Marty Manley on economics, politics, technology, and culture

Political leaders

Whatever Happened to the United Farmworkers?

On New Year’s Day, a friend mentioned that Frank Bardacke had published his long-anticipated history of the rise and fall of Cesar Chavez and the United Farmworkers. It was worth the wait, he assured me and “completely stunning. Just get it and read it. You won’t put it down.” He was right. Bardacke, a respected [...]

What Lives After: Remembering Five Who Died This Week

Shakespeare’s immortal eulogy delivered by Mark Anthony for Julius Caesar resonates this week: “The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interred with their bones.” We lost five remarkable men from different parts of the world. Four of them made the planet an immeasurably better place. One devoted his life to [...]

Cory Booker: Tweet Theater or the Politics of Engagement?

In September of 1965, Hurricane Betsy devastated New Orleans. The damage was not as bad as Katrina forty years later, but large bits of Lake Pontchartrain again ended up in the poor and largely black Ninth Ward. Residents fled to the George Washington Elementary School on St. Claude Avenue, which had been hastily converted into a [...]

A Whitman Deer in California Headlights

It’s a good time to live in the Bay Area. Not only do you get to watch the Giants absolutely pulverize the Texas Rangers, but you get to watch Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina spend a great deal of their own money on vanity campaigns. Politico reports that as of last week, Meg has spent [...]