1. It’s Wednesday, January 17, 2018.

2. It’s the birthday of Benjamin Franklin and Al Capone. Go figure.

3. It’s dumb to question the integrity of the doctor who gave Trump his physical.

This doctor isn’t the clown who Trump got to issue a statement that he was the probably the healthiest person ever to seek the presidency.

Instead, it’s the same doctor who examined President Obama and, according to what I’m seeing on social media, lots of folks who served in his administration. Those aides rave about him.

And yesterday, Dr. Ronny L. Jackson answered every question reporters put to him about Trump’s health. Including the fact that Trump requested a cognitive test on which the patient scored perfectly.

Because it was Trump, given the track record, some have questioned how truthful the doctor was. In particular, they believe his weight was understated, particularly given his reported propensity for junk food.

It’s silly to engage in this. Like in a lot of other things, Trump has a lot of luck. That appears to be the case with his body and mind.

Let that go.

The focus on Trump’s appearance and those tweets that are boastful or derisive of individuals is a waste of energy.

4. Here’s what’s you should care about:

Earlier this week, three-fourths of the National Park Service’s advisory board quit. Their resignations protest the attitude of Trump and his archvillain Interior Secretary, Ryan Zinke, toward this country’s national treasures.

Trump hasn’t appointed an NPS director. Zinke hasn’t met with the advisory board since he took office last year.

Already, Trump has said he’ll scale back the size of two national parks in Utah. And then there’s all the crap about opening all offshore waters – except those off the coast of Florida – for oil drilling.

I spent last Saturday at an NPS site – the Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace in Manhattan. There was a wonderful 45-minute tour of the house by a woman who has clearly devoted her career to learning about the life of our 26th President and spreading her knowledge to her fellow Americans.

Even people who trash government aren’t stupid enough to trash the National Park Service. People love visiting Yellowstone and Yosemite. Going to the Statue of Liberty or Gettysburg requires lots of planning because so many want to see them.

I suspect the fact that the natural and historic legacies preserved by NPS are what truly show America’s greatness bothers the hell out of Trump and the greedy bastards who support him.

They think America’s legacy is Wall Street. Or high-rise apartments. Or beachfront property with a golf course.

5. I don’t give a damn whether Trump is or isn’t in his right mind. I don’t give a damn what he eats or if he has all his teeth or who he sleeps with.

I give a damn about what he’s doing.

I give a damn about tearing families apart because of his punitive and short-sighted immigration policy.

I give a damn about treating families on Medicaid like they’re stealing something while giving more money to Wall Street jackasses and real estate sharks.

I give a damn about anybody thinking that tactical nuclear war seems like an idea.

And I give a damn about how we treat what we really inherit as Americans – a beautiful land and a heritage forged by generations of people from all over the world.

So I hope Trump is healthy. Because when we finally get this cetriolo out of the White House, I want him to live a long time in history’s disgrace.

1. It’s Friday, January 12, 2018.

2. It’s the eighth anniversary of an earthquake that killed at least 100,000 and possibly as many as 300,000 Haitians.

The American people rallied behind their neighbors in the Caribbean. They were led by President Barack Obama, who told Haitians they wouldn’t be “forsaken” and “forgotten.”

They were also led by two former Presidents, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, who established a relief fund that raised $54 million over a three-year period.

3. Trump is denying that he called Haiti a shithole.

CNN’s Jake Tapper, in a Tweet thread this morning, says his reporting indicates Trump was referring to African nations with his slur, but also said that he didn’t want Haitians coming into this country.

And, as Tapper also tweeted, that doesn’t make anything better.

One of the meeting participants, Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, a Democrat, said Trump said what everybody said he said. And he said that a Republican, Lindsay Graham of South Carolina, called Trump out on it.

4. There were a lot of angry words on TV and social media last night. There were tears and yelling and a sense of shock that our country could have come to this.

OK.

But I’m willing to wager money that this whole flap, all the mishegas on the morning shows and cable networks, fades into memory by, say, Tuesday of next week.

Because there’s going to be something else. Some other obscenity or embarrassment. Some stupid choice of words or some member of Trump’s archvillain league, also known as his cabinet, doing something unethical or possibly criminal.

This administration – that seems too organized a word to describe it – is about staying in motion. It’s about trying to get everything on its wish list by going all out for all of it and seeing what sticks.

It’s about changing the subject every few hours so that when Trump does or says something that really bothers people, it gets buried under an avalanche of other things that might or might not really bother people.

Do you remember back when he tweeted out how the button on his desk was bigger than Kim Jong Un’s? That, to anyone with a brain, it looked like Trump was eager for a nuclear war with North Korea.

Seems like a long time ago.

It was last week.

Trump and his minions are about irritating the people who didn’t vote for him – that’s the same number that voted for him plus about 2.9 million more. They’re about getting cheers from the cowards – and, yes, they’re cowards, afraid of anything that isn’t them – who are his true believers.

And if he keeps doing stuff for the benefit of him and others of his ilk; if he keeps making stupid statements and insulting his opposition and fighting anything that makes government succeed, he thinks he can tire out the sane and the sober. He can wear down the people he hurts and the people he offends, while keeping his sycophants satisfied.

5. Trump hasn’t made America great. He has made Americans ashamed.

He has embarrassed us, and he’s betting that we’re going to be so demoralized and tired that we’ll let him get away with it.

After a year, everybody’s tired of the racism, the ignorance, the short-sightedness, the open-palmed greed.

But we can’t let it go. We can’t make Trumpism the new normal. He and those who acceded to him need to pay a price for what they’ve done.

Today is a sad day in this country. Another one. Bet big there’ll be more before this shitshow of a presidency is over.

6. One final thought:

CNN’s Wolf Blitzer took a lot of ribbing yesterday because, when the news broke of Trump’s comments, he could not bring himself to use the word “shithole.”

Others, on CNN and other networks, had no qualms about it. Blitzer did. So did some other TV voices.

It’s because they were raised well. They were told that shithole is not a word used by ladies and gentlemen. By people for whom decorum matters.

Blitzer is one of those people who cling to something – the idea that the functioning of government and society is noble. It should be – like medicine and tech research and other fields that better humanity – revered.

Hearing Trump’s language is disheartening to those folks. And sometimes, like Blitzer, they resist out of respect.

Let Blitzer off the hook. Civility is something we should admire, especially now.

And I apologize for not adhering to it in this post. I’ll try to do better.

1. It’s Thursday, January 11, 2018.

2. The Throgs Neck Bridge, where it feels as though I’ve spent a year of my life driving to my parents’ house on Long Island, opened on this day in 1961.

Until the opening last August of the north Mario Cuomo Bridge span across the Hudson River, it was the most recently built major crossing in the New York metropolitan area.

Like many of those other crossings, it’s a cars-and-trucks-only structure. There’s no pedestrian walkway or bike path. There’s no rail line running across it.

That’s partly because Robert Moses, as detailed by Robert Caro in his classic biography, “The Master Builder,” was vehemently anti-mass transit.

He was responsible for most of the major roads in New York City and Long Island. And, indeed, they have no mass transit component to alleviate the commute for the millions who live in the area.

Getting into Manhattan from the areas that surround it remains dreaded by those who do it.

Besides congested roads, the rail links to the city from New Jersey, the northern suburbs and Long Island are antiquated and, too often, dangerous. Bicycling, while improved in the past few years, remains an adventure.

3. All that crossed my mind when I heard about Mayor Bill de Blasio’s announcement that New York City is suing oil companies to collect damages rising from the cost of climate change. In addition, the city’s pension funds are divesting about $5 billion from oil company stocks.

The urgency of ending our dependence on oil and other fossil fuels was brought home to New Yorkers by Hurricane Sandy in 2012.

Not just the fact that the storm’s damage to coastlines and infrastructure was exacerbated by the effects of climate change. There were also the long lines at gas stations, with prices jacked up $1 or more a gallon as people needed to get around and, in many instances, couldn’t.

Big oil, lobbying people like Moses and others, helped make New York and other large metropolitan areas dependent on its products. It wrecked the air and, when prices spiked as they so often have, messed with family economies.

So I’m supportive of de Blasio’s efforts. Yes, let’s break the addiction to something that hurts our environment, gives incentive to terrorists and autocrats in the Middle East and, every so often, holds our economy hostage.

4. But, as I’ve also said, it’s time to rethink transportation.

Again, until last August, the Throgs Neck was the newest way across a river in this area. And even the Mario Cuomo, as beautiful as it is, doesn’t do everything it should – while there will eventually be pedestrian and bike paths, it doesn’t have a rail or any other mass transit.

I used to think the ideas such as congestion pricing – charging people to get past a certain point in town at busy times of the day – weren’t that great. It seems unfair to people who have to drive into midtown Manhattan to scratch out a living.

But midtown is a mess. At certain times, it’s a nightmare of traffic jams – motorized and human. And that can’t be good for anyone – it’s bad for the environment, for businesses and for the health of people who experience it.

So maybe congestion pricing is worth a try.

It would also be great if there were ideas about new modes of transportation.

New York’s subway is over a century old, and it feels like it every time you ride it. Dark, dirty, slow, constantly breaking down. It’s an amazing accomplishment of engineering – and it’s collapsing before our eyes.

So fixing it is important.

And then other forms of people moving need to be discovered. Is it a network of solar-powered moving walkways and escalators? Is it a series of trams down the major thoroughfares? It is an elaborate network of water taxis from point to point in Manhattan or to other parts of the area?

Is there some idea that’s completely different?

This is not meant to say that cars and trucks should be abolished. There’s plenty of wonderful open highway out there on which vehicles should be allowed to roam. I’d prefer that they run on something other than gas, but I doubt the internal combustion engine will disappear in my lifetime.

But New York City is taking a big first step toward fixing its future with its actions toward the oil companies. Now it needs to think bigger. It needs to test the imagination of urban planners and engineers, and come up with something that reflects the needs of the late 21st century – if not the 22nd century, now just 82-plus years away.

1. It’s Wednesday, January 10, 2018.

2. It’s the 110th birthday of actor Paul Henreid. Of course, he’s best known as Victor Laszlo, the heroic, but inconvenient, husband of Ilsa Lund in “Casablanca.” 

Two things I didn’t know about Henreid before I started working on this. One is that he, technically, was born in Italy – Trieste was Austrian when he was born there in 1908, but is Italian now.

Two is that, much like his most famous character, he hated Nazis.

Paul Henreid, who died in 1992, became a U.S. citizen during World War II. Sure, as an actor, America was the place to further a career. Nevertheless, Henreid is another of the millions of Americans who came here from places where oppression reigned.

3. Another of those places is El Salvador.

It’s one of the most dangerous countries in the world, so much so that violence is one of its exports. It’s the birthplace of MS-13, the gang that has moved into this country to terrorize teens in such places as Suffolk County, N.Y.

So, of course, the Trump administration plans to send 200,000 Salvadoran refugees back to a place where their chances for survival diminish to near zero.

It’s beyond preposterous.

The Temporary Protected Status that Salvadoran refugees have had in this country dates back to 2001 and President George W. Bush. That was the year of devastating earthquakes that forced thousands from their homes.

The Bush administration and that of President Barack Obama extended the status for one important reason: It would be inhumane to do otherwise. El Salvador devolved into a violent society, with the capital of San Salvador considered one of the most dangerous cities in the world.

It’s not politics to be humane. It takes a little bit of heart.

Of course, that would eliminate Trump, the comic book archvillains who surround him and the cowards who voted for and support him. Their attitude: If a person isn’t fair-skinned, speaks Spanish and wasn’t born here, they are of no value to you. Get them the hell out.

Most of the 200,000 Salvadoran exiles have created lives and families. They’ve become part of communities. They pay taxes – something Trump and his scummy ilk find beneath them.

4. What hope is there for these folks?

I can think of two things right now. One is yesterday’s ruling by a federal district judge in San Francisco halting the Trump move to get rid of children of undocumented immigrants.

The decision stalls plans to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program by March. Of course, Trump – who railed about this in a tweet this morning – will appeal the ruling. But there’s at least a chance that this draconian measure won’t go into effect on schedule, and that’s a good thing.

How does that affect the Salvadorans? Going to court is not a bad idea. At the very least, they can stall this forced exodus from the September 2019 deadline.

The second thing that could help is us, by voting.

The midterm election year is here. It’s time to get Trump’s Republican enablers in the House and Senate back under their rocks.

When Congress is united against these Trump indignities, when his henchmen and the occasional woman can’t leech from the American people as readily as they have for the past 355 days, then maybe somebody can remember to look out for people who contribute rather than embarrass our country.

A curmudgeonly mentor of mine said that you had to be a stone not to well with tears when Paul Henreid as Victor Laszlo leads the band at Rick’s in “La Marseillaise” in the middle of “Casablanca.”

Maybe 200,000 Salvadorans singing “La Marseillaise” would remind us that America has been about welcoming those who cherish peace and freedom. And for that a nation worthy of its claim as leader of the world, it needs to act accordingly.

1. It’s Tuesday, January 9, 2018.

2. It’s National Cassoulet Day.

Really. If you’re inclined toward a pot of white beans and sausage , I hope you enjoy it.

3. Here’s why I have the same soft spot for Oprah Winfrey, John Travolta, Ron Howard and Jerry Seinfeld, among others: They, like me, were born in 1954.

And if it can’t be me, I’d still like someone born the year I was to become President of the United States.

Of course, the year he or she is born is no reason that someone should be President of the United States. And, alas, that applies to Winfrey.

She’s clearly brilliant. She’s demonstrated that for years. Her fortune is self-made. Her brand is strong. She radiates intelligence. Her speech at the Golden Globes the other night was of a quality you can’t imagine from the monkfish flopping in the Oval Office these days.

From what’s known, her political views match up well with mine. That’s important, especially after these years of leadership inspired by the rulers in “The Handmaid’s Tale.”

But Oprah Winfrey, much like Trump even after a year in office, knows little about the nuts and bolts of governing. Yes, she runs a successful business enterprise and is wealthy. But, as we’ve painfully learned in the past year, that’s not the same thing as running the federal government.

And the next President has to reassemble the federal government. The damage being done needs to be repaired if the United States is going to continue to function, much less reclaim its place as a leader among nations.

The task is going to be monumental and I’m frightened to think that there might not be anyone able to do that. Because besides fixing the functioning of government, the next President is going to have to heal the wounds this administration has inflicted on American society.

Part of Winfrey’s appeal, I suspect, is that she’s seen as someone who could unify the nation. Much as she did every afternoon with her show back in the day.

Notice that, for consistency’s sake, I’m referring to her as Winfrey – she’s Oprah to everyone else. It’s not a first name that anybody spits out, like the people who hate Hillary Clinton. It’s said with implied respect by all.

But this nation’s next President needs to be someone who understands government. Someone who knows how laws work. Someone who understands what it takes to cut through the screwups and help people who need it the most. Who knows, for instance, whose ass to kick to get power back to everyone in Puerto Rico.

There are men and women better equipped for that task than Oprah Winfrey. The good news is that there are people of diverse background and origin – although I’m not sure if any of them were born in 1954.

And if they’re not as electric as Winfrey, they’re certainly going to be able to sort out issues, delegate responsibility and make all the big decisions that America will face when Trump finally, thankfully, goes away.

1. It’s Friday, January 5, 2018.

2. It’s the 65th anniversary of the stage debut of Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot” in Paris.

I’d say more, but I don’t want to spoil the ending for anyone who hasn’t seen it.

3. There’s sort of a “Waiting for Godot” vibe to the Trump occupation of the White House.

Every day, it seems, there’s some craziness that crops up. It seems to take different shapes – today it’s “Sloppy Steve” and the tweet that the “Fake News Media” didn’t cover the Dow reaching 25,000.

But it’s the same crap, different day, as it has been most of the 350 days of this nightmare. Trump airs grievances via Twitter and the rest of the world dissects them.

4. Here’s why this is not like “Waiting for Godot.”: Something is happening. Unfortunately.

Just five days into the new year, we have the following:

— An effort to end all restrictions on offshore drilling.
— An effort to stop the popular movement toward marijuana legalization.
— A fight picked with Pakistan over its terrorism fighting prowess.
— A delay in an Obama administration rule requiring communities to report on racial segregation in housing and how they intend to correct problems.
— Talk of acting to cut Medicare and Social Security to help erase some of the debt racked up via the idiotic tax cut enacted in haste last month.
— New store closings for Macy’s and Sears as the retail industry shakeout continues.
— Protests in Iran that the administration and its tame sycophants in Congress tried to exploit for political gain – pretty much ending those protests because those complaining don’t want to be seen as tools of Trump and company.
— Efforts to tie a measure to fund the government past Jan. 19 to increased military spending.
— Still about half of Puerto Rico without power.
— A concerted effort to both end an investigation into how Russia interfered with the 2016 election and launch a political prosecution of Hillary Clinton and her associates.
— And a sophomoric spat between Trump and Kim Jong Un comparing the size of their nuclear buttons, as if a nuclear war on the Korean peninsula would be like a pissing contest in the boys’ room.

Those are real problems for all of us. They’re scary.

So I can’t get particularly worked up about a book that says Trump is a grown child in a job that requires a grownup.

The crisis isn’t that he eats cheeseburgers in bed. Or that he doesn’t seem able to read. Or that saying he has the attention span of a toddler insults every toddler I’ve ever seen.

Yes, I understand the impulse to buy a book that Trump, who also seems to have difficulty grasping the idea of a Constitution he swore to defend, tried to stop from distribution. I want to stick it to him, too.

But the problem is that Trump is not alone. He is getting help from Republicans in Congress and his sympaticos at Fox News.

They may gasp at his shocking lack for qualification for the job. They may nervously laugh about his latest gaffe or crazy talk.

But they’re complicit in it. They are as culpable for this disaster as he is.

So a book about White House gossip might get folks atwitter – pun intended. The problem is that it doesn’t solve anything that’s wrong with January 5, 2018, the 350 days before it and the 1,111 days that are due to follow.

If you buy the book, I hope you enjoy it. “The Underground Railroad” by Colson Whitehead is the next thing on my reading list.

1. It’s Thursday, January 4, 2018.

2. Just a reminder: The National Weather Service doesn’t name winter storms. That’s a marketing ploy by The Weather Channel. It’s bogus.

These are serious enough events that they shouldn’t need some sort of naming device that makes it somehow cute or relatable.

3. Speaking of NWS, the folks who work there are some of my heroes. I love how thoroughly they update people, good days and bad. Using science.

Their tools for showing the impact of weather conditions get better almost every time you look. All you have to do is follow them on social media – Facebook or Twitter.

Weather forecasters are routinely badmouthed – as if they create bad conditions to make people miserable.

Maybe I’m sympathetic because I spent a lifetime delivering bad news to people. But I think the NWS does an amazing job and I’m grateful for the people who’ve dedicated themselves to working in meteorology for the United States Government.

The snow – where I live, we’re now expected to get about seven inches – is a diversion from the winter of discontent that is the U.S. government.

4. My former brethren in the news media are focused on the snow and the hullabaloo over a book that tells people Trump is perceived as a barely functioning idiot by the people who got him to the White House.

Neither of those things is news to anyone with eyes and a brain.

Here is what we should be focused on this awful January day:

— Congress has to come up with a way to fund the government past Jan. 19.

The Republicans found the time and will to provide an idiotic tax plan that mostly benefits the wealthy.

Keeping government agencies running, providing health care for children and getting some help to people in Puerto Rico who have spent nearly a third of a year without power seem less important to these jackasses.

— There still appear to be grownups in charge of South Korea.

The government seized on a suggestion from Kim Jong-Un that North Korea, despite months of bombast and missile launches, was willing to send a delegation to next month’s Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang.

They’ve also resumed communications via a hotline between the two still-warring nations.

Seoul seems determined to get things back to an uneasy calm – as opposed to the jitteriness spurred by the childish, hot-tempered exchanges between Trump and Kim.

— The Republicans want to derail the Mueller investigation.

Two House members wrote an op-ed for a tame organ calling for the firing of Jeff Sessions as Attorney General.

Getting a blithering idiot out of office is, on the face of it, a good idea. But the real reason these clowns want Sessions out is that his successor wouldn’t be bound to continuing Mueller’s probe. Sessions is recused from influencing the probe; his successor wouldn’t be.

The truth needs to be found as to the extent of Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. The Republicans don’t want that – that’s how they got the gift of the presidency, the moron holding the job not withstanding.

5. On a day like this, I am reminded of the wise words of Lou Grant, former news director of WJM-TV in Minneapolis:

“I hate snow. I don’t like its color. I don’t like its shape. I don’t like its temperature. I don’t like how it feels. Or what it does. I don’t like it in snowballs. Or on hills. I don’t like anything about it. It’s a soft, wet, white, mushy, melting, freezing mess. I hate snow as much as I hate anything in the entire world.”

Winter is one-seventh over. I think about a nice 95-degree day in July and remember that it’s coming back. Eventually.

1. It’s Tuesday, January 2, 2018.

Got that year right on the first try.

2. Today is National Creampuff Day. Does anybody really eat creampuffs? That seems like mid 20th-century food, like Jell-O mold.

On this day a century ago, Willi Graf was born.

We tend to think that Germans of the Nazi era were lockstep with Hitler and his ilk. Graf wasn’t. He was a member of the White Rose resistance, marching in protests and spreading anti-Hitler graffiti at considerable risk to his well-being.

Graf served as a medic in the army during the war – until he was arrested in 1943 for his resistance efforts. After six months in prison, he was beheaded – the Nazis being very versatile in their methods of killing people.

Here’s Evelyn Lukey’s piece on Graf that can you tell more about a real hero.

2. Willi Graf’s spiritual heirs live in Tehran and other Iranian cities where protests continued today. 

They’re mostly pissed off about the economy. It reels from sanctions imposed by the United States and others for Iran’s leaders fomenting unrest throughout the Middle East. Unemployment is high and the standard of living has declined, and that kind of situation makes protestors out of the most fervent believers.

But they also are bothered by the fact that Iran is a brutal dictatorship. It imprisons opponents. It kills opponents. It supports jerks of similar mindset throughout the Middle East.

So some Iranians have taken to the streets, much as some did eight years ago to complain about the re-election of the creepy anti-Semite Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president. After some initial restraint, the government has cracked down – the official death toll is 21.

3. And one way supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his other pals can try to regain the upper hand is to blame the United States.

The good old USA. We are either other’s bogeyman. The Iranians haven’t forgiven us for backing the brutal Shah. We haven’t forgiven them for taking our diplomats hostage for more than a year.

A wise American politician, whether he or she be a Republican or Democrat, wouldn’t play into the Ayatollah’s hands. He or she would say nothing, or say that Iranians should resolve their differences peacefully. He or she would understand that American interference, even if it’s just words, does nothing to help moderates and reformers.

4. Then, of course, there’s Trump.

The meathead tweeted this earlier today:

The people of Iran are finally acting against the brutal and corrupt Iranian regime. All of the money that President Obama so foolishly gave them went into terrorism and into their “pockets.” The people have little food, big inflation and no human rights. The U.S. is watching!

First, why is pockets in quotes?

Second, now that Trump is so-called standing up to the “corrupt Iranian regime,” here’s my question:

What is the United States going to do if Khameini decides a flatbed truck with machine guns blazing is the way to stop what he’ll sell as a U.S.-supported threat to the Islamic Republic?

What is the orange-haired blowhard with the short, busy Twitter fingers going to do?

Is Trump going to act? Is he going to commit U.S. military forces to some sort of action on a government that will claim it was dealing with its own people?

We hear so much from Trump, Pence and the rest of the chickenhawks – the same asses who dragged us into Iraq for no good reason – about how we’re now standing tall against so-called radical Islam.

But if push comes to godawful shove, are Trump and his sycophants really ready to commit the sons and daughters of the United States to a conflict that can’t end well for anybody – other than, perhaps, Vladimir Putin?

The best way to support those protesting in Iran is to leave them alone. They aren’t looking for our help – in fact, the reformers accuse the U.S. of trying to take advantage of the situation.

So here’s to hoping reasonable people on both sides prevail in Iran – and that the hotheads don’t call the bluff. Doing what’s best for Willi Graf’s spiritual heirs requires listening to them carefully – and not turning them into another harvest for would-be executioners.

1. It’s Wednesday, December 13, 2017.

At the moment, the AccuWeather real feel temperature here in New York’s northern suburbs is zero degrees F.

This is not the only evidence that hell froze over last night.

2. No way does a Democrat succeed Jeff Sessions in the United States Senate from Alabama. No way.

Except that it’s going to happen.

A lot is being made of how bad a candidate Roy Moore was. Starting first, foremost and disqualifyingly, with the accusations about his conduct.

Moore never dispelled or convincingly refuted the accusations that, when he was in his 30s, he pursued teenage girls – to the extent that a mall banned him for being such a predator.

Maybe his true believers accepted his response. His detractors believed the accusations without question.

The people without prejudice weighed the evidence and rendered a verdict.

There are other reasons Moore stinks. Not everybody, even in a state as conservative as Alabama, is willing to put the Ten Commandments over the Constitution in determining what’s law. There were no mitigating factors to slavery.

But here’s the thing: Moore only lost by about 20,000 votes. That’s not a lot when about 1.3 million votes are cast.

That means that Alabama is a state that wants so desperately to go Republican that it’s willing to overlook Moore’s flaws.

3. And that’s where Doug Jones comes in.

Jones, a former federal prosecutor, honed a campaign that blended national Democratic values with the realities of Alabama. And I can’t remember him campaigning against Trump by name.

The idea is to create an identity for yourself. To create the so-called “big tent” that enough Republicans, disgusted by Moore, could get under.

The result speaks for itself. Jones embraced his African-American voters – his record putting some of the 1963 Birmingham church bombers in prison to rot certainly burnished his credentials. And he didn’t scare white people who are naturally conservative but not racists.

Democrats across the country need to look at Doug Jones in Alabama, and remember last month’s gubernatorial winners – Ralph Northam in Virginia and Phil Murphy in New Jersey.

These aren’t flamethrowers. They don’t focus on Trump any more than they have to – Murphy certainly did a little more of that in New Jersey than the others.

They won because they responded to the places where they live and ran. They got to know the people. They embraced them. They didn’t take any group for granted.

One more thing – the winners so far have been decent people. People with a record of doing good by people. Jones prosecuted terrorists. Northam was an Army medical officer and is a pediatric neurosurgeon. Murphy founded a teen helpline.

Democrats must recruit men and women of character and integrity.

Emphasis on women. It’s time. There are so many brilliant, creative, compassionate women in all the major professions – I’ve been blessed to work with so many in 40 years as a journalist.

These people need to be running things. To be shaping society and responding to its needs.

No, no one should vote for someone just because they’re a man or woman. But yes, they should have the diversity of life experience to inform their judgments.

Character, integrity and core beliefs that empower people. Democrats need to put the Jones/Northam/Murphy wins in a bottle and sprinkle the mixture around the nation.

Today feels good, the cold notwithstanding. We need to feel this way more often.

1. It’s Tuesday, December 12, 2017.

2. It’s the centennial of Boys Town, the charity for troubled children founded by Monsignor Joseph Edward Flanagan, aka Father Flanagan. From what I see on its Web site, it’s no longer solely aimed at helping boys.

Boys Town was into mail donation solicitations in a big way back in the day. It might still be, but I haven’t seen one in decades.

Its famous slogan, of course, was “He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother,” and on the little stamps you were supposed to put on your Christmas cards was a drawing of a teenage boy carrying a smaller one.

That slogan, in turn, was the basis of a popular song of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s – among those recorded it were The Hollies, Neil Diamond and Righteous Brother Bill Medley.

The sentiment was that we’re supposed to help our brethren in need, no matter how difficult that might be.

3. It’s a sentiment that seems alien to 2017.

You don’t have to look far to see that.

This morning, Ed Lee, the mayor of San Francisco, died suddenly and unexpectedly at age 65. It must be a terrible day for his family, for his friends and for the people in the city who elected this man twice.

So do yourself a favor. DON’T look at the Twitter mentions for Ed Lee. Because there’s a strong push at this moment of pain in San Francisco to express hatred toward this man.

Lee was mayor of one of the nation’s most liberal cities and supported, as does many other people – including me – the concept of sanctuary cities for undocumented immigrants.

The irrational antipathy toward these immigrants so consumes some folks – many of whom claim to be Christian but seem to have no concept about Christian principles – that their glee in the mayor’s death is unbridled.

I don’t know enough about Boys Town to know if it’s true to the ideals it proclaims. I do know it has a four-star rating from Charity Navigator, the charity evaluator, so somebody believes it’s pretty honest.

4. But what about it that needs to be rekindled in an awful lot of Americans is the idea that we sometimes need to help the people around us. That includes the undocumented.

Sometimes they can’t do it on their own. Sometimes they’re trying to make their lives better.

Yeah, they didn’t file the paperwork. They didn’t wait to starve to death or get savaged by criminals in their native land.

But the reality is they’re here and they’re contributing to our society. They work at a lot of jobs that people born here don’t want to do but need to be done. They pay taxes – which, looking at the Trump tax plan, is apparently something people with multi-billion-dollar hedge funds and real estate developers don’t want to do.

So the hatred is preposterous and sad. The viciousness – which extends toward to life of a pretty devoted public servant – reflects ill on the people who spew it.

And, because it’s virtually encouraged by the occupant of the Oval Office, it diminishes our nation.

No one in need today – not the undocumented, not the still suffering victims of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, not homeless veterans, not those suffering the ravages of drug abuse or anyone else you can think of – is so much a burden that we can’t bear it.

They ain’t heavy. They’re our brothers and sisters. On this Tuesday – the day before Hanukkah, 13 days before Christmas and about 100 days after the end of Eid al-Adhr – that’s what we need to remind ourselves.

5. On this day before the first night of Hanukkah, I’m thinking fondly of the folks for whom new memories of family and friends will be kindled – and old memories glow warmly – with the lighting of a candle.

Enjoy these eight days: Hanukkah comes once a year, but Hanukkah 2017 – or 5778 – is only now. Best wishes to all.