The sun is out for the first time since last week. The emotion attached to the Big Holiday is sort of strange. Odd, you might say. Or capitalize it.

This morning was jarring.

Miles has the flatscreen on Channel 72—the Faux News feed—since their bias is balanced by the fact that we can see it, unlike some of the others.

That is a woman named Caitlin Clark, an athlete of exceptional talent who has transformed what was once considered a minor professional sport into a national powerhouse. She has also been the target of repeated hard fouls. The latest was a moment caught on video that caused the Conference Room to fall silent.

It was interesting because the television report suggested she had been punched in a manner that could have resulted in a trip to the ER. Instead, the replay showed a slower, more intimate sequence in which an opposing player pressed a forearm or fist against Clark’s upper chest and neck area before stepping over her after the play.

The Boys do not normally follow the WNBA, which is something most Americans probably didn’t do until Caitlin showed up. The rivalry between her and Angel Reese—Atlanta’s “ATL Barbie”—has become one of the biggest storylines of the season and served as a placeholder until the sun came out to remind us this is one of those special weeks we are supposed to observe.

Instead, our attention drifted elsewhere.

The view from the Washington Monument webcam showed the National Mall strangely empty. Ten states reportedly declined participation in parts of the celebration, and yesterday there was yet another story claiming the nation is headed toward dissolution.

We have a pretty good cross-section of the Public Square here in the private Conference Room.

The Boomers are retired and no longer feel much inclination to get up and do something about the state of affairs, though they certainly remember how things once were. At the other end are the interns, busy building résumés instead of complaining about compensation. The Gen Z crowd is simply trying to make things work.

Like the President.

Most of the older folks think common sense ought to rule the day rather than some of the more fanciful cultural wars that occupy so much attention now.

Meanwhile, we almost lost track of another story entirely: the mock-up of the triumphal arch they have been discussing for the Anniversary celebration. It is intended as a midpoint landmark along the familiar jog from the Pentagon north beside the Potomac to Memorial Bridge and then east toward the Capitol.

Not that everyone ran the whole route every day.

Sometimes the point was simply getting up from the desk in the Alert Center, heading down to the Pentagon Officers Athletic Club, and stretching the legs out toward North Parking before returning to work.

Rocket and Splash liked the inset image of the scaled-down model of the arch that nearly disappeared beneath everything else bubbling through what passes for the daily news cycle. The concept—and the little models themselves—have stirred up considerable emotion. Most of it is directed toward the current occupant of the Oval Office.

We are generationally divided on the structure.

Some of us will likely spend whatever time remains in this world within sight of it. The younger ones naturally have a different perspective.

Maybe now that the sun is finally out, we ought to head down to the Mall—the one that should be filled with people—and celebrate something genuinely exceptional in the history of our species on this spinning globe.

It actually is sort of odd, you know?

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