The Oppenheimer Report - 2/7/11

Just as Punxatawny Phil, along with Canada’s own drug-addled weather groundhog “Wiarton Willie" and all the other official weather rodents out there across North America predicted an early Spring, the Northeast prepared for what was expected to be the weather event of the winter. Starting about last Saturday, Toronto began bracing for an "enormous" storm scheduled to blow through on Tuesday night and on into Wednesday. Listening to the radio on my way back up north, I heard talk that this weather bomb could end up costing Toronto taxpayers an estimated $5 Million for snow removal. There were predictions of up to two feet of snow in some areas, and commuters were being urged to stay home from work or take public transportation. Weather junkie that I am, I punched up the satellite radar for our region, frothing in anticipation of this imminent weather disaster, and I watched with quiet excitement as the front crept in towards the Muskokas. It DID look like a whopper of a storm on Doppler, but as it turned out, it was a dud in our area. My weatherman nephew explained that this storm “shot its wad” in the Midwest and lost much of its punch by the time it got to our region. Put another way, Jack Frost experienced performance anxiety. As I began this report on Wednesday afternoon, I saw some “after” photos of downtown Toronto, and it didn’t look all that bad to me. Talk about the forecaster who cried “Wolf!”. You know what we call weather like that in Buffalo? Spring.


It never ceases to amaze me how inhumane we humans can be. While I am not a PETA fanatic, I do bristle when I hear and read some of the incredible stories about cruelty to animals. My mom watches “Animal Planet” a lot, and there seem to be a lot of programs that focus on animal cruelty. Last week, in the Canadian news, there was a story about 100 healthy sled dogs destroyed near Whistler B.C., in a brutally inhumane way, simply because they were no longer needed. The story became public because the guy who killed the animals, an employee of the company that offered sled dog tours, filed for workman’s compensation. Amazingly, his request was granted. He claimed he had experienced post traumatic stress syndrome from doing “his job”. I guess he blames his employer for forcing him to kill the dogs, but how can a person in their right mind do such a thing? Regardless of the debate about whether or not the dogs should have been destroyed, what was most offensive to me was how they were killed. I realize that it is somewhat hypocritical to talk about animal cruelty when in fact much of the meat I eat is raised on factory farms in deplorable conditions for the animals. I live with the unsettling realization that indirectly, I contribute to animal cruelty every day because of the products I consume. And I don’t consider myself an animal rights activist. We do bad things to animals in the name of science, and that is hard enough to accept, but when the harm is senseless, as it was in the B.C. case, then it is really disturbing to me. Indeed, there is a brutality to Mother Nature, and the balance of nature is predicated on the concept of prey and predators. It just seems as if in the animal kingdom, man is the animal that makes other animals suffer the most. Kill for food, or to cull the herd. But try to make sure the animal does not suffer!


Earlier this week, Egyptian President HoseMe Mubarak agreed not to run in the next elections, but for the approximately 250,000 (relatively peaceful) protesters, gathered in the streets of Cairo last week, who waved shoes in the air and called for his immediate removal, this was too little too late. Pro Mubarak “thugs” were reported to be targeting the foreign press, and at least one Egyptian reporter was killed.

Last night, Green Bay beat Pittsburgh 31-25 in SuperBowl XLV. I read a funny article about the fact that Superbowls are numbered in Roman numerals. C’mon America, we’re not talking about gladiators here … it’s 45, O.K.? Up here in the Great White North, we didn’t get the great American Superbowl commercials (which, in my opinion are the best part about Superbowls); I guess I’ll have to catch them on YouTube. A river dare she....



- Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2011 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED