Mr. Barrows --
The director of the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth' Center for Policy Analysis has produced the most widely cited studies of casino and slot parlor spending by Massachusetts residents. Celebrated by gambling supporters, dismissed by critics, Barrow's research will nevertheless be a topic of discussion as state officials debate about legalizing casino gambling. Barrow has denied taking any money from gambling interests. However, his research center did accept $20,000 last fall from the Rhode Island Building Trades Council, a union group that backed an unsuccessful casino referendum in Rhode Island. The union receives campaign contributions from gambling interests.
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LAST LEGS comments --If the greyhound track were a sick patient, its prognosis would be grim.
Overall revenues for the track have fallen all but one year since 1998, amounting to a 25 percent drop by 2007.
Meanwhile, records show the amount bet on live dog racing has plummeted by 61 percent over a decade, and it has made up a smaller percentage of the handle, or total amount bet, each year.
Overall revenues for the track have fallen all but one year since 1998, amounting to a 25 percent drop by 2007.
Meanwhile, records show the amount bet on live dog racing has plummeted by 61 percent over a decade, and it has made up a smaller percentage of the handle, or total amount bet, each year.
“It’s not doing as well as it once did, but that’s only because we haven’t allowed them to compete,” said state Sen. Marc R. Pacheco, D-Taunton.
State gambling expert the Rev. Richard McGowan, a Boston College business professor, predicted dog racing would likely be on the outs, even if Question 3 fails.
“There’s a little bit of irony here,” McGowan said. “Even if they lose this vote ... there could very easily be no dog track because nobody is making any money off (them).”
State gambling expert the Rev. Richard McGowan, a Boston College business professor, predicted dog racing would likely be on the outs, even if Question 3 fails.
“There’s a little bit of irony here,” McGowan said. “Even if they lose this vote ... there could very easily be no dog track because nobody is making any money off (them).”
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Except for the generous campaign contributions of track owners, greyhound racing is doomed.
Regarding Question 3, the Brockton Enterprise reported:
The Committee to Protect Dogs has been trying to prove otherwise. Has it?
We posed that question to six people connected to dogs and dog racing.
Here’s what they said:
“There are laws on the books against cruelty to animals, and that is the only working definition of cruelty at the present time. If there is widespread cruelty to greyhounds, as defined in the law, then it should (and would) be prosecuted by the district attorneys.” — CLYDE BARROW, director of the Center for Policy Analysis at UMASS-Dartmouth, and author of several studies on gambling in New England
One must wonder - when and how Mr. Barrows became an expert in animal cruelty and dog racing?
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When I was an adolescent, we had another name for the selling of one's services to the highest bidder or has he merely allowed the glare of media attention to distort the reflection in the mirror?
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