It’s Friday, July 17, 2015. Sixty years ago today, Disneyland opened.

In an effort to liven this blog, and to make it easier to write every day, I’m starting Friday Yes or No. I’ll ask 10 questions, and then give 10 yes or no answers. Let’s see how this goes.

Q: Is there really that much difference between the two nut cases from adjacent states — Tennessee and South Carolina — that committed cold-blooded murders in the past month?

A: No

Q: Are the people who waived Confederate flags outside President Obama’s hotel in Oklahoma City traitors?

A: Yes

Q: Is Republican Congressman Tom Cole, who condemned the Confederate flag waving, a true patriot?

A: Yes

Q: Are the Greeks and Germans going to be at odds again over Greece’s financial status?

A: Yes

Q: Is Greek food better than German food?

A: Yes

Q: If I were a Bostonian, would I want the 2024 Summer Olympics in my neighborhood?

A: No

Q: If I’m still a New Yorker, do I want the 2024 Summer Olympics to be in Boston?

A: Yes

Q: “Game of Thrones” got the most Emmy award nominations. Have I ever watched it?

A: No

Q: Do I plan to watch it, considering that creator George R.R. Martin is a fellow graduate of Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism?

A: No

Q: Now that the Google self-driving cars have had their first accident involving injuries, although it was the other car’s fault, am I still eagerly awaiting the mass availability of this technology?

A: Yes

1. It’s Thursday, July 16, 2015.

2. I was 19 and sitting in my parents’ backyard on July 16, 1973 when my Mom came outside to tell me something amazing. She had been watching the Senate Watergate hearings and some guy — his name, BTW, was Alexander Butterfield — testified that Richard Nixon taped every conversation he had in the Oval Office. That meant there were tapes of all these controversial things that John Dean, Nixon’s former aide, alleged the president had said that implicated him in a criminal conspiracy.

Some 42 years later, it’s still hard to believe that a) Nixon did that b) he didn’t destroy the tapes and c) that this country was stupid enough to elect that crooked bastard twice.

3. You can’t help but love the story about Boston’s snow farm — the pile that still consisted of snow into the early part of this month. At its peak, during the city’s horrible winter of 2015, the pile was 75 feet high and covered an area of four acres. And because it was the ultimate mix-in, infused with asphalt chips, garbage scraps and other detritus of The Hub, it was taking a long, long time to actually melt.

But as of yesterday, the city declared that the snow farm, on Tide Street near the harbor, is now just a rubbish pile. The last snow has melted.

There might be some folks who are wistful about that. They’re crazy. It finally, really, truly is summer in New England.

4. Japan’s penance for some of the terrible things it did in the middle of the 20th century lasted 70 years.

The nation’s charter, initiated after its World War II surrendered, stipulated that the country could not be involved in military action outside its islands. The idea was to show Japan’s justifiably suspicious neighbors that it could co-exist with them in east Asia.

But today, Japan’s House of Representatives approved a measure allowing the nation’s soldiers to fight in foreign conflicts. Other steps required before final approval aren’t expected to the change the outcome.

The measure is a response to increased tension with China in the western Pacific, as well as the murder of Japanese citizens held captive by ISIS. The United States, the primary force that defeated imperial Japan in the 1940s, supports the measure.

It’s impressive that such a peace stance lasted as long as it did. And a little discerning that the rest of the world couldn’t follow along.

1. It’s Wednesday, July 15, 2015

2. Now, the New Horizons fly-by of Pluto is something that should make Americans beat their chest a little bit. We got something built, admittedly with help from other great minds around the world, that flew 3 billion miles in nine and a-half years. It got within 7,800 miles of the dwarf planet and sent back photos that are pretty amazing.

For whatever reason — more focus on human problems such as Iran and Greece, it’s midsummer — this achievement isn’t resonating with people. It should. It’s a moment to be proud. 

3. “Death to America” trended on Twitter yesterday. It was a phrase contained in a lot of tweets written by opponents to the new nuclear limitation accord with Iran. Of course, “Death to America” is what Iranians have been known to chant in public demonstrations, some as recent as last week. And this was what the opponents wanted to say: How could you possibly make a deal with people who seek our demise? The more foaming tweets spoke of how President Obama was selling out America and its allies for a place in history or even to be true to his real faith — which, of course, they have decided, is Islam.

So, once again, it’s time to check reality.

Yes, there’s a lot of animosity toward the U.S. in Iran. A lot of it has to do with the fact that we thwarted Iranians’ attempt at democracy in the 1950s and forced the brutal Shah on them for another 20 years. Some of it has to do with the voices in this country that are looking to bring back the Crusades and Christianize the Middle East.

But here’s the thing. That animosity is more tolerable when it doesn’t have nuclear weapons it can play with. And the agreement is the best we can get, given the fact that Iran already has nuclear technology and the rest of the world is patiently helping us stop them from weaponizing that technology.

If the “Death to America” tweeters believe that war is another way to stop them, here is what they have to do.

They have to agree that if the United States went to war to Iran, they, or their children, or their grandchildren, have to be among the forces we send. They would go there, to the Persian desert, where the average high this time of year is 114 degrees.

They would go there pretty much alone. Israel, with its saber-rattling prime minister, is kind of busy fending off threats closer to home. The Europeans, including the British, aren’t interested in a war with Iran. Neither are allies in Japan and South Korea that have abided by the sanctions imposed on Iran at a cost — the oil that would lower prices in their countries — with the idea that they would lead to an agreement such as this one.

And Russia and China, which helped us get this agreement, would probably aid Tehran, creating an axis that might be stronger than the one we fought in World War II. So, while we’re slogging through the desert, Russia is taking the opportunity to step up its mischief against Ukraine and other Eastern European nations that were once part of the Soviet Union or its bloc. China is ratcheting pressure on Japan over territory in the western Pacific.

Through all this, Iran has the liberty to develop nuclear weapons, since there’s no agreement like the one we have.

That’s the world you have to accept if you support the idea of bombing Tehran back to the stone age or using our boots on the ground to put Iran in what you perceive to be its place. So you’d damn well better be prepared to put your own life or your kids’ lives on the line. Because you can’t have mine.

The “Death to America” chanters in Iran only get their wish if we shun diplomacy and try to fight them in a war. An agreement that works, which this has a good chance of doing, is death to “Death to America.”

1. It’s Monday, July 13, 2015.

2. Thirty-eight years ago tonight, I was watching a comedy called “Nasty Habits” at what was then the UA Quartet movie house in the Flushing section of Queens. About 10 minutes before the end of the movie, the power went out. The dozen or so of us in the theater initially thought the outage was temporary.

Nope. The lights were out all over New York City. It was a hot summer night, and there was no power.

To this day, I’m proud that my 23-year-old self, five months into my first full-time job, made it into work in Rockefeller Center. In fact, I apologized for being 30 minutes late for my midnight-8 a.m. shift.

That was the second systemic power outage of my life — there was a famous one in November 1965. A third would occur in August 2003.

This probably little-noted anniversary should serve as a reminder to government and power company officials that maybe it’s a good time to check to make sure the grid is in good working order. Whether you’re working from home or commuting to a job, it’s never a good thing for the power to be out.

By the way, I couldn’t get a rain check for the movie. All I wanted to see was the end of “Nasty Habits,” a spoof of Watergate with Glenda Jackson and Anne Meara. So, about a week later, I spent another $3 to see the movie all over again, including the ending. It was cute, but not really worth it.

3. Is someone doing a pool on when the next Greek crisis will surface? The solution that European creditors have pretty much imposed on the Greeks doesn’t seem like much of a solution at all. But here’s hoping for the best for the Greek people, whose ample bravery will get yet another test.

4. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is running for president. The man has tried to gut the Badger State’s schools from pre-k to the University of Wisconsin, has little respect for the jobs done by first responders and doesn’t have the guts to stand up to people who insinuate that President Obama isn’t American.

The Republicans have a lot of dolts seeking their nomination — it will be between Walker and Fabulous Donny Trump to see which one will be the biggest horse’s ass.

1. It’s Friday, July 10, 2015.

2. Greece looks as though it is going to capitulate to European creditors’ demands for more austerity. That, despite Sunday’s overwhelming vote to tell the creditors to shove their demands.

Which makes you wonder why they bothered to vote in the first place.

What hasn’t changed since Sunday is what will get Greece out of this mess — a real restructuring of its debt and programs aimed at getting people back to work and spending money.

So if the reports of the agreement are accurate, expect us to be back at this nonsense at some point in the next year or two.

3. There’s a ticker-tape parade in New York today for the U.S. Women’s Soccer team that won the World Cup. The weather is great, and lots of folks — especially a lot of girls looking for heroes — are excited. So despite my feelings toward the sport, I’m happy for everyone and hope it’s a day of great memories.

4. Twenty-three days ago, nine members of a Charleston church group were murdered in cold blood, allegedly by a guy who was looking to start a racial war. Today, the Confederate flag came down from a South Carolina capitol flagpole for the first time in more than a half-century.

As I said yesterday, I really hope the murder suspect has to watch the flag lowering over and over again, for the rest of his miserable life.

5. I normally don’t care about the All-Star Game final vote, in which fans pick the final player for the two league teams. It’s a gimmick aimed at drumming up interest for a game that is normally pretty uninteresting.

But as a Mets fan who has followed the team more closely in my retirement, I can’t help but feel as though reliever Jeurys Familia, the team’s closer, deserves the recognition. This young man stepped into the crucial job when another player was suspended for using performance-enhancing drugs. And he’s done brilliantly.

So I’ve spent this final day of voting doing my best imitation of a Chicago ward boss in the Daley pere days. If you tweet the hashtag #VoteFamilia, you can vote and put an emoji in your tweet at the same time.

QUICK HITS

1. It’s Thursday, July 9, 2015

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

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

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

1. It’s Wednesday, July 8, 2015.

2. Today is mathematically correct.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1. It’s Tuesday, July 7, 2015.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

— Except that Willie Nelson can go wherever he wants.

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

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

1. It’s Monday, July 6, 2015.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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