As America prepares to inaugurate a President who at least half the country doesn’t like, there’s a widely shared presumption that Donald Trump will be erratic on his good days and dangerous on his bad days.

A few months ago I spoke of the dramatic and undeniable changes in the newspaper industry and noted that dwindling home delivery circulation did not necessarily mean fewer readers. Newspapers, including The Blade, adapted, and their websites are visited by millions of Americans every day.

Now that we’ve all turned the page, literally, on 2016, and America has elected a change agent who will take office in just 18 days, the national mood is a mix of hope and apprehension.

In 13 days Americans will pause to take note of the 15th anniversary of 9/11. It will be another milestone anniversary and an appropriate time to ask: has America moved on? Should it?

If you are like me, you had a Viewmaster toy as a kid. Even if you are not like me, you had a Viewmaster toy as a kid. What an amazing experience it was to put the Viewmaster viewer to your face and gaze upon the miracle of 3-D.

There are expressions we all use in modern and polite conversation that I’ve often wondered about. One of them is the ubiquitous phrase “have a nice day.” We hear it from someone and we use it ourselves almost every day. It’s a pleasant way to end a conversation without the awkward silence that could otherwise occur. But it’s a comment I’ve always had an issue with.

Most of us at one time or another have pondered what sits on exactly the opposite side of the earth from our own location. Dig down into the ground and keep on going until you emerge on the other side and what would you find?

Remember as a kid practicing your signature when you were supposed to be listening to the teacher? For reasons I can’t explain, the vertical stroke of my T bends like the left half of a clock dial. I actually had a clerk ask me once, “Your name is Chomas?”

This week, few Americans will even be aware of the 47th anniversary of the flight of Apollo 11 to the moon. Some may take note of it but there will be no fanfare, and very little attention will be paid to it by most of us. It’s not a milestone anniversary, and most of us don’t spend much time pondering anniversaries that don’t end in a zero or a five.

Most Veteran politicians share a common skill that serves them, if not necessarily the rest of us, well. They can say a lot while saying nothing. It’s political doublespeak.