Christopher Columbus at Wooster Square in New Haven.

Blawgletter realized late this morning why production of new court of appeals decisions seemed so sluggish.  America’s annual celebration of its discovery, we remembered at last, gave the federal judiciary an official holiday.

We can claim little excuse for the tardy epiphany.  Tip-offs included:

• An article today about competing claims to Christopher Columbus’s birthplace (including Genoa, Catalonia, and Portugal) and progenitors.
• A radio program featuring, in honor of the explorer, explanations of Italian words in music notation (e.g., fortississimo).
• A television show that credited Columbus with introducing sugar to the New World.
• Our daughter’s exclamation, as a parade passed yesterday, that she hadn’t realized the bones of Columbus lay in New Haven, Connecticut.

So we won’t have reports on new rulings today.  Happy Columbus Day!

Barry Barnett

The first American?  No, not quite.  But Columbus was brave, and he was bright.