1. It’s Friday, April 17, 2015. The weekend is nearly upon us.

2. Few things I read choke me up. Here’s what did today: the Boston Globe piece by the parents of the 8-year-old boy killed in the Boston Marathon bombing.

In the piece, Bill and Denise Richard say they do not want Dzhokhar Tsarnaev put to death following his conviction last week for his role in the bombing. They say they have suffered enough — that the appeals and the continued attention to Tsarnaev will just delay what they have to do: Rebuild their lives.

“We hope our two remaining children do not have to grow up with the lingering, painful reminder of what the defendant took from them, which years of appeals would undoubtedly bring,” the Richards write.

As brutal a price as all of Boston has paid for those moments of terror two years ago, the Richard family has suffered even more. Besides losing their son, their 7-year-old daughter was maimed in the blasts. They’ve had to listen to — and give — testimony in court about what happened that sad April day. They’ve had to see the focus on one of the two losers who committed the crime.

They want it to end. Who can blame them? I can’t fathom the pain those people feel every single day.

And yet they had the strength to write this piece. We all have our reasons for wanting either death or life in a cell for the pillbug who did what he did. The Richards make an eloquent case for life in a cell. It’s worth reading – and any tears that might come with it.

3. April 17 is the 54th anniversary of one of the biggest blunders of American history: the invasion by Cuban exiles attempting to overthrow Fidel Castro at the Bay of Pigs.

There’s likely to be some anti-American sentiment expressed, as usual. But this anniversary is quite a bit different than the other 53 now that President Obama has acted to normalize relations with Cuba.

As The Guardian reports, some in Cuba — where they still drive American cars from the ‘50s and miss Coca-Cola — are optimistic. Unfortunately, the ideologues in Congress are unlikely to lift the worthless embargo that has been in effect since the ‘60s.

There’s no denying the Castros’ contribution to regional instability and oppression since they took over in 1959. But despite the embargo — or maybe even because of it — they’re still around. It’s actually pretty amazing when you think about it.

Anyway, if something doesn’t work for half a century, you don’t keep doing it. We’ve moved on from Vietnam. It’s time to move on from Cuba.

4. I will be in good spirits Monday if the Mets are still in first place. If not, prepare for crankiness.

1. It’s Thursday, April 16, 2015.

2. This part of April seems to have a disproportionate number of anniversaries of historic events. Lee’s surrender to Grant on April 9. The death of President Franklin D. Roosevelt on the 12th. The sinking of the Titanic and the shooting of Abraham Lincoln on the 14th. The death of Lincoln and the Major League Baseball debut of Jackie Robinson on the 15th. So I was curious about the 16th, and used Wikipedia (sorry, research purists).

And the event that caught my eye was April 16, 2007.

On that day, I was sitting at my desk in the CNNMoney newsroom when the big screens starting showing chaos on the campus of Virginia Tech University. There was an active shooter, and amid the snowflakes of an unseasonably cold April day in the Appalachians, that shooter took the lives of 32 students and faculty members before deciding to kill himself.

The young man was mentally ill. But somehow, he had been able to procure semi-automatic weapons.

At the time, my daughter was within two years of going off to college. And I thought about the horror that the victims’ families endured — I’m sure they still do. It’s a parent’s nightmare – you send the ultimate manifestation of your love out into the world and hope or pray that they’re safe. And then somebody whose mind is unstable inflicts pain – or worse.

Unfortunately, Virginia Tech wasn’t an isolated incident. It followed the shootings at Columbine High School in Colorado. It preceded the shootings at the Century Theater in Aurora, Colo., and at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. and lots of others that are about as heinous. And while there were some federal gun laws tightened after Virginia Tech, the jackasses who believe everyone should be armed have managed to stop other reasonable measures to make firearms safer and keep them out of the hands of insane people.

As sad and as angry as it makes me, I’m glad I looked this up. I’m glad that the people associated with Virginia Tech are taking time to remember, both on the Blacksburg campus and around the nation.

With all that happens, you sometimes forget events that, at the time, were all consuming. If only to honor the 32 innocent people who died that day, I’m going to try to keep remembering why April 16th is as significant as the days before it. 

3. Carly Fiorina, the former CEO of Hewlett-Packard, says nominating her for President will allow the Republicans to nullify Hillary Clinton’s ability to galvanize the women’s vote.

In case you were unaware, Carly Fiorina is a woman. I’m sure she’d want that known for certain.

Here’s the point that I believe Ms. Florina is missing. Hillary Clinton isn’t going to get a large amount of support from women just because she’s a woman. If Ms. Clinton does get that support, it will be because she has successfully captured the sentiments of American women about such issues as equal pay, income inequality, health care, control over their own bodies, same-sex marriage and war. (Which, by the way, happen to be issues a lot of men are interested in as well.)

I think there’s a snowball’s chance in hell that Carly Fiorina will get very far in a White House bid. But if she tries to do it by saying “Hey, I’m a woman, too,” she’s got even less chance than that snowball. 

1. It’s Wednesday, April 15, 2015. It’s the 68th anniversary of Jackie Robinson’s debut for the Brooklyn Dodgers.

2. Oh yeah, it’s also the day you are required to file your 2014 tax return.

3. I paid a lot to the IRS this year. That’s not what bothers me. Paying my taxes, no matter how much they are, doesn’t bother me. I live in this country, I take advantage of what it provides me, I’m cooling with paying my share — and even some of the share of people who can’t afford to pay their share. I believe in government, and I’ll put my money where my mouth is.

4. That said, I hate the process of doing taxes. Hate it. And I have someone do my taxes for me. If I had to do my taxes myself, I’d go crazy. The forms. The gathering of data. The figuring out who gets what.

5. If you haven’t done your taxes, or you have but you haven’t paid what you owe the IRS, the person who can help you the most at 10 a.m. on April 15 is my former colleague Jeanne Sahadi at CNNMoney. I’m convinced Jeanne knows more about the tax process than most of the people at IRS headquarters. Her Twitter handle is @jjsahadi and her most recent stories are: http://money.cnn.com/2015/04/13/pf/taxes/irs-payment-plans/index.html http://money.cnn.com/2015/03/09/pf/taxes/filing-your-taxes/index.html

6. The Mets are either going to make this a season to remember, or drive me nuts before the end of April. Or both. Last night’s game — the return of pitcher Matt Harvey to Flushing — was expected to be a tour de force for the wunderkind. But he struggled a bit and, in the process, there were hit batsmen, a stupid catcher’s interference call and an injury to Mets captain David Wright. The Mets won, though, and there’s always something good about that. 

1. It’s Tuesday, April 14, 2015.

2. It’s the 150th anniversary of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. If you get to Washington, the tour of Ford’s Theater and the room across the street where Lincoln died the next morning is worth your time. 

3. Is there really any chance at all that there actually will be a final nuclear accord with Iran? The Obama administration is trying to sell the deal to senators and congressman. The president is trying to sell it to Jewish leaders worried about the deal’s impact on Israel. Everybody has ideas on how the deal could be better — all of which are negative to the other party in the deal, Iran. And let’s face facts here — while the American people are generally OK with the idea of an agreement with Iran, and definitely think it’s better than going to war, there’s no great movement out there pushing for approval. I would not bet a tin of caviar that President Obama and President Hassan Rouhani of Iran show up in Lausanne for a signing ceremony. 

4. Today is the first anniversary of the seizure of more than 200 Nigerian girls by the terrorist group Boko Haram. These assholes have gotten away with this heinous crime so far. But there are people in the world with long memories. And we can’t wait to see how Boko Haram and ISIS, groups who try to shock with their horrendous treatment of women, get their comeuppance. 

1. It’s Monday, April 13, 2015.

2. It’s the home opener for the New York Mets. And, for the first time in 46 years, I’m going, thanks to the incredible generosity of my now-former colleagues at CNNMoney. I’ve been waiting for this day for months.

3. I love going to games. I love keeping score. I love the sounds of the ballpark. I love the colors – that’s one thing that struck me when I was very young, how colorful a baseball stadium is. I’ve always been fortunate to go to games with good people; I actually think I remember more about who I went to a game with than which team won.

4. One little thing: The Mets have a young shortstop named Wilmer Flores who has not gotten off to a great start this season. A couple of his throwing errors have cost the team a game or two. That happens – the young man might be trying a little too hard.

What also happens unfortunately, here in New York, is that so-called fans believe the way to correct the problem is to boo the kid. He’s going to be introduced in front of a full house on what should be one of the great days of his life, and he’s going to get booed.

That sucks. That’s not what a real fan does.

The kid didn’t make those mistakes on purpose. And, unlike one of his now-suspended teammates, he didn’t take a banned substance.

Booing him won’t stop him from throwing the ball away, and it won’t turn him into Ozzie Smith. Wilmer Flores has earned the cheers of Met fans because he’s wearing a Met uniform today. I would really love to be surprised, and hear him get the same cheers that Matt Harvey and David Wright get.

5. Hillary Clinton’s campaign-unveiling video was better than I thought it would be.

I guess I was worried it would be her sitting at a desk with pictures of Bill, Chelsea and the granddaughter, sounding overly earnest.

Instead, it was extremely well directed, and tried to cast her as one of a diverse group of Americans eagerly planning things in the future. So I was wrong about that part.

I still don’t think I’m wrong about this: She needs to campaign outside Iowa and New Hampshire in 2015. She needs to take her effort to parts of the nation that have felt left out of campaigns because of the focus on the swing states.

They’ll be plenty of time to hit Musquoketa (I’ve been there – it’s a pretty town) and Franconia Notch and Columbus and Miami Beach. The early part of her campaign should go to the states where she should win big, such as New York and California, and the states where she doesn’t have much chance, such as Alabama and Utah.

Mrs. Clinton needs to make this a campaign that embraces the nation, and shows the passion she has to help Americans who need it. That would be a winning campaign.

1. It’s Friday, April 10, 2015. It’s the weekend, or will be soon enough.

2. I have vowed, ever since the heartbreaking collapses of 2007 and 2008, to avoid vainglory when it comes to the New York Mets. As a fan, I know that every time triumph seems assured but is not yet complete, the arrogance of anticipating that triumph leads to ruin. Armando Benitez and Luis Castillo will do that to you. That said, after watching Matt Harvey return to the mound yesterday, I am a lot happier Met fan than I was even three days ago. But I promise to be patient, as humble as possible and, yes, not become vainglorious.

3. Who in their right mind likes Iran in this country? It’s a severe theocratic state that brutalizes people who don’t adhere to its ideology, and supports terror in other countries. The idea of Iran with nuclear weapons is terrifying.

But any U.S. senator or congressman, Republican or Democrat, who wants to oppose the understanding President Obama has reached with Iran or have a veto to rolling back sanctions against Tehran, needs to answer an important question: Are you willing to commit this country to war to stop Iran from getting a bomb?

If you are, you need to say it. Out loud. Clearly.

Because I’m pretty certain the American people aren’t interested in fighting Iran unless they feel it’s an absolute necessity.

We’re still cleaning up the mess that was made when it was decided that Iraq, which had nothing to do with 9/11, would pay the price for Osama bin Laden.

And anyone who believes that conflict with Iran would be short and sweet is a blithering idiot (see Bolton, John). Any attack would unify Persia against American aggression, not to mention all the sympathy it would get from other nations, Islamic and not.

So before the Congress decides that it would rather torpedo the accord with Iran than take a chance, it should understand the consequences of its action.

And it would help if each senator or congressman who votes for war agree to send a member of his or her family to fight — because the odds are this is being left for a bunch of American kids who will have a hard time understanding why their lives are at risk.

4. By Monday, we are expected to know if Hillary Clinton is running for President of the United States.

Here’s what bothers me: Why is she doing this in a coldly remote video announcement?

Please don’t get me wrong — I think she’d be a good commander-in-chief. I think she has all the qualifications, and I’m fairly certain that, come Nov. 8, 2016, I will cast my vote for her.

I’m sure she wants to be President. But I want her to want to run for President. 

I want her to be excited about the idea of going out and talking to people and shaking hands and mixing it up for 19 months. I want some joy and some passion about who she is, and why she should lead this country. I want her to tell me why I should be excited about her and what her vision is.

Truth be told, that’s why she lost to President Obama eight years ago. He had a great story to tell and vision to spread, and he’s an awfully good speaker. She seemed put upon to tell whatever story she had.

If I were involved in the planning, I would send Mrs. Clinton someplace symbolic — Seneca Falls or Philadelphia or Detroit — and I would gather as many people I could get on a Sunday afternoon. I would let her shout out why the nation needs her. 

And like so many others, I’m sick of the campaign being so focused on Iowa and New Hampshire, which is where she is expected to head after the video shows up on social media.

This is the time to go places where the main campaign won’t: the big cities on the East Coast and West Coast, the Southern and Rocky Mountain states that no one really believes she’s going to win. Show people that you have a vision for all 50 states, and for everybody in them.

My understanding of Hillary Clinton is that she was a child of the ‘60s, at the vanguard of the protest movements that made this country better. She needs to rekindle that passion and inspire the people who are planning to vote for her, many because the idea of one of these wacky Republicans in the White House is too horrible to contemplate.

At this juncture, the Democratic race is expected to be a coronation. But that doesn’t mean it has to be joyless and uninspiring. Hillary Clinton needs to thwart the naysayers, the narrow-minded creeps who seem to have dominated the conversation in recent months. She needs to make the heads of people on Fox News spin. 

Get out there and fight for it, Hillary. There’s plenty of time for Twitter and Facebook.

5. This was a little longer than usual. And to think I wasn’t sure what I would write about. See you Monday.

1. It’s Thursday, April 9, 2015.

2. It is great to have baseball back. Now that I’m retired, I can watch games at night without worrying about the sleep lost because the Mets lost. And, of course, the Mets did lose last night.

3. But today is Matt Harvey’s return to the mound after more than a year. So it might look overcast to non-Mets fans, but the return of the Dark Knight is a sunny day indeed for the Amazin’s. As long as they beat Washington today.

4. It’s the 150th anniversary of Lee’s surrender to Grant at Appomattox Court House in Virginia, considered to be the conclusion of the Civil War.

5. But as recent events in North Charleston, Ferguson and Staten Island remind us, the Civil War never really ended. This nation continues to be chewed up by its prejudices and its failure to recognize that all its citizens are people with hearts, minds and visions.

6. It is horrific to watch Walter Scott get gunned down like a target by a North Charleston police officer. Showing it casually on TV, in slow motion like a touchdown in the Super Bowl, continues to disrespect the humanity of Mr. Scott. I worked for a TV network for 16 years and I understand that this video is news. But showing it over and over again, as background for a TV anchor, is inappropriate. Somebody died here, and respect is owed.

7. A jury, having found Dzhokhar Tsarnaev guilty of all counts in the Boston Marathon bombing, will now decide if Tsarnaev will be put to death. Like the people who lost loved ones, the people who suffered horrendous injuries and the people who remain emotionally scarred even though they emerged uncut, my goal is justice.

Those who want Tsarnaev executed make an eloquent case that life is precious, and this miserable excuse of a human being is not entitled to anything quite so valuable.

But here’s my thought.

This jerk and his worthless brother both had to have calculated that their own death was part of the equation in their twisted plans. And they, and equally warped people around the world who share their nihilism, saw their deaths as martyrdom, a necessary and worthy price to pay for the chaos and hatred they sought to sow.

So don’t give it to them. Make the bastards suffer.

Make them see a world where the three innocent people killed that day are the heroes, the ones whose praises are sung. Make them see a world where the people they maimed and scarred are cherished and loved in the sunlight of a beautiful Boston day. Best of all, instead of the world of fear and hatred that this guy sought, make him live in a federal SuperMax prison while a world that’s tolerant and peaceful mocks him.

If you want Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to pay for his heinous crime, don’t end his misery. Make him live through it, day after day. For him, it doesn’t get better until he dies. Don’t let it get better.

1. It’s Tuesday, April 7, 2015. The Mets are in first place!

2. OK, Wisconsin didn’t do it. But the Badgers did make the Big Ten proud, and played a classic national championship game against a Duke that deserved its win. Don’t worry, Big Ten fans — next year, the Northwestern Wildcats will bring the title to the conference.

3. Is it fair to say that Duke is a “rent-a-player” team? That has been the accusation in social media and the real world on the day after its dramatic triumph.

It’s widely expected that Duke’s star freshman, Kahlil Okafor, will leave the school now that he’s won an NCAA championship and become a highly paid NBA pro. Other freshmen on the team might do the same.

Old-time basketball fans love the idea of a player spending four years at a college, peaking in his senior year and possibly winning a championship. That’s one reason Wisconsin’s Frank Kaminsky was everyone’s favorite player in the tournament — he’s a senior, it’s his turn.

But that’s not how it works. Okafor has a talent. Duke was the best place to showcase that talent so that he can do what he probably thinks is the most important thing to do: provide for himself and his family.

And if he’s about to get a big payday — he will have earned it. You don’t just show up and score 20 points for a powerhouse basketball team. He put in the work. He’ll get what’s due.

There’s been grumbling about the Duke players. Some from Wisconsin fans — perhaps a little understandable disappointment the day after. But even U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri chimed in this morning, saying “Congrats to Duke,but I was rooting for team who had stars that are actually going to college & not just doing semester tryout for NBA.” 

The fact is that Duke earned its national title. Mike Krzyzewski, Duke’s coach, has a long-standing reputation for integrity in bringing in players and making them abide by the rules. Barring any indication to the contrary, he deserves the kudos coming his way today.

Unless somebody wants to change the way college basketball is run, and reduce the jackpots that the NCAA, the schools and the TV networks win each March, give the Blue Devils their due and wait ’til next year. Even Sen. McCaskill understands that, posting: “To be clear folks, this isn’t about the kids,this is about the system.This is about the NCAA/NBA.I don’t blame the very talented athletes.”

4.   Rand Paul went to Duke. He announced today he’s running for President. I suspect his good fortune ran out last night.

5.   Stan Freberg died today. Most Americans my age and younger don’t remember him. But if you’ve ever seen a really funny commercial of the past, he might be behind it.

I really recommend this commercial for Geno’s Pizza Rolls. The commercial is, in part, a spoof of a Lark cigarette ad of the era, which had the Lone Ranger music (aka, Rossini’s “William Tell Overture”) playing as a truck rolled through a city asking people to show their Lark packs. One night, after the Geno’s ad, Johnny Carson told his audience that he had ever heard clap for a commercial.

Freberg was also a prominent satirist on radio in the ‘50s and did some television. He was part of that group that made wildly popular comedy records in the ‘60s, along with Bob Newhart, Bill Cosby, Allan Sherman, and Nichols and May.

1. It’s Tuesday, March 31, 2015. At midnight, one-quarter of 2015 will be over.

2. Note to my news editing class at William Paterson University: This is how powerful newspaper design can be.

It’s great that The Star has taken a bold stand against the ridiculous pro-bigotry law in Indiana with a front-page editorial.

My one qualm is that it gives up on the idea that the law should be repealed, seeing that as lacking political reality. After all, somebody in that state must want this stupid thing. So The Star wants the Indiana law to have the anti-discrimination protections that similar other state and federal laws have.

The problem to me is that the whole point of this law, despite the governor’s mealy mouthing, is to tell homosexuals that they are not worthy citizens of Indiana. Yes, they can pay their taxes — and the salaries of the buffoons who passed and signed this disgrace. But this law indicates they’re not worthy of the state’s full protection, while businesses that somehow see LGBT-handled money condemning them to Hell — instead of bolstering their bottom line — are premium class citizens.

The law has to be repealed. You can’t compromise with bigots. But, that said, kudos to The Indianapolis Star for otherwise standing on the correct side of morality and history.

3. I screwed up a little last week when I said I would not spend a dime of my money in Indiana when I drive through this summer. The fact that is that the fastest way through Indiana is the Indiana Toll Road. So yes, Indiana will get that money – $4.65 each way with my E-Z Pass.

So, it will be my intention to donate $9.30 to a group that opposes the legislation. I will see how things stand when I take the trip before I decide what group gets the toll money doubled.

1. It’s Monday, March 30, 2015. One week from today, it will be baseball season and the world will be right again.

2.   Sunday’s New York Post had a front page that got a lot of attention on social media. Over the headline “VILLAGE IDIOTS,” the Post showed a picture of seven young women using a selfie stick to take a picture of themselves — at the site of last week’s explosion in New York’s East Village that killed two people.

I can’t take issue with the idea that taking a selfie at the scene of a tragedy is pretty clueless

But I take more issue with the way the Post treated this.

These women are not public figures. And, as inappropriate as it seems, taking a selfie at the site of a tragedy is not a crime.

And yet, these young women are being held up as figures to scorn. They’ve been held in contempt by a publication that at least a million have read or seen online. And they’ve been singled out from among dozens of others who might have done the same thing.

What most people when they take these selfies is post them online. And what one of their thoughtful friends will do is send them a private message on Facebook or Twitter and say, hey, that’s not really appropriate. And the person who posted the picture will think about it a second and say, hey, maybe you’re right. That’s the civilized way to deal with something inappropriate.

The Post has its catchy headline and the buzz. It has aroused the anger of people who think there’s a generation of self-centered oafs coming of age. It can go on to belittling President Obama or whoever else doesn’t align with its editorial policy.

But now these young women, who somebody is going to recognize, are stuck with this ignominy for a day or a few days or however long the lifespan of this controversy.  Why were they singled out? Were they told where their picture would appear when it was being taken? Were they even told their picture was being taken?

Mass circulation newspapers, even ones as disreputable as The New York Post, have an awesome power. They have a responsibility to use it responsibly. In this case, again, the Post did not.

3.   If you want to talk about village idiots, there’s the governor of Indiana.

The reports on Saturday indicated that he was upset with the firestorm that followed his signing legislation that allowed businesses in the state to deny service to same-sex couples, citing religious reasons. So he was going to go on the Sunday talk shows and clear up the misunderstanding.

Instead, in his appearance on ABC’s “This Week” he said that the law would not change and insisted it did not promote discrimination. But he couldn’t say why it didn’t, and he didn’t think there’s a need for legislation that protects same-sex couples from discrimination. 

His explanation was so bad that two of the miscreants who promoted the garbage legislation announced today that the legislature would consider some kind of clarifying measure. But, they too, can’t say what the clarification would be, saying only that the governor didn’t do a good job of explaining things on TV.

This is what to expect when you try to dis people. It always bites you back. These people all deserve each other — and the contempt that they’ve brought upon themselves.

4.   Some of those upset by the Indiana debacle are suggesting that the NCAA men’s basketball championships scheduled for next weekend in Indianapolis be moved.

I understand the sentiment, but it’s not a reasonable thing to do at this point.

You can’t just move an event as big as the tournament that quickly. Hotel rooms are booked, travel plans are made, time off from work is granted and lots of temporary jobs — of people who might well be just as opposed to what Indiana’s so-called leaders have done — are at stake. 

I would, however, strongly urge the NCAA to make absolutely certain that any invitation to the governor or state legislators to attend tournament-related events be rescinded. Revoke their tickets, if they have them, saying the tournament is not an event for their benefit.

If they squawk, just cite the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. It’s against your religion to suffer fools gladly.