Enhancing your chances
Roll the dice. Draw a card. Pick a number. In Las Vegas, that’s how the games are played. Many of those who visit the casinos in Las Vegas go
in with some
“fun money” to play with. If they lose, well, it was fun. And if they win, they can brag
about their good fortune. Either way, it
’s just a game.
Some gamblers take the games more seriously. They study and practice and seek
advice from the pros, looking for any small edge against the house odds that
are consistently stacked against the players. They don
’t play just for fun. They play to win and they are willing to invest a
considerable amount of time and money to do so.
That approach recalls the tag line that ended every National Clothesline column
written by the late Al Robson:
“In the game of business, the more you know, the better you can play the game.”
This is a game you can’t afford to lose. Your livelihood depends on it. The well-being of your family
and employees will rise or fall depending on how well you play the game. More
players enter the game every day, yet the pot is not really growing. You need
to find an edge to bring the odds a little more in your favor.
If you go to Las Vegas for the Clean Show, it will be up to you how seriously
you play the games of chance offered in the casinos
— or whether to play at all. But you will be missing a bet if you don’t apply the example of the serious gambler by using your time at the show to
study, get advice from the pros and improve your chances for success in the
game of business. When you return home, you will be a better player.
The cheapest of cheap shots
It has become almost laughable, really, like a bad joke you hear over and over — and the punchline never changes. Did you know drycleaning is single-handedly
responsible for the country
’s high homicide rate? It’s also the cause of teen pregnancy, global warming and obesity. There is even
new evidence that suggests it
’s the real reason the dinosaurs became extinct. You don’t have to be a conspiracy nut to recognize that drycleaning has become the butt
of a lot of bad jokes in the media. Recently, however, a new low was reached.
A few days after Cho Seung-Hui tragically ended the lives of 32 people at
Virginia Tech, New York Daily News staff writer Julian Kesner wrote an article
entitled
“Toxic Fumes May Have Made Gunman Snap.” In it, Kesner indicates a chance that exposure to perc fumes over time may have
somehow contributed to Cho's mental instability, and subsequently, the
massacre. After all, his parents had been perc cleaners for 15 years, and a
“recent” study by Dr. Dolores Malaspina and others at Columbia University claimed that
kids of cleaners are 3
1⁄2 times more likely to develop schizophrenia.
If there is a big question mark looming over your head right now, then you are
not alone. Never mind that Kesner admits that
“Cho has never been officially diagnosed with schizophrenia.” The real head-scratcher is that there is an actual study that tries to link
parental occupation as a perc drycleaner to an increased risk of schizophrenia.
The study looked at a total population of 88,829 children born in Jerusalem from
1964 through 1976. The participants were followed from birth to age 21-33
years. Of those children, only 144 were offspring of perc drycleaners. Four
developed schizophrenia. On average, that number would be one or two children
when taken from the general populace. Thus, the researchers concluded that
“Tetrachloroethylene exposure warrants further investigation as a risk factor for
schizophrenia.
”
Not only is the study ill-conceived and inconclusive, but the information is
over 30 years old. The numerical findings are underwhelming, at best. It simply
does not make any sense. Yet, that didn
’t stop the Daily News from recklessly linking drycleaning to a horrific
shooting. Of course, when you consider that the newspaper ran almost five dozen
articles related to the tragedy in the week that followed it, then it can be
seen for what it is: an attempt to sensationalize the news and sell papers. It
’s hard to believe that any member of the media chooses to look for a payoff when
it should be paying its respect instead.
