The Oppenheimer Report 11/26/12

　

I hope all of my friends south of the border enjoyed their Thanksgiving celebrations last Thursday. Early last week I awoke to a strange sound outside, and when I looked out the window, I saw 16 wild turkeys walking around on our lawn. The photograph from last week’s report caught a small group of them. Sometimes I’ll see the odd one or two running across the road, but never so many in one place. Maybe it was a message from my mom and dad. I really miss them when the American Thanksgiving rolls around. So many golden memories! Nothing stays the same, but after so many great celebrations in Buffalo, that holiday has taught me some important lessons. For one thing, giant hot air-filled balloons parading down the street never get old. The important lesson I have learned is to be thankful, and I make an effort to show some genuine form of thanks every day. Thank you Shauna, for being such a loving and tireless soul mate. Thank you to friends and family, who enrich my life by making it so much more interesting than it otherwise would be. And of course, thank you mom and dad, for teaching me humor and love, and for providing me with the tools to cope with life’s challenges.

Did you happen to hear that there is a new documentary coming out on the Investigation Discovery channel, suggesting that a serial killer named Glen Rogers and not O.J. Simpson killed Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman back in 1994? Rogers, who is on death row in for killing five other women, has confessed to the bloody crimes. He claims O.J. hired him to steal some jewelry from Nicole and that Simpson was nearby when the murders took place. This would explain why there is physical evidence of Simpson’s presence on the crime scene. Rogers and his brother Carl, who is the focus of the documentary, may have an ulterior motive here: if the case is re-opened, Glen could get a temporary stay of execution in order to re-open the California murder investigation. Hard to believe a guy named Mr. Rogers is a serial killer.

In my distracted, attention deficit disorder-driven ritual of channel surfing the other night, I turned to CNN long enough to hear the ever insightful Dr. Phil offering his advice on child discipline. I’m not exactly sure why, but I simply can’t stand Dr. Phil. He might be an effective therapist, but his whiny, plaintive southern drawl, and his omnipresence on television just rubs me the wrong way. I had to laugh when I heard his following pearls of wisdom (and I paraphrase): “How many times do you have to tell your child not to set the cat on fire before he or she stops doing it; you have to be consistent in your discipline, every time this happens.” My immediate reaction to this sage advice was, if your child sets the cat on fire more than once, either that cat is made of asbestos or that is otherwise one tough kitty.Nine lives my ass.  I know I did some pretty weird stuff when I was a kid, I even remember a few bouts of pyromania, but I don’t recall ever setting the family pet on fire. As for parenting skills, my parents would not have let that happen more than once. In our household at least, pets were much higher up on the food chain than children, and any attempt to harm an animal would likely have resulted in my castration.

The starting gun has officially fired ushering in a month of retail madness, so whip out that plastic and buy. On one of those “making a difference” segments on the news the other night I watched a story about some teacher of preschoolers, who tried an experiment. He took away all the toys in his kindergarten class and replaced them with cardboard boxes. His idea was to inspire the children to use their imaginations and to create a plaything out of the boxes. Kids came up with fortresses, and pirate ships, and all sorts of creative things, and surprisingly didn’t seem to miss their conventional toys. At a time when most people are struggling financially, perhaps this is an important lesson to impart.

Final notes. Actor Larry Hagman, A/K/A JR Ewing died last week. He was 81. I remember him from I Dream of Jeannie. That Jeannie was hot. Yesterday marked the 100^th Anniversary the Grey Cup, Canada’s answer to the Superbowl. Toronto hosted the event this year and the Toronto Argonauts prevailed over the Calgary Stampeders 35-22. I’m sure there are some hung over Toronto fans this morning, because last night the city went nuts. With no Leafs to watch, and no other major league winners, of course the fans are going to seize this opportunity to celebrate. Any port in a storm.

Sweetie, how many times have I told you not to light Mr. Jingles on fire; if you continue this bad behavior I will have no choice but to take away your cell phone for a week. Now tell Mr. Jingles you’re sorry and paste this fake fur back on him.

Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2012 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report 11/19/12

Wild turkeys in front of our house

After a miserable October and a lousy start to November, last Sunday up here in the Great White North was just spectacular. I put up our glass storm windows on the front porch, planted a few more trees and generally spent as much time outside as I could. The retractable dock is up - I love that thing, because I can be the last guy on the lake to take up my dock and I don’t need to get wet doing it - the hoses are drained, coiled, and put inside, and all the outside water lines have been shut off. By last Monday, conditions had once again deteriorated, and I predict that the ground will soon be frozen. I don’t mind winter so much, and in fact I enjoy the odd snowstorm; it’s the transitional phase from fall to winter that I do not like. My body has not yet adjusted to the cold, damp, rainy weather, and now in my late 50s, the bones are beginning to creak and moan a bit. That said, every time I complain about the weather, I remind myself of the present condition of the Jersey shore. There but for the grace of Mother Nature go I.

The other night, we had another wildlife adventure in the house. We were eating dinner in front of the television and heard Jasper’s uncharacteristically muted growl. Usually, if she’s in the house and sees an animal outside, she transforms into her alter ego, the convulsive, unstoppably noisy hound from hell, barking, frothing, and lunging at the window. She hates all rodents, dislikes most other critters as well, and only really tolerates us. The last time I heard her make that muted sound was when there was a flying squirrel in the house, perched on one of our higher curtain rods. Sure enough, Jasper was warning us that there was another flying squirrel in our house, clinging to the wall near the ceiling of one of the turrets. Believe it or not, those particular squirrels are protected and I am not supposed to kill them. Once they enter my house, all bets are off. Shauna brought me the pellet gun, but I wasn’t too keen on firing even that pop gun inside the house. I ended up catching it in a butterfly net and flinging it out in the yard. It took three tries to catch it, and I probably should have 86ed the little bastard, but I gave it a second chance. Any more home invasions and we’re adopting a scorched earth policy.

The Gaza Strip is back in the news, after an Israeli drone attack took out a top Hamas leader. Of course Hamas fired a barrage of rockets back at Israel, and that has been ongoing since before the drone attack. Much is made of the Israeli attacks on the innocent Palestinians, and if last week’s media coverage was any indication, the spin seems to favor the Palestinians. Certainly Hamas is trying to rally the Arab world to support their crusade for a Palestinian state (and the annihilation of Israel). Meanwhile, Syrian despot Assad and his thugs have exterminated 30,000 or more of their own countrymen as the world stands on the sidelines. I wonder now how Egypt will react to this latest escalation, now that her leadership is controlled by the Muslim Brotherhood. Will they jeopardize billions in U.S. aid to support Palestine? I would not want to be someone charged with keeping the peace in the Middle East. When asked about the seemingly hopeless nature of this conflict, one expert on international affairs brought up the fact that no one thought the bitter conflict in Northern Ireland would ever end, and essentially it has. While I understand the point he was making, peace in the Middle East seems unobtainable to me.

Last week, I mentioned the latest dive into the deep end of junk food lust as Pizza Hut announced its new hotdog-filled pizza. In the yin and the yang of America’s love affair with junk food, Hostess announced that after 82 years, it is closing down the Twinkie factory. No more Twinkies!? Forget the jobless rate, this will officially throw Americans into a deep depression. What a blow to American culture! Of course this announcement immediately led to a run on Twinkies, with five dollar boxes of the little golden logs of lard selling for eighty bucks or more on eBay. Great gift idea for the upcoming holidays. Buy your loved one that very collectible last box of Twinkies. In fifty years, you can have it appraised on Antiques Road Show; I’ll bet its value will skyrocket. To hell with Wall Street, discontinued junk food is the new gold standard. In the Hostess arsenal, Snowballs were always my favorite - those cream-filled, wobbly, gelatinous, coconut-covered blobs of pink and white which, when I was a child, vaguely reminded me of boobs.

One final story was eclipsed by coverage of the recent hurricane … I send a belated don‘t-let-the-screen-door-hit-you-on-the-way-out farewell to colorful Italian hound dog ex-Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi who, having resigned his leadership role, now faces four years in jail for tax fraud. Oops.

What would be the Italian equivalent to a Twinkie? Just wondering.

Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2012 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report 11/12/12

For all the Veterans

While watching the news the other day, I saw an ad that left me incredulous. Pizza Hut is introducing their new pizza featuring hotdogs folded into the perimeter crust of the pizza. Really, do the guys at Pizza Hut just look for the crappiest food to add to their pizzas? Hmmm, what salt-infused, artery-clogging, quasi food can we stuff into our pizzas this week?! Spam? Head Cheese? Pork sausage? Deep fried chicken wings? How about Snickers bars? I thought it was ridiculous when they filled those crusts with extra mozzarella; I mean, isn’t there enough cheese on the pizza already? Now it’s hotdogs. I‘ll bet this is a big seller with Honey Boo Boo and her grey-matter-deprived family. And speaking of Sodom, on to the elections ...

Let’s call it what it was, an ass whooping. The Republicans got their collective asses whooped, and perhaps that was overdue. I’ve been complaining since the Bush years that my party was hijacked by the religious right, and I think they finally drove the pope mobile over the cliff. Perhaps this wake up call will usher them into the 21^st Century (or even the 20^th for that matter) -- you know, that era when women have the right to decide what to do with their bodies and tolerance is favored over marginalization? Hard to believe, but not all Republicans are boneheads. Not unlike the Muslim extremists who have sullied Islam, so have those bozos on the extreme right undermined the Republican Party. I think Obama’s victory in former Republican strongholds sent a message to those afore-mentioned nut balls that the rest of America is not buying their brand of tuna. In a perfect world, both parties would now move to the center and do what is best for America, averting the imminent fiscal nosedive we are warned of daily. I am doubtful. It's time to stop this horribly irresponsible behavior and LEAD, and while we’re aspiring to do the impossible, perhaps we can figure out a way to implement election reform. A billion dollars spent for nothing; what a shameful display of waste! As for the yeah-we-showed-the-Republicans comments about a decisive victory, certainly this was a shot fired over the bow, but hardly a definitive national consensus. The popular vote indicated a divided country. As for the disrespectful nonsense I read and hear from both sides, I have this to say. We are all to blame for this mess, not Republicans or Democrats … all of us. The sooner we accept this and deal with it, the sooner we start the onerous process of digging ourselves out of this fiscal mess. BTW, I am a registered Republican. There, I’ve said it. This does not make me an ignorant, filthy rich, greedy, homophobic, evangelist, or a misogynist. Shame on those who would suggest this, directly or by inference. I have friends who are respected economists, doctors, employees at the Chevy plant in Buffalo, teachers, even women, who vote Republican. We are all Americans. We have differing beliefs about the course of the ship of state, and intolerance is childish and ugly be it from the left or the right. We wonder how so many of our public servants became so foolish and divisive … they pander to their electorate. It’s called politics. Final election comment. Polling results in Florida, where one humorist suggested Cubans go to live and Jews go to die, were still outstanding days after the election. WTF Florida, good thing the election did not hinge on your vote! Next time, let’s give Floridians a two week head start, you know, kind of an election handicap.

It’s been about two weeks now since Sandy washed away parts of the East Coast, and from what I’m reading and seeing, things are still pretty grim in the hardest hit areas. Ask a Long Islander what he or she thinks of Long Island Power and Light and you will likely get an earful. To add insult to injury, a N’or Easter just walloped the same areas devastated by Sandy, dumping snow on some of the worst hit areas. Did any of you see the 60 Minutes segment last night on the Queens community of Belle Harbor? Wow, talk about a group of people with a backbone.

Finally, and speaking of courage, yesterday was Veteran’s Day in the U.S. and Remembrance Day here in Canada. To the 118,000 Canadians who have lost their lives in the line of duty, and to the countless Americans who have died to protect our freedom, thank you for your sacrifice. As ridiculous as our society and our democracy sometimes seems, we share the greatest privilege in the world and I never take my freedom for granted. And to the victims of Sandy, may your lives resume some sense of normalcy soon.

　
Now who wants pizza?

Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2012 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report - 11/6/12

ELECTION DAY ....

First of all, Happy Birthday to my best friend Bob, who turned 108 yesterday (ha ha). His birthday is about a month after mine, and to celebrate both birthdays, this year we decided to forgo the wax museums of Niagara Falls and make a pilgrimage to the Rock N Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland. Great timing, right after Sandy, but we called ahead and Cleveland was in fact still standing. Driving down from Buffalo we saw a lot of uprooted trees as we reached the Ohio border. Side roads were washed out and Shauna told me that there had been some damage to the Hall of Fame building. We arrived in Cleveland Friday night, and as we were checking in to our hotel, Bob ran into one of his wife’s colleagues from Buffalo. She asked if we had any use for one ticket to see rock band The Tragically Hip in a small venue (House of Blues). That band is one of my all time favorites; Bob’s as well. We agreed to take the ticket if we could buy one more scalped ticket. It was a cold blustery night, but we walked over to the House of Blues and made a deal with “Downtown Dan” to purchase an extra ticket for this sold out show, not knowing until the doors opened if what we had purchased would get us in. I have sold tickets to scalpers before, but had never before purchased one. There was a nervous half hour wherein we waited in line to get into the club, but Downtown Dan did not disappoint, and we were treated to one of the best rock performances I have ever seen close up. This fortuitous event, coupled with the pilgrimage to the Hall of Fame the following day made this trip one of the best I have made in a long, long time. I could have spent the whole day looking at hand-written lyric sheets.

Certainly Hurricane Sandy and the swath of destruction she cut through the East Coast has been front line news for the past week, eclipsing even the election coverage. The last damage estimates I heard were as high as $50 Billion, and as always, when a natural disaster of this magnitude hits, I was astounded by pictures of the destruction. The Jersey shore looked like a war zone and even my sister in Western Connecticut will be without power for and estimated week or two. There were so many things about this storm which were anomalous -- the fact that a stalled high pushed it west where it would do the most destruction, and the bitter cold winds and snowstorms it spawned -- but certainly the massive destruction was due to the unprecedented storm surge. This one will go down in the record books as the big one that hit the East Coast. Had this been Haiti and not the U.S., I’m quite sure the story would go away in one news cycle, but I think we will be hearing about this bitch for a long time.

Yes, today is election day, and I honestly haven’t a clue which candidate will be the best choice. I scoff at all the partisan zealots who are so sure they know. So many things about both candidates frighten me for the welfare of my country, and I have grown so mistrustful of both parties. The spin and the money have just gone off the rails, and I sympathize with all the as yet undecided voters out there. I voted absentee ballot a week or so ago, but no matter which way I voted, Obama is a shoe-in for the electoral vote in my overwhelmingly blue state. I predict a close race, and although I am told by the pundits that the majority of voters had made up their minds a long time ago, I think the incumbent got a game-winning bump from Sandy. If the election had been three weeks later, and had the typical Washington paralysis and dysfunction delayed necessary relief, perhaps things would be different. My cynicism has been amplified steadily since the voting scandal in 2000. I am appalled at the obscene campaign spending, which I feel should be capped at a small fraction of what it is, but I pray that whoever wins tonight will be able to unfreeze Washington. I really don’t care anymore who is (most likely mistakenly) perceived to be a leader, I just pray that a leader emerges from this cesspool of unproductive prevarication. Through it all, I remain blindly hopeful, because I believe in my country, and despite all its faults I am proud to be an American. I just hope that we can generate a few more Harry Trumans and a few less Harry Reids.

Colonel Tom What's wrong? What's Going On
You can't tie yourself up for a deal
He said" Hey North you're south shut you big mouth
You gotta do what you feel is real."
Ain't got no picture postcards ain't got no souvenirs
My baby she don't know me when I'm thinking about those years 

My memory is muddy what's this river I'm in
New Orleans is sinking and I don't want to swim 

   - From New Orleans is Sinking by The Tragically Hip

Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2012 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED