When that 1% lottery commission isn't enough

WBZ-TV did an excellent investigation on Lottery agents who tried to claim huge winnings for themselves.

What was the best scene? Watching the Lottery investigators swoop right in like a drug raid and take out the lottery machine and the lottery tickets. I can imagine the conversation going something like this:

"We had a sting operation not long ago. The undercover agent discovered you had illegally tried to dupe a customer out of their winnings. Effective immediately, we are removing your machine and taking back all of your scratch tickets and electronic forms. Step aside, sir. CAN I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION, PLEASE? IF YOU HAVE ANY TICKETS IN YOUR HANDS, WE'D APPRECIATE YOU GIVING THEM TO THESE OFFICERS. THEY ARE NOT VALID."

The 1% commission in the title refers to the amount a lottery agent receives when they cash a ticket. If, in a book of instant tickets, a lottery agent pays out $726, they get a commission of $7.26. If you win $2.50 on a Keno ticket, the agent gets $0.025. If you win $250,000 on a winning MegaMillions ticket, the agent gets $2,500. Definitely not small change.

When an agent discovers they're not selling enough to get a decent commission, that's when they start to get shady and pull scams. The ones who do quite well with their commissions never try to pull such stunts as

giving you $100 for a $500 ticket

telling you a ticket is a losing ticket when it's actually worth a lot more

and

claiming the illicit winnings and then fleeing the country.

Meanwhile, how can you defend yourself in the first place? (OK, I might as well throw a bone to the finger-waggers who tell us the lottery is evil and preys on the poor. I guess these finger-waggers have no problem having the poor pay 60% taxes on cigarettes and being followed around at Whole Foods for potential shoplifting, right?)

1. If you should hit the Big One, SIGN THE BACK OF THE TICKET IMMEDIATELY.  This means the ticket is yours and yours alone - the "bearer instrument." If the corrupt agent tries to pass off the ticket and the signatures don't match, the Lottery will put up an immediate red flag. They also require positive ID - so if you're Ralph Malph and the ticket is signed Potsie Webber, not only will they not pay you, you have the additional chance of being arrested for forgery and uttering a false document.

2. MAKE A PHOTOCOPY OF THE WINNING TICKET. This means both sides of the ticket (including your signature) should be copied for your records. This will also protect you should the corrupt agent attempt to call you a liar and try to weasel you out of your winnings by stating your ticket "won nothing." Better yet: any ticket over $100 should be photocopied, but claimed at the local Lottery offices.

3. If you've won over $600, YOU MUST CLAIM YOUR WINNINGS AT THE LOTTERY OFFICES. NEVER have the agent scan the ticket at the store - they know exactly what "FILE CLAIM" on a lottery machine means. This is why on scratch tickets, there are random "losing" codes on tickets over $600. (With the two new tickets they've put out, they've doubled the losing codes from 12 to 24, and the new codes thwart players who look for just the codes by putting in really good imposters for the ones between $20 and $500.) Details from the Lottery website here.

4. If you happen to be the unlucky soul who gets $5 when they should have gotten $500, DON'T HESITATE TO CONTACT THE LOTTERY.   If you're ever in doubt, DON'T CASH IN THE TICKET. Don't hand it to the agent, don't let the agent intimidate or sweet-talk you into handing it over. This is a sign to leave the store and contact the Lottery - the best is to contact Lottery Headquarters here (scroll down to Lottery - the phone number to report agents or for general information is below) or, if you prefer email, contact the lottery at webmaster_at_masslottery_dot_com.  Judging by the speed and ferocity of this state agency, Lottery investigators don't take kindly to being cheated.

Many of the lottery agents I've dealt with are fantastic and they are honest. Just remember to be alert, and you should do just fine.

The land of NED - two different journeys

Kate Jackson of the Pointy Universe gives her take on Breast Cancer Awareness month for the Patriot Ledger.

One story I'd like to give Kate is one personal to me. There is one woman on my team at work that was diagnosed with BC in 2004-2005. She is in her late 50s and she went through the same thing. She didn't return to work for two years while she received treatments for breast cancer, but when she did return, it was certainly triumphant. I don't know the staging or extent - none of my business - but she was thrilled to return.

Compared to my father, who died from non-smoking related metastatic lung cancer in 2005, her return gave me hope. Cancer is a devastating diagnosis, but not the end of the world. If detected early enough, the land of NED is reachable (not exactly easy - you have to go through the gauntlet of chemo and radiation first - and that cancer is like the bad guy in The Warriors clinking his bottles and taunting them - "Warriors...come out and play-ay!").

My dad's cancer was detected because he had a nagging leg pain and the bone in his thigh snapped (femur). The day they did a nuclear bone scan did they discover the 3cm tumor in his lung that had metastized to his leg. Instant Stage IV - probably the toughest diagnosis one could get. Not an immediate death sentence, either, as we had him go through six regimens of chemo (Taxol and Cisplatin) and later on, radiation for his brain cancer to follow.

We too thought that a miracle would occur. We had a bottle of inexpensive champagne ready when the doctors would announce he was in that land of NED. Several times, I hoped for a miracle - that not only the tumor in his lung would be eradicated, he'd make a total recovery.

The land of NED, however, had a cruel deviation. When he died on November 22, he was certainly out of the land of constant pain, heavy-duty opiates, and hallucinations, and into a dry martini handed out by St. Peter himself. (Groucho Marx joke spoken by Bugs Bunny.) The day of his funeral, we did indeed drink that champagne we saved as a celebration, not as a goodbye.

To this day, I certainly miss my father. But I never mourned him - maybe cried a little bit, but never sat there and bemoaned his loss. That's because he never would have wanted pity or sadness. He reminds us that nothing is forever, and to make the best of what we have. You have to continue with your lives, even if there are times of loneliness and despair.

We love to use the word "sustainable" as if it were a magic wand, but human lives are impossible to sustain much beyond one's life expectancy. Sure, there are outliers - Willard Scott's bread and butter was announcing centarian's birthdays - but sometimes there are things we can't control, and giving up that control is never easy.

To say that cancer is impossible to beat, however, lies in how willing we are to find its cure. Once it is, all those people, including those with lung cancer, will automatically shift into the land of NED.

Two types of nasty

A. When travelling to New York and purchasing scratch tickets (I collect them from different states), the man behind the counter counted them as $13, while I counted them as $11. Honest mistake - until the megasuperbitch of a district manager snarled at her co-worker to show the cashier how to rectify his mistake. The mistake was corrected, but if you're ever at the Faber in Darien, CT, avoid spending your money there until they get managers who treat their employees and customers with fairness - they don't have to be nice all the time, just not being super surly and nasty.

B. We arrived at the Wooster St Pizzeria in Wallingford, CT around 10 last night for a late repast. We thought the place was open until 11pm, but the manager, who really was a nice woman, said to us, "Oh, the sign says we're open until 11, but we sent everyone else home...we would be glad to make a pizza for you, but we can't. Sorry..." Meanwhile, her staff was watching ESPN, and we headed to the Athenian II diner in Middletown, CT for a much better repast.

The difference between A and B? At least the manager in B was sincere, even though it was a pat, well-prepared answer that I found creepily unnerving. The manager in A? Where did she learn her managerial skills? Leona Helmsley? I will say this much - I'll never step foot in a Faber Travel Shop on I-95 ever again.

Salvador Allende Obama?

Hub Blog has an interesting article on their blog regarding an interesting idea - a future "grand coalition" between the military and President Obama, with the military driving the bus, i.e. making the hard decisions and letting Obama be a "figurehead."

Or, if you want to be more direct, a bloodless coup where the Armed Forces do what Obama is allegedly not doing - protecting America from enemies foreign and domestic. Obama is more comfortable getting the Chicago 2016 Olympics and cozying up to dictators and notsogoodniks. Oh, and raising taxes and redistributing income.

Which leads me to the title of this entry. Salvador Allende was elected the President of Chile in the late 1960s. Which was perfectly fine and legal - as Allende was an avowed Marxist and actually got street cred - until you realize when you give a Marxist power, s/he wants all of it. All was well until the Supreme Court of Chile decided enough was enough and the military deposed Allende in a coup. Allende, seeing his power vanish before his eyes, committed suicide. Thus the democratically elected Marxist was replaced with the military junta led by General Augusto Pinochet, who himself had a checkered past - including consolidating power to himself and strictly suppressing speech and freedoms, mixed in with a few "hey, where did Allende's supporters disappear?".

Could a military coup or dictatorship happen here? It's an interesting thought, but a serious one too. If all else in our government ever failed due to disaster or attack, the Armed Forces would have to step in to maintain some semblance of order. There's always the fear of the military or any group in time of crisis taking away the Consitution, the writ of habeas corpus, heavy doses of censorship, etc. Congress would have to take orders from five-star generals and admirals rather than the President. It would be temporary, however, once the chaos lifts and the generals return power to the President.

If Obama is doing a bad job and the military thinks that America is in danger because of his inactivity, then the military should come forward and state their lack of confidence in Obama's ability - and then let Obama defend his positions and schemes.

If Obama cannot, that's a sign of weakness and Obama must decide whether or not he needs better advice - and not from the hard-charging flunkies who want to tax sodas or send Bush's former administration to trial - or he should simply resign with honor, saying "Sorry, guys, I thought I could do it, but I'm just too overwhelmed." It will result in a lot of "I told you so's" from his critics and pleas from his fans to stay (some of which are getting creepily more ardent and fervent by the day), but he will walk away with the respect of the nation.

If Obama stubbornly refuses, or parrots his agenda, then the problem lies either with Obama and his circle of friends, his grand vision for a socialized America, or that someone who has wanted to control America for a long time - perhaps one not of American origin, and certainly one with billions of dollars of influence - is using the weak Obama as a Petri dish, one who they know is as soft as a ripe banana and will appease, agree to get along, and not interfere with their grand vision, and then elect a hard-line dictator of their own to depose Obama.

Thankfully, Obama has one thing up his sleeve that would likely prevent the military from taking over, and that is even though on the surface he seems naive, he isn't. I don't agree with many of his policies, but you also have to remember he's still a politician, and a crafty Chicago machine politician at that. Think about it - he's a wheeler-dealer, a charmer, one who can use his charisma to do things, but on the other hand, he's smart enough not to fall into the collective Borg hive of K Street. Sure, Let's Make a Deal isn't the best way of handling the Middle East, but in private, he's in constant contact with Israel, and surreptitiously getting advice from actual adults (not the petulant and cliquey teenagers that run Congress) on how not to screw up the Middle East.

Obama isn't near Salvador Allende, but if he's not careful, we may find out how we have to keep Joe Biden from inserting his foot into his mouth.

Julia Child: A foodie's goddess, a control freak's Mephistopheles

In this article, a member of the restaurant industry puts out the word that, yes, you can have your cake or hollandaise or Bloomin' Onion, but make sure you get some exercise. Otherwise, the armada of finger waggin' nannies will come to your door and raid your cabinets.

I'm currently into a program with a dietician that emphasizes fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains, and the like. I feel 100% better. At first, I missed caffeine and pancakes and that heavenly coffee roll with the white icing they sell at work, but then I discovered for half that amount of calories, I could have two slices of whole grain bread, peanut butter, and yogurt and be completely full hungry at 11am. I don't have those urges to raid the vending machine, except for the $2 Clif bar I buy. I even think I've lost weight.

That doesn't mean the health Puritans should slap the occasional cheeseburger and fries out of my hands. Sure, show me (not lecture, hector, cajole or anything resembling finger wagging) better food choices and their advantages, but unless you want a counterlecture on why strangers should mind their own damn business and not dictate their dogma to people, you'll walk right on by and shut your damn mouth.

In fact, I think a lot of what motivates these health Puritans (I'm looking directly at you, Tom Friedman of the CDC, the biggest nanny-state prick on the planet) is that they fear that the lower classes will discover that the foods that the upper classes take for granted are actually a lot better, and demand for these boutique foods will skyrocket. Hence, keeping the poor fat and happy on HFCS and cheap food is better than growing more food that gives out continuous energy, and charging an obscene amount for fruit ($3.99 for a half pound of pineapple at Au Bon Pain, when you can get a whole pineapple for 99 cents a pound and cut it up yourself?) and veggies kinda defeats the purpose of "beating obesity."

Which brings me to another point: health Puritans can't stand the sight of people who aren't perfect in weight and proportion. Most of the time it's the heavy and obese, but wouldn't it be nice if these dingalings cast their jaundiced eye on anorexic and bulimic girls, who sometimes are so underweight that they look like Holocaust death camp survivors? And for what purpose do these young girls count calories, exercise to exhaustion, and then wonder why their hair is falling out and their friends and parents are pleading them to stop losing weight? Fashion? To get that cute boy from her biology class to notice her? Being anorexic is just as bad as being obese - unless the goal of the health Puritans is to have a class of wafer-thin automatons who only survive on lettuce and water.

So the point of his letter, save the author's reputation, is to do what the great Julia Child did: be as much pain in the ass to the health Puritans as possible. Proclaim loudly and proudly that an entire stick of creamery butter makes the pies much better tasting, not some "weak as water" stand in. Incorporate as much liquor as Julia did, but not to the point where your entire dinner party is blitzed when the dessert comes around - including the children. And while your vegetarian friend looks at you in horror as you devour that 1/3 pound Angus burger, blithely mention that Julia Child lived till she was 92, and not on Gardenburgers and soy milk.

Then, after the dishes are cleared, head outside for a walk.

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A Scotsman tells the truth about the cult of stupidity

Craig Ferguson, the wily yet funny Scot (and now American citizen) from the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson tells the New York Post about how the United States "celebrates" (quotes mine) the cult of stupidity.

In the past twenty years, we have certainly let ourselves be ruled by emotion, escapism, and empathy, not by science, rationality, or sophistication. It not only shows up in our music and entertainment, but by our philosophy and literature. Is it any wonder how American Idol (to me the most fixed show since the game show scandals of the 1950's) is a popular show while you can't find three people to sit down and watch Masterpiece Theatre? Do you wonder why contestants fail at Jeopardy! while they'll rush right up and try to beat an unseen Banker on Deal or No Deal?

Probably one of the best indicator of how far we've come along in two decades is MTV. In 1981, MTV brought forth new acts and cutting-edge music. A World Premiere Video of more than eight minutes was a huge thing. MTV Contests actually had music-related prizes in them!

Today, you get cuts of videos, plus 23 hours of social-conscience filler, plus old and washed-up rock stars getting their fifteen seconds of fame. On VH1 it's no better - a better name for that network would be All Trashy And IQ Deficient Losers Who Desperately Need Real Jobs.

We've stopped at becoming individuals with individual tastes and individual thoughts. There are still Americans who are creative, innovative, and smart. But they're derided as outcasts and are shoved well behind the curtain while overpaid athletes and B through Z starlets, bimbos and himbos are showered with money, hand over fist.

America doesn't suck. Not in the least bit. The only thing we have to do is rescue it from those who profit from celebrating the stupid, silly, superficial elements that feed into it - Hollywood and Washington would be great places to start.