1. It’s Saturday, June 4, 2016.

2. It’s the day after the death of Muhammad Ali.

One of the things I tell my Journalism class is that the obituaries of really famous people are prepared far in advance by major news organizations. Generally, these are people who are key figures in the world, who are either advanced in age or ill or both.

Sadly, ever since Parkinson’s disease took control of his body, newspapers and Web sites have been preparing for this day. They did their job well: I’ve included links to four of the many great stories I’ve read so far this morning: Keith Olbermann on ringer.com, Dave Anderson in The New York Times, David Remnick in The New Yorker and Tim Dahlberg for The Associated Press.

3. I especially wanted to see the AP one because it was thanks to my time at that organization that I actually got to see Ali in person. And because Ali’s death stirs warm memories of people in my life, both here and gone.

When I started working as an AP Broadcast sports writer in 1977, Ali was in decline. He was technically still the heavyweight champion, the most coveted prize in boxing. But his skills were clearly declining and the guys I worked with knew it.

Still, we were all shocked when Leon Spinks beat Ali for the title one night in early 1978. Spinks was nowhere near the fighter Ali had been. That was proven when an even older Ali took the title back from him later that year, then retired.

When I finally saw Ali in person, it was 1981, when he was promoting a comeback fight with Trevor Berbick. Ali sat at a table in the front of a hotel ballroom. I was asked by my friend and mentor, the great Marv Schneider, to put a tape recorder on the table in front of Ali.

And so I did. It was a small task, but I was shaking. I was going up to Muhammad Ali.

I stared at him and he stared back with the glare with which he started any news conference. I fumbled around, of course, because I do that with whatever I do, as I put the cassette recorder on the table.

As I looked at him, he looked sternly at me – except that his eyes seemed to smile. Something made me feel better about being near him, as if he was saying to me don’t take this so seriously. With that, I shuffled back to my seat in the back of the room.

Ali was somewhat animated in the news conference and, being that I was seeing Ali, I was impressed.

But Marv, who once told me there were rooms in his house that he had furnished with just the extra money he earned from recording Ali news conferences, didn’t share my enthusiasm. Marv said Ali looked tired and didn’t have nearly the spark he had for all those years. “He ain’t what he used to be,” I can hear Marv say in a voice that anyone who knew him would recognize instantly.

4. Who Ali used to be, and who he was, was something more than your run-of-the-mill fighter. In the ring, he was an artist. He revolutionized his sport by moving around. The rest of the line in his famous “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee” poem is “Your hands can’t hit what your eye can’t see.” In his prime, his shuffle made him impossible for the sport’s big punchers to tag him.

Ali made you understand why boxing can be a sport and not just two guys beating each other up. But what it did to him made you realize that, yeah, it is also just two guys beating each other up, and no matter how good you are at it, there’s a physical price to be paid. I saw what happened to Ali and I haven’t watched a fight in a very long time.

It’s unusual to say that a boxer could be influential outside the ring. Having met so many of them, I can vouch that they are, as a class, remarkably polite and thoughtful people. That’s at odds with what they do. Boxing is how they cope with whatever difficulties confronted them in life.

Ali is their inspiration. He didn’t just fight. He stood on principle when it came to his faith. As a young white American, I didn’t understand that at first, and I was part of the jeering section.

5. But because he was willing to pay a price – in his case, losing more than three years in the prime of his career to fight his draft evasion conviction – he made me realize what it means to be true to what you believe.

He became a goodwill ambassador to the world. He promoted peace. He tried to help those in need. His celebrity, built in part by amazing self-promotion, proved to be selfless in its message of helping.

Ali wasn’t a saint. By all accounts, he treated women fairly cavalierly in his youth. He was cruel to his greatest rival, Joe Frazier, who had helped him when he was down. That cruelty perhaps helped make Ali-Frazier one of the greatest rivalries in the history of sports, but that appears to have been small comfort to the proud, and talented, Frazier.

6. But there’s no doubt of Ali’s inspirational powers. It’s why I was so nervous that day 35 years ago when I actually stood within two feet of the man. It’s why my image of him on this day is of that twinkle in his eye and the idea that maybe, just maybe, he understood my being in awe.

He was, after all, The Greatest of All Time. He said so himself.

1. It’s Friday, June 3, 2016.

2. It’s the anniversary of the day Billie Joe McAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge.

I, apparently, am not the only one who remembers that, as this great effort by Washington Post reporter Neely Tucker shows. 

I’ve always thought Billie Joe and the singer threw an unintended child off the bridge before he decided to jump. But apparently this is considered a mystery.

I don’t think “Ode to Billie Joe” is the greatest song ever. But somehow, 49 years later, it sticks with you.

So when I woke up on the third of June, I thought “I guess it’s just another sleepy, dusty Delta day” even though it’s rainy and gray here in New York.

3. The May jobs report released this morning shouldn’t make anyone happy.

Only 39,000 jobs were added to the nation’s payroll last month, the lowest single-month gain in six years. The monthly figures for March and April were revised by a total of 59,000, which isn’t good, either.

The unemployment rate dropped to 4.7%. But that’s based on a different survey, and doesn’t give as clear a picture of the economy as the payroll report.

What to make of it? For one thing, there’s a little noise in the report thanks to the just-ended strike by Verizon workers. That counts against the May figures, and the settlement will distort the June figures higher.

4. But the weak number isn’t just the Verizon jobs. The total still would have been below 100,000 without the strike, and the number that signals a robust economy needs to be around 200,000.

It’s worrysome, but not panic inducing. The U.S. economy has been humming for awhile now, and it’s done so despite roadblocks such as the slowdown in China and the instability in the Middle East and Europe.

We’ll see how the Obama administration and the Federal Reserve react to the report. My guess is that they’ll wait until the June figures come out on July 8.

5. You’re a San Diego Padres fan sitting in Petco Park last reveling in your team’s 12-2 lead going into the sixth inning. It’s a good time for a beer, to chat with your friends and fellow fans as the Padres finish off a laugher.

What happens after that is a fan’s worst nightmare. Before the game’s next nine outs are recorded, your team goes from winning 12-2 to trailing 16-12.

I don’t know how you cope with something like that.

Wait a minute! Of course I do. I’m a New York Mets fan. Our team hasn’t blown a 10-run lead. Yet. But we have more than our share of patent-pending, rip-out-your-heart losses.

Alas, none of the San Diego media I’ve seen so far this morning thought it would be a good idea to interview the shell-shocked fans at the ballpark. I would imagine there was a lot of stunned silence and unfinished thoughts.

I hope everyone got home safely.

1. It’s Thursday, June 2, 2016.

2. People living paycheck to paycheck are still going to need to borrow money from someone. So the so-called “payday loan” mills that charge outrageous fees and interest rates won’t merely dry up and go away.

But the new rules being announced today by the Consumer Financial Protection Board give just a little bit of relief to those who feel forced to rely on these leeches.

The new rules, as reported by The New York Times’ Stacy Cowley, payday lenders will be forced to verify customers’ income and, what seems most important, will be limited in the number of times a loan can roll over and keep the borrower chained to the lender.

The industry that thrives off this type of usury isn’t going to go down without a fight. Even though the new CFPB rules don’t require Congressional approval, the folks in Congress beholden to the industry will raise a stink about government overstepping its boundaries.

Tell them to go to hell. This is important protection for people who don’t get protected enough.

3. As I said, people on the edge sometimes need to borrow money to keep things together. And they certainly should have options to meet those needs.

But those options shouldn’t make them the 21st century equivalent of indentured servants. The Obama administration and the CFPB are taking a first step to help some people in need. It’s a good thing.

4. President Obama is itching to use his final year in office to influence who succeeds him.

More than two weeks ago, he gave a feisty commencement speech at my son’s graduation from Rutgers University, in which he offered advice that included “When people start talking about the good old days, take it with a grain of salt,” and “In politics and in life, being ignorant isn’t a virtue.”

Yesterday, the President went to Elkhart, Ind., as a reminder of his first days in office, when unemployment in the RV-making community was close to 20%. It’s now something around 4%, and while Obama didn’t do that by himself, his policies and guidance of the national economy certainly helped create an atmosphere for that recovery.

The President trumpeted his policies – and warned that they faced reversals if the wrong person is elected to succeed him in November.

It’s clear who he meant.

5. But you won’t see the one whose name he meant in this space. At least not for the next 10 days.

I’ve made this resolution to not only not mention the Republican candidate for president, but to not mention anything about him except for this explanation.

Why?

As I’ve said in the past week, Hillary Clinton and the Democrats have the votes to win this election without having to convince the few who could possibly be on the fence between her and her opponent. As long as most Democrats come together, we’re going to outnumber the small-minded snails who back the other side.

And yet, every day, there’s something to read about her opponent. And here’s the point. It doesn’t matter to him if it’s negative. He abides by the “as long as they spell your name right” school of publicity. No news is the only bad news.

6. My friends at respectable news organizations such as CNN and The Times can’t do this, and I understand. There are standards of objectivity that they abide by, and should, even when exploited by a demagogue.

And now, with all the stories you’ve seen in recent days about various scandals, the news media is doing its job of holding the presumptive GOP nominee’s feet to the fire. That screeching you hear from him is part of him.

But you and I don’t have to say anything about him. He doesn’t matter. We have to talk about what we want for our country. We need a vision for the future. We must think about how we’re going to make our world better for our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and those of our neighbors.

That’s what a presidential campaign should be about. That’s my intention from here on out.

7. We’ve got this. Act like it.

1. It’s Tuesday, May 31, 2016.

2. The Republican establishment has gone two ways in the wake of the Trump takeover.

Last week, the guy Trump called “Little Marco” folded like a cheap tent. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, who will go down in infamy for making penis size a campaign subject, decided that Trump wasn’t so bad after all.

Now, Rubio says, he will campaign for Trump, make speeches for Trump and apologizes for any bad things he said about him. 

He joins New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie in the capitulation camp and gets back into the speculation about who Trump will pick for a running mate.

3. Then there’s the #NeverTrump movement. Right now, the leader is William Kristol, publisher of the conservative Weekly Standard, who says an “impressive” third-party candidate is on the horizon.

He won’t say who he is (I’d bet a lot of money the candidate isn’t a she), or how he’ll run a campaign that can defeat both Trump and Hillary Clinton.

Kristol joins such prominent GOP figures as Mitt Romney, New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez, Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse and the Bush family as unwavering in their refusal to bow before Trump.

At first glance, there’s some admirable about these holdouts. They understand the threat to the nation that Trump poses, that the alienation of all the groups Trump seems compelled to attack, will destroy the Republican Party as the nation’s demographics continue to change.

4. But here’s the thing: It’s one thing to understand the threat. It’s another to have enabled it. Maybe they all seriously believed that what the Republican Party stood for was diminished government, and not for a return to the kind of racism and bigotry that scarred America for generations.

It turns out you can’t have one without the other. And try, like Lady Macbeth, to wash their hands of this responsibility, it ain’t happening.

5. Here’s what Democrats have to remember: They hold the cards. As long as the people who support Bernie Sanders don’t do anything stupid, Hillary Clinton can win this thing pretty easily and put Trump and the too-late-and-too-short #NeverTrumpers away.

Trump might have helped with his statements that he would withdraw from the Paris climate change agreement and that the California drought is a hoax. Given the rightful emphasis Sanders has placed on the climate change issue, any Sanders supporter who says he or she would vote for Trump before Clinton is a hypocrite.

Democrats have the numbers in their favor. They have to unite and they have to get all the people who Trump has insulted to the polls. 

6. To that end, California Gov. Jerry Brown today endorsed Clinton. Given his prior battles with her husband, that seems like a big deal. 

Brown paid respect to Sanders and the issues he’s raised in the campaign.

But here’s how he ended his letter to Democrats and independents: “Hillary Clinton, with her long experience, especially as Secretary of State, has a firm grasp of the issues and will be prepared to lead our country on day one.”

“Next January, I want to be sure that it is Hillary Clinton who takes the oath of office, not Donald Trump.”

Amen.

1. It’s Monday, May 30, 2016.

2. It’s Memorial Day.

3. It’s a testament to human imperfection that every nation in the world has war dead to commemorate. Even the Swiss, whose famed neutrality was forged in battles with those who didn’t respect it. In whatever ways they deem appropriate, nations on every continent pay tribute to their war dead.

What makes those who fought and died for the United States of America different is they trace their origins to all the other countries of the world.

Perhaps they could have fought for the country where their families originated. Perhaps they could have gone somewhere else.

But, for whatever reason and in whatever circumstance, they fought for this country. That they died for it is the price they paid so that their chosen countryman could live in the freedom they protected.

4. And they fought and died despite some shortcomings.

African-Americans were enslaved for more than two centuries and have faced varying degrees of discrimination in the 150-plus years since emancipation. And yet the cemeteries are filled with those who wore the American flag on their uniform.

Hispanics, many of whose relatives didn’t speak English and have been derided for that, died for this country. Asian-Americans, who faced exclusion and taunts and – for some – even internment, died for this country.

Jews and Muslims died for this country despite proclamations by many politicians that this is a Christian nation. Those Muslims fought for this country even as some said they were one with the enemy.

Gays – many of whom were forced to deny their identity so that they could, in fact, fight for this country – died for this country.

And I’m going to throw in my fellow Italian-Americans. Faced with discrimination, taunting and insinuations that they were all Mafioso, they fought and died for this country.

When some blowhards talk about making American great again, they insult the idea that these people didn’t already make America great. That these people, and all the other Americans who gave their lives from Lexington to Kabul, weren’t part of something that gets greater and greater as each day passes.

Other nations can claim that those who fought for them are a varied bunch. No nation can claim it with the force and conviction that our nation can. That so many of them – at best guess, about 1.4 million of them – have died to make us the most vaunted nation in the world is the reason today is so very special.

1. It’s Wednesday, May 25, 2016.

2. It’s currently 87 degrees here in the suburbs north of New York. I’m lovin’ it. Been waiting for a day like this for months.

3. I can’t imagine being Matt Harvey today.

A little more than six months ago, 44,000-plus Mets fans almost brought down Citi Field beseeching manager Terry Collins to let Harvey pitch the ninth inning against Kansas City. He had thrown eight scoreless innings, and looked like the hero Mets fans needed to get the team to Game Six of the World Series.

Collins ignored his instinct and went with the sentiment in the ballpark. It didn’t work. The Royals tied the game in the ninth, won it a few innings later and claimed their world championship.

Harvey hasn’t looked so good since. He has lost three of his first 10 decisions this season and not looked good in the process. After getting shelled by Washington last week in New York, he was booed off the field. Last night, he pitched three OK innings before the Nationals socked three homers in the next two innings.

The tabloid backpages are merciless. So are the bandwagon fans who just got to Flushing after all those years in the Bronx.

But the Mets aren’t giving up, and I like that idea. This is a young man who, when he’s right, is one of the toughest pitchers in baseball.

Something’s not right, and sending him to the minors or to the bullpen won’t bring his confidence or ability back. He’s still in the recovery stage from Tommy John surgery, and maybe his problems stem from that.

If he’s hurt, then by all means sit him down. Let him recover. But if he’s not, he’s got to pitch his way out of it. And real Mets fans, like the good folks at the 7 Line Army, will be patient. The Mets are going to have a hard time getting back to the World Series without Matt Harvey, so let’s give him a chance to straighten himself out.

4. The battle between him and her is on.

Yes, the him is Donald Trump. No, the her isn’t Hillary Clinton.

It’s Elizabeth Warren, the senior senator from Massachusetts.

Truth be told, Warren is the real darling of the left side of the Democratic Party. Bernie Sanders ran for President because she didn’t.

She was front-and-center during the financial crisis, trying to figure out who did what and coming up with ways to make sure it didn’t happen again. She came up with the idea of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an agency aimed at helping consumers cope with complications and trickery involving their money.

Warren hasn’t endorsed anyone in the Democratic race. But if this week makes anything clear, it’s that she is driven to make sure Hillary Clinton is the next President – if only to make certain that Trump isn’t.

Since Trump since became the presumptive Republican nominee earlier this month, Warren has been dueling him with his weapon of choice: Twitter. The two have engaged in protracted tweet wars, with Warren blasting Trump for his positions on financial reform and income inequality.

Last night, Warren delivered a speech to the Center for Popular Democracy that hit hard at Trump’s statements, including one in which he bragged about making money in the financial crisis. Watch here.

Trump, for his part, has shown his irritation by calling Warren “Pocahontas.” That’s in reference to the “scandal” Republicans uncovered that the senator has said she has some Cherokee blood. Of course, there’s no indication she received any favoritism in hiring because of this. And, of course, the real Pocahontas wasn’t a Cherokee, so Trump’s understanding of people who aren’t from Queens remains muddy.

5. This may just be a taste of what Trump faces as the most despicable presidential nominee in American history.

President Obama warmed up for him at Rutgers last week, and there are others who could deliver body blows (right now, for instance, I’m listening to a song by Bruce Springsteen. Just a hint, Bruce).

Will they work? Well, Warren definitely did get under Trump’s skin this week. And the Pocahontas retort is going to get tired fast.

One thing is certain. Those who find Trump and his supporters a sickness of American life can’t do nothing. We can’t be the Germans or Italians who stood by and didn’t think it was important to stop Hitler and Mussolini.

Give him hell, Liz!

1. It’s Tuesday, May 24, 2016.

2. It’s my amazingly talented and hard-working daughter’s 25th birthday. May 24, 1991 is one of the happiest days of my life, and everything that’s happened in the quarter-century since reaffirms that.

3. It’s also the 75th birthday of Bob Dylan.

Now, Dylan isn’t one of my idols. If I wanted to listen to a single artist or group for an entire day, I’d listen to the Beatles or Bruce Springsteen.

But Dylan is interesting. I’m sure there’s someone better equipped than I to expound on his virtues and contribution to 20th century music. All I know is that there are a lot of really good songs on the Dylan playlist.

While I’m still trying to figure out exactly what “Tangled Up in Blue” is about, I love listening to it.

4. Bernie Sanders has his victory. The Democrats gave him five seats on the 15-member platform committee for the July convention. This gives him a say in how the party positions itself in the general election.

No, platforms ain’t what they used to be. The Republicans generally try to hide their platform because it usually contains some ideas too odious to sell to a national electorate; for example, their presidential candidates try to avoid the abortion plank because it’s likely to turn off a majority of women.

The Democrats aren’t much better at this. That said, getting the party to at least acknowledge your viewpoint on an issue is no small deal.

So the Sanders people can weigh in on the party’s position on income inequality and political contributions – the two issues on which the Vermont senator has staked his claim.

And if the wording is more Sandersian than it would have been, that’s how change comes.

5. I hope Sen. Sanders is happy about this. He’s not the party’s nominee. That’s Hillary Clinton. Now he has to come around, once the primaries end, to support her and advance his positions on these issues; no one should be saying that he needs to tone anything down on those matters.

The debate – if there’s any, and I’m not sure it’s that profound a difference – can come once the menace of Donald Trump is no longer a flicker of a possibility.

So, congratulations, Sen. Sanders! Try to accept your win gracefully.

1. It’s Wednesday, May 17, 2016.

2. There is little doubt that Bernie Sanders has been good for the 2016 campaign. His issues are real ones: income inequality, campaign finance reform and the sense that the economy doesn’t work for the lower and middle classes.

But at some point, the Vermont senator needs to decide which is better: either a) losing the battle and winning the war or b) trying too hard to win the battle, losing it anyway, and then losing the war as well.

Sanders won the Oregon primary last night. It was a fair-and-square win; he beat Hillary Clinton by 10 points in a contest only with Democrats participating. She won in Kentucky, but barely.

But Sanders indicated that he is not through fighting for the Democratic presidential nomination. And he believes that part of the reason he isn’t the presumptive nominee already – and Clinton is – is that the Democratic Party’s rules favor people who say they’re Democrats.

This might seem obvious. Most of Sanders’ wins have come in states where independents were allowed to vote in the Democratic primary. He believes that all of those voters are looking to make the same kind of changes that he advocates.

3. But, as last week’s West Virginia exit polls show, something smells a little off.

Sanders won the majority of voters who want a president less liberal than President Obama. That conflicts with the fact that Sanders is running somewhat to the left of the President. And it hints at the idea that many of the people voting for Sanders could be, in fact, trying to screw around with the Democratic race in order to help Donald Trump, who appears to have clinched the Republican nomination.

So Sanders can yell – and he does like to yell – a lot about how his supporters are trying to start a revolution. But being fractious with the party that he only embraced for the purpose of this presidential run is no way to get anything he wants.

4. Because if he fails to accept the inevitability of Hillary Clinton as the nominee, creating problems for her general election run and making President Trump a reality, he and his supporters will NEVER be forgiven by the people usually most sympathetic to their ideas.

They will never have the support of Hispanics and African-Americans who are worried about the bubbling of what has been latent racism. Women will never forgive the further erosion of their rights. The economic hardship a Trump presidency will cause – I second Mark Cuban’s remarks about the calamity awaiting stocks – will be blamed on Sanders.

He could instead be a team player. Support Clinton enthusiastically with the understanding that the things he’s advocating become priorities in her administration. Make certain that Trump doesn’t get a sniff of the White House.

5. There is precedent.

In 2008, one of Hillary Clinton’s points of contention was that Barack Obama wasn’t sufficiently committed to the cause of health care reform. That was considered a key difference between them.

But she stepped aside when the math was against her, as it is with Sanders.

Now, eight years later, Hillary Clinton is running for President to try to defend a health care reform law that has reduced the percentage of Americans uninsured to single digits. It’s called Obamacare. He did what she wanted.

6. Sanders shouldn’t drop out. His supporters in the remaining states, including the big prize of California, should have their say.

But by California, she will have enough delegates to be the presumptive nominee. And he then must embrace her and warn his followers that their plans for change will come to naught if Donald Trump becomes President.

Sanders can be the Hillary Clinton of the 2020s. Or he can be the Ralph Nader, whose intransigence helped give America eight years of George W. Bush. It’s his choice.

1. It’s Monday, May 16, 2016.

2. It was my privilege yesterday to attend the 250th anniversary commencement at Rutgers University.

First and foremost, it was a day of tremendous pride. My son, who completed his classes in December, came home from his teaching job in Seoul to attend his graduation. So no matter what transpired at the ceremony, attending was something my family was thrilled to do.

3. But the focus of the day – both at and away from the ceremony – was the commencement speaker. It was the President of the United States.

OK, for starters, there is no way it should be as crazy cold as it was on May 15, 2016 in Piscataway, N.J.

I’ll tell you how cold it was; I’ve been on college campuses with my kids for seven years now, and the only school uniform I’ve gleaned over that time is shorts and flip-flops.

I did not see one of the 10,000-plus graduates wearing shorts or flip-flops. It was too damn cold for that. The temperature was in the mid-50s and there was a steady 20-mile-an-hour wind. And then, in late morning, clouds moved in, so there was no sun to give even the illusion of warmth.

If you’ve attended a big college graduation in the past few years, you know that one of the features is the way hashtag messages to and from graduates flashing across the jumbotron scoreboard. One of them really resonated yesterday: a student hoping @POTUS brought the heat when he arrived.

4. @POTUS brought the heat.

One of the things that must drive Barack Obama’s detractors crazy is his self-assurance. There’s something – even in the way he walks – that gives you the sense of a man confident in his own abilities and in his view of the world. He seems unfazed by the adulation, of the awe. He understands it, but he doesn’t seem to be overwhelmed by it.

Yes, he had a receptive audience. The students, faculty, alumni and their families spent nearly three years lobbying President Obama to speak at the Rutgers commencement.

But when Obama began to speak, you could hear a pin drop in a stadium filled with 40,000-plus people. I’ve been in louder libraries.

He used the occasion to serve notice to Donald Trump and the Republican Party and they will not be running against Hillary Clinton alone.

He never used Trump’s name. Not once. But if you didn’t know who he was talking about, you’ve been asleep for awhile.

5. The first blow came a few minutes into the speech, shortly after he questioned the “death-defying” wisdom of Rutgers’ famous fat sandwiches that include mozzarella sticks and chicken fingers on cheese steak.

Talking about how the students were ready to take on the world, he said, “The world is more interconnected than ever before, and it’s becoming more connected every day. Building walls won’t change that.”

He was just warming up. He blasted Trump’s command of facts, saying “In politics and in life, ignorance is not a virtue.”

And he hammered at Trump’s “Make America great again” slogan, pointing out all the things about life that are far better than they were even 30 years ago. “When you hear someone longing for the good old days, take it with a grain of salt.”

Yes, it was a very political speech for a college commencement. If you haven’t been a supporter of the President, you might have been put off.

6. But if you wanted to hear a speech that wasn’t just platitudes and empty inspiration, you heard it.

Obama didn’t tell the graduates how great they were – he believed they already knew it. He told them ways they could use their greatness to change the world, and to not get frustrated or – the greatest sin in his mind – cynical.

The President delivered his message despite a gusty wind that keep shifting the hood symbolizing his honorary degree to his distraction. He delivered it despite an occasional shower that sent some folks scrambling for cover.

7. But if, as the tweet urged, the President brought the heat, the students and their families brought the warmth.

One reason Obama felt at home in Piscataway is that, as the first multi-racial President, he was addressed what he himself said might be the most diverse student body in the United States. If you want to see what America is becoming, look at Rutgers.

The coolest part of yesterday, to me, was watching the School of Arts and Sciences convocation. After a wonderful short speech by journalist Bill Moyers, the students paraded on stage to shake hands with the deans and get recognized. Their names and faces appeared on the video screens in the big stadium.

Watching these men and women makes you marvel at this country. Each student was different from the next – an African-American English major followed by a woman with an Arabic name and a hijab majoring in math followed by a kid with an Italian surname majoring in psychology. It just went on and on.

And the pride in their faces – and in the families dressed in their Sunday best watching in the bleachers – glowed as the sun finally burst through and the wind died down. It was as if the strength of their diversity was finally too much for elements – even more than the power of a confident commander-in-chief.

8. Among them was my son.

He has a father whose family came from Italy and a mother whose family came from China. He’s a world traveler, a teacher living and working in South Korea. He came back – 14,000 miles of flying in five days, and the miserable jet lag that ensues – because he realized that this was a great accomplishment, and that he has justifiable pride.

So do I.

1. It’s Wednesday, May 11, 2016.

2. Bernie Sanders took the West Virginia primary last night. But that wasn’t as shocking as some of the exit poll results.

The polls show that nearly 44% of the people who voted for Sanders would vote for Donald Trump in the fall, compared with 21% who would vote for Hillary Clinton.

The polls also show that Sanders won support among voters who want a president more liberal than Barack Obama. No surprise, there.

But he also won among voters who want a president less liberal than Obama. Clinton did better among voters who want to continue Obama’s policies.

There’s two things you can glean. One is that the voters in West Virginia are more than a little misinformed about this election. They don’t realize how far to the left Sanders is, and that while he and Trump are talking about big changes, Sanders has no use whatsoever for Trump.

The other thing, and the one that I think is more valid, is that Trump supporters screwed around with the Democratic primary.

This is why I oppose open primaries, such as West Virginia’s. With no Republican race left, voters inclined toward Trump can do more for their candidate by screwing around with the Democratic race.

And one way they can do that is to keep Sanders in the mix, forcing Clinton to divert some of her time to him instead of training her guns on Trump and the Republicans.

The Sanders people will say that he can win in November because he draws independents. But if he draws independents solely to mess up Hillary Clinton, it’s a phony argument. Open primaries allow for that kind of ratfucking, as the Watergate folks used to say.

I still believe Sanders should stay in the race. The Democrats who support him deserve the right to make their statement about the issues he has surfaced. He should go all the way to California and New Jersey next month.

But it should be people who have committed to the Democratic Party who get to say. When that happens, in most instances, Clinton wins.

This will be over after June 7, when Clinton will have the requisite delegates to claim the nomination, and any attempt to prolong the race beyond that date will only help Trump and the other horse’s asses in the Republican Party.

3. By the way, when I said yesterday that the two highest-paid hedge fund managers earned $3,234.40 a minute, I was figuring on them being at their job 24/7/365. 

Of course, they’re not. They sleep sometimes, I assume.

If you calculate what Ken Griffin and James Simons make in a nine-hour workday, assuming they take holidays, weekends and two-week vacations, you get $13,117.28 a minute. Or just over 4 minutes to make a teacher’s annual pay.

If that makes you feel better.