Is a large part of the seeming lunacy of world leaders due to their being gambling addicts, but the “game” being gambling with people’s lives? It is understandable when those with great power become incapacitated by such power, eventually making stupid blunders when the enormity of the conditions overwhelms their ability to function mentally. There is kind of madness that comes upon such people when circumstances begin spiraling out of control. This is what concerns me about our own leadership, not just the leadership of Iran and North Korea among others. Professionally I am very well qualified to address this issue, but my academic qualifications notwithstanding when it comes to the various forms of addiction gambling is right up there among the worst.

While living in Las Vegas six blocks from the Golden Nugget at the time of the premier for My Friend Irma Goes West I learned I wasn’t cut out to be a gambler. My stepfather at the time, Jim Blaine, was a very popular disk jockey for a Vegas radio station so I had opportunity to meet several celebrities of the era like Spike Jones, Red Skelton, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, and the so very beautiful Marie Wilson. My Friend Irma was one of my favorite radio programs, but to see her in person was the thrill of a lifetime. Even at my tender age I was struck by her beauty, like that of a golden-haired angel!

Even as a boy I found Las Vegas an exciting town, and the evening of the premier for the movie a stage had been set up in front of the Golden Nugget, a place with an impressive display of one-million dollars cash in a front window, where the cast for the film was to be introduced. And this was done by Dean Martin with Marie Wilson beside him in a fire-engine red Cadillac convertible driving up the main drag towing Jerry Lewis on roller skates behind the car; a really funny sight to behold.

It was a wonderfully balmy desert evening, and there was quite a large crowd in attendance as Dean parked the car right in front of where I was standing and the three of them ascended to the stage. But my attention was on the beautiful Marie Wilson, dressed in a flowing white evening gown, her long golden hair positively glowing in the stage lights and the reflection from the brightly lit casino.

Dean started by telling a couple of jokes with Jerry being the straight man, and then Dean turned his attention to Marie. Now this stunningly beautiful girl played the quintessential dumb blonde on radio, and hilariously funny in that role. So all of us in the audience thought we knew something of what to expect from her. But to our surprise Dean said “I hear you are quite interested in poetry Marie, do you have a favorite poem?” In that unforgettable girlish voice Marie replied, “Why yes Dean, I do,” to which Dean replied, “Well, do you think you could recite it for us?”

We all waited in eager anticipation as the stunningly beautiful angel Marie took the microphone and in that marvelously girlish voice of an innocent ingénue recited the poem: “Of all the fishies in the sea my favorite is the bass; he climbs up in the seaweed trees and slides down on his… hands and knees.”

The roar of laughter all about me nearly drowned out my own reaction to this beautiful young blonde goddess. As I was later to take stock of the situation I realized I had learned something. You can’t judge a book by its cover, and people, even beautiful girls can disappoint you. All the innocence of believing had been on my part. But I could never enjoy My Friend Irma the same thereafter. The years would pass and eventually I would learn not to expect more of others than I expected of myself. We are all frail human beings, and it is most unfair to expect perfection of any of us.

As to gambling, I had been sent on an errand to a small grocery store to pick up a loaf of bread. There was a young woman ahead of me with a baby in her arms. After paying for her meager purchases among which were some jars of baby food she stopped at a slot machine next to the exit and put the change she had received into the slot. She won nothing and left the store. But something struck me as being wrong with this. I have always been sensitive to the moods of people, and this young woman seemed to be in distress. Was she an unwed mother? Or did she have other concerns wearing her down, making her appear despondent? And if so, why would such a young mother her baby in her arms be putting her change, money I sensed she could not afford to lose into that slot machine? Why would such a young mother with a baby be gambling at all, wouldn’t the money be better spent on things necessary for her and her baby?

Of course, like the girl in Ode to Billy Joe I was only a child. What could I be expected to know of such things? Perhaps, like the girl, more than adults thought I was capable of knowing at the time. But the memory of that young mother with the baby in her arms stayed with me while traveling through a number of “gaming towns” and living in other places like Lake Tahoe, and no matter how often the term “gaming” is used it is still gambling.

I have known several addicted to gambling, and it is a horrible addiction. And what are state lotteries but a diabolical invention to take money from those least able to afford losing it?

While attending St. Joseph’s Military Academy near Jacksonville, Florida one of the really fun events was a “gaming” night where both students and their parents could play various gambling games and win prizes. And like the ubiquitous bingo games in the Roman churches all for a “good cause.”

But I continued to have a problem with seeing people who could ill afford it throwing their money away by gambling. Perhaps a hitherto unknown perverse streak caused me to “get even” on one occasion.

Many of you will recall the scene in The Godfather where the Mafioso is pinning the money to that doll for the church. We were living in Cleveland, Ohio at the time and my brother and I were enrolled in a Catholic school, St. Mary’s. On one occasion the nun who was our teacher showed the class a beautiful angel doll with several ten-dollar bills pinned to it to be raffled off, and we were all given cards with places for twenty names. Chances at the doll were to be sold for ten-cents each.

I found the local bars the best places to do business. We were living at the time in a Polish “ghetto” where everyone was more Catholic than the pope, a place where West Coast Catholics were considered apostates from the one true church. In this environment a kid selling chances in the bars on a raffle for the local church and school was quite acceptable, and in no time I had sold all twenty chances and had the two bucks in dimes in my pocket. Ah, enter the “evil one” to tempt me. I tore up the card and kept the money. And to compound my sin, I told our teacher I had lost the card! First stealing and then lying to a nun to cover the theft! The flames of hell yawned before me!

To this very day, gentle reader, I do not know why I did such a thing. Was it in retaliation to what I knew was wrong, using children to bring in gambling money for the church coffers at the expense of innocence? Of this I am certain, whatever the motive it wasn’t the money. I was raised better than that, and stealing and lying were not only wrong, they were grievous sins! But on this singular occasion they were not ones I included in my weekly confessional.

The Scripture has it “Will a man rob God?” Sure, men do it all the time. But it never crossed my mind in this instance that I was robbing God; for whatever reason what I had done was retaliation for something a better conscience had told me was wrong with an institution that would use children for the purpose of gambling. And I heartily resented being used in such a way!

Over these many years of living and traveling throughout America I have witnessed this same abuse of children everywhere, children used and abused for the evil men do, especially in the name of religion something being accentuated in Muslim nations where children are not selling chances on a church raffle but learning to hate all non-Muslims, and in too many cases how to kill them! Even by giving their lives in the process with the fairy tale promises of “Paradise” for doing so!

And now with the wars of men killing and maiming children throughout the world, with so many lives being sacrificed to the evil men do everywhere are we at the mercy of lunatics addicted to gambling with people’s lives? I do wonder. When I say this war against Islam must be fought to win or America is lost, that word “win” had better not be in the sense of a game where the leadership is gambling with people’s lives. If so, I will tear up the card and keep the money.