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| Photo by Shauna Leigh Taylor-Oppenheimer |
A week ago last Tuesday it was election day in Ontario, and Norman Bates (Dalton McGinty) was once again elected Premier of Ontario. Shauna voted at the Katrine Community Centre. Keep in mind, Katrine has a population of about 80 people … no recounts or election fraud up here in the Great White North.
I watched a story on the evening news the other night indicating that the ancient “sport” of cricket fighting in China is dwindling in popularity. It would never occur to me in a thousand years to entertain myself, much less gamble, on a couple of crickets fighting, but apparently that is a legitimate and ancient pass time in China. I wonder if those crickets juice. Some of them looked awfully pumped up.
With stock values of Research in Motion down 65% from their all time high, the once ubiquitous Blackberry has fallen on hard times. Last week, to add insult to injury, the Blackberry communications system went down for days, and Blackberry users were unable to communicate their vital information (How R U ??? … LOL!). Heaven forbid they should pick up a land line or send an email through their computer. Always there to pick up the slack, Apple just introduced its latest IPhone (4S?) and people were lined up around the block to purchase them.
Republican hopeful and pizza mogul Herman “9-9-9” Cain ruffled some feathers last week in response to the recent and much-publicized Occupy Wall Street protest. A lot of people got together in NYC and other major metropolitan centers to protest the unbridled greed and injustice they attribute to the machinations of Wall Street. With so many people out of work, it is not surprising that people blame Wall Street for the latest financial mess. Where‘s the bailout for the poor, eat the rich, blah, blah, blah. Cain’s response to this: Quit your whining; blame yourselves and the government you elected for their failed policies, not Wall Street. He’s got the solution: simplify the tax code. Spoken like a true businessman, but wait until the gloves come off and the real campaigning begins. When it gets ugly he’ll likely take his ball and go home, just like Ross Perot did when his feelings were hurt. While I can’t comment on this intelligently (I hardly ever do!), I admire Cain’s spunk. Clearly he is not in this to make friends, and yet he’s doing surprisingly well in early polls. At the moment his biggest competition for the Republican nod is the unspectacular Mitt Romney. I understand the indignation of the protesters, but I think Capital Hill is where they should be protesting. Somebody left the lid off the cookie jar, and it wasn’t Wall Street.
And Jack Kervorkian must be laughing from his grave over the article I found in News of the Weird (http://www.newsoftheweird.com) the other day. It was about some Lithuanian guy who has designed an “elegant” way to kill oneself: death by roller coaster. The ride induces cerebral hypoxia by generating G forces that will shut down the brain while allegedly leaving the rider in a state of euphoria. Please define euphoria for me, because I’m not sure I want to check out, traveling at 220 mph, screaming “NOOOOO!,” my cheeks and eyelids flapping uncontrollably in the wind, as I freefall 1600 feet to my certain death. Not exactly doves and harp music for me, but arguably a step above expiring in a nursing home. One has the option to change one’s mind during the first two minutes of the ride, but something tells me that I might not be in control of my motor functions at that point. Speaking of which, I want to know who hoses out the urine and excrement before the next lucky passenger takes the plunge. Also, does the ride come with calliope music? According to the article, suicide is legal in Washington and Oregon as well as in four European countries. I did not know that.
Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2011 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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