The Oppenheimer Report 2-2-15

I have not used the ATV in a few weeks, and with all the cold weather, I figured I’d better go out to the shed and fire it up to charge the battery. I picked a day that was relatively mild last week – “relatively” being the operative word here - and went out to the shed to start it up. When I walked into the shed, I noticed that a bag of corn feed which we keep on hand to feed the wild turkeys had been torn, and corn was spilled on the floor. This was probably the work of one of the 23 different varieties of rodents who inhabit these premises. I cleaned up the mess and didn’t think much more about it. Then, as I turned the key to start the ATV, it fired up, but sounded like a coffee grinder. My immediate reaction was that this was some kind of catastrophic engine failure, or some broken part in the crankcase, but then I looked behind me and saw corn shooting out of the exhaust pipe. I can only assume that one of these resident rodents had made the exhaust pipe his or her food stash. Once all the corn was out and the smoke cleared, I drove the ATV into town, picked up the mail, and by the time I headed home, the problem was solved. Several years ago we had to replace a furnace motor in our house after a mouse got into one of the condenser hoses, which then caused water to back up into the furnace. If it’s not flying squirrels, it’s bats, or mice, or moles, or voles, or beavers, or rabbits, or minks, or weasels, or muskrats, or possums, or bears, or raccoons, or, well, you get the picture. As I suggested in last week’s report, you can’t fight Mother Nature. The other day I grazed a deer that ran in front of my car. It ran off into the woods, but it was another week or so before I was apprised by the local police that they were in possession the front license plate to my car. I suppose it was torn off during my deer collision. Country livin’! So far we haven’t seen any flying squirrels since we plugged up the gaps in our eaves. Thank goodness for that. I don’t enjoy killing any animals, even mice, but when they start to mess with my home and my equipment, I go medieval on their little asses.

The other day, shortly before our Live Drive performance on Hunter’s Bay Radio last Thursday, I was on Facebook writing an announcement for that show, and I noticed a post on someone else’s site which gave me pause. There was a photograph of a pile of charred corpses. Upon reading further, I learned that the photograph was allegedly of the aftermath of a recent Boco Haram attack in Baga, Nigeria, which cost the lives of two thousand victims. The gist of the post was simply that, we in the West do not hear all that much about the atrocities that occur in Third World countries. Even the genocide in Rowanda did not really come onto the U.S. media radar screen until it was already a giant massacre. The Paris attacks a few weeks ago were tragic, and I am glad that the outrage was palpable throughout the world, but 2000 African souls?! This is a 9-11 scale attack and nobody in the West even blinked. I am once again reminded how complicated and brutal are the conflicts in the darker corners of the world. I have no idea what happened in Nigeria, but I do know that our Western news is selective. The dirty little secret is that not many people want to hear about the slaughter of innocent victims in Africa. Maybe we do not feel their lives are as significant as the lives of Westerners. Wouldn’t you rather see the 24-7 coverage of the big storm that didn’t hammer NYC, or hear expert accounts by astrophysicists about why air pressure in an inflated football can be affected by the atmosphere? The horror of 9-11 is indelibly etched in every North American’s consciousness, but it is worth noting that no suffering throughout the world is any less newsworthy.  

 

It’s no secret I am a weather junkie, and when something like the recent blizzard  (I cannot believe they named it) in the Northeast hits, I am glued to the tube. My sister lives in Connecticut, but she dodged the bullet, as the storm veered east and hammered Massachusetts and points up the coast. Up here we call that “snow flurries.” In Superbowl #49 yesterday, Seattle snatched defeat from the jaws of victory when, within spitting distance of winning the game, and right after a spectacular reception which should have cinched their victory, Seahawks quarterback Wilson threw an ill-advised pass that was picked off by the New England defense. Despite all their controversy over the past week, the New England Patriots won the game 28-24. I’d  didn't really care who won and it was a good close game, but I would hate to have had money on the Seahawks in that game, and to have watched them lose the way they did. Talk about your deflated balls.   

 

Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2015 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED