The Oppenheimer Report - 7/25/11

Oh, what a sad day for baseball! Former Toronto Blue Jay pitcher Roger “The Rocket” Clemens just got a free pass when his perjury trial was declared a mistrial last week. He now joins Casey Anthony in the “get-out-of-jail-free” department. Drug use in pro sports; what a surprise. If Roger did use steroids and lie about it on the stand with impunity, that’s a regrettable miscarriage of justice. What is even more regrettable is that this mistrial has probably cost the U.S. taxpayers tens of millions of dollars. I read an article last week stating that the Clemens trial involved 103 federal agents, five prosecutors, and 229 investigative reports made at 72 different locations. Mega-hitter Barry Bonds was convicted of steroid use and to what end? It might have been a moral victory for the prosecution, but the penalty was about as stiff as a parking ticket, and it took almost a decade to achieve that victory. How many countless millions of dollars of the taxpayer’s money did Clinton’s enemies spend trying to bring him down after Blowjobgate? There was the whole Whitewater investigation, which went on forever, and I wouldn’t exactly say they “nailed” him. They sent Martha Stewart to jail for some trumped up insider trading charge, but Clemens walks? That just doesn’t seem right. As for cleaning up the game of baseball, or any other professional sport for that matter, good luck with that. I love it when politicians step into the limelight and try to legislate morality. That’s always a “win-win” for America. Then, I read the other day that former IMF leader Dominique Strauss-Kahn may also walk because the woman who accused him of rape has been discredited. So let me get this straight; Rape, murder, perjury, and pillaging pension funds, are defendable crimes, as long as you are rich, or powerful, or some hotshot lawyer wants to make his or her reputation by winning your case. Justice may be blind, but apparently she does have a checking account. Once again I refer to the French Revolution. Audible groan of righteous indignation.

British bad girl and multi-Grammy-winning singer-songwriter Amy Winehouse finally succumbed to her demons and expired a few days ago. Can’t say I didn’t see THAT coming. While there is no official cause of death, a Winehouse friend (dealer?) said she had probably taken a “dodgy” tab of Ecstasy. I love the reasoning behind this; the friend said that Winehouse could drink and snort cocaine all night long without a problem, and she would have been just fine if she hadn’t taken that impure E. Let that be a lesson to you kids; make sure your Ecstasy is pure before you combine it with copious amounts of alcohol and cocaine. Winehouse now has the dubious honor of joining Club 27, the growing list of gifted musicians who died at age 27. Also members of the club: Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain, Rolling Stone Brian Jones (1942-1969), and Grateful dead founder Ron “Pigpen” McKernan (1946-1973). Because I have a morbid fascination with celebrity crash-and-burns, I always want to know the cause of death. Sometimes it’s just a bizarre accident. Club 27 member Dennis Boon, lead singer of the punk band The Minutemen, fell out of a van as it made a sharp turn and broke his neck. Malcolm Hale, one of the original members of the 60s band Spanky and Our Gang, died from carbon monoxide poisoning from a faulty space heater. Hardly a rock star death. Fun fact: Mamas and the Papas singer “Mama Cass” Elliot died of a heart attack in a London flat she was renting from Harry Nilsson, and not, as the urban myth goes, by choking on a ham sandwich. Spooky coincidence: The Who drummer and wild man Keith Moon died in the same flat four years later, AND both Moon and Elliot were 32 when they died. Maybe there should be a Club 32.

Anders Behring Breivik, a right wing nutcase from Oslo, Norway killed about 93 people, some in an Oklahoma- style bomb attack in Oslo, and around 85 people he shot to death while impersonating a police officer on a nearby island. We don't know yet whether other people were involved in the attack. Much was made of the slow response of the SWAT team called out to apprehend Breivik, but how do you anticipate an attack as out-of-the-blue and so obviously well-planned out as Breivik’s? Like Loughner in Arizona and that Cho guy at Virginia Tech, Breivik is the most recent time bomb to explode. I found it interesting that, according to Norwegian law, if convicted, Breivik can only receive a maximum of 21 years for his crime.

Do you think Lance Armstrong was juiced when he won all those Tour de Frances? If they wanted to prove Clemens was “juicing” wouldn’t his testicles tell the truth? Talk amongst yourselves.

Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2011 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED