From the Lafayette Daily Advertiser OPELOUSAS, La. - After more than a month of living with dozens of displaced relatives in Opelousas, Jacquelyn Sherman, an evacuee from New Orleans, told her niece she was depressed. That all changed when she won $1.6 million — before taxes — playing a slot machine at Evangeline Downs Racetrack and Casino. "When it happened, I didn't know what was going on," Sherman said. "I had just put in my $20 in the "Wheel of Fortune" machine when it hit. My feeling about this win is better than being blessed. Thank you, Lord." Sherman had evacuated to her sister's home in Opelousas as Hurricane Katrina threatened New Orleans. After a month with no end in sight and no prospects, she and her niece began to pray Tuesday. "I told my aunt that God works in mysterious ways and that I had prayed that something good would happen for the whole family to be happy," Jamie Sherman said. Later that night, Jacquelyn Sherman and her sister decided to entertain themselves with a trip to Evangeline Downs. Before she knew it, Sherman went from having practically nothing to being a millionaire. "I have to get an attorney and make some decisions about my future," she said Wednesday at a news conference at the racetrack. "It hasn't all sunk in right now. I'm tired. We were up very late last night and back here very early. I plan to go home right now and rest, take a nap. I have so many thoughts going through my mind about what to do and how to do it." Jacquelyn Sherman's win is the single largest jackpot won since the casino's opening.

While it seems like a nice story about the downtrodden catching a break, I have several problems with this story.

Problem 1: If her circumstances were so dire, what was she doing spending money gambling? Even though the end result was positive, does it seem to be a good choice to spend scarce funds on playing slot machines? Whether it was her own money, or from the government doesn't matter that much to me. What matters is the decision of using her little bit of money in a casino. The story sends a message to poor people that you can be rewarded for making bad decisions. What about the other poor sods who are spending meal money trying to strike it rich? The odds on winning a jackpot like this (or like the lottery) are amazingly slim. This article only shows the exception, not the rule.

Problem 2: What did God have to do with winning on the slots? I was under the impression that the Bible doesn't look all that favorably on gambling. I highly doubt that Jesus reached down and touched that slot machine to rescue this woman. Does that mean all gambling winnings are influenced by God? What about all of the losing gamblers? Was God not listening, or did the Devil make them lose? It reminds me of when football players point a finger skyward when they score a touchdown. Did God intervene to allow them to run triumphantly through defenders, or did he inhibit the defense from stopping the play? Is he (or she, or it) responsible for the outcome of all competition? Maybe it is the team or player with the better prayer skills.

Opinion: I think one of the reasons why the poor continue to be poor is bad decision making. Case in point, take a drive through the projects or a poorer area sometime. Note that nearly 100% of dwellings have satellite cable. Also note the number of cars with several thousand dollar rims. How many of these homes have XBox, PS2, etc... with nearly every game available? Don't even get me started on the clothes and the bling-bling. Are any of those good expenditures of scarce money? What do any of those things do to get a family out of poverty? Absolutely nothing. Add all of those extraneous expenses up and you could put together a tidy nest egg over time or send kids to college.

If you travel more than casually I'm certain that you've figured out by now that TSA (Transportation Safety Administration) sucks bigtime. Case in point. My home base of travel is Hartsfield in Atlanta, which is the busiest airport in the world (in case you didn't know that). While our TSA people are thieving trolls too, at least they don't make you take your shoes off unless you actually set off the detector. So if you have carefully selected your shoes for travel, as I do, then they don't have to come off. Problem is that almost every other airport is still making you take your shoes off, regardless of whether or not you set off the detector. When returning from St. Louis this week I had an incident with TSA staff over the policy. When they asked me to take off my shoes I politely declined and inquired about why all of the smaller (actually my term was hayseed) airports were making you take your shoes off for no apparent reason. For some reason my inquiry didn't go over so well. Even though my shoes didn't set off their detector I was yanked from line and a supervisor was called for. Next thing you know I'm surrounded by TSA trolls brow-beating me for giving them a hard time. Needless to say I got the full anal probe (well almost). The worst of the trolls stated to me that he is just following instructions from his boss and that he never questions those instructions. My response was: "When my boss tells me to do something stupid or nonsensical I question it immediately. That's commonly referred to as thinking for yourself." I got the cow look (moo!) for a few seconds then back to the probe and sent on my way. I sent a nastygram to TSA this morning but figure it will get me put on some sort of "watchlist" as like Shawn al-Bitcheen (or something similar) and I'll get deep probed on every flight.

After 9/11 I'm a believer in securing our airports, but TSA is just plain stupid. I'm not the only one saying this by the way. El-al airlines from Israel is one of the most attractive targets for terrorists on a daily basis and they have the best security processes in the world. Officials from El-al have ripped our TSA procedures as being basically useless. Let's get something straight, in the history of air travel and terrorism there has not been a single blue-haired old lady who bombed or hijacked a plane. So what is the point of giving them an anal probe? Over 95% of airline related terrorism has been carried out by muslim males between the ages of 20-40. That is a fact. So why are we wasting valuable resources to harass mostly people who don't even come close to fitting the profile?