Freedom for the Thought That We Hate

Freedom for the Thought That We Hate is authored by Anthony Lewis a two time pulitzer prize winner.  The book is subtitled as A Biography of the First Amendment.  Lewis takes the life of the First Amendment from its inception and how it's meaning has evolved from then down to the present.  The book is current and addresses issues through 2007 and the Iraq war.  Lewis demonstrates the value that the First Amendment in our society and the trial it has gone through during its existence.

The most powerful part of the book revolves around the original meaning of the first amendment and how it's changed over time.  What struck me most was the blatant attempts to circumvent the amendment so soon after it was implemented.  It is true that the meaning was nearly as wide as it is today.  Sedition laws were common, relatively speaking.  They have been enacted as recently as WWI with Woodrow Wilson.  In most case they were struck down shortly after being implemented.  One interesting case was with John Adams who had a sedition law put in place, largely to keep his VP, Thomas Jefferson, quiet.  The sedition laws made it illegal to criticize the president.  The Adams law lost out when Jefferson was elected and he had the law removed from the books.

Lewis continues with a number of court cases that changed how freedom of speech is viewed.  In some cases the same supreme court justice ruled differently on similar cases.  I didn't make it a point to memorize the cases, or I'd never finish the book.  The most interesting change was how libel came to be judged.  In the early times just stating something that was true, but negative could be ruled as libel.  Over time that interpretation lost it's hold and libel became something where the damages needed to be proven along with malicious intent.

I left the book appreciating the first amendment much more after seeing the road that it's followed and the opportunities that existed to send it down a different path.  What makes the amendment so important is that it protects what we don't necessarily like to hear.  It brings to mind my OB (Organizational Behavior) class from grad school.  One of the keys to effective meetings/decision-making was the inclusion of the devils advocate.  This was important to avoid groupthink.  What allowing these voices do for the public mind is to keep us honest the the same way I learned in the OB class.

If we only have one accepted opinion, then we can't earn anything new; we are also unable to truly defend our position, because we don't know how to view it through the skeptical lens that these rabble-rousers force us to.  When an idea is solid and reasonable, it will withstand criticism and dissent.  Where it is weak it will be made stronger.  We come into serious danger when we can't criticize or think critically about people and issues.  Next thing you know we're sending up a Space Shuttle with defective O-rings, metaphorically speaking.  The other good thing about the dissenters is that in general they aren't necessarily that off the rocker.  It's a new view that can lend to the larger society, though it takes time.

I guess I didn't cover the book that much, but it is worth the time.  It's a short book and I think that al should give it a read.  I really think the book would be ideal for a high-school government class.  The approach is simple enough and I think it can generate good discussion not just about the first amendment, but about the other parts of the bill of rights.

Good Old Eminent Domain

I admit I'm no expert on the subject, but this whole concept bugs me.  My understanding was that Eminent Domain could/should only be used as a last resort for public works projects.  I remember reading about people "losing" their property to help out corporations so that cities could get more taxes.  I know people are compensated at "fair market value" (as not determined by the fair market), but that doesn't do much.  I understand that cities/counties/states need tax revenue, but governments are not for profit organizations.  It is their job to set a reasonable tax rate and "compete" for residents with to some degree; they then must work within the tax revenue that they collect based on that rate.

I have no real problem for a local government to attract a business by making some adjustments to the tax rates.  I do oppose the use of eminent domain for the use to help out private business.  If a business wants a bunch of land, then I think they can work out a deal with the residents.  It might make things difficult for them, but the government is there to serve the people, not business.  Just my thoughts.  I thought this clip from CATO was pretty cool.  Enjoy.

Tropic of Hockey

Dave Bidini is a founding member of the canadian band the Rheostatics.  Up until reading this book, I'd never heard of the band.  Bidini has established himself as a bit of an author and now a sports commentator in Canada.  Tropic of Hockey is Bidini's second book and was published in 2000.  Though the events he describes took place 10 years ago, they seem fresh and current.

What is Tropic of Hockey?  It's a travelogue of a hockey fan.  It's not just any travelogue.  Bidini set out to see places not traditionally known for their hockey-ness.  Even though Bidini travelled with the Rheostatics, he hated it, because it meant he couldn't play hockey.  His wife had travelled around the world with out her man, so he wouldn't have to miss hockey.  When Bidini discovered that he could play hockey and travel, that's when he decided that he could visit places not known for their hockey and write about it.  Thus Tropic of Hockey was born.

The book takes place in three parts, each representing one leg of his search.  He begins is China, then to the United Arab Emerites, and finally to Romania.  Each area had something different to offer and each history was different, though the passion was equal in each area.  Bidini didn't just go to play pick-up hockey either.  He was able to hook up with some teams and play in tournaments, except in Romania.

China was the first stop, and it had the most interesting tournament.  Bidini took part in the HK Five, a yearly tournament that'd been active for more than a decade.  Teams came from al over the world, mostly asian areas.  Teams were of a healthy mix, one team from UAE others made up of Canadians and Europeans living in Hong Kong and surrounding areas.  Once the tournament was done, Bidini stayed in China but went north to Harbin, a city that had exposure from the Soviets and their hockey culture.  Here Bidini hooked up with a team traveling from the U.S., a group of well-to-do folks.  While he found playing with them fun, he was disappointed in the way the group looked down on the chinese.  They took some cheap-shots during games and would trade stuff with the chinese, deals that were usually strongly in favor of the Americans.

In UAE, Bidini was exposed to an area very new to hockey.  He met up with the same UAE team he'd met in Hong Kong and had the chance to actually play in a game with the team.  The rink is UAE was quite nice and resembled a Muslim temple in many respects.  Some Expatriates who'd gotten in good with some of the local rich folks and sold them on the game.  The entire trip took place in Dubai, know for it's efforts to adopt winter sports to the climate by building massive indoor facilities (Ski Dubai is possibly the most famous).  UAE provided the nicest facility by far of the trip.

The final stop was a small Romanian city called Miercurea Ciuc, Ciuc for short, located in Transylvania.  Bidini was in town for the start of the Romanian hockey season and a game between the local team from Ciuc and Bucharest.  One thing of note is the Cuic area is comprised of ethnic Hungarians who are not particularly popular with the rest of the country.  It's reflected in the fact that the Bucharest team was well staffed and equipped via the government, while the Cuic team was left to fend largely for itself.  They did not experience much success, but they had a deep hockey history in the town and a deep passion for the game.

Overall, I found Tropic of Hockey to quite engaging.  Bidini is a good storyteller and does a great job of understanding the people he's talking about.  Rarely to they come across as one-dimensional.  Bidini seems to capture multiple sides of their personalities.  That's quite good considering the short time he spent with most of them.  While this is a book dedicated to hockey, Bidini does justice to the places he visits.  He gives very vivid descriptions of each city and of the people.  Not only that, but even connects what's happening to his past and his personal history with hockey.  He even has some fun exchanges with people he meets where they name off players they know from the NHL.  It's like a little game or an international hockey language.

The main issue I had with the book is rather minor.  At times, Bidini over described things.  Sometimes it seemed like I was reading the opening to A Tale of Two Cities.  I can take a nice vivid description, but there comes a point when it's too much, and that happened on occasion.  It didn't ruin the book by any means, but it was distracting at times.

Tropic of Hockey is a hockey book, but it's not just for hockey fans.  I think anybody that has a passion about anything, whether a sport, traveling, or art could enjoy the book rather well.  I think the approach Bidini takes makes it easy for a non-hockey person pick up the book and understand what Bidini is trying to say.  Hopefully I'll get a chance to take my own Tropic of Hockey trip, maybe just get to watch hockey in different places.  We'll see how my employer accommodates that desire with a healthy raise sometime.

66: Lemieux Over Time

I'm still in the midst of the sports books.  I've been into hockey since high school, but I haven't read a lot of hockey books.  The only other one I'd read prior to this one was the Wayne Gretzky autobiogrphy.  66 is almost a coffee table book.  It was just about 200 pages, but in the large format with a lot of pictures.  I just picked up the book, because I thought it would be fun to read.  And it was.  It was actually much better than I expected, not that it's spectacular.  It just did a decent job of telling the Lemieux story without being cheesy.

The book is mainly an attempt to chronicle the Lemieux's return the NHL.  I was forced in to early retirement due to some back problems.  When he retired, he left hockey entirely with no intent of getting back into the game.  About three years after he retired Lemieux's team, the Pittsburgh Penguins, were in serious financial trouble.  There was a strong possibility the team would fold or move to another city.  Ticket sales were way down.  Something very different from Lemieux's days with the team when they won two Stanley Cups.  Lemieux decided to get involved, but this time as an owner.  He was able to pull together a team of business folks and lawyers to make a purchase of the team to keep it in the city.  This began Lemieux's return to hockey.

At this point there was no inkling that the big man would return to the ice as a player.  It certainly was not on his mind.  He just wanted the team to stay in Pittsburgh.  After some time off from hockey and with some new exercises, Lemieux noticed his back felt much better.  He also knew his team needed some life injected into it.  He finally realized he could return to hockey as a player and finally go out on his own terms.  It was one of the biggest stories in hockey.

The book goes through Lemieux's career from a kid through his return.  The return itself is covered throughout the entire book.  Each chapter begins with a description of a game from his return to the ice and some of the important plays.

The book is fun, though I found the layout a bit distracting.  That's not a big deal, because it's not really written to be a book you just pick up and read.  The story telling is pretty good and I think it touches on the human side of Lemieux.  Even though he is certainly one of the best players to play the game, the book gives the sense that's he's still a pretty regular guy.  I think the only people who would enjoy it are avid hockey fans.

Here are some highlights just for fun: