Russell the Wise?

  In his glorious film career Russell Crowe has played a gunfighter, an 18th century ship's captain, a Roman General, ironically he has also played a genius, but his newest role is that of a politically correct uber sissy. Mr. Crowe has joined his voice with those who think it is perfectly acceptable to tell a bunch of grown men and women how they should be living their lives.  It wasn't so long ago that Mr. Crowe and his business partner Peter Holmes put out £1.1 million to buy Sydney, Australia's Redfern club and its corresponding National Rugby League team. This isn't necessarily a bad thing. Clubs are a really good thing, and so is Rugby. A lot of us think that video poker games are also a rather pleasant thing, but apparently the Gladiator star doesn't think so.  After purchasing the Redfern club he took a look at the 60 video poker machines they had and decided this will never do. They are too much of a temptation for the low income people of Redfern. A court has just agreed with Russell, and has allowed the removal of the offending machines.  Mr. Crowe justified the removal with the following statement, "We are not moralizing here, we just believe that low-income areas like Redfern need less poker machines rather than more." This is outrageous for a few reasons. The company who owns those machines and had a contract with the Redfern club will now suffer from a loss of income due to the moral virtues of a new owner that don't include honoring a contract. Secondly, the last time we checked, any club that sells alcohol and has video poker machines does not fit into the Chuck-E-Cheese genre. That means that Crowe is making a decision for a number of adults who had decided they liked playing the machines. This is rather presumptuous thinking from a guy whose most notable interaction with the middle-class was chucking a phone at a hotel worker.  If Russell really wanted to help the poor of Redfern, he could use the £850,000 per year that the machines brought in to improve the lives of the lower income people of that area. We think they would be happier if he gave them something instead of just taking something away.