The Oppenheimer Report 11/12/18

Watching the fires in Malibu and Paradise, California, I am reminded of how fast things can change. Paradise, California, north of San Francisco has been almost completely wiped off the map. Seven years ago, a similar thing happened to the town of Slave Lake, Alberta, north of Edmonton wherein 40% of the town was destroyed. Rump quickly tweeted his rant that these wildfires are the result of poor forest management by the state. In response to this ill-considered tweet, the Pasadena Fire Association tweeted the following: “Mr. President, with all due respect you are wrong. The fires in So. Cal are urban interface fires and have NOTHING to do with forest management. Come to SoCal and learn the facts & help the victims.” Of course, this is business as usual for the Orange Emperor. Perhaps he hopes that each stupid thing he says will divert attention away from the hundred other boneheaded things he has said or done. To the extent that states like Florida and California are heavily developed and ever more susceptible to devastating weather events, I suppose the states bear some responsibility, but these fires likely have more to do with climate change than with anything the state could have done to control the event.    

The midterm elections were good for the donkeys. Beto O’Rourke didn’t win the Texas Senate race, but he sure gave Eddie Munster clone a run for his money. Reportedly, O’Rourke was 220,000 votes (out of 8.3 million) shy of defeating Ted Cruz. These mid-terms were definitely a shot across the bow for the Republican Party. They have now lost control of one of the two Houses of Congress, and I see this as a referendum on Rump’s lack of leadership. My final indignant comment about the Commander-In-Tweet concerns Remembrance Day. Why did he even go to France? His poor representation of the United States and its military was a travesty, not to mention a slap in the face to every American soldier who has ever fought to protect our country. What an embarrassment.

We had a mini blizzard last week, and during the wee hours of the morning all I could hear was a freight train wind pounding our house. The morning after the storm, evidence of its force was clear in the wind-driven snow caking our windows. It was quite a winter storm for early November; is it portents for the winter to come? I fired up the snowblower last week, and most everything is wrapped up for winter. Seems I got the dock up just in time. I watch all these weather disasters around the world and I wonder how we will fare if we get one of those freak lake effect storms up here. It’s just a matter of time. Well, at least I've got the snowblower (hah).

On the music front, last week on my Lyrical Workers show, I released my latest song, “Watch For Wolves”, co-written with my wife Shauna and my most recent producer, Sean Cotton. Not counting the several songs to which Shauna has contributed, this is my second collaboration with another songwriter. The trick is to remain objective about that which improves the song, and I think Sean and Shauna improved the song with their input. Presently, I am three songs into a series of five or six songs about the state of the world today. The project grew out of a song I wrote entitled “Better” and written for (but not used) the Imposters Game CD. The chorus of the song is simply “How can I (We/You, and I, and love) make this better?” All the songs reflect the existential journey I am now on; the journey of an aging boomer trying to find the love in all of this chaos.

  - Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c 2018 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED