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