Big Gamble

I never thought that CBS correspondent Bill Moyers, whom I have always respected, would be the mouthpiece for a propaganda show. But on a television documentary called Big Gamble in Atlantic City, that is how he is employed. CBS's target is familiar: the 11 gambling casinos in the New Jersey shore city. For many people, the gambling spas are easy to hate, because they don't just take the money and run: They take the money and stay put, their suites and showrooms and posh restaurants lording it over other businesses and residents who live life on a lower scale.

There goes the neighborhood. One way or another, several Philadelphia communities will never be quite the same after Pennsylvania gambling regulators license the two slot-machine casinos slated for the city. The challenge before Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board members - as they select from among five contenders - is to pick the proposals most likely to maximize the benefits while limiting the risks to neighborhoods. Some factors are common to all five proposals vying for a license: Each would bring hundreds of temporary construction jobs, and upward of 1,000 permanent jobs.

The recent passage of the "small games of chance" referendum in Philadelphia was not even close, according to final tallies. Philadelphians supported this question by a 4-1 ratio. Received wisdom saw passage of the referendum as a done deal. City Councilman Rick Mariano, a promoter of small games of chance, stated on local news recently: "I don't know anybody who's against it. " More people should have stood against it. The Pennsylvania Lottery contract is up for renewal in 2002, and the governor's budget states that the state's own small game of chance - the Pennsylvania Lottery - will be $800 million short in five years.

The budgets for this summer's big action-adventures have rocketed into the stratosphere. And while their price tags vary, the number that keeps coming up is 22 - as in Catch-22. Nervous studio chiefs, pondering bottom lines that look like the tab for a savings-and-loan bailout, would love to find a way to keep talent costs down. But they need the marquee magnetism of stars on a first-name basis with the moviegoing public. And the cost of insurance called "Arnold," "Tom" or "Sly" can be staggering.

VICK'S HAND: The hits just keep on coming for the Eagles quarterback. Last week a concussion, this week a broken hand. Will he be able to play next week against the 49ers? Who knows. If he can't, will Mike Kafka, who threw two interceptions after replacing Vick, get the nod over Vince Young? Who knows. Stay tuned. THE GOAL-LINE OFFENSE: The Eagles came up small on two separate first-and-goals. They also failed to convert a big fourth-and-1 near midfield early in the fourth quarter.

A national television audience, including viewers in localities where casino-gambling proposals are under consideration, got a grim look at the realities in Bill Moyers' CBS special Wednesday night: Big Gamble in Atlantic City. The tragic neglect of poor neighborhoods and inhabitants - hardly more than a dice-throw from the glitter of gaming halls - was accurate and perhaps even understated. There were some flaws in the show and it might have been better balanced, as Inquirer staff writer Lee Winfrey noted in a preview.

Depending upon whom you talk to, yesterday's attempt by the Flyers to sign John LeClair to a long-term deal either made progress or it didn't. "It was a good day," general manager Bob Clarke said. "We spent two hours and a lot of things were discussed. Lewis Gross [LeClair's agent] is going to take what we talked about and get back to John. " Is Clarke optimistic? "Yeah," he replied. Then there was Gross' assessment of whether progress was made. "I'm not going to say," he said.

If you've ever been inside Le Bec Fin at 15th and Walnut, you know how tight the space is. On the first floor, there's a tiny foyer and just two main rooms. Well, imagine that crammed full of almost 300 people and you get an idea of how packed it was at last night's surprise party for chef Georges Perrier. Elbow to elbow, Perrier's friends, customers and fans nibbled pate de foie gras, caviar and lobster hors d'oeuvres and sipped champagne, saluting a man who many consider responsible for helping to trigger the city's restaurant renaissance and tourism resurgence.

Retired Adm. Arleigh A. Burke, famed destroyer skipper from the last big war of this century, recently came here to dedicate a $1 billion destroyer for the next century. Burke, 84, the hero of scores of naval battles in the Pacific during World War II, and the ship whose keel he dedicated at a ceremony at Bath Iron Works represented dramatically different approaches to fighting at sea - one proved effective by him, the other illustrative of America's big gamble for winning any next war. Burke raced his destroyers through Pacific nights at more than 30 knots, earning him the nickname "Thirty-One-Knot Burke," to catch Japanese ships by surprise at dawn.

Draft as deterrent Re: "Let them serve first," Nov. 28: A letter to the editor seems to have missed the key element of Charlie Rangel's continued call to reinstate the draft. Rangel knows full well that there will be no draft. His openly stated goal in repeatedly introducing this bill is that lawmakers might not be so quick to authorize force if their own children could end up on the front lines. He wants no exemptions for sons and daughters of lawmakers; rather, he specifically wants them included as a bulwark against foolish, politically motivated force resolutions.

ATLANTIC CITY - This town isn't Las Vegas, but the $2.4 billion Revel Casino wants to take visitors there with A-list entertainment, posh rooms, and celebrity-chef restaurants in a luxurious setting where the champagne and water in 10 swimming pools are always flowing. The 20-acre resort - draped in silvery-blue reflective glass - literally curls to and fro like the ocean it embraces. Many see Revel as the lifeline for this down-on-its-luck gambling mecca in need of a revival.

CAIRO - With missile batteries, fleets of attack boats and stocks of naval mines, Iran can disrupt traffic through the Strait of Hormuz but probably cannot completely shut down the world's most important oil route, military analysts say. The question for Iran's leadership is whether it is worth the heavy price. Trying to close the strait would bring down a powerful military response on Iran's head from U.S. forces in the Gulf and turn Tehran's few remaining international allies against it. That Iran is making such dire threats at all illustrates its alarm over new sanctions planned by the U.S. that will target oil exports - the most vital source of revenue for its economy.

VICK'S HAND: The hits just keep on coming for the Eagles quarterback. Last week a concussion, this week a broken hand. Will he be able to play next week against the 49ers? Who knows. If he can't, will Mike Kafka, who threw two interceptions after replacing Vick, get the nod over Vince Young? Who knows. Stay tuned. THE GOAL-LINE OFFENSE: The Eagles came up small on two separate first-and-goals. They also failed to convert a big fourth-and-1 near midfield early in the fourth quarter.

A few hundred yards south of where she had burst out of the gate like someone hell-bent for immortality, Lindsey Vonn lay sprawled in the sun-sprinkled snow, America's idol suddenly its fallen angel. The leader after yesterday morning's downhill and the final competitor in the afternoon slalom that concluded the women's super-combined, Vonn tumbled over a gate midway down the Whistler Creekside course. Even before a cast-off ski had landed atop her, the dream of gold medals on consecutive days at these 2010 Winter Olympics was over.

Knowing he would be pitching to clinch the World Series championship, A.J. Burnett was barely bothered by going on three days' rest. He had done it before - in the regular season - with great success. "Well, without sounding too confident, I liked it when I did it in the past," Burnett said after Game 4. Three batters into Game 5, Burnett didn't like it as much. The Phillies jumped out to a 3-1 lead in the first inning, and knocked Burnett out of the game four batters into the third of an 8-6 victory that sent the Series back to New York.

WE SUPPOSE it would be too depressing to have an actual Contempt-O-Meter installed in Harrisburg that measures just what some of our state lawmakers think of us lowly citizens. On second thought, we only have to look at their work product - the laws they write - to understand just how low their opinions of us can go. Case in point: a "casino reform bill" that is actually a vehicle to expand gambling to table games like poker, roulette and blackjack in the state. (And by "vehicle" we are thinking "Trojan horse.

The two slots parlors planned for Philadelphia haven't even been built, yet State Rep. Bill DeWeese (D., Greene) continues to make his annual push to expand gambling in the state to include blackjack, poker, roulette, and other table games. Recall that state lawmakers - led by Gov. Rendell - rammed through the legalization of slots gambling in 2004 as a way to support horse racing. Now, DeWeese and friends seem determined to dot Pennsylvania with clones of Atlantic City. From the start, DeWeese has been leading the effort.

The plant's printing presses, which had clattered loudly day and night, sat strangely silent. No forklifts bustled by, beeping, beeping, beeping. "It was like The Twilight Zone," Sam Smiley recalled. In between marathon Scrabble games and poker rounds, employees at the soon-to-be-shuttered Reynolds Packaging plant in Downingtown painted walls, cleaned machinery, and watched movies, making plans for a final barbecue in the parking lot - ribs, potato salad, chicken. "Everybody had a job to do - and then, all of a sudden, nothing," said Smiley, who started at the plant in 1977.

Grading the Draft   Eagles: Swung two separate trades that got them a Pro Bowl left tackle (Jason Peters) and a 4-year starting cornerback (Ellis Hobbs). Got one of the draft's top two wide receivers (Jeremy Maclin) in the first round and some much-needed help for Brian Westbrook in the second (LeSean McCoy). All in all, a helluva draft. Grade: A-plus Arizona: With Edgerrin James being eased out, Beanie Wells, who slid to the bottom of the first round, gives Cardinals another power runner to go with Tim Hightower.

With five slots casinos up and running in Pennsylvania, the state's lottery just turned in its most lackluster sales performance in five years. It's at least curious - at worst, troubling - that the lottery's flat sales coincided with the debut of casino gambling. Following four years of double-digit growth in sales of tickets, lottery sales for the fiscal year 2006-07 came in just about where they were the previous year. Profits were down by nearly 2 percent, or $18.8 million.