QUICK HITS

1. It’s Thursday, July 9, 2015

2. The Confederate flag removal in South Carolina is about to become real. I’m glad that the state legislature saw the light after years of rubbish about history and so-called honor. I’m still sad that it took last month’s horrible murders in a church to bring it about. 

3. If I had something to say about it, I’d make the guy who committed the crime have to watch the flag come down. And then tell him how he made it all possible. Over and over again. I’d even make him watch replays in his cell.

4. Also real today is London’s tube strike. The whole system is shut, causing a commuter nightmare. When I vacationed in London last year, the unions only shut down part of the system, a job action I don’t quite understand. All that is to me is annoying, and essentially ineffective. My thoughts go to friends in London who are dealing with the hassle today and tomorrow. 

1. It’s Wednesday, July 8, 2015.

2. Today is mathematically correct.

3. I’m one of the 2,858 people who contributed to this campaign to help complete Orson Welles’ last film. I’m happy to see that despite missing their goals by a lot, the people behind this express confidence that they’ll get the movie done. I’m not expecting another “Citizen Kane,” but who knows?

4. One year ago, if you said “Bill Cosby” in a word association game, I would have said “hero.” I, like most other Americans, was unaware of any accusations involving improper behavior with women — other than when he admitted an affair with a woman who surfaced right after his son was murdered on a California highway.

There’s been some hand-wringing about the fact that this week’s revelation — that Cosby testified 10 years ago that he had purchased Quaaludes to give to women with whom he wanted to have sex — was necessary to convince remaining skeptics about his behavior. The fact that so many women made the accusations were, according to critics, not enough to convince Cosby’s fans that he was a serial rapist.

I just don’t think it’s fair to say that this is another example of how women aren’t believed when they alleged that someone — especially someone of prominence — has raped them. Yes, that’s an issue that deserves serious discussion, and there should be respect for any woman who makes an accusation and any man to defend himself when an accusation is unjust.

But this incident seems more like testimony about how good at being “Bill Cosby” this man was.

A year ago, I would have put him near the head of a league of civil rights pioneers among artists and athletes — people such as Jackie Robinson or Marian Anderson. In some ways, Cosby was more influential. Starting with his comedy records in the 1960s, when he was able to show all of America that African-Americans (the current term; back then, saying Negro would have been more acceptable) were no different in their dreams, their foibles and their experiences.

In a golden era of comedy, he was genuinely funny. That career would stretch for more than a half-century of TV sitcoms, dramas, movies and amazing stand-up shows.

My wife and I saw him in Morristown, N.J., four years ago, and it was a two-hour tour de force. That any comedian can hold a stage by him or herself for two hours is an incredible feat, as Jerry Seinfeld points out in his terrific film “Comedian.”

We were conned. Big time. We were conned into thinking that his high-minded stances on education, behavior and race relations were those of a man of integrity. We were conned into thinking that this man was his TV alter ego, Dr. Cliff Huxstable, the family man any would-be father of any race would aspire to be.

Instead, it was a sham. This would-be American hero appears to be among the lowest forms of life. A man who felt compelled to get women to use drugs as a prelude to sex is not what a man of integrity, a man who offers advice to others on public morality, would do.

So yes, I believe Bill Cosby did what these two dozen or so women accuse him of doing. I probably have believed it since he refused to address the accusations directly as they piled up late last year. What I realize now is that it’s easy to be conned because you want to believe what seems really good about people is really true.

I feel stupid and terrible, and a little empty. And right now, I’m not in the market for any more heroes.

1. It’s Tuesday, July 7, 2015.

2. At about 8:15 p.m., the light in the sky will be fading on another warm day.

Take a mental picture of the moment. Save it. Because in six months, it will be January 7, 2016. It will be dark and most likely cold, and there’s even a chance there’s a pile of snow on the ground. And the moment you’re saving tonight will seem enchanted. (Unless you’re in a place where it’s rainy and raw. In that case, try again tomorrow)

3. You really can’t put anything over some of those people in Texas. They saw right through the Jade Helm military exercise planned for later this month.  

“Training.” Ha! You can fool the people around Bostrop or, for that matter, the governor and a U.S. senator.

As someone supportive of the mission, here’s what is really intended

— Changing the name of several cities in the state. The capital will become Barackia. Houston is Michelleville. Dallas is Ciudad Obama and Spanish will become its official language. Lubbock is Obamacareland. 2

— No, FEMA will not establish concentration camps. But we think everyone will rejoice if there’s someplace in that state to put Donald Trump and 50 miles between him and anything else.

— Football will be played on Wednesday nights, just for spite.

— There will be a border fence around the perimeter. It will run keep Texans out of New Mexico, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana.

— Except that Willie Nelson can go wherever he wants.

— Instead of martial law, we’ll impose Marshalls Law, which requires that everything be sold at the cheapest price possible.

— If we were going to take away your guns, we would have tried it first in a more receptive state, like Vermont. So that ain’t happening. But if you want to prevent President Sanders from staging another invasion, you might want to give them up voluntarily.

1. It’s Monday, July 6, 2015.

2. Today is the 69th birthday of both George W. Bush and Sylvester Stallone. I leave the rest to your imagination.

3. The United States is celebrating the belated Independence Day gift of the Women’s World Cup in soccer.

That the celebration is a big deal is a credit to the people who have tried to promote soccer in this country for decades. All those kids’ leagues for all these years have led to a devoted following and an appreciation of the sport.

While I’m not jumping on that bandwagon (I still find soccer hard to sit through), I’m happy the U.S. is No. 1.

4. One of the things soccer has going for it is the focus on international play, and for both men and women. A whole country can unite behind a team, even if — as in the case of the United States — people in the country rarely watch it and don’t understand all the rules. By giving so much emphasis to the World Cup, soccer gets a big stage to perform on two out of every four years.

Baseball, my favorite sport, is trying to catch up with this. Which is why I’m a big fan of the World Baseball Classic, next scheduled for the spring of 2017.

The problem is that, especially given the big money player contracts of this era, baseball is not going to go all out to promote itself internationally. Which would mean stopping the baseball season one June or July every four years and allowing the world’s best players to play for their country for a month. That’s not going to happen.

But baseball isn’t even making its best effort to promote the existing tournament. The World Baseball Classic Web site hasn’t been updated with a news item since the Dominican Republic shut out Puerto Rico to win in 2013. Even if there was interest in the 2017 event, there’s no place to get information, and clearly no planning has been done.

By not even making an effort, baseball is making sure it can’t have a day when it, like women’s soccer today, can dominate the world’s sports pages.

5. If you’re fortunate, you know a lot of Americans of Greek ancestry. If so, you know they have three very prominent attributes. They are somewhat stubborn. They are intensely proud. And, foremost, they are brave.

That aspect of Greece’s national character came ringing through yesterday. Told by European creditors that a “No” vote in yesterday’s referendum would cause their economy to cave, three in five Greeks put down four of their five fingers.

Of course, a Greek collapse is not preordained. It only happens if the creditors are so offended by the Greeks that they won’t do what’s best for all parties concerned.

And what’s best (as noted economist Thomas Piketty says in an interview with Germany’s Die Welt) is a renegotiation of the debt situation, one that allows the Greek people to bust out of the five-year depression that austerity has ensured.

Whether bankers, who appear to live in their own world, will see that light is what we’ll find out in the coming days. But the fact that European markets, while lower, did not sink more dramatically Monday is a sign that there are reasonable people out there who think there’s a respectable way out.

For that, we can thank the bravery of the Greeks, who decided that it’s better to resolve the issue than let it linger and fester.

1. It’s Thursday, July 2, 2015.

2. The year reaches the halfway point today, when 182 days and 12 hours of the year’s 365 days have passed.

At what time that happens depends on where you are. If you are in most of the United States or Europe, where we set the clocks ahead in March, the midpoint is at 1 p.m. If you’re in Arizona or Hawaii or anyplace where Daylight Time doesn’t exist, it’s noon.

Does this matter? Only if it hits you that time keeps rushing by, and 2016 is closer to us than 2014.

3.   I get public displays of fireworks, when your town or the fire department or Disney World launches these missiles that triggered explosion of different colored lights. It’s not my favorite form of entertainment — most of these tend to get a little monotonous, with organizers not understanding that more is not necessarily better.

What I don’t get is when people feel compelled to buy stuff that explodes, simply for the thrill of making a loud noise.

The Fourth of July is, of course, the touchstone of this compulsion. Supposedly, people who make loud booms with firecrackers at two in the morning are doing so to celebrate the inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It can’t be because they’re celebrating peace and everyone’s good night sleep.

Up until now, I have been fortunate to live in a state where the sale and possession of fireworks has been banned. It hasn’t stopped the easily amused from schlepping 75 or so miles to Pennsylvania, where such sales are legal.

In fact, what set me off is a mailing I got last week. It was from a chain of stores conveniently located right across the borders with New York and New Jersey — states with fireworks banned. This mailing is actually pretty terrifying — in addition to being a horrible example of design. It offers users such delights as aerial repeaters and mortar kits with names such as “Molotov Cocktail,” “Core Reactor” and “Lock and Load,” which, conveniently, is described as “barely legal.”

It’s a nightmarish array. And there’s no goddamn point. This stuff will make a lot of noise and occasional sparks — and do nothing else for its users or the poor souls who have to listen to this stuff. Not to mention the potential for physical harm to the people who set this stuff off or people who happen to be standing in the wrong place.

Unfortunately, as a well-written New York Times piece by my former colleague Stacy Cowley points out, New York is caving on this. New laws allow for individual counties to sell fireworks at temporary stands around the Fourth of July and New Year’s. The reasoning makes economic sense — why should Pennsylvania benefit from the idiocy of firecracker sales when that money could stay here? It’s just that it’s just plain stupid.

4. BTW, here’s the ironic part of this fireworks mailing. The company that sent it is headquartered in Youngstown, Ohio — on Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.

1. It’s Monday, June 29, 2015.

2. Eight years ago today, Apple introduced the iPhone. Also known as my second brain.

3. Steven Matz. It’s a good day to be a Met fan. For a change. 

4. I’m elated about the Supreme Court decision on same-sex marriage. But since the decision, I’ve asked myself how it came to pass that I think this is a really good thing — when I know there was a time in my adult life when I would have felt otherwise. What was the process that convinced me that every adult has the right to marry another adult who they love?

I’m not the only one who’s “evolved” on this issue — “evolved” being the word President Obama used to describe his own position on the matter. I think there are three revelations that got me to this point.

The first is the most important. It’s love. It’s my good fortune to love the woman to whom I’ve been married for 29 years and almost two months. When I think about the quality and depth of that love, it would be selfish to think that I’m the only one entitled to it.

And when I think about how much I dislike dogs, asparagus and fireworks, I realize that everyone has different ideas on liking and loving. So the first revelation is the idea that you’re entitled to like what you like and love who you love.

But there are opponents of same-sex marriage who share that viewpoint of love. So the second revelation has to do with the so-called “sanctity” of marriage.

Several years back, there was a story about a celebrity who went on a weekend bender and married an acquaintance of the opposite sex. And a few days, after the hangover, the couple divorced. It generated the usual gossip column wink and public attention.

But it hit me differently. This happened about the time that same-sex couples were beginning to pursue court cases and seek legislation allowing them to wed. The couples that were challenging the status quo were often people who had been together in loving relationships for decades. They had celebrated triumphs and endured hardships, the same way my wife and I have.

So how is the relationship such as that of the celebrity couple, formulated in bourbon or cocaine, more legitimate in the eyes of the law than one forged in love and tested by the complexities of two people’s lives? I couldn’t answer that question other than to say that I saw more of what I believe marriage is about in the same-sex couple.

The third revelation is the embarrassment of being on the other side of this issue. Who are you with when you oppose same-sex marriage? The Westboro Baptist Church. Ted Cruz. Ann Coulter. And that citadel of matrimonial sanctity, Donald Trump. When those are the people expressing themselves in strong opposition to something, you almost automatically know the other side of the argument is the right one. You’re obligated by God or, if you don’t believe in God, whatever moral force drives your universe to believe the opposite.

Marriage is great. The bond to someone you love more than anyone or anything else makes joy more joyful and pain more bearable. And the conclusion you reach when you think about it — really, seriously think about it — isn’t to ask why should people of the same sex be allowed to marry. It’s why shouldn’t they.

1. It’s Thursday, June 25, 2015.

2. We’re now halfway between last Christmas and next Christmas.

3. I haven’t written anything for this blog for a while. There are several reasons, none of which are all that interesting. I intend to be more active starting next week (I know I’ve said that before, so I accept and understand your skepticism).

4. But I do have a few things I want to say before I come back on Monday.

5. Does it say something about the Affordable Care Act that it has been saved twice by a Supreme Court dominated by Republicans? That something is that the ACA, aka Obamacare, is a fairly Republican idea — merchants in the healthcare industry, from doctors to insurers, compete for additional business created when everyone has to have coverage.

If you don’t believe that, look at the stock charts. Just as an example, the health insurer Cigna is trading at 5 times what it was in 2010, when ACA passed.  

If was just up to Democrats, we would have expanded Medicare and gone the full national healthcare thing, like our friends in the U.K., and we all would have paid more in taxes to support it. But, alas, it’s not just up to the most liberal among us.

So we have this alternative that’s not bad — except that the people who would normally love this thing spit on the ground whenever it’s mentioned. That’s because the Democrat who wanted to reconcile the country by going the more conservative route actually succeeded in getting it through.

It’s a victory for everyone — for people who need help paying for healthcare and for companies that provide healthcare (see those stock charts again). But, because the right hates Obama so much, it has chosen to forfeit its share of the glory on a great day for the American people.

6. I have always been offended by the Confederate flag. It is the ultimate symbol of treason.

With the blessings of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution that you’ve chosen to rebuke, you are entitled to stick it on your car or in front of your house. That doesn’t change the fact that you’re a traitor. If my tax money were going to support the hoisting of this traitors’ flag, I’d be really pissed.

So it’s nice that states that have acquiesced in this disloyalty are having second thoughts.

Unfortunately, it took the massacre of nine loyal Americans in a Charleston church to raise this awareness. For that, I’m still profoundly sad.

7. Next week, I’ll figure out how I want to do this everyday. For real.

1. It’s Tuesday, June 9, 2015.

2. t’s Aaron Sorkin’s 54th birthday. Talk faster when you’re walking today.

3. As of 10 a.m. ET, three of the lead stories on The New York Times’ homepage had something to do with the mistreatment of young African-Americans by law enforcement. The shooting of a 12-year-old boy in Cleveland last year. A video showing a Texas policeman wrestling a girl to the ground and waving a gun at a pool party. The suicide of a young man who spent three years in New York City’s jail, much of it in isolation, without standing trial.

This, folks, is pathetic.

Here’s a reminder to everyone. The people being abused in these cases, not to mention some of the others that have cropped up in the past few years (the Eric Garner case in Staten Island is one that especially sickens me), are people. They have the same rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness that I have, that you have, that anyone with a billion dollars or anyone with less than a buck have.

Their lives matter. It’s long past time that people wearing uniforms start recognizing that. When you’re given a badge, you’re entitled to respect and a measure of authority. You are not above the law. You are not entitled to abuse that authority.

I find it hard to believe that people in law enforcement aren’t embarrassed by this. I can’t imagine that they measure success by fatalities and fear induced.

If better training is needed, then get it. I and everyone else pay enough in taxes to make sure law enforcement is properly prepared to handle all situations. We don’t pay enough to handle the fallout when those in law enforcement decide they’re in a war with people of color.

This epidemic of law enforcement cowboyism needs to end. Now.  

1. It’s Monday, June 1, 2015. This year is flying by, isn’t it?

2. Today is the 35th anniversary of CNN’s debut. As a proud alumnus, I think about the amazing things this all-news network has done to enlighten and inform the world over the years. Beijing in 1989. Baghdad in 1991. New Orleans in 2005. Wall Street in 2008. Tripoli in 2010. The dedication and integrity of the most talented reporters, editors and producers in global journalism. That’s what I’m choosing to remember on this day. 

3. The Senate’s non-action on the Patriot Act renewal should present an opportunity, in a nation dedicated to both protecting its freedom and protecting its citizens, for something that does both.

Unfortunately, we don’t seem to be clear-headed enough to sort this out — which is a shame, because it’s clear that the fear many of us shared immediately after the 9/11 attacks has abated.

The legislation the House passed with a large bipartisan vote might not have been perfect to all. But at least it was a start toward making everyone a little less worried about government intrusion into our lives, while maintaining a vigilance against people who want to kill indiscriminately. 

1. It’s Wednesday, May 20, 2015.

2. David Letterman’s 33 years on late-night television crept up on everyone. It’s hard to believe he’s been working in the thick of the night for so long, and that he’s actually retiring.

I have to confess that I have never watched an entire “The Late Show with David Letterman” on CBS. I stopped watching late talk shows when I started needing to up for work within a few hours of his sign-off.

But back in the early ’80s when I was working for the AP in the evenings, it was Letterman’s NBC “Late Night” show that was on when I got home. I usually missed the first few minutes, but it was still a good show to watch in order to wind down from the day. Since then, I’ve watched the Top Ten and any viral snippets online.

That, in a way, epitomizes the state of late-night television. Back before the Web and DVRs, you had to watch Letterman, Carson and any of the others in real time. The idea of watching the whole show, or just the best bits, the next day was nonexistent. It’s just one of those changes that, like David Letterman’s career, crept up on us.

To the point that very few people watching Letterman remember that most TV stations ran the national anthem and a test pattern at about the time his show normally ends. The changes are wondrous, but they make you realize how so many things in our lives change without much warning in a fast-moving world.

Tonight, as David Letterman joins me in the strange and wonderful world of retirement, I will make a point of watching the show. In large part, it’ll be because he’s a wonderful entertainer. But in large part, it’ll also be because this is a part of my life experience that, like black-and-white TVs and mailboxes on the corner, is disappearing. At least this time, I know it’s happening.

3. The Filipinos apparently have shamed Malaysia and Indonesia into taking the Myanmar boat refugees. And I think the rest of the world should help all the countries resettle these folks and avoid at least one humanitarian tragedy.