The Oppenheimer Report 1/12/15

Last Wednesday night marked the ninetieth birthday of Shauna’s mom, and we drove down to Toronto to take her out for a celebratory dinner. When Dad Taylor was still alive, it was a tradition for all of us to get together Sunday nights and eat Chinese food. Sometimes we ordered take-out and assembled at the Taylor home in North York, and sometimes we went out to a Chinese all-you-can-eat buffet. Dad Taylor loved those buffets because of the enormous selection. That man loved his food. For nostalgia’s sake, Mom Taylor wanted to celebrate her momentous birthday at one of these restaurants. What Ethel did not know was that for the past week, Shauna had been furiously arranging a surprise party at the chosen restaurant. We had 26 guests scheduled to attend the Wednesday night celebration, and the logistics were tricky. Everything was finally set, but as poet Robert Burns once wrote (and I paraphrase): “The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.” First, we had the weather with which to contend, and the drive down from Katrine was through a raging blizzard. As we crawled down Highway 11 at a snail’s pace, Shauna kept getting text messages from various guests who, at the last minute, had to cancel. The flu was the biggest culprit, followed by the bad weather. By the night of the party, we were down to a discouraging 50% of our original guest list. We arrived in Toronto in time to pick up Ethel in North York, but a last minute phone call from a birthday well-wisher set us back about twenty minutes. Then, the final straw was that I overshot the restaurant, by 4 kilometers. It was a comedy of errors, and Shauna and her very spiritual mother think it was her late brother and dad messing with us. We arrived very late, but not too late to pull off the surprise and have a celebratory dinner. My thanks to our guests who waited for us so patiently. Shauna wrote one of her clever birthday poems and recited it at the table, after which I performed a song I’d composed the day before (my first gig at a Chinese restaurant!). Cards and gifts were presented, and I think Ethel appreciated the celebration. Now that she is on Facebook, she can relive the experience in pictures. Someone took a photo of her surprised look when she first arrived, and it was pretty funny. I have just enough respect for her not to repost it.

 

So much sadness in Paris last week as terrorist gunmen attacked the office of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, gunning down and killing 12 people execution style. Then, there was another hostage situation in East Paris at a kosher market, resulting in several hostage fatalities. Coupled with recent attacks in Australia, England, and Canada, this is very discouraging news for the world. It appears that the next world war is going to be a religious war fought gangland style in the streets. Violence used as a threat to free speech is, in and of itself, a stain on humanity, but these acts of terrorism cannot be avenged through violence. I, like so many of you, would like to make the misguided zealots who kill that way burn in hell for their evil, murderous ways, but I must remember that this is a war of ideologies. Unless we can figure out a way to marginalize this insanebehavior, and expose it for the misguided hatred it is, we will not win. I fear almost as much for the overwhelmingly peaceful Muslim community as I do for the Jews who have throughout history have been the victims of this kind of violence. The big question remains; how do we win back the hearts and minds of the growing legions of the alienated? We want to combat radical ideologies by rendering them invalid. There are reasons why this cancer is growing, and the line between good and evil is becoming more and more blurred. People need hope to give up desperate acts.

 

While I am encouraged by the 3 Million protesters who took to the streets to stand in defiance against this evil, and by the moving speeches presented at The Grande Synagogue in Paris Sunday, I think we need to take a long hard look at what makes people become radicalized. Follow the money, in Saudi Arabia, in Qatar, in Yemen, in Iran. Find the monsters who propagate this evil behavior, expose them, and vilify them in the public eye. The people carrying out these attacks are merely foot soldiers. I suspect that if the intelligence communities throughout the world cooperated and better shared their information, it would become apparent wherein lies the root of this problem.

My big fear is that the truth will be a Pandora’s box. Marches and speeches are a good start, because they represent a visible opposition to this insanity. As I said in a previous report, what I need to do is become more informed. By informed, I do not mean by the media, I mean by people who may be able to point me in the direction of a solution. I am about to read Eric Hoffer’s book The True Believer, because I hope it will shed some light on the causes of this ongoing madness in our society. Why does history continue to repeat itself? We may be at a turning point in the future of civilization, and I for one want to help tip the scales in the direction of love. I am a Jew, and I am an American, but for the sake of argument, I am a Frenchman, I am a Muslim: I am everyman.  I still believe the power of love and understanding can blot out the venom of hatred and ignorance.

 

“When I turn on the TV

 I see Afghanistan

 I see the loss of innocence

 I see the cruelty of man,

 

And I ask myself: How can we begin to make this better?”

 

Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2015 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED