I ate lunch at a casino south of Yosemite. They had a special first-class entrance just for tribal elders. Another balancing of the scales.

I was a good little Catholic, attended parochial schools, was an altar boy. I was NOT sexually abused. When apparently all around me were buggered and blown, not one approach was made toward me. Not a hint.

Do you know what that does to a kid’s self-esteem? I was the only kid left out, rejected, not considered good enough even by the perverts. It’s enough to make a grown man cry at the memory. The bastards! Entrusted with the well-being of little believers and screwing them over (not) like that. They should pay.

I want my case tried in Florida and would like the same jury Casey Anthony had. I could incorporate myself and sell shares!

Failing that, I’d like to become a Native American. They have Navaho Indians, Arapaho Indians, I’m going to become a Casino Indian. I should be eligible for benefits from all Native American operated casinos, as a member of the umbrella tribe.

It’s worth a try.

Arf

Lawsuits are necesssary because it gives little people access to justice. But when they become an end in themselves, they become corrupt. This commodification, or tendency to turn all human activity and culture into commercial transactions, has spread to all aspects of human and civil life.

We’ve certainly seen it in finance. Finance and banking are a useful and worthwhile commercial activity, they provide bootstrap funding for new enterprises by giving businessmen today access to tomorrow’s profits. In this way, the future can “reach back in time” to help build its own foundation in the past. But when debt becomes a commodity, an end in itself, to be trafficked and marketed, we develop a shadow economy that drains capital and talent and produces nothing, and not being fully responsive to market forces, can easily oscillate wildly out of control.

And we have all seen what money has done to politics. Legislation and policy have become commodities, to be bought and sold.

Money has always made the world go round, but we have created a society where money is no longer a means to an end, but an end in itself. It is no longer a medium of exchange, its become the way we keep score. And everyone has forgotten how much fun just playing the game used to be.