1 August—We’re right smack in the middle of the dog days of summer now. Dog days are so named from Sirius, the Dog Star, the brightest star in the night sky, which rises alongside the sun during the hottest, most humid time of the year, which ancient civilizations ascribed to the astronomical juxtaposition. That was before global warming was invented, of course. It’s no surprise that dog days tend to be periods of inactivity and general torpor.

Legislatures, like Parliament in the United Kingdom and Congress in the United States, tend not to be in session during dog days. Even with air-conditioned chambers. Except, of course when war, cataclysm, or an intimidating strongman may call a special session.

Given what used to be the paucity of political news in the dog days of summer, then, newspapers and other media tended to run with less serious news to keep their respective audiences coming and advertisers happy. (Now, of course, most contemporary mass media publish and broadcast junk and opinion masquerading as news most of the time, to be sure, even though they’d never admit it.)

Brits thus have called the dog days “silly season” since at least the mid-19^th century. Americans, on the other hand, tending as a race to take everything too seriously and being afraid to call anything silly (lest they be dismissed as silly), call the dog days “slow news season.”

Silly season sounds like a lot more fun than slow news season. So let’s import it from the United Kingdom. Since it has no intrinsic value, Donald Trump can’t unilaterally and illegally slap a tariff on it. So even though there may be nothing to gain, there’s nothing to lose.

On second thought, thanks to the Supreme Court Trump can do anything he damn well pleases, legally or otherwise, and get away with it. But we sill need silly season . . .