If you are reading this blog, you are likely interested in California policy and politics, not just health care. Here’s two fun resources about our great state:
Scott Lay, who somehow manages both AroundTheCapitol.com and the great daily update E-mail The Nooner, all as a side job, put together from his readers a list of books that would provide a university-quality education that would prepare you for a career in California politics or policy?
AroundTheCapitol.com has the list with active hyperlinks:
•A Disorderly House: The Brown-Unruh Years in Sacramento (James R. Mills)
•A Rage for Justice: The Passion and Politics of Phillip Burton (John Jacobs)
•Ask a Mexican (Gustavo Arrelano)
•Cadillac Desert (Marc Reisner)
•California: A History (Kevin Starr) (And, the whole series if you have time.)
•California Rising: The Life and Times of Pat Brown (Ethan Rarick)
•California’s Tax Machine: A History of Taxing and Spending in the Golden State (David Doerr)
•City of Quartz (Mike Davis)
•California Crackup (Joe Mathews and Mark Paul)
•Governor Reagan: His Rise to Power (Lou Cannon)
•Justice For All: Earl Warren and the Nation He Made (Jim Newton)
•Nudge (Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein)
•Paradise Lost (Peter Schrag)
•The Art of Lobbying: Building Trust and Selling Policy (Bertram J. Levine)
•The Path to Power (The Years of Lyndon Johnson) (Robert Caro) (And, the whole series if you have time.)
•The Secret Boss of California (Arthur Samish and Bob Thomas)
•The Third House: Lobbyists, Power, and Money in Sacramento (Jay Michael and Dan Walters)
•The Campaign of the Century: Upton Sinclair’s Race for Governor of California and the Birth of Media Politics (Greg Mitchell)
•Why David Sometimes Wins: Leadership, Organization, and Strategy in the California Farm Worker Movement (Marshall Ganz)
•Willie Brown: A Biography (James Richardson)
So once you have studied at this informal university, test your knowledge.
Here’s a quiz, from Adam Bonin, the chairman of Netroots Nation (and a college classmate), who hosted a “pub quiz” contest when this conference of progressive online activists was in San Jose, California, earlier this year. He provided three rounds of questions, themed around the host city. The first round theme was “Saint,” the second on “Joe,” (the English translations of San Jose), and the third on California, although there were Golden State references throughout. Here’s the third round questions, with answers at Daily Kos:
Round 3: California
Welcome to wherever you are. 3pts each.