1. It’s Tuesday, January 12, 2016.

2. What’s interesting when an accomplished entertainer passes is the level of unity generated by reflection upon his or her career.

So, the famous and the not-so-famous all commented fondly yesterday about the work done by David Bowie. Almost everyone, it seems, has a favorite song of his, and you could see people mentally humming “Changes” or “Modern Love” or any of the others.

When I think of Bowie, I think of his influence on how sexual orientation is viewed. His first persona was androgynous. Was he gay or wasn’t he? And then, after listening to the music, finding the question change to “Does it really matter?”

In the end, it didn’t. The work, over more than 40 years, spoke for itself. That people of all generations, of all nations, of all types feel at least a twinge of sadness for this man’s passing says more about his success than anything else possibly could. It speaks of a life well lived, and shorter than it should have been.

3. The White House hype for tonight’s State of the Union speech compares to that for last night’s national college football championship.

On my Twitter feed this morning is a black-and-white video of the President with an almost church-like organ playing in the background. Obama talks about what the administration has accomplished in seven years, but also hints that tonight’s speech will be more about his vision for the future, well beyond the 374 days left in his term.

And why not? Usually, the State of the Union is a long list of things the President wants Congress to accomplish in the next year. But you know and I know and he knows and they know that Obama is going to get next of nothing of what he wants from a Republican Congress in an election year.

So why bother asking for a lot of legislation that only get his supporters’ hopes up?

Instead, he can talk about what the nation faces as it moves toward the middle of the 21st century.

I don’t know exactly what he’s going to say. Here are my guesses:

— He’ll talk about how to keep the American economy dominant in a changing world, and yet provide people with a sense of security – the lack of which is spurring the success of a demagogue such as Trump.

— He’ll talk about how the nation needs to stay in front of the world in technology, and how it needs to be a little in combatting the ravages of climate change – even though he’s speaking in a roomful of people who still think it’s non-existent.

— And he’ll talk about to face down the threats of a world in which losers believe their second change at glory is to mow down people in a Paris concert hall, blow up a tourist center in Istanbul or seize a federal wildlife refuge in Oregon. (Actually, I wouldn’t bet a lot of money he’ll call out the jackasses in Oregon, but I would love to see it.)

No President in my lifetime – including JFK and Reagan – has the ability to hold an audience when speaking the way Barack Obama does. The hype for the State of the Union rivals last night’s college football championship – if it delivers nearly as well, it should be quite a night.

It’s January 8, 2016 and time for Friday Yes or No. I ask the questions. I give simple answers. I get a blog post. It was designed to give me an easy one. But for some reason, despite the one-word answers, these often require as much thought as the diatribes and hosannas normally seen on this page.

Anywhere, here goes.

Q1: Did you watch President Obama’s town hall on #GunsInAmerica?

A1: Yes

Q2: Were you impressed with the way CNN presented this issue?

A2: Yes

Q3: Were you impressed with the way the President handled the pointed questions from those opposed to his executive actions?

A3: Yes

Q4: Is today’s solid jobs report a sign of good things to come in 2016?

A4: No

Q5: Is that because the market turbulence of the past week is going to make would-be employees and shoppers nervous?

A5: Yes

Q6: Does it make any sense that a state as beautiful as Maine has a governor so intellectually ugly?

A6: No

Q7: Is North Korea’s attempt to expand its nuclear arsenal solely a problem for China to solve?

A7: No

Q8: But is China a key player is crafting a response to nutcase Kim Jong-Un?

A8: Yes

Q9: It’s going to be 57 degrees Sunday. Is that any reason to complain?

A9: No

Q10: Even though it’s going to rain?

A10: No

Q11: Because if it was 27 degrees, all that rain would be snow, right?

A11: Yes

1. It’s Thursday, January 7, 2015.

2. As a Met fan, I’m thrilled about Mike Piazza’s election to the Baseball Hall of Fame. It’s especially rewarding because he was the first player my kids cheered for as I warped their minds into Met fandom.

But Piazza’s election resurrects the discussion about performance-enhancing drugs. He’s admitted to taking a steroid that was legal when he took it, but denies taking anything that was not legal. That hasn’t stopped some writers from speculating that he’s lying. They cite such things as his back acne and mood swings, which can be side effects of steroid use.

They could also be naturally occurring conditions for young men. If those kinds of things can be seen as evidence that he used steroids, the fact that he’s fathered two children since his playing days are equal evidence that he didn’t.

Piazza was denied enshrinement in Cooperstown for three years because of speculation about his PED use. But there was no evidence. There were no people talking about seeing him use steroids or providing them to him or even hearing him talk about it. It was unfair.

Piazza will go into the Hall as a Met. There is nothing clearcut or simple about being a Met or a Met fan. That’s part of the appeal, I suppose. But, until the Wilpons do something else to tick us off, we can be happy for a day.

3. In all my years as a financial journalist, I would hear about how worried retirees get when the stock market drops precipitously. Sort of the way it has so far in 2016.

I obviously was concerned about everyone in our audience, but I can’t say I worried about it.

Now, I do.

Being sort of retired means that I’ll soon be relying on my savings to pay for living. And like many other Americans, my savings are tied to the financial markets. So a 5% drop in stocks means 5% less to spend on the 4 p.m. special at Denny’s.

But as a long-time financial journalist, I also know that this is a terrible time to panic. If you believed enough in the markets to invest all that retirement money in them, you have to believe in them enough to know they’ll bounce back when there’s a setback. That happened even after the financial crisis of 2008.

What’s going on with China is hard for even the experts to grasp, so there’s no use trying to do it yourself. So just hang tight, and remember that stocks usually go up in presidential election years. Usually.

1. It’s Wednesday, January 6, 2016.

2. It’s the 12th day of Christmas. It’s the feast of the Epiphany, Three Kings Day, Dia de los Reyes. The holiday season officially ends today. For most people, it ended on New Year’s.

For the lazy ones (I’m in this camp), it won’t be over until the decorations are down, which hopefully – but not definitely – will happen sometime this month.

3. Maybe it’s a hydrogen bomb. Maybe it’s not. But anytime a crackpot government such as North Korea’s detonates a nuclear weapon, it’s a little scary. Who knows what that nut case Kim Jong Un will do?

It isn’t just the United States and South Korea who aren’t happy about this. China’s pissed. The test was conducted 50 miles from its border, and they apparently weren’t given a heads up. It appears the Russians dislike this, too.

What’s the world going to do about it? Probably not much that we’ll see. The North Koreans are probably looking for a few blackmail bucks.

But one of these days they’re going to push their limit too far. It can’t be that hard for everyone to gang up on a country that has virtually no economy and whose population doesn’t eat much.

4. President Obama is, of course, getting grief for the tears shed as he announced executive actions aimed at curbing gun violence. He was blasted in the usual quarters for overreaching, for punishing law-abiding citizens, for trampling on Americans’ Second Amendment rights.

All the usual right-wing crap.

The President shed the tears at one particular moment – as he spoke about the first graders killed in 2012 at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut. Twenty of them, along with six teachers and administrators.

First graders. Shot to death. In a classroom.

It’s not that I can’t believe that the President cried about killings that occurred three years ago. It’s that the rest of us don’t cry when we think about that as well.

Nothing that has happened in my lifetime is a darker mark on this country than the fact that we let 20 children die in a classroom and did nothing – absolutely nothing – to try to make sure it didn’t happen again.

Instead, we let the idiot who runs the National Rifle Association get on TV and say, to our faces, that the only reason those kids died is that there was no one in an elementary school as armed to the teeth as the nut case who started shooting. And we let the Congress of the United States listen to the NRA and do nothing to at least try to curb the spread of high-power weapons.

It was from that debacle that the NRA jackass uttered the rallying cry of the right wing: “The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is with a good guy with a gun.”

The President’s executive actions can’t come nearly close to what really needs to be done to curb gun violence in this country. He can’t stop the sale of assault weapons or high-capacity magazines. He can’t require the kind of rigid licensing that’s needed for something so dangerous; it’s easier to get a gun than to get an automobile or start a business. He can’t go further in keeping guns out of the hands of the mentally ill.

But at least he’s trying. That’s more than you can say for those – I was about to say “those people,” but that gives them too much credit – on the other side of this issue. With thousands dying due to gun violence every year, their solution is to turn every place in America into a shooting range.

The President cried for those kids at Sandy Hook yesterday. He might have also cried for a country that lets Sandy Hook happen and feels powerless to change it.

1. It’s Tuesday, January 5, 2016.

2. Yes, this is the first Subjectism of 2016. Sorry for missing the past week.

3. I’m very nostalgic for last week, when it was in the 50s. It’s 16 degrees here this morning. Cold and dark. That’s how I view the whole of January. I’m not a fan.

So it shouldn’t be a surprise that I’m a little cranky this morning.

4. And nothing feeds my cranky side like right-wing nut cases. Which bring us to Burns, Oregon, and the terrorist occupation of a federal wildlife refuge. 

Correct me if I’m wrong, but nobody in Oregon or anywhere else in the United States elected these people to any position to speak for anybody. So, basically, they’re terrorist renegades who decided to seize territory they are in no justifiable position to hold.

What makes them different from the Islamic State, other than their racial makeup?

Of course, there will be a defense of these terrorists by people on the right. Fox News people have already said these people are just protesting government overreach. Here’s the thing: the wildlife refuge occupied has been federal property since 1908. More than a century. So now these cetriolo, both on the scene and in the rest of the country, have decided that the government is overreaching. 

These are worthless bastards. And terrorists. Call them exactly what they are. And deal with them in a way that does the least harm to innocent people – and the most harm to them.

5. Then there’s the Iranians and the Saudis.

As this New York Times article shows, unless you are Muslim, it’s hard to grasp why Sunnis and Shiites don’t get along. But get along, they don’t. Non-Muslim Americans tend to lump all Muslims into one, usually negative, bunch. But Sunnis, including the Saudis, dislike Iran as much as Americans with long memories of the 1979 embassy takeover. And Shiites, including the Iranians, hate the Islamic State as much as Americans with memories that don’t have to go much further back than the San Bernardino shootings.

The usual tensions boiled again when Saudi Arabia executed a cleric who advocated for Shiites’ rights. Then Iranians reverted to a nasty habit – they attacked the Saudi embassy. The Saudis and the states that rely on them for support – Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates – have withdrawn their diplomatic ties with Tehran.

Islamophobic Americans probably think this is great. Let these guys beat each other up and the world will be a better place for Christendom.

But that’s a stupid view, to say the least. We need Iran and Saudi Arabia to help us get rid of the threats posed by the Islamic State and al-Qaeda. Both terrorist organizations are Sunni in orientation, so the Saudis might be a little more reluctant to help – indeed, the Saudis are believed to be the primary funders of radical groups tied to al-Qaeda.

I’m sure the White House, 10 Downing Street and others are working overtime on keeping this situation from getting out of hand. The fact that we actually negotiated with Iran on the nuclear deal probably gives us a little more traction that we might have had otherwise.

1. It’s Tuesday, December 29, 2015.

2. Hope you had a merry Christmas, a happy Boxing Day (for the British, Canadian and Australians among you) and a good first few days of Kwanzaa. We’re only two days away from New Year’s Eve and less than three from 2016.

3. I was hoping we could go a whole winter without any white precipitation. Alas, here in New York’s northern suburbs, we’re looking as some grey-white slushy stuff on the ground this morning, and it’s still dripping something. The good news is it’s not ice – it’s still too warm for that, and will have a minimal impact on activities by this afternoon.

4. One thing we should be grateful for is that the first presidential votes are still a month away. It was 2008 that Iowa and New Hampshire decided to try to one up each other by having their contests right around New Year’s. The holidays should be downtime for everyone, including voters considering their presidential choice. Yes, Trump is belching away, but he probably has nothing else to do – can you imagine the warmth and loving that goes into a Trump family Christmas?

5. The New York Times is celebrating the apparent defeat of the Islamic State in Ramadi by Iraqi forces. And, to be fair, anytime the Daesh (a better term than ISIS or ISIL, since these people don’t like it) lose, it’s a victory for the human race.

But while an editorial cautiously trumpets the success of the American strategy in Ramadi, a news story on the NYT home page reminds us of how daunting this region of the world is. The story tells of the re-emergence of al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan. It was, after all, al-Qaeda that attacked us on Sept. 11, 2001, with the protection of the Taliban.

Of course, the fact al-Qaeda isn’t finished off is a subsidiary outcome from the idiocy of the Iraq War. But if President Obama, who’s had to try to undo the damage done by that war, doesn’t dwell publicly on the frustration, neither should we. We’ll keep our fingers crossed that the administration’s policy in the region will continue to make progress, without the commitment of a massive U.S. military force, and that his successor won’t be one of these jump-up-and-down cowboys anxious to show how tough they are.

1. It’s Christmas Eve.

2. For some reason, Handel’s “Messiah” gets all the buzz at the holidays. And, don’t get me wrong, it’s a wonderful work.

But when it comes to Christmas choral masterpieces, I’m all in on Bach’s “Christmas Oratorio.” It proclaims the holiday with amazing flourishes. I feel as though it’s the official sound of Christmas.

Yes, I realize it’s in German. That detracts not one note from its brilliance.

I don’t understand why it’s almost never performed live in the United States. When I tried to find a live performance, the closest appeared to be in London.

3. Believe it or not, I was going to do a political rant tonight. I had a clever “Yes, Virginia, there is a war on Christmas” lead that would have said something about the fact that the war on the spirit of Christmas is being waged by people who say they’re offended when someone wishes them “Happy holidays!”

But Christmas is a powerful force. And when you get to the quiet of Christmas Eve, and the reflection on all that is good in your life and all that you wish for those you care about, the pettiness, the sniping, the rigidity all seem silly.

Instead, there is calm and joy. The fact that I’m with my wife and my children, who I re-realize are the best gifts I’ll ever receive. That I’ve seen all the lights again, and heard the great music, and eaten better than I should. That my friends are enjoying this holiday with their families around the world.

There’s also wistfulness. There are friends and family absent from this night, people who I would conjure if I could, to stand or sit here and talk and laugh and be part of my life for one more night. I try as hard as I can to make them reappear and I come so close.

4. I’m thinking about one person in particular tonight.

In 1976, I was trying to get a full-time job as a broadcast writer for the Associated Press, and was on a roster of part-time substitutes called the “variables.” Someone called in sick for the night shift on Dec. 24, and I was called. Accepting it would mean missing Christmas Eve, the greatest night in my family’s year. And yet, I did it. I thought – wisely, as it turned out – that it might turn into the job I wanted.

It was hard because I didn’t really know the staff that was working. But I slugged it out and it was just past 11.

That’s when the sports writer that night, an older guy – he was all of 46 then – was getting ready to catch the last bus to his home in the Jersey suburbs. But before he did, he walked around the room. He shook hands with everyone in it, asked how they and their families were celebrating the holiday, and wished them a Merry Christmas. That everyone included me, someone he had never met until that night, and who was amazed that someone would take the time to care about my holiday.

The man’s name was Marv Schneider. He died earlier this year. He was Jewish and, if asked, would say he didn’t celebrate Christmas.

But he did. He gave comfort and cheer to his colleagues on a special night. And his gifts, his kindness, his friendship and his wit, lasted longer that anything else I received that holiday. They live tonight in my heart, and I feel as though I came oh, so, close to bringing him back.

So tonight, as I get ready for a busy Christmas Day, I’m thinking of Marv and my grandfather and my Aunt Fran and lots of other people – living or otherwise. I’m seeing their smiles and enjoying the sounds of their voice and hoping at this moment, wherever they are, whatever they believe, with whomever else they’re spending this time, that they are happy and at peace. I miss the ones I can’t see again, smile at the prospect that I can see the others again sometime, and know that that’s what Christmas means to me.

Merry Christmas to all who celebrate. To all my friends and family, whether they celebrate tonight or not, peace, love, happiness and a kind handshake.

1. It’s Tuesday, December 22, 2015.

2. News organizations and weather people who talk about dashed hopes for a white Christmas are idiots.

Entranced by perhaps the most overrated holiday song, they see the glistening white of snow around Central Park or a community church as the symbol of a perfect Christmas Day. So they go on the air or write that there will be people in the eastern U.S. disappointed this year because of temperatures well above normal.

They’re not.

Here’s reality: Most people must travel somewhere to spend Christmas Day with the ones they love. It could be a couple of miles, it could be across the ocean. And with that many people traveling, there are already enough obstacles without roads being treacherous or flights being cancelled because it’s snowing.

Ask people who have been stranded in airports how wonderful a white Christmas is. Ask people standing on the side of a snowy road after skidding into the car ahead of them if they notice the treetops glisten.

Is a snowscape on Christmas morning prettier than looking at brownish ground and leafless trees? Perhaps. But you know what’s a lot prettier than a snowscape? Looking into the eyes of parents and children and siblings and friends and anyone else we care about on Christmas Day, realizing at that moment that you are safe together, and that nothing is better.

It will be 70 degrees here in New York on Christmas Eve. That’s a Christmas gift I’m not exchanging.

3. If Trump thinks Hillary Clinton going to a bathroom offstage is disgusting, does that mean he supports the idea of wearing a loaded diaper during the debates? Wonder if he knows first hand.

1. It’s Monday, December 21, 2015.

2. It’s the first day of winter, just making it in under the bell at 11:48 p.m., according to The Old Farmer’s Almanac. That means it’s 91 days until spring, and that’s what I start counting beginning today. Although the fact that it’s supposed to be in the 60s later this week in New York mitigates some of the gloom.

3. Can anyone explain why running down people on a Las Vegas sidewalk on purpose isn’t terrorism?

4. Steve Harvey’s mistake is karma. I’ll bet accidentally saying the runner-up is the winner happens a lot in livestock competitions at county fairs. Of which “beauty pageants” are the equivalent.

5. The Democrats might have clinched the presidential election if they had staged the debate they had Saturday night 72 hours earlier. The contrast between the discussion among the three Democrats and the gloom-and-doom fest of the Republicans on Tuesday night was beyond stark.

There were the occasional raised voice exchanges — I’m not sure Sen. Sanders can speak in any voice other than loud. But there was civility that was unimaginable at the Republican debate. Even the flap over the Sanders campaign tapping into Clinton campaign data was handled quietly and defused professionally – except by Martin O’Malley, who was determined to give that prepared spiel about what’s wrong with his opponents even though they had already resolved their problem.

To be sure, Clinton and Sanders have differences in approach. Sanders took pains to point them out — on Syria and ISIS, on dealing with Wall Street. But there was nothing approaching the degree of personal rancor that we saw Tuesday night. Trump vs. Bush. Rubio vs. Cruz. Christie vs. Paul. Trump vs. Paul. Hell, Trump vs. everyone except maybe Carson and Cruz, who seemed to be kissing Trump’s rear while trying to take him down.

There’s a part of me – call me a stubborn idealist – who believes that the ability to solve problems rationally and through consensus is a qualification for President. In the Republican Party of 2016, it seems like a disqualification.

A couple of other quick thoughts from the debate:

— Hillary Clinton tries really hard to conduct herself like a President. She’s gotten good at it. She’s smart and she’s quick – in some ways, she reminds me more of President Obama than her husband – and she never backs down. When ABC’s Martha Raddatz pursued an almost prosecutorial style of questioning on Libya, the former Secretary of State refused to buckle There’s a part of me that thinks that was planned – Clinton wanting a real-time test of her ability under pressure for when that happens with a Republican on the stage.

— Bernie Sanders staying in this race is the best thing that could happen to the Democrats. Hillary Clinton will win the nomination easily. But Sanders lets Democrats on the left vent about the issues they care about most. He’s a great voice for that – even if he does sound like Larry David sometimes. And if Democrats on the left feel they’ve been heard – and even see some of their ideas make it into the Clinton general election campaign – it will make it easier for them to be enthusiastic about her race against the Republican in the fall.

— There was a moment that should have cheered Democrats and given notice to the Republicans. It was when Martin O’Malley, who just seemed thrown off by the other two, went after them on gun control, saying Sanders wasn’t tough enough against the gun lobby and Clinton flip-flopped on the issue. At that point, Sanders and Clinton teamed up on the hapless O’Malley. Sanders began the process of ripping him, and then he let Clinton finish it off. O’Malley, so full of piss and vinegar a minute earlier, was left to hang there. It was pathetic for him, but glorious for Democrats who can imagine Sanders on the campaign trail with Clinton taking the case to the Republicans.

.

It’s December 18, 2015 and time for Friday Yes or No. I ask myself great questions. I give blunt answers. I demonstrate some sort of wit and wisdom in the process.

Q1: Did anyone expect you to do a Friday Yes or No next Friday, Christmas Day?

A1: No

Q2: Have you gotten over the dark cloud of doom that was the most recent Republican presidential debate?

A2: No

Q3: Do you think Chris Christie is aware yet that he plans to meet with a Jordanian king who’s been dead for 16 years and that the threat to bomb Los Angeles’ schools was a hoax?

A3: No

Q4: Are you happy for newsroom friends who, thanks to today’s votes in Congress, won’t have to spend the holidays worried about a government shutdown?

A4: Yes

Q5: Doesn’t Martin Shkreli seem like the type of guy you want to punch in the nose on first sight?

A5: Yes

Q6: And yet, does it bother you that none of the charges against him have to do with price gouging on life-saving drugs?

A6: Yes

Q7: President Obama is trying to reassure Americans that they are safe this Christmas time. Can he really do that?

A7: No

Q8: Is that because we have no idea what a single nut case like the ones in Colorado Springs or San Bernardino will do?

A8: Yes

Q9: But, generally speaking, when the President says he’s doing all he can to keep Americans safe, do you believe him?

A9: Yes

Q10: And do you think he’s been weak and ineffectual against terrorists?

A10: No

Q11: Has this been a tough year?

A11: Yes

Q12: Are you glad it’s over?

A12: Yes

Q13: Are you looking for to writing about things that matter to people in 2016?

A13: Yes

Q14: Do you wish folks a happy holiday today?

A14: No

Q15: Is that because you plan to write next week?

A15: Yes