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This sweetly low-risk form of gambling was a family tradition, but not exactly addictive. And that wasn’t an accident. George Will writes that the risk of loss is what drives gambling, which has exploded in recent years with the advent of online sports betting. The behavior, he says, “is not a degenerate quest for wealth without labor; it is a lust for limited risk without serious danger.”
On the internet alone, some 38 million people will be lusting this weekend, according to expectations for online betting on Sunday’s game in Las Vegas. A great many of these people are probably addicted, George writes, which might suggest that tamping gambling down is a legitimate government interest.
But efforts to do so have been messy and ineffective and, besides, George writes, “for most who bet, their pastime is harmless, and we should not constrain a large majority to protect a relatively small minority from what is called a ‘disorder of impulse control.’”
Hear, hear — also, Dad, if you are reading this, I am free on Sunday and could use $40.
Chaser: Vegas made its own big bet to reinvent itself as a sports town, journalist Bill Saporito writes — with a new twist on tax-and-spend.
Welcome to Swift Bowl Sunday
Of course, everybody knows what the real Super Bowl bets are going to be:
Does Taylor Swift show up to the game wearing a Travis Kelce jersey? Does Taylor Swift get engaged to Travis Kelce wearing a Travis Kelce jersey? Does Taylor Swift eat a plate of chicken tenders with ketchup and seemingly ranch?
Or … does Taylor Swift use the Super Bowl to finally unveil her diabolical plan?
All the conspiracy theorizing about Swift seems pretty fuzzy on the plan’s details (apart from its diabolicalness), but Alexandra Petri writes that the pop star’s intentions are hiding in plain sight, right in her song lyrics:
- ‘“I’m a mirrorball” (“mirrorball”): In this lyric, Swift confesses she is not even a human being but perhaps some sort of panopticon, obviously linked to the CIA.’
- ‘“Wrapped all of my past mistakes in barbed wire” (“invisible string”): This refers to the secret facility where Taylor Swift’s enemies are kept.’
- ‘“No body, no crime”: Swift admits she knows what really happened to Amelia Earhart.’
Read Alex’s full analysis for the truth on Swift’s status as superweapon, her mastery of time travel and her curious preoccupation with the state of Maine.
Or you can acknowledge the T. Swift conspiracizing for what it is: nothing more than a bad-faith play for MAGA engagement, as Jim Geraghty writes.
“This is about affirmation,” he says, “not illumination.”
It’s to be expected given today’s incentive structure in politics, which doesn’t punish fabrications much at all. Instead, there’s a new cardinal sin, Jim writes: “being boring.”
Chaser: The big game need not be a source of psyop-fueled division. In 2021, Kate Cohen reminded us all of the Super Bowl’s unique power to unify America.
From photographer and filmmaker Axel Javier Sulzbacher’s November photo essay on the unsavory side to U.S. avocado consumption. It’s whimsical to consider how deep that quantity of guac would fill a stadium — less so to witness how avocado production ruined Sulzbacher’s beloved town of Uruapan, Mexico.
Sulzbacher writes how during the 1990s, cartels in the mold of Mexican drug rings overtook the industry in Michoacán, converting the state to produce avocados, avocados and more avocados. They destroyed the environment and plenty of people’s lives.
The only solution, Sulzbacher says, is a decrease in demand. He calls for a U.S. ban on importing Mexican avocados until the industry can right itself, but he writes that consumer choices can make a difference, too.
So maybe it’s a spinach-artichoke dip kind of year.
Actually, welcome to Swift Bowl Saturday
If you can’t wait all the way until Sunday, you are not alone. Alyssa Rosenberg wrote back in 2020 that the Super Bowl should be on Saturdays. As should the Oscars. And any prestige-TV programming while we’re at it.
The result of designating Sunday evenings as prime cultural real estate is that viewers have to choose between being well-informed and well-rested — all when Saturday nights are right there!
With some rescheduling, Alyssa writes, “we can host our Super Bowl and Oscar parties on Saturday evening, sleep off the hangovers and then extend the festivities into a weekend-long postmortem.”
Works for me. Taylor, can you make this happen by tomorrow?
Smartest, fastest
- Cartoonist Edith Pritchett pie-charts her thoughts while watching the Super Bowl as a British person.
- Music writer Kim Ruehl writes that at the Grammys, Tracy Chapman and Joni Mitchell turned the lights back on for a lot of us.
- Forget about a second term, Marc Thiessen writes. Is President Biden fit to serve right now?
- Jen Rubin writes that Donald Trump’s biggest disqualifier is that, slogans aside, he can’t seem to put America first.
It’s a goodbye. It’s a haiku. It’s … The Bye-Ku.
Saturday big game?
“This changes things,” Tay exclaims.
“Ready the freeze ray!”
Plus! A Friday bye-ku (Fri-ku!) from reader Raymond C.:
Immunity ploy
Falls flat on its legal face
Susceptible Trump
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Have your own newsy haiku? Email it to me, along with any questions/comments/ambiguities. Have a great weekend!
