The trajectory we’re on

Gloom, despair and agony on me.

Deep dark depression, excessive misery.

If it weren’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all.

Gloom, despair and agony on me.

-Buck Owens, Roy Clark and the cast of Hee-Haw WHO SAYS the news is always negative? Sometimes the papers are so full of good news that it makes a fella want to take off his hat, rear back, and slap his thigh with it. Yee-haw! Just like on Hee-Haw, and not some pallid imitation of it for the uppermiddle class like Garrison Keillor’s “Prairie Home Companion.” No, sir. Consider this little news item a genuwine, bonafide kneeslapper, podnah:

Those in charge over at the Arkansas Lottery are said to be mighty down, somber, melancholy, and generally less than jubilant. Gloom, despair and agony on them. ’Cause the latest news isn’t good. At least for those drawing the big paychecks at the lottery’s main office. What’s the matter? The suckers just aren’t coming through the way they used to do. (No, that’s not the first line of a country song.) What it is, is great news for all the rest of us. Because it meansfolks in Arkansas may be wising up. It’s just taken us a while to catch on to this government-issue numbers game.

Last week the folks at the Arkansas Lottery Commission had to reduce the estimated amount of their take by almost $6.8 million.

The lottery’s director, croupier-in-chief Bishop Woosley, told the commission that the lotteries in other states are leaving Arkansas behind. Translation: They’re leaving us far ahead when it comes to not wasting our money on lottery tickets.

Also, this state’s lottery might soon be a “dinosaur.” Mr. Woolsey proposed downgrading revenue projections from $89.5 million this year to less than $82.8 million. One of the lottery’s commissioners dared to commit lese majeste by pointing out to the exalted director and pit boss that the lottery’s revenue is supposed to increase, not decrease. To quote Commissioner Mark Scott:

“Two years ago, we were at $98.5 million as a budget. This year we were at 89.5 and now we’re at 82. I’m concerned with what that number may be a year from now. I know you realize the enormity of the situation we’re in and the trajectory we’re on.”

Ah, yes, the trajectory we’re on. (With language like that, you’d think we were at Cape Canaveral, not at a meeting of the heads of some gambling operation.) Well, sir, here’s the trajectory we’re on: More and more folks in Arkansas seem to be catching on to this glossy swindle. And fewer and fewer of us want to be taken any longer. That, sir, is the blessed trajectory we’re on.

For anybody not pulling down the big bucks at the lottery’s headquarters, it’s mighty good news. One day-with the trajectory we’re on-maybe the lottery will indeed go the way of the dinosaurs, disappearing forever in some tar pit. And the state will have the simple self-respect to finance college scholarships by using a stable funding source. Instead of taking a gamble by using one that requires taking advantage of the poorest and most gullible of our citizens. At least in terms of being able to figure simple odds.

What a glorious day that would be.

IN HIS REPORT to the commissioners, Bishop Woosley said the biggest decline in the lottery’s several games came in the sale of scratch-off tickets. More good news!

Can anybody who’s anybody at the state lottery really have thought that this racket would attract the interest of high-rollers, the kind of folks with plenty of disposable income to spend on gambling? Instead of just hopping on the next flight to Las Vegas? The lines at convenience stores always seem to have a somebody up thereat the counter rubbing nickels on tickets. And when he does win, he immediately swaps his tickets, over and over again, till he’s out of money. It’s a pitiful sight.

Scratch-off tickets still accounted for $24.8 million in sales last month-twenty-four point eight million. That’s $24.8 million that’s not going for rent or groceries, let alone schoolbooks and symphony tickets. But still, the take was down almost 20 percent from what the lottery expected. So there is good news even there.

The bad news is: You just know those running this numbers game for the state aren’t going to go quietly into extinction. More’s the pity. Already there’s talk of allowing the use of debit cards to buy tickets. Or maybe changing the law to allow for Keno-type games, whatever those are. (Do we really want to know?) But something tells us we’ll find out. Just as every cub reporter on the cops beat soon finds out what a pigeon drop is.

But whatever it takes to keep the suckers interested, and keep them putting down their money, you can bet the lottery commission will be interested in it. The way Bugsy Siegel was interested in the clear mountain air of Nevada, or Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid were attracted to the wholesome life of the Argentine Pampas, where they took refuge toward the end. For a while.

A dinosaur? What a wonderful day that would be if the Arkansas Lottery really did go the way of the dinosaurs. As in, extinct.