Another good letter on slots, except the reader mistakes my current condition -- clinically-diagnosed ambivalence with complications of cynicism and issue fatigue -- as full-fledged opposition to the slots referendum that will be on the November ballot. (Actually, it's not full-fledged; it's thinly-veiled.) This is from Laurie Taylor-Mitchell:

"Thank you so much for reiterating your position against slots, again and again.  I find it incredibly depressing that most Marylanders seem poised to approve of slots. The moral arguments against slots are still the primary ones, but no politician dares to say them I guess. 
 
1) It is morally wrong to fund government, or any industry, including the horse-racing industry, with gambling.  I love horse racing but if it can't survive, I'd much rather pay higher taxes to save the land and the farms from development than to see gambling money do it.
 
"2) The very people who go to Delaware and West Virginia are no doubt some of the same ones that are screaming against higher taxes here in Maryland, and I hold them personally responsible for the fact that in Baltimore County, one of the wealthiest in the nation, some of the public schools are a disgrace, my son's middle school has classroom temperatures at 90 degrees or higher on the second floor and teachers and students sit in misery on hot days withough air conditioning, as they did at my son's elementary school, and next year my son may eat lunch at 10:30 a.m. because the high school is so overcrowded. . . . I also hold the tax naysayers personally responsible for the miserable state of the Chesapeake Bay, and many of the environmental problems in Baltimore County, because there are not enough inspectors and monitors because there is no money.  I hold them personally responsible for not voting for more park and recreational space for children.  I hold them partially responsible, including our President, for the fact that one in five children in the United States lives in poverty. . . . There are a lot of problems that money can't fix.  These are not among those problems.
 
"3) This complaint about attitudes regarding spending money on gambling versus investing it in one's community through paying taxes is nothing new.  In the 15th century, Saint Bernardino of Siena railed against these people in sermons, complaining that those who loved to gamble were the very same ones who cried out against taxes (source is Iris Origo, The World of San Bernardino.)  I think you would like this man, especially his sermons to merchants - i.e. Renaissance businessmen.  . . . . Here is a gem on gambling from one of Bernardino's sermons: A man, 'old and toothless, with his spectacles on his nose and his dice in his hand, and still happy to lose eight or ten florins - though if he had to pay a single one of them for a tax or for the needs of the Commune, his cries would shake the world!'  . . There is a wrong understanding which brings a blindness to the mind: the man who has eaten well cannot believe the one who has gone hungry, the rich man cannot believe the poor one.'

"Politicians cannot speak out against selfishness because they won't get elected if they do.  . . . Never stop railing against gambling to fund government.  Because you are right."