The Oppenheimer Report 1/29/18

For all of you who read and reacted to last week’s report, thank you for your responses. I appreciate your concern. I have been a caregiver now for almost 2 decades, but this latest affliction pulled the rug out from under both of us. The most common advice I gleaned from well-wishers, and it is good advice, is that the caregiver must take care of him or herself first. For the most part I do. I’ve had many years to practice, because Shauna has been unwell for much of our 24 years together. This latest setback was a sucker punch. We were down in Toronto last Thursday for another consult with our neurological ophthalmologist, and were relieved to learn that the inflammation finally seems to be under control. Thankfully, this means that Shauna can continue to wean slowly from prednisone. If everything goes well, it will still be several months before she can go off that despicable medication for good. Last August, when this specialist first saw Shauna and so quickly admitted her to the hospital (where she remained for almost two weeks), we were understandably frightened and confused. We had no idea how serious this problem was. During this last appointment, we learned that the attack had migrated from one eye to the other, and there were signs of inflammation developing in Shauna’s “good” eye. She could very well have been blinded by this neurological attack had this doctor not acted as quickly and responsibly as she did.

At present, I am in the middle of three books dealing with the immune system, and two of them are related to diet. Much of Shauna’s ill health can be traced back to a food poisoning incident at a Swiss Chalet over thirty years ago. She contracted campylobacter from under-cooked chicken, and almost died before the problem was properly diagnosed, weeks after the bacteria was ingested. By the time she was treated, the bacteria had caused indelible damage to her digestive tract, and she was soon thereafter diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease. We talk a lot about autoimmune illnesses, including diseases like Arthritis, Crohn’s Disease, Epstein Barr Syndrome, Lupus, Psoriasis, Thyroid Disease, Vitiligo, Fibromyalgia, etc., and there is an equally long laundry list of medications prescribed to remedy them. What I never before understood is that the gut is command central for our immune system. Aside from one obvious lesson, which is, don’t eat chicken if it looks or tastes under-cooked, it has become increasingly important to learn how to bolster and protect one’s immune system. As the world continues to produce more and more food for our ever-growing population, we have unwittingly compromised the nutritional value of that food supply. I cannot say for sure what are the deleterious effects of genetically modified foods, but I can say there is an epidemic of auto-immune illnesses, and that it has become more and more difficult to achieve good nutrition from pre-processed and mass-produced foods. If there is any message here, it is to learn more about what you eat. I maintain that most of us are our worst enemies when it comes to our health. Garbage in, garbage out. I am not slamming doctors, but doctors overwhelmingly treat symptoms, not root causes. Two killers, stress and bad nutrition, are on the rise, and when an autoimmune illness attacks, we look for our doctors to fix it with a magic bullet. Our bodies have amazing recuperative abilities, but we’re compromising our immune systems. Only we can fix that.

This reminds me of the old joke about the guy who for years prays to God that he might win the lottery. Finally, the clouds part, and God answers, in an exasperated voice: “Meet me halfway; buy a ticket!” You might need help, but in the end, only you can fix you.  

Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c 2018 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report - 1/22/18

I apologize in advance for the tone of this week’s report …

A week ago marked “Blue Monday”, deemed by some experts to be the most depressing day of the year. I certainly hit the wall this past week, and it was little consolation to note that I am not alone. Shauna’s health is not getting much better, and I cannot avoid the constant negative chatter on the news, chipping away at my ever-waning reserve of hope. I just heard a song by Loudon Wainwright III called Older Than My Old Man Now, and boy, does that song resonate today.

While I haven’t talked much about Shauna’s health in the past months, she is still struggling with the same problems which surfaced six months ago. The vision in her left eye might be marginally better, but there is still an almost hallucinogenic distortion, and we are told there has been permanent damage to the optic nerve, and to her eyesight. Most worrisome has been her extremely negative reaction to the prednisone, prescribed by her specialist to reduce the inflammation. A word of caution: If you ever need to go on this drug, read up on the side effects, because you won’t likely get a straight answer from the doctor who prescribes it. For Shauna, who suffered from chronic pain and inflammation for decades before she was put on this drug, this past five months have been discouraging. Her reaction to prednisone has been devastating, with symptoms ranging from extreme weight gain, increased pain, agitation, insomnia, skin problems, back problems, potential bone density problems, cognitive issues, etc. We still do not know what the long-term damage might be, or if the drug is even helping, and in the back of our minds is the ever-present apprehension that the neurological attack may not be over. Later this week, we will head down to Toronto for yet another appointment with an ophthalmologist / neurologist who has been treating her for the last five months. We hope to learn that the inflammation which attacked her eyesight has continued to subside, and that she can wean from this awful drug. Among other things prednisone shuts down the body’s adrenal gland, and a slow wean is necessary to avoid the dangerous side effects of withdrawal.

Last Saturday, to mark (like a fire hydrant) the first anniversary of Rump’s inauguration, there were marches across North America to protest the Bloated Orange Emperor. Millions of mostly angry, indignant women, marched in protest of sexual harassment, and some were marching just because they despise the Commander-In-Tweet in general. As I write this, Congress is about to reconvene following the shutdown of the government. While I see this this shutdown as all about political posturing and trying to make Trump look bad, it simply shines a light on exactly what it was that got Rump elected in the first place: government dysfunction and partisan politics. It seems to boil down to an unacceptable quid pro quo – money for the Great Wall of Mexico and/or other concessions, in return for not scrapping DACA (Deferred Action On Childhood Arrivals). Without that concession, about 700,000 illegal immigrants, many of them young and raised in America, stand to be deported. So much for “Give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses…” I feel as if the U.S. Constitution is being re-written by a fool.

There is a philosophy in the business world, especially true in certain circles of the real estate business, which professes that he who is the biggest bull-shitter wins. In my heart I think I know right from wrong, but for the life of me, amidst this hurricane of bad press, I can’t see the white hats anymore. Just a bad day I guess. “Blue Monday” hit me a week late.

Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c 2018 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report 1/15/18

My late father used to read this report almost every week, and in fact, he remains a large part of the reason why I write it. Dad had an excellent command of the English language, he was a great letter writer, he wrote for The Cornell Sun while he was in university, and he was the Cornell class agent for his graduating class for well over forty years. In another world he would have made a good journalist. Dad used to get offended whenever I said anything off color in this report, something I did a lot in the early days. He told me that it was beneath me to go for the cheap laugh, and I suppose he felt that my feeble attempts at lowbrow humor were demeaning. These days I am a little less inclined to make nasty, character-assassinating comments about public figures, and I rarely swear in print. My dad's quiet voice is always in the back of my mind these days. I wonder what he would make of the current state of the union.   

Perhaps you can recall that famous routine by George Carlin about the seven words you can’t say on television. I’m pretty sure “shit” was one of those words. A lot has changed in 45 years, and just the other day, a new precedent was been established. In the past 48 hours, I must have read or heard the word “shithole” on television at least one hundred times. This is of course because our Commander-In-Tweet allegedly said it while making derogatory, racist remarks, a day before Martin Luther King Day, about immigrants entering the U.S. from “shithole countries” like Haiti and parts of Africa. Trump denies the remark, and claims he was misquoted. Either he made the remark or he didn’t. If he did not, then shame on the people who said he did. If he did, pandering to his ever-shrinking base of boneheads, then it was a disgusting and decidedly un-presidential thing to say. Regardless, anybody with more gray matter than a Black Lab must see that this guy is not playing with a full deck, and unfit to lead a kindergarten class, much less a powerful country. I never thought Mussolini would end up leader of America, but here we are. Welcome to crazy town.

Why don’t we import more Norwegians, you know, intelligent white people? I don’t know, why don’t you ask a Norwegian? Perhaps he or she will say they don’t want to live in the country wherein Donald Trump is President. Now that most of the world despises Donald Trump, and by association, the country that voted him into office, my question is how far down will we go? While indignant (hypocritical) Congressmen call for censure, and the world grows more and more impatient with Rump’s impetuous, childlike behavior, I ask myself what is his endgame? My biggest fear, growing stronger every day, is that Rump’s only way out of this public relations nightmare is to incite a distracting major military conflict. I’ve become so desensitized by the outrageous nonsense going on in the White House, that I have all but given up reacting to anything but the most outrageous things out of Rump's pie hole. Given the climate of chaos and disinformation, I wonder how terrified those residents of Hawaii must have been the other day when the nuclear attack warning sirens went off accidentally? Certainly, it is now a believable scenario that North Korea might launch a nuclear attack on America. Thanks are due to the boy who cried “Un!”

Bad behavior is nothing new for leaders, and past presidents are well-documented for their faux pas remarks (Google Harry Truman and political correctness), but these days there is no filter. I prefer the delusion that my leader has a little class. All this is making me very anxious, and I wish I could talk to my dad about the state of the world today, but alas, he is not here. Sorry Dad, I used the word “shithole” in my report this week. By the way, I was just quoting the President of The United States.

Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c 2018 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report 1/8/18

We watched the Golden Globes last night, because every year I like to know which movies I want to see, in three years, when they air on HBO. Host Seth Meyers was quick to seize on the “Me Too” movement, and there were a lot of jokes about Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey, and sexual misconduct in general. Certainly, this was a forum for females in the Hollywood fishbowl to speak out against the abuse of power in a male-dominated industry. I’m happy about the seemingly seismic shift in Hollywood, and I hope it spreads like wildfire to the rest of the world. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if every job was filled by the person who was simply qualified to do it? In some karmic cosmic parallel universe, Oprah would be President of The United States and the current Commander-In-Tweets would be working the window at McDonalds. Speaking of Rump …

My button’s bigger and it works! Wow, looks like it’s official; about half of America elected a grown man to lead the free world, who has the emotional maturity of a 5-year-old. When I hear Rump spokespersons defending his overtly childish behavior, it astounds me. I am deeply concerned, as I’m sure many of my readers are, that this egotistical putz will soon spark a nuclear war. The big news this week is that “reporter” Michael Wolff's  hatchet job book entitled “Fire and Fury” has been released, proclaiming Donald Trump to be a colossal moron. White House aids have apparently gone on record to state that The Donald is a few spices short of a goulash; an impetuous, childish idiot. Regardless of the veracity of the allegations – and Wolff must have known he was going to be a lightning rod to libel charges - the saddest part about this book is Rump’s reaction. He publicly denied that he is a moron, which is bad enough, but then he made a quantum leap and declared himself a genius. To me this makes him look even more like a moron. I take everything out of Rump’s mouth (or fingertips) with a pound of salt, but he’d have been much wiser to discredit the book’s facts. Forget Obama’s birth certificate, I think it’s time we had a little conversation with Donald’s teachers. Start with the third grade. I realize that the press is in an all-out war with the White House, and I’m no champion of biased media. The truth lies somewhere deep in the miasma of spin and innuendo. The fact is, Rump says stupid, untrue things every day, and he has finally succeeded in eradicating whatever dangling particle of hope I had that the man really does in fact have both oars in the water. I gave him a year before throwing in the towel, presuming that the swamp creatures would be gunning for the underdog, and that all his shenanigans were just a clever ruse. Rump may be draining the swamp, but he’s filled it with raw sewage. I feel genuinely unsafe, and evermore astounded by the damage this bozo has done to America. Dust off the 25^th Amendment! Meanwhile the stock market is climbing to record highs. What is wrong with this picture?!

The other day I heard someone say that 2017 was the year everyone became offended by everything. We may have pegged the meter on the politically correct side of the scale, but let’s face it, there was plenty about which to be offended in 2017. I shook my head in disgust the other day as I watched the 11 O’clock News. There was a story about some internet blogger who got into trouble with his fans over an insensitive video post. I shrugged off another story about a wannabe celebrity, until I heard that this guy makes millions of dollars from sponsors who are drawn in by his legion of followers. He performs stupid stunts, like faking his suicide through an apartment building window, stunts you’d expect to see on one of those Jackass movies; and he has a lot of followers. So, the kid with the stupid grin, who wears his baseball cap backwards, is making millions video recording himself skateboarding into a brick wall, and posting it on YouTube. He now lives in a house worth $6.5 Million and is making more money than the average heart surgeon. What a wonderful message we are sending to the next generation. Hard work and public service are to be eschewed in favor of stupid, sometimes desperate attempts to attain celebrity, and to exhibit over-the-top bad behavior. And we wonder how we ended up with squirrel head!

As we welcome the new year, hoping that Baby 2018 grows up to be a better person than than Baby 2017 (who never grew up) I repeat a quote from my favorite cartoon possum (no, not Jeff Sessions), Pogo: “We have met the enemy and he is us!" 

I’ll be back next week, if the world has not been reduced to ash.

- Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c 2018 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report - 1/1/18

I’m beginning this report on New Year’s Eve, and if the car will start, I’ll head over to the Katrine Community Centre later for some live music. The folks at our local Katrine General Store were planning to hold this their first New Year’s Eve event outdoors, with live music and fireworks at Midnight. With the crisp clear night and the “super” moon, this party sounded like a slam dunk. Alas, at -25F, it was a no go. I heard on the news that cold weather nixed many of the outdoor First Night celebrations scheduled here in Canada. Ottawa had fairly well scrapped their big 150^th Anniversary sendoff, and Toronto scaled back the live music considerably. You can have your ball drop in Times Square, or your guitar drop in Nashville, or your slipper drop in Key West (complete with a transvestite named “Sushi”) – give me the Katrine General Store gig any day. Katrine is party central. Along with a monthly music jamboree at the local community center, and a winter festival held in February, Katrine is where it’s at. The running joke here is that there are rarely any spectators for the annual winter festival parade, because the residents are all participating. One year, I took a photograph that fairly well sums up the excitement that parade generates: a single marcher, bundled up in skidoo attire, trudging down the street in a blinding snowstorm, and carrying a giant stuffed fish under her arm. I call it pluck.

Last week, a Buffalo legend passed on, and almost anyone from Toronto to Buffalo knows who Irv Weinstein was. The popular news anchor for WKBW, Buffalo’s local Channel 7, died of Lou Gehrig’s Disease at the age of 87. I grew up watching Irv and Channel 7 news in Buffalo, and while some on my Canadian friends from Toronto joke about Irv’s emphasis on murder and arson, two regrettably common events in my hometown city, I loved Irv’s sardonic delivery. From the 60s to the 80s, and largely because of Irv Weinstein, WKBW was the channel to watch in Buffalo. I grew up on Rocket Ship 7 and Commander Tom and I also remember as a little boy visiting the WKBW station with my dad. He was participating in a community welfare broadcast, and he thought I might enjoy seeing a live TV broadcast. I was ecstatic, until I saw the set for Rocket Ship 7, and realized how cheap all the props were. “Promo”, my beloved Rocket Ship 7 robot, was little more than a refrigerator box, spray painted silver. My favorite robot was made out of a Frigidaire box; it was a horrible epiphany! It was like learning the truth about Santa Claus (you know, that he drinks), and it was the first of many broadsides to my eroding innocence. Heavy sigh. “Commander” Tom Jolls (which must have been some truncated Polish name) was the Channel 7 weatherman, and he doubled as a children’s show host in the afternoons. I think Rick Azar was the sports guy. Simpler times, where did they go?

I say good riddance to 2017! 2017 was that boorish oaf at a cocktail party; the guy you can’t get away from, and who just keeps talking about himself, even when you begin to become vocally antagonistic. 2017 was that slimy little penis-like alien who bursts out of the guy’s chest in the movie “Alien”, terrifying everyone, then scampering off, only to reappear and wreak havoc at will. I’m ready to eject that little bugger into outer space and start fresh. How about you? America, you made a mistake. It happens. Take off your red baseball caps, put on your big boy pants and move forward. Everybody stumbles. Democracy is not perfect. Exposing the foul underbelly of hatred and ignorance in one’s society can be a good thing. May love and understanding emerge miraculously from the ruin of 2017. I believe it will. Focus on the heroes and the bums will hang themselves.

As Irv would say: “It’s Eleven O’Clock … do you know where YOUR children are?”

      - Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c 2017 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED