#VOTEFAMILIA AND OTHER THOUGHTS

1. It’s Friday, July 10, 2015.

2. Greece looks as though it is going to capitulate to European creditors’ demands for more austerity. That, despite Sunday’s overwhelming vote to tell the creditors to shove their demands.

Which makes you wonder why they bothered to vote in the first place.

What hasn’t changed since Sunday is what will get Greece out of this mess — a real restructuring of its debt and programs aimed at getting people back to work and spending money.

So if the reports of the agreement are accurate, expect us to be back at this nonsense at some point in the next year or two.

3. There’s a ticker-tape parade in New York today for the U.S. Women’s Soccer team that won the World Cup. The weather is great, and lots of folks — especially a lot of girls looking for heroes — are excited. So despite my feelings toward the sport, I’m happy for everyone and hope it’s a day of great memories.

4. Twenty-three days ago, nine members of a Charleston church group were murdered in cold blood, allegedly by a guy who was looking to start a racial war. Today, the Confederate flag came down from a South Carolina capitol flagpole for the first time in more than a half-century.

As I said yesterday, I really hope the murder suspect has to watch the flag lowering over and over again, for the rest of his miserable life.

5. I normally don’t care about the All-Star Game final vote, in which fans pick the final player for the two league teams. It’s a gimmick aimed at drumming up interest for a game that is normally pretty uninteresting.

But as a Mets fan who has followed the team more closely in my retirement, I can’t help but feel as though reliever Jeurys Familia, the team’s closer, deserves the recognition. This young man stepped into the crucial job when another player was suspended for using performance-enhancing drugs. And he’s done brilliantly.

So I’ve spent this final day of voting doing my best imitation of a Chicago ward boss in the Daley pere days. If you tweet the hashtag #VoteFamilia, you can vote and put an emoji in your tweet at the same time.

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