My column for Civil Beat this week is a rewrite of an earlier blog post reviewing U.S. Supreme Court decisions protecting the First Amendment rights of peaceful protest, even when important symbols like the flag and the pledge of allegiance are involved (“Ian Lind: The Empty Patriotism Of Trump’s National Anthem Fury“). The snappy new headline should pull in more readers! It is already drawing more comments, not all well informed, I might say.

And this week marks five years since I started as a Civil Beat columnist. My initial column appeared on October 16, 2012, “What’s Behind the UH Athletics Debacle.”

It has been an interesting ride. Perhaps time to collect the best of those columns in one place….