This is my own personal hang-up and I know it.  There’s really no good reason why someone spending ten or twenty dollars on Lottery tickets should bother me at all.  It’s their money and they can do whatever they want with it.  That’s their right.  But when I was a kid, the ‘numbers’ was a racket and the bad guys ended up with the money and I was brainwashed into thinking this was a stupid pursuit.  To this day, every time I stand behind someone buying ‘Scratchers’ and ‘Big Spins’ and ‘Super Lottos’ I have this barely resistable urge to take the twenty, stuff it back in their pocket, and tell them to wise up.  That’s it — just wise up.  There have to be better ways to blow your dough.  Even the fact that this ‘Stupidity Tax’ channels some of the money into the hands of the Governor and Legislature doesn’t ease my reaction (and in fact might make it worse).  Nothing is created.  I’m disappointed the States have felt the need to sponsor this enterprise, especially in the name of helping our schools.  As far as I’m concerned, the day the Lottery was legalized is the day the public school systems began their long decline.  It’s a karmic thing — how can you tell people they should be educated and be stupid at the same time?  ‘Karma’.   Isn’t that a Scratchers game?