1. It’s Monday, October 5, 2015.

2. For 20 of baseball’s 30 teams, the season is over. But not my Mets. How much longer that lasts is a big question, and depends on how much of a whammy we can put on two of the game’s best pitchers: Clayton Kershaw and Zach Greinke. But it’s at least another week. And that’s smile inducing.

3. It has been a godawful weekend in the Carolinas where record amounts of rain have produced widespread flooding. In some places, 25 inches of rain fell in a day. That’s hard to comprehend. Here’s to hoping it stops raining soon, and these folks can get their lives back together.

4. The first thing that struck me about the Trans Pacific Partnership trade deal announced this morning was that one of the 12 countries involved is Vietnam.

Keep in mind that we lost more than 40,000 Americans and rent this society apart over the idea of making sure Vietnam didn’t become the Vietnam it is today.

And yet here we are, 40 years after the choppers left the U.S. Embassy roof, embracing the Hanoi government in a deal aimed at keeping the interests of China away.

I wonder what kind of reaction that would garner if we were able to go back in time and tell all the people who talked about domino theories and the like in the Sixties. I wonder how Vietnam veterans and the families of those who died feel.

The lesson is hard. There are times when a nation needs to act militarily. The world had to stop the Nazis and the Japanese. But the use of force needs to have a high bar. That bar was never met in Vietnam or, even worse, in Iraq.

Today, Vietnam is our partner is the biggest trade agreement ever. Who’d a thunk it?

5. Trade agreements have a bad rap.

Unions, and I’m an old union guy, believe they kill jobs. I don’t know that I buy that. The world is getting easier to navigate, both actually and virtually, and without a modicum of understanding, there will be chaos.

President Obama will be out trying to sell this agreement to the American people. Presidential candidates, led by Donny Trump and Bernie Sanders, will be out to trash it. With the fast track approval he got from Congress, the President holds the trump card, so to speak. Let’s see if he can get Americans to see it his way.

It’s Friday, October 2, 2015. And while I’ve already written about 700 words on this nation’s gun craziness, I still have it in me to write a few more – many of them either “Yes” or “No.”

Q1: Pope Francis seemed like such a calm, even-tempered guy on his U.S. visit. Is it possible he went apeshit when he saw the reports about his meeting with Kim Davis?

A1: Yes

Q2: After watching some of his first week, should we about be optimistic about Trevor Noah’s tenure as host of “The Daily Show”?

A2: Yes

Q3: Was Chris Christie pandering politically when he declared a state of emergency in New Jersey well before Hurricane Joaquin turned away from the U.S.?

A3: No

Q4: Is that because no one who went through Hurricane Sandy ever wants to be unprepared again?

A4: Yes

Q5: Are the people out to get Planned Parenthood in the least bit interested in reducing the incidence of abortion in the United States?

A5: No

Q6: Was there a good reason to conduct hearings into what happened at the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11, 2012?

A6: Yes

Q7: Was there any good reason those hearings should have dragged on for years and wasted millions of dollars?

A7: No

Q8: Is it any shock that the sole purpose of prolonging those hearings, rather than finding useful information to help avoid similar tragedies, was to try to embarrass Hillary Clinton?

A8: No

Q9: When this is all said and done, is it more likely Hillary Clinton will be the one doing the embarrassing?

A9: Yes

Q10: Was the clinching of the National League East title by the New York Mets last Saturday the best thing that has happened in the history of the world?

A10: Yes

This nation lost its way in December 2012 after an imbecile went on national TV and said “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.”

He said it after 20 children were gunned down in a Connecticut elementary school, along with six adults trying to protect them.

The nation didn’t lose its way because the jackass said what he said. In this country, you’re allowed to say whatever the hell you want.

It lost its way because after he said it, the Congress of the United States didn’t ignore him. The way leaders of a responsible nation should. It refused to pass legislation that would at least attempt to prevent those with warped minds from getting the tools needed to exterminate people.

And then life went on as if nothing happened. As if the deaths of 20 kids  – none of them more than seven years old – didn’t warrant some kind of action by society.

So, to all those who accept that NRA moron’s unbelievably stupid comment, here are my questions:

Did the Christian-hating wacko in Oregon yesterday think he was the good guy with a gun?

Did the Muslim-hating madman in North Carolina in February think he was the good guy with a gun?

Dud the racist dope in a Charleston church in June think he was the good guy with a gun?

Did the psychopath who went to a Lafayette, La., movie theater in July think he was the good guy with a gun?

More than once every day this year, according to The Washington Post’s mass shooting tracker, did someone walk out some door armed to the teeth and say “I’m the good guy with a gun?”

I’m willing to bet they didn’t say “I’m the bad guy with a gun.”

The reason these mass murderers accomplish their goal is that even when you live in the most armed society in the world, you can’t know how, when, where and who some nut job is going to strike. That and the fact that they probably don’t care if they survive it themselves – how many of them, once they’re finished or cornered, turn the gun on themselves?

And if we did what some jackasses propose and allow national concealed carry laws, people can’t physically maintain that kind of vigilance. There would be no sleep. There would be no trust. There would be no joy. We would be looking at each other as if the person in Starbucks or the guy across the street was a potential mass murderer.

It is beyond belief that this country, unlike civilized nations, won’t stop this scourge. In fact, it takes us out of the league of civilized nations and lumps us with societies where violence is as normal as the sunrise.

We can no longer think we’re better than places where people are afraid to walk through their city or village without being knifed or macheted or violently set upon with any available weapon.

Because when we let the deaths of 20 school children pass without mending our ways, we set ourselves up for what happened afterward. When you hold those lives as cheaply as you did by not acting, what’s another ten college students in Oregon?

I am not optimistic that this is the last or even one of the last of these incidents. Not when you have the predictable response from gun-nut apologists that insane people will use whatever it takes to kill people. Not when you have candidates for President of the United States who say these things happen and they’re the price we pay for our freedom.

So we’ve lost our way. Until we set it straight, until we stop trying to be reasonable with the NRA imbeciles and the gun apologists, the people who spit the Second Amendment at you and imply it supersedes the right to live, we will not be right. We will not be great. We will be a society of fear and anger and death far too soon.

1. It’s Wednesday, September 30, 2015.

2. Joaquin is now a hurricane, and if you look at its path on the National Weather Service map, it looks as though it’s headed straight for Manhattan. That wouldn’t happen until the weekend, but it would be nice if it didn’t.

3. Since a woman’s right to choose was affirmed by the Supreme Court in 1973, it’s been under attack. The campaign has been relentless. From sermons to protests to doctored videos, the effort against a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy has attempted to shame, to badger and to claim the moral high ground.

Here’s the thing: There was a reason that people of all political persuasions thought it was a good idea to lift the restrictions on abortion. They don’t work.

A woman who finds herself pregnant when she doesn’t want to be, whether it be from a consensual sexual encounter or something heinously against her will, will find a way to terminate that pregnancy. If it means risking her life, she’ll do it.

There were lots of abortions before Roe v. Wade, and there would lots of them – possibly even more of them – if Roe v. Wade were overturned.

So when clowns such as the Republicans on the House Oversight and Government Committee hold hearings in an effort to shame Planned Parenthood, here are the questions people should ask: What is your alternative? What do you think happens if abortion becomes illegal? How attuned is that to reality? What is your real agenda?

I am highly skeptical that these Republicans have a clue.

4. One thing should be clear. The people ranting and raving about Planned Parenthood aren’t the least bit interested in ending abortion. Because if they did, they would trying to help Planned Parenthood instead of trying to cripple it.

No organization – not the Catholic Church, not any right-wing political group, not any maker of doctored videos – has done more to reduce the number of abortions than Planned Parenthood.

By educating women about their choices for tending to their bodies, they have helped reduce unwanted or dangerous pregnancies, particularly among teenagers.

5. One last thought about abortion. Defending the right to choose isn’t so simple. It isn’t like defending the idea that people should be able to love who they love or do what they want to do in life, because both of those concepts are affirmative.

Abortion is not aspirational; girls don’t grow up dreaming of having one. But it’s sometimes a necessity.

To keep it safe and to minimize its emotional cost has required a draining effort for the past 42 years. If Planned Parenthood and so-called abortion opponents put their heads together to give all women the choices and education they need to prevent unwanted pregnancy, everyone would be a lot happier.

1. It’s Tuesday, September 29, 2015.

2. It’s supposed to be National Coffee Day.

Why? When you don’t drink coffee, as I don’t, every freakin’ day is National Coffee Day.

There’s coffee everywhere. Ninety percent of what’s available in workplace break rooms has something to do with coffee. When you go to a diner, the first thing they’re ready to do is pour you coffee.

If you go through life not drinking coffee, the world around you seems unforgiving. Everyone else seems to bond offer coffee, over whether it’s good or bad, too expensive and overrated at Starbucks, nasty at the deli down the street.

It’s what they serve at PTA meetings and town board meetings and any event I’ve ever covered. Kids aren’t supposed to drink it but, magically, when they turn 18, they are expected to drink it.

I’m through venting. For now. Enjoy your coffee.

3. The departure of House Speaker John Boehner has led to this theme in the past few days: The Republican Party isn’t interested in governing.

The constant shutdown threats over the past 20 years – this all started when Newt Gingrich took control in the 1990s – usually boil down to Republicans believing they need to stand for some principle of non-government.

It’s what makes the dynamic of our system so weird. Does any other major political party anywhere in the world trash the idea of actually being in charge of a nation’s government the way the Republicans do?

And because of that, the Democrats have a dilemma. Should they let people see the incredible stupidity of the Republican notion of government as the enemy? Or do they act like grownups, realize that this whole country depends on a functioning national government and take the steps to keep things going that Republicans will then use to vilify them?

I imagine the world is totally exasperated with this. It’s a wonder President Obama doesn’t run from the White House screaming. I’ll bet there are times, like now, when he can’t wait for Jan. 20, 2017.

I don’t know the solution. I keep hoping that it has something to do with demographics, with the civilizing influence of people from other countries where they don’t take what we have for granted. But, right now, I’m not optimistic sanity will prevail.

5. Another manifestation of the Republican fantasy of a utopian world with no government comes in the tax cut proposals of the leading candidates.

Yesterday, it was Donny Trump with his plan to cut the tax rate for those with the highest incomes to just 15% from the current 39%. He would also cut taxes for lower income groups, though not at nearly the same clip or with the same impact.

The problem, of course, is that when Trump and Republicans propose this nonsense, they’re basically making sure there’s less for actually operating the government. But that’s part of the idea, along with their fantasy that their proposals would stimulate economic growth to levels approaching developing, rather than developed, nations.

I’m sure the mindless who support Trump, the ones with the “I love America, it’s the government I hate” bumper stickers, will love his idea. Again, the Democrats have a dilemma – debunking this crap, or showing how a Trumpian world is a dystopian world. Neither of those options seems ideal.

1. It’s Monday, September 28, 2015

2. Too much cloud cover where I was for the blood moon eclipse. The next time it happens, I’ll be 79 years old. Wish me luck.

3. A lot of people, Catholics and otherwise, derived satisfaction from Pope Francis’ visit. He struck a chord with a message of compassion and tolerance that had been lacking from the church leadership in recent years. Whether the good vibe continues depends.

Will the rest of the Roman Catholic leadership understands why this pope is a success or choose to revert to its our-way-or-else stance on just about everything that has turned off followers for decades?

4. I was shocked to see some liberals celebrate John Boehner’s decision to step down as Speaker of the House.

No, I’m not a Boehner fan by any means. But he’s been what passes for reasonable in the Republican Party, and now even he is purged for the crime of compromising in order to get things done.

The message Boehner’s ouster should send to my fellow liberals is a reinforcement of what the Republican presidential debates have shown: The Democratic Party has got to get its act in gear when it comes to registering voters, particularly those citizens who were recent immigrants from Latin America, Africa and Asia.

The Democrats need to be the party of everyone, and the party of the future. Boehner’s departure should galvanize them, but I’m skeptical that it will.

5. Washington Nationals’ reliever Jonathan Papelbon failed to get his second choke of the season yesterday when teammates and coaches separated his hand from star outfielder Bryce Harper’s throat.

The first choke, of course, was his own performance since being acquired by the Nats in late July.

The only reason for him not to be suspended or released is that it would deprive New York Mets fans of the chance to personally thank him next weekend for all he’s done to help us secure the National League East title.

It’s September 25, 2015, and time once again for my Friday Yes or No, where I cop out from writing a real blog post by writing around it and answering each point.

Q1: Am I surprised that today is the day John Boehner announced that he’s stepping down as Speaker of the House and leaving Congress?

Q1: Yes

Q2: But, generally speaking, am I surprised that John Boehner is stepping down as Speaker of the House and leaving Congress?

Q2: No

Q3: Are liberal Democrats wise to think Boehner’s stepping down as Speaker at this time is a good thing for the United States?

A3: No 

Q4: Is that because the real nut cases in the Republican Party want to make President Obama’s final year in office a living hell?

A4: Yes

Q5: Is it terrific that Pope Francis, with his message of tolerance and protecting the environment, is getting the attention he’s getting on this short visit to the United States?

A5: Yes

Q6: Will his visit lead to progress in resolving such issues in this country as immigration and climate change?

A6: No

Q7: Is it true that, at one point, the car I would have bought for myself if my family wasn’t a consideration, was Volkswagen’s New Beetle?

A7: Yes

Q8: Given the revelation that the company used on-board software to cheat on emissions tests, is there a snowball’s chance in hell I’ll ever buy a Volkswagen?

A8: No

Q9: Is it surprising that e-book sales are starting to flag while sales of printed books are holding steady?

A9: Yes 

Q10: With the magic number down to three, am I finally convinced that the Mets are going to be in the postseason?

A10: Yes

1. It’s Wednesday, September 23, 2015.

2. It’s fall. Phooey.

3. It’s Yom Kippur. Jews around the world use this day to reflect on what they’ve done and how to square that with what they think God wants them to do.

I’ve always thought the idea of a day of atonement is something that all of us, no matter what our faith or lack of faith, should consider. A day to focus, completely and without even the respite of eating, on how we conduct ourselves in the world and whether or not it is in accordance with how we believe we should.

I hope my Jewish friends find peace and resolution in their reflection on this special day.

4. By the way, it is a gorgeous day in New York. My devoutly Catholic Dad once told me that it never rains on Yom Kippur because people have to walk to the synagogue to pray.

5. Pope Francis is at the White House for the start of his U.S. adventure. He’s already talking about how immigrants helped build this nation, which means this is going to be a long week for the wall builders.

6. Yogi Berra’s body died last night. His spirit, his legend, his heart, his place in baseball history, his way with words and his stature among the greatest Italian Americans will never die.

I’m proud to have joined more than 100,000 other Americans in petitioning the White House earlier this year to have Yogi receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor. The White House said it couldn’t comment on whether any individual would be honored in the future – the award is usually given in groups every three years, with the next one likely in 2016. But the response goes on as follows:

We can, however, say that throughout his career as a Hall-of-Fame catcher for the New York Yankees and beyond, Yogi Berra has done a lot more than hit and think at the same time. He demonstrated exemplary sportsmanship and character on his way to winning 13 World Series championships as a player and manager (note: he won 10 rings as a player and three as a coach), with each new title feeling like déjà vu all over again. He served our country in the U.S. Navy during World War II — including the D-Day invasion, and has established himself as an advocate for civil rights, education, and inclusion of the LGBT community in sports.

He’s demonstrated many of the qualities of past Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients, so — as he might say — it ain’t over ’til it’s over.

Yogi’s body has passed. But his greatness never will. I still hope his name is included in the next batch of Medal of Freedom winners.

1. It’s Tuesday, September 22, 2015

2. It’s hard to believe this is the last full day of summer. It seems as though the season just started. I also think that the 21st, and not the 23rd, is the first day of a new season, but that’s another issue.

We’re getting the first relatively chilly days of the season. But this has been an especially warm summer, and in this part of the Northeast, it’s accompanied by an amazing lack of rain. No, we’re not California, but the ground is becoming more brown than green, and there are a lot of brown leaves on trees.

3. There’s at least one good thing about the end of summer 2015 — it also will be the end of Scott Walker’s presidential campaign.

I suspect I am not the only one who saw a coward when I saw this putz.

One who sat on a stage and declined comment after the addled Rudolph Giuliani said President Obama did not love his country.

One who me-tooed Donny Trump by saying that not only would he build a wall along the Mexican border, but that he’s build one along the Canadian border as well.

One who went to London and refused to answer a question about whether he believed in evolution, saying that’s not what he was there for.

One who equated union workers seeking to maintain their hard-earned rights to ISIS. One was happy to revel in University of Wisconsin sports triumphs, but wouldn’t support the university financially and tried to change its charter to turn it into a trade school.

Good, freakin’ riddance. If only this guy could slink back under the rock he came from, a lot of people would be better off.

4. One of the refrains spewed by Scott Walker and those still running for the Republican nomination is that President Obama’s Affordable Care Act is a job killer.

But according to a study issued today, and reported by the fair-minded and talented Tami Luhby of CNNMoney, Obamacare has not led to a massive shift of full-time workers into part-time positions.

In fact, a higher percentage of employers has shifted things the other way — making part-time workers full time so that they qualify for company health care plans.

Yes, as Ms. Luhby points out, there are flaws in Obamacare – the president wasn’t able to keep his promise to everyone that they would be able to keep the plans they had if they were happy with them.

But more than 18 million Americans have health insurance who didn’t before the ACA went into effect. And overall health care spending is up for a good reason – more Americans are taking care of themselves, because now it won’t crush them financially to do so. That will come in handy with the traditional start-of-fall cold just about upon us.

1. It’s Monday, September 21, 2015.

2. I’ll write a separate post about my New York Mets. The last couple of days have been too bizarre to include with the general stuff.

3. You would think that a man who’s running for president, a distinguished neurosurgeon, has met one or two people of the Islamic faith. He gives speeches, he signs books, he’s worked in a hospital.

So you have to figure, even though Muslims make up only about 1% of the population, he’s met at least a dozen people who say they are followers of the prophet Muhammad.

But Ben Carson believes none of them, not one, should be allowed to seek the highest office in the land.

When asked on NBC’s “Meet the Press” if a president’s faith matters, he said” “I guess it depends on what that faith is,” he said. “If it’s inconsistent with the values and principles of America, then of course it should matter.”

And then, asked whether Islam is consistent with the Constitution, Carson said: “No, I don’t — I do not.”

What Constitution is Carson reading? Of what articles, what amendments does Islam fly in the face?

I am not anywhere near as well traveled or a public figure as Dr. Ben Carson. But I’ve met people of the Islamic faith. I’ve worked with them and I’ve lived in a neighborhood with them. I had a devoutly Muslim landlord. Some were born in the USA, and some weren’t.

And of those born in this country, I have little doubt that if they were handed the awesome responsibility of the presidency, their first priority would be the safety and prosperity of their fellow Americans. That would include protecting this country from nut cases —whatever their professed faith, or lack thereof.

In light of his comments, that’s more than we can say about Ben Carson. He might be a man with a lot of degrees. But his comments on a Muslim president show he’s not really that smart. And he’s not particularly attuned to the people he encounters. Because I guarantee he’s met more than a few Muslims, and he dissed them for no good reason. (For a good take on this, here’s Ta-Nehisi Coates’ terrific note for The Atlantic)