In its waning minutes, the Wombat File staff mark this anniversary of our for-better-or-for-worse country's birthday with nothing special -- a notation that like many other hoary institutions that are often mourned these days, decent journalism and, indeed, magazines, still have a little kick left in them.

Hence, among the many excellent things that cannot (yet) be found on the Web: Jack Hitt's "Mighty White of You," which graces the July 2005 issue of Harper's. It's a look at the archaeological controversy around "Kennewick Man" and the fascinating -- and disturbing -- persistence of arguments about ancient peoples of "Caucasian" origin being the "first Americans."

(If you want something almost equally fascinating/disturbing (not new) of Mr. Hitt's that can be accessed through your computer, I might suggest Act One of this program.)

It's true, this non-link doesn't even have more than a seriously oblique relationship to the holiday on which we write. But we're really not up to the task of writing word one about the U.S. of A., it's heritage, or its probable future tonight. We're just happy to be back here, in whatever attenuated capacity, at all. More, as we keep saying, to come.

And yes: the Quiz will ride again.