Hochul & James go wild with holy
Cuomo keeping the faithful out of the holy church of Nassau oTB and cutting off ny const art 1 sec 3
A Cricket Ban Won’t Hurt the Taliban As much as girls gone wild stick it to the faithful of the holy church of Nassau oTB
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.
Easy money.
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.
Easy money.
Boycotting the national team would only punish ordinary Afghans.
A cricket spectator sports a hat decorated with the Afghan and Taliban flags at the first match under the new regime in Kabul, Sept. 3.
PHOTO: AAMIR QURESHI/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
Eight days after a suicide bomber slaughtered scores of people at Kabul airport, the Taliban allowed a cricket match to be played in the Afghan capital. Players were drawn from among the best Afghan cricketers. Some 4,000 spectators attended—each patted down at the gates by Taliban guards. The enthusiastic but prudent crowd waved both the flag of Afghanistan and the banner of the Taliban. No women were present.
Under Taliban rule, education, music and conviviality have been replaced by seventh-century religious dogma. Afghanistan today is a land almost totally bereft of joy. I would omit the word “almost” were it not for cricket. Afghan refugees learned the game in Pakistan in the 1990s, and it is now perhaps Afghanistan’s most popular spectator sport.
The Afghan national team has made astonishing strides over the past 20 years, holding its own against the world’s best. After initially banning all sports—including kite-flying—during its first spell in power, the Taliban relented in 2000 and permitted cricket. It helped that cricketers play in pants, unlike barelegged, brazen soccer.
When the Taliban was ousted in 2001, cricket took root on Afghan soil. The sport became a metaphor for a new Afghanistan. Afghan players won contracts in the Indian Premier League, the world’s richest. One player, Rashid Khan, is among the best bowlers (or pitchers) in cricket. (“Kabul is bleeding again,” he tweeted shortly after the Taliban took power, with a plea to stop killing Afghans.)
Although the latest generation of the Taliban is savvy enough to know that it gains little by banning cricket, the head of the Taliban’s cultural commission has said that women won’t be allowed to play. By the Taliban’s twisted logic, how could women play in public stadiums when they can’t even walk outdoors without a male chaperone? So the Afghan women’s cricket team is now moribu
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