1. It’s really early on Thursday, July 7, 2016.

2. I can’t guarantee I’m awake. But this is going out at a time when my Twitter feed is quiet. I’ll talk about this time of day sometime soon.

3. There was a small surprise this Fourth of July holiday. It came from a guy named John Cena, who – and I had to look this up because I’d heard the name but had no idea what he did – is a pro wrestler.

Here’s how Cena surprised me, and lots of other folks: Over the holiday, he appeared in a 3-plus minute public service video. (You can watch it here) In it, he ruminates on the nature of patriotism. 

Instead of extolling the virtues of our military might, he discussed the virtues of our people. That, in fact, the reason to love America, his definition of patriotism, is the diversity of the nation.

Cena asks viewers to close their eyes and imagine a “typical American.” And then he debunks the stereotypical image with facts – a shocking thing to do in 2016.  

The fact that 51% of the nation is female. That there are 9 million LGBT Americans, more than the whole population of Virginia. That there are 3 million Muslims, three times the number of people who serve in the military.

He dishes out statistics like bodyslams, and with equal effectiveness. By the time the spot is over, he is showing you “typical Americans,” and they are all different from one another.

Patriotism isn’t pride in the country, it’s loving the country, he says. And loving the country means loving the people who live here – the implication being that if you don’t, you’re not really a patriot.

It is a powerful three minutes and 35 seconds.

My first reaction was to be skeptical. We’ve been conditioned that way in 2016. What is the point of this?

My second reaction was to think that this public service ad, almost by definition apolitical, is a profound political statement.

It’s basically telling the country to stop the bashing. That “real” Americans aren’t just white, male and Christian. It celebrates who we are, and what we’re supposed to stand for.

And don’t. Or at least not in Trump’s dystopia.

John Cena has delivered one of the few feelgood moments of 2016 so far. It’s as nice as it is unexpected.

4. It’s also not unique.

I was reminded of “The House I Live In,” a short film that came out just after World War II. (You can watch this here)

In it, a group of boys corners another kid in an alley outside a recording studio, taunting him. Frank Sinatra, who has just finished laying down a track for an LP, has just stepped outside for a smoke (this is 1945, and that was considered cool). He sees the kids and intervenes.

Turns out the guys are taunting the boy because he’s Jewish and he doesn’t “belong” in the neighborhood.

Sinatra calls the kids Nazis, because their actions are similar. The kids protest, because their fathers had just fought a war against the Nazis.

He points out how Jewish Americans helped win the war and donated blood that might have saved one of the kid’s dads.

Sinatra then sings a song called, of course, “The House I Live In,” that includes a line that indicates he loves other Americans regardless of race or creed.

This was powerful stuff for 1945. It won a special Academy Award the next year, and my mother says the film was required viewing when she was in junior high and high school.

Sinatra, who was still a rising star when the film was made, had a reputation of being for what we used to call “brotherhood.” He was a hero to African-American and Jewish groups for taking a stand against bigotry.

5. John Cena and Frank Sinatra are right, of course.

My grandparents came to this country from Italy. For a long time, they were treated with contempt as ignorant, dirty and criminal. There’s still a residue of the criminal stereotype whenever people talk about “mafias.”

My wife and her family emigrated from Hong Kong in the 1960s. She’s in the process of writing a book about her dad’s struggles in China during World War II and the revolution, and upon coming to America to support a large family.

I’m writing this in a park with people speaking in Spanish about 50 yards away. A little beyond them is a young man in a yarmulke. And not far away, there are women in hijabs who look to be spreading out an Eid al-Fitr picnic.

The diversity of this country is gorgeous. It makes it special. It makes this day in the park that much better.

It also seems to scare the hell out of people.

Mostly white people. I won’t say that it only scares people in the middle of the country, because there are too many TRUMP signs in yards around here.

They’re afraid that the country they’ve known is going away.

Because it is.

It’s expected that, by the middle of this century, unadulterated Caucasians will be a minority of Americans. Latinos, African-Americans and Asian-Americans will form a minority majority.

It seems to scare people when they hear different languages, or see strange foods. Or when their neighbors don’t look like them.

That’s the power of the phrase “Make America Great Again.” It implies that Trump has the ability to bring back the 1950s before all those people got here. It’s reflected in the dopey things he says like how he’s going to force people to say “Merry Christmas” because wishing people a “Happy Holiday” means acknowledging the chances in our society.

But America isn’t great without its diversity. Collectively, we make this the United States. Out of many, one. E pluribus unum.

At least that’s what John Cena says. And I think, in this case, he’s even smarter than he is strong.

1. It’s Wednesday, July 6, 2016.

2. Eid mubarak to all who celebrate. I hope your Ramadan brought you peace and your holiday to mark its end is joyous.

3. British politicians are spending the day rehashing the 2003 Iraq War. It’s almost as if it’s a distraction from the Brexit problems of the past two weeks.

The catalyst for the rehash is the report from an independent inquiry into the United Kingdom’s involvement in the conflict. The report, seven years in the making, is named for Sir John Chilcot, who chaired the panel.

The report’s key finding should come as no surprise to Americans: Britain went to war on the side of the United States before all peaceful options to resolve the conflict with Saddam Hussein were exhausted.

Basically, the war – which killed 179 Britons along with more than 4,000 Americans and anywhere between 150,000 and 500,000 Iraqis – was unnecessary and begun in haste on the basis of faulty intelligence.

The Prime Minister at the time, Tony Blair, comes in for scathing criticism for acquiescing to President George W. Bush’s push for war and not presenting all options to his cabinet at the time. Blair, in comments today, says he takes “full responsibility for any mistakes without exception or excuse.”

But Blair defends the idea of toppling Saddam Hussein, saying the world is better off without him and that his death is the not the reason the Islamic State exists.

4. In that, Blair might have a problem with the guy who is 15 days away from accepting the Republican presidential nomination.

Last night, when he could have just made headlines attacking Hillary Clinton for her e-mail problems (I’ll get to that in a bit), Trump couldn’t help himself. He started talking about all the ways America is losing, including on terrorism.

And then he started talking about Saddam Hussein.

“He was a bad guy — really bad guy,” said Trump at a rally in Raleigh, N.C. “But you know what? He did well? He killed terrorists. He did that so good. They didn’t read them the rights. They didn’t talk. They were terrorists. Over. Today, Iraq is Harvard for terrorism.”

So basically, in Trump’s dystopia, it didn’t matter whether Saddam mistreated his people. The deprivation of rights didn’t matter. His attempts to attack Israel didn’t matter. 

Saddam killed terrorists. He didn’t have no stinkin’ Miranda rule. Just kill ‘em first, ask questions later. What Trump thinks a leader does.

I’m skeptical that anyone in Trump World is likely to bring up the Chilcot Report. Its problem is that it is too grounded in the real world to impact Trump and his sycophants. He’d agree that we shouldn’t have gone to war, but wonder why there’s a need for a postmortem.

The idea that we work together to avoid making mistakes again seems alien to someone who thinks he has the answers to everything.

5. In her first years after law school, Hillary Rodham worked as an adviser to the House Judiciary Committee during its impeachment inquiry of Richard Nixon. So it’s likely she would have been well aware of all the catch-phrases of the Watergate era.

One was “modified limited hangout.” It was something that John Ehrlichman, Nixon’s assistant for domestic affairs, well, modified from the phrase “limited hangout” meaning the revelation of a little of the truth in order to preserve the secrecy of other information. It’s a phrase that appears in the March 22, 1973 transcript from the infamous tapes Nixon made that pretty much sealed his fate.

Now she’s Hillary Rodham Clinton, 22 days from her presidential nomination speech at the Democratic convention in Philadelphia. But before that big moment, she has to forego the “modified limited hangout” or worse, to use another Watergate word, “stonewalling” when it comes to her use of a private e-mail server as Secretary of State.

When FBI Director James Comey announced yesterday that the bureau wasn’t recommending criminal prosecution of Clinton in the e-mail matter, that was the only good thing he said. Everything else – everything – severely questioned her judgment and prudence, two things you would think are important traits in judging a President of the United States.

Because she was already committed yesterday to campaigning with President Obama in North Carolina, it was hard for Clinton to address Comey’s remarks.

But she needs to take a few days and then come up with a way to respond. She needs to reassure the nation that she understands what she did wrong, why there was no malicious intent and what she’ll do in the future to ensure that she and others won’t repeat the mistakes.

My first thought was a one-on-one interview with someone whose journalistic chops are unimpeachable. This means someone such as Judy Woodruff or Gwen Ifill at PBS. It can’t be Oprah. Or Ellen.

What might be better though is a news conference. A no-questions-barred throwdown with the folks who cover her regularly and even those who don’t. She should be prepared to answer any and all questions about the e-mail flap and anything else that comes up.

The key word here is “all.” There’s a lot of mistrust of Clinton. Her unfavorable ratings would be the worst in the history of presidential candidates if it weren’t for her opponent.

So she should answer anything and everything. For as long as it takes.

She should watch “The West Wing” episode from the final season when Alan Alda’s character, a Republican senator whose support of nuclear power runs up against a fatal accident at a southern California plant, exhausts reporters by going on for hours answering questions and puts the controversy aside.

That’s fiction, but it worked in real life for Gov. Chris Christie after it was revealed that aides deliberately fouled up traffic in Fort Lee, N.J., as political retribution. Christie took responsibility for the incident, announced the dismissal of aides tied to the scandal, and answered questions for nearly two hours. He diffused talk of his leaving office, voluntarily or not, and minimized the damage at least temporarily.

6. That’s what Hillary Clinton needs to do, and she needs to do it sometime before July 25, when the Democrats begin meeting in Philadelphia. If she needs to take her time to do it right, then take it.

But do it. No “modified limited hangout.” The whole enchilada, another cliché that’s modified Watergatian.

The next President of the United States is either her, a woman whose qualifications are otherwise impeccable, or a guy who wishes he could treat opponents the way Saddam Hussein did. She can’t lose.

1. It’s Tuesday, July 5, 2016.

2. OK, it’s not much of a surprise that the FBI isn’t recommending charges against Hillary Clinton concerning the private e-mail server she used as Secretary of State. Only the real right-wing crackpots with the “Hillary for Prison” bumper stickers thought that would happen or would be appropriate.

But it is not correct to say that Clinton is off the hook.

She and her team screwed up when they set up the server. FBI Director James Comey says they were “extremely careless” in the handling of important e-mails, including a few that were classified.

So, Clinton should not, under any circumstances, say she’s been exonerated. No, she’s not legally culpable. But she did something for which she needs to apologize to the American people and promise that she will be more careful if she’s elected President in November.

A candid interview with a strong journalist – a Judy Woodruff or a Scott Pelley – would help.

3. America did something really great for its 240th birthday.

NASA confirmed last night that the Juno spacecraft entered Jupiter’s orbit, performing a complex maneuver after traveling 1.7 billion miles in nearly five years.

After about three months of making sure everything works OK, the spacecraft will begin its work trying to determine what the biggest planet in solar system is all about. In the process, it will tell us about the other planets in our system and the development of other systems.

Juno will hang about 3,000 miles away from Jupiter for more than a year before self-destructing.

It is a point of American pride that, so far, we are the only nation ever to put people on the moon. We have also pioneered the exploration of our solar system, landing vehicles on Mars and photographing so much of the planet that we can start drawing maps and make conclusions about its composition.

That’s what the United States, in peaceful partnership with the rest of the world, is capable of doing. When we welcome the best and brightest. When we confront something we don’t know and embrace the knowledge of it. When we shun ignorance and small-mindedness.

If you’re not proud of what we accomplished last night, you’re completely missing the point of the United States of America. It’s not enough to be the world’s most powerful nation. In thousands of years, we will be judged for how we advanced civilization and the human race.

The Juno mission is a gold star for us. It’s up in the western sky tonight, right next to a big honkin’ planet.

4. Hope everyone had a nice Independence Day.

I did, partly because my Mets came back from a 6-0 hole to beat the Miami Marlins, 8-6. I wasn’t at the game, and when I saw they were coming back I didn’t turn on the TV for fear I would interrupt the positive karma.

But then, after the game, the Mets decided to bring up Jose Reyes from the minor leagues.

As I wrote last week, I’m a little troubled by the decision to bring back someone who was one of the most popular players in franchise history. Last Halloween, Reyes was arrested for allegedly grabbing his wife by the neck and shoving her into a sliding glass door at a Maui hotel.

He wasn’t prosecuted because his wife declined to press charges – as, apparently, happens all too often in alleged domestic abuse cases. But Major League Baseball imposed a 52-game suspension without pay, and the team he was playing for, the Colorado Rockies, released him last month.

When Reyes was a Met, he was a joy to watch. He was young, fast and flashy. But he left as a free agent in 2011 as the team was wandering through the morass caused by the owners’ embrace of Bernard Madoff.

He’s older now, 33, and not likely to be the spark plug he was a decade ago.

But that’s not why the acquisition is troubling. It’s troubling because I’m a fan who likes to think of the players I root for as good guys. Pillars of the community. Teams – not just the Mets – promote that sort of thing, showing their players visiting disabled veterans or dishing out meals at a homeless shelter.

Now you’re bringing in a guy who, while not convicted, walks under a cloud for what he might have done to his wife. It’s upsetting.

On the other hand, he has paid the maximum price for how he stands under the law. Again, he’s not a convict, and in this country that still should mean something. So the Mets are giving him a second chance.

I would prefer they didn’t. But I hope he makes the best of it. Most importantly, I’d like to see him speak out about how spousal abuse ruins lives – victims, children, parents, extended family and, yes, the abuser.

The fans at Citi Field will be singing the Jose-d out words to a popular soccer song the first time he triples to the right field corner. Let’s hope he reminds them that it’s never OK to hurt people you love.

1. It’s still Monday, the 4th of July.

2. It’s a sunny, warm afternoon here in New York’s northern suburbs. It’s quiet. Not a lot of traffic. People are at the park, at home, watching TV, chilling. This seems like a perfect way to celebrate American independence and the freedom to pursue happiness.

3. Alas, all that will end starting in about five hours.

At that point, somebody will remember that they blew $100 on firecrackers and decide, hey, this is a good time to use them.

So, instead of keeping the mellow going, and letting everyone else in the neighborhood keep the mellow going, somebody gets a match and makes noise.

And that’s all they really do.

4. There is nothing constructive or creative about firecrackers. There is nothing pretty about firecrackers. They are not an art form. Other than how to instantly amputate yourself, they serve no educational purpose.

And yet, tonight, to mark 240 years of American freedom, people are going to blow these stupid things up. In the process, they’ll deny many of their fellow citizens all of the following: the right to peace of mind, freedom from fear of scary noises, and sleep.

They’ll even – and anyone who knows me will be shocked to see this – scare the hell out of their and everyone else’s pets, perhaps for days. The Fourth of July might be the only day of the year when dogs and I are in sympathy.

5. According to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, about 8,000 people spent a part of the month around July 4 in a hospital emergency room. Firecrackers.

One of those 8,000 was New York Giants defensive end Jason Pierre-Paul. He blew two fingers off of a hand he needs to get paid millions of dollars to throw quarterbacks to the ground. Firecrackers. He’s not using any this year.

Why do people feel the need to blow things up to celebrate a holiday? How do people derive joy from loud noises? Why do they persist in risking limb and life – 11 people were killed from the nonoccupational use of fireworks, according to the CPSC – to be able to make a boom sounds?

It seems almost primitive, except Heidelberg Man didn’t have firecrackers.

Maybe it’s a love of danger. Loud noises imply danger. Thunder. Cannon fire. Sonic booms. Metallica.

Maybe it’s an American thing. We’re also big on popcorn, the loudest food to make.

I don’t get it. Even if you’ve got this craving for a loud noise, doesn’t it go away after the first one? Doesn’t the excitement of the boom fade after the second, or tenth, or 147th?

6. According to The New York Times, it used to be worse. The paper, citing American Medical Association data, said 1,500 people were killed in fireworks-related accidents in a period between 1903 and 1910. Government regulation and outright bans of sales helped bring that number down.

But, like other things, this is slipping. Some states are more lax about fireworks than others.

Here in the Northeast, Pennsylvania is the haven. So much so that there’s one merchant who advertises fireworks sales just a short drive from New York. Go there, stock up on stuff that you can’t get in the mommy Empire State, and then blow it up – illegally, if need be – wherever you can.

So what does New York do? Crack down on firecrackers from out of state because of the damage they can do to the peace of a community or hurts a bystander?

Nah. The state made it legal for the merchant to come in and sell sparklers, which are only marginally less dangerous than firecrackers. The merchant has set up tents throughout the area where people can stock up on the crap.

I guess we’re losing all that tax money to Pennsylvania, and weak-kneed politicians don’t want it. I’d rather pay more in income tax.

7. Don’t get me wrong. I’m OK with professional fireworks displays. I watch them at Disney World. I watched one at Citi Field the other night after the Mets beat the Cubs (they would have had them anyway, but I just like writing “the Mets beat the Cubs.”) They can be pretty. They can be creative. They can be fun. They can be uplifting.

Firecrackers are worthless. They have no redeeming value. They’re loud and scary and unfair to people (and other creatures) who don’t want to put up with them. They have a high risk of injury and a higher risk of making this a long, sleepless night.

There, there, Fido. We’ll get through it. We usually do. But it still stinks.

1. It’s Monday, July 4, 2016.

2. Happy Independence Day!

3. Two thoughts about Trump’s idiotic weekend tweet:

I. When I say or do something that’s can be perceived to be wrong or offensive in any way, I’m blessed with people around me who without hesitation will say “Mark (or Dad), that’s not cool.” After a moment, I’ll say “Oh, OK, let me think of something else.”

And I don’t have hundreds of people traveling with me or hanging on to my every word.

Was there no one in Trump’s retinue of sycophants with a speck of awareness who could go to him and say, “Hey, your worship, that looks like a Star of David – it might distract people from your message”?

II. The tweet was Saturday. It’s Monday. It’s a holiday weekend. If he had just shut up, if he could have just resisted the impulse to recycle an anti-Semitic hit on Hillary Clinton, he could have made no news for three days. That would have helped rather than hurt him.

The impulsiveness doesn’t seem to be an attractive trait for someone who could possibly take this country to war.

4. Any moron who believes “radical Islam” is at war with the West should look at the past few days.

There was the airport attack in Istanbul that killed 41 people and the attack on a Dhaka, Bangladesh, restaurant that killed 22 people. And, the latest and worst, the attack on a Baghdad market that killed 200 people.

All but a few of the victims of these attacks were Muslims. Two of the three countries where the attacks took place have vast Sunni majorities, the other – Iraq – is more divided between Sunni and Shiite.

The victims were probably all looking forward to the end of Ramadan and the celebration of Eid al-Fatr, which is expected to take place tomorrow. Instead, they were killed wantonly, and they leave hundreds of families in unspeakable grief.

The scum that committed these attacks don’t worship Allah. They worship death. They worship pain. They worship thuggery. They worship subjugation of others.

And any time a politician in the West pays them the compliment of calling them a representative of Islam, by saying that they are “radical Islam,” they are adding to the pain of thousands of Muslims killed by people hiding behind their faith.

5. There is a tendency here to dismiss an attack such as the one in Baghdad as just one of those things that happens in that part of the world.

But 200 people dying for going shopping should offend us, whatever their nationality, race, gender, creed or where the hell it happens. It should offend us when it happens in Baghdad or Tel Aviv or Brussels or Orlando.

That’s simple humanity, which is supposed to be what our side stands for.

1. It’s Sunday, July 3, 2016.

2. It’s like the first of two Sundays this holiday weekend.

This really is Sunday. If you’re Christian and faithful, you’ve been to church today. Anyplace where stores usually close on Sunday has closed stores. Most of Major League Baseball will play day games. The talk shows were on this morning.

But this is a unique Sunday. Call it a Sunday with benefits. The sadness you feel, especially this time of the year, because the weekend is ending? Not today. The planning and shopping you do to get ready for a week of going to work and sending the kids to school or camp? You can pass.

That’s because you’re off tomorrow. Tomorrow is the Fourth of July. It’s Monday, but who cares. No work. No school or camp. Not even church.

Now, it’s going to feel like a Sunday, because you’ve got to get ready for the shortened workweek. But hey, you already had a pretty nice Sunday this weekend, so don’t get greedy.

It’s hard to beat having the Fourth of July on a Monday. Next year, it’s on Tuesday, when things get complicated. So enjoy this one.

3. Looking over the birthday list for July 3, I was struck by two names. Born on this date were Dorothy Kilgallen, in 1913, and Montel Williams, in 1956.

Ms. Kilgallen died in 1965 (which means, of course, that she never once in her life was called Ms. Kilgallen until perhaps this very moment). Mr. Williams, happily, is still with us.

What they have in common is celebrity. Both are creatures of the television age.

They’re famous – or at least they were in their time. Mostly because they’re on TV as famous people.

Ms. Kilgallen is best known for being a panelist on the TV quiz show “What’s My Line?” It ran in the late 1950s and early 1960s and involved guessing what some guest did for a living. It’s very quaint to see these shows – my Mom is obsessed with watching them on one of these vintage TV channels – on which the top prize was $100.

But she was a regular on the show.

It’s unfair to say that’s all she did. She was, in fact, a gossip columnist for The New York Journal-American, the Hearst paper. She also covered the occasional serious story, including the assassination of President Kennedy.

Williams hosted a TV talk show around the turn of this century after a distinguished military career. He’s also a spokesman for the drug industry and an advocate for victims of multiple sclerosis, of which he’s one.

But for the most part, people familiar with both are unlikely to think of them in any way other than appearing on a small screen – although Williams was around for bigger screens.

Being famous seems a lot easier in the early 21st century. There are, I am told, YouTube personalities – people with large followings simply because they’re able to post videos that interest people on the Internet video outlet. There are online personalities, and people who have become famous because they let cameras show them doing whatever they do in the course of a day.

I suppose I could become famous for writing this blog. It would bother me a little if I obtained more notability for doing this than for anything else I’ve done in a 40-year journalism career. But those are the times we live in.

There must be a human instinct for seeking fame. But it was hard to reach fruition in the days before mass communication. Were there people perceived as being famous for being famous during the Revolution? Elizabethan England? The Ming Dynasty?

Why? Why are there people who believe it’s better to be known by millions than to be good at what you do?

Or am I just wrong about this? Are people as famous as they deserve to be?

Fame is not an easy master. Dorothy Kilgallen died at 52 of an alcohol and barbituate overdose. What was the pressure that drove her to that point – even in 1965, dying at 52 was considered dying young.

I’ll try to revisit this idea down the road. Probably before I’m famous. In the meantime, enjoy the rest of your holiday weekend.

1. It’s Saturday, July 2, 2016.

2. It’s 1 a.m. ET. That means that here in New York, where I’m posting this, it’s the exact midpoint of this year.

Huh?

Good question.

Yesterday, July 1, was the 183rd day of the year. There are 366 days in 2016 (quick, think of something you did on Feb. 29!), so 183 is half the days.

That dividing line would normally be midnight, the last moment of Friday.

That brings us to Daylight Savings Time. The hour we skipped on March 13 (quick, think of something you did on March 13!) got pushed to Nov. 6, which hasn’t arrived yet.

So that means the final moment of the year’s 4,392nd hour, half of 2016’s 8,784 hours, occurs at 1 a.m. on July 2.

Which is now.

Welcome to the second half of 2016.

3. If this were a football game, we’d be going over the highlights of the first half.

But “highlights” seems like too positive a word to describe the first 183 days.

When I think of the first half of the year, I think of Brussels. I think of a crazed gunman in Orlando. I think of what happened in Istanbul this past week. Three events that completely belie the idea that the human race is getting progressively better.

I think about last week’s Brexit vote, something akin to national economic suicide.

And, of course, it’s impossible to think about the first half of 2016 without the name Trump.

It’s hard to think of a single of the 183 days so far in which this maroon hasn’t opened his mouth and said something offensive to the idea that America is a diverse and intelligent nation. He has exposed the racism that some of us were blind to. He has embarrassed the city where he was allegedly born (Has anyone seen HIS birth certificate?).

The most you can say about the first half of 2016 is that it was inconclusive.

Sure we know won the Pulitzer Prizes and the NBA Championship and the Academy Awards.

But the second half of the year will reveal answers to a bunch of things hanging over us.

First, what the hell is Britain going to do now that 52% of its voters have indicated they want to disengage from Europe? How does that work? Who is the ultimate Machiavellian manipulator or lucky stiff that will emerge from the scrum to become the nation’s leader?

Second, can Rio actually stage an Olympics? Or is this going to be a 17-day scourge of civil unrest, shoddy facilities, doping scandals, overwrought nationalism? (Although it’s impossible to be an overindulgence in any way if we hear 17 days of the music of Antonio Carlos Jobim.)

And, finally, the big question: Will the United States of America throw away 240 years of being the beacon of freedom by electing Trump, a character out of a wretched political novel, as its 45th President? Or can Hillary Clinton, an imperfect hero, deliver the kind of electoral rout needed to reestablish this country’s place as the world’s moral leader?

Here comes the second-half kickoff. It’s going to be a tough 263,520 minutes.

4. By the way, if you ask me, the best thing that happened in the first half of 2016 was Bartolo Colon’s home run. What do you think?

1. It’s Friday, July 1, 2016.

2. Do you get the sense that Bill Clinton is getting a little dotty?

I’m saying this because, earlier this week, the 42nd President’s private plane stopped in Phoenix. He got out and realized that the plane was someone he knows was nearby.

That someone was Attorney General Loretta Lynch. And if this country were in a different state of being, Clinton stopping by to say hello to a former employee would be something you’d expect an ex-boss to do.

But the problem is that Lynch’s department is involved in investigating whether Clinton’s wife, who wants his old job, was involved in a crime when she set up a separate e-mail server as Secretary of State.

Now you and I probably believe what Hillary did is, at worst, a case of bad judgment but hardly a crime.

But not the nuts who believe she is evil incarnate – probably because she’s this close to the White House.

They’ve been wailing about the Bill Clinton-Loretta Lynch meeting, seeing it as his way to try to influence the investigation.

That’s why Lynch (full disclosure: she’s my brother’s ultimate boss at the Justice Department) is announcing today that she will not interfere if the FBI brings charges against Hillary Clinton or anyone else regarding the e-mail server. That’s probably what she was going to do anyway, but now she’s got to make a statement. 

Bill Clinton is supposed to be a great politician. But he doesn’t seem to have a clue about appearances. It’s hard to believe there was no voice in his head, no voice among those traveling with him, screaming “If you go over there, the nutcases’ sirens are going to go off.”

Those are the kinds of shoot-off-your-own-foot things that get the Clintons, both Hill and Bill, in trouble. It’s not evil or malicious. It’s just plain eye-rolling.

3. And as if you need a reminder about why Hillary Clinton needs an untarnished path through the next four months, here’s today’s Trumpidity:

In New Hampshire, 2,235 miles from the Mexican border, the presumptive Republican presidential candidate was addressing the lemmings excited by the winking racism of his campaign.

All of a sudden, a plane flew overhead. And Trump, who was foaming about trade, said, “In fact, that could be a Mexican plane up there. They’re getting ready to attack.”

Classy.

What a freakin’ jerk! There might be some differences with Mexico. But we are blessed to have a neighbor so reliable and peaceful, and taking cheap, stupid shots at it and its people is not what any leader would do.

It’s a reminder that this guy has gotta lose. Big. I want all 50 states; I was heartened by the first fivethirtyeight.com election forecast that makes states such as Mississippi and South Carolina more of a tossup than Ohio or Florida.

But I want Hillary Clinton to run the table on this horse’s ass. And her husband would do well to think three times before acting on impulses.

4. Every now and then, there’s an act of op-ed courage that needs support – especially since the world is about to crash on the writer with a level of opprobrium he couldn’t have imagined.

So I want to second the sentiments of Gersh Kuntzman of The New York Daily News: “God Bless America” should not be played in the 7th-inning stretch of Major League Baseball games.

To be fair, 29 teams play it only on Sundays, holidays and Opening Day. The Yankees, of course, insist on playing it every game, usually cranking up an old, tired recording of the song’s most famous singer, Kate Smith.

In his column this morning, Kuntzman says “God Bless America” is an awful song. It invokes the deity – remember, this is a country that’s supposed to be neutral when it comes to religion – to bless just us.

Anyway, didn’t God already bless the country with the mountains, prairies and oceans white with foam? It would be nice if the people singing the song actually took care of those things themselves, but I’ll save the environmental rant for another time.

The song also changes the flow of the game for the people in the ballpark. You’re cheering loudly and interacting, and then all of a sudden comes this mock-solemn moment incongruous with what’s come before and will come after.

You’ve got to stand up – and you’re told to do so by the PA announcer – and remove your cap (which, by the way, I’m wearing to help protect against a recurrence of skin cancer). Then the players – not all of whom are from the United States – stand on the field for this pseudo-patriotism.

It’s as though Baseball feels its patriotism is questioned and it needs to prove it. So it coughs up this song to show it’s in line.

Anyway, I’m on Kuntzman’s side in this. I’m old enough to still second-take the thought that the Daily News, which once stood for the type of conservatism that Trumpists would embrace, published this column. One that is going to anger the people who believe how the flag is displayed, instead of acting on the values that make America special, is the be-all and end-all of showing patriotism.

I’m afraid, though, that what Kuntzman’s column will do is solidify the position of those who think this is a good idea. That’s generally what happens when someone dares to question this kind of orthodoxy.

But, hey man, thanks! It takes guts to go against the foam.

1. It’s Thursday, June 30, 2016.

2. Now that I’m retired from CNN, I’m free to be politically active. On balance, that’s a good thing – it’s really hard to be objective when one side can be summed up in two odious words: Donald Trump.

But today’s a bad day to be a partisan, and I’m imagine this is true whether you’re a Democrat or Republican.

Today is the final day of June, which means it’s also the final day of the quarter. And thus, it’s a key deadline for political campaigns and parties to report how much they’ve taken in this month and quarter.

Because winning in politics is about having enough resources to get out your message, the parties want to make sure the amounts of money they report sound really good. They should be more than the last quarter, or the same quarter last year, or the same quarter in the last presidential election campaign.

And so what they do is badger.

My phone has rung a good eight or nine times a day the past few days as the deadline draws near. The few times I’ve answered some earnest voice comes on, identifies her/himself, says the call might be recorded, and then thanks me for my past support.

Then he/she tells me how important it is to stop Donald Trump/the Republicans/both and how, for a limited time, some donor will triple-match my contribution.

I try to get a word in edgewise to say I’ve donated. But that donation apparently wasn’t nearly enough. Because they keep coming, like the brooms in “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice,” except that instead of dumping money on me they want to keep extracting it.

It’s not like I don’t want to help. I won’t have to worry about money if Trump wins, because a guy who’s willing to default on the nation’s debt and print greenbacks would make anything I have virtually worthless.

But last I looked, I’m retired. Not making big bucks. Not nearly rich enough to make the quantity of donations these folks seem to need.

So this is not a good day to reach me on the phone. Unless the caller ID is someone I know, I’m not picking up. Hopefully, everybody understands.

Also hopefully, this country will find a better way to finance its political campaigns. But I’m not waiting around for that phone call any time soon.

3. One bad hairdo down, one to go.

Boris Johnson, the former London mayor who helped lead the campaign to extract Britain from the European Union, said today he won’t stand for Prime Minister.

He said that after finding out that Michael Gove, the Justice Secretary and one of Johnson’s partners in the Leave campaign, wouldn’t support Johnson’s bid to succeed David Cameron. Gove kinda wants the job himself.

This is just one more in a serious of misadventures in Britain following the vote to leave the E.U.

While the Conservatives – one year out from a substantial general election win – are trying to figure out who’ll run the country, Labor is reeling as well. An overwhelming majority of the party’s MPs voted against leader Jeremy Corbyn, who for some reason won’t quit.

With Johnson gone, Trump is now the undisputed world leader in miserable hairdos among potential leaders. Hopefully, we’re 131 days away from dispatching him from the scene as well.

1. Yup, it’s still Wednesday, June 29, 2016.

2. When you’re schlepping from Long Island and southern New Jersey, and cutting through the mess that is Staten Island, you might be curious about the Outerbridge Crossing.

It goes from the southwest part of Staten Island to Perth Amboy, N.J., and connects to the Turnpike, the Garden State Parkway and Interstate 287, which goes all the way back to New York state.

The temptation is to think that the bridge is named because it’s the furthest from civilization – meaning Brooklyn and Manhattan.

3. But it turns out the Outerbridge Crossing is actually named for somebody.

I know this because once, while sitting in one of those traffic jams that make traveling through Staten Island like one of the levels of the Inferno that Virgil showed Dante, I saw a plaque. The plaque said the bridge was named for Eugenius H. Outerbridge – yes, that’s his name. He was the first head of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the agency that runs the bridges and tunnels that connect the two states.

When they built the bridge, they named it the Arthur Kill Bridge. While that, in fact, does sound like a bridge named for someone, it wouldn’t have been. Arthur Kill is the translation from the Dutch name for the body of water between Staten Island and New Jersey.

It opened on this date 88 years ago, along with its twin, the Goethals Bridge, about 10 miles up the kill.  

When Outerbridge died a few years later, they renamed the bridge for him. But the Outerbridge Bridge sounds like something out of a British children’s story. So they came up with the Outerbridge Crossing.

4. And, by some chance, if you ever take one of my  journalism classes, the Outerbridge Crossing and the Goethals are correct answers to the extra credit question I ask every semester: Name three bridges between New York and New Jersey other than the George Washington. The third is the Bayonne Bridge.

To my students, the Lincoln Tunnel and Holland Tunnel remain unacceptable answers. Because they’re tunnels.