Will Gambling Save the Coast?

From the Saturday, Feb. 25, Los Angeles Times:

BILOXI, Miss. — From the balconies of the Isle of Capri Casino, Mississippi's once-glittering coastline spreads toward the horizon like an allegory of bad luck — a nightmare vision of heaped debris, buildings stripped to beams and traffic lights blinking on tilt.

But in the second-floor gambling parlor, an alternate, windowless reality is hermetically sealed from the devastation. The sound of power tools is drowned out by the incessant blooping of the slots. In here, nearly six months after the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history, the good times are rolling.

The gamblers are back, and they are bringing huge amounts of money to this beaten coastline's most important industry.

Nothing like a little sin to make you think like you're helping someone.