Kevin Williamson and I just had a subversive conversation. He said, “Happy Columbus Day.” I said, “Happy Columbus Day. I’m glad he made his discovery.”

Is that sort of talk still covered by the First Amendment? Has the chief justice swung one way or the other? (My impression is that Kennedy is pretty good on speech.)

Anyway — Happy Columbus Day, and Happy Indigenous Peoples Day, too.

P.S. Rigoberta Menchú won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1992. Do you know why? Because it was the 500th anniversary of Columbus’s discovery — to use (again) the verboten word — and the committee wanted to make an anti-Columbian statement: So they picked the most prominent indigene in the Americas, Ms. Menchú, a memoirist (sort of) and revolutionary.

Anytime you want Nobel trivia, just holler . . .

P.P.S. I imagine you can still say “Happy Columbus Day,” under the First Amendment. But here’s the question of the hour: Can you say it in a federal park?