The Oppenheimer Report - 6/20/11

Newly hatched in Katrine

This past week in the media it was the tale of two Anthonys. For me, it is unusual to miss an opportunity to make some wise crack about a political scandal, but I missed the boat with Weinergate. It just didn’t interest me all that much, so jaded have I become by all these stories of aberrant behavior among famous or important people. Ahnold the marriage terminator, Elliot Spitzer the high stakes John, Sen. Edwards, Brett Favre; where will it end? After all the sex scandals involving celebrities and politicians, this just didn’t seem all that scandalous. Stupid yes, ridiculous, absolutely, but interesting or newsworthy, not so much. The Weinergate scandal did add a new word into my anemic vocabulary: “sexting.” Congressmen Anthony Weiner Tweeted his penis (huh?) and got caught. I mean, come on! Last Thursday, after vowing indignantly to remain in office, the broken Weiner announced that he would resign. Another story that I didn’t need to see ad nauseam on CNN last week was the Casey Anthony trial in Florida. Apparently this so-called mother is on trial for murdering her little daughter Caylee, and while there is only circumstantial evidence, it is becoming increasingly evident this woman at the very least was responsible for her daughter‘s death. I don’t think it is a good idea to try defendants in the court of public opinion, because I believe it leads to bungled verdicts. While it may be yellow journalistic entertainment for some to follow the trials of pathological liars, cheats, cyber-exhibitionists, and sociopath murderers, I think the publicity hinders the legal process. I realize that our capacity as human beings to commit unconscionable evil is Nancy Grace’s bread and butter, but I also believe that O.J. might have been convicted if there had not been so much distracting media coverage. Last week, I turned on the news to see what was happening in Libya, or Syria, or Yemen, or any number of stories that might effect the real world, and what I saw was a fist fight in the line of potential spectators for the Casey Anthony trial. And there was some guy in a neck brace, racing to get in the line to watch the trial. What, was Disney World closed that day? He looked like some obnoxious kid racing to get into the Space Mountain line. Is this the righteous indignation of a largely law-abiding public or vultures circling over the latest kill on the Savannah? Secretly, I’ve always wanted to attend a Judge Judy trial. I did NOT injure that woman’s poodle on purpose with my weed whacker! Judge Judy is kind of like the championship wrestling of law.

Hockey is officially over for another season. Heavy sigh. The Boston Bruins won their 1^st Stanley Cup in 39 years, defeating the Vancouver Canucks handily in Game 7. Once again, a hockey game was hyped as Canada vs. the rest of the world, but come on, Boston probably has Canadian players, don’t they? I was torn, but in truth I wasn’t particularly vested in either team. Riots broke out in Vancouver after the game, and while this was probably the actions of a few disgruntled fans, it makes Vancouver fans look like poor losers. Let me see, what else is news … there was comedian Tracy Morgan’s homophobic rant, for which he is very sorry. “Hey, some of my best friends are fags, but if MY kid came home and said HE was one, I’d stab him in the head with a knife.“ And scene. Greece is about to swirl down the toilet bowl of bad debt, and fears are that this default could have a domino effect on countries like Spain and Portugal, further imperiling the European economy and indirectly threatening other economies in the world. All this greed and mismanagement. I wonder if those Greek government finance guys like to tweet pictures of their private parts? A moment of silence for Springsteen sax player Clarence Clemons, who died last week not long after having a severe stroke. Clemons was 69.

Final note. You may have heard of the Burning Man Festival now held annually in the desert of Nevada, but did you know there is a Frozen Dead Guy Days festival in Nederland, Colorado? I just read an article in the NY Times about it, because apparently the town fathers are selling the copyrights to all things Frozen Dead Guy. They actually have a frozen dead Norwegian guy named Bredo, stashed in a freezer somewhere outside of town, but he doesn’t go with the package. Sounds like a money maker to me. From this article, I learned that there are other such bizarre celebrations out there. For instance, in Fruita, Colorado there is an event celebrating Mike the decapitated chicken, who allegedly lived for 18 months after his head was cut off (urban myth?) There’s also one in Arkansas, called Toad Suck Daze. I’d buy that tee shirt. I suppose these festivals are no more bizarre than incarcerating a groundhog to predict the weather. In Buffalo we used to have our world famous annual New Year’s Day television shoot. If any of my twelve loyal readers wishes to hear more about that, I’d be happy to oblige. It’s likely to be more interesting than the drek now spreading across the news. Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2011 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED