Claude Solnik
Long Island Business News
2150 Smithtown Ave.
Ronkonkoma, NY 11779-7348
Home > LI Confidential > Stop scratching on holidays
Stop scratching on holidays
Published: June 1, 2012
Off Track Betting in New York State has been racing into a crisis called shrinking revenue. Some people have spitballed a solution: Don’t close on holidays.
New York State Racing Law bars racing on Christmas, Easter and Palm Sunday, and the state has ruled OTBs can’t handle action on those days, even though they could easily broadcast races from out of state.
“You should be able to bet whenever you want,” said Jackson Leeds, a Nassau OTB employee who makes an occasional bet. He added some irrefutable logic: “How is the business going to make money if you’re not open to take people’s bets?”
Elias Tsekerides, president of the Federation of Hellenic Societies of Greater New York, said OTB is open on Greek Orthodox Easter and Palm Sunday.
“I don’t want discrimination,” Tsekerides said. “They close for the Catholics, but open for the Greek Orthodox? It’s either open for all or not open.”
OTB officials have said they lose millions by closing on Palm Sunday alone, with tracks such as Gulfstream, Santa Anita, Turf Paradise and Hawthorne running.
One option: OTBs could just stay open and face the consequences. New York City OTB did just that back in 2003. The handle was about $1.5 million – and OTB was fined $5,000.
The most devout Putin followers talk of the Russian leader in mystical terms, comparing him to the Katechon, a Greek word referring to a force that keeps the Antichrist at bay.
“Putin is katechonic,” said Alexander Dugin, a Russian public intellectual and traditionalist who maintains a following among nationalists, neo-fascists and European identitarians.
ROME — Pope Francis is viewed by many European liberals as the greatest moral voice against the resurgence in populism and the demonization of migrants.
But for many European nationalists, anti-migration politicians and opponents of gay rights, the real spiritual strongman of their movement is the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin, their alternate pope.
So when Mr. Putin visited the Vatican on Thursday, it was more than a mere meeting — their third — between the two men. Rather it was a tête-à-tête between the standard bearers of competing views of Christianity on the European continent as ideological polarization between nationalists and liberals cleaves the West.
“I may be speaking heresy, but President Putin looks more like a pope to me, for the way he is living Christianity, compared to the one who should to all effects be the pope,” said Gianmatteo Ferrari, the secretary of Lombardy Russia, a pro-Russian and Putin-adoring association, before the meeting.
ADVERTISEMENT
“The greatest, proudest and most strenuous advocate of our Christian values is President Putin,” Mr. Ferrari said.
The president of Lombardy Russia, Gianluca Savoini, is a close ally of and unofficial Russia liaison for Matteo Salvini, Italy’s anti-migration interior minister. Mr. Putin was scheduled to meet Mr. Salvini for dinner, along with Deputy Prime Minister Luigi Di Maio, leader of the populist Five Star Movement.
Mr. Putin’s dance card also included meetings with President Sergio Mattarella and Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, as well as his old friend Silvio Berlusconi. But his most closely watched appointment was with the pope.
In typical fashion, Mr. Putin was an hour late (he also arrived 50 minutes late for their first meeting, in 2013, and more than an hour late in 2015).
The men exchanged gifts, and also what the Vatican later described as ‘‘cordial’’ conversation on “questions of relevance to the life of the Catholic Church in Russia,” ecological issues, and the political situation in Syria, Ukraine and Venezuela.
ADVERTISEMENT
For Mr. Putin, the meeting was a way to burnish his reputation as a global leader. For Francis, Mr. Putin’s cooperation is essential for the protection of Christians in the Middle East, where Russia is active. The pope is also pursuing unity, or at least better relations, with the Russian Orthodox Church.
In 2016, Francis met with Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, the first such meeting of the two church leaders in about 400 years. But Francis is aware that without the support of Mr. Putin, those efforts are likely to go nowhere.
The meeting at the Vatican comes as Mr. Putin has taken to directly addressing Europe’s Catholics, many of whom are attracted to nationalist politicians.
In a recent interview with The Financial Times, in which Mr. Putin declared the end of Western liberalism, he was asked whether religion would play a greater role in national culture and cohesion.
“This is exactly why I will now say a few words about Catholics,” he said, embarking on what seemed like a defense of the traditions of the Catholic Church.
“Sometimes I get the feeling that these liberal circles are beginning to use certain elements and problems of the Catholic Church as a tool for destroying the church itself,” Mr. Putin said. “This is what I consider to be incorrect and dangerous.”
No comments:
Post a Comment