It's still only August, but already the predictions that this would be an exceedingly banal presidential election campaign look like they've already come true. This week's campaign news might be summed up as an elementary school playground shouting match: "You're a bigot!" "No, you're a bigot!" Sigh. We've still got over two months of this to get through, folks. And nobody sane expects things are going to get any better any time soon -- quite the opposite, in fact.

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Today, we wish a very happy 100th birthday to the National Park Service. A century ago, President Woodrow Wilson signed the legislation creating the National Park Service (although, as Ken Burns will readily tell you, some National Parks actually predate the federal department). But on this auspicious birthday, one sore subject must be addressed, because the National Park Service is currently considering an idea which would be abhorrent to millions of their visitors. Since they're seeking new ideas in this area, I thought I'd share a few of my own.

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Some weeks, it's tough coming up with a subtitle for these columns. Some weeks, not so much. This is one of the latter, because the juxtaposition of a colorful (to say the least) description of Donald Trump with a soap opera's title just naturally presented itself.

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This column has always loved a good rant. Most of the time, we provide our own rant at the end of the column, on a subject too big to be contained in talking points. This week, we provide a number of rants from Republicans about their very own party's presidential nominee. Yes, it's only August and the Republican Party is coming apart at the seams. Which, of course, makes for great summertime reading for all!

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The Drug Enforcement Agency finally just released its long-awaited decision, and it was a disappointing one for anyone hoping for a sane realignment of federal policy towards marijuana. Marijuana will remain a Schedule I dangerous controlled substance, although (the one silver lining) the federal monopoly on marijuana legally grown for scientific research purposes will end, and multiple sites will be allowed (only one now exists). This will help expand medical research on marijuana -- something that the federal government has been actively discouraging for decades, now. So at least there's that. But the D.E.A.'s refusal to recognize that (as Dylan once said) the times they are a-changing means that federal marijuana policy reform is likely to happen from one of two other possible routes.

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It has been an extraordinary two weeks on the presidential campaign trail, but then again that statement could have been uttered pretty much at any point during the past year and still have been just as true. This time around, I'm referring to Donald Trump obviously starting to consider the possibility that he's going to lose the general election. He never used to talk about (or even acknowledge) this possibility before now, but all his dismal post-convention polling may have forced him to begin to think about it.

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It's been a long few weeks covering the two national political conventions, and aside from last Friday, this is really the first day I have had with an open column -- one not predetermined by events or the calendar. And a whole lot has been going on in the meantime. I'm not even going to pretend to cover it all today, instead I'm going to offer up a few random vignettes in the form of brief and disconnected paragraphs. As always when I'm in this kind of mood, I will be doing so in homage to the late, great Herb Caen, master of "three-dot" journalism in San Francisco.

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We've spent the past two weeks travelling to and from the Democratic National Convention, but due to the three-week period we've got to cover, we're not even going to attempt to adequately revisit everything that's happened in the political world since our last column.

In fact, we're not even going to write our talking points this week, and we're only briefly going to touch on what's going on and quickly hand out the awards, before we get to a rather extraordinary (and extensive) essay at the end, by guest author Eric Varela.

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Last month, President Obama's longest winning streak in job approval polling ended. For the first six months of 2016, Obama improved his monthly average job approval number each and every month. That's a longer streak than he's ever managed, to put it into perspective. His job approval rose a whopping 6.5 points during this period, while his average monthly job disapproval number fell 5.4 points. In July, however, both numbers experienced a mild correction, ending this notable streak.

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Today I'd like to take a look at the four nights by focusing in only on the prime-time hour that appeared on broadcast television. For all the other things that happened on the stage of the convention, you always had to wonder: "Is anyone else out there actually even seeing this stuff?" I mean, cable channels did cover the convention live and you could even just tap into the feed (without all the commentary, in other words), but I wonder how many voters devote that kind of time and attention to this stuff.

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