Follow The Money...

Am I the only one who questioned why the Pechanga tribe have run so many institutional spots on TV these last months? You know the ones -- the rugged guy with long hair, dressed in a native motif, walks through the verdant field... a young native kid pets the horse, etc.?

Well, as Deep Throat told Woodward and Bernstein, "follow the money."

We're coming up on another election, folks, and guess what? Our friends the Pechangas, along with the other tribes with gaming interests, are wanting our vote. There's four, yes four, ballot initiatives that will allow more slot machines on Indian land. They say that the state will receive something like $9 billion in additional revenue if we tick the right boxes.

So, those 30 second infomercials we've been sitting through? They're designed to build good feelings toward our simple living native friends. They don't mention the election, so they're immune from any election law. Only now are we seeing real ballot-oriented ads paid for by the tribes.

I don't have a problem with Indian gaming, mind you, or gaming of any kind. Just because I'm too cheap to blow my hard-earned money that way, doesn't mean I don't think that you can't.

What does bug me is the way the Pechanga tribe depicts itself to the general population. That simple living, look-at-us-bond-with-nature spiel irks me to no end. Ask someone who has worked on homes for the tribal leaders, and you'll learn the houses are massive. Massive.

Their ads are as disingenuous as certain Hollywood types who are all for cramming environmental messages down our throats, while defiling the planet in the sake of art. And yes, Robert Redford, I'm talking about you, and the parkland you destroyed to make "Lions For Lambs." But that's another story...