Guess Who Inherited The Happy Gene February 2, 2020 Me, sure — but I mean: who else? James Comey! Check it out. In small part: When I was a little kid, the United States seemed to be coming apart. . . . Our cities were torn by riots and fires. . . . Unarmed students were killed by soldiers. White Americans violently resisted desegregation. War and death and disorder dominated the news. — . . . the way Republicans are acting today means they will inevitably lose power, and for a very long time — an exile they will richly deserve. But neither party will disappear because the American center — that great lump of us clustered around the middle — always holds. Where the center is, exactly, moves over time — we changed the world by embracing same-sex marriage, for example — but it never goes away. That lump is our national ballast. To survive, our two political parties compete for that center, forcing them to change as we do. They regularly miss the mark, which is why the parties, not the United States, suffer repeated near-death experiences, always followed by miraculous revival. When I was a kid, the United States didn’t come apart. It won’t now. → “Let us pray,” as my mother used to say. But being an atheist, and thus skeptical prayer would suffice, she chipped in generously. (“Let that be a lesson to us all” — another of her frequent admonitions.) Have you seen Just Mercy, the film with a 99% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes (from 9,940 verified audience reviewers)? It’s so powerful. Jonathan: “Could we have a word from you about BOREF?” → It dropped 50% to $3 Friday — on volume of 2,400 shares. Presumably, someone put in an order to sell “at the market,” and the only standing order to buy was at $3. Or maybe it was a typo. Later in the day I think I saw it at something like “$5 bid, $6 asked.” As you know, I think $6 is also ridiculously low — not because the company may not ultimately fail, but because if it succeeds it should be worth a great deal more. Only take that bet with money you can truly afford to lose!