Well, it was very tough going a week without Michael Goodwin.

He was on vacation.

There's two columns, but we'll hopefully make up for it right now.

Michael, the best columnist in America.

Michael Goodwin, how you doing?

Good morning, Mark.

Thank you.

Boy, it was terrible.

I'm tan, rested, and ready.

All right, let's go.

I assume we would have had a bodega column, wouldn't we, about that terrible incident?

That was shocking.

And, you know, when I first read this story, I couldn't believe, I said,

there's going to be something, there's going to be some extenuating reason why Alvin

Bragg would charge this guy, charge the clerk.

And the more you read, there's no reason.

It's just, you know, it's inexplicable.

It's just another view that somehow crime is not a problem that this roots, the roots of crime are the issue, the poverty, the racism,

all of these things that society has done.

I mean, it's like we're reliving the worst of the 60s, only now it's actual policy.

Yeah, you know, there's study after study that really shows crime doesn't, poverty doesn't

cause crime, crime causes poverty, you know, in the poorest neighborhoods, and only a tiny

...