The temperature was up around forty today. In Minnesota, in February, that counts as a beautiful day. The sun shone, and our thin snow cover faded like the new congress’s gravitas.

I even had time for a walk before sundown, though evening shadows were lengthening by the time I finished. As an added bonus, somebody had left a bookcase out in front of their house, with a “Free” sign taped to it. I jumped into Mrs. Hermanson, drove back and snagged it. It’s kind of beat up, granted, but I meant it for the basement. I can never have enough bookcases.

S. T. Karnick has been relentlessly asking hard questions about the Tim Hardaway controversy. I’m not sure I agree entirely with his position, but I’m not sure I entirely agree with my own either. Assuming I have one.

When I was young I came to embrace a passionate, Jeffersonian view of freedom of speech. I believed the American approach was essentially based in a Christian world view. If everybody, regardless of how outrageous his opinion, is permitted to make his case the best he can, the marketplace of ideas will make the truth evident to all, because there’s power in Truth.

However, there’s another way to look at it, also based in a Christian world view. That approach would say that, since human beings are sinful and essentially perverse, they will always choose the answers they find most convenient, flattering and profitable, regardless of the merits of the arguments.

When arguing with people about vulgar music and movies, whenever I’ve been subjected to the inevitable accusation that I’m in favor of censorship, my standard response has been to say, “No, I don’t want censorship. I want public opinion to shame these people into silence. I want to make publishers ashamed to produce this stuff.”

Which is precisely what the left is doing with Hardaway.

So I ought to be OK with that.

But I can’t dismiss Karnick’s argument that it’s pretty hypocritical for people to self-righteously pretend they don’t share Hardaway’s feelings to some extent, and to justify themselves by throwing stones at him.

I’ll let you know if I come to any conclusions.

They tell me that, Dennis Prager’s curmudgeoning to the contrary, today is not legally President’s Day, but Washington’s Birthday. “Presidents Day” is just what the stores call it. I’m not sure why. “Washington’s” is twelve letters, if you count the apostrophe, and “Presidents” is ten letters (eleven if you add an apostrophe, which isn’t strictly necessary), and that’s not going to make much difference to your ad copy column inches costs.

Let’s see, what do I know about Washington that doesn’t call for a lot of research on a holiday that’s mostly already over as I write?

Washington’s ideal—the model that inspired him—was the farmer-statesmen of the Roman republic. Those guys who reluctantly left their fields to shoulder the burden of civic responsibility for a time, then joyfully laid it down again to go back to their real lives. You can see echoes of that pattern everywhere in the great man’s career.

Even the architecture at Mount Vernon was a statement of this ideal. In contrast to the Greek Revival architecture favored by Jefferson and his crowd, Mount Vernon is Roman to the foundations.

He wasn’t a fun guy, Mr. President Washington. He was “on” all the time, playing the role, conscious that he was setting a benchmark by which his successors would be expected to measure themselves.

It definitely helped.

For a while, anyway.

I spent my weekend working on my new Viking shields for live steel.

Here’s how far I got:

I’ve got three rounds like this now, and I drilled holes in the two bosses (the boss is the bowl-like metal thing there). One round will be a spare, for when one gets shattered (which will definitely happen).

The great challenge was getting a 4×8’ sheet of 3/8” plywood home from Home Depot. First I drove around trying to find an auto parts store that sold clamp-on car top carriers. Turns out nobody carries them anymore.

Then I figured, well, if you take an old blanket to protect Mrs. Hermanson’s roof, you can just buy some tie-downs at the store and strap ‘er on and drive home that way.

Which is what I did, but it took a while. We had a stiff wind (pretty cold too) that wanted to blow the blanket off, so I had to bungee that down first. Then I got the plywood sheet up and discovered that Mrs. Hermanson, being one of those SUV’s built without a top rack, is specially designed for the frou-frou set, having no projections or inlets of any kind to which a conventional tie-down may be attached. I finally got the tie-downs hooked into the window channels, but only in the same way that you can chin yourself up on the molding on your living room wall.

I was also concerned that the front of the panel would get lifted by the wind as I drove. I was just starting to unfasten everything and see if I couldn’t fit the thing inside Mrs. Hermanson, at an angle with a bend, when a Home Depot employee came to help me. The inside-the-vehicle experiment didn’t work, but he helped me load it back up on top, and suggested running a strap down the center in front, hooking it on the hood to hold the leading edge down. Wish I’d thought of that.

Wish I’d thought to tip him too.

Once at home I set to work with a keyhole hand saw (I don’t own an electric saw) and managed to get what you see done by Sunday night.

Next step: painting.

I’ll keep you posted on my progress, when there is some more to report.

Because I know it matters to you.

The Presidential Prayer Team has been organizing prayer for today. They have almost 4,000 people enrolled so far.

I saw a headline this morning which raised a question for me. If you could declare another U.S. president for honoring on this day or another President’s Day holiday, who would you recommend? I ask this despite my reluctance to recommend any of them. I like many of our presidents, but making holidays isn’t something I want to think about. So, I blogged it instead.

I see a new president for 2009 has already been declared.

The Presidential Prayer Team has been organizing prayer for today. They have almost 4,000 people enrolled so far.

I saw a headline this morning which raised a question for me. If you could declare another U.S. president for honoring on this day or another President’s Day holiday, who would you recommend? I ask this despite my reluctance to recommend any of them. I like many of our presidents, but making holidays isn’t something I want to think about. So, I blogged it instead.

I see a new president for 2009 has already been declared.