Render / Rendition

I've been thinking about the verb render and its euphemistic use by 'intelligence' folks. Ionesco loved such words intended to obscure.

Render, when used in the context of extraordinary rendition, seemingly refers to the "provide to" sense of the verb.

I'm sure however that the "melt down" or "process carcass in order to extract protein" sense of render was the intended variant.

The same people that brought us the phrase terminate with extreme prejudice speak softly of extraordinary rendition and coercive techniques.

It turns out the extraordinary modifier to rendition was an exaggeration, for the actual policy was rather ordinary once the gloves came off

I'm impressed by the techniques suffix to "coercive interrogation techniques". It provides the weasel veneer of bureaucratic justification.

The gloves came off metaphor is of a piece with the reluctant avenger, cold warrior and cowboy rhetoric. Also the fighter pilot iconography.

As Gil Scott-Heron pointed out the metaphor is always "The man in the white hat", it's never "He died with his pants on". The B-movie Theory

They used techniques, after all, this wasn't done without thought. Techniques for God's sake. They had memos, they had a mandate. Techniques

They rendered enemy combatants. The analysts were security professionals, the lawyers wrote briefs, memos, and provided sober legal counsel

From the president on, everyone always meant well. We should never forget the pervasive fear of those times. We should never forget they say.

I'm confounded by Diane Feinstein's phrase in the Senate Committee's torture report: "the impulse to consider the use of every possible tool"

Render / Rendition

Render
Rendition
Techniques
Extraction
Intelligence
Determination
Coercive
Interrogation
"Color-coded threat"
"Stress position"

Agency
Authorization
Bureaucratic
Justification
"Pervasive fear"
Suffocation
"Every possible tool"
Mutilation
Truth
Fiction

Program
Detention
Committee
Conclusion
Values
Expectation
Evidence
Destruction
Executive
Classification

Concern
Abdication
Duress
Oppression
Detainee
Sanction
Mission
Completion
Indefinite
Incarceration

Reviews
Recommendation
Secrecy
Investigation
Findings
Decision
Medical
Precision
Battlefield
Condition

Field manual
Operation
Contractor
Delegation
Homeland
Representation
Unreleased
Section
"Enhanced"
[ Redaction ]

Wall
Collision
Sleep
Deprivation
Rectal!
Hydration?
Pain
Contortion
Linguistic
Distortion

Study
Revision
Wartime
Alienation
Constraints
Compulsion
Restraints
Revulsion
Enforcement
Intimidation

Outsourced
Situation
Professional
Affectation
Permanent
Condition
Blood
Repulsion
Sin
Confession

Delayed
Publication
Damage
Mitigation
Sullied
Reputation
Outrage
Attention
Necessity
Neglection

Statute
Limitation
Geneva
Convention
Liability
Litigation
Missing
Compensation
Accountability?
Desertion

Blustery
Pontification
Misleading
Compilation
Success?
Inflation
Platitudes
Comprehension
Ludicrous
Prevarication

Security
Protection
Treaties
Obligation
Counsel
Dissimulation
Impulse
Misdirection
Damning
Distraction

Extensive
Preparation
Confinement
Contraction
Liquid
Nutrition
Programmatic
Starvation
Behavior
Modification

Goodwill
Dissipation
Diplomacy
Complication
Reckless
Accommodation
Pride
Restriction
Shame
Inflection

Patriotic
Intention
Tenuous
Salvation
Absence
Redemption
Erasure
Restoration
Judicious
Diversion

Harmful
Friction
Living
Invention
Mournful
Adjudication
Dangerous
Subversion
Poverty
Imagination

Rhetorical
Congratulation
Obscene
Citation
Wicked
Implication
Doubtful
Mediation
Ignored
Submission

Imperial
Contention
Oblivious
Reaction
Systematic
Protestation
Ridicule
Reception
Artful
Omission

Inquiry
Condemnation
Worldwide
Suggestion
Reluctant
Identification
Faded
Admiration
Ongoing
Asphyxiation

Covert
Dispensation
Robust
Accumulation
Intentional
Concision
Captured
Regulation
Oversight?
Illusion

Implacable
Opposition
Sensible
Supervision
Remarkable
Dilution
Income
Distribution
Unearned
Remuneration

Ruthless
Organization
Policy
Gestation
Unwarranted
Invasion
Conflict
Adoption
Contemptuous
Communication

Western
Machination
Solipsistic
Absorption
Fragile
Adaptation
Cultural
Variation
Toothless
Negation

Rights
Suspension
Deleterious
Temptation
Funding
Indignation
Needless
Accusation
Pointless
Recrimination

Ordinary
Exaggeration
Unfortunate
Improvisation
Admitted
Deception
Managed
Perception
Mythical
Affirmation

Dishonorable
Introduction
Dungeon
Provision
Insomnia
Hallucination
Unbearable
Tradition
Uncivilized
Nation

Increasing
Frustration
Aggressive
Competition
Consistent
Anticipation
Unsanitary
Migration
Cold
Calculation

Forced
Digestion
Useless
Petition
Dismal
Donation
Media
Fixation
Footnote
Generation

Coffin-sized
Configuration
Water
Application
Simple
Combination
Damage
Deracination
Worthless
Information

Misguided
Collaboration
Crusade
Confrontation
Intellectual
Immiseration
Spurious
Distinction
Soulless
Association

Energetic
Manipulation
Democracy
Promotion?
Disappointing
Corruption
Misplaced
Compassion
Deferred
Conversation

Duty
Dereliction
Integrity
Renunciation
Scatological
Fascination
Childish
Obsession
Ignored
Objection

Youthful
Indiscretion
Mean
Regression
Sanctimonious
Suppression
Unmerited
Acclamation
Failed
Inhibition

Celebrity
Contribution
Suppository
Imposition
Prisoner
Supposition
Presidential
Prohibition
Poisoned
Succession

Formal
Deposition
Norm
Violation
Dubious
Potion
Patrimony
Dissipation
Naysayer
Vindication

Posture
Prostration
Sexual
Lubrication
Fitful
Ingestion
Religious
Desecration
Humanity
Constriction

Internee
Evaluation
Light
Attenuation
Restricted
Motion
Nasal
Irrigation
Liminal
Libation

Interpreter
Translation
Adverse
Selection
Bounty
Concession
Changing
Definition
Circumstantial
Conviction

Moral
Dimension
Topical
Digression
Selective
Indirection
Rogue
Procession
Warning
Obliteration

External
Location
Allied
Accession
Righteous
Recognition
Fatal
Indecision
Justice
Elision

Frustrated
Ambition
Clipped
Diction
Intense
Articulation
Procedure
Resurrection
Intentional
Vivisection

Arrogant
Arrogation
Perilous
Peregrination
Alarming
Imputation
Disputed
Observation
Choice
Abortion

Presumptuous
Appropriation
Amateur
Pronunciation
Illegible
Illustration
Execrable
Assumption
Waste
Elimination

Singular
Possession
Inevitable
Progression
Perfidious
Corporation
Currency
Devaluation
Greater
Recession

Multiple
Quotation
Target
Consultation
Civility
Vacation
Supreme
Toleration
Broken
Union

Limb
Extension
Faltering
Respiration
Exemplary
Pretension
Appearance
Abolition
Existential
Reversion

Choreographed
Transition
Saline
Infusion
Fluid
Intoxication
Psychologist
Intervention
Biological
Experimentation

Mental
Perversion
Panicked
Retrogression
Hunger
Humiliation
Extreme
Affliction
Grace
Castration

Deliberate
Obfuscation
Diffuse
Suspicion
Warrantless
Intrusion
Abuse
Adoration
Retinal
Dilation

Feigned
Concentration
Advice
Exclusion
Constant
Invocation
Imagined
Exception
Probity
Remission

Necessary
Interception
Fantasy
Creation
Stolen
Tribulation
Marginal
Implementation
Decency
Immigration

Extremity
Subtraction
Cavity
Insertion
Wound
Insemination
Artificial
Distinction
Probable
Extinction

Casual
Exploration
Depraved
Sensation
Particular
Illumination
Expected
Humiliation
Soul
Ruination

Stylistic
Innovation
Freelance
Rumination
Advanced
Automation
Telling
Indication
Resultant
Concussion

Drone
Explosion
Village
Commotion
Newspaper
Mention
Perfunctory
Expression
Population
Reduction

Latest
Edition
Perfidious
Caption
Final
Option
Ceremonial
Presentation
Complaisant
Facilitation

Background
Attribution
Sought
Cooperation
Site
Relocation
Distributed
Participation
Impotent
Injunction

Thoughtless
Instruction
Rule
Diffusion
Nebulous
Compartmentalization
Threat
Emission
Press
Domestication

Unpopular
Opinion
Cost
Trillion
Predicted
Contradiction
Peaceful
Liberation
Continuing
Education

Masculinity
Aggression
Adrenaline
Animation
Sad
Disposition
Estrogen
Disruption
Required
Reflection

Pervasive
Vandalization
Tactical
Generalization
Retrospective
Admission
Profound
Ossification
Importance
Cognition

Sinister
Specialization
Family
Co-option
Suborn
Deliberation
Hostage
Negotiation
Self
Preservation

Conscious
Simulation
Appropriate
Coordination
Surprising
Satisfaction
Activity
Customization
Influence
Conservation

Profit
Augmentation
Homogeneous
Composition
Resistance
Transformation
Tribal
Authentication
Ideological
Indoctrination

Ethical
Evolution
Arduous
Navigation
Conduct
Demonstration
Murderous
Standardization
Noxious
Revolution

Lost
Congregation
Principle
Minimization
Controversial
Interpretation
Philosophical
Question
Stolen
Election

Power
Centralization
Historical
Abstraction
Honesty
Aversion
Preferred
Version
Tissue
Rejection

Cowering
Caution
Shrieks
Exhaustion
Injury
Infliction
Wilful
Inaction
Derived
Fragmentation

Camp
Administration
Poetry
Confiscation
Literature
Munition
Human bodies
Ammunition?
Privilege
Revocation

Intolerable
Provocation
Impertinent
Recrimination
Cult-like
Indoctrination
No
Reconsideration
Cultural
Projection

Cell
Utilization
Anxiety
Elevation
Electrical
Stimulation
Genital
Incapacitation
Inspired
Abomination

Dishonest
Acquisition
Scandalous
Faction
Violent
Suction
Disgust
Urination
Legacy
Despoliation

Overseas
Destabilization
Blowback
Saturation
Foreign
Legion
Mercenary
Season
Bleeding
Lesion

Hidden
Installation
Policy
Persecution
Vindictive
Perpetration
Agony
Segregation
Criminal
Explanation

Rented
Mansion
Newfound
Vision
Rumored
Allegation
Implied
Sterilization
Potential
Circumcision

Mindless
Tabulation
Unusual
Exposition
Rapid
Transportation
Hubris
Enervation
Gutter
Gravitation

Legal
Abrogation
Effective
Cancellation
Inadequate
Transmission
Territorial
Expansion
Conscience
Evacuation

Claustrophobia
Congestion
Sensory
Encapsulation
Outlaw
Contagion
Inviolable
Constitution?
American
Predation

Advanced
Intuition
Pastoral
Repudiation
Exploited
Division
Troubled
Intersection
Embarrassing
Erection

Prolonged
Discussion
Mounting
Discrimination
Avoiding
Circumspection
Fuel
Ignition
Internal
Combustion

Chest
Compression
Air
Circulation
Flow
Obstruction
Ingredient
Addition
Drug
Addiction

Mislaid
Cushion
Welts
Contusion
Desired
Solution
Coarse
Confection
Quick
Execution

Lengthy
Seclusion
Organ
Occlusion
Lawsuit
Preclusion
Punishment
Recursion
Debarment
Prevention

Deployment
Rotation
Cynical
Politicization
Rationale
Implosion
Widespread
Derision
Nostalgia
Fashion

Belief
Proposition
Efficient
Collection
Course
Correction
Wink
Connotation
Dead
Complexion

Stentorian
Declaration
Proffered
Recompensation
Generational
Declension
Ingredient
Alteration
Abhorrent
Mutation

Forced
Constipation
Rape
Insinuation
Ceaseless
Vibration
Ominous
Intimation
Functional
Defenestration

Tooth
Excision
Surgical
Incision
Heat
Convection
Post-mortem
Dissection
Post modern
Explication

Blind
Devotion
Proof
Confirmation
Fact
Verification
Lacking
Substantiation
Invented
Corroboration

Message
Synchronization
Brand
Appreciation
Sublime
Persuasion
Enchanted
Population
Cattle
Appellation

Dogs
Domination
Slaps
Profusion
Hoods
Reclusion
Handcuffs
Ablution
Pacifist
Delusion

Sovereignty
Immunization
Amnesty
Vaccination
Stench
Consecration
Impunity
Desecration
Grief
Consolation

Suspect
Motivation
Vicious
Direction
Self-serving
Narration
Impossible
Reconciliation
Odious
Foundation

Immoral
Consideration
Deceitful
Conception
Repeated
Subjection
Physical
Deterioration
Disappearing
Documentation

In sober rooms, and without compunction,
With their white collars and red scribes,
They rejected a mere police action.

The resolved solution of their tribe:
Wounded flesh, revenge their intention.

Standing orders and compromised sources,
An own goal, these never-repudiated wars.
A course, instead, of military prosecutions,
Lies, and brutal interrogations.

Disgrace
Nepotism
Briefs
Criticisms
Wars
Terrorisms
Memos
Legalisms
Freedoms
Euphemisms

...

I've written about the game of the rough beast and I continue to wonder at its bureaucratic infrastructure. Who is writing the script?

For whatever reason, perhaps a keen sense of outrage, I've felt compelled to devise over a hundred variations on my initial scheme. Such is my asylum:

Wordplay as balm for disgust
Language as defense mechanism
Wit as refuge from despair
Poetry as exorcism

I'll follow the Via Negativa convention and tag the above under poems & poem-like things.

Sidenote: Twitter is a dangerous medium. In its immediacy, it takes just one fugitive thought about ostensibly serious-minded folks, and before you know it fifteen forty-five seventy minutes have passed.

File under: language, bureaucracy, torture, policy, USA, security, culture, erustication, CIA, rogues, politics, humour, satire, outrage, hatchet job, Extraordinary Rendition, poetry, The Rough Beast, Things Fall Apart, toli

Patterns of Exchange

A few weeks ago, a Liberian man passing through Accra, Ghana for a few days on his way to a medical conference in Nairobi, Kenya started feeling unwell and feverish. He called the WHO in Nairobi and informed them he wasn't well, suspecting Ebola. The WHO contact in Nairobi called my aunt, a doctor who works for the WHO in Ghana. My aunt hastily organized an Ebola response team and ambulance and dispatched it to the hotel where he was staying. The doctors and ambulance arrived at the hotel equipped with masks, hazmat suits and protective equipment only to discover that the man had gone to the mall! The doctors then managed to contact him at the mall and eventually conveyed him to the isolation unit at the hospital where he was tested for Ebola. The tests eventually come back negative but he remained in quarantine for the full 21 days until the all clear was given.

This, of course, was the height of irresponsibility. The man clearly knew enough given his symptoms to seek medical advice and to contact the WHO in a different country. But I can't believe that he then decided to leave his hotel room to go to a shopping mall. Ghana certainly dodged a bullet, we are lucky that he didn't have Ebola. Indeed given the traffic between Liberia and Ghana, we have been lucky that Ebola hasn't made its way to the country yet. Based on air traffic patterns, Ghana has been modeled as the most likely country to experience Ebola importation. We have seen the effect of a single infection in the most developed countries, and the contrast in countries with poor public health infrastructure.

My aunt had just returned from a harrowing five week tour of duty helping run the WHO Ebola response in Liberia. The thing she emphasized most about her experience was just how easy it was to inadvertently get infected. The example she cites was someone simply dropping something at the end of the 19th of the 20 steps one has to go through when removing one's protective equipment and bending down to pick it up, thereby getting infected. The Spanish nurse who caught Ebola while attending to two Ebola patients in Madrid believes she might have inadvertently touched her face while disposing of an infected glove.

Upon her return to Ghana from Liberia, the WHO wanted to send her to manage the separate outbreak of Ebola in Congo. She demurred, deciding instead to help set up the UN regional Ebola response center in Accra. I wonder, however, whether she will also decline to go to Uganda to deal with the recent outbreak of the Marburg virus there if asked. Everyone in the family is hoping she stays in Ghana, we certainly need her expertise dealing with the ongoing cholera epidemic that has been plaguing our country.

II. Borders and Boundaries

Item: Thomas Eric Duncan (the Liberian man who died of Ebola in Texas) was a refugee in a camp in Danane in Cote d'Ivoire for a few years after the start of the Liberian civil war launched by Charles Taylor.

One of the success stories so far about the present crisis has been the prevention of the spread of Ebola from Liberia and Guinea to neighboring Côte d'Ivoire. The obvious response is that the borders between the countries were eventually closed. It is worth asking however why there was no transmission before the border closures and, well, there is a political angle to explore.

Nimba county in Liberia used to be a source of mercenaries employed by disaffected supporters of the deposed (and disgraced) ex-President Laurent Gbagbo to destabilize Côte d'Ivoire. In the aftermath of the Liberian civil war, there were lots of ex-combatants searching for employment and, for some, the way of the gun was a lucrative comfort. Ivorian president, Alassane Ouattara, had no tolerance for such things: instability is bad for business and Ivory Coast is all about business. He cracked down with a carrot (tempting the opposition back into the political process - and declining to prosecute most of their misdeeds), and the stick (the Liberia-Côte d'Ivoire border is now one of the most impregnable borders in West Africa). Even before the Ebola outbreak, the effect of this policy on cross-border interchange (and trade) has been severe. One wonders when normalcy will return.

Item: Thomas Eric Duncan would later migrate to Ghana where refugee life was more congenial (and the language and cultural barriers less pronounced). The photos of him that were used by the media, showing him dressed in green attire, were taken at a wedding he attended in Ghana a few years ago.

The Buduburam Refugee Settlement in Ghana was set up to host Liberian refugees in 1990. It was always intended to be a temporary camp but events had a way of imposing permanence and it quickly grew into a sprawling city. The Liberian civil war officially came to an end in 2003 after a few false starts, especially the chimera 1997 elections 'won' at the barrel of a gun by Charles Taylor (campaign slogan: "He killed my ma, he killed my pa, I'll vote for him"). The UNHCR began winding down operations there in 2007 although many NGOs of all stripes continue to advocate for camp residents. Authorities in Ghana have never been keen about the camp and throughout its existence have repeated calls to shut it down. Popular prejudices in Ghana attribute a lot of the rising urban crime to Liberians (and the perennial scapegoated Nigerians). Many Liberians have indeed returned to rebuild their country but the ties they forged in Ghana have endured.

While Ghanaians were refugees in the rest of Africa in the 1980s (after all that is where the notion of Ghana must go came from), there has been relative stability since, and Ghana became a destination for political and economic refugees (for Liberians and Sierra Leoneans throughout their civil wars, for Ivoriens during their conflicts in 2002, 2005 and contested elections, and even for Sudanese in 2005, for the Togolese in a couple of spasms after Eyadema's demise and subsequent elections, for Nigerians whenever their economy has sputtered). By and large, we have opened our doors during crises perhaps because we aren't that far removed from crisis.

I read somewhere (UNHCR perhaps?) that the average length of stay in a refugee camp was 18 years. I couldn't quite bring myself to believe this statistic - that's basically a whole generation. I thought that if the figure was accurate, it only meant that the never-ending Palestinian experience was skewing the numbers of these protracted situations. But then I considered my own family experience, and remembered that it was 18 years after we fled Ghana's 1982 coup regime that my mother returned to live there. Of course our exile in France and England wasn't anything like a refugee camp but the point remains that upheaval can have generational effects. I have now, after all, spent most of my life outside Ghana. Collateral damage as cultural exchange, I suppose.

III. Markets are conversations

The World Bank periodically publishes studies about regional integration, (see De-fragmenting Africa as an example). As befits a bank, it is mostly concerned about "removing barriers to trade". The point is well taken and many studies now focus on transportation. Working roads and railways would indeed be good things; these days infrastructure development is all the rage (sidenote: some of us remember donor nations telling us in the 1980s and 1990s that our economies could not sustain even dual carriage motorways). Of course more and better roads are not the only obstacles to overcome.

Surface transport in West Africa is very expensive compared with the rest of Africa and the developing world. The causes are cartelization and restrictive regulation of the trucking industry. High freight charges do not reflect high transport costs so much as high trucking profits that can be traced to the lack of competition in the industry. Trucking industry profit margins in West Africa were found to be on the order of 80 percent, compared with 20–60 percent in southern Africa.

Surface transport in West Africa is also very slow compared with the rest of Africa and the developing world, because of frequent delays associated with administrative processes.

- Ecowas’s Infrastructure a regional perspective

In 2003, one of my cousins started a factory in Accra processing kaolin (soft white clay), wholesaling for the multinationals like Unilever. I had thought in the years since that he would try to go upmarket and add higher value processing so that he wasn't merely selling raw material. He certainly has maker aptitude (a chemical engineer by training) and I've seen some of the ingenious centrifuges he and his partners have designed for use in the factory. Still, working without the precision machinery that German engineering easily affords, he has added new products to the initial portfolio: calcium carbonate from oyster shells, gypsum for fertilizers and so forth. One can see a path of incremental growth on this foundation. Government industrial policy is supposed to foster such development.

Somehow instead, he has made it into the trucking industry and now supplies heavy duty trucks and mining equipment, a sideangle that has become very lucrative. There is a gold rush again in Ghana (the former Gold Coast) with lots of Chinese and Indian prospectors competing with the local Galamsey (there's also a current scramble for offshore oil with Cote d'Ivoire gearing up to join Ghana's recent operations). There is perhaps a precedent here, not necessarily in the scramble for Black Gold, but rather in the move to transportation from an initial focus on trade. A lot of the big Nigerian trading family fortunes were consolidated in the last century by moves into the trucking industry. They initially started as pure traders (mostly agricultural) but then quickly found that it was more lucrative to be in the trucking business. Margins of 80 percent are nothing to sneeze at in any economic venture. Thus there are huge incentives to prevent things like rail and better highways that all agree are key to increased regional integration.

Beyond the petty corruption that keeps things stuck at the border (informal payments and delays), there is also Big Money that adds inertia to tariff policy and regulatory processes. This is the additional context (whose parochial concerns are hurt by increased regional integration) that is missing when you read through the admittedly interesting research notes such as Removing Barriers to Trade between Ghana and Nigeria.

Both countries account for about 61 percent of population and 68 percent of GDP in ECOWAS...

Beyond trade, substantial migration flows between both countries have existed for a long time. Recent estimates put the number of Ghanaian emigrants in Nigeria at 125,000 (IOM 2009), which represent 13 percent of Ghanaians living outside Ghana, and the number of Nigerians living in Ghana at more than 50,000...

Ghanaian manufacturers believe the key barriers to increasing trade with Nigeria include substantial informal payments and delays — regardless of whether documentation is complete — transit charges, and requirements for product registration...

The [ECOWAS] protocols also establish the right of citizens with a valid travel document and health certificate to stay for up to 90 days in another ECOWAS member state before being formally required to apply for residency... Such application should be automatically granted. The revised ECOWAS treaty of 1993... stipulates that ECOWAS citizens should be treated identically to national citizens in establishing and running a business.

- Removing Barriers to Trade between Ghana and Nigeria Strengthening Regional Integration by Implementing ECOWAS Commitments

There is a notional vision of open borders, common currencies and even political union embodied in Ecowas and in the wider African Union. In general, the Francophone countries in ECOWAS have been more integrated but even they have been subject to things falling apart periodically. Ghana and Nigeria have historical ties and ought to have every incentive to strengthen them. The concern is that there are many regional integration processes that are currently being disrupted by the Ebola outbreak. Let's hope that the cultural ties are resilient enough to survive the challenge and quickly rebuild.

West Africa is the part of Africa with the strongest market traditions. I'd argue that the accompanying social engagement is what Africans have to teach the rest of the world and that conversational banter is often lost in the modern world. Trade and markets are not the only lens through which to view patterns of exchange.

Item: when a BBC journalist asked a Sierra Leonean how he prepared for the three-day nationwide Ebola lockdown that took place in September. The reply was "I have bought enough credit on my mobile phone".

Social living is the best.

Soundtrack for this note

• Burning Spear - I & I Survive
  I've been vibing to Burning Spear concerts of late . I now place his run from the mid 1970s to say 1985 among the great musical feats I've witnessed.
• Dianne Reeves - Body And Soul
  I prefer the version she recorded on the aptly named Art And Survival album.

File under: Ghana, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, culture, observation, integration, immigration, migration, refugee, Africa, Ecowas, trade, politics, social, economics, exchange, communities, toli

Trend-surfing Alacrity

For years I've resisted writing anything about Liberia or Sierra Leone. Too painful, too raw, too soon. The pen keeps calling however...

I figured Liberia and Sierra Leone deserved a couple of decades of peace and quiet but, as they say, 'Tings deh happen. Expect some toli.

I saw Rev. Jesse Jackson today with the Texas Ebola victim's family. Really? Some of us remember his history with Charles Taylor during Liberia's descent.

The Country Preacher ought to steer clear of anything related to Liberia and Sierra Leone. It's unseemly.

Suggested reading regarding Jesse Jackson, Pat Robertson (Pat Robertson!) and Charles Taylor: The Quiet American by Graham Greene

Was it Stalin who talked of useful idiots? They always seem to materialize before and during wars.

Consider a taxonomy of useful idiots: the ignorant, those who should know better, the reflexively-tribal, and the professional opportunists.

Servants to power, we are all striving simians on the savannah at heart, looking to Alpha authority.

Apologists for war (think Iraq, think War on Terror) and apologists for unfettered capitalism have had a rough start to this century

Most useful idiots lie low when things go awry. That, paradoxically, is the only time they are of any interest.

Only posterity is unkind to the man of conventional wisdom, and all posterity does is bury him in a blanket of neglect - John Kenneth Galbraith

Professional opportunists are singular gremlins in human society and deserve close study. Sadly, we simply shake our heads at the spectacle

The professional opportunist knows no shame and depends on our short attention span. Hey! Look over there...

I looked.

Most professional opportunists escape scrutiny and scorn because there's always a core of past competence that one can point to.

The notion of shame has become a vestigial sentiment in many Western countries; some call it a casualty of modernity. I dissent.

Coming from a shame society, it's hard to watch bad behavior tolerated with benign neglect, or even rewarded.

My mother emphasized the necessity of permanent outrage. Will I be able to convey that to the children I'm raising in America?

I know my place in America (at the intersection of Tenuous St and Hired Immigrant Worker Alley) and accordingly keep a low profile.

Also civility.

Let's posit a corollary to the quantity theory of insanity. Perhaps a coefficient of opportunism? Argh, forget it: rusty mathematics.

Just because a lizard nods its head doesn't mean it's happy - Ghanaian proverb

Observers are worried

I'm reposting these (slightly annotated) twentysomething thoughts on opportunism here for archiving purposes. With a little distance, I realize that this product of few fevered minutes of short form writing essentially revisits a theme I'd previously covered. Timing is everything I suppose.

[Update: November 2021]

See A Taxonomy of Useful Idiots for a more considered take

File under: rogues, opportunists, Liberia, Sierra Leone, huhudious, culture, observation, USA, celebrity, hatchet job, Observers are worried, useful idiots, toli

The Ziploc Factor

The most attractive aspect of patents is their expiration. Built-in expiration, that "limited times" proposition, is similarly the appealing aspect of the Faustian pact one makes for copyright. In that vein, I would venture that one of the best things to have happened since the start of this century is the expiration of the patent for the ziploc. If you frequent the same supermarkets as I do, you would have noticed the ascendance of the ziploc form factor over the past decade. At first the spread was likely due to increased licensing in anticipation of the expiration of said patent, then, of course, once the crucial patent expired, the flood gates opened and generics came into play, to the extent that these days I can barely find regular plastic bags in store aisles. Permit me to present another item as part of an occasional series on bags, this time a brief cultural history of the ziploc, a foray into the grooves of technology and hardball business. Plastic bags I say, locks, knots, zippers, all have been changed. Ladies and gentlemen, consider the ziploc factor.

I. Radical Transparency

The ziploc resealable plastic bag, sometimes called zip top, zip lock, one zip, slide lock, snap bag, zip-loc (if inclined towards hyphens) or zip snap depending on the brand or technology underpinning you lean towards, crossed the chasm of cultural inevitability in the summer of 2006 when liquids were banned on many flights due to a case of pure bureaucratic terror - call it a liquidity crisis in the skies if you will, for we were living in a era of recent non-specific general threats. Homeland Security restrictions made themselves felt, and within days the nascent ubiquity of ziploc bags could no longer be denied - indeed they were officially mandated. Air travel, already a ludicrously fraught endeavor after September 11 2001, now gained a set of extra contortions that have spoiled things for all who can't afford their private jet - and for all intents and purposes that is everyone. The ziploc was the palliative.

The British were the first to impose restrictions since the ostensible liquid bomb plot had British airports as their target, but it was the TSA list of permitted and prohibited items that really soured things:

All liquids, gels and aerosols must be placed in a single, quart-size, zip-top, clear plastic bag. Gallon size bags or bags that are not zip-top such as fold-over sandwich bags are not allowed. Each traveler can use only one, quart-size, zip-top, clear plastic bag.

Early versions of the TSA list mentioned zip lock although later versions now mention zip-top - as we shall see this little-noticed change in nomenclature is significant in our history, but let's not get ahead of ourselves at this stage. We'll also skip over the size restrictions for the time being and concentrate on the specification of the bag which is a technology prescription backed with the coercive powers of American law enforcement: "clear" for transparency and ease of observation if not confiscation, and ziploc for ease of opening and sealing. The snappy slogan is "Bag and zip for a short trip" and undoubtedly some poor sod had to come up with a breezy mnemonic for the public education campaign on the new requirements:

3-1-1 for carry-ons (3 ounce bottles, 1 ziploc bag, 1 bag)

The equivalent British poster from the BAA doesn't have the same marketing flair (but who can compete with American salesmanship?) and gets the essential point across: the requirement is simply "a transparent, resealable bag". In practice of course, this boils down to a ziploc bag. The Brits sensibly don't refer to a brand in the BAA rules

Customers may take with them in their cabin bag limited quantities of liquids, gels and aerosols, including travel-size toiletries such as shampoo, suntan lotion, creams, toothpaste, hair gel and hair spray. Containers holding liquids must not exceed three American ounces or 90ml.

Liquid containers must be carried in a separate clear plastic zip-top bag that does not exceed 20 cm x 20 cm or 8 inches x 8 inches or quart size. Items must fit in the bag comfortably and the bag must be completely closed.

The earliest revision of the British policy noted:

Only one bag per passenger is allowed. The bag must be clear and re-sealable, such as 'ziplock' bags or bags with pressable seals. Larger bags or bags that are not sealable, such as fold-over sandwich bags are not allowed

The ziploc regulation is one that requires constant reinforcement and it gives rise to frequently inventive exposition by TSA officialdom. Thus if you were to pass the TSA stand at State College airport, Pennsylvania, some time ago you might have spotted the following three-dimensional illustration of permitted and banned items.

The three bulging Hefty One-Zip bags were meant to augment the above 3-1-1 poster. Presumably the security attendants got tired of having to explain the cryptic 3-1-1 propositions and opted instead to show graphically to the traveling public the sorts of items that were and were not permitted.

Again note the type of ziploc bag that was used, it is more properly called a zip top. Recently at JFK airport, there was an information officer prowling the unsurprisingly long lines at the TSA whose sole purpose was to dispense Hefty One Zip bags. I don't want to suggest cronyism in the choice of brand of plastic bag but it was interesting to me that each time I've observed such actions, the brand of bag being proffered was a Hefty bag; there really must be a marketing effort at work.

II. Deformation and Displacement

The Hefty One Zip bag has a zip handle at its top, a satisfying target to clasp as you close - a moveable stub, in short, to enforce the close action. The most widely used ziploc bag on the other hand - made not coincidentally by Ziploc, simply has those pleated, interlocking grooves. By most reckonings, the Hefty variant is the gold standard of the form yet, in many ways, the broader Hefty versus Ziploc story is a reversal of the Coke versus Pepsi narrative. Indeed the owners of the Ziploc brand seems to have chosen the better name - ziploc has become the generic term for plastic, resealable bags, and as far as adoption goes, the 'worse' technology appears to have triumphed in the marketplace. What lies behind the workings of the ziploc factor? To find the answer, we need to undertake a minor diversion into the realm of patent histrionics...

The essential ziploc innovation is US Patent 4262395 Sliding clasp fastening means. Filed in 1979, it was published in 1981. It refers to mating strips, coupling heads and sundry means of fastening through a sliding motion. Like most innovations, it didn't come in a vacuum; its inventors stood on the shoulders of giants. It builds on the work of the slide fastener, patent 4004327, filed in 1975, Japan. In the US, a further improvement was submitted in 1990 by Hefty, Patent 5007143 - Rolling action zipper profile and zipper thereof.

Broadly speaking, these devices take the notion of the zipper and apply it to plastic bags. If you read, you'll dive into a world of pairs of flexible plastic strips, reclosable interlocking male and female elements, extrusions and welding. In the US, since the 1980s, these ziploc patents stood their owners (ultimately controlled by Hefty) in good stead, and they were embodied in the marketplace as the Hefty One Zip bag which reigned supreme as the dominant resealable bag. There was, and continues to be, a hefty premium for a Hefty bag. There is a price to pay in order to get the satisfaction of that sliding, often purple, clasp fastener. The purple nub, standing out as it does atop the closing plastic strips at the top of the bag, gives a good closure indication and symbolizes the fulcrum of a conventional economic monopoly.

The chinks in Hefty's armor, the ziploc factor, as it were, came in two forms. The first weakness was in the name. The most serious competitor was the Slide Lock bag, later renamed Slide-Loc (since lock was a generic term), then still later renamed Ziploc. Simply put, ziploc is the better name for the resealable bag. The zip in the Ziploc name references the gold standard of the zipper (and the Hefty competitor), and the lock aspect identifies the sealing function of the bag.

The second chink built on the insight of the plain meaning of Slideloc/Ziploc name, namely that simply sliding an interlocking groove was good enough to produce a lock; you literally did not need a zip (or zip handle) to form a lock. True, the kind of seal that you get from snapping and sliding a groove in a plastic bag is not as tight as if you applied the pressure of a zip fastener, However, you can get a tighter seal if you increase the number of grooves that formed the lock. The pragmatic solution embodied in most ziploc bags that don't use zip handles is to simply add more grooves.

Slideloc/Ziploc versions of the bags started to get wide distribution in the late 1990s as the 20 year limit on the patents on the basic technology was coming up. This being American capitalism, of course, everything would get resolved in the courts (after the lawyers took their cut). Hefty, after issuing various cease-and-desist notices to the companies that were intruding on its turf, eventually filed a lawsuit based on the later 1990 patent.

The lawsuit, Pactiv (formally Tenneco) v. S.C. Johnson & Son and KCL Corporation was decided in November 2000 and found that ziploc slider bags didn't infringe on the relevant patent. It was a simple complaint:

The manufacturer of Hefty One Zip reclosable plastic storage bags, claims that the Slide-Loc reclosable plastic storage bag, manufactured by defendant KCL Corporation for defendant S.J. Johnson & Son, Inc., infringes U.S. Patent No. 5,007,143

The case turned on a matter of overreach, if a zipper handle is the core innovation of a process and a design omits that essential element, how can one claim that one's so-called intellectual property is being copied?

The fundamental difference between the '143 patent and the Slide-Loc in this regard, essentially ignored by Pactiv's experts, is that the '143 patent describes closing by a rolling action, whereas the Slide-Loc closes by deformation and displacement, with incidental rolling taking place at the very end of the process. The fact that some incidental rotation occurs does not alter the fact that the Slide-Loc closes in a very different manner than the '143 patent describes.

Deformation and displacement was thus the technical loophole that ushered in the era of ubiquity of the ziploc. By side-stepping the necessity of the zip handle, competitors could avoid the encumbrance of the Hefty patent monopoly. The long inhibited competition in the recloseable bags could proceed and the floodgates opened. Eagle-eyed billionaire investors sensed blood in the water long before the verdict was issued and, in 1999, you might have noted that Huntsman Packaging Corporation acquired KCL Corporation, the Indiana-based manufacturer of reclosable polyethylene bags that was subject to the lawsuit. The press release touted its "patented and proprietary technology in zipper and slider closures" and development of "patented slider technologies for both vertical and horizontal 'form-fill-seal' bagging processes".

Huntsman is of course the largest private chemical company in the US. Jon Huntsman Jr, billionaire heir to his father's fortune would go on to have presidential ambitions in 2012 - although the Republican Party ultimately wanted more red meat and less timidity. S.C Johnson & Son of course make everything from Windex, Pledge to Raid and are a veritable marketplace of consumer products. Hefty (originally owned by Mobil) is now owned by Reynolds Consumer products. I lay these items out to give a sense of the stakes involved in our ziploc contest. We have oil companies facing off against chemical companies and multinationals spun off from heavy extractive industries (oil, aluminium etc.) engaged in an ongoing battle.

The mythology of these brands is instructive

American ingenuity mixed with a bit of elbow grease. Reynolds Wrap foil was invented after aluminum was no longer needed for military use... Hefty waste bags were first developed with excess material from an early plastics innovator, creating another household essential.

The rest as they say is history, marketing and execution. The big boys jumped in, you can see any number of patents by Proctor and Gamble, Glad and the like that tackle the general notion of flexible storage bags. One wonders why Velcro which specializes in touch fasteners didn't get into the act (brand dilution perhaps?)... There were also those who saw the business opportunity in marketing ziplocs as part of the packaging machinery that all manufactures use. We have specialized companies like Zip-pak, Mini-grip and GT Zip that target industrial clients.

The engineering questions were difficult ones: how to efficiently evacuate air from a bag (an important worry if perishables were to be stored in them), how to create a tight enough seal, how to track the alignment and integrity of the seal, how to tweak the manufacturing process so that the marginal cost of adding a ziploc to one's bag is negligible. There were also usability questions, what kind of closure indicator to use? How, indeed does one indicate closure? It is obvious, if a zip handle is present, to determine with a quick glance if a bag is fully closed or not; not quite so with a plain ziploc. Is an audible signal appropriate? Is paying attention to the satisfying snap sound a good approach? As evidenced by the resilience of the Snap and Seal brand I keep encountering, that is an approach that is succeeding. There's also an arms race on ziplocs, some tout double zips, sometimes there are three seals. On the most recent ziploc I purchased, I see no less that 7 interlocking grooves. Like razor blades, more grooves are thought to be better.

III. War of the Fasteners: Knots, Rubber Bands, Ziplocs and Twisties

Ziplocs (mostly without handles) have been widely licensed and have found their way into the list of household essentials. In this era of liquid threats, it is a good thing to have some ziploc bags on hand when you travel by air. Articles abound about the applications: ziploc your stuff at airport security, Camera Zip-lock to protect in wet, dusty environments, multi-port laparoscopic surgical access devices, urn for ashes and so forth.

The burgeoning ziploc tag at Delicious and the ziploc images at Flickr show how far these interlocking rib and groove bags have penetrated our cultural consciousness.

The convenience of ziplocs and their reassuring snap as their interlocking grooves are conjoined has changed the nature of the fasteners we use for our containers. We are spoiled with a wide variety of touch fasteners, from interlocking rib-type seal to plastic, paper, or clad-wire ties and on. Rubber bands have never quite worked as fasteners, we use them in to shift gears and such but we not generally as bag fasteners. Where once we used knots, in recent times we have graduated to twisties and to those little jagged plastic clips that we use to close bags of bread - sidenote: is there a better name for those nubs? Bibs or chokers perhaps?

Twisties, of course, are another great innovation in the vein of the ziploc but even they have their limitations: they are separate objects and often get separated from the bags they are meant to close. Thus there is almost always a little cognitive pause as you search for the little twistie ribbon on the kitchen counter or dining room table. Where exactly did you put it? It is always underneath. How much time is wasted in the search for the twistie? Is this inefficiency the driver of the faster adoption of the ziploc. Some baggies also attempted to prescribe a way to better preserve their contents, asking you to fold over the plastic before applying the twistie.

The ziploc brooks none of these limitations. Like its zipper grandfather, the ziploc has the virtue of remaining part and parcel of the container - thus there is nothing to lose. Thus although we can read about epic battles such as that of Twist-Ties vs. Plastic Clips: Tiny Titans Battle for the Bakery Aisle, I'd hazard that the ziploc will be ultimate victor.

One downside of the ziploc and that other magical innovation, Velcro, is that the knowledge of knots and crosses that humans have passed down since time immemorial is now being lost. Only sailors, sadomasochists, magicians have the need for training in knots. One should perhaps add special forces grabbing enemy combatants for erustication to the coterie of knot aficionados - and even in the accounts of extraordinary rendition that we do have, the norm is for plastic hand-cuffs - or metallic if the gloves come off and stress positions are emphasized. Other than shoe laces then, the modern man has no more need for learning the time-tested art of knots - and no, tying up the boot of your car with your weekend haul from Ikea doesn't count - I should know, I was quite hopeless a few weekends ago.

Before concluding we should return to the liquid terror that prompted the ziploc's ascendance. When exactly will we get to the end of that pesky liquid ban? There have been many false sightings on that front since 2006 and everyone keeps hoping for a revision (see for example: EU to ease airport liquids rule in security revamp) but it is hard to see sanity returning, it is George W. Bush's most durable legacy. I imagine Al Qaeda or ISIS types periodically seeing these reports and saying "Why don't we send around a few emails around mentioning liquids, bombs and planes?". Our friendly NSA will duly notify the security establishment and the security tax that the entire world faces will continue. I fear the ziploc will be mandated long after my lifetime.

In an age of radical transparency it is all about the ziploc factor. Whether it is food packaging or cosmetics, all hail the ziploc. I wonder, Dear Reader, where you stand in the Hefty versus Ziploc contest, and what uses you put your ziplocs to? Deformation and displacement, young man, deformation and displacement.

The Ziploc Factor

Soundtrack for this note

• Pete Rock & C.L. Smooth (ft. Grand Puba) - Skinz

  Better yet you could pass me a ziploc A bag of boom, and a 40 then some boot knock

  I've always loved this fragment of Grand Puba's celebrated verse in this 1993 ode to prophylactics, Skinz - a song about the importance of contraception in which they hilariously explore options from aluminium foil to ziploc bags before returning to plain old condoms - Catholics beware.
• Prince - Ripopgodazippa
  Every stripper's favorite track, sexy funk that appropriately enough featured in that cult b-movie, Showgirls. The sound of the zipper

Obligatory disclaimer

In my line of work, software, expiration is typically seen as the only attractive aspect of patents.

There's a patent officially filed under my name filed from my last few months at IBM. It seemed then, as it seems now, like much ado about nothing (a tweak to the kind of auto-suggestion that you see every time you search) but I suppose technology companies like to build up defensive portfolios of patents, weaponry that they can lob over the wall when convenient. I plead guilty that I succumbed that one time. In contrast, one of the more interesting ideas I came up with back then was rather treated as an "invention disclosure" to be kept in IBM's back pocket, and was never filed with the patent office. I hope someone builds it.

File under: ziploc, bags, culture, observation, technology, design, history, plastics, adoption, security, fear, terrorism, patents, engineering, strategy, Observers are worried, toli

Could have been / Should have been

We've been at the part of the World Cup, ever since the group stage ended, where many of the spectators have been muttering the "could have been / should have been" mantra. Fans don't need prompting from sensationalist reporting about implosions, denigration of the coach's strategy, team cohesiveness, slips of concentration or the vagaries of the drama of the game. Us football fans simply know. We could see for ourselves and feel it in our bones. We know what could have been, we know what should have been.

Every team had its chances - unlike in other world cups, this has been a wide open competition. Read the reports in zonal marking and you won't see much onesidedness. Even where there were clear gaps in class vis-a-vis their opponents (say Honduras or Australia), the teams in question had opportunities. The Socceroos were thrilling and gave palpitations because of their athleticism and Cahill's finishing ability. Those who pooh-poohed the Iranians' defensive-mindedness will admit that when they finally broke out they were potent. The Ivoriens will wonder how they let the Greeks back in with minutes to go. The Mexicans, Chileans and the Colombians will know that they will never have collapsed like the Brazilian hosts did today... It could have been, it should have been.

Closer to home, Ghanaians are ruing the missed opportunities and thinking about how they were the only team to really frighten the Germans. Even more-so than in 2010, when we could taste the semi-finals and beyond, Ghanaians were expecting to return with silverware - Group of Death be damned. Those seven minutes when Ghana had Germany on the run and could even had piled on and added a couple of goals to their lead will be an enduring memory. It could have been, it should have been.

I still feel that Sulley Muntari getting his second yellow card during that game hence missing the crucial midfield battle against the Portuguese was the turning point, but even then Ghana had its chances against Portugal as we did in every game that we played. It could have been, it should have been.

I think to the sense of predatory anticipation every time Costa Rica's Joel Campbell touched the ball. I wonder why it took Wayne Rooney 75 minutes to realize that he had to come back to make deeper runs to shrug off his man-to-man marker - something that took James Rodriguez 25 minutes in Columbia's toughest match. Why didn't his manager simply signal from the bench since his star was being anonymous. The Hodgson Puzzle perhaps, and there have been many other puzzles this time. It could have been, it should have been.

I think to the fluency of the passing when teams really gelled. Colombia, The Netherlands and others. And Ghana. And Ghana... The 4 man game that Asamoah Gyan, Andre Ayew, Kwadwo Asamoah and Sulley Muntari sometimes offered was thrilling. I recall Kwadwo Asamoah's brilliant crosses and that last ditch tackle at the end of the Germany match. Turns out that that was not enough. It could have been, it should have been.

Soundtrack for this note

Abbey Lincoln - Should've Been (listen here)

One of my favorites from A Turtle's Dream. I still miss her desperately.

It's the sound of sorry
Looking yonder with regret
Sorry 'cause of what you got
And what you didn't get

Could've been another song
Would've been a sing along
Could've been, would've been
Should've been

File under: football, sports, drama, regret, world cup, Ghana, culture, observation, perception, Africa, toli

Deferred Maintenance

Deferred maintenance is a norm where I come from; we tend to demur on the necessary until we are confronted by the looming or, more frequently, the actual, catastrophe. Indeed, quoth my mother, "if you are seen painting your house, people will stop by and ask if you have a funeral". That's just the way things work. Still I was struck by the following photos which depict the Jamestown Mantse palace in Accra; the first dilapidated in 2001:

and vaguely restored in 2010 (restored enough that it features on calendars these days).

There's a comment to be made about what the former photo says about the institution of chieftaincy among the Ga. One can't imagine the Ashantis ever letting Manhyia Palace fall into similar disrepair but that is by the by...

There is a wider cultural point, I suppose; there are opportunity costs for maintenance, moreover, it is hard work, and unsexy at that. Some cultures simply have norms that emphasize mundane processes and others where the constraints of societal life drive different behaviours. Inertia is an essential part of the dark matter of communities. What interests me most is exactly how a society moves towards cultivating the maintenance ethic.

In the software profession, we often talk about "technical debt", acknowledging its almost inevitable presence as well as the inertial forces that contribute to its growth. Just recently, I was burning the midnight oil and paying for design and architectural decisions postponed for a couple of years. It was painful to deal with, but with hindsight, plainly unavoidable. My sleep-deprived self was conscious enough to bemoan my plight. It takes maturity and discipline to instill this ethic.

In Ghana, sadly, the escape valve for a surprising amount of deferred maintenance is often that some benevolent foreign entity can be called upon to fund a restoration. One wishes that the impetus was internal. There is certainly plenty of shovel-ready work to be done in development.

That said, I see 'normalcy' taking root in many places. Indeed the rise of the insurance industry can be said to be a marker in that respect. Restoration and maintenance does take place (occasionally) and must be celebrated whenever it happens. Welcome signs on the streets of Jamestown and Elmina.

Soundtrack to the note

As usual, a playlist: Restoration

• Bob James - Restoration
• Bruce Hornsby - That's just the way it is
• Massive Attack - Inertia Creeps

Sidenote: before parenthood intervened, I used to tend to this virtual joint more often, consider this note some throat-clearing, some deferred maintenance on the blogospheric writing front. It's the World Cup season and I am bound to summon up the creative juices as in times past. Some readings from the archives: Ghana vrs USA and some Dilemmas.

File under: maintenance, culture, observation, inertia, Ghana, Accra, Jamestown, values, norms, Africa, toli