The Oppenheimer Report - 3/12/12

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

We got back up to the Great White North last Monday, and what a lovely trip it was! I knew we were in trouble when we had difficulty even getting to the border. We sat on the service road leading up to The Peace Bridge entrance to Canada for over an hour while the cops swept the plaza for a bomb after a threat was called in. That wait was made a little more tedious by the fact that we were hauling my landscape trailer packed with stuff from Mom and Dad’s house, maneuvering onto a service road when every other ticked off stress puppy was vying for the same lane. I now have a little more respect for truck drivers and the difficulties they face competing with inconsiderate drivers in heavy traffic. At least it was a sunny day.

With all the crazy storms that occurred last week, including the ones that spawned those destructive F4 tornadoes in Southern Illinois, our little community in Northern Ontario had its own crazy winter weather with which to contend. Rain, then freezing rain, and finally copious amounts of snow wreaked havoc on the Muskokas and points north, and our propane supplier was unable to get down our drive to fill up our tank. To boot, we had a substantial local power outage, probably due to all the ice, which further taxed our diminishing propane supply (we have a propane-fired generator that kicks on whenever the power goes out). The day after our return, there was a thaw and then another freeze, making road conditions even more treacherous. A week later we’re back to rain and much warmer weather, and now the issue is flooding. I don’t trust those lying groundhogs anymore, but I know Jack Frost is on the ropes when the guy across the lake takes in his ice fishing hut. He did that a few days ago. I think I speak for all of us when I say, Yo, Mother Nature, will you make up your mind? I actually started wearing those attachable spikes on the bottom of my boots, because I got tired of having Jasper drag me slipping and sliding up and down our icy driveway. She thinks she’s a sled dog, and she’s strong.

Once again it sucks to be a Maple Leafs fan, as my hockey team negotiates the second half of their season like an Italian cruise ship captain. Once again, and true to form, they’re choking long before the playoffs. To rub salt into the wound, they’ll probably get hot at the very end, when they haven’t a prayer of making the playoffs . When I started paying attention to the standings, as I do after mid-season, the Buffalo Sabres were fumbling around just behind the Leafs in the standings and looking pretty pitiful. Now the Sabres are on a roll, and in contention for playoff position, just as it looks as if the Leafs will for the seventh time fail to make the playoffs. I really thought this was going to be the turnaround year. A seven season draught! Arguably the Toronto Maple Leafs have the best and most loyal fans in the NHL, and I take my hat off to the Maple Leafs organization; they have set a new world’s record for disappointing their shell-shocked fans. Go Ottawa.

I watched celebrity crash n’ burn Lindsay Lohan make her comeback appearance return to SNL. We were down in Buffalo when it aired, but I’d PVR’d it (because I’m Joe Tech) and we watched it last Saturday. I applaud Lohan’s public relations team for getting her the gig. The show lampooned her troubles with the law and that’s the recipe for a comeback: embrace your dysfunction. Let the star who has not shoplifted, had a chronic drug problem, or temporarily lost his or her mind cast the first aspersion. I love skit comedy and in my opinion the SNL writing has improved appreciably over the past few years. The Lohan show was pretty funny overall, but I thought our little shoplifting coke addict stumbled over her lines and looked a little nervous and shaky. I give her six months and she’ll be back in the driver’s seat and ready for her next dip into the cesspool of success.

What else is in the news … while Southern Illinois cleans up in the aftermath of all those destructive tornadoes, I saw on the news that parts of England are experiencing the worst drought in decades.
Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour’s controversial pardon of 200 criminals was upheld in a court of law, fanning the indignation of Mississippians and making me wonder whether perhaps it might be prudent to take that power away from governors. Syria is a mess, and once again Israel and Palestine are making headlines. Last week marked the one year anniversary of the big earthquake in Japan, and as I watched the videos of towns and cities being washed away by the big tsunami, I wondered what something like that would do to the East Coast of the U.S. Perhaps it will be a tsunami, or a hurricane, but sooner or later our over-developed coast line is going to take another major hit. One thing I'll guarantee: when it happens, we’ll receive more coverage than Japan or Haiti ever did.

Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2012 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED