Marty Manley on economics, politics, technology, and culture

Books

Sexonomics

During the 1970s, I worked in an enormous machine shop in Sunnyvale, California. It was noisy, messy, boring, and occasionally dangerous. Silicon Valley was popping up all around us, creating technology that would change the world — but we carried lunch buckets and cut metal for a living. Perhaps a thousand machinists, operators, tool and [...]

5. The Ashtray of History

Beijing, China Outside of Tienamen and the national currency, Mao Zedong has now been reduced to a cultural relic. Mao ashtrays are the height of Beijing kitsch, available in the local flea markets. Mao statuary, posters, and Little Red Books are available as well, but these sell mainly to tourists. Vendor: "Get Little Red Book! [...]

Fiasco by Thomas Ricks

On vacation, couldn’t wait to get to Thomas Ricks Fiasco, acclaimed by many as the best writing to date on the Iraq war. Ricks is the Pentagon correspondent for the Washington Post and the author of an account of Marine Corps boot camp, Making the Corps. He is not an anti-war writer and is not [...]

Nothing Left to Lose

For most people, age 27 is prime time. You are usually done with school, although hopefully not with learning. You are making your own way in the world. You are young and strong but ideally less foolish than you had been a decade earlier. You may even be in a stable, more-or-less adult, relationship. If [...]

How Long the Tail — and How High the Head?

This is the question of the season for two reasons: Dead Man’s Chest, the recent installment of Pirates of the Caribbean, which launched last night, and The Long Tail the much-blogged, long-awaited book by Wired’s Chris Anderson. The movie features (what else?) a Kraken, a veritable long-tailed, high-headed Leviathan that unceremoniously sucks ships out of [...]

Ayaan Hirsi Ali Brings Down the Dutch Government

First voting in Kuwait and now Ayaan Hirsi Ali brings down the Dutch government! An excellent day for Islamic women! This is horn-honking, TERRIFIC news. Ayaan Hirsi Ali is the Muslim Somalia-born refugee who arrived in Holland, learned Dutch, was elected to Parliament, spoke out against fascist Islam, and collaborated with Theo Van Gogh to [...]

Tomorrow Never Knows

"turn off your mind, relax, float downstream" – Timothy Leary, as appropriated by John Lennon Did you catch the Sunday New York Times review by Luc Sante of the Robert Greenfield biography of Timothy Leary? For a cultural icon, Leary always seemed odd and ill at ease — he gave the impression of having done [...]

End State Textbook Monopolies

Good for Debra Saunders for calling bull on a bill before the California assembly mandating "age appropriate" information about the contributions of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people in California and American history. Saunders is nearly always the voice of sanity in Bay Area political journalism. She archives here. Without minimizing the doubtless extraordinary contributions [...]

"The fate of unborn millions will now depend, under God, on the courage and conduct of this army" George Washington, July 2, 1776

I was fortunate to speak recently with David McCullough, author of 1776, John Adams, Truman, a wonderful volume of essays called Brave Companions, and other well rendered bits of US history. McCullough began writing for USIA in Washington, DC when it was run by Edward R. Murrow. He is now the father or grandfather of [...]

We Know What You Want – So We Know You

Confirming my suspicion that JK Rowling had Google in mind when she created the Mirror of Erised, the current Cal Alumni magazine has an outstanding cover article on The Future of Search by Forbes Silicon Valley editor and Berkeley faculty member Quentin Hardy. Hardy works with the Jamwife, who tipped me to an earlier piece [...]

BEATNIK TRAINING: Caen Would Laugh, Ginsberg Would Howl

NEW YORK TIMES SUNDAY BOOK REVIEW

Ready for the Worst

The centennial of the Great San Francisco Earthquake, recent FEMA
hearings, and our recent run of catastrophic tsunamis, earthquakes, and
hurricanes remind us that disaster preparation can be a matter of life and
death. So why do so few of us take disaster preparation seriously? Avian
flu is believed by many scientists to be one inevitable mutation away from
becoming a really unpleasant pandemic. According to ABC, “Secretary of
Health and Human Services Michael Leavitt recently recommended that
Americans start storing canned tuna and powdered milk under their beds
as the prospect of a deadly bird flu outbreak approaches the United
States.

Audacious. Daring. Artistic. Insanely Great. 30 years old.

CNET wishes Happy 30th Birthday to the company that won our minds by knowing our hearts. They recall that the founders used to go "door-to-door at the UC Berkeley dorms selling "blue boxes"–electronic devices that tricked the telephone network into allowing free long-distance phone calls". One of the scofflaws was Steve Jobs, easily America’s most [...]

Kremvax and other marvels of April

What is your favorite April Fools hoax? Alex Boese over at the very slow loading Museum of Hoaxes has documented the 100 best April Fools Jokes of all time. My favorite hoaxes involve the Internet. Perhaps the first Internet prank ever is the almost forgotten Internet legend of Kremvax. Kremvax was a message distributed on [...]

Intellectual Property Gone Beserk

Mother Jones has a hysterical list of examples of IP gone mad. Excerpts: