1. It’s Thursday, October 15, 2015.

2. It looks as though Hillary Clinton did exactly what she was supposed to do at Tuesday night’s Democratic debate. And, as a result, a lot of the talk about finding someone else (see Biden, Joe) is abating.

Clinton’s problem this summer has been that she’s had no good way of displaying her strengths at the same time her opposition – the Republicans and Bernie Sanders – have been able to swat at her.

But on the stage with other Democrats, there was little doubt who had the presidential bearing, who was the one you would want in the Oval Office or Situation Room in a tense crisis. (An aside: Those 3 a.m. ads, which were mocked last time around, might play really well later in the campaign.)

Sanders, for his part, appealed to his base and showed his main virtue as a candidate – his reputation for saying what he thinks. That was clear in the comments that lambasted the attention on Clinton’s e-mail server – it was a moment that helped her, but it showed why people are drawn to Sanders in the first place.

It’s not clear what happens when, as expected, she’s the nominee; I guarantee he’s not her running mate. He’ll be given a role at the convention and a chance to speak his mind, and will be well received. But after that, who knows?

3. President Obama will not leave office without a sizable U.S. force in Afghanistan. He announced that this morning, saying the 9,800 troops there now will stay through most of next year.

The president wanted to extract our forces from Afghanistan before Jan. 20, 2017, the day he leaves office. But Afghanistan isn’t a very cooperative place – its history is one of fractiousness and strife.

Other outsiders have faced these problems as well; its reputation as the graveyard of empires. It would seem easy to say that we should just let Afghanis kill each other and put our people out of harm’s way.

The problem is that the Taliban stepped over a line when it harbored al-Qaida as it plotted the Sept. 11 attacks. We have extracted a little revenge and pushed them back into insurgency rather than power.

I understand what President Obama is thinking: We can’t let them give another terrorist group another shot. I’m not happy about troops staying there. I just can’t think of what else we can do.

4. I would like to be able to say this has been a great week for baseball.

Toronto’s dramatic decisive game victory in the American League Division Series. The fact that neither Texas team is going to the next round, jinxed by a bad jump-the-gun celebratory Tweet from the state’s moron governor. The sound of thousands of Cubs fans singing their team song in such strong unison that someone recorded the sound from a mile away from Wrigley Field.

But as far as I’m concerned, this will be a miserable week for baseball if tonight’s game in Los Angeles doesn’t go the Mets’ way.

I’m on the verge of busting from the tension. With that in mind, a simple, heartfelt and strong “LET’S GO METS!” is in order.

1. It’s Tuesday, October 13, 2015.

2. It’s a good thing I don’t have to speak these words for them to appear. After last night at Citi Field, it’s going to take a good three days to get my voice back – hopefully, in time for the Mets and their opponent in the National League Championship Series.

3. Because the Republican presidential campaign seems like such a freak show, the Democrats have been overshadowed. About all we know is that a House committee formed, it appears, for the sole purpose of taking down Hillary Clinton, has done some of what it set out to do.

I probably won’t watch, as Met consumed as I am. But here’s what I’m hoping for:

— I’d like to see Hillary Clinton show that she’s the leader of the party, contrasting herself with the other Democrats on the stage but doing so with the poise of someone in control. She has to show that she’s a president-in-waiting, with the temperament and strength to listen to other viewpoints in the party.

— I’d like to see Bernie Sanders make Clinton address the issues that have been his hallmark, particularly income inequality. He has some strong points, and getting the front-runner to acknowledge them will go a long way in bringing the party together to defeat whatever comes out of the other side.

— I don’t know what I expect from Martin O’Malley, Lincoln Chafee and Jim Webb. I guess I hope they don’t go for broke and try to embarrass the other two. If they have points, make them – and then it’s incumbent on Clinton to either address them or explain why they’re unimportant.

If you’re not the least bit interested in Mets-Dodgers, by all means watch the debate.

It’s October 9, 2015 and time for Friday Yes or No, where I ask myself questions with twice as many possible answers as are available at a Republican House caucus.

Q1: Do House Republicans embarrass the United States?

A1: Yes

Q2: Will this week’s display of complete incompetence in operating their piece of the nation’s government come back to bite the Republicans?

A2: No

Q3: Is that because there are a surprisingly large number of people in this country who think chaos, gridlock, bickering, petty nonsense and other non-functions are how things are supposed to go?

A3: Yes

Q4: And because they think this is a good way to show how much they hate President Obama?

A4: Yes

Q5: Is it surprising that the Obama administration is having a tough time figuring out how to sort out the mess in Syria?

A5: No

Q6: Is Russia a possible help in getting this way too long running crisis resolved?

A6: No

Q7: Should guys who complain about Jessica Mendoza doing baseball analysis on ESPN just shut up and get their wives/girlfriends who are enjoying the game a beer?

A7: Yes 

Q8: On the other hand, are the guys who complain about Jessica Mendoza likely to have wives or girlfriends?

A8: No

Q9: Is it hard to think about much else when the Mets are about to start down a treacherous postseason path in Los Angeles?

A9: Yes

Q10: But will they prevail against the Dodgers?

A10: Yes

1. It’s Thursday, October 8, 2015

2. If someone in Ben Carson’s profession performed a prefrontal lobotomy, at least the patient would not have the cognizance to say what Carson said about the Oregon shooting victims.

What the brain surgeon said was that if he were in the room, he would have rushed the shooter, and that would have prevented more lives from being lost. His implication, despite his subsequent statements that he was only saying what he would do, was that the victims just laid down and died.

It’s monumentally dopey on two levels.

One is that no one who was at that horrible scene has the right to call out the victims. Those people had no idea what was going to happen to them that day, and few of us – thank goodness – have any experience dealing with that situation.

Secondly, Carson’s insensitivity to the survivors of the massacre and to the families of those who perished is obscene. To attempt to diminish them in any way, even if only by describing how goddamn superior you think you would be, is unforgivable.

Carson should be held to account for his comments. Do not forget them! Even when he disappears from the national scene, which would not come a moment too soon. Remember that there are people such as Ben Carson walking the Earth who, despite their degrees and their expertise, haven’t got the compassion or common sense of a pillbug.

3.   There are those who denigrate awards, and there’s some credence to that. I’m still trying to figure out how some of the movies that have won the Oscar for Best Picture – i.e., “The English Patient” – got three people to show up at the theater.

 But what’s good about something like the Nobel Prize for Literature is that it makes you curious who these people are who win these awards. And that’s definitely the case with Svetlana Alexievich, the Belarusian named to the honor earlier today.

Alexievich, according to the news reports, is one of the few people ever to win the prize for writing that would primarily be considered journalism. She’s written about the struggles of female Soviet soldiers from World War II and survivors of the Chernobyl nuclear accident.

The attention Alexievich is getting today tends to make me curious about her work. Unfortunately, it’s not available in English for e-book readers such as Apple Books or Amazon Kindle. So get on it, Alexievich’s publisher. She’s a winner – let’s make her work more readily available.

1. It’s Wednesday, October 7, 2015.

2. Nate Silver’s terrific fivethirtyeight.com site has a take today on whether Jeb Bush’s presidential campaign is finished. Or “toast,” as Silver says in a tweet. The conclusion is no, but he should be worried.

I’ll say he should be. The latest gaffe, dismissing the horrific shootings at an Oregon community college by saying “stuff happens” will haunt him as long as he’s in the race.

If, by some chance, he’s the nominee, next year the whole “stuff happens” flap will get replayed on the anniversary. So far, he’s not done well in the debates, has a tendency to say dopey stuff and he still hasn’t dealt well with the whole issue of his brother.

What Jeb Bush has going for him is that, like a Triple Crown race, there are horses setting the pace that seem unlikely to stay there. Donny Trump, Carly Fiorina and Ben Carson are dear to the hearts of the crazies in the GOP. But they can’t win the election. And eventually, the party regulars will prevail and nominate someone they think can.

Right now, that someone seems to be Marco Rubio. He really hasn’t stumbled yet. But he hasn’t faced any really big tests, and isn’t likely to until he moves up in the pack. If Bush can stay around until that point, then there’s a chance to be the nominee.

3.   The Yankees have been eliminated from baseball’s postseason. I know some Yankee fans well — one of them, in fact, is my mother. They are devoted fans, and have been so for a long time. They appreciate and understand baseball. So for those people, I feel bad.

But last night, the people who give Yankee fans a bad name showed up in force at Yankee Stadium to watch the Wild Card Game with the Houston Astros.

I didn’t turn on the game until the bottom of the sixth, when a Yankee threat to the Astros was extinguished. But then I watched and heard the lousy Yankee fans boo as Brett Gardner – a guy Yankee opponents’ fans fear because of how hard he plays – hit a ground out against a tough left-handed pitcher. They had given Alex Rodriguez (the only player I’ll ever boo at a game) a rousing ovation when he was introduced for his remarkable comeback season, but booed him when he struck out in the ninth against Houston’s crafty closer.

If you’re a fan of a team, you don’t boo your own team. You should be required a pledge like that before anyone lets you buy a shirt or hat with a team logo. Why the hell are you rooting for a team if it causes you to heckle them? Perhaps in an extreme circumstance, when there are egregious personal or collective offenses to society. But even the controversies surrounding Matt Harvey do not in any way warrant the turning of Mets fans backs.

And surely, grounding out to first or striking out on three pitches while wearing the uniform of the team we love deserves empathy and support rather than invective.

These guys don’t screw up to screw us. They’re trying.

If there’s a next time, and often there is, I want the Met players taking the field or coming to the plate knowing that we have their backs, just like their teammates.

I fear that won’t happen. The people who booed at Yankee Stadium last night are the sunshine fans, the ones who cheer a team when it’s up. They turn fast when there’s a setback. Those types of fans are likely headed to Citi Field now that the Mets are winning. I wish they’d stay away.

I’m hoping for the best for the Mets this postseason, but if it doesn’t happen, I’m proud of what they’ve done this year. And, for that, they deserve my cheers.

I’m sorry the Yankee players, who accomplished more than most experts expected, couldn’t get the same consideration from everyone in Yankee Stadium last night.

4.     There are lots of women who love and understand baseball. One of them’s my mother, who taught me how to keep score 55 years ago. Another is my daughter, who played softball when she was young (she turned a triple play once!) and loves to go to Mets games with the rabid 7 Line Army group.

So anyone who has an issue with Jessica Mendoza as an analyst in the ESPN Wild Card Game is just a publicity seeker. She had some really good insights into the hitters, seemingly more with the Astros than the Yankees. And I’ll bet there’ll come a point in the next few weeks when, listening to two or three guys in a booth on Fox or TBS, people will miss having someone as intelligent as Mendoza on the air.

It’s good to see and hear women sharing their passion and expertise for the greatest sport in the world.

1. It’s Tuesday, October 6, 2015.

2. With all the technology the U.S. military likes to gloat about, it’s hard to understand how Americans bombed a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Afghanistan. The raid left 19 defenseless people dead, and the military leaders are having to do a lot of explaining about what happened.

The U.S. was right to go into Afghanistan, which was where Osama bin Laden was based when he plotted the Sept. 11 attacks. But it has been 14 years, and it seems like the mission will never end.

I suspect this won’t be the last time we talk about some tragedy involving the United States in Afghanistan.

3. When C.C. Sabathia pitched for the Yankees against the Mets three weeks ago, I was not wishing him well. He was up against our Matt Harvey in the rubber game of a three-game Subway Series. And when the first two Mets doubled to put us ahead, 1-0, I was thinking Sabathia — nearing the end of a mediocre season — was in a bad spot.

Well, he was in a bad spot, but not the one I thought. Here’s what he’s doing – checking into an alcohol rehabilitation facility on the eve of the playoffs – in perspective. Imagine spending most of your time at work toward a project that ultimately defines whether or not you’ve been a success. And then, imagine that the toll it’s taken on you, psychologically and physically, is so great that, despite being close to your goal, you just can’t go on. It takes a large measure of courage to step away. Not only to tell yourself, your family and your coworkers, but to tell millions of people who watch what you do that you’re not in a good place and you need help.

      For those of us who are fans, and those who are more closely involved with the sport, baseball is a really big deal. But life is bigger. Sabathia is married and has children. His wife and kids know how capable he is of succeeding on a big stage. Now he needs for them to see him succeed at something smaller but no less important. As a Met fan, I say “Let’s go, C.C.!”

1. It’s Monday, October 5, 2015.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

5. Trade agreements have a bad rap.

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

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

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

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

A1: Yes

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

A2: Yes

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

A3: No

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

A4: Yes

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

A5: No

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

A6: Yes

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

A7: No

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

A8: No

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

A9: Yes

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

A10: Yes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I am highly skeptical that these Republicans have a clue.

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

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

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

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

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

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