Marty Manley on economics, politics, technology, and culture

Archive for January, 2009

Reinventing and Rediscovering Music

The traditional music industry is dead and likely to be more studied than missed.  Every label is in trouble, mainly because CD sales decline every year, with 2009 likely to be a free fall. Every dedicated music retail chain is out of business. Only the #1 retailer matters –  Apple’s iTunes. The rest, including Walmart [...]

How am I doing?

You stagger off of a crowded jet into the world's largest airport — the sprawling creation of British architect Norman Foster in Beijing. From the air, the airport is designed to look like a dragon. Inside, its high roof is ablaze with the reds and golds of imperial China. Whatever. It's a fine airport, but [...]

Puttin' on Heirs: Why I'm Not Voting for Malia Obama

IInherited political office reeks of the royalism  that drove our forefathers to revolution. As in 1829, we saw off a Presidential son this week — although unlike George II, John Quincy Adams did not chopper off with Pops. Instead he served in Congress — the only former president ever to do so. Until today, the [...]

Prose When Poetry Was Due

What a sight! More than a million jubilant people jammed into the National Mall to watch history pivot. Hundreds of millions more watched or listened to Obama from all over the world. Obama delivered a fine inaugural address but oddly, he chose prose over poetry. Instead of words to lift souls, we got a sermon [...]

There is no joy on Wall Street — Bernanke has struck out.

Courtesy of Matt Miller, author of the just-out The Tyranny of Dead Ideas. He is a better writer than poet, but this isn't bad: Bernanke at The Fed! Things were looking down for GDP that fateful yearRetail sales had sunk, with the consumer crouched in fearThe S&P had cratered, while the banks their cash did [...]

Oaklandish

Plump, grey-haired Punjabi matrons in bright saris ululate like teenagers. Hot Indian grad students grab dates or mates who are Russian, Vietnamese, black, and white. Amritsari fried fish mixes with tamales; nan sits next to sopas. Women line up for Henna tattoos as kids run around and the music gets louder. A few overweight middle [...]

China 2009: An Ox in a Box.

A journalist once claimed that after a week in China he could write a book, after a month, he could produce a good article, but after a year he had nothing to say — so complex and layered was the country's economic, political, and cultural life. Unfortunately for pithy summaries, my recent visit to Beijing [...]