Dolores Huerta’s Legacy Is the Work AI Cannot Do for Us

Dolores Huerta died at home in Bakersfield. She was 96, and her close family was with her on October 28, according to the Dolores Huerta Foundation. The public record will return now to photographs of the medal and the sound of “Sí se puede.” I keep thinking about the work beneath the slogan. Huerta registered voters. She learned the complaints, found the people willing to act, and stayed through the slow business of making a demand stick. Hope mattered to her because somebody had to give it an address and a next meeting. Her politics offers no rescue by a wealthy patron or an ingenious machine. It asks more of ordinary people and takes their capacities seriously. I want her legacy to remain useful to them.

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Sheryl Sandberg and Public Valley Speaking

What do we think of Sheryl Sandberg?  She’s the big COO hoo-ha at Facebook, and she has a new book that is polarizing the public dialogue on “women in the workplace as women in power.”  I admit I don’t know much about the woman, and my initial exposure was reading about her online.  I haven’t read her book, and I’m not interested in picking a fight about her shallow arguments, but what struck me most about her recent PR tornado is how unappealing I find her as a live speaker arguing her points in person.

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