Stephen Breyer

I went to the City arts and lecture recording last week. The way it happened was quite interesting. Somebody in office posted tickets to some other lecture. I was not interested in that one but i thought that this is one area which i have not explored and i listen to City arts and lecture whenever i get time and i like it. So, i just went to their site and browsed upcoming lectures, saw a judge's name and description mentioned democracy. I just bought the ticket. Pretty easy, huh? And then the day comes and i go to this lecture. Turns out that the interviewer is Michael Krasny.es, The Michael Krasny, whom i listen on NPR all the time and i like his voice and style. So woot! And then Michael Krasny walks in and there comes the clash with my mental model of Michael Krasny with the real one. He is old, he is human :). But nevertheless, he starts talking and all is well in this world. Now, coming to the main point - Stephen Breyer. What a judge, what a person! You can listen to the recording at -
http://www.kqed.org/a/forum/R201111141000

 Since then, i have listened to another lecture by Stephen (on a podcast) and will be reading his books very soon. In the KQED lecture, Stephen talks about how court works, how the 9 judges vote, how he works with his staff etc. He goes into some history, why courts were created, debates on things that is the court the right system etc. He also shares things that he has learned from being a Supreme court judge - aka to listen. The fact that another Supreme court judge by listening to the same facts can come to an exact opposite conclusion than him makes him question himself even more; he has learnt that an effort is required to see the same thing from another view point and that makes the whole process very interesting. He also shared few books he liked, his memories from his upbringing at SF etc. He mentions few cases, of prominent is the Bush vs Gore case - i would leave you to listen to the podcast recording.

He answered questions very well, in particular the one that i liked was his approach to many things which from what i understood (a) Give time to things, if you dont think that they are correct, find out what is correct and then act , (b) history is filled with bad cases, infact it is a great boon to live in democracy the way we have it now, whether you like it or not. So, do not come to conclusions very quickly, see the other view point and try to get more facts. And there were lot of anecdotes shared. I am going to read his books, may be on this trip to India :)

But a great man. I was very pleased that i went to this lecture. And seeing Michael Krasny, thats a wow!
Wiki page - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Breyer