The Oppenheimer Report 1/25/10

Where to begin. I’ve been somewhat pre-occupied this past week and have only peripherally glanced at the news as I was rushing from here to there. Once again, Mother Nature is front and center in the week’s news. Certainly there was much about the earthquake in Haiti. Not only were there powerful aftershocks from that quake in that beleaguered island, but I understand there was much seismic activity elsewhere in the world, including several quakes in South America. I read in the Saturday Toronto Star that work has begun to build new suburbs outside Port Au Prince. I watched George Clooney’s relief telethon last Friday and grudgingly admit that Justin Timberlake in a trio performing Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” was an amazing performance. I know, I know, he's the anti-christ, but he was good! Big storms last week on the West Coast of the United State. Los Gatos, California, wherever that is, received a whopping 14.7. inches of rain in one 24 hr. period. Up here in the GWN, we’re presently experiencing a January thaw.




The other news which kind of floored me is that, after only seven months on the air, talk show host Conan O’Brian in off the Tonight Show and Jay Leno is resuming his late night spot in March. Last Friday was Conan's last night. I think O’Brien is a good writer, but he just didn’t pull in the big numbers for the 11:30 PM slot. His severance pay? Over $40 Million! I’m not exactly sure what happened but I had heard that Leno’s 10 PM show wasn’t doing well. I had no idea Conan was bombing as well. I’m a Letterman fan. As far as I‘m concerned, this makes NBC look stupid … again. $40 Million for seven months ... yikes!When I think back to the Letterman debacle, when he was passed over for the Tonight Show, it looks like something is rotten in Burbank. Oh well, on to the next entertainment road kill.



In politics, the honeymoon is over, and one year in, President Obama is fighting for his political life. Pundits are saying that last week’s Massachusetts vote to elect Republican Scott Brown to fill Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat was a clear message that voters are dissatisfied with President Obama’s performance, and that they want him to focus more on job creation than health care reform. A Republican in Kennedy’s seat changes the mix and could scuttle the health care bill, not that I understand anything relating to politics. I not at all surprised that some of that Partisan-Pelosi-we-can-fix-everything-those-greedy-self-serving-Republicans-messed-up” arrogance is beginning to evaporate. As I predicted, the very voters who deified this relative neophyte are beginning to turn on him like a pack of wolves. So much for a fresh start in Washington. Still, it is with no particular satisfaction that I watch yet another starry-eyed politician fall into the quagmire of a Washington political system which seems to have more checks than balances. I’m disgusted with both parties right now, and I can’t see us digging out from this mess in my lifetime.

I'm a little late getting this week's report out, and now we are experiencing a mini blizzard. So much for the January thaw! 
 
Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2010 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED