1. It’s Tuesday, August 25, 2015.

2. It would not be surprising if the Philadelphia Phillies’ outfielders called in sick for tonight’s game against the Mets. They all must have sore necks from watching so many balls fly over their heads into the seats last night. 

3. Today is the 40th anniversary of the release of the album “Born to Run,” what Bruce Springsteen apparently thought was his last-chance power drive for greatness. Anyone who denies its masterpiece status is completely clueless, and even kids who might think of this as fuddy-duddy music still appreciate its craft and diligence. My K-pop, hip-hop loving son who groans whenever James Taylor plays in the car has been with me to two Springsteen concerts — and roared as first Clarence Clemons and then his nephew, Jake, hammered the “Jungleland” sax solo. 

4. Confession: I was the program director for WNUR, Northwestern’s radio station, when “Born to Run” was released in 1975.

In my progressive programming mind, there were two things wrong with the album. One was that it was over-hyped; Time and Newsweek had Springsteen on the cover the same week. Second was the fact that it was getting overplayed on a station whose philosophy was supposed to be not to play the same thing over and over.

So I hid the album in my office for a month. And, being 21 and a jerk, I returned it to circulation after playing it on my last DJ shift.

I’ve changed a lot in 40 years.

5. My favorite track on the album is “Meeting Across the River.”

One of the odes to the album’s milestone that has appeared today cites the line in “Jungleland” that could very well be the summation of the album: “an opera on the Turnpike.” “Born to Run” is an opera about growing up disaffected in a place that has seen better days.

And “Meeting Across the River” captures that tone beautifully, telling a story in three minutes and 19 seconds about two losers trying to perform some ethically iffy task without screwing it up again.

Added to the lyrics are the incredible piano and sax solos that gives it such a melancholy feel. 

6. In lots of ways, the issues that Springsteen tackled in “Born to Run” remain. The struggle of people working hard for a living who want a little something more, something that they see others have and just can’t attain.

The people who Springsteen sings about can go two ways.

They can give up and curse the powers that be. In 2015, alas, that’s manifested in the Donald Trump phenomenon. The strugglers succumb to hate and pettiness: someone else is to blame for their problems, and once we get them out of here, everything will be all right.

But there are people like Springsteen – trust me, he’s not alone – who understand the deck might be stacked but refuse to lay blame. They believe there’s a way for everyone to share in the bounty. We haven’t found it yet. But we shouldn’t stop trying.

For all the sketchiness of Springsteen’s Jersey Shore found in “Born to Run,” there are sounds of hope and love. Listen, because the story isn’t complete without them.

7. If today seems a little windy where you are, it might be because all those investors who watched yesterday’s Wall Street tumult are exhaling. There’s a rebound in the early going, and for some in the market it’s like a day at the outlet mall picking up bargains.

Just a reminder that markets go up and down, and up and down again. And usually, the long-term trend is up. Unless you bet on something crazy.

So, relax, have another cream soda, and enjoy this late-summer Tuesday. 

1. It’s Monday, August 24, 2015.

2. I’ve been ringside for several scary Wall Street days, so I’m a little jaded about today’s trauma. But only a little jaded. This is the first big sell-off since I retired, and I am counting on my 401(k) investments, now in IRAs, to sustain me and my family through what I hope is the next few decades.

So I understand how retirees who rely on fixed income and their savings might be a little scared this morning. We’re not sure we’re going to make it on what we have, and what he have is now is about 3% less than what we had at 9:29 a.m.

What you can do? Not much. The losses are lost. And unless it’s your business, trying to time the markets is a vexing game.

So, as someone I used to work with used to say in times of stress, have a cream soda and relax. If you don’t need the money today, tomorrow or in the next year, you’re fine. And if you need it that soon, given the sell-off in recent weeks, you’re still going to have about 85% of what you thought you had — and that’s probably more than you started with.

Markets go both ways, but the reason people invest in stocks is that, over time, they tend to be a better investment than bank accounts or any other place to park money.

My favorite cream soda is Dr. Brown’s, which is big in Kosher delicatessens around New York. A Dr. Brown’s cream soda, a nice lean pastrami sandwich on rye with mustard and a pickle, and making sure you’re not facing the CNBC screen at the deli, is a good way to spend this crazy Monday.

3. One other reason you shouldn’t worry is that the U.S. economy is pretty sturdy right now, as my former colleague Chris Isidore points out.

In fact, one of the factors in this sell-off is that Wall Street is worried that the Federal Reserve is about to raise interest rates for the first time since before the financial crisis. And the reason the Fed wants to raise interest rates is that the economy is doing so well that it doesn’t want it to get overextended, which would lead to problems.

This market meltdown could well delay the rate hike. But the fact that the Fed can consider a rate hike is a sign that things are OK, and should be taken as such by those of us who don’t make our living in financial services.

4. Of course, the sell-off could trigger problems in the economy as those looking to hire or start a business get cold feet, and people get nervous about making such key purchases as homes and cars.

But the stock sell-off is accompanied by a sell-off in oil. Gas prices, which were nowhere as awful this summer as in the past few years, are about to drop as vacations end and people go back to work and school.

That extra money in your wallet will help ameliorate any damage from falling stocks.

5. John Oliver is on a roll. Last night’s take on LGBT discrimination is good, although there was little chance he could top last week’s televangelism show.

Unlike the stock market, “Last Week Tonight” is taking the next couple of weeks off. It should be the other way around. 

It’s August 21, 2015 and time, once again, for Friday Yes or No, when I answer questions I ask with the shortest of answers.

Q1: Do you think it’s fair to say that the nation’s Hispanics might be more afraid of the forces being unleashed by Fabulous Donny Trump’s anti-immigration rhetoric than they are of ISIS or al-Qaeda?

A1: Yes 

Q2: Is it fair for these people to think of Donny as a terrorist?

A2: Yes

Q3: Should anyone with half a heart or an interest in justice spend a penny on a Trump-branded product or anything that accrues to Donny?

A3: No

Q4: Should the fact that I’m bigger and male than the two women graduating from Army Ranger school make me less wary of getting on their wrong side in some way?

A4: No 

Q5: Would it be nuts for Is Kim Jong-un nuts to drive North Korea to war with South Korea?

A5: Yes

Q6: For those of us preparing to live off 401(k)s in our golden years, does a stock market “correction” seem particularly correct? 

A6: No

Q7: While it’s nice that they’re in first place, and they still have an inside track to the playoffs, are the New York Mets going to torture their fans in the final six weeks of baseball’s regular season?

A7: Yes

Q8: Will the fact that July was the world’s hottest month since record-keeping began convince climate change deniers?

A8: No 

Q9: Has summer gone way too fast?

A9: Yes

Q10: Has anyone ever ordered a print subscription from a magazine’s Web site?

A10: No

1. It’s Wednesday, August 19, 2015.

2. It’s Bill Clinton’s birthday. It’s a real possibility that he’ll be a figure high in our consciousness for at least the next 14-1/2 months. That was quite a ride last time. 

3. It’s a little too early to get worried that Fabulous Donny Trump is in striking distance of Hillary Clinton, as a new CNN/ORC poll reports. I don’t doubt the poll. I just doubt that people are seriously thinking about how they’ll vote more than a year from now. It’s August 2015. These polls will be more to think about when it’s August 2016. 

4. That doesn’t mean that anyone who cherishes Western civilization shouldn’t be making sure that Fabulous Donny Trump’s message gets rejected resoundingly. Big time. I don’t want see this pond scum get even a moral victory, because there’s nothing moral about him.

That starts with making sure that voter registration begins now, and is thorough. That means that African-Americans, Hispanics, Asians and women need to secure their voting privileges at the soonest possible moment. That means accelerating the fight against these godawful voter ID laws aimed at disenfranchising people of humble means and circumstances.

If enough people who know how to walk and chew gum at the same time vote, there’s no way Trump or most of the other jokes being tossed up by the Republicans can win.

But if they don’t vote, that would be its own form of stupidity, turning the reins of the world’s greatest democracy to people who seem uninterested in preserving it.

1. It’s Tuesday, August 18, 2015.

2. It’s the 180th birthday of Marshall Field, whose department store was a Chicago institution until Macy’s glommed it.

Apparently, Mr. Field was long dead – he caught pneumonia while playing golf in New York on New Year’s Day 1906 – when his stores’ greatest contribution to society, Frango Mints, were introduced to Chicago and points east. (What I learned today: Frango Mints were invented in Seattle.) Macy’s Frango Mints are just not the same. 

3. Carly Fiorina’s slight rise in the Republican polls – although, hey, she’s still in the single digits – comes as a result of her performance in the not-primetime debate earlier this month.

But Andrew Ross Sorkin takes apart her claim of being a successful businesswoman in The New York Times this morning, pointing out what those of us who followed her career remember: She was a key player is the diminution of two major tech companies, Lucent and Hewlett-Packard.

That, and advancing the ignorance of allowing parents to opt out of vaccines, disqualify her for high office, or even for dog catcher. 

4. John Oliver’s take on televangelism might be the best thing he’s done on his HBO show “Last Week Tonight.”

In lambasting the fact that it’s ridiculously easy to be declared a tax-exempt religion and profit handily from that, Oliver is also doing a kind of journalism that is sadly lacking in TV news.

By the way, the good news is that if you donate to Oliver’s Our Lady of Perpetual Exemption, the money will eventually go to Doctors Without Borders, an organization doing real good in the world. 

1. It’s Monday, August 17, 2015.

2. You can’t slip much past Fabulous Donny Trump. He’s wise to those diabolical immigrants, the ones taking those jobs real Americans want like mowing lawns and frying burgers. Then, after they’ve committed their evil deeds, they produce children — and thanks to the Constitution, those kids are automatically U.S. citizens.

It’s time, if you follow Fabulous Donny’s logic, to protect the Constitution from the Constitution by ending that automatic birthright crap and sending the whole lot back to wherever they came from.

What a jackass! 

2. Jeff Bezos says he would never work for the company described in a much-talked-about New York Times story this weekend. Of course, that company is Amazon, the company he created.

But Bezos says the article — in which more than 100 past and present employees described pretty draconian working conditions — doesn’t really reflect the atmosphere at Amazon.

Bezos’ response might have had more credence if he had answered Times reporters’ questions as they working on the piece. What he and his lieutenants at Amazon didn’t anticipate was how godawful they and the company comes off in the story reported by Jodi Kantor and David Streitfeld.

At lot of the people who read it are just going to be revolted by what the employees of Amazon go through, and there will be a turn-off factor among people who shop at what’s now the world’s largest retailer. And there will be talented people who see what the price is for working at Amazon and decide, the hell with that. 

4. When I was attended religious instruction classes as a child, I was told that Adam and Eve’s sin is the reason we all have to work, since people were cast out of paradise.

But I can’t imagine a benevolent higher being thinks sacrificing family and health for the glory of a corporate entity isn’t a far more heinous sin that biting the wrong apple.

I had one question going through my mind as I read the Times’ Amazon story: Why would anyone work there? There are three good reasons to have a job. One is to make money and provide for yourself and those who depend on you. The second is to do something that benefits the world in some way. And the third is to share the experience with good people – to make friends out of colleagues and possibly, if you’ve been as lucky as I’ve been, get to spend a lifetime sharing a laugh.

Amazon meets the first criterion by paying you – although in some cases, you’re getting paid in stock whose value could zero out. But you would also get paid by every other job you could do, and you wouldn’t be required to answer e-mails at midnight or miss a kid’s trombone performance.

The second criterion is whether or not what you do benefits the world. Getting someone an Elsa doll 23 minutes after they don’t see it at the Toys ‘R’ Us in Times Square doesn’t quite measure up to teaching learning-disabled kids, or serving meals to the elderly at a nursing home, or fighting a two-alarm blaze, or any number of other jobs that actually make people’s lives better.

And then there’s the third criterion. If you read this on a regular basis, you know that I left CNNMoney almost a year ago in a voluntary buyout. And what I miss most is not the job itself — which surprises me, because I always liked the idea of telling people something they needed to know. What I miss the most is the people I worked with. It is part of the fulfillment of a job to have colleagues who share your experiences, inside and outside the workplace.

I can’t imagine Amazon is like that. With the competition, the constant culling of those who aren’t meeting whatever freaking standard someone is setting, the in-house criticism that sounds like a Communist Party meeting during China’s Cultural Revolution, the idea that I would trust anybody I worked with is ludicrous.

There are people who aren’t bothered by the Amazon atmosphere described in the Times. I would imagine they’re in their 20s and 30s, and willing to do whatever it takes to advance their careers. If the career is their satisfaction in life, their purpose in living, then I wish them the best.

But I think life is more than that. It includes such concepts as love and health, and the joy that comes in a child’s discovery or watching a baseball game with friends.

I don’t envy Amazonians. Not one bit. 

It’s August 14, 2015 and time for Friday Yes or No, in which I answer 10 questions with the most succinct answer possible:

Q1: Should Japan, as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, be finished apologizing for the atrocities it committed before and during World War II?

A1: No

Q2: Will an Amtrak train sprout wings and fly from Washington to Wilmington before Joe Biden is the Democratic nominee for President?

A2: Yes

Q3: Isn’t the “Sesame Street”-HBO deal, mercenary as it is, better than letting the show die after 46 years?

A3: Yes

Q4: Isn’t it strange that Carly Fiorina, claiming to be a savvy businesswoman, would endorse the incredibly dopey idea of parental choice in vaccinations?

A4: Yes

Q5: Should we just shrug off the latest declines in China’s stock markets as a market problem that just affects investors on the other side of the world?

A5: No

Q6: Will the world go to hell in a handbasket now that the United States flag is flying over this nation’s embassy in Havana?

A6: No

Q7: Will the world go to hell in a handbasket if Congress stops the Iran nuclear limitation deal?

A7: Yes

Q8: Are those the last two times I intend to use the expression “hell in a handbasket”?

A8: Yes

Q9: The Mets are now 4-1/2 games ahead of the Washington Nationals in the National League East. So should I be confident that the Mets will make the postseason for the first time since 2006?

A9: No

Q10: Would it have been a lot easier to write this Friday Yes or No if there had been a Republican presidential debate the night before, like last week?

A10: Yes

1. It’s Wednesday, August 12, 2015.

2. I was standing at the New City, N.Y., bus stop at 5:15 a.m. one morning in 2010 when there was a discussion among the regulars. It was a bunch of folks griping about President Obama.

But the topic surprised me: They groused that he had promised to bring all the troops home from Iraq, and some were still there.

Here’s what Jeb Bush and the neocons who believe Obama squandered his predecessor’s (and Jeb’s brother’s), um, victory in Iraq don’t get. The American people were sick of Iraq well before Obama was elected. If anything, even conservatives believe troops were there too long.

And there were two reasons. One is that it wasn’t our job to build a nation. The second is that the cost contributed to the economic crisis of the late ‘00s.

In his speech last night, Jeb Bush revisited the Iraq problem that originated with his big brother. If the Republican Party wants to replay that battle, it can pretty much guarantee Hillary Clinton’s victory.