The Oppenheimer Report - 4/16/12

I get emails from friends all over the country, and some are funny, some are sad. One came the other day that I really was not expecting. We became friends with the stone mason who did all the stone work on our house, and we kept in touch with him and his wife Rachael after they moved back out to Calgary, Alberta. They’d had great difficulty conceiving but finally had a healthy baby boy just before they left Ontario. We heard that Rachael was pregnant again, due sometime this month, and the other day we got an email message from Mark saying he was looking for a rebate from the midwife. Apparently, last week, Rachael went into labor prematurely and before the midwife could be summoned, Mark was charged with the task of delivering their baby girl. By the time he called the midwife, the baby was crowning. Talk about stepping up! The description of the experience was unbelievable. The email came with a picture of the swaddled newborn nestled safely in Mom’s arms, with the family dog at her side mugging for the camera. These people are serious outdoorsmen and have already planned their first camping trip with the newborn, probably in a few weeks. Call me when those kids can skin a rabbit.

With my fancy schmancy new phone I can allegedly send photo attachments along with my text messages, something I’ve never done before. Today I tried it out for the first time. I sent a picture to my niece and nephew of me giving my old Bell phone the finger. An hour later it’s still trying to send the message. We live in an area with limited cell service and I imagine that a picture file might be impossible to send from here. Oh well. My message was in response to a message they’d sent me. It included cute picture of their little girl catching her first fish with her genuine pink Bass Pro Barbie fishing pole. I still maintain that Barbie would never fish. Maybe Barbie’s lesbian girl friend Scooter would fish, but not Barbie. She could break a nail. Cute picture nonetheless.

 
Veteran newsman Mike Wallace passed away last week at the age of 93 and I watched the 60 Minutes tribute last night. Confronting Johnny Carson about his drinking problems, calling Iran’s Ayatolla Khomeini a lunatic on camera, and making Barbara Streisand cry, Wallace was the king of the in-your-face interview. Whether he was questioning crooks, movie stars, or CEOs, Wallace had a gift for asking the tough questions, and we all enjoyed watching the respondents squirm. My favorite clip that they aired was of Wallace when he interviewed John Ehrlichman. Wallace went through a laundry list of illegal acts committed by the Nixon administration, and Ehrlichman just looked at him blankly and asked, “Is there a question in there?”

Rick Santorum, the man once characterized in a Google search as a disgusting by-product of gay sex, and the unwitting barometer for how out far to the right a disturbing number of Americans are leaning, bowed out of the Republican race last week. Gingrich (sounds like gum disease to me) is also reportedly out of money and on the ropes, leaving Mitt Romney the projected winner of the Republican nod. Lucky him. Now that the other bozos have jumped off the bus shortly before it glides off a cliff, Romney can now go down with his ship. Sorry about the mixed metaphor, but …

Speaking of sinking ships, last week marked the 100^th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, and what better way to commemorate the event than to have director James Cameron come out with a 3D version of his award winning movie Titanic. Luddite that I am, I have yet to see a 3D movie. George Zimmerman will be criminally charged in the murder of Trayvon Martin, but since the best witness is dead, and other eyewitnesses give conflicting, unreliable accounts, there’s a good chance he will go free. If Zimmerman is acquitted, watch out America. And finally, here’s a fun fact: probably due to the economic crisis, suicides are way up in Western Europe. From 2007 -2009  they're up 24% in Greece, and up 50% from 2005-2010 in Italy. How is it that an individual can go to jail for cheating on his or her taxes, but governments routinely squander fortunes in horribly irresponsible ways and it’s the taxpayer who always suffers? Twalk amongst yusselves.



Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2012 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED