The Oppenheimer Report 7/2/12

Happy Canada Day to all my Canadian readers. As the Fourth of July approaches, I once again pine for the good old days when I could procure M-80s the old-fashioned way, from a little old lady in a pickup truck behind the Wal-Mart. M-80s were the real deal, and they're getting harder and harder to come by.These days the illegal firecrackers sound like toy gun caps. We’re back in the Great White North after spending the weekend in Toronto. Just as most Torontonians headed up to cottage country for the Canada Day long weekend, we came down to the big city to attend a concert (Chris Botti) and to reunite with one of Shauna’s long lost cousins. Saturday, Shauna did not feel up to braving the sweltering heat, so I ventured out on my own and ended up in the middle of a lesbian festival over on nearby Church St. Dykefest 2012 or whatever they called it (seriously, it was something like that) is part of the annual Gay Pride celebration in Toronto, and judging by the two times I‘ve attended, they’re quite entertaining ... I mean the festival in general, not the dykes. Much the same as Carnival is a spectacle, the Gay Pride celebrations in Toronto are usually something to behold. This year I saw some terrific street dancing, a rather good transvestite singer imitating disco divas, and yes, a naked lady covered in body paint walking around on stilts. It had to be in the high 80s and I felt bad for all the people wearing leather.

Last week Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek suffered a mild heart attack, but he‘s OK. I can’t imagine anyone else hosting Jeapardy!, can you? Wildfires continue to burn out of control in Colorado and hundreds of homes have been destroyed. One human interest story really kicked me in the pants. There was a segment on a grandmother who had recently lost her daughter, and then shortly thereafter her son-in-law as well. She had just taken in her daughter’s four orphaned boys and then , to add insult to injury, lost her house in this wildfire. Some people really can’t catch a break. Meanwhile people sympathize with some lady getting harassed on a bus in some YouTube video and, thanks to viral nature of the Internet and some creative fundraising, she’s $640,000 richer. Give the money to that grandmother! Lance Armstrong has again been accused of doping. Make up your mind, is he doping or not? Italy got trounced by Spain 4-0 in the Euro 2012 soccer finals. We got out of Toronto before the game was over, because we were afraid of the traffic jams we’d have to endure had Italy won. I was in Toronto when Italy won the World Cup many years ago and traveled down to Little Italy to participate in the celebration. The Italian community went crazy. Big storms last week down in the Mid-Atlantic states left over a million people without power. My nephew and his family lives in Virginia and their power was out for several days. Speaking of power outages, I’m concerned about our over taxed power grid. If we continue to get the hot weather we’ve been having here in the Northeast, and demand for power continues to remain high, it could be lights out. It happened years ago and we were stranded in our Toronto high rise apartment for three days. I was fortunate enough to get some water in our bathtub before the water pumps went out. That gave us about fifteen flushes. Up here in the GWN we have a 17 kilowatt propane generator (which by the way sucks a lot of gas when it kicks in) because the power goes out so frequently up here.

For all my friends Stateside, Happy Fourth of July. Try not to blow off any important digits, limbs, or other extremities.

　

Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2012 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED