Buffletucky Redux

A day or so ago, the Buffalo News published yet another anti-casino "My View". Authored, and I use that term loosely, by Tom O'Malley a teacher in Buffalo who firmly believes that '...gambling is a drain on the economy, not a boon.' To back up his assertion Mr. O'Malley offered no economic data and no statistics, not even a wee bit of historical evidence that may prop up his contention. He did, however paint an horrific but exagerated image of endless lines in his local convenience store as zombie-like folks frittered away their hard earned cash on the lottery, only to lurk in darkened corners for their ship to come in. Mr. O'Malley then went on to opine, poetically, about the 'essence of Buffalo' seen through his nostalgia ridden rose tinted glasses. Buffalo as strategic trade center during the heyday of the Erie Canal, Buffalo as a world renowned arts and culture center, Frederick Law Olmsted and Frank Lloyd Wright as architectural luminaries bedecking our 'City of Light'. A city of beautiful neighborhoods where hobbit like residents cheerfully pull together through blizzards and 'missed field goals... good grief... he does go on mind you. In his infantile, prosaic manner he manages to make Buffalo sound almost mythic, even conjuring up images of ancient Athens, lordy! Why does this kind of fuzzy brained, intellectual dishonesty persist in this town? It is because the Mr. O'Malley's and countless other high minded, blithering idiots who wrongly perceive themselves as the governing conscience of this poor city, live in the surviving nice neighborhoods, go to work in this years model and remain oblivious of the rot surrounding them. Look, Buffalo has a few nice things and a somewhat historic past, but we cannot continue to allow this blighted burg to become some fanciful chimera cordoned off from the future by these tireless toe-heads. Mr. O'Malley cites the flight of our youth from this town and somehow conflates that with the evils of gambling. The reason our young leave this town is because the kind of bucolic, misty-eyed thinking Mr. O'Malley expounds cannot put food on their tables. What does Mr. O'Malley want us to do, build more bloody museums, where we can't sell the old crap to buy new, build more theaters and small intimate shops along Elmwood Avenue, build another bloody canal? He does not say nor does he say who will pay for it, certainly not him... I'll hazard. To attain the progress we so desperately need, this city needs investment, it needs commerce and it needs buzz. Listening to poetry and playing a lute in Delaware Park dressed only in a toga and a laurel wreath may be Mr. O'Malley's vision for the future of Buffalo but I think in reality we need something a little more tangible a little more real. The casino, for all its ills, will not become a loadstone around our collective necks, it will become a mere component in an economic recovery for downtown and that is downtown as a destination... imagine. The Mr. O'Malleys of this town will not and do not contribute to the momentum necessary to create growth, they complain about change, they agitate for the status quo, they block progress and long for a past they never knew and is irrelevant to this city's future.