The Oppenheimer Report 12/2/19

As some of you may know, I’ve been writing this weekly “report” since 1992. It started out as a New Year’s resolution to write a page per week about my opinions on current events. Now, almost 28 years later, I’m still writing it. Now that it is officially December, I decided to pull out some of the seasonal reports I wrote over the decades, partly because I think they might be of interest, and partly to take a break. During this month, I will be reprising several of those older reports. Never a big fan of Christmas, I tended to be a bit cynical, and going back 28 years, my writing was far more politically incorrect and sometimes offensive. I apologize in advance for the rants of a younger man. Some of the very earliest reports I won’t even reprint. To follow is an Oppenheimer Report I wrote ten days short of 20 years ago:

12/12/99 - The “Mars Polar Lander”, which apparently landed on Mars last week, has not been heard from since. At first, scientists were confident the unit would correct itself and begin communicating with Earth, but as of now, it’s a piece of one-hundred-million-dollar space debris.  Oops.  Coupled with the recent failure of another Mars probe, and the Hubble Telescope debacle, this latest NASA glitch highlights the difficulty in funding space exploration: it’s expensive, and when you screw up, everyone knows about it.

I read an article the other day about little boys who want Barbie Dolls for Christmas. Certainly this flies in the face of conventional perceptions of what little boys want for Christmas, but noted Barbie psychologists (you think I’m kidding here) agree this is nothing to worry about; that is, as long as your little boy is only three or four years  old. If he’s asking for Barbie and he is over six or seven, it might be time to enroll him in a military school. There, he can learn “the truth” about men and women. And speaking of gender identification, did any of you catch that piece on “Sixty Minutes” about the man who was politely pushed out of the Sacramento school system, after revealing his intentions to become a woman?  Most of the parents of kids in that school didn’t care, but the few who did got this man/woman canned.  I’m not going to go into my usual prolonged tirade on yet another subject about which I know so little, but I don’t understand why we choose decent people to stigmatize in our society. Why not focus on the real bad guys (pedophiles, rapists, killers, white collar criminals, etc.) to publicly humiliate, and leave those of ambiguous gender to sort out their complicated lives on their own. This isn’t an ax murder about which we are talking; he/she was apparently a well-respected and effective teacher. If this man chooses to be a woman, so what?  Will this cause some  repressed youth to bite the bullet and “come out?” Maybe, but probably not if he/she wasn’t going to anyhow. Perhaps we should encourage our children to bottle up their feelings until they explode in orgies of frenzied violence, but hey, that never happens, right?  I don’t think being gay or “gender displaced” or whatever, is a moral crime of any sort, and if that’s the kind of intolerance we’re teaching our kids, then heaven help us for the future. Remember folks, it’s the holidays, so be nice to each other.

A few comments on Christmas ... why not buy a video of Roseanne singing “Me and My Bobby McGee,” dressed like Dale Evans’ evil twin. I saw that performance the other night, and it was, well, REALLY awful. Take THAT Kris Kristofferson.  I have another great gift idea to fill the shelves recently purged of Pokemon paraphernalia: Mars Polar Lander toilet paper holders. I still do not really know what Pokemon is. Is it that little tooth-shaped yellow blob that looks like a mustard stain? Is that what kids are killing each other for?  I have received at least three versions of a game via the Net called “Elf Bowling.”  I can only imagine what viruses I have introduced to the hard drive of my computer by opening and playing this game, but it’s pretty funny. Santa bowls and the elves are the pins. Before each turn, the elves yell rude things to taunt Santa, and sometimes the pin return machine rips off one of their little heads. Also, various animals run across the bowling alley from time to time, blocking the path of oncoming balls. I mashed a frog on one of my turns. Lots of blood. Rumour has it, Christmas day this game will wipe out my hard drive. I wouldn’t be surprised.   Nineteen days and counting. Ho friggin’ Ho.- Jamie Oppenheimer

Written by Jamie Oppenheimer ©2019
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
jamieoppenheimersongwriter@gmail.com

Jamie Oppenheimer, Songwriter, Author, Blogger, Radio Producer, & Host has been writing THE OPPENHEIMER REPORT every MONDAY since 1992 and has published the articles on his blog since 2006. We are including Jamie's weekly reports, as a feature of #HuntersBayRadio, The Bay 88.7FM.

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