[...] the open-ended, state-run lottery is a salutary vision: in losing week after week, Lenore is actually paying into a civic fund that is not unlike taxes, a fund of commonwealth that the young Wallace tentatively steps toward here. Many U.S. lotteries have historically been legally set up to support states' public-education systems, another sign of Lenore's involvement with learning (though increasingly such claims about state lotteries are truthless advertising).