{ "id" : "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/starred", "title" : "Koranteng's starred items in Google Reader", "author" : "Koranteng", "updated" : 1372706234, "direction" : "ltr", "items" : [ { "crawlTimeMsec" : "1372706234784", "timestampUsec" : "1372706234784042", "id" : "tag:google.com,2005:reader/item/5f7b53026575968e", "categories" : [ "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/read", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/starred", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/fresh", "culture", "humor", "parody" ], "title" : "I give up. Repeal everything.", "published" : 1372681279, "updated" : 1372681279, "alternate" : [ { "href" : "http://www.hyperorg.com/blogger/2013/07/01/i-give-up-repeal-everything/", "type" : "text/html" } ], "content" : { "direction" : "ltr", "content" : "<p><p>Robert Samuelson has an apparently serious <a href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/robert-samuelson-of-internet-threats-and-cyberattacks/2013/06/30/df7bd42e-e1a9-11e2-a11e-c2ea876a8f30_story.html?hpid=z2\">op-ed</a> in the Washington Post arguing that we should “repeal the Internet.”</p>\n<p>He says:</p>\n<blockquote><p>If I could, I would repeal the Internet. It is the technological marvel of the age, but it is not — as most people imagine — a symbol of progress. Just the opposite. We would be better off without it. I grant its astonishing capabilities: the instant access to vast amounts of information, the pleasures of YouTube and iTunes, the convenience of GPS and much more. But the Internet’s benefits are relatively modest compared with previous transformative technologies, and it brings with it a terrifying danger: cyberwar. Amid the controversy over leaks from the National Security Agency, this looms as an even bigger downside.</p></blockquote>\n<p>Excellent idea! Really well-argued! In fact, why stop there?</p>\n<blockquote><p>If I could, I would repeal the First Amendment. It is the governmental marvel of the age, but it is not — as most people imagine — a symbol of progress. Just the opposite. We would be better off without it. I grant its astonishing capabilities: the TV talking heads, the bumperstickers, the op-eds that have to overstate their case to get published, and much more. But First Amendment’s benefits are relatively modest compared with previous speech rights, and it brings with it a terrifying danger: free thinking. Amid the controversy over leaks from the National Security Agency, this looms as an even bigger downside.</p></blockquote>\n<p>Indeed,</p>\n<blockquote><p>If I could, I would repeal oxygen. It is the chemical marvel of the age, but it is not — as most people imagine — a symbol of progress. Just the opposite. We would be better off without it. I grant its astonishing capabilities: the way it’s used by cigarette lighters, the buoyancy of kiddie swim fins, the infomercials that entertain us with how it helps remove cranberry juice from table cloths. But oxygen’s benefits are relatively modest compared with previous chemicals, and it brings with it a terrifying danger: life on Earth Amid the controversy over leaks from the National Security Agency, this looms as an even bigger downside.</p></blockquote>\n<p> </p>\n<hr width=\"100px\">\n<p>Here’s the <a href=\"http://www.hyperorg.com/blogger/2013/07/01/repeal-the-internet-the-madlibs-version/\">MadLibs version</a> of the paragraph. Create your own!</p></p>" }, "author" : "davidw", "comments" : [ ], "annotations" : [ ], "origin" : { "streamId" : "feed/http://hyperorg.com/blogger/index.rdf", "title" : "Joho the Blog", "htmlUrl" : "http://www.hyperorg.com/blogger" } }, { "crawlTimeMsec" : "1372572655311", "timestampUsec" : "1372572655311724", "id" : "tag:google.com,2005:reader/item/fc7bd4622afc72f5", "categories" : [ "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/read", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/starred", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/fresh", "misc" ], "title" : "NEW CONTENDER FOR “WORST LP COVER” TITLE?", "published" : 1370245097, "updated" : 1370245097, "canonical" : [ { "href" : "http://soul-sides.com/2013/06/new-contender-for-worst-lp-cover-title/" } ], "alternate" : [ { "href" : "http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/o-dub/dqRL/~3/gaDki1lw0Ds/", "type" : "text/html" } ], "content" : { "direction" : "ltr", "content" : "<p><img width=\"500\" src=\"https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/945249_527862990607678_466579984_n.jpg\"></p>\n<p><a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=527862990607678&set=a.130916363635678.20489.130910856969562&type=1&theater\">From Recordpusher.com’s FB page.</a></p>\n<div>\n<a href=\"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/o-dub/dqRL?a=gaDki1lw0Ds:rupSL3zv0Y4:yIl2AUoC8zA\"><img src=\"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/o-dub/dqRL?d=yIl2AUoC8zA\" border=\"0\"></a> <a href=\"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/o-dub/dqRL?a=gaDki1lw0Ds:rupSL3zv0Y4:qj6IDK7rITs\"><img src=\"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/o-dub/dqRL?d=qj6IDK7rITs\" border=\"0\"></a>\n</div>" }, "author" : "O-Dub", "comments" : [ ], "annotations" : [ ], "origin" : { "streamId" : "feed/http://feeds.feedburner.com/o-dub/dqRL", "title" : "Soul-Sides.com", "htmlUrl" : "http://soul-sides.com" } }, { "crawlTimeMsec" : "1372572093504", "timestampUsec" : "1372572093504539", "id" : "tag:google.com,2005:reader/item/2226898d7b2a0f62", "categories" : [ "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/read", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/starred", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/fresh", "Douglas Adams", "Tom Sharpe", "Riotous Assembly", "Porthouse Blue", "Ian Richardson", "Terry Pratchett", "Malcolm Bradbury" ], "title" : "TOM SHARPE: THE MOST RIOTOUS ASSEMBLY", "published" : 1370520480, "updated" : 1370520486, "alternate" : [ { "href" : "http://irresistibletargets.blogspot.com/2013/06/tom-sharpe-most-riotous-assembly.html", "type" : "text/html" } ], "replies" : [ { "href" : "http://irresistibletargets.blogspot.com/feeds/4561559144896215878/comments/default", "title" : "Post Comments", "type" : "application/atom+xml" }, { "href" : "http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=413013422636027916&postID=4561559144896215878", "title" : "1 Comments", "type" : "text/html" } ], "content" : { "direction" : "ltr", "content" : "<a href=\"http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-c2czF2Ybazs/UbB4vCNEyqI/AAAAAAAAEgM/V3D8zEY_IfE/s1600/sharpe1.jpeg\" style=\"clear:right;float:right;margin-bottom:1em;margin-left:1em\"></a><a href=\"http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-he5r5_kTu1o/UbB601rMymI/AAAAAAAAEgs/LBosIPtJ8lQ/s1600/sharpe1.jpeg\" style=\"clear:right;float:right;margin-bottom:1em;margin-left:1em\"></a>I<a href=\"http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-he5r5_kTu1o/UbB601rMymI/AAAAAAAAEgs/LBosIPtJ8lQ/s1600/sharpe1.jpeg\" style=\"clear:right;float:right;margin-bottom:1em;margin-left:1em\"><img border=\"0\" src=\"http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-he5r5_kTu1o/UbB601rMymI/AAAAAAAAEgs/LBosIPtJ8lQ/s1600/sharpe1.jpeg\"></a>t was with some sadness and some bittersweet nostalgia I heard the news of Tom Sharpe's death, and I wonder now why more isn't be made of the career of this great comic novelist.<br><br>Looking back, I suppose I might have been foreshadowing my own life, but when I lived in Montreal in 1975-76, I was addicted to Tom Sharpe novels. I can't remember now if I discovered them there, perhaps through my English girlfriend, or if I had already been reading them, but I do know I found quite a few of them in The Word bookstore, the Pan editions whose covers were as chaotically attractive as the books, and I do know they were laugh-aloud funny, especially in the middle of French Canada. But one thing for certain, is that I came to Britain from Montreal half-expecting it to be a comic paradise reflecting Sharpe's writing, and finding myself only barely half wrong.<br><br>Once in the green and blessed land, however, my attachement to Sharpe soon faded. Some of it was his own losing some edge--after all, the underlying savagery of the satire in the early books was always going to be diffifcult to draw upon--and some of it was my realising the the reality of living in this country was almost as satirical as satire itself. Sharp often adopted a Colonel Blimpish persona, but when in the writing you begin to feel the hand of Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells, you might well turn elsewhere.<br><br>As if to illustrate the point, it always intrigued me that <i>Riotous Assembly</i> and <i>Indecent Exposure</i>, his first two books, both of which were set in South Africa, weren't anywhere near as respected in this country as, say, <i>Wilt</i>, <i>Blott On The Landscape</i>, or <a href=\"http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-waT9kKBN9O8/UbB4wl6LSeI/AAAAAAAAEgU/pBZe39V8m58/s1600/sharpe+port.jpeg\" style=\"clear:left;float:left;margin-bottom:1em;margin-right:1em\"><img border=\"0\" height=\"200\" src=\"http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-waT9kKBN9O8/UbB4wl6LSeI/AAAAAAAAEgU/pBZe39V8m58/s200/sharpe+port.jpeg\" width=\"140\"></a><i>Porterhouse Blue</i> (not to diminish either of those books, which deserve their comparisons with Wodehouse and Waugh). But the South African books have a much more cutting satire behind them, as befits Sharpe's own experience in the country (and indeed as the child of a British fascist father and a South African mother).<br><br>I think, however, that he was hugely influential. I don't think Malcolm Bradbury's academic satires would be half as funny without Sharpe's influence, for example. Bradbury did the adaptation for the excellent TV version of <i>Porterhouse Blue</i>, and you can see the Ian Richardson<i> House Of Cards</i> set-up taking place right before your eyes. Sharpe was anarcghic, and could write slapstick, which is a very hard thing to do well--you have to create characters who are both real and absurd, and you have to maintain enoughh sympathy for the the audience to anticipate<a href=\"http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-qrzh8GdUU0Q/UbB4zFLAF9I/AAAAAAAAEgc/tXaN0M5c9xM/s1600/sharpe.jpg\" style=\"clear:right;float:right;margin-bottom:1em;margin-left:1em\"></a> what's coming, and regret it as well as laugh at it. He was a master of that.<br><a href=\"http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-qrzh8GdUU0Q/UbB4zFLAF9I/AAAAAAAAEgc/tXaN0M5c9xM/s1600/sharpe.jpg\" style=\"clear:right;float:right;margin-bottom:1em;margin-left:1em\"><img border=\"0\" height=\"200\" src=\"http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-qrzh8GdUU0Q/UbB4zFLAF9I/AAAAAAAAEgc/tXaN0M5c9xM/s200/sharpe.jpg\" width=\"144\"></a> <br><a href=\"http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-qrzh8GdUU0Q/UbB4zFLAF9I/AAAAAAAAEgc/tXaN0M5c9xM/s1600/sharpe.jpg\" style=\"clear:right;float:right;margin-bottom:1em;margin-left:1em\"></a>Trying to think of who has come along since Sharpe, I can't really come up with an equivalent, though in sf both Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchet might be considered in the vein. I wonder if it's because self-satire has become too facile a vein to mine--or perhaps because there's so much of it about. Sharpe's best work, to an outsider, cut to the bone. But to the Brits themselves, it simply reinforced the sense of a pleasant eccentricity, which in the end would ensure everything continued as it always had. So Sharpe became a sort of 'national treasure' as the modern term goes. But at his peak, I think Tom Sharpe suggested something different--and the power of his humour came from that.<br><div style=\"clear:both;text-align:center\"><a href=\"http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-c2czF2Ybazs/UbB4vCNEyqI/AAAAAAAAEgM/V3D8zEY_IfE/s1600/sharpe1.jpeg\" style=\"clear:right;float:right;margin-bottom:1em;margin-left:1em\"><br></a></div><br><div style=\"clear:both;text-align:center\"><a href=\"http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-waT9kKBN9O8/UbB4wl6LSeI/AAAAAAAAEgU/pBZe39V8m58/s1600/sharpe+port.jpeg\" style=\"clear:left;float:left;margin-bottom:1em;margin-right:1em\"><br></a></div><br><div style=\"clear:both;text-align:center\"><a href=\"http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-qrzh8GdUU0Q/UbB4zFLAF9I/AAAAAAAAEgc/tXaN0M5c9xM/s1600/sharpe.jpg\" style=\"clear:right;float:right;margin-bottom:1em;margin-left:1em\"><br></a></div><br><br><br>" }, "author" : "Michael Carlson", "comments" : [ ], "annotations" : [ ], "origin" : { "streamId" : "feed/http://irresistibletargets.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default", "title" : "IRRESISTIBLE TARGETS", "htmlUrl" : "http://irresistibletargets.blogspot.com/" } }, { "crawlTimeMsec" : "1372396229604", "timestampUsec" : "1372396229604516", "id" : "tag:google.com,2005:reader/item/2d560276de084b31", "categories" : [ "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/read", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/starred", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/fresh", "Policy & Law", "Politics" ], "title" : "We are shocked, shocked…", "published" : 1370622200, "updated" : 1370622200, "alternate" : [ { "href" : "http://davidsimon.com/we-are-shocked-shocked/", "type" : "text/html" } ], "summary" : { "direction" : "ltr", "content" : "Is it just me or does the entire news media — as well as all the agitators and self-righteous bloviators on both sides of the aisle — not understand even the rudiments of electronic intercepts and the manner in which law enforcement actually uses such intercepts? It would seem so. Because the national eruption over [...]" }, "author" : "David Simon", "comments" : [ ], "annotations" : [ ], "origin" : { "streamId" : "feed/http://davidsimon.com/feed/", "title" : "David Simon", "htmlUrl" : "http://davidsimon.com" } }, { "crawlTimeMsec" : "1372370229660", "timestampUsec" : "1372370229660694", "id" : "tag:google.com,2005:reader/item/2b140f806090ac0f", "categories" : [ "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/read", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/starred", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/fresh", "Uncategorized" ], "title" : "The “Nigger Wake-Up Call”", "published" : 1371615783, "updated" : 1371615783, "alternate" : [ { "href" : "http://davidsimon.com/the-nigger-wake-up-call/", "type" : "text/html" } ], "summary" : { "direction" : "ltr", "content" : "The great political comedian Paul Mooney made his bones by laying in the cut between American democratic ideals and American behavior. A mentor and inspiration to his friend Richard Pryor, Mooney’s stock-in-trade is a canny ability to thread the truth between ongoing and established hypocrisies — to make us see the pathologies that are still [...]" }, "author" : "David Simon", "comments" : [ ], "annotations" : [ ], "origin" : { "streamId" : "feed/http://davidsimon.com/feed/", "title" : "David Simon", "htmlUrl" : "http://davidsimon.com" } }, { "crawlTimeMsec" : "1372369398392", "timestampUsec" : "1372369398392715", "id" : "tag:google.com,2005:reader/item/2f9454099062c07f", "categories" : [ "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/read", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/starred", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/fresh", "Photos", "Riffs", "U.K." ], "title" : "In London", "published" : 1372353986, "updated" : 1372354516, "alternate" : [ { "href" : "http://www.vianegativa.us/2013/06/in-london/", "type" : "text/html" } ], "replies" : [ { "href" : "http://www.vianegativa.us/2013/06/in-london/#comments", "type" : "text/html" }, { "href" : "http://www.vianegativa.us/2013/06/in-london/feed/atom/", "type" : "application/atom+xml" } ], "content" : { "direction" : "ltr", "content" : "<p><a href=\"http://www.flickr.com/photos/89056025@N00/9153141478/\" title=\"Royal Mail by Dave Bonta, on Flickr\"><img src=\"http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7396/9153141478_66348c2c4c_z.jpg\" width=\"480\" height=\"640\" alt=\"Royal Mail\"></a></p>\n<p>In London, every day is a red letter day, and the sky is rarely anything but white.<br>\n<span></span></p>\n<p><a href=\"http://www.flickr.com/photos/89056025@N00/9153155964/\" title=\"heads by Dave Bonta, on Flickr\"><img src=\"http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2828/9153155964_7b461e2173.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" alt=\"heads\"></a></p>\n<p>In London, as in most cities, it’s best not to look strangers in the eye. </p>\n<p><a href=\"http://www.flickr.com/photos/89056025@N00/9105049546/\" title=\"Wimbledon pig by Dave Bonta, on Flickr\"><img src=\"http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3684/9105049546_74df8d0254.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" alt=\"Wimbledon pig\"></a></p>\n<p>In London, green pigs fly with tennis rackets for wings. </p>\n<p><a href=\"http://www.flickr.com/photos/89056025@N00/9105063564/\" title=\"Victoria by Dave Bonta, on Flickr\"><img src=\"http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5517/9105063564_2c0c8108d0_z.jpg\" width=\"528\" height=\"640\" alt=\"Victoria\"></a></p>\n<p>In London, Queen Victoria is not amused by her new subjects with their uncouth cameras and foreign tongues. </p>\n<p><a href=\"http://www.flickr.com/photos/89056025@N00/9105067374/\" title=\"tourism by Dave Bonta, on Flickr\"><img src=\"http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3795/9105067374_847dcfc399_z.jpg\" width=\"480\" height=\"640\" alt=\"tourism\"></a></p>\n<p>In London, the statues stick their heads in the ground to avoid being identified by the ubiquitous security cameras.</p>\n<p><a href=\"http://www.flickr.com/photos/89056025@N00/9153196610/\" title=\"canal egret 3 by Dave Bonta, on Flickr\"><img src=\"http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7423/9153196610_bdd3ae3875_z.jpg\" width=\"480\" height=\"640\" alt=\"canal egret 3\"></a></p>\n<p>In London, even herons and moorhens get chips with their fish.</p>" }, "author" : "Dave Bonta", "comments" : [ ], "annotations" : [ ], "origin" : { "streamId" : "feed/http://www.vianegativa.us/feed/atom/", "title" : "Via Negativa", "htmlUrl" : "http://www.vianegativa.us/" } }, { "crawlTimeMsec" : "1372310863983", "timestampUsec" : "1372310863983899", "id" : "tag:google.com,2005:reader/item/5cd39930e253197c", "categories" : [ "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/read", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/starred", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/fresh" ], "title" : "Waste Management in Ghana: It Takes Two", "published" : 1372257434, "updated" : 1372257434, "alternate" : [ { "href" : "http://pulitzercenter.org/projects/west-africa-ghana-water-sanitation-waste-management-public-environment-clean-streets-clogged-gutters", "type" : "text/html" } ], "summary" : { "direction" : "ltr", "content" : "<div>\n <div>\n <div><p>When things aren’t right in a country, the people often blame the government and the government often blames the people. The same goes for waste management in Ghana, ranked second dirtiest country in West Africa by the UN and the World Health Organization. However, as this project illustrates, there are two sides to the story.</p>\n<p>On the one hand, corruption, poor management and red tape impede the government from providing adequate sanitation and waste disposal for many. The local government in Kumasi, for instance, does not provide latrines to many slum dwellers because they are “illegal residents.” While these residents wait for a solution to the red tape, they will continue to defecate in the open.</p>\n<p>On the flipside, decades of public littering, open defecation and a resistance to change prevent many Ghanaians from benefiting from the initiatives that the government does carry out. For instance, when the government provides trash bins for people to throw their litter into, often they are stolen.</p>\n<p>Here Diksha Bali examines trash disposal in Ghana – from the storm drains in crowded Aboabo to the government waste management offices –– as she looks for solutions to unsanitary conditions and poor management.</p>\n</div>\n </div>\n</div>" }, "author" : "Diksha Bali", "comments" : [ ], "annotations" : [ ], "origin" : { "streamId" : "feed/http://www.pulitzercenter.org/rss.xml", "title" : "Pulitzer Center", "htmlUrl" : "http://pulitzercenter.org/rss.xml" } }, { "crawlTimeMsec" : "1372305686888", "timestampUsec" : "1372305686888662", "id" : "tag:google.com,2005:reader/item/a93f28237bcd845e", "categories" : [ "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/read", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/starred", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/fresh" ], "title" : "Stolen Trash Bins Contribute to Malaria, Flooding", "published" : 1372282001, "updated" : 1372282001, "alternate" : [ { "href" : "http://pulitzercenter.org/reporting/africa-ghana-stolen-trash-bin-clogged-gutter-malaria-flood-public-health-water-borne-disease-epidemic", "type" : "text/html" } ], "summary" : { "direction" : "ltr", "content" : "<div>\n <div>\n <div>Diksha Bali, for the Pulitzer Center</div>\n </div>\n</div>\n<div>\n <div>\n <div><p>There are no public trash bins to be seen in most areas in Ghana. Yet, equally surprisingly, there is little trash to be seen on its streets.</p>\n<p>The gutters, however, are a different issue. </p>\n<p>Although local governments in Ghana employ private waste management companies to sweep the streets and clean the gutters, there are a number of gutters that the private companies are not mandated to clean — stagnant gutters that serve as a breeding ground for pestilence. </p>\n<p>The effects of clogged gutters are “very, very significant,” according to Ben Anhwere, an administrative officer at the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly’s (KMA) Waste Management Department in Kumasi, the capital city of Ghana’s Ashanti region.</p>\n<p>“These drains become breeding grounds for mosquitoes,” he said, shaking his head. When clogged, they create stagnant pools of water, providing an ideal haven for these pests, he added. Malaria is currently one of the leading causes of death in Ghana.</p>\n<p>These drains were originally designed as storm drains to collect rainwater and prevent flooding, Anhwere said. “If these open drains get choked when it rains, it becomes an issue,” increasing the threat of floods. </p>\n<p>But residents complain that they have no viable outlets other the streets and drains for their trash.</p>\n<p>“When you drink water, you don’t even have a place to put it,” said resident Jones Amakye, gesturing to one of the many plastic water sachets that are used for drinking water. “You just hold it or throw it somewhere.” </p>\n<p> According to Amakye, the solution is simple. “We are not able to [dispose of litter] because there are no bins in town,” he said. So bins should be provided, he said, and those who do not use them should be fined.</p>\n<p>Although Amakye’s solution is simple, the problem is not so easily solved. </p>\n<p>KMA Waste Management officer Tina Boateng said that a few years back Kumasi used to have trash bins lining the street at every 100 meters. However, authorities quickly discovered their trash bins were being stolen at an alarming rate. </p>\n<p>What is more, Boateng said, when the bins were not being stolen, many people used to fill them with household waste. This made waste collection extremely difficult, as the trucks the KMA had deployed could not handle the amount and weight of waste being collected. It also meant that people often didn’t find a place to put their trash even if they chose to use the litter bins, she said. Once the trash bins were stolen or broke down, the KMA “simply stopped replacing them,” she said. </p>\n<p>There are two steps the KMA needs to take to prevent littering and its consequences, Boateng said. First, people need to be educated on the unsavory consequences of litter. Next, people need to have viable outlets for their trash. </p>\n<p>“Our educational efforts [don’t] free us from the responsibility of placing bins. We have to educate and do our part of the bargain by placing bins at vantage points,” Boateng said.</p>\n</div>\n </div>\n</div>" }, "author" : "Diksha Bali", "comments" : [ ], "annotations" : [ ], "origin" : { "streamId" : "feed/http://www.pulitzercenter.org/rss.xml", "title" : "Pulitzer Center", "htmlUrl" : "http://pulitzercenter.org/rss.xml" } }, { "crawlTimeMsec" : "1372229653398", "timestampUsec" : "1372229653398887", "id" : "tag:google.com,2005:reader/item/987b2134d86ca627", "categories" : [ "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/read", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/starred", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/fresh" ], "title" : "Laugh-Out-Loud Cats #2289", "published" : 1370911560, "updated" : 1370911617, "canonical" : [ { "href" : "http://apelad.blogspot.com/2013/06/laugh-out-loud-cats-2289.html" } ], "alternate" : [ { "href" : "http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/apgm/~3/dzBnZdngEdM/laugh-out-loud-cats-2289.html", "type" : "text/html" } ], "replies" : [ { "href" : "http://apelad.blogspot.com/feeds/428689946121054313/comments/default", "title" : "Post Comments", "type" : "application/atom+xml" }, { "href" : "http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=30451540&postID=428689946121054313&isPopup=true", "title" : "0 Comments", "type" : "text/html" } ], "content" : { "direction" : "ltr", "content" : "<div style=\"margin:0 0 10px 0;padding:0;font-size:0.8em;line-height:1.6em\"><a href=\"http://www.flickr.com/photos/apelad/9008182279/\" title=\"Laugh-Out-Loud Cats #2289\"><img src=\"http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5336/9008182279_461d3a1379.jpg\" alt=\"Laugh-Out-Loud Cats #2289 by Ape Lad\"></a><br><span style=\"margin:0\"><a href=\"http://www.flickr.com/photos/apelad/9008182279/\">Laugh-Out-Loud Cats #2289</a>, a photo by <a href=\"http://www.flickr.com/photos/apelad/\">Ape Lad</a> on Flickr.</span></div><p></p>" }, "author" : "Adam Koford", "comments" : [ ], "annotations" : [ ], "origin" : { "streamId" : "feed/http://apelad.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default", "title" : "HOBOTOPIA", "htmlUrl" : "http://apelad.blogspot.com/" } }, { "crawlTimeMsec" : "1372228917390", "timestampUsec" : "1372228917390362", "id" : "tag:google.com,2005:reader/item/ef4c33807feecc26", "categories" : [ "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/read", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/starred", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/fresh" ], "title" : "The Pace of Modern Life", "published" : 1371614400, "updated" : 1371614400, "alternate" : [ { "href" : "http://xkcd.com/1227/", "type" : "text/html" } ], "summary" : { "direction" : "ltr", "content" : "<img src=\"http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/the_pace_of_modern_life.png\" title=\"'Unfortunately, the notion of marriage which prevails ... at the present time ... regards the institution as simply a convenient arrangement or formal contract ... This disregard of the sanctity of marriage and contempt for its restrictions is one of the most alarming tendencies of the present age.' --John Harvey Kellogg, Ladies' guide in health and disease (1883)\" alt=\"'Unfortunately, the notion of marriage which prevails ... at the present time ... regards the institution as simply a convenient arrangement or formal contract ... This disregard of the sanctity of marriage and contempt for its restrictions is one of the most alarming tendencies of the present age.' --John Harvey Kellogg, Ladies' guide in health and disease (1883)\">" }, "comments" : [ ], "annotations" : [ ], "origin" : { "streamId" : "feed/http://xkcd.com/rss.xml", "title" : "xkcd.com", "htmlUrl" : "http://xkcd.com/" } }, { "crawlTimeMsec" : "1372225994607", "timestampUsec" : "1372225994607279", "id" : "tag:google.com,2005:reader/item/b619ae71d3d46bc8", "categories" : [ "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/read", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/starred", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/fresh", "Economic Literacy", "Economy", "History", "Economic Development", "Economic History.", "Trans Atlantic Slave Trade" ], "title" : "Precolonial Experiences and Economic Development of Ethnic Groups in Colonial Africa", "published" : 1370463170, "updated" : 1370463170, "alternate" : [ { "href" : "http://nigerianstalk.org/2013/06/05/precolonial-experiences-and-economic-development-of-ethnic-groups-in-colonial-africa/", "type" : "text/html" } ], "content" : { "direction" : "ltr", "content" : "<p><a href=\"http://nigerianstalk.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/slave_exports.png\"><img alt=\"Slave Exports by Ethnic Groups in Nigeria and Ghana\" src=\"http://nigerianstalk.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/slave_exports.png\" width=\"450\" height=\"268\"></a></p>\n<p><em>I recently completed my dissertation and thought to share the highlights of it. If anyone is interested in reading the full dissertation please send me an email at nobikil1 [at] Binghamton.edu. A very brief summary is posted below.</em></p>\n<p>In economic development, Africa has lagged behind the rest of the world for many decades, certainly since the early 1960s, when most of today’s African states became independent of European colonial powers. Recent research suggests one reason for Africa’s slow development is its unique experience of the intercontinental slave trade from the fifteenth century through the 1800s, prior to the era of European colonization.</p>\n<p>Nunn (2008) examines the relation between GDP per capita of modern African states and the slave trade experience of the ethnic groups now living in the state. He finds that an African country has lower GDP per capita today if the ethnic groups within the country suffered higher slave export intensity – that is, number of slaves exported relative to population – in the precolonial era. He speculates that this is because the production of slaves, which occurred through domestic warfare, raiding and kidnapping, impeded the formation of broader ethnic groups. This may have led to ethnic fractionalization and the weakening and underdevelopment of political structures which hindered the development of postcolonial states. Whatley and Gillezeau (2011) show that, within Africa, areas where demand for slaves was highest are indeed characterized by higher ethnic fractionalization today. Easterly and Levine (1997) show that across countries outside as well as inside Africa, higher ethnic fractionalization is associated with “low schooling, underdeveloped financial systems, distorted foreign exchange markets, and insufficient infrastructure,”(1997, p. 1241) which are in turn associated with low output per worker, at the national level. Easterly and Levine argue this supports “theories that interest group polarization leads to rent-seeking behavior and reduces the consensus for public goods, creating long-run growth tragedies”(1997, p. 1241), and can account for much of Africa’s uniquely poor development. Nunn and Wantchekon (2011) show that Africans belonging to ethnic groups that suffered higher slave export intensity express less trust in relatives, neighbors and local governments today, and suggest this mistrust has damaged modern Africa’s political institutions. All of these studies rely on data from the current era of independent African states. All appear to suggest a channel from pre-colonial slave export intensity to modern-day poverty running mainly through the effect of inter-ethnic group conflict on the quality of post-independence states.</p>\n<p>In this dissertation I explore the possibility that the historical experience of the slave trade has reduced per capita GDP in Africa today by retarding the development of human capital through education, specifically the development of literacy. Many studies show that, within Africa and outside Africa, literacy is positively associated with real GDP and other indicators of economic development. Economic theory as well as empirical evidence suggest the relation is at least partly causal, as literacy is an element of human capital. Across countries, differences in average levels of education account for a substantial portion of variations in GDP per worker (Lucas, 1988; Mankiw, Romer and Weil, 1992; Hall and Jones, 1999). Across African countries today, literacy rates are negatively correlated with exposure to the slave trade. Indeed including literacy rates as an explanatory variable in Nunn’s baseline regressions reduces the magnitude and significance of the effect of the slave trade.</p>\n<p>Of course, the correlations in the cross country data do not show the direction of causality. If the slave trade damaged Africa’s economic development through any channel, one would expect to see the negative correlation; poor countries cannot provide good schooling. Even if the relationship is causal, it would not be surprising given the common argument that the slave trade damaged African development through the quality of post-independent states. Dysfunctional states also cannot provide good schooling.</p>\n<p>My evidence, however, is from the era of European colonization of Africa, after the end of the slave trades but prior to the independence of modern African states. I rely on data from censuses carried out by the British government from the 1920s through the 1950s in the colonies that have become the modern states of Nigeria and Ghana. These colonies contained many different ethnic groups, which had widely differing degrees of exposure to the pre-colonial slave trade. I find that ethnic groups with higher slave trade intensity had lower literacy rates during the colonial era. Using data from recent years, I find that the relation between slave trade intensity and ethnic groups’ literacy persists in contemporary Nigeria. The relationship holds controlling for many confounding factors such as the presence of missionaries, religion, disease environment, the nature of the ethnic groups’ socio political institutions in the precolonial era, and indicators of groups’ economic development in the colonial era. The relation is not related to inter-group conflict in any obvious way, as it holds across small geographic areas that were each dominated by a single ethnic group.</p>\n<p>My evidence suggests that the relation between slave-trade history and literacy in Africa today is indeed at least partly causal. Perhaps more importantly, it shows that the slave trades affected current economic development through channels distinct from inter-ethnic group conflict or the quality of formal state institutions. Within British colonial Nigeria and Ghana, the quality of formal state-level institutions was the same for all ethnic groups. The relation between precolonial slave intensity and colonial literacy must reflect something more basic, operating at the level of families or the informal institutions of villages and towns.</p>\n<p>I speculate that the relation can be explained by a hypothesis that experience of the slave trade undermined the development of social capital within ethnic groups. Social capital is defined by Putman (1993, pg. 167) as “the features of social organization, such as trust, norms and networks, that can improve the efficiency of society.” Coleman (1988), Knack and Keefer (1997), and Nahapiet and Ghoshal (1998) show that higher levels of social capital are associated with higher levels of human capital. I examine this hypothesis in chapter 2. Using data on expenditure of cocoa farmers in Western Nigeria from 1952, I show that farmers in townships with higher social spending individually spend more on education. The relationship holds after controlling for various characteristics of the farmers and the townships. This suggests that it is possible that the slave trade affects human capital through its destructive effect on social capital.</p>\n<p>Finally I examine the effect of the slave trade on political fragmentation within ethnic groups. Using descriptions of local politics of ethnic groups from Murdock’s 1959 ethnographic atlas, I find that ethnic groups with a higher slave export intensity are more politically fragmented.</p>" }, "author" : "Nonso Obikili", "comments" : [ ], "annotations" : [ ], "origin" : { "streamId" : "feed/http://nigerianstalk.org/?feed=rss2", "title" : "NigeriansTalk", "htmlUrl" : "http://nigerianstalk.org" } }, { "crawlTimeMsec" : "1372201918361", "timestampUsec" : "1372201918361878", "id" : "tag:google.com,2005:reader/item/3f3c543c79da486f", "categories" : [ "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/read", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/starred", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/fresh", "Business Africa" ], "title" : "Your Rendezvous with the African Middle Class – By Bright Simons", "published" : 1372158781, "updated" : 1372158781, "alternate" : [ { "href" : "http://africanarguments.org/2013/06/25/your-rendezvous-with-the-african-middle-class-%e2%80%93-by-bright-simons/", "type" : "text/html" } ], "content" : { "direction" : "ltr", "content" : "<div style=\"float:right\"><div><a href=\"http://twitter.com/share\"></a></div><div></div></div><p><a rel=\"attachment wp-att-11901\" href=\"http://africanarguments.org/2013/06/25/your-rendezvous-with-the-african-middle-class-%e2%80%93-by-bright-simons/bright_simons-2/\"><img title=\"Bright_Simons\" src=\"http://africanarguments.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Bright_Simons.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"219\" height=\"328\"></a>If you are in business and Africa has been on your radar I am very sure it is partly because of boiling enthusiasm about the “African Middle Class” and how they are dying to buy your stuff.</p><p>This being business, and numbers being supreme, you’ve probably been keeping a keen eye on the growth in population of these middle-class folks, as reported in the quality press day in and day out.</p><p>You of course cannot help but also notice that the numbers game can get complicated pretty quickly, especially as no one seems to have done any substantial work on the social characteristics of this oft-hailed Middle Class. In place of such in-depth research we have the all-powerful notion of the “all-purpose middle-class African consumer (AMAC)” that behaves somewhat homogenously regardless of which country they are in in Africa, and what their backgrounds are.</p><p>The most popular view, supported by the likes of the New York Times and the World Bank, all powerful influencers of how the world thinks about Africa, puts the number of AMACs at more than 300 million, a diverse basket that includes all sorts: cattle-ranchers, road-side food vendors, taxi drivers, railway pensioners etc.</p><p>But this view <a href=\"http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18094180\">has its critics</a>, and though they are not as often heard, they shout when they get the opportunity, saying things like: only 5% of African consumers qualify for the ‘middle-class’ tag. If that position was valid, it would mean the AMAC class has suddenly shrunk from 300 million-plus all the way down to about 40 million or 50 million people (bearing in mind that even the exact population in Africa is debatable due to weak census data in many African countries).</p><p>But that is not even the most disconcerting view. <a href=\"http://www.bdlive.co.za/africa/africanbusiness/2013/05/08/economist-challenges-existence-of-middle-class-in-africa\">Someone has actually said</a> that there is basically no middle class consumer segment worthy of any serious analysis in Africa at all. Mind you, he is not just some party-pooper who just walked in from the street; he is a serious finance professional who only happens to hold the view that Africa has only two super-classes: the uber-rich and a large sprawl of poor people who nevertheless are inclined towards consumption (perhaps in just the same way that Asians are seen as inclined towards saving). You can of course choose to interpret that view to mean either that the celebrated AMACs are just poor people who have developed a habit of living above their means or that they are low-income earners with rapidly rising wages. But however you choose to spin it, the fact remains that your target consumer base has now shrunk to zero. From 300 million to zero, now that’s something.</p><p>In between these extremes are various moderates.</p><p>Another widely quoted economics commentator for a big global bank with a huge presence of Africa has pitched another camp in the debate: there are 120 million AMACs.</p><p>The OECD, the so-called Paris Club of rich nations, will only settle for a quarter of this compromise number, but top global consultancies Deloitte and McKinsey keep pulling in the opposite direction, which is that the number can’t be anything <a href=\"http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/consumer_and_retail/picking_products_for_africas_growing_consumer_markets\">but double the 120 million</a> figure, at least.</p><p>And what about those with some ‘skin in the game’? Actual investors in the trenches struggling to raise capital for the kind of mega-projects that get press attention nowadays? Renaissance Capital seems happy to stay close to the ‘120 million AMACs’ proponents.</p><p>A nice spectrum we have here then: from zero to 300 million and everything in-between.</p><p>Except it doesn’t help you very much in the numbers spin. So what if we drop the numbers game altogether and abandon this notion of some generic middle class rising like dough from the yeast of consumerism?</p><p>What if we unpacked the AMAC concept itself?</p><p>For a start, Africa’s middle-class is <em>exceptionally</em> <em>heterogeneous. </em>It is that fact rather than the sheer number of middle class consumers or even the pace of growth in these numbers that can have the strongest effect on the economic role and business significance of Africa’s middle class.</p><p>The African Development Bank (AfDB), for instance, has fixed the range of income for middle class status in Africa between $2 and $20. For someone who lives in Luanda, Angola, a can of coke will require 3 days’ wages if he earns close to the lower limit of this range. For someone who earns at the higher bound of this income range ($20) and lives in Lagos, a day’s wage may be sufficient to grab a burger at a western-style chain. This complicates things for the analyst relying on income assessment to decipher what are complex sociological issues regarding ‘aspiration’, and economic issues relating to ‘purchasing power’, and how these differ from country to country in Africa and make a simple enumeration of the Middle Class technically problematic.</p><p>But there is more to be said about the ‘income’ matter. Across Africa, incomes are rising fastest among those engaged in brokering trade in goods and services across fragmented markets, using slowly improving but still patchy infrastructure. They leverage the very inefficiencies others complain about and information asymmetries that ward off foreign investors to sustain high margins.</p><p>These brokers bridge an internationally efficient production system in Asia, with local, less efficient, markets. These are the same folks who secure mining concessions and rent them out to the Chinese, thus linking cheap capital and labour from overseas with weak bureaucratic capacity to exploit natural resources. In sheer numbers these operators far dwarf the professionals and white-collar workers who, in other regions of the world, make up the bulk of the Middle Class. This is a reality easily borne out by economic statistics. According to the AfDB, the informal sector constitutes 55% of sub-Saharan GDP. This is easily corroborated by in-country data that shows that in large countries like Ghana, Nigeria and Tanzania the figure is 60%. Even in historically over-regulated South Africa, the sector has doubled in size over the last decade or so, according to work by such experts as Friedrich Schneider. In South Africa, trade and social services account for 60% of total activity in the informal sector and certainly more in terms of monetary value. In the rest of the continent, informal trade can account for up to 75% of total employment in the <em>whole </em>economy, as shown in studies on informal trade in sub-Saharan Africa prepared for the Maputo Corridor Logistics Initiative, a Southern Africa regional platform. Given the importance of trading in the formal sector as well, the overall effect can only be preponderant.</p><p>The thing though is that these traders are rarely well-educated. They share few of the cultural traits seen elsewhere in the West and Asia as pre-requisite to a middle-class life. Many young and educated Africans, on the other hand, share few of the economic traits usually associated with middle-class status elsewhere. Lacking a sound income and strong social networks, and bereft of the professional grooming and mentorship opportunities available to true middle-class types, they have become a monument to an educational system increasingly at odds with the social and economic realities of the new Africa.</p><p>This amazing contradiction in most African societies, of an expanding educated underclass and an ‘uneducated’ rising economic class, sums up most of the reasons why the African economy is struggling to acquire the characteristics one would expect of an economy bursting with middle-class vibes. With the remarkable exception of South Africa, where unemployment among University graduates hovers around an astonishingly low of 5%, graduate joblessness is a trans-African tragedy.</p><p>Take Uganda, for instance, where an African Development Indicators report by the World Bank in 2012 put the unemployment rate among recent graduates at 83%. Or Cameroon, where a 2012 Economic Outlook report by the AfDB indicated an underemployment rate (earning less than the national minimal wage) of between 71% and 79% depending on whether the graduate was in an urban or rural region, respectively.</p><p>Simply put, even were the number of middle-class people expanding as dramatically as some observers claim, there is no guarantee that market and consumer behaviour would look anything like what emerged in other societies when their middle-class population begun to approach ‘critical mass’. In particular, the lack of ‘attitudinal solidarity’ among a middle-class population of such diverse economic characteristics, and the highly asynchronous relationship between the cultural and economic sub-categories of the same middle class, may seriously interfere with anticipated transitions in the political climate, the quality of the bureaucracy, the society’s appreciation of technical nuance, and the effectiveness of certain modes of psychological marketing.</p><p>With respect to the last point in the preceding paragraph, one may cite the oft-repeated anecdote of Unilever’s famous marketing effort for its OMO detergent brand in West Africa. In South Africa, the product had been branded as a ‘brightener’. The emphasis had been on ‘bright and sharp colours’. The Unilever marketers discovered quickly that in West Africa, the target consumer base behaved in unexpected ways. Middle Class people there tended to ‘revert’ to traditional African fabrics as their incomes grew. Completely opposite to the way the Middle Class in Southern Africa usually behaved. West African detergent buyers were thus more concerned about preserving the, usually, duskier and brooding hues of the fabric, instead of ‘brightening and sharpening’ the fabric’s tone. This turned out to be the critical marketing factor.</p><p>For you as a prospective investor, if dear reader happens to fall in that category, it is obvious then that <em>qualitative factors</em> should matter more than <em>quantitative factoids</em> in shaping your strategy in this regard. Because even were you to find consumers interested in your products, you may struggle to serve them because your assumptions about how cultural attitudes evolve with income, and about customer service skills in the local market, based perhaps on a notion of sophisticated consumers equal sophisticated workers, may turn up to be completely flawed. Your assumptions regarding how quickly you may be able to ‘educate’ your consumers to embrace certain attitudes, expectations, or user skills (for example using your web-based tool rather than coming over to your brick and mortar joint) may be far off the mark than your margin of error could ever have predicted.</p><p>The qualitative character of the middle class in your targeted African country has implications for your hiring and general human resource strategy, public relations, government relations, corporate responsibility and citizenship, reliance on local financial instruments, operational effectiveness, and the overall sustainability of your market advantages and position. You can take comfort in the fact that the quality not just the quantity of the African middle-class looks set to grow, as reforms begin to take root.</p><p>That is why it makes more sense for you to look out for the <strong><em>sociological foundation </em></strong>underlying the macro-economic factoids that catch your eye, and to concentrate your energies on the unique, contextual, situation of the middle classes in your chosen country of engagement in Africa than to turn yourself into an amateur census-taker.</p><p><strong>Bright Simons is a Social Entrepreneur and Public Interest Researcher. He invented the mPedigree anti-fake drugs system (<a href=\"http://www.mpedigree.net/\">www.mPedigree.Net</a>), and is a Fellow at IMANI, a think tank in Ghana.</strong></p><p>[Disclaimer: A previous version of this article was published elsewhere.]</p>" }, "author" : "AfricanArgumentsEditor", "comments" : [ ], "annotations" : [ ], "origin" : { "streamId" : "feed/http://africanarguments.org/feed/", "title" : "African Arguments", "htmlUrl" : "http://africanarguments.org" } }, { "crawlTimeMsec" : "1372194594021", "timestampUsec" : "1372194594021039", "id" : "tag:google.com,2005:reader/item/eebf2807caca0fcb", "categories" : [ "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/read", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/starred", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/fresh", "FEATURED", "Latest", "Nelson Mandela" ], "title" : "After Mandela", "published" : 1372186841, "updated" : 1372186841, "alternate" : [ { "href" : "http://africasacountry.com/what-will-happen-when-mandela-goes/", "type" : "text/html" } ], "content" : { "direction" : "ltr", "content" : "<div style=\"float:right;padding-left:7px;padding-right:7px;padding-bottom:7px\">\n\t\t<a href=\"http://twitter.com/share\">Tweet</a>\n\t</div>\n\t<p>I returned home to South Africa a few days before Nelson Mandela was readmitted to hospital. This is the fourth and longest period he has been under observation by doctors since last December, and many here are convinced this may be his final visit. Mandela has not been active in South African politics for at least a decade, but he remains a potent symbol of the promise of the “rainbow nation.” The anxiety is apparent—especially in the media: What will happen when Mandela goes? Andrew Mlangeni, who served more than two decades with Mandela on Robben Island prison, told a Sunday newspaper that South Africans had to release Mandela spiritually and let him go. Most ordinary South Africans have resigned themselves to that fact and are saying their goodbyes, though some wish he’d stay with us a bit longer. School children and clerics turn up at the hospital to pray for him and leave messages. Though some in the press wanted to turn the lack of detailed updates by government spokespeople on Mandela’s condition into a “press freedom” issue and a scandal, local TV and radio coverage is mostly somber.</p>\n<p>Even as the vigil continues, South Africans debate Mandela’s legacy and the history he so powerfully embodies. For example, despite Mandela’s lifelong membership in the governing African National Congress, these days an opposition party, the Democratic Alliance (a largely white political party which governs Cape Town and the surrounding province and commands only 20 percent of the national vote) claims it—and not the ANC—is Mandela’s true heir. It has even released advertisements with Mandela’s image and have been pilloried for inventing history (though the campaign seemed to have galvanized their supporters). President Jacob Zuma, who is also the leader of the ANC, corrected them: “The way he is being portrayed by the DA is as if Madiba was born in 1994—there was no life before.”</p>\n<p>But one can see why the DA cannot help but overreach. Mandela is the most recognizable figure in twentieth-century South African, and perhaps world, history. In the popular imagination, both at home and abroad, he is as close as our world gets to a saint. Mandela personifies the narrative of the righteous struggle against legal apartheid, as well as the supposed miracle of racial reconciliation at the twentieth century’s end. This is a tremendous story, and a good deal of it is true. South Africa today is dramatically different than the one Mandela re-entered from prison in 1990. It has a black government, a growing black middle class, vibrant media, stable and vital democratic freedoms (with three sets of free elections and counting) and a growing economy.</p>\n<p>Mandela can take credit for convincing white South Africans of the virtues of liberal democracy, thus ensuring the economy’s stability in the wake of 1994, if at the cost of preserving the white population’s disproportionate wealth and influence. Subsequent presidents have continued in this vein. Despite an initially heavily armed white population (and the persistence of racist views among some whites), today race makes little political turbulence. To be sure, some whites gripe about discrimination and “reverse racism” and organize themselves in “civil society organizations” (like the Afrikaner-led organizations Afriforum and Solidarity, which, among other things, oppose renaming streets and affirmative action). But in general white South Africans have never been more prosperous, mobile and free.</p>\n<p>A recent report by the South African Institute of Race Relations—a frequent critic of the ANC government—concluded that whites are <a href=\"http://www.citypress.co.za/columnists/whither-the-whites/\">actually doing way better than expected</a> [1] since the end of apartheid. A separate study revealed that the majority of <a href=\"http://www.economist.com/node/15824024?story_id=15824024\">CEOs and managers are still white</a> [2], and <a href=\"http://www.africacheck.org/reports/do-400-000-whites-live-in-squatter-camps-in-south-africa-the-answer-is-no/\">Africa Check</a> [3], a South African version of factcheck.org, corrected inflated statistics about white poverty (touted by Afrikaner interest groups): “The claim that 400,000 whites are living in squatter camps is grossly inaccurate. If that were the case, it would mean that roughly 10% of South Africa’s 4.59-million whites were living in abject poverty. Census figures suggest that only a tiny fraction of the white population—as little as 7,754 households—are affected.” So white South Africans are doing very well in post-Mandela South Africa, and many are therefore anxious about what will happen to them when Madiba passes.</p>\n<p>This anxiety is due in part to the realization that transformation has been slow to come to the vast majority of South Africans. Mandela excelled at the rhetoric of the rainbow and reconciliation that still pervades South African public discourse, but he presided over a disastrous economic policy for the country’s poor, black majority. The result is that South Africa remains one of the most unequal countries in the world today by most measures. Inequality is still defined by race, despite the fact that inequality amongst blacks has also expanded. Since 1994, the number of South Africans living on less than a dollar a day has doubled, but so has the number of South African millionaires .</p>\n<p>Successive South African governments (starting with Mandela) have been reluctant to address South Africa’s fundamental historical inequalities, whether by implementing any meaningful land reform or tampering with racial residential patterns. Though the government should be credited for massive public housing construction, most new housing and suburbs are still built on land far away from city centers or constructed next to existing racially segregated townships. Almost 280,000 families countrywide lack basic sanitation. In Cape Town, where the opposition Democratic Alliance governs, some of the poor have desperately resorted to dumping feces at the doorsteps of the provincial parliament or on the bodies of public representatives.</p>\n<p>The ANC’s market-friendly policies began under Mandela, even though many associate such policies with Mandela’s successor, Thabo Mbeki. It was Mandela who in mid-1996 presented the government’s neoliberal GEAR policy (Growth, Employment And Redistribution) as “non-negotiable.” Although there continues to be conflict over economic policy within the ANC, as well as with its alliance partners in the trade unions and the Communist Party, and there are traces of a “development state” (a national healthcare plan, social housing, massive AIDS roll-out since 2009 and welfare grants), government still prioritizes the interests of business.</p>\n<p>The poor know this, and though the majority of South Africans revere Mandela and the ANC for defeating apartheid, many are realizing that true citizenship means taking on the ANC. For many, the ANC has come to represent a callous government whose police evict them from already cramped and substandard housing, shut off their water, lock them up or murder them when they protest. In the most extreme case, in August last year, police shot thirty-four striking miners in the Northwest province; people here just say “Marikana” when they talk about the killings. One year earlier, in broad daylight, police murdered an activist, Andries Tatane, who had led protests over bad services in his small town in the Free State province.</p>\n<p>Dissatisfaction is not new. In the early 2000s, Mandela’s successor Thabo Mbeki was the focus of frequent protests over service delivery, unemployment, poverty and inequality. ANC members and others worked successfully to unseat Mbeki, who was praised by business interests for his management of the economy. Instead they got Jacob Zuma, who although more personable than Mbeki, is hobbled by a messy private life and charges of corruption. Storms swirl around Zuma, but on a macroeconomic level, little changed under him too. For a while, Julius Malema, a bombastic and brash ANC youth leader, held center stage and threatened to bring economic inequality to the center of attention. Yet he fell out with Zuma and his support fizzled as stories emerged detailing his own problems with corruption and excess.</p>\n<p>Still, impatience with Zuma’s government is growing. Not all protests take an organized form or are sustained over time, but they are always there—one can’t miss the din of protest about housing and evictions, over water, electricity and education. These movements frequently invoke Mandela as a symbol, even as they chide his government’s legacy. He is both an obstacle and an inspiration. Many participants are very young—barely alive when Mandela came out of prison or when he was elected president. Take Abahlali baseMjondolo, a slumdwellers’ movement outside Durban that protested evictions at the hands of the ANC-led city council, as profiled in a new film <em>Dear Mandela.</em> In one scene, a teenage leader, Mazwi Nzimande, tries to fire up the crowd. Nzimande denounces people who discriminate against shack dwellers and criticizes political parties. When, however, he shouts: “Down with the ANC party, down!” he is greeted with silence. Mandela’s party still has a powerful hold over most black South Africans. For many, in spite of its failings, it is still seen as the only organization that will be able to fundamentally restructure South Africa’s political economy. In the film, Nzimande sits down, momentarily defeated.</p>\n<p>Nzimande’s colleague, Mnikelo Ndabankulu (in his early 20s), takes a different approach. Speaking after a fire that destroyed 200 shacks in his neighborhood, he responds to criticism by ANC and government supporters: “They say, ‘Why are these people marching because these times [of oppression] have gone. We are in a democracy. What are they marching for?’ [However] the real motive behind our struggle is this thing [pointing to conditions in his squatter community]. It’s not a matter of disrespecting the authorities. It’s being serious about life. This is not life.”</p>\n<p>Then, referring to Mandela’s steadfastness when he was sentenced to life in prison in 1964, Ndabankulu says: “You don’t need to be old to be wise. That is why we think we need to show our character while we are still young so that when your life ends, it must not be like a small obituary that said, ‘You were born, you ate, you go to school, you died.’ When you are dying you must die with credibility. People must talk about you saying good things, saying you were a man among men, not just an ordinary man.”</p>\n<p>Sunday, June 16, was National Youth Day, commemorating the day in 1976, when black students in Soweto rose up to resist forced instruction in Afrikaans, but also to protest conditions in their schools (at the time government spent R644 a year on a white child’s education, but only R42 on a black child). The movement spread countrywide and combatted the repressive political environment of the time (most were inspired by the Black Consciousness movement whose leader, Steve Biko, would be murdered by police the next year). Much has changed since then. Public education is now free in principle, government spending does not discriminate by race and no one is forced to learn Afrikaans. However, little has been done to improve black schools that are characterized by overcrowding, no electricity or water supply and dilapidated infrastructure.</p>\n<p>The next day (a public holiday), I joined a march by a few thousand school children to Parliament. Equal Education, a NGO that has taken the minister of education to court over the conditions of the schools that most black South Africans attend, organized the march. (Full disclosure: I have been sending groups of New School students to intern at Equal Education every summer since 2012.) At a rally in front of parliament, one of the Equal Education leaders reminded protesters that they were meeting on a solemn occasion “as Mandela, the father of our nation lay dying and as we commemorate the Soweto Uprising led by students.”</p>\n<p>It was inevitable that he would then make a direct connection between the march and Mandela, who in the wake of Soweto 1976 wrote from prison: “That verdict is loud and clear: apartheid has failed. Our people remain unequivocal in its rejection…. They are a generation whose whole education has been under the diabolical design of the racists to poison the minds and brainwash our children into docile subjects of apartheid rule. But after more than twenty years of Bantu Education the circle is closed and nothing demonstrates the utter bankruptcy of apartheid as the revolt of our youth.”</p>\n<p>I wondered what Mandela would make of these protesters for whom freedom has meant unequal education and who now see the government he was part of willing into being, as an obstacle to them enjoying their full rights in the new South Africa. Perhaps he would recognize himself in them.</p>\n<p>* An edited version of this post first appeared on the website of the American publication, <a href=\"javascript:void(0);\">The Nation</a>, earlier this week.</p>\n<p> </p>" }, "author" : "Sean Jacobs", "comments" : [ ], "annotations" : [ ], "origin" : { "streamId" : "feed/http://africasacountry.wordpress.com/feed/", "title" : "AFRICA IS A COUNTRY", "htmlUrl" : "http://africasacountry.com" } }, { "crawlTimeMsec" : "1372194188522", "timestampUsec" : "1372194188522872", "id" : "tag:google.com,2005:reader/item/ca16c688d92c0821", "categories" : [ "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/read", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/starred", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/tracking-emailed", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/fresh", "FEATURED", "Latest", "Africa is a Kitchen", "Ghana", "Kenya", "My African Food Map", "Tuleka Prah" ], "title" : "Tuleka Prah’s African Food Map", "published" : 1372089646, "updated" : 1372089646, "alternate" : [ { "href" : "http://africasacountry.com/tuleka-prahs-african-food-map/", "type" : "text/html" } ], "content" : { "direction" : "ltr", "content" : "<p>The genesis of the idea was simple and uncomplicated. I was looking for a recipe online and was generally disappointed with what I found. Many links were unnecessarily verbose, cluttered in structure or layout and displayed alarmingly poor imagery. At the end of the day, I could not remember what I was searching for and instead found myself watching videos of animated dinosaurs. It was frustrating. So I decided there and then that instead of getting annoyed about it, I would see what I could do. Thus in 2012, I started a project called <a href=\"http://www.africanfoodmap.com\">My African Food Map</a>.</p>\n<p>Like I mentioned earlier, this would be simple. I would make a website which would become a trusted reference point for popular African recipes. I thought, “The best way, of course, is to go directly to the source.” I would visit as many African countries as possible and find out what the four most popular dishes were. Then, I would take pictures of the finished meals and their ingredients, and post the <a href=\"http://www.africanfoodmap.com\">recipes</a> online.</p>\n<p>All of it would be free to the reading public and as easily accessible as possible. I also thought, “Well, I’d definitely be interested in knowing how to prepare the dishes and in seeing how each stage of the cooking process looks. So, how about including a <a href=\"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXOmHo8lrjg\">video</a> for each featured recipe?” This is the process through which “My African Food Map” was conceived.</p>\n<p><iframe width=\"980\" height=\"551\" src=\"http://www.youtube.com/embed/B8s8rl62Mq0?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\"></iframe></p>\n<p>I could also break down the thought process of how I came to the idea of doing four dishes per country, with at least two months for featuring the details around the dishes; i.e. the country and the ingredients in their uncooked form, but I will not do that. We have only just been introduced and I do not want to geek out so early in our relationship.</p>\n<p>All of these thoughts took place in the space of about 30 minutes. And so, as usual, I had an idea but no money and no realistic possibility of making it happen. It was the middle of spring of 2012. With these constraints, the best solution was to start off in a country where my accommodation would not be a problem and where I would have a family to fall back on in case of any emergency. My father is from Ghana and my mother is from South Africa, so those were the two countries I could start. I chose Ghana – <a href=\"http://www.royalafricansociety.org/blog/culture-interview-tuleka-prah-director-my-african-foodmap\">another thought process referred to in an interview I did earlier this year</a>.</p>\n<p>In October of 2012, I put “My African Food Map” in the public domain for the first time. The period from then until the first video upload in January 2013 was a tough and exhausting period for me. I was using a camera I got a week before I left Europe for Africa, I paid for things using an overdraft I technically should not have had, and had to deal with the results of power cuts, internet problems and blown adapters from electrical surges. To top it all off, the individuals I wanted to interview to bring these dishes to life – the folks that would make the “my” part of My African Food Map – had very different ideas about keeping appointments, etc. Thinking about it now, I am amazed at the whole episode: Figuring out the camera, editing with a damaged computer – in the heat and with power cuts, and sticking to my film-edit-upload schedule; everything about this project has been a small miracle.</p>\n<p><iframe width=\"980\" height=\"551\" src=\"http://www.youtube.com/embed/pVSS1Vb7ARA?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\"></iframe></p>\n<p>Now it is the beginning of summer 2013 and I am in awe of the fact that this idea now exists in “real life,” as well as at the growing and overwhelmingly positive support it has generated. Although I am very passionate about My African Food Map, the support I am receiving is the main reason I am motivated to continue. In many ways, I am still where I was last year this time: looking for funding or sponsorship and hatching plans to travel to the next country, with no idea of how this might happen. Determination and stubbornness obviously have a large majority in the parliament of my mind and so I know I will be in East Africa soon, learning and completing the next set of feature recipes.</p>\n<p>I love food. I love African food, which I suppose you do too. So it is a great pleasure and honor for me to be able to share this project with you, and I only hope I can continue to stimulate excitement and curiosity for African food through more featured recipes, in the foreseeable future.</p>\n<p>The sun is shining and my favourite park beckons, so I will end at this point. My next post here will be from Kenya.</p>" }, "author" : "Tuleka Prah", "comments" : [ ], "annotations" : [ ], "origin" : { "streamId" : "feed/http://africasacountry.wordpress.com/feed/", "title" : "AFRICA IS A COUNTRY", "htmlUrl" : "http://africasacountry.com" } }, { "crawlTimeMsec" : "1372194160556", "timestampUsec" : "1372194160556313", "id" : "tag:google.com,2005:reader/item/53bad088e4033826", "categories" : [ "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/read", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/starred", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/fresh", "Birds", "Poems & poem-like things", "U.K.", "Wildflowers" ], "title" : "In darkest England", "published" : 1372173182, "updated" : 1372354048, "alternate" : [ { "href" : "http://www.vianegativa.us/2013/06/in-darkest-england/", "type" : "text/html" } ], "replies" : [ { "href" : "http://www.vianegativa.us/2013/06/in-darkest-england/#comments", "type" : "text/html" }, { "href" : "http://www.vianegativa.us/2013/06/in-darkest-england/feed/atom/", "type" : "application/atom+xml" } ], "content" : { "direction" : "ltr", "content" : "<p><a href=\"http://www.flickr.com/photos/89056025@N00/9135449642/\" title=\"cows on the commons at Brill by Dave Bonta, on Flickr\"><img src=\"http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3779/9135449642_8e832a809c.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" alt=\"cows on the commons at Brill\"></a></p>\n<p>Under lowering skies, <a href=\"http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173564\">the lowing herd winds slowly o’er the lea</a> in the village commons at Brill, Buckinghamshire. We were there to attend a big garden party with extended family, friends and assorted villagers, preparations for which gave us just enough time to wander around this extremely picturesque English village. <span></span></p>\n<p><a href=\"http://www.flickr.com/photos/89056025@N00/9133240413/\" title=\"brick walls at Brill by Dave Bonta, on Flickr\"><img src=\"http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7327/9133240413_38deb0f717_z.jpg\" width=\"480\" height=\"640\" alt=\"brick walls at Brill\"></a></p>\n<p>“Brill” is a conflation of two different words for “hill” in the ancient dialects of two native tribes, <em>breg</em> (Brythonic Celt) and <em>hyll</em> (Anglo Saxon). A local author named J.R.R. Tolkien is said to have based his fictional village of Bree on Brill. </p>\n<p><a href=\"http://www.flickr.com/photos/89056025@N00/9133169103/\" title=\"view from Brill by Dave Bonta, on Flickr\"><img src=\"http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2878/9133169103_7fda0b9161_z.jpg\" width=\"480\" height=\"640\" alt=\"view from Brill\"></a></p>\n<p>Brill is aply named. The view takes in all or part of three counties in the heart of England, a rolling countryside reminiscent of southeastern Pennsylvania, only with a lot less corn (maize) and a lot more sheep. </p>\n<p><a href=\"http://www.flickr.com/photos/89056025@N00/9133221733/\" title=\"dovecote and garden at Brill by Dave Bonta, on Flickr\"><img src=\"http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7316/9133221733_6aff24de87_z.jpg\" width=\"480\" height=\"640\" alt=\"dovecote and garden at Brill\"></a></p>\n<p>This was my first visit to rural England, and several things stood out for me. One was the English love of gardens, here demonstrated by a small corner of Rachel’s father’s garden bordering a 17th-century brick wall and dovecote. I’ve been impressed by this in London, too, but in Brill, it was easier to observe how gardened spaces transition into wild and agricultural spaces. </p>\n<p><a href=\"http://www.flickr.com/photos/89056025@N00/9133202701/\" title=\"hart's-tongue fern by Dave Bonta, on Flickr\"><img src=\"http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7379/9133202701_80de22fef0.jpg\" width=\"444\" height=\"500\" alt=\"hart's-tongue fern\"></a></p>\n<p>Wild volunteers such as this hart’s-tongue fern seemed to be tolerated in many places. This wall, by the way, bordered a designated public footpath — something else that really impressed me. </p>\n<p><a href=\"http://www.flickr.com/photos/89056025@N00/9135414128/\" title=\"kissing gate by Dave Bonta, on Flickr\"><img src=\"http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3833/9135414128_46da7d8dee.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" alt=\"kissing gate\"></a></p>\n<p>Where footpaths crossed pastures, they were outfitted with so-called kissing gates. </p>\n<p><a href=\"http://www.flickr.com/photos/89056025@N00/9135471824/\" title=\"baptising the new wellies by Dave Bonta, on Flickr\"><img src=\"http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7426/9135471824_6da1e44a1b_z.jpg\" width=\"480\" height=\"640\" alt=\"baptising the new wellies\"></a></p>\n<p>The Common turned out to be a good place to botanize — and also to baptize a new pair of wellies, which I bought in a farm-supply store in a neighboring village. </p>\n<p><a href=\"http://www.flickr.com/photos/89056025@N00/9133181907/\" title=\"ragged robin by Dave Bonta, on Flickr\"><img src=\"http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7388/9133181907_d5a03f3754_z.jpg\" width=\"480\" height=\"640\" alt=\"ragged robin\"></a></p>\n<p>Brill is famous for its springs. This one harbored a small colony of <a href=\"http://www.wildlifetrusts.org/species/ragged-robin\">ragged robin</a>.</p>\n<p><a href=\"http://www.flickr.com/photos/89056025@N00/9133186285/\" title=\"orange-butt bee on orange hawkweed by Dave Bonta, on Flickr\"><img src=\"http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3714/9133186285_f358d716bd_z.jpg\" width=\"496\" height=\"640\" alt=\"orange-butt bee on orange hawkweed\"></a></p>\n<p>Nearer to the road, we watched a bumblebee with an orange abdomen visiting a stand of orange hawkweed,</p>\n<p><a href=\"http://www.flickr.com/photos/89056025@N00/9133177769/\" title=\"red campion by Dave Bonta, on Flickr\"><img src=\"http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2816/9133177769_65151bb84f_z.jpg\" width=\"480\" height=\"640\" alt=\"red campion\"></a></p>\n<p>and red campion thrust its blowsy blooms above the grass. </p>\n<p><a href=\"http://www.flickr.com/photos/89056025@N00/9133154389/\" title=\"woodpigeon on chimney pots by Dave Bonta, on Flickr\"><img src=\"http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3708/9133154389_a817e955dc_z.jpg\" width=\"480\" height=\"640\" alt=\"woodpigeon on chimney pots\"></a></p>\n<p>The centuries of intensive land use seem to have selected for very human-tolerant species. We saw and heard numerous blackbirds — my favorite singers here so far, thrushes and woodpigeons (above). </p>\n<p><a href=\"http://www.flickr.com/photos/89056025@N00/9135456774/\" title=\"common ash tree by Dave Bonta, on Flickr\"><img src=\"http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2848/9135456774_d1cfb0a408_z.jpg\" width=\"487\" height=\"640\" alt=\"common ash tree\"></a></p>\n<p>This stately ash is part of a fenced and pastured woodlot.</p>\n<p><a href=\"http://www.flickr.com/photos/89056025@N00/9135418592/\" title=\"jackdaws by Dave Bonta, on Flickr\"><img src=\"http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2820/9135418592_7e4d7beefa.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" alt=\"jackdaws\"></a></p>\n<p>A pair of jackdaws posed beside a pair of chimneys. </p>\n<p><a href=\"http://www.flickr.com/photos/89056025@N00/9133158059/\" title=\"windmill at Brill by Dave Bonta, on Flickr\"><img src=\"http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7282/9133158059_ab993c390f_z.jpg\" width=\"480\" height=\"640\" alt=\"windmill at Brill\"></a></p>\n<p>The Brill windmill is “one of the earliest and best preserved examples of a post mill (the earliest type of European windmill) in the UK,” as the Wikipedia <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brill#Brill_windmill\">puts it</a>. It’s been preserved as a kind of town mascot. Apparently, a near-by landowner is exploring the possibility of installing a modern industrial wind turbine, which would rather dominate and diminish the local landscape, </p>\n<p><a href=\"http://www.flickr.com/photos/89056025@N00/9133172557/\" title=\"red kite over Brill by Dave Bonta, on Flickr\"><img src=\"http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5521/9133172557_c04455bf5f_z.jpg\" width=\"480\" height=\"640\" alt=\"red kite over Brill\"></a></p>\n<p>and <a href=\"http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2004/jan/25/energy.greenpolitics\">perhaps spell trouble for the red kites</a>, which swooped and hovered low over the rooftops of the town all afternoon. </p>" }, "author" : "Dave Bonta", "comments" : [ ], "annotations" : [ ], "origin" : { "streamId" : "feed/http://www.vianegativa.us/feed/atom/", "title" : "Via Negativa", "htmlUrl" : "http://www.vianegativa.us/" } }, { "crawlTimeMsec" : "1371965372879", "timestampUsec" : "1371965372879429", "id" : "tag:google.com,2005:reader/item/1fabd9c070fc16e4", "categories" : [ "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/read", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/starred", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/tracking-item-link-used", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/tracking-kept-unread", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/fresh", "Blog Nate Thayer", "Conspiracy Theories", "Israel Mossad North orea", "Middle East", "Nate Thayer", "Nate Thayer blog", "New Zealand Mossad", "New Zealand Mossad Zev Barkan", "North Korea", "North Korean covert operations", "North Korean Missiles", "Syria Mossad North Korea assassinations", "Terrorism", "Zev Barkan Mossad", "Canada Zev Barkan", "democratic peoples republic of korea", "middle east", "Mossad assassinations Israel Syria North Korea", "New Zealand Zev Barkan Mossad passports", "North Korea Mossad Ryongchon train explosion", "Zev Barkan" ], "title" : "One Israeli assassin, a North Korean train explosion, dead Syrian scientists, fake Canadian passports, Dubai and New Zealand arrest warrants, and a poisoned Hamas guerrilla", "published" : 1371853344, "updated" : 1371853344, "alternate" : [ { "href" : "http://natethayer.wordpress.com/2013/06/21/one-israeli-assassin-a-north-korean-train-explosion-dead-syrian-scientists-fake-canadian-passports-dubai-and-new-zealand-arrest-warrants-and-a-poisoned-hamas-guerrilla/", "type" : "text/html" } ], "content" : { "direction" : "ltr", "content" : "<p><b><b>A mysterious <b>North Korean </b>train explosion, <b>dead Syrian missile scientists,</b> fake Canadian passports, a </b>poisoned Hamas terrorist, and t<b>he Israeli assassin: One</b><b> curious tale in the bloody global spy war behind the Middle East conflict</b></b></p>\n<p><b><i>An Israeli agent on a stolen Canadian passport spotted in Pyongyang raises eyebrows after Syrian weapons scientists are killed in a mysterious North Korean train explosion. </i></b></p>\n<p><b><i>At the time, he was fleeing New Zealand charged with trying to steal the identity of a cerebral palsy victim. He later resurfaced with a fake beard on a French passport in Dubai in a hotel where a Hamas leader is assassinated.</i></b></p>\n<p><b><i>Governments in Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and North America all want to talk with the American born Zev Barkin. </i></b></p>\n<p><b><i>Canada has been looking for him for a decade…or were they?</i></b></p>\n<p><strong>See full story and related stories on North Korean-Syrian clandestine activities at NKNews.org</strong></p>\n<div style=\"width:500px\"><a href=\"http://natethayer.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/an-israel-spy-in-north-korea.jpg\"><img alt=\"Explosion aftermath in Ryongchon, North Korea that killed a dozen Syrian missile scientists. Israeli Mossad agent Zev Barkan, inset, who was reportedly in Pyongyang at the time\" src=\"http://natethayer.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/an-israel-spy-in-north-korea.jpg?w=490&h=255\" width=\"490\" height=\"255\"></a><p>Explosion aftermath in Ryongchon, North Korea that killed a dozen Syrian missile scientists. Israeli Mossad agent Zev Barkan, inset, who was reportedly in Pyongyang at the time</p></div>\n<p><b><i>BY NATE THAYER </i></b></p>\n<p><b><i>JUNE 20, 2013</i></b></p>\n<p><strong> NKNews.org</strong></p>\n<p><strong>See full story and related stories on North Korean-Syrian clandestine activities at NKNews.org</strong></p>\n<div> <b>WASHINGTON D.C.—</b>In the weeks after the mysterious Ryongchon train explosion that killed a dozen Syrian weapons scientists in North Korea on April 22, 2004, the Canadian Office of Foreign Affairs announced they were investigating reports that an Israeli Mossad spy travelling on a stolen Canadian passport was in North Korea at the time of the blast.</div>\n<p>Zev William Barkan was last seen in late April in Pyongyang, North Korea, after travelling there from Beijing using a Canadian passport issued under the name Kevin William Hunter, according to the Toronto Globe and Mail and other media reports. The Canadian passport of Kevin William Hunter was said to have been reported stolen in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou on April 11, 2004—11 days before the massive blast, measuring 3.6 on the Richter scale, at Ryongchon.</p>\n<p><b><i>“Israel Mossad agent in North Korea?</i></b><b><i>”</i></b> read the headline in the August 4 Jerusalem Post. <b><i>“New Zealand passport scam takes Canadian twist.</i></b><b><i>”€ </i></b></p>\n<p>The Canadian Press reported that “Federal officials are investigating whether a suspected Israeli spy is travelling in Asia on a stolen Canadian passport.”€<i> </i></p>\n<p>It said “agencies are checking allegations that Zev William Barkan – embroiled in a New Zealand espionage caper – is using a Canadian passport issued under the name Kevin William Hunter.”€ </p>\n<p>“That part of the story’s being checked,” said Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Reynald Doiron. “All of that being put together, we should have a clearer picture.”€ </p>\n<p>He told Canadian CTV television that “We are checking the information. We know some of the answers but not all of them and we are determined to get to the bottom of this.”</p>\n<p>Governments on five continents have been seeking answers on the clandestine shenanigans of American born Mossad agent Zev Barkan for more than a decade.</p>\n<p><b>TINKER, SAILOR, TOLD’YA HE’S A SPY</b></p>\n<p>Barkan was at the time wanted by police in New Zealand in an espionage scandal that had erupted in the weeks before the North Korean train explosion.</p>\n<p>The rare public spy scandal captured New Zealand headlines on April 17, 2004 when two Israeli Mossad agents were charged with attempting to illegally obtain New Zealand passports for the use of the Mossad operative Zev Barkan. When two other Mossad operatives were arrested, Barkan, who was in New Zealand between March 3 and 20th, vanished.</p>\n<p>As part of the elaborate forged passport ring, Barkan attempted to assume the identity of a severely disabled New Zealand man with cerebral palsy. He obtained the man’s birth certificate and applied for a passport under the New Zealander’s name and submitting Barkan’s real photograph, but his American accent raised the suspicions of a New Zealand official which sparked authorities to investigate.</p>\n<div style=\"width:360px\"><a href=\"http://natethayer.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/two-mossad-spies-jailed-in-new-zeal2.jpg\"><img alt=\"The two Israeli Mossad spies who were arrested and jailed in New Zealand for attempted to obtain a fraudulent passport for Barkan in 2004 appear in an Auckland court. Barkan vanished\" src=\"http://natethayer.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/two-mossad-spies-jailed-in-new-zeal2.jpg?w=490\"></a><p>The two Israeli Mossad spies who were arrested and jailed in New Zealand for attempted to obtain a fraudulent passport for Barkan in 2004 appear in an Auckland court. Barkan vanished</p></div>\n<p>New Zealand Foreign Minister Phil Goff told New Zealand radio that Barkan was a former Israel Defense Force diver and Israeli agent assigned to Israeli embassies in Vienna and Brussels between 1993 and 2001.</p>\n<p>New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark has said there was “no doubt whatsoever” that the men were spies.</p>\n<p>Secret cables from the American embassy in New Zealand confirmed that U.S. officials knew the arrested men were Mossad agents. “We have very strong grounds for believing these are Israeli intelligence agents,” the cable, released in 2009 by WikiLeaks, said. “While Prime Minister Helen Clark would not confirm which service employed the men, she noted that if one were to lay espionage charges then one would have to be prepared to offer the kind of evidence in court which our intelligence agencies do not like coming forward to display.”€ </p>\n<div style=\"width:124px\"><a href=\"http://natethayer.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/zev_barkan.jpg\"><img alt=\"Zev William Barkan\" src=\"http://natethayer.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/zev_barkan.jpg?w=490\"></a><p>Zev William Barkan</p></div>\n<p>One New Zealand news organization reported that “Barkan is being investigated by Macau and Chinese Immigration for his movements in April/May. The investigation includes his alleged use of the U.S. passport in the name of Zev Barkan and a second Canadian passport in the name of Kevin Hunter – which was stolen in Guangzhou China on April 11th.”€ </p>\n<p><b> </b><b>From New Zealand To Pyongyang</b></p>\n<p>The court arraignments on April 16 revealed the arrest of the two Israeli’s on charges of attempting to obtain a New Zealand passport, but Zev William Barkan had “fled the country and authorities concede they would not know where to find him.” </p>\n<p>But soon reports emerged which placed Barkan, now travelling on a stolen Canadian passport, in Pyongyang in late April, according to the Australian Sydney Morning Herald and other media.</p>\n<p>And in the ensuing weeks, months, and years, the unlikely saga only became more curious .</p>\n<p>New Zealand, Canadian, Israeli and Australian media reported that Mossad agent Zev William Barkan was reported seen in Pyongyang working as a security adviser for the North Korean government€ where he was negotiating a contract to build a security wall along the border with China with Israeli-manufactured motion detectors and night vision equipment.</p>\n<p>Unconfirmed accounts cited an “Asian-based NGO closely linked to New Zealand intelligence networks” at a conference in Japan on North Korean refugees saying Barkan and other Israeli agents had entered North Korea under the guise of security consultants in April.</p>\n<p>New Zealand news site scoop.com quoted “a senior NGO chief executive with Global-Protect All Children” as saying “Barkan is there negotiating details of an extensive contract for design and technical equipment to support a security wall project, including- but by no means limited to -Israeli produced motion sensors and night vision equipment.” </p>\n<p>“Barkan flew from Beijing to Pyongyang at the end of April. He was allegedly travelling on a Canadian passport issued in the name of Kevin Hunter, which had been reported stolen at the Canadian Consulate in the Southern Chinese city of Guangzhou in mid-April.”€ </p>\n<p>The account said Israeli experts were conducting a “feasibility study on a security fence along the 1500 KM North Korea China border.” </p>\n<p>New Zealand believed Barkan “was trying to secure a ‘clean’ passport for use in a sensitive Israeli undercover operation in the region, less risky than a forged passport, “ according to the Sydney Morning Herald.</p>\n<div style=\"width:154px\"><a href=\"http://natethayer.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/download-3.jpg\"><img alt=\"Barkan was reported to have stolen the Canadian passport of Kevin William Hunter in Guangzhao, China and traveled to North Korea in April 2004\" src=\"http://natethayer.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/download-3.jpg?w=490\"></a><p>Barkan was reported to have stolen the Canadian passport of Kevin William Hunter in Guangzhao, China and traveled to North Korea in April 2004</p></div>\n<p><b>ISRAELI-CANADIANS</b></p>\n<p>Canada was already sensitive to Israel’s spy services carrying out black espionage operations under the cover of fraudulent Canadian passports. The Canadian investigation of Barkan followed another investigation Canada carried out only the previous week to determine why one of the two Israeli’s convicted in the passport scandal had used a Canadian passport, rather than an Israeli one, to enter New Zealand in 1999.</p>\n<p>During his 2004 visit to New Zealand, he entered the country using his Israeli passport. Canadian authorities concluded that the arrested Mossad agent was a “legitimate citizen,” a dual Canadian-Israeli national, and that the Canadian passport he held was “genuine.”</p>\n<p>But seven years earlier, in 1997, Israel-Canadian relations were severely strained after two Mossad agents carrying Canadian passports were caught trying to kill Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal in Jordan. Mashal was injected in the ear with a poisonous toxin. Jordan immediately seized two Mossad agents posing as Canadian tourists and surrounded another six who had fled to the Israeli embassy.</p>\n<div style=\"width:500px\"><a href=\"http://natethayer.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/khaled-meshaal-hamas.jpg\"><img alt=\"Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal survived a Mossad assassination attempt when two agents posing as Canadian tourists squirted poison in his ear on an Amman Jordan street in 1997\" src=\"http://natethayer.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/khaled-meshaal-hamas.jpg?w=490&h=275\" width=\"490\" height=\"275\"></a><p>Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal survived a Mossad assassination attempt when two agents posing as Canadian tourists squirted poison in his ear on an Amman Jordan street in 1997</p></div>\n<p>Under the threat of execution and an embarrassing public spectacle after being caught red handed, an Israeli doctor was dispatched by airplane to Amman with an antidote for the poison which was administered to the murder target Khaled Mashal, who survived. The deal forced Israel to release from prison Hamas founder Sheik Ahmed Yassin.</p>\n<p>After that diplomatic embarrassment, Israel promised Canada in 1997 that it would cease using Canadian passports.</p>\n<p>After the Canadian Foreign Ministry announced they were investigating reports that Barkan was travelling on a Canadian passport in North Korea, New Zealand’s foreign minister, Phil Goff, said: “I have read with interest the Canadians are following up allegations he may have traveled at some point on a stolen Canadian passport. When he came to New Zealand my understanding was he was travelling on a U.S. passport. Clearly there would be co-operation between police forces in different countries to try to get to the bottom of these things.”€ </p>\n<div style=\"width:460px\"><a href=\"http://natethayer.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/train-afp-pic.jpg\"><img alt=\"A 72 meter crater at explosion site in North Korea that registered 3.6 on the Richter scale in April 2004. Remnants of a mobile phone wrapped in duct tape were found nearby by investigators\" src=\"http://natethayer.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/train-afp-pic.jpg?w=490\"></a><p>A 72 meter crater at explosion site in North Korea that registered 3.6 on the Richter scale in April 2004. Remnants of a mobile phone wrapped in duct tape were found nearby by investigators</p></div>\n<p>“The passports that Mossad agents tried to obtain illegally might have been reserved for an assassination operation in a third country, which would have caused irreparable damage to New Zealand,” Foreign Minister Phil Goff was also quoted speculating to the Israeli newspaper Haâaretz.</p>\n<p>In July 2004, a New Zealand media outlet reported a detailed, but unconfirmed account of how the fugitive Mossad agent, Barkan had fled New Zealand to North Korea. In an article headlined “NGOs Claim Wanted Israeli Agent Barkan In North Korea”, the report said “Zev Barkan, the suspected Israeli Mossad agent on the run from New Zealand Police, has been sighted in North Korea, according to an Asian-based NGO closely linked to New Zealand intelligence networks.”€ </p>\n<div style=\"width:500px\"><a href=\"http://natethayer.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/ryongchon-train2.jpg\"><img alt=\"The train car in North Korea where 12 Syrian missile scientists were killed in bomb blast transporting weapons destined for Syria\" src=\"http://natethayer.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/ryongchon-train2.jpg?w=490&h=367\" width=\"490\" height=\"367\"></a><p>The train car in North Korea where 12 Syrian missile scientists were killed in bomb blast transporting weapons destined for Syria</p></div>\n<p>The account went on to allege, “Zev William Barkan turned up in Pyongyang as an Israeli security adviser in April, within weeks of fleeing from New Zealand prior to a suspected Israeli spy ring being sprung for attempting to illegally acquire a New Zealand passport.”€ </p>\n<p>The reports of the pilfered Canadian passport in Guangzhou, the Chinese city near the North Korean border, was only 11 days before the blast at the Ryongchon train station.</p>\n<p>On April 22, 2004, a massive explosion tore through the train station in Ryongchon, North Korea, nine hours after North Korean ruler Kim Jong-il passed through returning from a trip to China. Wide speculation that the blast was a botched assassination attempt has lingered for years.</p>\n<p><b>BOOMTOWN</b></p>\n<p>A number of sources say that North Korean investigators had concluded the explosion was an attempt on the leader’s life, but more logical evidence points to sabotage directed at the cargo of sophisticated missile components destined for Israel’s enemies in Syria.</p>\n<p>The explosion destroyed 40 percent of the town and had the fingerprints of an Israeli intelligence operation. Within days, North Korean secret police from the Ministry of People’s Security, found that a rigged cell phone triggered the blast.</p>\n<p>The epicenter of the explosion was in railroad cars where a dozen Syrian missile technicians working for the Syrian Center for Scientific Research were accompanying missile and other components toward to port of Nampo to be shipped to Damascus. All the Syrian scientists were killed. The SSRC is the secret government agency in charge of Syria’s nuclear, missile and chemical weapons development program.</p>\n<div style=\"width:500px\"><a href=\"http://natethayer.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/ryongchon_hdrc-echo_dscn01042.jpg\"><img alt=\"Scenes of the devastation April 2004, Ryongchon North Korea\" src=\"http://natethayer.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/ryongchon_hdrc-echo_dscn01042.jpg?w=490&h=367\" width=\"490\" height=\"367\"></a><p>Scenes of the devastation April 2004, Ryongchon North Korea</p></div>\n<p>On May 24, 2004, South Korea’s Chosun Ilbo reported that a North Korean official visiting China said the North Korean National Security Agency had “concluded that rebellious forces had plotted the explosions.”€ The paper quoted North Korean sources saying security agencies had determined that a cell phone had been used to detonate the explosion and reported to the North Korean leader that “the use of cell phones should be banned for the sake of the leader’s safety.”</p>\n<p>Indeed, five days earlier, on May 19th, North Korea abruptly halted the entire nationwide mobile phone service and confiscated all the 10,000 cell phones in the country. Mobile phone service was not resumed for another five years.</p>\n<p>Reports emerged in the following days that North Korean investigators had found a damaged cell phone wrapped in duct tape near the site of the blast. Speculation among intelligence agencies and North Korean investigators was that Kim Jong-il, whose personal train had passed through the station nine hours earlier returning form a visit to China, was the target. Still widely unknown were the deaths of the Syrian weapons scientists and the destruction of their illicit cargo in the blast.</p>\n<div style=\"width:250px\"><a href=\"http://natethayer.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/download-4.jpg\"><img alt=\"Israeli citizens Eli Cara (left) and Uriel Zoshe Kelman were sentenced to six months' jail for attempting to fraudulently obtain New Zealand passports. Photo New Zealand Herald\" src=\"http://natethayer.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/download-4.jpg?w=490\"></a><p>Israeli citizens Eli Cara (left) and Uriel Zoshe Kelman were sentenced to six months’ jail for attempting to fraudulently obtain New Zealand passports. Photo New Zealand Herald</p></div>\n<p>In July, the two Israeli Mossad men in jail in Auckland were convicted in a New Zealand court of the Israeli intelligence passport acquiring scam and sentenced to six months imprisonment by the Auckland High Court. They were ordered to pay NZ $100,000 to a cerebral palsy charity.</p>\n<p>New Zealand High Court Judge Justice Judith Potter said: “It’s difficult to see why anyone would want a false New Zealand passport unless it was intended to be used in a way ancillary to some other offending (law).” She said: “That offending is likely to be serious or perhaps very serious.” </p>\n<p>The New Zealand judge may have been prescient.</p>\n<p>In 2005, the year after the New Zealand passport scandal and the train explosion in North Korea, Barkan was back in the news, accused of trafficking in passports stolen from foreign tourists in Southeast Asia and was said to operate a security business in Thailand. “He goes to Laos, Cambodia, Burma and Thailand and deals with gangs who rob tourists of their valuables and passports,” an aid worker told the Sydney Morning Herald. “Barkan is mostly interested in passports and there have been a number of Australian passports.”</p>\n<p>After disappearing from New Zealand, unsubstantiated media reports in Australia and New Zealand placed Barkan in Cambodia, accused of running a studio making snuff and porn movies in a town on the Mekong River North of the capital, Phnom Penh, where foreign students and tourists were lured by promises of movie stardom.</p>\n<div style=\"width:269px\"><a href=\"http://natethayer.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/download-2.jpg\"><img alt=\"Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Mabhouh was killed in a Dubai luxury hotel room in January 2010 by Mossad operatives using Australian, British, Irish, French and Dutch passports\" src=\"http://natethayer.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/download-2.jpg?w=490\"></a><p>Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Mabhouh was killed in a Dubai luxury hotel room in January 2010 by Mossad operatives using Australian, British, Irish, French and Dutch passports</p></div>\n<p>In January 2010, Zev Barkan was again fingered by authorities–this time the government of Dubai—when a team of 32 Mossad agents carried out the assassination of a senior Hamas leader in a Dubai hotel room. Zev Barkan, using a forged French Passport under the name Eric Rissaneux, was caught on video wearing a fake beard, dressed in sports clothes and carrying a tennis racket, following the Hamas leader up the elevator and down the hallway to his room. Barkan then rented a room across the hall.</p>\n<p>Dubai police chief publicly named the man using a French passport under the name Eric Rissaneux and other Mossad agents from the Kidon unit of the spy agency, responsible for assassinations and other special operations, as the culprits. There photographs were published and Interpol issued warrants for their arrest for murder.</p>\n<div style=\"width:376px\"><a href=\"http://natethayer.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/138750-eric-rassineux1.jpg\"><img alt=\"Israeli American Zev Barkan in disguise on his forged French passport using the name Eric Rassineux\" src=\"http://natethayer.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/138750-eric-rassineux1.jpg?w=490\"></a><p>Israeli American Zev Barkan in disguise on his forged French passport using the name Eric Rassineux</p></div>\n<p>At the time, Zev Barkan still had an outstanding arrest warrant in New Zealand for the passport scandal six years earlier.</p>\n<p>The Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Mabhouh was killed in a Dubai luxury hotel room in January 2010 by Mossad operatives using Australian, British, Irish, French and Dutch passports, many of them apparently surreptitiously copied from unsuspecting travelling tourists who now had warrants for their arrests for murder.</p>\n<p>The killers were all caught on hotel and other video cameras, some dressed in wigs, observed frequently changing clothes, some carrying tennis rackets as they stalked the guerrilla leader from the lobby to the elevators to the hallway outside his room. Hotel surveillance camera’s observed the agents using forged electronic room keys to enter the Hamas leader’s room shortly before he returned. He was found suffocated the next day, a paralyzing drug had been injected into his thigh.</p>\n<div style=\"width:500px\"><a href=\"http://natethayer.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/alg-surveillance-hamas-jpg.jpg\"><img alt=\"Hamas leader exiting hotel elevator in Dubai. Behind him is Mossad assassin Eric Rassineux\" src=\"http://natethayer.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/alg-surveillance-hamas-jpg.jpg?w=490&h=264\" width=\"490\" height=\"264\"></a><p>Hamas leader exiting hotel elevator in Dubai. Behind him is Mossad assassin Eric Rassineux</p></div>\n<p>But the Israeli team was long gone, all 32 having departed Dubai airport for different cities in Europe within an hour of the assassination the previous evening.</p>\n<p>In August 2010, Dubai police chief Lieutenant-General Dahi Khalfan Tamimut announced that an unnamed “non-European country” had told Dubai in July they had arrested a Mossad suspect in June for the January assassination, but Lt-Gen Tamimut complained the Country had since refused to cooperate or provide details.</p>\n<p>But then in October, Lt-Gen Tamimut, unhappy with the delay, named Canada as the “non-European country.”</p>\n<p>“A senior Canadian security official here told me in July that they have made an arrest of one of the suspects,” Lt-Gen Tamimut told The Globe and Mail.</p>\n<div style=\"width:124px\"><a href=\"http://natethayer.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/zev_barkan.jpg\"><img alt=\"Zev William Barkan in the photo he gave New Zealand authorities to obtain fraudulent passport in 2004\" src=\"http://natethayer.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/zev_barkan.jpg?w=490\"></a><p>Zev William Barkan in the photo he gave New Zealand authorities to obtain fraudulent passport in 2004</p></div>\n<div style=\"width:154px\"><a href=\"http://natethayer.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/getpicture-54031393.jpg\"><img alt=\"The photo used by Barkan for his fraudulent French passport used on 2010 mission to assassinate Hamas leader in Dubai\" src=\"http://natethayer.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/getpicture-54031393.jpg?w=490\"></a><p>The photo used by Barkan for his fraudulent French passport used on 2010 mission to assassinate Hamas leader in Dubai</p></div>\n<div style=\"width:410px\"><a href=\"http://natethayer.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/superimposed1.jpg\"><img alt=\"Superimposed photo of Eric Rassineux from Dubai police over photo of Barkan from New Zealand authorities. His facial features are identical\" src=\"http://natethayer.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/superimposed1.jpg?w=490\"></a><p>Superimposed photo of Eric Rassineux from Dubai police over photo of Barkan from New Zealand authorities. His facial features are identical</p></div>\n<p>“We want clarity on this issue. We want the Canadian authorities to tell us exactly what the details are — the thing that is discomfiting is the lack of transparency on this,” he told Reuters. “The person informed me then that this information was not to be released in the media and was only for the police. Since then we have not heard any more information and I don’t understand the secrecy.”</p>\n<p>Shortly thereafter, the Al Ittihad Arabic daily reported the suspect was one of the two people shown on the hotel’s surveillance cameras wearing tennis outfits and carrying rackets as they followed the Hamas leader to his room up the elevator in the Bustan Rotana Hotel.</p>\n<p>Later that month in October that year Israeli TV reported that the Mossad agent under arrest in Canada was the assassin using the alias Eric Rassineux.</p>\n<p>The Israeli Mossad agent Zev Barkin, who fled New Zealand for attempting to obtain a fraudulent passport and was then reported to be in Pyongyang when the mysterious explosion killed Syrian scientists attempting to return home with a cargo of sophisticated weaponry, has since been identified as the man who used the alias Eric Rassineux to murder the Hamas leader in Dubai.</p>\n<div style=\"width:500px\"><a href=\"http://natethayer.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/israel-tennis-tweet.jpg\"><img alt=\"Message tweeted by Israeli embassy in London the day Israeli ambassador was summoned to explain why 6 U.K. citizens had their passports used in the Dubai assassination. Barkan was dressed in a sports outfit carrying a tennis racket during the mission\" src=\"http://natethayer.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/israel-tennis-tweet.jpg?w=490&h=257\" width=\"490\" height=\"257\"></a><p>Message tweeted by Israeli embassy in London the day Israeli ambassador was summoned to explain why 6 U.K. citizens had their passports used in the Dubai assassination. Barkan was dressed in a sports outfit carrying a tennis racket during the mission</p></div>\n<p>But Canada soon refuted the allegations they had anyone in custody related to the Dubai murder, calling the assertion “baseless.”</p>\n<p>Lt.-Gen. Tamimut also told The Globe that one of the suspects had entered the UAE on a fake Canadian passport.</p>\n<p>“We have nothing to say at this point,” said Sergeant Greg Cox, a spokesman for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.</p>\n<p>“Tamimut said we gave this info to the Dubai police, and we didn’t,” Canadian embassy officials in Dubai told the Globe and Mail.</p>\n<p>During the height of the dispute between Canada and Dubai in October, the UAE refused Canadian Defense Minister Peter MacKay’s airplane, which was returning from a visit to Afghanistan, permission to fly over Dubai airspace, forcing him to take a circuitous route over Europe.</p>\n<div style=\"width:500px\"><a href=\"http://natethayer.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/hancocks-dubai-image-cnn-640x360.jpg\"><img alt=\"Interpol mugshots of Mossad assassins in Dubai wanted for murder. Barkan is on the far left, third from top\" src=\"http://natethayer.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/hancocks-dubai-image-cnn-640x360.jpg?w=490&h=275\" width=\"490\" height=\"275\"></a><p>Interpol mugshots of Mossad assassins in Dubai wanted for murder. Barkan is on the far left, third from top</p></div>\n<p><b>ZEV, ZE’EV, LEV</b></p>\n<p>“Former Israeli diplomat to New Zealand Zev William Barkan leads a life akin to that of novelist Frederick Forsyth’s Jackal, emerging from the shadows only to be named by authorities in connection with various crimes before again disappearing,” wrote New Zealand’s Fairfax Media in July 2011.</p>\n<p>Zev Barkan was born Zev Bruckenstein in 1967 in Washington D.C, where his family owned a “doors and windows business” and his father was director of religious studies at a synagogue. He holds dual U.S. and Israeli citizenship after his family moved to Israel in the 1970’s.</p>\n<p>Barkan entered New Zealand on a U.S. passport and had an American accent, according to New Zealand officials.</p>\n<p>Other aliases he has used include Zev William Barkan, Ze’ev William Barkan, and Lev Bruckenstein. He told acquaintances in New Zealand that he was American and his name was Jay.</p>\n<p>Dubai officials believe he was travelling on a fraudulent French passport using the name Eric Rassineux and Canadian officials were investigating him using the stolen passport of Canadian Kevin William Hunter.</p>\n<p>New Zealand Foreign Minister Phil Goff told the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz that “The passports that Mossad agents tried to obtain illegally might have been reserved for an assassination operation in a third country, which would have caused irreparable damage to New Zealand.”€ </p>\n<p>New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark said “the New Zealand government views the act carried out by the Israeli intelligence agents as not only utterly unacceptable but also a breach of New Zealand sovereignty and international law. The Israeli agents attempted to demean the integrity of the New Zealand passport system and could have created considerable difficulties for New Zealanders presenting their passports overseas in future.” </p>\n<p>She added: “The Israel government was asked for an explanation and an apology three months ago. Neither has been received.”€ </p>\n<p>When reporters for the New Zealand Herald tracked down Ze’ev Barkan’s family in October 2004, they were not well received. In the village of Shoham, 15 miles from Tel Aviv, Ze’ev Barkan wife, Irit, answered the reporter’s phone call but claimed she did not know a Ze’ev.</p>\n<p>His father, Yossef Barkan was more direct. “Stop calling here, you hear me. I’ve nothing to do with this business. Goodbye.”</p>\n<p><em><strong>See full story and related stories on North Korean-Syrian clandestine activities at NKNews.org</strong></em></p>\n<div></div>\n<br> <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/gocomments/natethayer.wordpress.com/1280/\"><img alt=\"\" border=\"0\" src=\"http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/comments/natethayer.wordpress.com/1280/\"></a> <img alt=\"\" border=\"0\" src=\"http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=natethayer.wordpress.com&blog=39978322&post=1280&subd=natethayer&ref=&feed=1\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\">" }, "author" : "Nate Thayer", "comments" : [ ], "annotations" : [ ], "origin" : { "streamId" : "feed/http://natethayer.wordpress.com/feed/", "title" : "natethayer", "htmlUrl" : "http://natethayer.wordpress.com" } }, { "crawlTimeMsec" : "1371758910478", "timestampUsec" : "1371758910478183", "id" : "tag:google.com,2005:reader/item/89ccd5c1b597cb6e", "categories" : [ "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/read", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/starred", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/fresh", "Photos", "Trees", "U.K." ], "title" : "Kensal Green Cemetery: being dead in style", "published" : 1371604626, "updated" : 1371605304, "alternate" : [ { "href" : "http://www.vianegativa.us/2013/06/kensal-green-cemetery-being-dead-in-style/", "type" : "text/html" } ], "replies" : [ { "href" : "http://www.vianegativa.us/2013/06/kensal-green-cemetery-being-dead-in-style/#comments", "type" : "text/html" }, { "href" : "http://www.vianegativa.us/2013/06/kensal-green-cemetery-being-dead-in-style/feed/atom/", "type" : "application/atom+xml" } ], "content" : { "direction" : "ltr", "content" : "<p><a title=\"eternal insomnia by Dave Bonta, on Flickr\" href=\"http://www.flickr.com/photos/89056025@N00/9076008521/\"><img alt=\"eternal insomnia\" src=\"http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7373/9076008521_070f95b814_z.jpg\" width=\"509\" height=\"640\"></a></p>\n<p>Just down the road from where I’m staying in north London, the <a href=\"http://www.kensalgreencemetery.com/\">Kensal Green Cemetery</a> houses the mortal remains of many eminent Victorians. Like Highgate Cemetery, which I <a href=\"http://www.vianegativa.us/2011/06/highgate-cemetery/\">visited in 2011</a>, it’s one of the “<a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnificent_Seven,_London\">magnificent seven</a>” garden-style cemeteries in London. And just as at Highgate, the groundskeepers’ gardening style is permissive in the extreme, favoring unpruned trees and shrubs and rampant ivy. <span></span></p>\n<p><a title=\"breast-feeling angel by Dave Bonta, on Flickr\" href=\"http://www.flickr.com/photos/89056025@N00/9076102497/\"><img alt=\"breast-feeling angel\" src=\"http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3812/9076102497_8f56363c6c_z.jpg\" width=\"480\" height=\"640\"></a></p>\n<p>It’s a great place to meditate on the ephemerality of all things. Many of the graves and mausoleums are in a state of near-collapse, and 100-year-old sculptures and stonework have eroded in alarming ways.</p>\n<p><a title=\"goofy roof by Dave Bonta, on Flickr\" href=\"http://www.flickr.com/photos/89056025@N00/9075995891/\"><img alt=\"goofy roof\" src=\"http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3788/9075995891_244fff0b91_z.jpg\" width=\"480\" height=\"640\"></a></p>\n<p>One of the interesting things that happens with age is that the worst sort of kitsch comes to appear almost graceful.</p>\n<p><a title=\"Guadelupe by Dave Bonta, on Flickr\" href=\"http://www.flickr.com/photos/89056025@N00/9075990709/\"><img alt=\"Guadelupe\" src=\"http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5542/9075990709_0e0542f147_z.jpg\" width=\"436\" height=\"640\"></a></p>\n<p>Even in just a decade or two, genteel decay can transform a brightly painted, mass-produced Virgin of Guadelupe statue into a unique, almost transcendent work of art.</p>\n<p><a href=\"http://www.flickr.com/photos/89056025@N00/9075927613/\" title=\"leprous angels by Dave Bonta, on Flickr\"><img src=\"http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3824/9075927613_6859341fa7_z.jpg\" width=\"480\" height=\"640\" alt=\"leprous angels\"></a></p>\n<p>One tomb appeared to be guarded by the angels of leprosy, </p>\n<p><a href=\"http://www.flickr.com/photos/89056025@N00/9075907873/\" title=\"sightless angel by Dave Bonta, on Flickr\"><img src=\"http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5517/9075907873_0dbb6b209e_z.jpg\" width=\"480\" height=\"640\" alt=\"sightless angel\"></a></p>\n<p>while other guardian figures had apparently gone blind from staring at the sun </p>\n<p><a href=\"http://www.flickr.com/photos/89056025@N00/9075948771/\" title=\"ivy headache by Dave Bonta, on Flickr\"><img src=\"http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3725/9075948771_1aecfc16bd_z.jpg\" width=\"480\" height=\"640\" alt=\"ivy headache\"></a></p>\n<p>or green with grief. </p>\n<p><a href=\"http://www.flickr.com/photos/89056025@N00/9075900953/\" title=\"Sir Casement by Dave Bonta, on Flickr\"><img src=\"http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2863/9075900953_602fcd742b.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" alt=\"Sir Casement\"></a></p>\n<p>Nature has not been equally unkind to all. Sir William Casement’s sarcophagus with its retinue of four servile telamons supporting an absurd entablature still seems to be in fine shape. </p>\n<p><a href=\"http://www.flickr.com/photos/89056025@N00/9078140392/\" title=\"royal engineers by Dave Bonta, on Flickr\"><img src=\"http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7360/9078140392_9599232814_z.jpg\" width=\"480\" height=\"640\" alt=\"royal engineers\"></a></p>\n<p>Nor is nature the only inflicter of indignities upon this cemetery’s many and varied memorials. </p>\n<p><a href=\"http://www.flickr.com/photos/89056025@N00/9078181732/\" title=\"ivy ghosts by Dave Bonta, on Flickr\"><img src=\"http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5328/9078181732_d0c2a83e07_z.jpg\" width=\"480\" height=\"640\" alt=\"ivy ghosts\"></a></p>\n<p>Even the struggles of groundskeepers to preserve some stones from the ravages of ivy leave a mark in the form of ivy ghosts,</p>\n<p><a href=\"http://www.flickr.com/photos/89056025@N00/9078148478/\" title=\"newcomer by Dave Bonta, on Flickr\"><img src=\"http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5457/9078148478_b01fd28e7b_z.jpg\" width=\"480\" height=\"640\" alt=\"newcomer\"></a></p>\n<p>and other upkeep efforts provide unintentionally ironic commentaries on the whole memorializing business. </p>\n<p><a href=\"http://www.flickr.com/photos/89056025@N00/9076002757/\" title=\"George etcetera by Dave Bonta, on Flickr\"><img src=\"http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7399/9076002757_6e32480939.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"352\" alt=\"George etcetera\"></a></p>\n<p>A few of the cemetery’s older inhabitants appear not to have required much embellishment beyond their bare names,</p>\n<p><a href=\"http://www.flickr.com/photos/89056025@N00/9076094585/\" title=\"cemetery blackbird by Dave Bonta, on Flickr\"><img src=\"http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2834/9076094585_7f74601dd4_z.jpg\" width=\"480\" height=\"640\" alt=\"cemetery blackbird\"></a></p>\n<p>though it seems narrow-minded of them not to have at least provided a perch for birds. </p>\n<p><a href=\"http://www.flickr.com/photos/89056025@N00/9076013455/\" title=\"death's door by Dave Bonta, on Flickr\"><img src=\"http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2844/9076013455_a501e255a0_z.jpg\" width=\"480\" height=\"640\" alt=\"death's door\"></a></p>\n<p>In the end, the profusion of maimed angels and architectural mash-ups didn’t really manage to distract us from the bald fact of the sealed door beyond which no living thing can pass.</p>" }, "author" : "Dave Bonta", "comments" : [ ], "annotations" : [ ], "origin" : { "streamId" : "feed/http://www.vianegativa.us/feed/atom/", "title" : "Via Negativa", "htmlUrl" : "http://www.vianegativa.us/" } }, { "crawlTimeMsec" : "1371712523643", "timestampUsec" : "1371712523643718", "id" : "tag:google.com,2005:reader/item/d3f29f1aa7e86685", "categories" : [ "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/read", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/starred", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/tracking-item-link-used", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/fresh", "Personal", "fatherhood", "parenting", "personal" ], "title" : "Destiny Intersections", "published" : 1371392089, "updated" : 1371392089, "canonical" : [ { "href" : "http://bkaeg.org/blog/archives/2013/06/destiny-interse.html" } ], "alternate" : [ { "href" : "http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/bkaeg/~3/xPGhVyZIHZA/destiny-interse.html", "type" : "text/html" } ], "content" : { "direction" : "ltr", "content" : "<p>I became a father shortly after Inauguration Day. My wife and I are truly blessed beyond measure. It was not long ago that I got married and obviously my life changed forever. The life of father and husband can be very challenging to say the least, but it is an awesome responsibility that I embrace with an open mind and abundant exuberance. <br></p><p>Clearly I do not have all the answers and I do not know what lies behind the proverbial "Door #1", as Monte Hall used to say. Nonetheless, I press on with wonderment and anticipation. Our son completes the cipher for me in a number of ways. The coined phrase, "Paying it Forward" comes to mind often. Those of you know me well, understand that I was adopted at a young age. My pops was in his late 30's when he gave me the gift of protection, love and a permanent home. Now that I am +40, I know and understand that raising a child is an awesome responsibility. Coming home after a long day at the office now offers more meaning and now I am _pops_ the caregiver and protector. Truth be told, I cannot wait until he is old enough to catch a football, basketball or baseball. Then we can bond even further and share everlasting memories. There are some memories that only a father can enjoy with his son. <br></p><p>So, if you see me and I appear different there is a tangible reason for the change. Some will say it is sleep deprivation, but I believe it is much more. I am a proud pops who is excited about his new found responsibilities and the ability to shape and mold the life a very impressionable infant. I am looking forward to the wonder years and beyond. <br></p><p><br></p>\n \n <div>\n<a href=\"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/bkaeg?a=xPGhVyZIHZA:BlganAU9Z-U:yIl2AUoC8zA\"><img src=\"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/bkaeg?d=yIl2AUoC8zA\" border=\"0\"></a> <a href=\"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/bkaeg?a=xPGhVyZIHZA:BlganAU9Z-U:dnMXMwOfBR0\"><img src=\"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/bkaeg?d=dnMXMwOfBR0\" border=\"0\"></a> <a href=\"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/bkaeg?a=xPGhVyZIHZA:BlganAU9Z-U:YwkR-u9nhCs\"><img src=\"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/bkaeg?d=YwkR-u9nhCs\" border=\"0\"></a> <a href=\"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/bkaeg?a=xPGhVyZIHZA:BlganAU9Z-U:qj6IDK7rITs\"><img src=\"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/bkaeg?d=qj6IDK7rITs\" border=\"0\"></a> <a href=\"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/bkaeg?a=xPGhVyZIHZA:BlganAU9Z-U:V_sGLiPBpWU\"><img src=\"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/bkaeg?i=xPGhVyZIHZA:BlganAU9Z-U:V_sGLiPBpWU\" border=\"0\"></a> <a href=\"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/bkaeg?a=xPGhVyZIHZA:BlganAU9Z-U:F7zBnMyn0Lo\"><img src=\"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/bkaeg?i=xPGhVyZIHZA:BlganAU9Z-U:F7zBnMyn0Lo\" border=\"0\"></a> <a href=\"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/bkaeg?a=xPGhVyZIHZA:BlganAU9Z-U:gIN9vFwOqvQ\"><img src=\"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/bkaeg?i=xPGhVyZIHZA:BlganAU9Z-U:gIN9vFwOqvQ\" border=\"0\"></a> <a href=\"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/bkaeg?a=xPGhVyZIHZA:BlganAU9Z-U:-BTjWOF_DHI\"><img src=\"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/bkaeg?i=xPGhVyZIHZA:BlganAU9Z-U:-BTjWOF_DHI\" border=\"0\"></a> <a href=\"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/bkaeg?a=xPGhVyZIHZA:BlganAU9Z-U:l6gmwiTKsz0\"><img src=\"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/bkaeg?d=l6gmwiTKsz0\" border=\"0\"></a>\n</div><img src=\"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/bkaeg/~4/xPGhVyZIHZA\" height=\"1\" width=\"1\">" }, "author" : "AG", "comments" : [ ], "annotations" : [ ], "origin" : { "streamId" : "feed/http://feeds.feedburner.com/bkaeg", "title" : "AG's Blog", "htmlUrl" : "http://bkaeg.org/blog/" } }, { "crawlTimeMsec" : "1371676399606", "timestampUsec" : "1371676399606562", "id" : "tag:google.com,2005:reader/item/05722569be3ba058", "categories" : [ "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/read", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/starred", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/tracking-body-link-used", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/fresh" ], "title" : "Persuading David Simon", "published" : 1371352082, "updated" : 1371352082, "alternate" : [ { "href" : "https://blog.pinboard.in/2013/06/persuading_david_simon/", "type" : "text/html" } ], "summary" : { "direction" : "ltr", "content" : "<p style=\"color:#a22\">[June 19 update: David Simon has <a href=\"http://davidsimon.com/the-nigger-wake-up-call/\">been kind enough to respond at length here</a>. He points out that I falsely stated that collecting call records requires a warrant; I have corrected that statement in the post below.]</p>\n\n<p>I read with interest David Simon's <a href=\"http://davidsimon.com/we-are-shocked-shocked/\">recent blog post</a> in which he responds to revelations that the NSA has been collecting the call records of all American mobile phone users.\n\n<p>David Simon, of course, created the Wire, a television series where institutions take on lives of their own and defy attempts by well-meaning people to reform them from within. So it came as a real shock to find Simon criticizing pundits who have objected to the extent of NSA surveillance, and accusing them of wilful ignorance about the nature of police work.\n\n<p>Mr. Simon pointed out that law enforcement agencies have been allowed to capture call records for decades, including in cases where the information harvested includes calls from people who are not under suspicion. In other words, there's nothing new going on to get worked up about.\n\n<blockquote>\nHaving labored as a police reporter in the days before the Patriot Act, I can assure all there has always been a stage before the wiretap, a preliminary process involving the capture, retention and analysis of raw data. It has been so for decades now in this country. The only thing new here, from a legal standpoint, is the scale on which the FBI and NSA are apparently attempting to cull anti-terrorism leads from that data. But the legal and moral principles? Same old stuff.\n </blockquote>\n \n<p>Seeing no difference in principle, only a difference in degree, in the NSA's surveillance program, Simon expresses annoyance with Americans who demand total protection from terrorism and then purport to be shocked when their government takes their requests seriously.\n \n\n<p>Mr. Simon cites the specific example of an investigation he covered as a police reporter in Baltimore in the 1980's. Criminals were using pay phones and pagers to evade detection, and tracking them down required indiscriminately recording numbers dialed from those pay phones, with the goal of sifting through the data later to find the pager numbers. \n\n<p>He argues that this kind of investigation, which targeted pay phones, was in some ways more invasive than the kind of tracking the NSA is accused of, since people expect to be anonymous when using a pay phone in a way that doesn't apply when they're calling from their own cell.\n\n<blockquote>\nThere is certainly a public expectation of privacy when you pick up a pay phone on the streets of Baltimore, is there not? And certainly, the detectives knew that many, many Baltimoreans were using those pay phones for legitimate telephonic communication. Yet, a city judge had no problem allowing them to place dialed-number recorders on as many pay phones as they felt the need to monitor, knowing that every single number dialed to or from those phones would be captured. So authorized, detectives gleaned the numbers of digital pagers and they began monitoring the incoming digitized numbers on those pagers — even though they had yet to learn to whom those pagers belonged. The judges were okay with that, too, and signed another order allowing the suspect pagers to be “cloned” by detectives, even though in some cases the suspect in possession of the pager was not yet positively identified.\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>I think Simon's fundamental argument, “same old stuff”, is mistaken in a number of important ways, and that some of this reflects our failure as technologists to communicate what modern surveillance can do.\n\n<p>First, there is the scope of the order. The Baltimore operation, and others like it, were limited to a specific criminal investigation. They were obtained <s style=\"color:#c11\">under a warrant</s> under a subpoena setting limits on what would be collected, and for how long. \n\n<p>The NSA program is universal and appears to be open-ended. Information is collected in aggregate. The program operates under the authority of secret court order, not a warrant. It is not clear whether the Administration even believes this type of surveillance requires a court order.\n\n<p>Second is the nature of the body carrying out the surveillance. In Simon's example, this was a municipal police force, overseen by a local court.\n\n<p>In our case, it's the NSA, a Federal agency whose job has traditionally been to collect foreign signals intelligence <a href=\"https://pinboard.in/#simon_1\" name=\"simon_1_text\">①</a>. The operation is overseen by a secret court system called <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Foreign_Intelligence_Surveillance_Court\">FISC</a>.\n\n<p>Third is the nature of the data being collected. When the Baltimore investigation took place, it collected a simple list of telephone numbers dialed from the monitored phones.\n\n\n<p>Modern call records contain much more data, reflecting the fact that almost all of us carry cell phones. A call record now includes unique device identifiers, routing information, cell tower IDs, and a wealth of <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_detail_record\">additional information</a> about the circumstances and location of the call. The location data is particularly powerful, turning mobile phones into <i>de facto</i> tracking devices whenever they are turned on.\n\n\n<p>Fourth is the question of oversight. The evidence used in the Balitmore case was collected by municipal police and presented (I'm assuming) in open court. Those against whom it was used had the chance to mount a defense, appeal the verdict to state and Federal courts, and enjoyed the presumption of innocence guaranteed to them by the Constitution. \n\n\n<p>The NSA call data is collected and used in secret. The agency is overseen as part of the very large national security establishment by a small, overworked group of legislators and senior government officials who have the requisite security clearance. \n\n<p>So I contend that the parallel Simon makes is false. The NSA is not a law enforcement organization, and intuitions from police reporting don't carry over. \n \n<p>But even if we grant the analogy, I think there's a more dangerous argument in Simon's essay, which is the contention that two programs that differ only in degree are necessarily \"the same old thing\". I believe this is not a safe assumption to make when talking about computers and their use in domestic surveillance.\n\n<p>In the portion of his essay that excited the most comment, Simon appears to express disbelief that the NSA can make broad use of the data it gathers:\n\n\n<blockquote>\nWhen the government grabs every single fucking telephone call made from the United States over a period of months and years, it is not a prelude to monitoring anything in particular. Why not? Because that is tens of billions of phone calls and for the love of god, how many agents do you think the FBI has? How many computer-runs do you think the NSA can do — and then specifically analyze and assess each result?\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Well, of course, the answer is \"you would not believe how many 'computer-runs' the NSA can do\". I believe this part of the essay especially caught tech people's attention, since it suggested that Simon might be naive about the capabilities of a modern datacenter. It's certainly the part <a href=\"http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jun/12/david-simon-wrong-nsa-capabilities\">Clay Shirky pounced on</a> in his rebuttal. \n\n<p>But Simon is not a fogey who doesn't understand how powerful computers have become (though I feel that there are such people in positions of oversight in the House and Senate). I believe his error is in assuming that the <i>analysis</i> of these 'computer-runs' is any kind of bottleneck. There are powerful techniques for surfacing interesting features in any comprehensive list of interactions between human beings. I've written in the past about <a href=\"http://blog.pinboard.in/2011/11/the_social_graph_is_neither/\">my distaste for the 'social graph'</a> and the perverse worldview it imposes on our projects, but part of the appeal of that worldview is the real power of mathematics applied to exactly this kind of data. The analysis can be automated, and no good comes of it.\n\n<p> In a <a href=\"http://kieranhealy.org/blog/archives/2013/06/09/using-metadata-to-find-paul-revere/\">beautiful worked example</a>, Kieran Healey has shown how a precocious British intelligence service could have identified Paul Revere as a person of particular interest based only on a set of membership lists of organizations he belonged to. \n\n<p>The point is, you don't need human investigators to find leads, you can have the algorithms do it. They will find people of interest, assemble the watch lists, and flag whomever you like for further tracking. And since the number of actual terrorists is very, very, very small, the output of these algorithms will consist overwhelmingly of false positives. \n\n<p>It's at this point that Simon's logic starts to work in the other direction. Given a long list of potential leads, investigators are going to focus on vetting the most likely, rather than taking any steps to clear false positives out of system. The penalty for missing a real terrorist is catastrophic, while the penalty for falsely accusing someone (when not only the accusation, but the very existence of the program, is secret) is nonexistent, even if the secret accusation ends up doing real harm. Limits on manpower won't constrain the investigation; they will only reduce its overall quality.\n\n<p>This isn't an abstract argument. We are all familiar with the tenebrous <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-fly_list\">no fly list</a>, a document that prevents several thousand people from traveling by air, and condemns thousands more to intrusive security measures each time they want to get on a plane. After 2001, this list rapidly expanded to thousands of names, with no avenues of appeal and no way to even check whether your name appeared in the document, to the point where the government finally had to improvise a 'redress' policy for travelers who found themselves living out a Kafka novel. \n\n<p>Characteristically, proposals for fixing the no-fly list and similar watch lists now call for collecting even <i>more</i> information, to help disambiguate people who share a name but not a date of birth with someone on the watch list. The basic problem—that lists of suspects are generated without accountability, without oversight, and with no incentive to avoid mistakes—persists. \n\n\n\n<p>There's also a more dangerous institutional problem to consider. When a system like this exists, it creates pressure for its own use. What is the point, after all, of having a very elaborate, extremely expensive <a href=\"https://pinboard.in/#simon_2\" name=\"simon_2_text\">②</a> database if you are only ever going to use it in exceptional cases? It is the nature of law enforcement to want to go after bad guys with all available tools. We saw a vivid demonstration of this in the years after the 2001 attacks, when the administration <a href=\"http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-250_162-321433.html\">attempted to blur the lines</a> between the 'War on Drugs' and the 'War on Terror', arguing that the proceeds from narcotics sales paid for terrorism. \n\n<p>Consider, too, <a href=\"http://www.popehat.com/2011/12/01/reminder-oh-wont-you-please-shut-up/\">a technique that has become standard in Federal investigations</a>. It is a felony to make false statements to a Federal agent, and investigators routinely make use of this fact to gain leverage over a witness or suspect. People tend to be nervous when they talk to police, and unless they know better are liable to give inconsistent answers during questioning. Good interrogators can convert each of these inconsistencies into a felony count. Imagine how much more potent this tactic becomes when investigators can gain access to a database of your movements and contacts for the past decade.\n\n<p>The security state operates as a ratchet. Once you click in a new level of surveillance or intrusiveness, it becomes the new baseline. What was unthinkable yesterday becomes permissible in exceptional cases today, and routine tomorrow. The people who run the American security apparatus are in the overwhelming majority diligent people with a deep concern for civil liberties. But their job is to find creative ways to collect information. And they work within an institution that, because of its secrecy, is fundamentally inimical to democracy and to a free society. \n\n\n<p>I can't believe that David Simon, of all people, doesn't see the danger inherent in a permanent domestic surveillance program. I doubt that he would support a government initiative for all Americans to wear tracking devices in the name of fighting terrorism. Yet the NSA data collection program, whose output is functionally identical, seems not to trip the same alarm bells with him. \n\n<p>-:-</p>\n\n\n<p>In public statements, the NSA director has defended domestic surveillance as a vital tool in preventing terrorism.\n\n<p>The term 'terrorism' is a magic word, unlocking government powers we normally associate with wartime. The current and previous Administration have, at various times, asserted the right of the government to conduct invasive and open-ended surveillance on people it suspects of terrorism, <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Defense_Authorization_Act_for_Fiscal_Year_2012#Controversy_over_indefinite_detention\">detain suspects in terrorism cases indefinitely without trial</a>, 'render' them to countries for interrogation and torture, kill people it considers terrorists, <a href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/23/us/us-acknowledges-killing-4-americans-in-drone-strikes.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0\">including American citizens</a>, with giant flying robots, or <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guantanamo_force_feeding#Practice\">keep such people alive against their own will</a>.\n\n<p>This is total power over human life. The authorities assure us that numerous checks exist to prevent abuses of this power, but of course the checks are also classified. The government is promising that the secret police won't put innocent people in the secret prisons because the secret courts would never allow it.\n\n<p>This system puts enormous pressure on a small group of fallible human beings. For the secrecy to work, the number of people in on the secret must be small <a href=\"https://pinboard.in/#simon_3\" name=\"simon_3_text\">③</a>. But this group is all part of the same hierarchy, subject to the same pressures, and unable to communicate its concerns outside the same closed circle. \n\n\n<p>Talk of secret prisons, indefinite detention, and force-feeding can sound tendentious (though it's all uncontested public record!). Americans have a deep faith in the rule of law and have not proven receptive to the argument that truly innocent people will find themselves placed in the \"terrorist\" category by accident.\n\n<p>There is a tendency among those who grew up under the rule of law to treat it like the Rock of Ages, an immovable substrate in which all the institutions of the state are forever anchored. And so even ordinarily skeptical people tend to assume that the government obeys its own laws when no one is looking. To an astonishing extent, and to the great credit of American civic life, this is actually true.\n\n<p>But I think a better metaphor for the rule of law is that it is the soil in which democratic institutions take root. Like the soil, it can be depleted. And once depleted, it is not easily replenished.\n\n<p>Secrecy erodes the rule of law because it makes democratic accountability impossible. Secrets can't be held too broadly, so secrecy concentrates responsibility and asks too much of human nature. That is why every intelligence agency, unless given rigorous outside oversight, commits terrible excesses.\n\n<p>I think Simon agrees about the perniciousness of this secrecy. In <a href=\"http://davidsimon.com/counter-arguments-gathered-and-answered/\">a later rebuttal</a> he's called for a modern-day version of the <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Committee\">Church Committee</a>, a group of people from outside the security establishment with top-secret access and the power to compel testimony.\n\n<p>And I agree with Simon that the current state of affairs is the \"inevitable consequence of legislation that we drafted and passed.\" \n\n<p>American politics since the Cold War has operated under the conceit that national security must transcend partisan differences. And so we have seen large bipartisan majorities voting for pre-emptive war and domestic surveillance even though both of those policies were highly controversial outside Congress. \n\n<p>This tradition has created a vast space beyond political accountability. When both political parties pursue a nearly identical policy, there are no electoral consequences when the policy proves disastrously wrong. Who do you vote against?\n\n<p>People have good intuitions about the danger of indiscriminate collection and retention of their data. They're not being hysterical. For the last decade, we've been concentrating on how to regulate the way this data gets used in the private sector. But now that the coercive power of the state has entered the picture, the stakes are much higher, and we have an opportunity to politicize the debate. David Simon tells us to resign ourselves to the consequences of technological change:\n\n<blockquote>\n \"The question is not should the resulting data exist. It does. And it forever will, to a greater and greater extent.\"\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>But I think that is wrong. Whether the data should exist, and for how long, is exactly the question. The answer is not a technological inevitability, but a political choice.\n\n<p>I believe a world in which everything is recorded and persists forever carries the seeds of something monstrous <a href=\"https://pinboard.in/#simon_4\" name=\"simon_4_text\">④</a>. It is in the nature of computer systems to remember things indefinitely, but there's nothing difficult about programming machines to forget. It just requires laws to do it. We can't treat it as a technical problem. And to get the laws passed, we need to politicize the issue. \n \n\n<p>Still, these barricades are going to seem awfully lonely if we can't even get David Simon up there with us. The man should be a natural ally, and the fact that he sounds so exasperated troubles me. The fact that he seems resigned to a future of total information retention troubles me. The fact that we are talking past each other troubles me most of all. \n\n\n<hr>\n\n<p><a name=\"simon_1\" href=\"https://pinboard.in/#simon_1_text\">①</a> Simon also mentions the FBI, but it's unclear to me that this agency has anything to do with the accusations of widespread call monitoring.\n\n<p><a name=\"simon_2\" href=\"https://pinboard.in/#simon_2_text\">②</a> The expensive part is keeping everything secret, and staffing it with people cleared for such access. The database itself is likely quite modest in size.\n\n<p><a name=\"simon_3\" href=\"https://pinboard.in/#simon_3_text\">③</a> The Washington Post has <a href=\"http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/articles/a-hidden-world-growing-beyond-control/print/\">estimated the number of people</a> with Top Secret clearance at 854,000. The number of people with full knowledge of all secret programs is much smaller, as this information is carefully compartmentalized.\n\n<p><a name=\"simon_4\" href=\"https://pinboard.in/#simon_4_text\">④</a> Except Pinboard archives. Those are great!</p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p>" }, "author" : "maciej@pinboard.in (Maciej Ceglowski)", "comments" : [ ], "annotations" : [ ], "origin" : { "streamId" : "feed/http://blog.pinboard.in/feed/", "title" : "Pinboard - bookmarking for introverts", "htmlUrl" : "https://pinboard.in/" } }, { "crawlTimeMsec" : "1371499205739", "timestampUsec" : "1371499205739817", "id" : "tag:google.com,2005:reader/item/593a2b447986f8e5", "categories" : [ "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/read", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/starred", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/fresh", "Writings" ], "title" : "The China-Africa Convergence: Can America Catch Up?", "published" : 1371492918, "updated" : 1371492918, "alternate" : [ { "href" : "http://www.howardwfrench.com/2013/06/the-china-africa-convergence-can-america-catch-up/", "type" : "text/html" } ], "content" : { "direction" : "ltr", "content" : "<p>Copyright AfricaDemos Forum</p>\n<h2><a href=\"http://africaplus.wordpress.com/2013/06/16/the-china-africa-convergence-can-america-catch-up/\" rel=\"bookmark\">The China-Africa Convergence: Can America Catch Up?</a></h2>\n\n<div>Posted on <a title=\"10:24 am\" href=\"http://africaplus.wordpress.com/2013/06/16/the-china-africa-convergence-can-america-catch-up/\" rel=\"bookmark\">June 16, 2013</a>by <a title=\"View all posts by africaplus\" href=\"http://africaplus.wordpress.com/author/africaplus/\" rel=\"author\">africaplus</a></div>\n\n<div>\n\n<h4>By Howard W. French</h4>\n\n<address>Howard French, a leading American journalist on Africa for four decades, returned to the continent after stints as <i>New York Times</i> correspondent in Tokyo and Shanghai. He discovered a resurgent continent increasingly wedded to Chinese growth and expansion. The deep penetration of Africa by Chinese firms and citizens has coincided with an era of sustained African economic growth. On the eve of President Obama’s visit to three democratic nations – Senegal, South Africa, and Tanzania – French’s essay initiates an Africa Demos series on the China-Africa Convergence and their implications for the United States and other countries.</address>\n\n<address> </address>\n\n<address> </address>\n<p><a href=\"http://africaplus.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/angolan-chinese-engineers1.jpg\" rel=\"lightbox[2832]\" title=\"The China-Africa Convergence: Can America Catch Up?\"><img alt=\"Credit: Russian International Affairs Council\" src=\"http://africaplus.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/angolan-chinese-engineers1.jpg?w=640&h=430\" width=\"640\" height=\"430\"></a><br>\n<br>\nCredit: Russian International Affairs Council<br>\n<br>\nFor the last three years, I have traveled extensively in sub-Saharan Africa, after an unaccustomed absence. My recent experiences, which have ranged through every region of the subcontinent, tell me two essential things: Africa is caught up in intense and rapid change, and American policy toward the continent is not adjusting fast enough.<br>\n<br>\nA trickle of articles in the American press has belatedly recognized Africa’s strong run of economic growth. Some of them have touted the expansion of a new African middle- or consumer-class, which by some measures is larger than that of India. Others have focused on the continent’s overall economic growth, drawing on data and forecasts from the International Monetary Fund and other sources. These suggest that over the next several years, Africa will grow faster than any other continent, including Asia.<br>\n<br>\n<b><i>The Demographic Transformation</i></b><br>\n<br>\nThe bullish economic data do not fully capture the feeling on the ground. In places like Lagos, Accra, Lusaka, Dar es Salaam and Maputo, a vast region of the world is on the move. To comprehend the scale of the changes underway, and the special nature of this moment, it must be seen that demographic trends are as important as GDP statistics. Two insufficiently appreciated facts stand out.<br>\n<br>\nAfrica’s population is growing faster now than ever in history, and this growth is accelerating. This development can be understood as a belated recovery from the depredations of the centuries-long slave trades. Together with the prevalence of tropical diseases, especially in the long era before the introduction of modern medicine, the continent’s human development was sharply suppressed. Africa’s current population momentum is so great, though, that by mid-century it is expected to double in size, reaching two billion according to U.N. estimates.<br>\n<br>\nTwo other trends of surpassing importance flow from the strong population growth. Africa has entered what experts call a demographic “sweet spot.” For the next few decades, the distribution of people by age will be sharply skewed toward the young, who are energetic, eager to work and maximally productive. The countries that are making the smartest investments in education will put themselves in a good position to compete in the vitally important global manufacturing and service sectors, especially as labor costs in China, whose population is rapidly aging, rise.<b><i> </i></b><br>\n<br>\n<b><i>Scenarios of Extraordinary Opportunity</i></b><br>\n<br>\nSub-Saharan Africa overall is already investing heavily in education, surpassing many other parts of the world in terms of the percentage of national spending devoted to school and job training. But even against this positive backdrop, the continent needs to do much more, and so does the United States, which is ideally suited to help in this area. With almost no fanfare, this country has played a huge role in improving African health, most notably through the Pepfar program, which has made extraordinary inroads against HIV in many countries.<br>\n<br>\nIt is time to turn American energies toward similar big impact goals in education, including drastically reducing illiteracy, which especially affects girls and persists at intolerable levels in regions like the Sahel. Another challenge ideally tailored to America’s strengths would be helping dramatically reinvigorate African universities and integrate them more closely into the global knowledge grid.<br>\n<br>\nThe final piece of the demographic puzzle relates to the explosive growth of Africa’s cities. The continent is urbanizing at rates unsurpassed in human history. The number of cities is exploding, and with it the number of mega-cities. This creates scenarios of extraordinary opportunity for countries that are forward thinking and dynamic.<br>\n<br>\nCities are arguably humankind’s greatest invention; they dramatically accelerate the velocity of economic exchange and the communication of ideas, and they can hugely expand opportunity for their residents, along with economic productivity. The creation of new cities on the present scale in Africa offers a chance that populations in older countries can only dream of: to innovate in urban design and create maximally efficient, human-friendly living and working environments. The United States has a big potential role to play in helping African nations think through issues of urban creation, renewal and planning, as well as the development of better systems of sanitation, power, transportation and housing. These need not be driven solely by aid. Rather, the United States and American companies should step up to this challenge as investors and builders.<br>\n<br>\n<b><i>Chinese vs. American Perceptions of Africa</i></b><br>\n<br>\nPerceiving opportunities like these and many others, however, will first require a revolution in American thinking about Africa. I have spent the last few years working on a book about China’s relationship with the continent, and could not have been more struck by the differences in attitude in the United States and China toward Africa. More than a million Chinese have moved to Africa in the last decade, largely because they see the continent as an arena of almost limitless opportunity. This holds true from big company executives to mom and pop entrepreneurs from China’s inland, second tier cities.<br>\n<br>\nAmericans, meanwhile, despite their far deeper historical associations with the continent, including 13 percent of the population that traces its ancestry to Africa, cling to deeply engrained attitudes toward this part of the world, as a place of war, of misery, of strife, etc. For this reason, and because we cannot get over a long-running sense of Africa as a place to be aided, we are ill equipped to see or appreciate the opportunities that Africa offers.<b><i> </i></b><br>\n<br>\nThe American press perpetuates old patterns of coverage even as Africa rapidly grows and changes. The work of Jeffrey Gettleman of the <i>New York Times</i>, a recent winner of the Pulitzer Prize, is the most prominent and arguably influential example of this tendency. In a 2012 <a href=\"http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/mar/08/africas-dirty-wars/?pagination=false&printpage=true\">essay</a> in the <i>New York Review of Books</i> that broadly reflects the focus of his work as East Africa bureau chief for the <i>Times</i>, he wrote: “What we are seeing is the decline of the classic wars by freedom fighters and the proliferation of something else—something wilder, messier, more predatory, and harder to define… Today the continent is plagued by countless nasty little wars, which in many ways aren’t really wars at all. There are no front lines, no battlefields, no clear conflict zones, and no distinctions between combatants and civilians.”<br>\n<br>\nWhat the facts tell us about Africa is quite the contrary. As Jonathan Berman wrote in a recent Harvard Business Review blog <a href=\"http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2013/02/africa_is_more_stable_than_you.html\">post</a>, titled “Africa is more stable than you’ve been led to think,” which drew its data from the <i>Economist</i>: “Across Africa, successful coups are rare and getting rarer. This Economist Intelligence Unit has tracked the trend since 1960, shortly after colonial withdrawal began. Given the preconceived impression of Africa as coup crazy, many lose sight of the decline of coups… Africa’s governments aren’t just becoming more stable. They’re becoming more representative, albeit in an irregular pattern, as befits a continent with 54 countries. The Polity IV Project measures political regimes on a spectrum from fully institutionalized autocracies (low scores) to fully institutionalized democracies (high scores)… The trend since 1990, across all of Africa, has been towards more democracy.”<br>\n<br>\nNo one expects the press to abandon conflict as a topic, but the American media are long overdue for a re-set in terms of the ways they habitually frame African coverage. This should start with a repudiation of the way that African events are denied specificity. Things are routinely said to take place “in Africa,” or “across Africa” instead of in actual countries or places with real names. The eternal pretext is to “make it easier” for the reader, who can’t be bothered with too many unfamiliar names. This kind of factual looseness, though, is not practiced toward any other part of the world, and bespeaks a casual and persistent ghettoization of Africa.<br>\n<br>\nAnother example of this is the fact that virtually no American news organization offers business coverage of Africa. Return on investment in Africa is among the highest in the world. Trade with each region of the continent is booming. And recently, big U.S. companies like Walmart, IBM and Google, to name the most prominent examples, have been expanding their presence in Africa. But because the media speaks mainly in terms of conflict and aid, the general public has no perception of the growing opportunities on the continent, unlike the large numbers of Chinese newcomers.<br>\n<br>\n<b><i>Will Obama Energize U.S.-Africa Engagement?</i></b><b><i> </i></b><br>\n<br>\nThis, finally, points the way to what is needed from America’s political leaders during the remainder of the Obama Administration and beyond. Putting an end to the ghettoization of Africa will require concerted effort at the top. Senior officials must, as Chinese leaders have been doing for years, visit the continent frequently. We must also put an end to the belittling, small ball ritual whereby African leaders are invited to Washington in groups of three or four (as if an African country by definition didn’t merit a one-on-one discussion), offered a quick photo opportunity, a few homilies about democracy and governance and then sent on their way.<br>\n<br>\nThe administration needs to be much more energetic and resourceful in encouraging American businesses to seek out opportunities in Africa. The profit motive is the best cure for the deep-seated strain of paternalism that runs through our relations with the continent. During my book research travels, I was surprised to learn in country after country that construction projects, worth as much as $200 million that are American financed through the Millennium Development Corporation, drew no bids from American companies. China was gobbling up this work until Congress passed a law saying that funding from the MDC could not be given to state owned companies.<br>\n<br>\nIn one capital city after another, I noticed that American embassies had shuttered their “commercial sections,” which historically have researched African economies and provided helpful information and contacts to American businesses looking for opportunities. In most of those cities, the Chinese have recently opened shop with their own commercial offices, usually not tucked away in an embassy, but housed in a well-appointed building of its own.<br>\n<br>\nTo avoid misunderstanding, it must be emphasized that Washington’s biggest problem with Chinese inroads in Africa has nothing to do with China. The real problem is that the United States has walked away from Africa, leaving the playing floor virtually empty, and it will take years of concerted political leadership, and not gimmicky laws, to get back in the game.<br>\n<br>\nFinally, it must be said bluntly that President Obama’s mere two visits in five years have been a big disappointment. It is a tremendously positive thing that his second visit to the continent consists solely of democracies. For decades, Washington’s closest ties on the continent have been with a series of authoritarian states. This administration’s generally low profile in Africa, however, has squandered the immense opportunity that the election of a politician of African heritage had for resetting and reinvigorating America’s relationships on the continent. Yes, we live in a big and busy world, but the changing dynamics of Africa deserve much more of our attention, and offer prospects of outsized rewards for both America and for Africa.<br>\n<br>\n<i>Howard W. French is an associate professor at the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University. He is the author of “A Continent for the Taking: The Tragedy and Hope of Africa,” and of the forthcoming “China’s Second Continent: How a Million Migrants Are Building a New Empire in Africa,” to be published by Knopf in May 2014.</i><br>\n<br>\n———————————<br>\n<br>\nAfrica Demos Forum is inspired by the <em>Africa Demos </em>quarterly published by Emory University and the Carter Center, 1990-1995: <a href=\"http://books.northwestern.edu/viewer.html?id=inu:inu-mntb-0006443104-bk\">http://books.northwestern.edu/viewer.html?id=inu:inu-mntb-0006443104-bk</a><br>\n<br>\n</p></div>" }, "author" : "howard", "comments" : [ ], "annotations" : [ ], "origin" : { "streamId" : "feed/http://www.howardwfrench.com/feed/", "title" : "A Glimpse of the World", "htmlUrl" : "http://www.howardwfrench.com" } }, { "crawlTimeMsec" : "1371451898822", "timestampUsec" : "1371451898822086", "id" : "tag:google.com,2005:reader/item/2b43e99cb6bf5ead", "categories" : [ "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/read", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/starred", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/fresh" ], "title" : "Persuading David Simon", "published" : 1371352082, "updated" : 1371352082, "alternate" : [ { "href" : "https://blog.pinboard.in/2013/06/persuading_david_simon/", "type" : "text/html" } ], "summary" : { "direction" : "ltr", "content" : "<p>I read with interest David Simon's <a href=\"http://davidsimon.com/we-are-shocked-shocked/\">recent blog post</a> in which he responds to revelations that the NSA has been collecting the call records of all American mobile phone users.\n\n<p>David Simon, of course, created the Wire, a television series where institutions take on lives of their own and defy attempts by well-meaning people to reform them from within. So it came as a real shock to find Simon criticizing pundits who have objected to the extent of NSA surveillance, and accusing them of wilful ignorance about the nature of police work.\n\n<p>Mr. Simon pointed out that law enforcement agencies have been allowed to capture call records for decades, including in cases where the information harvested includes calls from people who are not under suspicion. In other words, there's nothing new going on to get worked up about.\n\n<blockquote>\nHaving labored as a police reporter in the days before the Patriot Act, I can assure all there has always been a stage before the wiretap, a preliminary process involving the capture, retention and analysis of raw data. It has been so for decades now in this country. The only thing new here, from a legal standpoint, is the scale on which the FBI and NSA are apparently attempting to cull anti-terrorism leads from that data. But the legal and moral principles? Same old stuff.\n </blockquote>\n \n<p>Seeing no difference in principle, only a difference in degree, in the NSA's surveillance program, Simon expresses annoyance with Americans who demand total protection from terrorism and then purport to be shocked when their government takes their requests seriously.\n \n\n<p>Mr. Simon cites the specific example of an investigation he covered as a police reporter in Baltimore in the 1980's. Criminals were using pay phones and pagers to evade detection, and tracking them down required indiscriminately recording numbers dialed from those pay phones, with the goal of sifting through the data later to find the pager numbers. \n\n<p>He argues that this kind of investigation, which targeted pay phones, was in some ways more invasive than the kind of tracking the NSA is accused of, since people expect to be anonymous when using a pay phone in a way that doesn't apply when they're calling from their own cell.\n\n<blockquote>\nThere is certainly a public expectation of privacy when you pick up a pay phone on the streets of Baltimore, is there not? And certainly, the detectives knew that many, many Baltimoreans were using those pay phones for legitimate telephonic communication. Yet, a city judge had no problem allowing them to place dialed-number recorders on as many pay phones as they felt the need to monitor, knowing that every single number dialed to or from those phones would be captured. So authorized, detectives gleaned the numbers of digital pagers and they began monitoring the incoming digitized numbers on those pagers — even though they had yet to learn to whom those pagers belonged. The judges were okay with that, too, and signed another order allowing the suspect pagers to be “cloned” by detectives, even though in some cases the suspect in possession of the pager was not yet positively identified.\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>I think Simon's fundamental argument, “same old stuff”, is mistaken in a number of important ways, and that some of this reflects our failure as technologists to communicate what modern surveillance can do.\n\n<p>First, there is the scope of the order. The Baltimore operation, and others like it, were limited to a specific criminal investigation. They were obtained under a warrant setting limits on what would be collected, and for how long. \n\n<p>The NSA program is universal and appears to be open-ended. Information is collected in aggregate. The program operates under the authority of secret court order, not a warrant. It is not clear whether the Administration even believes this type of surveillance requires a court order.\n\n<p>Second is the nature of the body carrying out the surveillance. In Simon's example, this was a municipal police force, overseen by a local court.\n\n<p>In our case, it's the NSA, a Federal agency whose job has traditionally been to collect foreign signals intelligence <a href=\"https://pinboard.in/#simon_1\" name=\"simon_1_text\">①</a>. The operation is overseen by a secret court system called <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Foreign_Intelligence_Surveillance_Court\">FISC</a>.\n\n<p>Third is the nature of the data being collected. When the Baltimore investigation took place, it collected a simple list of telephone numbers dialed from the monitored phones.\n\n\n<p>Modern call records contain much more data, reflecting the fact that almost all of us carry cell phones. A call record now includes unique device identifiers, routing information, cell tower IDs, and a wealth of <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_detail_record\">additional information</a> about the circumstances and location of the call. The location data is particularly powerful, turning mobile phones into <i>de facto</i> tracking devices whenever they are turned on.\n\n\n<p>Fourth is the question of oversight. The evidence used in the Balitmore case was collected by municipal police and presented (I'm assuming) in open court. Those against whom it was used had the chance to mount a defense, appeal the verdict to state and Federal courts, and enjoyed the presumption of innocence guaranteed to them by the Constitution. \n\n\n<p>The NSA call data is collected and used in secret. The agency is overseen as part of the very large national security establishment by a small, overworked group of legislators and senior government officials who have the requisite security clearance. \n\n<p>So I contend that the parallel Simon makes is false. The NSA is not a law enforcement organization, and intuitions from police reporting don't carry over. \n \n<p>But even if we grant the analogy, I think there's a more dangerous argument in Simon's essay, which is the contention that two programs that differ only in degree are necessarily \"the same old thing\". I believe this is not a safe assumption to make when talking about computers and their use in domestic surveillance.\n\n<p>In the portion of his essay that excited the most comment, Simon appears to express disbelief that the NSA can make broad use of the data it gathers:\n\n\n<blockquote>\nWhen the government grabs every single fucking telephone call made from the United States over a period of months and years, it is not a prelude to monitoring anything in particular. Why not? Because that is tens of billions of phone calls and for the love of god, how many agents do you think the FBI has? How many computer-runs do you think the NSA can do — and then specifically analyze and assess each result?\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Well, of course, the answer is \"you would not believe how many 'computer-runs' the NSA can do\". I believe this part of the essay especially caught tech people's attention, since it suggested that Simon might be naive about the capabilities of a modern datacenter. It's certainly the part <a href=\"http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jun/12/david-simon-wrong-nsa-capabilities\">Clay Shirky pounced on</a> in his rebuttal. \n\n<p>But Simon is not a fogey who doesn't understand how powerful computers have become (though I feel that there are such people in positions of oversight in the House and Senate). I believe his error is in assuming that the <i>analysis</i> of these 'computer-runs' is any kind of bottleneck. There are powerful techniques for surfacing interesting features in any comprehensive list of interactions between human beings. I've written in the past about <a href=\"http://blog.pinboard.in/2011/11/the_social_graph_is_neither/\">my distaste for the 'social graph'</a> and the perverse worldview it imposes on our projects, but part of the appeal of that worldview is the real power of mathematics applied to exactly this kind of data. The analysis can be automated, and no good comes of it.\n\n<p> In a <a href=\"http://kieranhealy.org/blog/archives/2013/06/09/using-metadata-to-find-paul-revere/\">beautiful worked example</a>, Kieran Healey has shown how a precocious British intelligence service could have identified Paul Revere as a person of particular interest based only on a set of membership lists of organizations he belonged to. \n\n<p>The point is, you don't need human investigators to find leads, you can have the algorithms do it. They will find people of interest, assemble the watch lists, and flag whomever you like for further tracking. And since the number of actual terrorists is very, very, very small, the output of these algorithms will consist overwhelmingly of false positives. \n\n<p>It's at this point that Simon's logic starts to work in the other direction. Given a long list of potential leads, investigators are going to focus on vetting the most likely, rather than taking any steps to clear false positives out of system. The penalty for missing a real terrorist is catastrophic, while the penalty for falsely accusing someone (when not only the accusation, but the very existence of the program, is secret) is nonexistent, even if the secret accusation ends up doing real harm. Limits on manpower won't constrain the investigation; they will only reduce its overall quality.\n\n<p>This isn't an abstract argument. We are all familiar with the tenebrous <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-fly_list\">no fly list</a>, a document that prevents several thousand people from traveling by air, and condemns thousands more to intrusive security measures each time they want to get on a plane. After 2001, this list rapidly expanded to thousands of names, with no avenues of appeal and no way to even check whether your name appeared in the document, to the point where the government finally had to improvise a 'redress' policy for travelers who found themselves living out a Kafka novel. \n\n<p>Characteristically, proposals for fixing the no-fly list and similar watch lists now call for collecting even <i>more</i> information, to help disambiguate people who share a name but not a date of birth with someone on the watch list. The basic problem—that lists of suspects are generated without accountability, without oversight, and with no incentive to avoid mistakes—persists. \n\n\n\n<p>There's also a more dangerous institutional problem to consider. When a system like this exists, it creates pressure for its own use. What is the point, after all, of having a very elaborate, extremely expensive <a href=\"https://pinboard.in/#simon_2\" name=\"simon_2_text\">②</a> database if you are only ever going to use it in exceptional cases? It is the nature of law enforcement to want to go after bad guys with all available tools. We saw a vivid demonstration of this in the years after the 2001 attacks, when the administration <a href=\"http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-250_162-321433.html\">attempted to blur the lines</a> between the 'War on Drugs' and the 'War on Terror', arguing that the proceeds from narcotics sales paid for terrorism. \n\n<p>Consider, too, <a href=\"http://www.popehat.com/2011/12/01/reminder-oh-wont-you-please-shut-up/\">a technique that has become standard in Federal investigations</a>. It is a felony to make false statements to a Federal agent, and investigators routinely make use of this fact to gain leverage over a witness or suspect. People tend to be nervous when they talk to police, and unless they know better are liable to give inconsistent answers during questioning. Good interrogators can convert each of these inconsistencies into a felony count. Imagine how much more potent this tactic becomes when investigators can gain access to a database of your movements and contacts for the past decade.\n\n<p>The security state operates as a ratchet. Once you click in a new level of surveillance or intrusiveness, it becomes the new baseline. What was unthinkable yesterday becomes permissible in exceptional cases today, and routine tomorrow. The people who run the American security apparatus are in the overwhelming majority diligent people with a deep concern for civil liberties. But their job is to find creative ways to collect information. And they work within an institution that, because of its secrecy, is fundamentally inimical to democracy and to a free society. \n\n\n<p>I can't believe that David Simon, of all people, doesn't see the danger inherent in a permanent domestic surveillance program. I doubt that he would support a government initiative for all Americans to wear tracking devices in the name of fighting terrorism. Yet the NSA data collection program, whose output is functionally identical, seems not to trip the same alarm bells with him. \n\n<p>-:-</p>\n\n\n<p>In public statements, the NSA director has defended domestic surveillance as a vital tool in preventing terrorism.\n\n<p>The term 'terrorism' is a magic word, unlocking government powers we normally associate with wartime. The current and previous Administration have, at various times, asserted the right of the government to conduct invasive and open-ended surveillance on people it suspects of terrorism, <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Defense_Authorization_Act_for_Fiscal_Year_2012#Controversy_over_indefinite_detention\">detain suspects in terrorism cases indefinitely without trial</a>, 'render' them to countries for interrogation and torture, kill people it considers terrorists, <a href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/23/us/us-acknowledges-killing-4-americans-in-drone-strikes.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0\">including American citizens</a>, with giant flying robots, or <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guantanamo_force_feeding#Practice\">keep such people alive against their own will</a>.\n\n<p>This is total power over human life. The authorities assure us that numerous checks exist to prevent abuses of this power, but of course the checks are also classified. The government is promising that the secret police won't put innocent people in the secret prisons because the secret courts would never allow it.\n\n<p>This system puts enormous pressure on a small group of fallible human beings. For the secrecy to work, the number of people in on the secret must be small <a href=\"https://pinboard.in/#simon_3\" name=\"simon_3_text\">③</a>. But this group is all part of the same hierarchy, subject to the same pressures, and unable to communicate its concerns outside the same closed circle. \n\n\n<p>Talk of secret prisons, indefinite detention, and force-feeding can sound tendentious (though it's all uncontested public record!). Americans have a deep faith in the rule of law and have not proven receptive to the argument that truly innocent people will find themselves placed in the \"terrorist\" category by accident.\n\n<p>There is a tendency among those who grew up under the rule of law to treat it like the Rock of Ages, an immovable substrate in which all the institutions of the state are forever anchored. And so even ordinarily skeptical people tend to assume that the government obeys its own laws when no one is looking. To an astonishing extent, and to the great credit of American civic life, this is actually true.\n\n<p>But I think a better metaphor for the rule of law is that it is the soil in which democratic institutions take root. Like the soil, it can be depleted. And once depleted, it is not easily replenished.\n\n<p>Secrecy erodes the rule of law because it makes democratic accountability impossible. Secrets can't be held too broadly, so secrecy concentrates responsibility and asks too much of human nature. That is why every intelligence agency, unless given rigorous outside oversight, commits terrible excesses.\n\n<p>I think Simon agrees about the perniciousness of this secrecy. In <a href=\"http://davidsimon.com/counter-arguments-gathered-and-answered/\">a later rebuttal</a> he's called for a modern-day version of the <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Committee\">Church Committee</a>, a group of people from outside the security establishment with top-secret access and the power to compel testimony.\n\n<p>And I agree with Simon that the current state of affairs is the \"inevitable consequence of legislation that we drafted and passed.\" \n\n<p>American politics since the Cold War has operated under the conceit that national security must transcend partisan differences. And so we have seen large bipartisan majorities voting for pre-emptive war and domestic surveillance even though both of those policies were highly controversial outside Congress. \n\n<p>This tradition has created a vast space beyond political accountability. When both political parties pursue a nearly identical policy, there are no electoral consequences when the policy proves disastrously wrong. Who do you vote against?\n\n<p>People have good intuitions about the danger of indiscriminate collection and retention of their data. They're not being hysterical. For the last decade, we've been concentrating on how to regulate the way this data gets used in the private sector. But now that the coercive power of the state has entered the picture, the stakes are much higher, and we have an opportunity to politicize the debate. David Simon tells us to resign ourselves to the consequences of technological change:\n\n<blockquote>\n \"The question is not should the resulting data exist. It does. And it forever will, to a greater and greater extent.\"\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>But I think that is wrong. Whether the data should exist, and for how long, is exactly the question. The answer is not a technological inevitability, but a political choice.\n\n<p>I believe a world in which everything is recorded and persists forever carries the seeds of something monstrous <a href=\"https://pinboard.in/#simon_4\" name=\"simon_4_text\">④</a>. It is in the nature of computer systems to remember things indefinitely, but there's nothing difficult about programming machines to forget. It just requires laws to do it. We can't treat it as a technical problem. And to get the laws passed, we need to politicize the issue. \n \n\n<p>Still, these barricades are going to seem awfully lonely if we can't even get David Simon up there with us. The man should be a natural ally, and the fact that he sounds so exasperated troubles me. The fact that he seems resigned to a future of total information retention troubles me. The fact that we are talking past each other troubles me most of all. \n\n\n<hr>\n\n<p><a name=\"simon_1\" href=\"https://pinboard.in/#simon_1_text\">①</a> Simon also mentions the FBI, but it's unclear to me that this agency has anything to do with the accusations of widespread call monitoring.\n\n<p><a name=\"simon_2\" href=\"https://pinboard.in/#simon_2_text\">②</a> The expensive part is keeping everything secret, and staffing it with people cleared for such access. The database itself is likely quite modest in size.\n\n<p><a name=\"simon_3\" href=\"https://pinboard.in/#simon_3_text\">③</a> The Washington Post has <a href=\"http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/articles/a-hidden-world-growing-beyond-control/print/\">estimated the number of people</a> with Top Secret clearance at 854,000. The number of people with full knowledge of all secret programs is much smaller, as this information is carefully compartmentalized.\n\n<p><a name=\"simon_4\" href=\"https://pinboard.in/#simon_4_text\">④</a> Except Pinboard archives. Those are great!</p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p>" }, "author" : "maciej@pinboard.in (Maciej Ceglowski)", "comments" : [ ], "annotations" : [ ], "origin" : { "streamId" : "feed/http://blog.pinboard.in/feed/", "title" : "Pinboard - bookmarking for introverts", "htmlUrl" : "https://pinboard.in/" } }, { "crawlTimeMsec" : "1371279023867", "timestampUsec" : "1371279023867476", "id" : "tag:google.com,2005:reader/item/cb55c250da9a390b", "categories" : [ "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/read", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/starred", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/fresh", "Britain", "War on terror", "britain", "islam", "islamism", "terrorism", "war on terror" ], "title" : "REFLECTIONS ON WOOLWICH", "published" : 1369308994, "updated" : 1369308994, "alternate" : [ { "href" : "http://kenanmalik.wordpress.com/2013/05/23/reflections-on-woolwich/", "type" : "text/html" } ], "summary" : { "direction" : "ltr", "content" : "1 It was a mad, barbarous attack, more akin to a particularly savage form of street violence than to a politically motivated act. What was striking about the incident was not just its depravity but the desire of the murderers for that depravity to be captured on film. This was narcissistic horror, an attempt to […]<img alt=\"\" border=\"0\" src=\"http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=kenanmalik.wordpress.com&blog=19342451&post=13450&subd=kenanmalik&ref=&feed=1\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\">" }, "author" : "Kenan Malik", "comments" : [ ], "annotations" : [ ], "origin" : { "streamId" : "feed/http://kenanmalik.wordpress.com/feed/", "title" : "Pandaemonium", "htmlUrl" : "http://kenanmalik.wordpress.com" } }, { "crawlTimeMsec" : "1371278256787", "timestampUsec" : "1371278256787238", "id" : "tag:google.com,2005:reader/item/0c94fbf016716111", "categories" : [ "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/read", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/starred", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/tracking-item-link-used", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/fresh", "FEATURED", "Latest", "MUSIC", "dance", "South Africa", "twerking" ], "title" : "South Africa has a “Pro” Twerk Team", "published" : 1371196845, "updated" : 1371196845, "alternate" : [ { "href" : "http://africasacountry.com/sound-advice-for-south-africas-twerk-team/", "type" : "text/html" } ], "content" : { "direction" : "ltr", "content" : "<p>Welcome to AIAC’s (first?) NSFW post. South Africa has a <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/Protwerkers\">“pro” twerk team</a>. In what could have been an amazing Pan-African exchange, they came up short and better called themselves professionals. Full stop as I reluctantly throw them a dark haze of shade.</p>\n<p>I guess everyone outside the southern United States just discovered what twerking/freak dancing/winding is. (All different, but bear with me.) I’m not hating on the SA Twerk team because they are twerking. I have been twerkin’ for nearly all my life, and it’s a time honored pastime for me and several of my close friends. Better, this seemed like a great opportunity to see twerking from a new, non-American perspective.</p>\n<p>Nope, I’m disappointed because this twerk team is NOT TWERKING. Which is unfortunate, because the origins of twerking, like most great things, lie in Africa. My homie and twerk extraordinaire, Sawdayah, pointed out some quick references are Makossa or Makassi (Cameroon), Mapouka (Cote d’Ivoire), Kwasa Kwasa (DRC).</p>\n<p>Twerking is not simply dizzying butt movements meant to arouse any guy watching. It’s not tight camera shots that make you feel like you’re at an awkward strip club. It for damn sure isn’t absent of technique, rhythm and continuous movement and energy. And that’s not what the Pro-Twerkers are giving the camera <a href=\"http://vimeo.com/65845073\">here</a>.</p>\n<p>I’d like to give you, the reader, and y’all, the SA “Pro” Twerkers a quick primer on how to ride the beat.</p>\n<p>First, here’s the very talented Atlanta Twerk Team.</p>\n<p><iframe width=\"980\" height=\"551\" src=\"http://www.youtube.com/embed/Ve1tW_TGNIw?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\"></iframe></p>\n<p>To be able to twerk effectively, what you’re doing is pulling in all the techniques learned from a variety of dance forms, and being able to manipulate your hips to create a façade of impossible moves. It is serious and actually requires years of practice and talent. Gymnastics, belly dancing, salsa can all be incorporated, thus, allowing you to recognize a pro when you see one.</p>\n<p>If you grew up in the American south, you’ve probably been twerking all your life. At family reunions as a 6-year old. At middle school dances outside the glance of the chaperone. It’s not about someone else projecting their own sexual issues onto you. Here are some classics to practice with. I’ll start with Juvenile:</p>\n<p><iframe width=\"980\" height=\"735\" src=\"http://www.youtube.com/embed/WL2txMU50CI?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\"></iframe></p>\n<p>Next up Project Pat:</p>\n<p><iframe width=\"980\" height=\"735\" src=\"http://www.youtube.com/embed/EH3AECIX_tc?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\"></iframe></p>\n<p>The lyrics are gross, but thank you Three 6 Mafia, UGK, and Bun B for your bass lines. Then, you know how to play with the layers of rhythms. Ciara in “Ride” is fantastic.</p>\n<p><iframe width=\"980\" height=\"551\" src=\"http://www.youtube.com/embed/Lp6W4aK1sbs?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\"></iframe></p>\n<p>Can you do that? Yes? You are talented. One of the members of the SA Pro Twerkers immediately complains that they get a lot of haters who dismiss them as simply doing sexual dancing. Another goes on to say that they have all types of different techniques and rhythms they throw on their hips. First, girls, your haters have a point and second, <em>just</em> no. You are not professionals. What you are giving is a sexual shock factor, not real twerking talent. If you want it to be an authentic, Southern style twerk, elevate above the basic “just-found-out-I-got-a booty” spastic gyrating and become one with the beat. Learn the basics, as seen below:</p>\n<p><iframe width=\"980\" height=\"551\" src=\"http://www.youtube.com/embed/pKGJ_Lvpxf8?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\"></iframe></p>\n<p>Improvise and earn the professional title. Until then, please <a href=\"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6VUH5wYRco\">practice</a>.</p>" }, "author" : "Shamira Muhammad", "comments" : [ ], "annotations" : [ ], "origin" : { "streamId" : "feed/http://africasacountry.wordpress.com/feed/", "title" : "AFRICA IS A COUNTRY", "htmlUrl" : "http://africasacountry.com" } }, { "crawlTimeMsec" : "1371278120389", "timestampUsec" : "1371278120389031", "id" : "tag:google.com,2005:reader/item/785e80bcc645cdd8", "categories" : [ "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/read", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/starred", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/fresh", "FILM", "Latest", "Bamako", "Borom Sarret", "filmmaking", "Guelwaar", "Life on Earth", "Mali", "Mauritania", "October", "Rostov-Luanda", "Russia", "Sembene", "Sissako", "Soviet Union" ], "title" : "Meeting Sembène: An Interview with Abderrahmane Sissako", "published" : 1371207640, "updated" : 1371207640, "alternate" : [ { "href" : "http://africasacountry.com/meeting-sembene-an-interview-with-abderrahmane-sissako/", "type" : "text/html" } ], "content" : { "direction" : "ltr", "content" : "<p>Abderrahmane Sissako is a Mauritanian-born, Mali-raised filmmaker who completed cinematic training at Moscow’s Federal State Film Institute during the 1980s. The program concluded with his first film, the 23-minute short <a href=\"http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1810677/\">Le Jeu</a> [The Game], which he shot in Turkmenistan to double for Mauritania. His next film was the 37-minute <a href=\"http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0835494/\">October</a>, shot around Moscow and following the relationship of an interracial couple. Sissako followed these with a series of films shot around Africa. These included the 1997 documentary <a href=\"http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0176104/\">Rostov-Luanda</a>, about his journey to Angola to search for an old friend from film school, and <a href=\"http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0814666/\">Bamako</a> (2006), which centers on a court trial in the capital city of Mali. The trial serves to judge the impact of the <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Bank\">World Bank</a> and the <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Monetary_Fund\">International Monetary Fund</a> on the country’s people, and Sissako cast real judges and lawyers for the film’s court. For the role of “Le procureur”, Sissako tried to recruit influential Senegalese filmmaker Ousmane Sembène, who turned him down, and the following year Sembène passed away. But in April of 2013, Sissako visited New York City to attend the 20th New York African Film Festival at Film Society of Lincoln Center, where two of his films (<a href=\"http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0157160/?ref_=fn_al_tt_2\">Life on Earth</a> and October) were shown — as were two of Sembène’s (<a href=\"http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060183/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1\">Borom Sarret</a> and <a href=\"http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104373/\">Guelwaar</a>), whom the festival honored as the “father of African Cinema”. I sat down with Sissako during his visit to New York, and discussed the production of his early films, Le Jeu and October, his thoughts on Sembène and the conflict in <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Mali_conflict_%282012%E2%80%93present%29\">Northern Mali</a>.</p>\n<p><span></span></p>\n<p><strong>Do you think language is a barrier to your films being more widely appreciated?</strong></p>\n<p>For me, cinema is interesting and special, because it’s the language of the image. And when I think about a movie, I really think about images. For me, it means every subject of drama is universal. For example, before I got back from Russia, where I lived for more than 10 years, of course I thought in Russian for the construction of ideas. But then I lived in Paris, of course I thought in French. But it was just <i>how</i> to communicate. The language of cinema or any drama is universal for me.</p>\n<p><strong>Why did you decide to go to Russia to study film?</strong></p>\n<p>First, not only in this time but also now, the big problem for young Africans was we didn’t have the opportunity to choose something — not where to travel, or where to study. If we got an opportunity, <em>any</em> opportunity, to do something different or to go somewhere… for me, is the most important thing for a human being. When I was 19, I got the opportunity to go to Moscow to learn cinema, and only the Soviet Union gave me this opportunity. And sometimes people think, “It was because you are a Communist.” No. Any young guy is a Communist in some way. And that is not a problem, to have the concept of sharing what we have. That is important for me, this vision. But I got this opportunity to go to Moscow to learn, and it was a big chance for me.</p>\n<p>Cinema, or to make movies, or any act of creation, is the research of yourself. It’s really important to start with what you know, what you have experienced, and to go somewhere. ‘October’ is like this. Of course I used my own experience with ambition to tell something universal. That is ambition. And also, that is a most difficult thing.</p>\n<p>In film school, the most important thing, and the most difficult, is to have big enthusiasm. Enthusiasm is not always a good thing. And in this school, they killed the pretence. It’s really interesting when you stop pretending that art is easy. “I just need a camera to make my movie.” No. In this school they tried to explain to me, “Go slowly.” That was interesting for me. But also interesting was when I came to this school — and like today — I wasn’t very interested in seeing movies. I’m not a cinephile. I’m not this guy. When I came to Moscow, to the school, I saw maybe three or four movies in my life. And It’s a different thing to like movies, and to make films. That’s a completely different thing. And for this reason, when I discovered the world cinema — when I saw in school <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cassavetes\">Cassavetes</a>, <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ford\">John Ford</a>, or <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelangelo_Antonioni\">Antonioni</a>, or <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingmar_Bergman\">Bergman</a>, or <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrei_Tarkovsky\">Tarkovsky</a> — that was for me, a young guy who wanted to be a filmmaker, watching their movies on a great big screen in a big theater, that was <em>important</em>.</p>\n<div style=\"width:660px\"><a href=\"http://africasacountry.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/2884_full_Abderrahmane_Sissako_berlinale_de.jpg\"><img alt=\"Abderrahmane Sissako\" src=\"http://africasacountry.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/2884_full_Abderrahmane_Sissako_berlinale_de.jpg\" width=\"650\" height=\"318\"></a><p>Abderrahmane Sissako</p></div>\n<p><strong>Do you think Turkmenistan doubled well for Mauritania in Le Jeu?</strong></p>\n<p>Yes, because it was desert, and deserts are similar. Maybe with some changes. But if you shoot a movie in the desert, you don’t need to <i>show</i> desert. As a filmmaker, you need to cut that, <i>not</i> to show desert. Because it’s not interesting in the cinema. And it’s also the most difficult thing, to shoot a movie in the desert. And I knew that before, and for me it was normal. The most important thing was to tell a story in the place where the most important thing will be my character. That is one. The second thing, the place, was also important, because I didn’t get the opportunity to shoot my movie in Mauritania. And Turkmenistan was the <i>only</i> opportunity to do that. And also, the people from there <i>look</i> like Mauritanians, because they are desert people. And it was interesting, but it was my first movie.</p>\n<p><strong>What was your approach to filming October, and creating its interracial dynamic?</strong></p>\n<p>When I finished Le Jeu, it was my school movie. I was surprised, because when I showed this movie, it was in Cannes in 1991, and also it was bought by the French TV company, Canal J. I was very surprised. The movie went to different places, and different festivals. And I got the opportunity, and also money, to do another thing where I would have control. I decided to do that, and I decided to make October. Because the story of October is the story of many many people. Not only African people who studied in Russia, in the Soviet Union, but it’s the story of any couple. When you think the love story is not possible for this reason, love doesn’t need a reason. But if the reason exists, it will kill something inside of the people. So, if it’s because she’s not really close to my country — if she comes from Texas and I’m from Africa — something always happens in the human being. But most important in this time was the only reason for me to leave this country [Russia] where I spent more than 10 years: I know I’m not accepted in this society. It’s sometimes hard to say that. It’s not like if you live in New York, where everybody can be a New Yorker if you decide to be that. Not in Moscow for an African guy. And to live in this place where everyday I have the feeling, “It’s not my place. I need to leave, to go somewhere to make cinema to make it.” For that, I decided to make a movie. And after I finished this movie, I remember my editor who cut my film, she was a very nice woman — the kind of woman who exists in Russia: simple, beautiful, “like Momma” kind of woman — and also, very cinematographic. When we finished, we edited, and we put some music in to see how the movie would look. At the first screening, she was there with me. Also my DP, who was Tarkovsky’s DP, Georgi Rerberg. He was a very close friend. When we saw the movie, she told me, “Abderrahmane, I don’t know what happened. But only now do I really understand that maybe your life was really hard in this place.” She hugged me, and she cried. It’s really, really interesting. I learned a lot in Russia. It was hard, but I like the people.</p>\n<p><strong>What was your relationship with Ousmane Sembène?</strong></p>\n<p>I met him in 1991. It was in Burkina Faso. I was of course very young, and I came from Moscow with Le Jeu. I’d go every night with my friend to the nightclub. We left the nightclub around 5-6 o’clock in the morning, and I came back to the hotel at 7 o’clock. Before I sleep, I prefer to go for breakfast. And Sembène was there early with Tahar Cheriaa, who was the big critic from Tunisia. So I came up to him to say hello, and he was there with 3-4 people. He said, “This guy is really interesting. He woke up very early.” He thought I just woke up. And he said, “I’m sure this guy can go very far.” But he never knew that I just came from the nightclub. That was really funny. And he heard about Le jeu, but he didn’t see it. But he was very interested in me because I studied in Russia, and he also went to Russia. And before this moment, I was accepted at <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panafrican_Film_and_Television_Festival_of_Ouagadougou\">FESPACO</a> at Sembène’s table, where the next youngest person was maybe 60 years old. But I was one of the young filmmakers who Sembène accepted. You can come to say, “Hello”, and he tells you, “Please have a seat.” Of course I would say, “No, no. Thank you, Sembène.” If he insists, you can sit. And it was very interesting, but he played the role of the father. It means he doesn’t need to tell you your movie’s good, or this movie’s not good. No. If you are a young filmmaker, he accepts the art of every young filmmaker. That was the very strong character of Sembène. And the last really important meeting I had with him was when I prepared Bamako. I decided to have Sembène play the role of the “Le procureur.” I called him in Senegal, and on the phone I said, “Sembène, I need to talk with you. How can I meet you?”</p>\n<p style=\"text-align:left\"><img alt=\"\" src=\"http://camerainthesun.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/ASis-11.jpg\" width=\"293\" height=\"342\"></p>\n<p>He said, “The only possibility is to take a plane to come to me in Dakar.” It was Friday. I said, “I can take the plane Tuesday.” He said, “OK, please come.” And I went. But before, I sent the script to Clarence Delgado, who was Sembène’s assistant. He’s a fantastic guy, a very good person, and a good first assistant. So I sent my script to Clarence to give to Sembène before I came. And I came, and I went to Sembène’s office with Clarence. I said hello to Sembène, and he said hello. He said, “Please have a seat. And Clarence, go out.” And he said, “Clarence tells me you want me to play the role of ‘Le procureur’ in a movie.” I said, “Yes.” He said, “No, it’s not possible. I never act in the movie. But if you want, I can propose a different actor.” And I said, “Yes, of course, Sembène. You can propose it. But I’m not sure if I will take another actor.” It was finished, but we talked, and I went back the next day to Bamako. The role was played by a Malian actor [Magma Gabriel Konaté], and it had very few words. But the figure of Sembène, especially in this movie, for me was very important. Just to <i>see </i>Sembène, and listen what happens, the Sembène figure… it was sad.</p>\n<p><strong>What’s your take on the conflict in Mali?</strong></p>\n<p>That is a big question. What happened in the North of Mali, before the war when France came, was really something terrible. Not only for Mali, but for the whole region. The reality was for me not <a href=\"http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-20432639\">six French people</a> who were kidnapped and were somewhere. No. The kidnapped were more than 300-400,000 people from <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tombouctou_Region\">Timbuktu</a>, from <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gao_Region\">Gao</a>, from <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kidal_Region\">Kidal</a> they were kidnapping with the system, the vision of the war — the fanatics who say, “You cannot play music. You cannot play football.” If you steal an old bicycle, because you are poor, they can cut off your hand or your foot. That is for a human being today the most terrible thing. Maybe for this reason, my next movie is called <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timbuktu\">“Timbuktu.”</a> The situation in Mali between North and South is a development question with poverty, of course. If you don’t have the strong political vision on independence day to change something in all parts of the country — if you don’t put in education, if you don’t construct roads — something will happen anywhere. It’s not only the situation that it’s a little White, and a little Dark. No. It’s more complex than that for me.</p>\n<p>* Christian Niedan blogs at <a href=\"http://camerainthesun.com/\">Camera in the Sun</a>; you can read more of his writing on African cinema <a href=\"http://camerainthesun.com/?p=23368\">here</a>.</p>" }, "author" : "Christian Niedan", "comments" : [ ], "annotations" : [ ], "origin" : { "streamId" : "feed/http://africasacountry.wordpress.com/feed/", "title" : "AFRICA IS A COUNTRY", "htmlUrl" : "http://africasacountry.com" } }, { "crawlTimeMsec" : "1371276535982", "timestampUsec" : "1371276535982922", "id" : "tag:google.com,2005:reader/item/4afa1e322ec9b312", "categories" : [ "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/read", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/starred", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/fresh", "Uncategorized" ], "title" : "Cicadas", "published" : 1369498094, "updated" : 1369662579, "alternate" : [ { "href" : "http://enthusiasm.cozy.org/archives/2013/05/cicadas", "type" : "text/html" } ], "replies" : [ { "href" : "http://enthusiasm.cozy.org/archives/2013/05/cicadas#comments", "type" : "text/html" }, { "href" : "http://enthusiasm.cozy.org/archives/2013/05/cicadas/feed/atom", "type" : "application/atom+xml" } ], "content" : { "direction" : "ltr", "content" : "<div style=\"width:160px\"><a href=\"http://cdn-enthusiasm.cozy.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/EP-130509471-1-1.jpg\"><img alt=\"EP-130509471 (1) (1)\" src=\"http://cdn-enthusiasm.cozy.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/EP-130509471-1-1-150x150.jpg\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\"></a><p>See <a href=\"http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2013/05/2013-cicada-swarm-guide/65101/\">More</a></p></div>\n<p>The New Yorker has a <a href=\"http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/elements/2013/05/why-cicadas-love-prime-numbers.html\">short essay</a> about long reproductive cycle of the Cicadas. Cicadas emerge every 13, or 17 years; this year’s appear every 17 part of the largest “brood.” 13 and 17 are prime numbers. The theory for why that is is that this helps them remain out of synch with the reproductive cycles of their predators.</p>\n<p>This all reminded me of the mast years. You’ll recall that mast years are apparently random events were in a given species of tree across a region will produce a vast number of seeds. Animals that eat those seeds are overwhelmed so some of the seeds survive. But also the animals suffer a population bubble, and the the following year they starve. There is <a href=\"http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/JD09Df01.html\">an amazing story</a> about the ripple effects of a mast year in Bamboo. In that story the rat population exploded, and the next year the rats moved onto eating people’s grain stores; which lead to a revolution.</p>\n<p>Which got me wondering what are the ripple effects around the Circada’s emergence. T<a href=\"http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/05/0524_040524_cicadaterminator.html\">his essay</a> provides a bit of of that. The Circada laval eat tree roots – trees have very long reproduction cycles – and you can see the signature of the prime number cycles in the tree rings. Moles thrive in the year before the emergence as they feast on the soon to emerge population. Presumably next year will be a lousy time to be a mole.</p>\n<p>That article also talks about wasps and bacteria. Settling into a reproductive cycle based on a prime number is only gone to help you avoid predators who’s reproductive cycles are multiples of years. Moles, rats, and wasps for example. But it’s no help against the bacteria. They can ramp up their population fast. Which leads to a curiosity that older trees have a resident population of bacteria that loves to eat Circada; and the Circada tend to emerge around younger trees.</p>\n<p>Meanwhile there is a cool example of crowd sourced science over at <a title=\"magicicada.org\" href=\"http://magicicada.org/\">MagiCicada.org</a>, where you can see where they are emerging. See also <a href=\"http://www.cicadamania.com/\">www.cicadamania.com</a>. Sadly they aren’t common here in Boston.</p>" }, "author" : "bhyde", "comments" : [ ], "annotations" : [ ], "origin" : { "streamId" : "feed/http://enthusiasm.cozy.org/feed/atom/", "title" : "Ascription is an Anathema to any Enthusiasm", "htmlUrl" : "http://enthusiasm.cozy.org/" } }, { "crawlTimeMsec" : "1371249929855", "timestampUsec" : "1371249929855894", "id" : "tag:google.com,2005:reader/item/dc6a2748bd361949", "categories" : [ "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/read", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/starred", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/fresh" ], "title" : "China in Africa: Mine Control", "published" : 1371165084, "updated" : 1371165084, "alternate" : [ { "href" : "http://pulitzercenter.org/reporting/africa-zambia-china-trade-business-labor-rights-collum-coal-mine-new-imperialism", "type" : "text/html" } ], "summary" : { "direction" : "ltr", "content" : "<div>\n <div>\n <div>Alexis Okeowo</div>\n </div>\n</div>\n<div>\n <div>\n <div><p>It happened in Zambia like it could happen elsewhere in Africa. Chinese investors made deals with the government to mine its natural resources, filling federal coffers with billions of dollars. Chinese immigrants moved into cities and rural towns. They started construction companies; opened copper, coal, and gem mines; and built hotels and restaurants, all providing new jobs. They set up schools and hospitals. But then instances of corruption, labor abuse, and criminal coverups began to set the relationship between the Chinese and the Africans aflame.</p>\n<p>The Chinese have managed to accomplish at least one impressive thing in Africa—they have made everyone else uncomfortable. The Americans are uneasy, worried about (and perhaps jealous of) China’s rapid and profitable investments throughout the continent, and the developmental assistance that it has started to provide in some areas. Europeans have only to look at trade figures: the share of Africa’s exports that China receives has shot from one to fifteen per cent over the past decade, while the European Union’s share fell from thirty-six to twenty-three per cent. China is now Africa’s largest trading partner.</p>\n<p>Some Africans have become resentful, though, unhappy with unbalanced relationships in which China has taken proprietorship of African natural resources using Chinese labor and equipment without transferring skills and technology. “China takes our primary goods and sells us manufactured ones. This was also the essence of colonialism,” Lamido Sanusi, the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, wrote in the <em>Financial Times</em> earlier this year.</p>\n<p>The threat (whether real or imagined) of a looming Chinese imperialist presence in Africa has given way to what has been called “resource nationalism,” in which countries aim to take control of the exploitation of their natural resources. But this idea potentially fails to address the fact that the Chinese in Africa are people, and not just part of a faceless imperialist mass. I’ve spoken to Chinese investors in Zambia who appear to genuinely want to not just make money but integrate into Zambian communities and run responsible companies. One complained about how immoral businessmen ruin the efforts of others who want to pay fair wages and keep their workers safe.</p>\n<p>In Zambia, a copper-rich country in southern Africa and the beneficiary of the continent’s third-highest level of Chinese investment, persistent unemployment and poverty have left Zambians wondering where exactly the fruits of their government’s lucrative deals with the Chinese have gone. President Michael Sata won election in 2011 partly thanks to anti-Chinese sentiment (he likened work at Chinese mines to slave labor and said he would deport any abusive investors), but immediately forged close ties with Chinese leaders. Still, his government has tried, at least on the surface, to even its playing field with China by launching criminal proceedings against former government officials who made corrupt deals with the Chinese, and by reforming the way foreign investors have to do business in Zambia. It is likely that the country will be only the first of many to do so.</p>\n<p>“The people of Zambia have been complaining,” the country’s finance ministry said last month, “about lack of reliable and accurate information on the resources that are generated in the country or which come from foreign sources, to develop Zambia.” Under a new law, the Bank of Zambia will create an “electronic reporting and monitoring system” tasked with overseeing the collection of royalties and taxes from foreign investors. Those same investors—who, the legislation notes, are benefiting from numerous business incentives—are now required to open and keep active taxable foreign-currency bank accounts. If they export their goods, as the Chinese owners of copper, coal, and gemstone mines do, they must deposit their profits in Zambia within two months of the date the goods are shipped abroad. The ministry added, “This is the way to go for a country that is so richly endowed with resources but whose capacity to unroll development to higher echelons has been hampered by poor transparency and accountability practices.”</p>\n<p>Chinese owners of copper mines in Zambia regularly violate the rights of their employees by not providing adequate protective gear and insuring safe working conditions, according to a Human Rights Watch report. When Zambian employees of the Chinese-owned Collum Coal Mine protested these poor conditions three years ago, their Chinese managers, who said they feared for their lives, fired gunshots at the miners, injuring thirteen of them. After Chinese business interests put pressure on the then-government in Lusaka, the director of public prosecutions suddenly dropped its criminal case against the managers. Last year, renewed protests at Collum led to hundreds of miners pushing a mine trolley into a Chinese manager. They killed him, and injured two other Chinese supervisors.</p>\n<p>In the murky aftermath of the violence, the current government finally wrested control of the mine from the Chinese brothers who ran it and promised never to let such incidents happen again, partially resulting in this new legislation. Zambia, along with all of its copper and gems, had been especially attractive to China because it had let investors take their profits abroad. That policy has become too expensive, both financially and politically. (Tax avoidance by foreign investors is reportedly costing Zambia close to two billion dollars a year.)</p>\n<p>“There will be a big fight with the mines,” Mooya Lumamba, Zambia’s director of mines, told me in May. The government has had battles with the mines before. Despite fears of scaring off investors, leaders, then recently elected, doubled the mine royalty rate nearly two years ago. Investors, including the Chinese, stuck around and even increased their direct inflows. This time, Lumamba didn’t seem worried.</p>\n</div>\n </div>\n</div>" }, "author" : "Alexis Okeowo", "comments" : [ ], "annotations" : [ ], "origin" : { "streamId" : "feed/http://www.pulitzercenter.org/rss.xml", "title" : "Pulitzer Center", "htmlUrl" : "http://pulitzercenter.org/rss.xml" } }, { "crawlTimeMsec" : "1371249742899", "timestampUsec" : "1371249742899871", "id" : "tag:google.com,2005:reader/item/ce8bb93270109166", "categories" : [ "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/read", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/starred", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/fresh" ], "title" : "Meet The New Boss", "published" : 1371231660, "updated" : 1371298403, "alternate" : [ { "href" : "http://flyingrodent.blogspot.com/2013/06/meet-new-boss.html", "type" : "text/html" } ], "replies" : [ { "href" : "http://flyingrodent.blogspot.com/feeds/6295865003166016446/comments/default", "title" : "Post Comments", "type" : "application/atom+xml" }, { "href" : "http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=30169939&postID=6295865003166016446&isPopup=true", "title" : "3 Comments", "type" : "text/html" } ], "content" : { "direction" : "ltr", "content" : "And so we add Syria to the long list of nations fortunate enough to benefit from our glorious military largesse.<br><br>As if from nowhere, it appears that our leaders have decided that while eighty thousand deaths were an acceptable expense, ninety thousand is now intolerable. In a matter of days, evidence of chemical weapons use that was once sketchy and unreliable has miraculously engorged itself to convincing solidity.<br><br>We might ask ourselves - what changed? A vicious, barbarous civil war remains vicious and barbarous; its participants remain murderous and its victims terrorised and pitiable.<br><br>In reality, only one aspect has changed, but it's a biggie - the side that we like least from two terrible options has begun to rack up some clear victories.<br><br>So you'll pardon me if I don't join in the chorus of We Can't Sit Back And Do Nothing when plainly, sitting back and doing nothing has suited our leaders just fine, provided that it was our favoured faction that was in the ascendency. You'll notice that William Hague's outrage has waxed and waned with the rebels' military gains and losses, much as Vladimir Putin's has in equal and opposite terms.<br><br>After all, what does President Obama intend to achieve by shoving more and better rifles into the hands of the losing side? <br><br>Not victory for the rebels, since he himself has repeatedly told us that handing out guns to one side in a sectarian bloodbath will only ratchet up the bodycount without winning the war.<br><br>Not a negotiated peace, since President Obama has repeatedly told us that peace is only acceptable to him if it's made on terms that are unacceptable to the regime.<br><br>What can arming the rebels achieve, then? Reader, let me lay this on you - arming the rebels will <i>keep the war going</i>; it will grind down the enemy factions gratifyingly and, as a highly regrettable yet entirely foreseeable consequence, it'll also keep that pile of dead civvies growing indefinitely.<br><br>But hey, we've all got to go some time, right?<br><br>This is the heart and soul of it. It's not the murdering or the bombing that we find intolerable, it's the <i>losing</i>... And by appearances, it seems like we're willing to fight Assad and his allies right down to the last Syrian.<br><br>If this strikes you as ultra-cynical then I have to ask you - what was it in our leaders' recent behaviour that led you to believe that they regard anything at all in Syria as \"intolerable\"?<br><br>Certainly not sectarian slaughter, since some of the worst Iraqi death squads ended their war on the American payroll. Not ethnic cleansing or executions, since we spent the Libyan war providing air cover for the persecution of that unhappy nation's black African populace.<br><br>We plainly don't object to massive bombardments of basically incarcerated populations, since ourselves and our allies have played that game enthusiastically for the last decade, from North Africa to the Tigris.<br><br>We're clearly fine with all of the enormities of modern warfare, to the extent that we have entire PR departments, publications and a cottage industry of thinktanks dedicated to finessing the politics of our own democratically-inclined destruction.<br><br>And these are the people we're to trust with another "humanitarian intervention" in the Middle East? These theoretically-reluctant bombers with their eternal outbursts of supposedly-accidental mayhem and chaos?<br><br>Unless we're using the term \"humanitarian\" in the same way that we'd talk about a vegetarian intervention at the salad bar, I suspect the results might belie the moniker.<br><br>Anyway. All of this must seem alien and insane to many, but if I can offer one piece of advice on this situation, it'd go like this...<br><br>Every major political actor involved in this godawful catastrophe is lying about their intentions, be they dictator or democrat, and not one of them fears inflating the horror more than they fear backing the losing side... And every single one of them is willing to get people killed in large numbers to get what they want.<br><br>Ah, needless and super-destructive Cold War proxy conflicts. How I've missed you, and the gibbering cavalcade of outrageous, offensively obvious horseshit explosions you proliferate in every direction.<br><br>" }, "author" : "flyingrodent", "comments" : [ ], "annotations" : [ ], "origin" : { "streamId" : "feed/http://flyingrodent.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default", "title" : "Between the Hammer and the Anvil", "htmlUrl" : "http://flyingrodent.blogspot.com/" } }, { "crawlTimeMsec" : "1371193774594", "timestampUsec" : "1371193774594471", "id" : "tag:google.com,2005:reader/item/d36a9a68ca68e59d", "categories" : [ "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/read", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/starred", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/tracking-item-link-used", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/fresh", "Books", "Monday Columns" ], "title" : "The Metropolitan Trilogy", "published" : 1370837700, "updated" : 1370861145, "canonical" : [ { "href" : "http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2013/06/the-metropolitan-trilogy.html" } ], "alternate" : [ { "href" : "http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/3quarksdaily/~3/_E1IpW1J5ZY/the-metropolitan-trilogy.html", "type" : "text/html" } ], "content" : { "direction" : "ltr", "content" : "<div><p>by <a href=\"http://bit.ly/PVukJN\" title=\"James McGirk's website\">James McGirk</a></p>\r\n<p>\r\n<a href=\"http://www.3quarksdaily.com/.a/6a00d8341c562c53ef01901d36e210970b-popup\" style=\"float:right\"><img alt=\"Blackdahlia_08\" src=\"http://www.3quarksdaily.com/.a/6a00d8341c562c53ef01901d36e210970b-350wi\" style=\"width:350px;margin:0px 0px 5px 5px\" title=\"Blackdahlia_08\"></a>After writing a spate of reasonably successful—and very autobiographical—novels,\r\nJames Ellroy and Martin Amis took the cities surrounding them and used them as\r\ntest beds, experimenting with new voices and forms and populating this familiar\r\nterrain with doppelgangers and villains and foils and sexual obsessions. Amis\r\nwrote three novels devoted to northwest London (and the chicer parts of\r\nManhattan) known colloquially as “the London Trilogy”, while Ellroy revisited\r\nthe Los Angeles neighborhoods he had prowled as a burglar to write his “L.A.\r\nQuartet.” Both used cities to refine distinctive writing styles. Yet despite\r\ntheir precocity, these immense literary efforts remain tethered to a biological\r\nfact in each of the author’s lives. A fact that pulses through the work and\r\nkeeps it vital and exciting despite the fact that the novelists have\r\nessentially written the same novel over and over again. \r\n</p>\r\n<p>James Ellroy’s mother was raped and brutally murdered when\r\nhe was only ten years old, and the murder remains unsolved. At the time he was\r\nabout as estranged from his mother as a ten-year-old could possibly be, and\r\nclaims to have been delighted that she died because he was sent off to live\r\nwith his father, an indulgent lowlife who passed away not long after. His dad\r\ngave him a copy of Jack Webb’s <em>The Badge</em>,\r\nand Ellroy became obsessed with a chapter about the murder of Elizabeth Short,\r\nbetter known as The Black Dahlia, a beautiful woman whose unsolved, grisly\r\nmurder haunted Los Angeles ten years before Ellory’s mother was killed. \r\n</p>\r\n<p>Ellroy began his quartet by reconstructing Betty Short’s\r\nmurder. <em>The Black Dahlia </em>is told from\r\nthe point of view of a policeman as he investigates Short’s murder. After that Ellroy’s\r\nnovels become much more ambitious. The second in the series, <em>The Big Nowhere</em>, is narrated by a\r\ngod-like omniscience, following three characters as they get sucked into a\r\nseries of strange murders and political intrigue. The third novel, <em>L.A. Confidential </em>traverses eight years\r\nof Los Angeles history, ending on approximately the same day that Ellroy’s\r\nmother was killed. (Geneva Ellory died June 22, 1958. The last chapter of <em>L.A. Confidential</em> is date-less but occurs\r\nafter a series of scenes set in April and is titled “After You’ve Gone”). Along\r\nthe way, Ellroy experiments with techniques to compress information without\r\nsacrificing the velocity of his story (i.e. the pie crust), introducing\r\ndocuments, police reports, and newspaper clippings into his story. The final novel\r\nin the quartet, <em>White Jazz</em>, abandons\r\ntraditional narrative completely. It’s impossibly dense with detail and takes\r\nthe form of a reconstructed file, animated with clipped recollections, and ends\r\nwith an epilogue that takes his enormous cast of characters and traces their\r\nlives back up to the present day. \r\n</p>\r\n\r\n<p>The prose changes from: “I never knew her in life. She\r\nexists for me through others, in evidence of the ways her death drove them” (The\r\nfirst words of <em>The Black Dahlia</em>) to\r\n“All I have is the will to remember. Time revoked/fever dreams—I wake up\r\nreaching, afraid I’ll forget. Pictures keep the woman young. L.A., fall 1958.\r\nNewsprint: link the dots. Names, events—so brutal they beg to be connected.\r\nYears down—the story stays dispersed. The names are dead or too guilty to tell.”\r\n(First words of <em>White Jazz</em>) The books\r\nare so similar: young men obsessed, assembling files, while an unknown killer\r\ndoes horrible things to beautiful women who sometimes live and often die, while\r\nthe men around them do ugly, conflicted, heroic things. \r\n</p>\r\n<p>Taken in one fat dose, the quartet reads as if Ellroy wanted\r\nto take Betty Short’s death, take the shock of it, and capture its reverberations\r\nthrough the corrupt police departments, chintzy Hollywood glitz, and lush\r\nunderworld of the Los Angeles of his youth. Take all of it in, digest it and\r\nunderstand why—why his own life was jangled forever by his mother’s killing. (After\r\n<em>White Jazz </em>he went on to write two\r\nmemoirs about his mother’s killing, <em>My\r\nDark Places </em>and <em>The Hilliker Curse:\r\nMy Pursuit of Women</em>.) \r\n</p>\r\n<p>Martin Amis’ life was marred by tragedy, too. His cousin,\r\nLucy Partington, vanished in 1973 (her remains were discovered in 1994, in a serial\r\nkiller’s basement). And Amis dedicated several of his novels to his sister\r\nSally, who lived a short and troubled life. But if there had to be a single biological\r\nidiosyncrasy underpinning the London Trilogy, it would to be Amis coming to\r\nterms with being a writer. His father, Kingsley Amis, was, at the time, probably\r\nthe most important British novelist alive when Martin wrote the London Trilogy.\r\nWhy else would he spread the apocryphal story about his father refusing to read\r\nhis early novels? Or tell interviewers Kinglsey hurled the first novel is his\r\nunofficial trilogy, <em>Money</em>, across the\r\nroom the moment a character named Martin Amis was introduced, in other words,\r\nthe very instant Martin broke away from his father’s high modernist legacy and\r\nbecome postmodern… (Mark O’Connell’s superb essay, “The Arcades Project: Martin\r\nAmis’ guide to Classic Video Games,” makes a convincing case for a second biological\r\nfact: an addiction to Space Invaders might be lurking beneath the\r\nexperimentation in the London Trilogy.) \r\n</p>\r\n<p>While Ellroy compresses more and more information as the\r\nquartet evolves, as if panning the silt stirred up by the Dahlia’s murder for\r\nnews of his mother, Amis seems to be at war with the very idea of being a\r\nwriter. \r\n</p>\r\n<p>Like <em>The Black </em>Dahlia,\r\n<em>Money</em> is narrated by its protagonist,\r\na film director aptly named John Self who (after a prologue by <em>M.A.</em>) tells us: “As my cab pulled off\r\nFDR Drive, somewhere in the early Hundreds, a low-slung Tomahawk full of black\r\nguys came sharking out of lane and sloped in fast right across our bows.” The\r\nstory is relatively straightforward: Self spends obscene amounts of investors’\r\nmoney and consumes grotesque amounts of food and alcohol trying to make a\r\nmovie, as the entire earth—and even his own body—seem to revolt against his\r\nappetites. \r\n</p>\r\n<p>Maybe the story about Kingsley throwing <em>Money</em> was true. The language is so florid it is neon purple, so the\r\nopposite of the flinty prose preferred in the 1980s and 1990s, that entire book\r\nwas such a contrarian gesture, such a slap in the face, that even if Amis\r\nSenior didn’t actually throw the book, perhaps he should have. \r\n</p>\r\n<p>Martin Amis expands his scope in <em>London Fields</em>. “This is a true story but I can’t believe it’s\r\nreally happening. It’s a murder story, too. I can’t believe my luck. And a love\r\nstory (I think), of all strange things, so late in the century, so late in the\r\ngoddamned day.” The narrating voice is now a writer, who is self-consciously\r\nwriting (and even attempting to sell) the novel as the story unfolds,\r\nparticipating in events and gathering information, incorporating four distinct\r\ncharacters and an approaching apocalypse. His sentences remain florid, and the\r\nLondon neighborhood and even some of the characters are nearly the same but the\r\nstructure is so much more complicated. It is as if the story is being seen in\r\ncross-section, refracted in a box of mirrors. \r\n</p>\r\n<p>And then in the last book of the trilogy, <em>The Information</em>, Amis abandons the\r\noutward gimmickry of postmodernism and borrows a trick from <em>Moby Dick</em>. “Cities at night, I feel,\r\ncontain men who cry in their sleep and then say Nothing. It’s nothing. Just sad\r\ndreams. Or something like that… Swing low in your weep ship, with your tear\r\nscans and your sob probes, and you would mark them.” There is a presence\r\nnarrating the story, an I, but it is pushed far into the background. Instead of\r\nintervening directly, the narrator cuts in squibs of information about\r\nastronomy (the way Herman Melville used chapters connecting whaling to every\r\ninstant of human history). Amis expands the scope of his novel to the\r\nastrological infinite, which, when refracted against the plot of his story (and\r\nwriting itself) reveals the one and only insight of postmodernism: that a\r\ndiscrete chunk of information can only describe relationships between other\r\nchunks of information. That information says “Nothing.” \r\n</p>\r\n<p>Tom McCarthy’s (2007) <em>Remainder</em>\r\nwas about a traumatized, wealthy amnesiac who remembers nothing of his life\r\nbefore, except for a tiny hairline fracture on a wall. He hires hundreds of\r\npeople to rebuild his memory from that fracture but can’t quite do it, and the\r\nentire production spins apart in the end. Amis and Ellroy skipped the\r\nproduction company. They used familiar locations and reoccurring plots and\r\ncharacter types to create an adventure playground, a safe, familiar, but\r\nchallenging space where they could experiment with painful fragments of their\r\nmemories, pick them up and examine every frightening facet, and then put them\r\naside. \r\n</p>\r\n<p>Ellroy would go on to write a memoir and then tackle a\r\nnational counter-history propelled by the Kennedy assassination (his <em>American Tabloid </em>trilogy). Amis wrote a\r\ndetective novel called <em>Night Train</em>\r\nand then spent a decade writing non-fiction. These novels belong to a category\r\nbeyond a sophomore novel. They scour the prose of the authors’ intimately\r\nfamiliar innards and leave behind a machine capable of writing tackling\r\nsomething universal. </p></div><div>\n<a href=\"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/3quarksdaily?a=_E1IpW1J5ZY:0cLR5M7s_J8:yIl2AUoC8zA\"><img src=\"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/3quarksdaily?d=yIl2AUoC8zA\" border=\"0\"></a> <a href=\"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/3quarksdaily?a=_E1IpW1J5ZY:0cLR5M7s_J8:qj6IDK7rITs\"><img src=\"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/3quarksdaily?d=qj6IDK7rITs\" border=\"0\"></a> <a href=\"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/3quarksdaily?a=_E1IpW1J5ZY:0cLR5M7s_J8:F7zBnMyn0Lo\"><img src=\"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/3quarksdaily?i=_E1IpW1J5ZY:0cLR5M7s_J8:F7zBnMyn0Lo\" border=\"0\"></a> <a href=\"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/3quarksdaily?a=_E1IpW1J5ZY:0cLR5M7s_J8:V_sGLiPBpWU\"><img src=\"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/3quarksdaily?i=_E1IpW1J5ZY:0cLR5M7s_J8:V_sGLiPBpWU\" border=\"0\"></a> <a href=\"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/3quarksdaily?a=_E1IpW1J5ZY:0cLR5M7s_J8:l6gmwiTKsz0\"><img src=\"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/3quarksdaily?d=l6gmwiTKsz0\" border=\"0\"></a> <a href=\"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/3quarksdaily?a=_E1IpW1J5ZY:0cLR5M7s_J8:gIN9vFwOqvQ\"><img src=\"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/3quarksdaily?i=_E1IpW1J5ZY:0cLR5M7s_J8:gIN9vFwOqvQ\" border=\"0\"></a> <a href=\"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/3quarksdaily?a=_E1IpW1J5ZY:0cLR5M7s_J8:TzevzKxY174\"><img src=\"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/3quarksdaily?d=TzevzKxY174\" border=\"0\"></a>\n</div><img src=\"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/3quarksdaily/~4/_E1IpW1J5ZY\" height=\"1\" width=\"1\">" }, "author" : "James McGirk", "comments" : [ ], "annotations" : [ ], "origin" : { "streamId" : "feed/http://feeds.feedburner.com/3quarksdaily", "title" : "3quarksdaily", "htmlUrl" : "http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/" } }, { "crawlTimeMsec" : "1371148227762", "timestampUsec" : "1371148227762681", "id" : "tag:google.com,2005:reader/item/ddcb1a39e9b34952", "categories" : [ "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/read", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/starred", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/fresh", "miscellany" ], "title" : "“What is the most pointless job in existence?”", "published" : 1371130226, "updated" : 1371130226, "alternate" : [ { "href" : "http://chrisblattman.com/2013/06/13/what-is-the-most-pointless-job-in-existence/", "type" : "text/html" } ], "content" : { "direction" : "ltr", "content" : "<p><a href=\"http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/1fvdc7/what_is_the_most_pointless_job_in_existence/\">A reddit thread</a>. Some of my favorites:</p>\n<blockquote><p>I stood underneath a conveyer belt dropping gravel out of a rock crusher and picked out chunks of odd-colored rock for 10 hours a day without a break. At the rate the gravel was being poured, I may have possibly extracted .001% of the river rock, as i was picking it up by hand, one piece at a time.</p>\n<p>…</p>\n<p>I’m an aviation meteorologist at a location without planes.</p>\n<p>…</p>\n<p>I once worked a job where I would receive forms that were scanned into a machine that put them into some software. But since the scanner wasn’t perfect, I would have to manually type the mistakes into the machine. It was actually faster to not look for mistakes and just retype the entirety of the forms. We would then shred the forms. I was like the backup to a machine who wasn’t very good at its job.</p>\n<p>…</p>\n<p>So my friend has a job walking around a building making sure it isn’t on fire. It is an old building and is no longer up to fire code. So untill the building gets renovated in 2-3 years 3 people have to walk the halls and make sure it isn’t on fire.</p></blockquote>\n<p>The post <a href=\"http://chrisblattman.com/2013/06/13/what-is-the-most-pointless-job-in-existence/\">“What is the most pointless job in existence?”</a> appeared first on <a href=\"http://chrisblattman.com\">Chris Blattman</a>.</p>" }, "author" : "Chris Blattman", "comments" : [ ], "annotations" : [ ], "origin" : { "streamId" : "feed/http://chrisblattman.com/feed/", "title" : "Chris Blattman", "htmlUrl" : "http://chrisblattman.com" } }, { "crawlTimeMsec" : "1371147796910", "timestampUsec" : "1371147796910160", "id" : "tag:google.com,2005:reader/item/cec9d2f0b05fb39d", "categories" : [ "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/read", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/starred", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/tracking-item-link-used", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/fresh", "Academia" ], "title" : "Clay Shirky guest-bleg: How do you describe bad economics reporting?", "published" : 1371144330, "updated" : 1371144330, "alternate" : [ { "href" : "http://crookedtimber.org/2013/06/13/clay-shirky-guest-bleg-on-bad-reporting/", "type" : "text/html" } ], "content" : { "direction" : "ltr", "content" : "<p>This is a guest-bleg, inspired by Quiggin’s Zombie Economics project.</p>\n\n\t<p>I teach in <span>NYU</span>’s Journalism department, where we have strong concentrations in both business and science reporting. I’m looking for some way to label and describe a particular flavor of bad economics reporting, so as to make the students more alert to it, as consumers and possible producers of such reporting.</p>\n\n\t<p>Here’s the backstory. A couple of weeks ago, my friend Tamar Gendler introduced me to the the problem of easy knowledge, the notion that if you believe a particular assertion, you can produce inductive chains that lead to overstated conclusions. “I own this bike” can be seen as an assertion that the person you bought it from was its previous owner.</p>\n\n\t<p>But of course you don’t know if that guy in the alley had the right to sell it, so an assertion that you own the bike can generate easy knowledge about whether he did. Instead, “I own this bike” should be seen as shorthand for “<i>If</i> the guy in the alley was the previous rightful owner, <i>then</i> I am its current rightful owner.” (Oddly, this also describes the question of the Elder Wand in <i>Harry Potter</i> Vol. 7, pp 741 ff. Tom Riddle died of easy knowledge.)</p>\n\n\t<p>I was reminded of easy knowledge while reading Thomas Edsall’s <a href=\"http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/29/why-cant-america-be-sweden/\" title=\"\"><span>NY </span>Times column</a> on<br>\n<i><a href=\"http://economics.mit.edu/files/8172\">Can’t We All Be More Like Nordics? Asymmetric Growth and Institutions in an Interdependent World</a></i>, a paper by the economists Daron Acemoglu, James Robinson and Thierry Verdier. (Acemoglu goes on to discuss this work in a post titled <i><a href=\"http://www.voxeu.org/article/cuddly-or-cut-throat-capitalism-choosing-models-globalised-world\">Choosing your own capitalism in a globalised world?</a></i>.)<span></span></p>\n\n\t<p>In their paper, Acemoglu, Robinson and Verdier model a technologically interdependent world where countries can chose either cutthroat or cuddly capitalism (the US and Sweden being the usual avatars) <i>and</i> each country can be a technological leader or follower <i>but</i> those choices are not orthogonal.</p>\n\n\t<p>They then examine this model, and discover that:<br>\n<blockquote><br>\n…interpreting the empirical patterns in light of our theoretical framework, one may claim (with all the usual caveats of course) that the more harmonious and egalitarian Scandinavian societies are made possible because they are able to benefit from and free-ride on the knowledge externalities created by the cutthroat American equilibrium.<br>\n</blockquote><br>\nNot just the US but indeed the whole world would be worse off if we had public health care, because we have to treat poor people badly if Larry Page is to get rich, so that the Swedes can copy us. Because innovation.</p>\n\n\t<p>Now there’s nothing too surprising in this sentiment—the headline “Neo-Liberalism Woven into Fabric of Universe, say Economists” could have run unaltered in every year since 1977. What is surprising—or at least what Tamar made me see with new eyes—is that the entire exercise is a machine for smuggling easy knowledge into public discourse.</p>\n\n\t<p>Imagine I decide to model multiplying a number by itself, but, to simplify the calculations, I make the simplifying assumption that integers in the range [0,1] can stand in for all numbers. After running exhaustive tests, I confirm that X*X = X. I can now publish a paper that says “Interpreting the empirical patterns in light of my theoretical framework, one may claim (with all the usual caveats of course) that multiplying a number by itself creates no change in its value.”</p>\n\n\t<p>And that’s true, right? As long as you accept my theoretical framework (with all the usual caveats), you also have to accept that X<sup>2</sup> = X. After publication, the press can then report that teaching children “squaring”, as liberal school districts so often do, is a waste of tax dollars.</p>\n\n\t<p>The only difference between my research into self-multiplication and <i>Can’t We All Be More Like Nordics?</i> is that it’s obvious what I’m up to, but the form is identical: Start with some assumptions, then test them, where the result is never anything other than foregone. Then claim that because the expected conclusion turned out as expected, belief in the assumptions is strengthened. (This is a generalized case of Daniel Davies’ <a href=\"http://crookedtimber.org/2004/08/19/the-correct-way-to-argue-with-milton-friedman/\">rule for debating Milton Friedman</a>.)</p>\n\n\t<p>In <i>Can’t We All Be More Like Nordics</i>, as in all great intellectual smuggling, <a href=\"http://star.psy.ohio-state.edu/coglab/Miracle.html\">the miracle occurs in Step 2</a>:<br>\n<blockquote><br>\nSecond, we consider that effort in innovative activities requires incentives which come as a result of differential rewards to this effort. As a consequence, a greater gap in income between successful and unsuccessful entrepreneurs increases entrepreneurial effort and thus a country’s contribution to the world technology frontier.<br>\n</blockquote><br>\n<i>If</i> we assume that innovation requires income inequality, <i>then</i> we can conclude that innovation requires income inequality. <span>QED</span>.</p>\n\n\t<p>This presented as fairly self-evident—“the well-known incentive-insurance trade-off … implies greater inequality and greater poverty (and a weaker safety net) for a society encouraging innovation”—even though a moment’s reflection is enough to bring up a host of questions:</p>\n\n\t<p><li> How to explain post-war innovation in the US against the background of a 90% tax<br>\nbracket?</li></p>\n\n\t<p><li> How to explain Bell Labs inventing, <i>inter alia</i>, the transistor and the laser, without offering the scientists profit-sharing arrangements?</li></p>\n\n\t<p><li> How to explain income inequality correlating more closely with poor worker protections and financialization of an economy than with periods of innovation?</li></p>\n\n\t<p><li> How to explain the creation of the internet, by people who didn’t and couldn’t commercialize it?</li></p>\n\n\t<p><li> How to explain the differences between intrinsic and extrinsic motivations, and the ways that creative people are often driven by a desire for autonomy or appreciation, not just money?</li></p>\n\n\t<p><li> How to explain the differing motivations and behaviors between inventors, like Steve Wozniak, who created Apple’s computers, and entrepreneurs, like Steve Jobs, who created Apple Computer. (Woz famously cried on hearing that <a href=\"http://m.ibtimes.com/steve-wozniak-cried-jobs-kept-atari-bonus-267711.html\">Jobs tricked him into writing a game for Atari in just four days</a>, then pocketing a majority of the fee.)</li></p>\n\n\t<p>One could go on and on.</p>\n\n\t<p>The danger of papers like <i>Can’t We All Be More Like Nordics?</i> is not that there are sloppy assumptions; academic work is supposed to be self-correcting over the long haul. It’s dangerous because the press presents these papers as if they are scientific experiments, where prior assumptions were vetted and where the outcome was in doubt.</p>\n\n\t<p>But neither of those things is true. The only thing Acemoglu, Robinson and Verdier show is that math continues to work as expected. They neither checked nor tested their initial assumptions in the design or outcome of the model.</p>\n\n\t<p>This misdirection worked perfectly. When discussing the paper, Thomas Edsall (who I generally like) describes <i>Can’t We All Be More Like Nordics?</i> and its detractors, but then, when he gets to the part where he would grade the competing assertions, he throws his hands up:<br>\n<blockquote><br>\nFor self-evident reasons, it is difficult for a political columnist to adjudicate these warring claims. Why? Here is Acemoglu, Robinson and Verdier’s first assumption:<br>\n<a href=\"http://crookedtimber.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Screen-Shot-2013-06-13-at-1.19.28-PM.png\"><img src=\"http://crookedtimber.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Screen-Shot-2013-06-13-at-1.19.28-PM.png\" alt=\"Screen Shot 2013-06-13 at 1.19.28 PM\" width=\"100%\" height=\"100%\"></a><br>\n</blockquote><br>\nThat sure is a lot of math symbol things right there! This so frightens the ordinarily incisive Edsall that he forgets that if the assumptions are wrong, all the math in the world won’t produce a useful conclusion.</p>\n\n\t<p>Now a lot of this is commonplace—economics has loopy and unsupportable views of human nature, economic modeling often <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spherical_cow\">assumes spherical cows</a>, and so on—but what I need is something a bit more scalpel-like, a word or phrase or short description that captures the danger of thinking that self-consistent economic conclusions should lead us to believe in the real-world applicability of the assumptions.</p>\n\n\t<p>I want something that reminds students “Don’t just look at the conclusions, which can be as mechanistic as a wind-up toy. Look at the assumptions.” Any ideas? (I don’t think ‘easy knowledge’ is it, as it isn’t self-explanatory, though instant comprehension may be an unreachable goal.) Is there any label for this habit of camouflaging suspect assumptions while emphasizing obvious conclusions?<br>\n</p>" }, "author" : "Clay Shirky", "comments" : [ ], "annotations" : [ ], "origin" : { "streamId" : "feed/http://crookedtimber.org/feed/", "title" : "Crooked Timber", "htmlUrl" : "http://crookedtimber.org" } }, { "crawlTimeMsec" : "1371018178750", "timestampUsec" : "1371018178750028", "id" : "tag:google.com,2005:reader/item/aefc2aff457b7c09", "categories" : [ "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/read", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/starred", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/tracking-body-link-used", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/fresh" ], "title" : "staggering statistics on Africa's food deficit", "published" : 1369076940, "updated" : 1369077192, "alternate" : [ { "href" : "http://stealthofnations.blogspot.com/2013/05/amazing-statistics-on-africas-food.html", "type" : "text/html" } ], "replies" : [ { "href" : "http://stealthofnations.blogspot.com/feeds/2335778001194541892/comments/default", "title" : "Post Comments", "type" : "application/atom+xml" }, { "href" : "http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=7631633385048306686&postID=2335778001194541892", "title" : "0 Comments", "type" : "text/html" } ], "content" : { "direction" : "ltr", "content" : "courtesy of <a href=\"http://www.thisisafricaonline.com/News/Africa-s-food-imports-on-the-rise\">This is Africa</a>:<br><br><blockquote>The value of agricultural exports from Thailand, which has less than 10 percent of Sub-Saharan Africa’s population, <a href=\"http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2013/03/12/000425962_20130312103050/Rendered/PDF/756630v10REPLA0frica0pub03011013web.pdf\">is now greater than for the whole of Sub-Saharan Africa</a>.<br><br>No country better exemplifies Africa's agricultural decline than Nigeria. In the 1960s, before the oil bonanza, this was one of the most promising food producers in the world, beating the likes of Malaysia and Indonesia in palm oil, and the US and Argentina in groundnuts. It provided 18 percent of global cocoa production, a figure down to 8 percent today. And while it produces 65 percent of tomatoes in western central Africa, it is now the largest importer of tomato paste (from China and Italy).<br><br>In an interview with This is Africa at the World Economic Forum in Cape Town last week, the minister for agriculture, Akinwumi Adesina, reeled off these statistics with regret. "Nigeria has transited from being a self-sufficient country in food to being a net importing country, spending $11bn importing rice and fish and sugar and so on. It just makes absolutely no sense to me at all”.<br>While Nigeria is second in the world in citrus production and Africa’s biggest pineapple producer, its supermarkets are stocked with concentrated, imported products of both. “The only local content is water from Nigeria,” the minister complains. Multinationals testify to the challenges of agricultural import-dependence in their local operations. “We have thirteen factories in Africa that use products like soft oils, tomatoes or starch-based compounds on a daily basis, but much of this is imported, wasting foreign exchange and increasing our carbon footprint,” says Marc Engel, chief procurement officer at Unilever. The company owns the largest soap factory in Africa, but have to import palm oil from Asia to keep it running, and they import sorbitol from China for their local oral care products, when cassava would do the job.</blockquote><br>" }, "author" : "rn", "comments" : [ ], "annotations" : [ ], "origin" : { "streamId" : "feed/http://stealthofnations.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default", "title" : "stealth of nations", "htmlUrl" : "http://stealthofnations.blogspot.com/" } }, { "crawlTimeMsec" : "1371017539099", "timestampUsec" : "1371017539099748", "id" : "tag:google.com,2005:reader/item/d2539a328cdeb643", "categories" : [ "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/read", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/starred", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/tracking-item-link-used", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/fresh", "Uncategorized" ], "title" : "The case for an African customs union", "published" : 1370509209, "updated" : 1370509209, "alternate" : [ { "href" : "http://thememorybank.co.uk/2013/06/06/the-case-for-an-african-customs-union/", "type" : "text/html" } ], "content" : { "direction" : "ltr", "content" : "<p><i>Introduction</i></p>\n<p>I will first explain what I mean by saying that the informal economy, a concept I was associated with coining in the early 1970s, has taken over the world, largely as a result of neoliberal deregulation over the last three decades (pp. 1-3). After a brief account of my own early exposure to West Africa (pp. 3-5), I turn to the question of how and why Africa has long been a symbol of global inequality. Even after independence, Africans are still waiting from emancipation (pp. 5-10). Even so Africa’s development prospects in the 21st century are brighter than for a long time (pp. 10-12). In the course of the 20<sup>th</sup> century, regional differences in the forms of African political economy converged on the model of agrarian civilization that was once known as the Old Regime. The antidote to the Old Regime is a liberal revolution (pp. 12-15). Accordingly I next consider the role played by free trade and protection in the revolutions that made modern France, the United States, Italy and Germany, with particular reference to the latter’s <i>Zollverein</i> (customs union) in the 19<sup>th</sup> century (pp. 15-16). Turning to the Southern African example, which includes the oldest extant customs union in the world, I examine the organization of international trade there (pp. 16-18). In conclusion I review the prospects for greater integration of trade regimes in Africa. Is an African customs union possible or desirable? How might it come about? (pp. 18-19). <span></span></p>\n<p><i>How the informal economy took over the world<a title=\"\" href=\"http://thememorybank.co.uk/#_edn1\"><b>[1]</b></a></i></p>\n<p>Soon after the millennium I learned of an illegal trade that had grown up in the southern French cities of Marseilles and Montpellier. It supplied stolen cars and car parts to Africa and was staffed mainly by North Africans. Some of them dreamed of reclaiming the Mediterranean for Islam and they all ignored official paperwork, relying on word-of-mouth agreements, mainly within a religious brotherhood. This traffic grew so big that elements in the French car industry were drawn South to meet a demand of which there is no trace in the official record. An army of policemen, customs and tax officials were allegedly part of this remarkable machine. Russian and Latin American mafias became involved and the gang added Brussels and Hamburg as bases for their world strategy.</p>\n<p>Nor is mainstream French politics without its criminal side. President Mitterand’s office apparently ran a slush fund supplied by petrol companies and licenced distributors in Africa from which, among other things, he transferred election funds to his friend, Helmut Kohl in Germany. President Chirac’s corruption charge from his days in the Paris mayor’s office is still going through the courts. Now there are more scandals involving wholesale tax evasion by the controller of the government budget and allegations of corruption by the head of the IMF when she was Minister of Finance. Meanwhile the Tuareg tradition of smuggling everything from smartphones to bazookas across the Sahara on camels has been interrupted by a French army invasion to save the Mali government in the name of the ‘war on terror’. All of this pales into insignificance next to the City of London which converted a failed colonial empire into a network of tax havens that would probably surpass in scope Swiss private banking, if either could be measured.<a title=\"\" href=\"http://thememorybank.co.uk/#_edn2\">[2]</a> At the other end of the world, a major Japanese information technology corporation, NEC, discovered not long ago a parallel criminal company using the same name, accountancy methods, suppliers and customers, but with the advantage of paying no tax because it was entirely off the books.<a title=\"\" href=\"http://thememorybank.co.uk/#_edn3\">[3]</a> This is known as brand-jacking.</p>\n<p>Informality has come a long way since I provided an ethnographic account of income opportunities available to the urban poor in Ghana four decades ago.<a title=\"\" href=\"http://thememorybank.co.uk/#_edn4\">[4]</a> Then I was interested in revealing unrecorded activities that existed between the cracks of the state-made economy. It never occurred to me that these added up to much, but I thought they might be relevant to current debates concerning rampant unemployment in Third World cities. These people were working, but often for meagre and erratic rewards. I was careful to distinguish between legal and illegal activities, but this was often blurred. I have since identified three ways that the formal and informal may be combined. What I have been talking about so far reflects the first of these: <i>negation</i>, breaking the rules, crime; and we are reminded that this takes place at every level of the economy. Second, informality is built into abstract rule systems as unspecified <strong><i>content</i></strong>. Workable solutions to problems of administration invariably contain processes that are invisible to the formal order. For example, employees sometimes ‘work to rule’. They follow their job descriptions to the letter without any of the informal practices that allow these abstractions to function. Everything grinds to a halt. Third, some activities exist in parallel, as <strong><i>residue</i></strong>. They are just separate from the bureaucracy. The logic of the formal/informal pair is stretched to include peasant economy, traditional payments and domestic life as being somehow ‘informal’. Yet these social forms often shape informal economic practices and <em>vice versa</em>. Is society just one thing – one state with its rule of law – or can some spheres of social life be left by bureaucracy to their own devices?</p>\n<p>The idea of an informal economy arose at a turning point in world history in the early 1970s. At that time it was universally assumed that only the state could engineer significant development on behalf of its citizens. The United States’ losing war in Vietnam, however, provoked a global financial crisis which led to the dollar being depegged from gold in 1971. The next year money futures were invented in Chicago in response to wild currency fluctuations and the world of derivatives was launched; the Bretton Woods system of fixed exchange rates unravelled. The formation of OPEC and the energy crisis of 1973 brought about a world depression, the consequences of which we are still living with. By the end of the decade neoliberal conservatives were installed in power throughout the West and the post-war Keynesian experiment in regulated public economies was over. The seeds of the current crisis were sown then.</p>\n<p>The informal economy’s improbable rise to global dominance is a result of the mania for deregulation in the following three decades. This was linked of course to the wholesale privatization of public goods and services and to the capture of politics by high finance. Deregulation provided a fig leaf for corruption, rent-seeking, tax evasion and public irresponsibility. Nowhere was this more evident than in the culture of the Wall Street banks from the 1980s. This was no secret at the time. Each major bank spawned a tell-all book written by undercover reporters or disillusioned former employees.<a title=\"\" href=\"http://thememorybank.co.uk/#_edn5\">[5]</a> The removal of official restraints on financial practices generated a culture of personal excess from the trading floor to boardroom politics; moral responsibility towards clients was replaced by predation. Yet, during the credit boom, celebration of unending prosperity drowned criticism. Even after the bust, the political ascendancy of finance has hardly been challenged.<a title=\"\" href=\"http://thememorybank.co.uk/#_edn6\">[6]</a></p>\n<p>Apart from the main financial houses, the shadow banking system — hedge funds, money market funds and structured investment vehicles that lie beyond state regulation – is literally out of control. Tax evasion is now an international industry that dwarfs national budgets. The Silicon Valley giants that now dominate world economy – Apple, Google, Amazon, Facebook – pay next to no taxes. The Cambridge economist, Sir James Mirrlees, won a Nobel Prize for proving that you can’t force the rich to pay more than they are willing to.<a title=\"\" href=\"http://thememorybank.co.uk/#_edn7\">[7]</a> None of this touches on the blatant criminal behaviour of transnational corporations who now outnumber countries by 2 to 1 in the top 100 economic entities on the planet.<a title=\"\" href=\"http://thememorybank.co.uk/#_edn8\">[8]</a> Where to stop? The drug cartels from Mexico and Colombia to Russia, the illegal armaments industry, the global war over intellectual property (“piracy”), fake luxury goods, the invasion and looting of Iraq, 4 million dead in the East Congo scramble for minerals. The informal economy was always a way of labelling the unknowable, but the scale of all this goes beyond comprehension. Yet we often talk about the international rule system as if we were all still living in the regulated national economies of 1970. And what can it possibly mean to assert – as is often the case – that Africa’s economies are 70-90% ‘informal’? The ubiquity of the informal economy today is a powerful symptom of the endemic causes of and failure to address the world economic crisis.</p>\n<p><i>An old man’s prayers</i></p>\n<p>It is hard to recall what I was really thinking about when I set out for Accra in 1965 to do field research towards a PhD in social anthropology. Audrey Richards wrote to my supervisor, Jack Goody, who was already there: “God knows what Keith is going to do when he arrives, but he doesn’t”. My plan was to study the politics of independence by investigating how migrants from the savannah interior learned how to be citizens through voluntary associations, political parties, broadcasting and the like. Ghana was a police state at the time and I soon found that no-one wanted to discuss politics with me. So I turned instead to the street economy of the slum where I lived. The rest is history, as they say. I became dissatisfied with the idea that the state was the only vehicle for development and, as I have said, drew attention to informal economic practices in the cracks of the state-made economy. This ethnographic intervention made visible what had largely been invisible before. I did not anticipate that a concept would be coined to define these multifarious activities<a title=\"\" href=\"http://thememorybank.co.uk/#_edn9\">[9]</a> or that deregulation would eventually render all levels of the world economy substantially informal.</p>\n<p>Although I was an apprentice career academic at the time, I was influenced by the <i>Zeitgeist</i> of the 1960s. Western youth rejected the authority of our parents’ generation – unwisely as it turned out. We chanted the names of the heroes of the anti-colonial revolution – Ho Chi Minh, Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, Mao Tse Tung and the rest – and believed that the defeat of colonial empire had major implications for humanity as a whole (civil rights, the women’s movement, the anti-nuclear campaign, even world politics). In the course of the 1970s, we saw this dream unravel. By the end of that decade I wrote a book on West Africa<a title=\"\" href=\"http://thememorybank.co.uk/#_edn10\">[10]</a> that sought to explain why post-colonial state formation had failed in societies that were still predominantly rural. It was an angry book, perhaps because I took the failure personally. I argued that modern states had been erected on the basis of backward agriculture. Either some sectors of the economy had to raise productivity levels by adopting machine methods or the state would devolve to a level compatible with that of production. I called this “Haitianization”, after C.L.R. James’s great account of the slave revolution in San Domingo.<a title=\"\" href=\"http://thememorybank.co.uk/#_edn11\">[11]</a> This recognized the role of foreign financial pressures; and it was prophetic, since the 1980s saw the Bretton Woods institutions pull the rug out from under African governments and before long failed states became commonplace in the region. At much the same time, I joined James himself and began a belated education in Panafricanism.</p>\n<p>As Hegel said, an old man repeats the same prayers he learned as a child, but they are now coloured by the experience of a lifetime. This lecture might be an attempt to prove that my youthful aspirations were not misguided. Or, to put it another way, we need to ask now whether the international and national bureaucracies that regulate the movement of people, goods and money around the world, within and beyond the African continent, serve the interests of the vast majority or just the powerful few who can hold the rules of democratic states in contempt.<a title=\"\" href=\"http://thememorybank.co.uk/#_edn12\">[12]</a> Hernando De Soto is a controversial figure; but he has a point when he argues that, whereas developing countries like Peru were once stuck in a colonial mercantile system, they are now constrained by an international bureaucracy that works only for the developed countries (and their corporations) who would never have developed in the first place, if their infant capitalist economies had been saddled with similar encumbrances.<a title=\"\" href=\"http://thememorybank.co.uk/#_edn13\">[13]</a> The imposition of customs duties and other taxes on the profits of international trade goes to the heart of this crisis for democracy today. Politics is still mainly national, but the economy has gone global and is both over- and under-regulated at the same time. Nowhere is this problem more urgent than in Africa.</p>\n<p><i>Waiting for emancipation in an unequal world</i></p>\n<p>We live in a racist world. Despite the collapse of European empire and the formal adoption of a façade of international bureaucracy, the vast majority of black Africans are still waiting for meaningful emancipation from their perceived social inferiority. The idea that humanity consists of a racial hierarchy with blacks at the bottom is an old one. But the Caribbean economist, W. Arthur Lewis, made a strong case that the formation of a world economy divided between rich manufacturing exporters and poor raw material exporters belongs to the decades before the First World War, when Africa was carved up by the imperial powers.<a title=\"\" href=\"http://thememorybank.co.uk/#_edn14\">[14]</a> That bipolar economic order has been shifting for some time now, largely as a result of the emergence of Japan and then China and India as engines of capitalist growth.</p>\n<p>Now there is talk, much of it overheated, of economic growth in Africa. In the present decade, 7 out of the 10 fastest-growing economies (as conventionally measured) are African.<a title=\"\" href=\"http://thememorybank.co.uk/#_edn15\">[15]</a> In 1900 Africa was the world’s least densely populated and urbanized continent with 7.5% of the total. Today it is double that, with an urban share fast approaching the global average. According to UN projections, Africa will contain 24% of all the people alive in 2050, 35% in 2100. This is because its annual population growth rate is 2.5% at a time when the rest of the world is ageing. The Asian manufacturing countries already recognize that Africa is the fastest-growing market in the world. This could provide a long delayed opportunity for Africans to raise their collective profile in international negotiations. If they succeed, it will be a world revolution, the death knell for a racist world order, no less. And that is a prize for us all to wish for.</p>\n<p>For centuries Africa was a source of slaves shipped across the Atlantic, but also to the Indian Ocean and Arab worlds. The movement to abolish slavery was officially completed in the late 19<sup>th</sup> century. But emancipation is rarely as simple as that. In West Africa, abolition was a disaster. The internal drive to capture slaves continued apace and, despite a shift to their use in domestic production, supply soon exceeded demand and the price of slaves fell drastically, leading to their widespread abuse. Colonial empires were subsequently justified by the mayhem in West Africa and by the drive to abolish the Arab slave trade in East Africa. But colonial regimes still relied on indigenous slave masters in several places. Much later, when these regimes fell, Africans were offered emancipation once more, this time through national independence. This was followed by the regression of most African economies for a half-century. Ghana had an economy bigger than Indonesia’s in 1960 and per capita income on a par with South Korea’s. Now, despite Ghana’s recent partial economic recovery, for both indicators the Asian countries are more than twenty times larger than Ghana’s. Apartheid was defeated in South Africa, but two decades later the country is more unequal and unemployment is massive, while the government shoots its own people if they complain. Writers coin metaphors for misrule throughout the continent: “The Postcolony”, “Politics of the Belly”, “Architects of Poverty”.<a title=\"\" href=\"http://thememorybank.co.uk/#_edn16\">[16]</a> Africans are still waiting for a freedom that would secure them equal membership of world society. But they have never encountered more favourable conditions than now. When Africa had only 2% of global purchasing power, the whole continent could be dismissed as irrelevant to the world economy. That is no longer the case and rapidly becoming less so.</p>\n<p>For too long Africa has stood as the world’s most vivid symbol of inequality, one reinforced by most of its inhabitants being identifiable by the colour of their skin. ‘Africa’ is either a continental territory separated from the Eurasian landmass by the Mediterranean and Red Seas or the place that black people (and for that matter the human species) come from. But “the land of the blacks” is hard to pin down and “Subsaharan Africa” may make sense from a European perspective looking South, but not if you focus on the Northeast region, where the Nile links Egypt to Sudan, Ethiopia and the Lakes further South. The African continent is divided into three disparate regions — North, South and Middle (West, Central and East Africa); but a measure of convergence between them is now taking place. A preoccupation with Africa’s post-colonial failure to ‘develop’ – or to ‘take-off’ — has obscured what really happened there in the twentieth century. The rise of cities has been accompanied by the formation of weak and venal states, locked into dependency on foreign powers and leaving the urban masses largely to their own devices. These have generated spontaneous markets to meet their own needs which have come to be understood as an “informal economy”.<a title=\"\" href=\"http://thememorybank.co.uk/#_edn17\">[17]</a></p>\n<p>For some four decades now, Jack Goody has tried to explain why the institutions of Africa South of the Sahara diverged so strongly from the Old World civilizations of Eurasia and North Africa, turning later to refute the idea of Europe being exceptional in relation to Asia.<a title=\"\" href=\"http://thememorybank.co.uk/#_edn18\">[18]</a> He based his explanation of Africa’s divergence on low population density, so that people were scarcer than land there, intensification of production was weak and the property foundations of a class society were never developed, as they were in Eurasia. But Goody did not investigate whether and how this was changing in the modern period. In order to make sense of the extraordinary transformation of this highly variegated continent, I distinguish between three broad types of social formation: “egalitarian societies” based on kinship; “agrarian civilization” in which urban elites control the mass of rural labour by means of the state and class power; and “national capitalism”, where markets and capital accumulation are regulated by central bureaucracies in the interest of citizens as a whole. These oversimplified categories allow me to indicate some broad historical trends.</p>\n<p>In 1900, Africa had less than 2% of its inhabitants living in cities. By 2000, a population explosion saw the urban share rise to between a third and a half, compressing into one century what took much longer elsewhere. This urban revolution does not just consist in the unprecedented proliferation of cities, but also in the installation of the whole package of pre-industrial class society: states, new urban elites, intensification of agriculture and a political economy based on the extraction of rural surpluses and the city bazaar.<a title=\"\" href=\"http://thememorybank.co.uk/#_edn19\">[19]</a> Africa has a more complex history than is captured by my typology; but its dominant institutions before the modern period may be understood in terms of the classless type based on kinship in the main. The second type, agrarian civilization, covered most of Europe, Asia and North Africa for the last few millennia. National capitalism has only taken root so far in South Africa, until recently for the benefit of whites only. Middle Africa has made a belated transition to the Old Regime of agrarian civilization in the course of the twentieth century, while Europe and North America, followed by Asia, embraced national capitalism. This brought North and Middle Africa closer together as pre-industrial class societies, while South Africa has drawn closer to the rest of Africa in its political form since the coming of majority rule. At the same time, the fastest-growing economies are from West, Central, East and Southern Africa, not from the North (where popular insurgency has now taken hold) or South Africa (which currently shares the economic weakness of the metropolitan economies of Europe and North America).</p>\n<p>The anti-colonial revolution unleashed extravagant hopes for the transformation of an unequal world. These have not yet been realized for most Africans. But the model of development they were expected to adopt was ‘national capitalism’. Development in this sense never had a chance to take root across Africa. For the first half of the twentieth century, African peoples were shackled by colonial empire and in the second, their new nations struggled to keep afloat in a world economy organized by and for the major powers, then engaged in the Cold War. Africa’s new national leaders thought they were building modern economies, but in reality they were erecting fragile states based on the same backward agriculture as before.<a title=\"\" href=\"http://thememorybank.co.uk/#_edn20\">[20]</a> This weakness inexorably led them to exchange the democratic legitimacy of the independence struggle for dependence on foreign powers. These ruling elites first relied on revenues from agricultural exports, then on loans contracted under dubious circumstances, finally on the financial monopoly that came from being licensed to supervise their country’s relations with global capitalism. But this bonanza was switched off in the early 1980s, when foreign capital felt that it could dispense with the mediation of local state powers and concentrated on collecting debts from them. Many governments were made bankrupt and some countries collapsed into civil war.</p>\n<p>Concentration of political power at the centre led to primate urbanization, as economic demand became synonymous with the expenditures of a presidential ‘kleptocracy’. The growth of cities should normally lead to enhanced rural-urban exchange, as farmers supply food to city-dwellers and in turn buy the latter’s manufactures and services.<a title=\"\" href=\"http://thememorybank.co.uk/#_edn21\">[21]</a> But this progressive division of labour requires a measure of protection from the world market at first and it was stifled at birth in post-colonial Africa by the dumping of subsidized food from North America and Europe and of cheap manufactures from Asia. For ‘structural adjustment’ meant that Africa’s fledgling national economies had no protection from the strong winds of world trade. A peasantry subjected to violence and political extraction was forced to choose between stagnation at home and migration to the main cities or abroad. Somehow the cities survived on the basis of markets that emerged to meet the population’s needs and to recycle the money concentrated at the top. These markets are the key to understanding the economic potential of Africa’s urban revolution.</p>\n<p>Africa’s urban informal economy everywhere supplies food, housing and transport; education, health and other basic services; mining, manufactures and engineering; and trade at every level, including transnational commerce and foreign exchange. But its scope varies. In West/Central Africa, where white settlement was minimal, the cities were substantially an indigenous creation and their markets were always unregulated. Foreign middlemen like Lebanese traders flourished outside colonial administrative controls. The great ports of the Atlantic seaboard enjoy a degree of mercantile freedom that now underwrites their contribution to Africa’s commercial growth. Today Angolan women jump on planes heading for London, Paris, Dubai and Rio, where they stock up on luxury goods for resale in the streets of Luanda. In Southern Africa, however, cities were built by a white settler class who imposed strict controls on the indigenous population’s movements. South Africa’s informal economy today is hedged in as a result by rules designed to promote modern industry. Elsewhere, in Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Kenya, the state has long played a more controlling role than would be considered normal today in Lagos or Dakar.</p>\n<p>African nation-states have learned the hard way that they are not free to choose their own forms of political economy. When the world was divided by the Cold War, state ownership of production and control of distribution seemed to offer the best chance of defending the national interest against colonial and neo-colonial predators. From the 80s, the mania for privatization often led to ownership being ceded to foreign corporations. Structural adjustment forced governments to abandon public services, lay off many workers and allow the free circulation of money. In the Congo, Angola, Mozambique, Somalia, Chad, Liberia, Sierra Leone and now Mali, failed states and civil wars encouraged informal mining and trade, concentrating wealth and power in the hands of warlords and their followers. The restoration of peace sometimes restored limited bureaucratic controls over distribution. The situation is highly dynamic and variable.</p>\n<p>Tax collection in Africa never attained the regularity it has long achieved in Europe and Asia; and governments still rely on whatever resources they can extract from mineral royalties and the import-export trade. The new urban classes control and live off these revenues, usually under a patrimonial regime propped up by foreign powers. This constitutes an Old Regime ripe for liberal revolution; and the Arab Spring that began in North Africa during 2011 carries great significance for the continent as a whole.<a title=\"\" href=\"http://thememorybank.co.uk/#_edn22\">[22]</a> The new states and class structures of Africa’s urban revolution are entangled in kinship systems that remain indispensable to the informal economy as a means of social organization. The middle classes pass off exploitation of cheap domestic labour as an egalitarian model of African kinship; while ‘family business’ has never lost favour and child labour is still acceptable. Formal bureaucracy, on the other hand, is hostile to kinship, where it is normally viewed as corruption. In the absence of a welfare state, Africans must rely on kinship to see them through the life cycle of birth, marriage, childrearing, old age and death; and this reinforces the power of rural elders who control access to the land in the face of emigration by the youth and women.</p>\n<p>The prospect of rapid economic improvement soon in Africa seems counter-intuitive to many, especially given Africa’s symbolic role as the negation of ‘white’ superiority. Black people have long been the stigmatized underclass of an unequal world society organized along racial lines; but the shift of global economic power from West to East makes this situation highly dynamic now. Rather than face up to a decline in their economic fortunes, the North Atlantic societies prefer to dwell on the misfortunes of black people and on what they imagine is Africa’s permanent exclusion from modern prosperity. Failed politicians and ageing rock stars announce their mission to ‘save’ Africa from its presumed ills. The western media represent Africa as the benighted battleground of the four horsemen of the apocalypse: conquest, war, famine and death. It all goes to reassure a decadent West that at least some people are a lot worse off than themselves.</p>\n<p><i>Africa’s development prospects in the 21st century</i></p>\n<p>Every person of African descent, whatever their actual history and experience – they could be Barack Obama, for example — suffers the practical consequences of being stigmatized by colour in a world society built on racial difference. This situation will only be ended when Africans are economically ‘developed’ to a level that guarantees them political and cultural equality in our world. The Victorians called it ‘evolution’, but ‘development’ is much the same thing, even if many citizens of the rich countries believe that growth is no longer a priority and should be reversed. So what does development mean in the African context and how is it to be achieved in the century to come?</p>\n<p>In 1800 the world’s population was around one billion. At that time less than 3% lived in cities. The rest lived by extracting a livelihood from the land. Animals and plants were responsible for almost all the energy produced and consumed by human beings. <i> </i>A little more than two centuries later, world population has reached 7 billion. The proportion living in cities is about a half. Inanimate energy sources converted by machines now account for the bulk of production and consumption. For most of this period, the human population has been growing at an average annual rate of 1.5%; cities at 2% a year; and energy production at around 3% a year. Many people now live longer, work less and spend more as a result. But the distribution of all this extra energy has been grossly unequal. A third of humanity still works in the fields with their hands. Americans each consume 400 times more energy than the average Ugandan, for example.</p>\n<p>‘Development’ thus refers in the first instance to this hectic dash of humanity from the village to the city. It is widely assumed that the engine driving this economic growth and the inequality it entails is “capitalism”. Development then means trying to understand both how capitalist growth is generated and how to make good the damage capitalism causes in repeated cycles of creation and destruction. A third meaning refers to the <i>developmental state</i> of the mid-twentieth century, the idea that governments are best placed to engineer sustained economic growth with redistribution. Pioneered by Fascist and Communist states, this model took root in the late colonial empires around the Second World War, was adopted after the war in the leading Western industrial societies and became the norm for developed and newly independent countries afterwards until the 1970s.</p>\n<p>The most common usage of ‘development’ over the last half-century, however, refers to the commitment of rich countries to help poor countries become richer. In the wake of the anti-colonial revolution, such a commitment was real enough, even if the recipes chosen were often flawed. But after the watershed of the 1970s, this commitment has faded. If, in the 1950s and 60s, the rapid growth of the world economy encouraged a belief that poor countries could embark on their own enrichment, from the 80s onwards ‘development’ has more often meant freeing up global monetary flows and applying sticking plaster to the wounds inflicted by this system. Development has thus been the label for political relations between rich and poor countries after colonial empire, for some decades defined by “aid”, but the preferred term nowadays is “partnership”.</p>\n<p>There are massive regional discrepancies in development since the collapse of the European empires. After the anti-colonial revolution, many Asian countries installed successful capitalist economies, with and without western help, eventually bringing about an eastward shift in the balance of global economic power. But other regions, especially Africa, the Middle East and much of Latin America, stagnated or declined since the 1970s – a pattern from which Africa now seems to be rebounding. These divergent paths have led to the circulation of a variety of development models, with an Asian emphasis on authoritarian states being opposed to Western liberalism and radical political alternatives coming out of Latin America.</p>\n<p>There are two pressing features of our world: the unprecedented expansion of markets since the Second World War and massive economic inequality between (and within) rich and poor nations. Becoming closer and more unequal at the same time is an explosive combination. <i>Forbes</i> magazine reported in March 2009 that the top ten richest individuals had a net worth between them of $250 billion, roughly the annual income of Finland (population 5 million) or of middle-ranking regional powers such as Venezuela (28 million), South Africa (49 million) and Iran (72 million). The same sum of a quarter trillion dollars equals the annual income of 26 Sub-Saharan African countries with a combined population of almost half a billion. Providing adequate food, clean water and basic education for the world’s poorest people could be achieved for less than the West spends annually on makeup, ice cream and pet food. Car ownership in developed countries is 400 per thousand persons, while in the developing countries it is below 20. The rich pollute the world fifty times more than the poor; but the latter are more likely to die from the pollution. A report published just before the millennium claimed that world consumption increased six times in the previous two decades; but the richest 20% accounted for 86% of private expenditure, the poorest 20% for only 1.3%. Africa, with a seventh of the world’s population, then had 2% of global purchasing power.<a title=\"\" href=\"http://thememorybank.co.uk/#_edn23\">[23]</a></p>\n<p>Africa’s advantage in the current crisis is its weak attachment to the status quo. The world economy is precarious in the extreme, but Africans have less to lose; and the old Stalinist ‘law of unequal development’ reminds us that, under such circumstances, winners and losers can easily change places.<a title=\"\" href=\"http://thememorybank.co.uk/#_edn24\">[24]</a> To speak of a possible economic upturn begs the question of what Africa’s new urban populations could produce as a means of bringing about their own economic development. So far, African countries have relied on exporting raw materials, when they could. Minerals clearly have a promising future owing to scarce supplies and escalating demand; but the world market for food and other agricultural products is skewed by western farm subsidies and prices are further depressed by the large number of poor farmers seeking entry. Conventionally, African governments have aspired to manufacturing exports as an alternative, but here they face intense competition from Asia. It would be more fruitful for African countries to argue collectively in the councils of world trade for some protection from international dumping, so that their farmers and infant industries might at least get a chance to supply their own populations first.</p>\n<p>The evolving rural-urban division of labour which I identified earlier as the mainspring of development was frustrated in the case of post-colonial Africa. Fragmentation of sovereignty leaves Africa’s 54 countries in a poor bargaining position when it comes to negotiating mineral revenues, for example; and any appeal for great protection would have to be backed up by serious political coordination of a kind that is hardly visible at present. The world market for services is booming, however, and perhaps greater opportunities for supplying national, regional and global markets exist there. The fastest-growing sector of world trade is the production of culture: entertainment, education, media, software and a wide range of information services. The future of the human economy, once certain material requirements are satisfied, lies in the infinite scope for us to do things for each other — singing songs or telling stories — that need not take a tangible form. The largest global television audiences are for sporting events like the World Cup or the Olympic Games. Any move to enter this market will confront transnational corporations and the governments who support them. Nevertheless, there is a lot more to play for here and the terrain is less rigidly mapped out than in agriculture and manufactures. It is also one where Africans are well-placed to compete because of the proven preference of global audiences for their music and plastic arts.</p>\n<p><i>Classes for and against a liberal revolution</i></p>\n<p>The liberal revolutions that launched modern western society between the 17<sup>th</sup> and 19<sup>th</sup> centuries were sustained by three ideas: that freedom and economic progress require increased movement of people, goods and money in the <i>market</i>; that the political framework most compatible with this is <i>democracy</i>, putting power in the hands of the people; and that social progress depends on <i>science</i>, the drive to know objectively how things work that leads to enlightenment. For over a century now an anti-liberal tendency has disparaged this great emancipatory movement as a form of oppression and exploitation in disguise; and this is partially true, as with many social revolutions. Africa today must escape soon from varieties of Old Regime that owe a lot to the legacy of slavery, colonialism and apartheid; but conditions there can no longer be attributed just to these ancient causes. The peasant and worker revolutions of the 20<sup>th</sup> century – and the ideologies that sustained them – are less relevant to Africa’s current circumstances than classical liberalism, reinforced by endogenous developments in economy, technology, religion and the arts.<a title=\"\" href=\"http://thememorybank.co.uk/#_edn25\">[25]</a> These would have to be built on the conditions and energies generated by Africa’s urban revolution in the 20<sup>th</sup> century.</p>\n<p>We all know that power is distributed very unequally in our world and any new movement would soon run up against entrenched privilege. In fact, world society today resembles quite closely the Old Regime of agrarian civilization, as in eighteenth century France, with isolated elites enjoying a lifestyle wildly beyond the reach of masses with almost nothing. It is not just in post-colonial Africa where the institutions of agrarian civilization rule today.<a title=\"\" href=\"http://thememorybank.co.uk/#_edn26\">[26]</a> Since the millennium, the United States, whose own liberal revolution once overcame the Old Regime of King George and the East India Company, is now a rent-seeking plutocracy and regressed under George W. Bush to presidential despotism in the service of corporations like Halliburton. It is no longer the case that immense riches are principally acquired through selling products cheaper than ones competitors; access to rents secured by political privilege — such as the patents awarded to Big Pharma, monopoly rents from movie DVDs and music CDs or the use of tax revenues to bail out the Wall Street banks — now guarantee much greater profits and more reliably.<a title=\"\" href=\"http://thememorybank.co.uk/#_edn27\">[27]</a></p>\n<p>In <i>The Wretched of the Earth</i>,<a title=\"\" href=\"http://thememorybank.co.uk/#_edn28\">[28]</a> Frantz Fanon provided an excellent blueprint of how to go about analysing the class structure of decadent societies that are ripe for revolution, in his case the anti-colonial revolution. He pointed out that political parties and unions were weak and conservative in late colonial Africa because they represented a tiny part of the population: the industrial workers, civil servants, intellectuals and shopkeepers of the town, a class unwilling to jeopardize its own privileges. They were hostile to and suspicious of the mass of country people. The latter were governed by customary chiefs supervised in turn by the military and administrative officials of the occupying power. A nationalist middle class of professionals and traders ran up against the superstition and feudalism of the traditional authorities. Landless peasants moved to the town where they formed a <i>lumpenproletariat</i>. Eventually colonial repression forced the nationalists to flee the towns and take refuge with the peasantry. Only then, with the rural-urban split temporarily healed by crisis, did a mass nationalist movement take off. This compressed summary offers one model of how to analyse the potential for another African revolution now.</p>\n<p>The African states brought into being by independence likewise rely on chiefs to keep the rural areas insulated from the more unruly currents of world society. Where the state’s writ has been fatally undermined, warlords take their place. Since the ‘structural adjustment’ policies of the 1980s, international agencies have systematically preferred to approach rural populations through NGOs, the missionaries of our age, rather than the departments of national government. World trade is organized by and for an alliance of the strongest governments and corporations. Some of the latter, especially in remote extractive industries, operate as independent states with the state. The cities, although massively expanded in size, still sustain a very small industrial workforce, since mechanized production is poorly developed in post-colonial Africa. The civil servants have been ravaged as a class by neoliberal pressure to cut public expenditures. This leaves us with the informal economy of unregulated urban commerce, a phenomenon that is not best summarized by the pejorative term, <i>lumpenproletariat</i>. Clearly, trade and finance are not organized, in Africa or the world at large, with a view to liberating the potential of these classes. It is not likely, therefore, that a liberal revolution could succeed by relying solely on a popular economic movement from below. There are larger players on the scene and their influence too must surely be felt. If Africans want to have a say in what happens to them next, they will have to tap old and new social forces to develop their own capacity for transnational association, in the face of the huge coalitions of neo-imperial power mobilizing to deny them that opportunity for self-expression.</p>\n<p>Panafricanism gave way to aspirations for national capitalism half a century ago because world society was not organized then to accommodate it. When the anti-apartheid movement led to African independence in South Africa, global thinking took second place to the non-racial nationalism that the ANC had always espoused. But, as a result of neoliberal globalization, one of the strongest political movements today is the formation of large regional trading blocs: the EU, NAFTA, ASEAN, Mercosur. This is a good time for Africans to renew the movement towards greater continental unity, at first in economic affairs and as a complement to, not replacement for national governments, since the rest of the world is doing the same thing and they will inevitably lose out again if they fail to do so. If we needed any reminder of the contemporary salience of Panafricanism, we have only to note the USA’s recent establishment of a unified African military command, with the aim of controlling access to mineral resources there in competition with China and Europe.</p>\n<p>It was never the case that a national framework for development made sense in Africa and it makes even less sense today. The coming African revolution could leapfrog many of the obstacles in its path, but it will not do so by remaining tied to the national straitjacket worn by African societies since they won independence from colonial rule. Perhaps comparative history might open up fresh perspectives on this question.</p>\n<p><i>Freedom and protection in the early modern revolutions<a title=\"\" href=\"http://thememorybank.co.uk/#_edn29\"><b>[29]</b></a></i></p>\n<p>In 1793, the French revolution turned to the Terror, a campaign whose main target was the <i>Girondins</i>, a moderate faction whose base was in the Atlantic region, notably Bordeaux. At the same time, the Bretons raised a ‘Royal and Catholic Army’, supported from the sea by Britain, against which the Republic sent out an army of its own to fight in what became known as the War of Vendée.<a title=\"\" href=\"http://thememorybank.co.uk/#_edn30\">[30]</a> The port city of Nantes, at the mouth of the Loire, was France’s largest and was heavily involved in slavery and trade with the Caribbean. It stood out for the Republic and was besieged by the Royalist army. The battle that led to its relief was considered decisive for the revolution, as was the shippers’ financial support for the Republican army. In the same period, some 4,000 Catholics and presumed Royalists were publicly executed by drowning inside the city, an episode that came to be known as ‘the national bathtub’. The obvious question is why the Nantes bourgeoisie risked so much for the revolution. One reason undoubtedly is that France, although centrally administered by the monarchy, was then a patchwork of local fief-holders, each of whom exacted what they could from people and goods moving through their territory. The republic promised to end all that. It was after all a liberal revolution whose main premise was to abolish restrictions on freedom of movement. The Nantes shippers had an interest in reducing the costs of moving their trade goods inland and so they allied themselves with anti-monarchist forces.</p>\n<p>What the American, French and Italian revolutions had in common was mass insurgency linked to an extended period of warfare over attempts to remove fragmented sovereignty, unfair taxes and restrictions placed on movement and trade. Apart from their initial resistance to British imposition of an East India Company tea monopoly and of taxes to pay for the crown’s military costs, the American revolutionary government faced more than one rebellion of its own as a result of imposing excise duties on alcohol production. The Italian <i>Risorgimento</i> too was backed financially by the industrialists of Milan and Turin who wanted to replace Austrian protectionism and control of a jumble of territories with a unified national home market and unrestricted access to world trade. In all three cases, the power of merchant and manufacturing capital played a decisive part in the revolution, whatever else animated the overthrow of the Old Regime.</p>\n<p>Perhaps the most notable example of a customs union that served as a precursor to political unification – before our own post-war European Common Market — was the Prussian <i>Zollverein</i>, launched in 1818, culminating five decades later in the German Empire. This started out piecemeal as a way of harmonising tariffs, measures and economic policy in scattered territories controlled by the Prussian ruling family. In the aftermath of Napoleonic conquest and British commercial expansion, the Germans felt vulnerable because of their extreme political fragmentation. Prussia’s main aim was to expand a protected zone of internal free trade and to exclude the Austrians. By the 1860s, most of what subsequently became Germany had joined the customs union. Some middle-sized states tried to break away to form their own union because of Prussia’s dominance, but they failed. The process was informed by the arguments of their leading economist of the day, Friedrich List, whose ‘national system’ of political economy was designed to prevent Germans from becoming just “drawers of water and hewers of wood for Britain”.<a title=\"\" href=\"http://thememorybank.co.uk/#_edn31\">[31]</a> List emphasized the scope for innovation within an expanded free trade area protected from the cold winds of the world market. Americans such as Alexander Hamilton and Henry Clay were highly susceptible to such arguments.</p>\n<p><i>The Southern African example</i></p>\n<p>The Union of South Africa was founded in 1910. Like other British dominions, its structure was federal, bringing together provinces with highly disparate histories, geography and populations, as well as being linked to a patchwork of territories under British rule within and beyond its boundaries. As part of the aspiration to coordinate and rationalize this patchwork, a South African customs union (SACU) was formed in 1889, the oldest of its kind extant, involving eventually what became Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland, Namibia and South Africa itself.<a title=\"\" href=\"http://thememorybank.co.uk/#_edn32\">[32]</a> This union was tightly controlled from Pretoria; but, as part of President Mbeki’s push to make relations with South Africa’s neighbours more equal, democratic and consensual, SACU headquarters were moved to Namibia in 2004 and members were granted more independence in their dealings with other countries. This arrangement is now in disarray since the smaller countries have signed separate agreements with the European Union which in effect allow them to act of ports of trade for European goods, subverting South Africa’s attempts to control their entry and draw revenues from their importation. Now relations within SACU are at a low, proof, if any were needed, that moves towards greater regional integration will have to acknowledge South Africa’s unequal weight.</p>\n<p>At the same time, the Southern African Development Community (SADC) has been expanded since the fall of apartheid to include Angola, Botswana, Democratic Republic of Congo, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Seychelles, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe. This makes SADC potentially the largest regional economy in Africa, one that is again naturally dominated by South Africa. But the reality within the region at present is a maze of national restrictions on the movement of people, goods and money, crosscut by bilateral deals of bewildering variety. Under the ANC, South Africa has increased, rather than reduced a sense of division between its own citizens and the many Africans who come there to live and work. Nevertheless, SADC remains the best chance for South Africa to coordinate economic policy with its neighbours. This would mean breaking with ‘capitalism in one country’ and its plethora of confusing and contradictory bilateral deals. In fact, under President Mbeki, nothing much happened at the level of SADC, since his attention was firmly focused on reforming regional cooperation at the continental level.<a title=\"\" href=\"http://thememorybank.co.uk/#_edn33\">[33]</a></p>\n<p>Thabo Mbeki’s idea of an ‘African renaissance’ expressed the reasonable belief that a black majority government in South Africa might be a leading catalyst for an African economic revival based on greater political coordination between what have been, since independence, isolated nation-states that constituted easy pickings for the world’s great powers. His diplomatic energy was unstinted and, as a result, the Organization of African Unity in Addis Ababa was reconstituted as the African Union (AU), with the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) as its economic arm based in Johannesburg and as its political arm the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM). A Pan African Parliament (PAP), composed of representatives nominated by member states, also sits in Johannesburg. The principal measures anticipated were a single currency for Africa as a whole, a continental central bank and trade harmonization.</p>\n<p>South Africa’s economic relations with the rest of Africa now are not so different from what they were under the apartheid regime, which was not as isolated as it seemed at the time.<a title=\"\" href=\"http://thememorybank.co.uk/#_edn34\">[34]</a> The main innovation has been an increased emphasis on a bilateral alliance with Africa’s other great power, Nigeria, mainly an exchange of oil supplies for manufactures and services. South African investment has diversified in the last two decades, especially in East Africa, where communications, hotels, retail, security and minerals have been the main sectors. Although names like MTN and Shop Rite are now familiar in East, West and Central Africa, most outward investment is still within the expanded SADC. Half of South Africa’s African investments are in Mozambique, with Mauritius next, mostly at the expense of Zimbabwe. Exchange controls on South African firms have been relaxed for African investments. The Johannesburg Stock Exchange is now linked to Nairobi. South African banks now finance oil exploration in the DRC, Nigeria, Angola and Gabon. Some firms have been active in the DRC, notably the huge energy project of the Inga Dam led by the power utility, Eskom.</p>\n<p>Finally, India, Brazil and South Africa have formed a South-South alliance (IBSA) aimed at increasing trade and investment between them and perhaps influencing world economic councils. This was followed by South Africa’s admission to the BRICS. Such initiatives are inconsistent with regional integration and African unity; and South Africa’s economic policies have been haphazard as a result. Above all, Thabo Mbeki’s leadership was aimed exclusively at the very political class that has failed Africa so often since independence and he did not factor the forces of civil society into his plans.</p>\n<p><i>Towards greater integration of African trade </i></p>\n<p>As Daniel Bell once said, “The national state has become too small for the big problems in life and too big for the small problems”.<a title=\"\" href=\"http://thememorybank.co.uk/#_edn35\">[35]</a> One answer is to rely more on <i>subsidiarity</i>. This is one of the features of federalism, whereby sovereignty is constitutionally divided between a central governing authority and constituent political units (like states or provinces). The principal of devolving power to the lowest effective authority is one condition for wider political association among previously sovereign entities. Federalism has been around for as long as the nation-state, if not longer; but the assumption of a national monopoly over political economy is deeply rooted in contemporary civilization. Most of the largest countries are federal in constitution, but this has not prevented them from behaving like nation-states of late.</p>\n<p>Africa currently suffers from a labyrinthine confusion of regional associations which do little to strengthen their members’ bargaining power in world markets. The situation on the ground is rather different, where African peoples have for centuries developed patterns of trans-border movement and exchange which persist despite their rulers’ attempts to force economy and society into national cages. This is one major reason why so much of the African economy is held to be ‘informal’: state regulations are routinely ignored, with the result that half the population and most economic activity are criminalized and an absurd proportion of governmental effort is wasted on trying to apply unenforceable rules. The answer to this chaos is classical liberalism, the drive to establish the widest area possible of free trade and movement with minimal regulation by the authorities. Unfortunately, the last three decades of neoliberal globalization have done much to discredit this recipe; but the boundaries of free commerce <i>and</i> of state intervention, for South Africa’s sake and that of its smaller African neighbours, should be pushed beyond the limits of existing sovereignties.</p>\n<p>The first step should not be to seek economic coordination at the most inclusive level of the African continent as a whole. A single currency and central bank are inappropriate to this stage of Africa’s development, given the disparities between member states. The global economic crisis has shown up vividly the limitations of such institutions for the Eurozone.<a title=\"\" href=\"http://thememorybank.co.uk/#_edn36\">[36]</a> The existing pattern of regional associations needs to be rationalized with the aim of simplifying administration and abolishing conflict between rules at different levels. In South Africa’s case, this should probably mean abandoning SACU in order to concentrate on building up SADC as a customs union with one set of rules for all members. At present visas are still required for travel between many SADC countries and a maze of bilateral deals and tariff barriers make a mockery of the idea of an ‘economic community’. A new model of integration within the Southern African region (eventually extending to East Africa) would have to break with the historical constraints imposed by existing bodies. Selective tariffs need urgently to be reduced within SADC, but this would not prevent protectionist measures being introduced at the regional level, where necessary. A consistent policy of trade liberalisation would free up the movement of people, goods and capital within the region and allow existing informal practices to conform more closely to economic rules. Only then does it make sense to reach out to other African regions such as the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). The political elites can’t be kept out of all this, but the driving force for regional integration on this scale would have to be a broad-based social movement. My emphasis here differs from Thabo Mbeki’s.</p>\n<p>‘Africa’ is still a significant category in world affairs and these piece-meal steps towards regional integration would benefit from a revival of the Panafrican impulse that President Mbeki tried to kindle. The AU and especially its economic arm, NEPAD, might try to persuade the rest of the world that Africa’s poverty is a drag on the growth of the global economy. If the continent’s infant agricultural, manufacturing and service industries are to have a chance to develop, there must be agreement at the level of multilateral institutions such as the WTO that Africa deserves special protection, at least for a period. Such arguments are unlikely to be persuasive coming from an Africa as irrationally divided as at present. The continental and regional strategies need to be pursued side by side. This lecture has pointed towards an African Customs Union as one possible vehicle for a more integrated trade policy. I have only hinted by analogy about how that might develop; but for Africa’s and the world’s sake, I hope that something along these lines starts soon.</p>\n<p>Keynote address for a World Customs Organization/World Bank conference on ‘Informality, international trade and customs’, Brussels, 3-4 June 2013</p>\n<p> </p>\n<div><br>\n<hr align=\"left\" size=\"1\" width=\"33%\">\n<div>\n<p><a title=\"\" href=\"http://thememorybank.co.uk/#_ednref1\">[1]</a> ‘How the informal economy took over the world’, keynote lecture for the 24th Conference of the Societa’ Italiana di Economia Pubblica: “Informal economy, tax evasion and corruption”, Pavia, 24-25 September 2012: <a href=\"http://thememorybank.co.uk/2012/10/17/the-informalization-of-the-world-economy/\">http://thememorybank.co.uk/2012/10/17/the-informalization-of-the-world-economy/</a>.</p>\n</div>\n<div>\n<p><a title=\"\" href=\"http://thememorybank.co.uk/#_ednref2\">[2]</a> Nicholas Shaxson <em>Treasure Islands: Tax havens and the men who stole the world, </em>London: Bodley Head (2011).</p>\n</div>\n<div>\n<p><a title=\"\" href=\"http://thememorybank.co.uk/#_ednref3\">[3]</a> Adrian Johns <em>Piracy: The intellectual property wars from Gutenberg to Gates</em>, Chicago: University of Chicago Press (2009).</p>\n</div>\n<div>\n<p><a title=\"\" href=\"http://thememorybank.co.uk/#_ednref4\">[4]</a> ‘Informal income opportunities and urban employment in Ghana’, <em>Journal of Modern African Studies </em>11.3: 61-89 (1973).</p>\n</div>\n<div>\n<p><a title=\"\" href=\"http://thememorybank.co.uk/#_ednref5\">[5]</a> For example, Michael Lewis <em>Liar’s Poker</em>, New York: Norton (1989); Frank Partnoy <em>F.I.A.S.C.O.: The inside story of a Wall Street trader</em>, New York: Penguin (1999).</p>\n</div>\n<div>\n<p><a title=\"\" href=\"http://thememorybank.co.uk/#_ednref6\">[6]</a> Keith Hart Why the euro crisis matters to us all, <i>Scapegoat: Architecture, Landscape, Political Economy</i> 04 (2013) <a href=\"http://www.scapegoatjournal.org/docs/04/04_Hart_WhyTheEuroCrisisMatters.pdf\">http://www.scapegoatjournal.org/docs/04/04_Hart_WhyTheEuroCrisisMatters.pdf</a>.</p>\n</div>\n<div>\n<p><a title=\"\" href=\"http://thememorybank.co.uk/#_ednref7\">[7]</a> This is a loose translation of his use of the principles of “moral hazard” and “optimal income taxation”.</p>\n</div>\n<div>\n<p><a title=\"\" href=\"http://thememorybank.co.uk/#_ednref8\">[8]</a> John Perkins <em>Confessions of an Economic Hit Man</em>, New York: Plume (2004).</p>\n</div>\n<div>\n<p><a title=\"\" href=\"http://thememorybank.co.uk/#_ednref9\">[9]</a> This is a murky story involving International Labour Office <em>Incomes, Employment and Equality in Kenya</em>, Geneva: ILO (1972). See Keith Hart Bureaucratic form and the informal economy, in B. Guha-Khasnobis, R. Kanbur and E. Ostrom (eds) <em>Linking the Formal and Informal Economies</em>, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 21-35 (2006); The informal economy, in Hart, Laville and Cattani (eds) <i>The Human Economy: A citizen’s guide</i>, Cambridge: Polity, 142-153 (2010).</p>\n</div>\n<div>\n<p><a title=\"\" href=\"http://thememorybank.co.uk/#_ednref10\">[10]</a> <i>The Political Economy of West African Agriculture </i>(Cambridge, 1982).</p>\n</div>\n<div>\n<p><a title=\"\" href=\"http://thememorybank.co.uk/#_ednref11\">[11]</a> <i>The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L’Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution</i> (London, 1938).</p>\n</div>\n<div>\n<p><a title=\"\" href=\"http://thememorybank.co.uk/#_ednref12\">[12]</a> Joseph Stiglitz Globalization isn’t just about profits. It’s about taxes too, <i>The Guardian</i>, 27th May (2013) <a href=\"http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/may/27/globalisation-is-about-taxes-too\">http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/may/27/globalisation-is-about-taxes-too</a>.</p>\n</div>\n<div>\n<p><a title=\"\" href=\"http://thememorybank.co.uk/#_ednref13\">[13]</a> <i>The Other Path: The economic answer to terrorism</i>, New York: Basic Books (1989); <i>The Mystery of Capital: Why capitalism triumphs in the West and fails everywhere else</i>, London: Bantam (2000).</p>\n</div>\n<div>\n<p><a title=\"\" href=\"http://thememorybank.co.uk/#_ednref14\">[14]</a> <i>The Evolution of the International Economic Order</i> (Princeton, 1978).</p>\n</div>\n<div>\n<p><a title=\"\" href=\"http://thememorybank.co.uk/#_ednref15\">[15]</a> According to <i>The Economist</i> (6<sup>th</sup> January 2011), Africa had six of the top ten fastest-growing economies in 2001-2010 and is expected to have seven in 2011-2015. The latter consist of Ethiopia, Mozambique, Tanzania, Congo, Ghana, Zambia and Nigeria in that order; the other three are China, India and Vietnam.</p>\n</div>\n<div>\n<p><a title=\"\" href=\"http://thememorybank.co.uk/#_ednref16\">[16]</a> Achille Mbembe <i>On the Postcolony</i> (London 2001); Jean-François Bayart <i>The State in Africa: Politics of the Belly</i> (Cambridge, 2009); Moeletse Mbeki <i>Architects of Poverty: Why African capitalism needs changing</i> (Johannesburg, 2009).</p>\n</div>\n<div>\n<p><a title=\"\" href=\"http://thememorybank.co.uk/#_ednref17\">[17]</a> Keith Hart Africa’s urban revolution and the informal economy, in V. Padayachee (ed) <em>The Political Economy of Africa</em>, Routledge: London, 371-388. See also Note 10.</p>\n</div>\n<div>\n<p><a title=\"\" href=\"http://thememorybank.co.uk/#_ednref18\">[18]</a> The first volume of a score of books was <i>Production and Reproduction: A comparative study of the domestic domain</i> (Cambridge, 1976). See the first Goody lecture of the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle: Jack Goody’s vision of world history and Africa’s development today, 1st June 2011 <a href=\"http://thememorybank.co.uk/2012/01/10/jack-goodys-vision-of-history-and-african-development-today/\">http://thememorybank.co.uk/2012/01/10/jack-goodys-vision-of-history-and-african-development-today/</a>.</p>\n</div>\n<div>\n<p><a title=\"\" href=\"http://thememorybank.co.uk/#_ednref19\">[19]</a> Childe’s ‘urban revolution’: V. Gordon Childe <i>What Happened in History</i> (London, 1954).</p>\n</div>\n<div>\n<p><a title=\"\" href=\"http://thememorybank.co.uk/#_ednref20\">[20]</a> See Note 11.</p>\n</div>\n<div>\n<p><a title=\"\" href=\"http://thememorybank.co.uk/#_ednref21\">[21]</a> This focus was advocated by Sir James Steuart <i>Principles of Political Economy</i>, Edinburgh: Cadell (1767); but he was soon upstaged by Adam Smith’s free trade arguments.</p>\n</div>\n<div>\n<p><a title=\"\" href=\"http://thememorybank.co.uk/#_ednref22\">[22]</a> See a prescient study of the Ben Ali regime’s techniques of domination, Beatrice Hibou <i>The Force of Obedience: The political economy of repression in Tunisia</i>, Cambridge: Polity (2011).</p>\n</div>\n<div>\n<p><a title=\"\" href=\"http://thememorybank.co.uk/#_ednref23\">[23]</a> United Nations Development Program <i>Human Development Report </i>(1998).</p>\n</div>\n<div>\n<p><a title=\"\" href=\"http://thememorybank.co.uk/#_ednref24\">[24]</a> Neil Smith <i>Uneven Development: Nature, capital and the production of space</i> (Athens GA, 1984).</p>\n</div>\n<div>\n<p><a title=\"\" href=\"http://thememorybank.co.uk/#_ednref25\">[25]</a> A fuller treatment of these and related issues may be found in ‘Two lectures on African development’ (2007) <a href=\"http://thememorybank.co.uk/2007/05/16/two-lectures-on-african-development/\">http://thememorybank.co.uk/2007/05/16/two-lectures-on-african-development/</a>.</p>\n</div>\n<div>\n<p><a title=\"\" href=\"http://thememorybank.co.uk/#_ednref26\">[26]</a> The classical source is Alexis de Tocqueville (F. Furet and F. Mélonio eds) <i>The Old Regime and the Revolution</i> (Chicago, [1856] 1998).</p>\n</div>\n<div>\n<p><a title=\"\" href=\"http://thememorybank.co.uk/#_ednref27\">[27]</a> Dean Baker <i>The End of Loser Liberalism: Making markets progressive</i> (Washington DC, 2011).</p>\n</div>\n<div>\n<p><a title=\"\" href=\"http://thememorybank.co.uk/#_ednref28\">[28]</a> Frantz Fanon <i>The Wretched of the Earth</i> (New York, [1961] 1970], chapter 2 ‘Grandeur and weakness of spontaneity’.</p>\n</div>\n<div>\n<p><a title=\"\" href=\"http://thememorybank.co.uk/#_ednref29\">[29]</a> This section to be annotated more fully at a later stage.</p>\n</div>\n<div>\n<p><a title=\"\" href=\"http://thememorybank.co.uk/#_ednref30\">[30]</a> Victor Hugo’s last novel, <i>Ninety-three</i> (1974), reconstructs these events.</p>\n</div>\n<div>\n<p><a title=\"\" href=\"http://thememorybank.co.uk/#_ednref31\">[31]</a> Friedrich List <i>National System of Political Economy: Volume 1 History </i>(New York, [1841], 2005).</p>\n</div>\n<div>\n<p><a title=\"\" href=\"http://thememorybank.co.uk/#_ednref32\">[32]</a> Keith Hart and Vishnu Padayachee South Africa in Africa: from national capitalism to regional integration, in V. Padayachee (ed) <i>The Political Economy of Africa</i> (London, 2010), Chapter 22. I am grateful to Professor Padayachee for permission to draw on this chapter substantially in the last two sections of this lecture.</p>\n</div>\n<div>\n<p><a title=\"\" href=\"http://thememorybank.co.uk/#_ednref33\">[33]</a> Christopher Clapham, G. Mills, A. Morner and E. Sidiropoulos <i>Regional Integration in Southern Africa</i> (Johannesburg,2001).</p>\n</div>\n<div>\n<p><a title=\"\" href=\"http://thememorybank.co.uk/#_ednref34\">[34]</a> John Daniel, V. Naidoo and S. Naidu The South Africans have arrived: post-apartheid corporate expansion into Africa, in J. Daniel, A. Habib and R. Southall (eds) <i>The State of the Nation, 2003-2004</i> (Cape Town, 2003).</p>\n</div>\n<div>\n<p><a title=\"\" href=\"http://thememorybank.co.uk/#_ednref35\">[35]</a> <i>The Winding Passage: Sociological essays and journeys</i> (New Brunswick, 1992:225).</p>\n</div>\n<div>\n<p><a title=\"\" href=\"http://thememorybank.co.uk/#_ednref36\">[36]</a> Why the euro crisis matters to us all <a href=\"http://www.scapegoatjournal.org/docs/04/04_Hart_WhyTheEuroCrisisMatters.pdf\">http://www.scapegoatjournal.org/docs/04/04_Hart_WhyTheEuroCrisisMatters.pdf</a></p>\n</div>\n</div>\n<div style=\"text-align:left\"><p> <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"http://twitter.com/home/?status=The+case+for+an+African+customs+union+http%3A%2F%2Fis.gd%2FcGJIkw\" title=\"Post to Twitter\"><img src=\"http://thememorybank.co.uk/wp-content/plugins/tweet-this/icons/en/twitter/tt-twitter.png\" alt=\"Post to Twitter\"></a> <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"http://twitter.com/home/?status=The+case+for+an+African+customs+union+http%3A%2F%2Fis.gd%2FcGJIkw\" title=\"Post to Twitter\">Tweet This Post</a></p></div>" }, "author" : "Keith Hart", "comments" : [ ], "annotations" : [ ], "origin" : { "streamId" : "feed/http://www.thememorybank.co.uk/feed/", "title" : "The Memory Bank", "htmlUrl" : "http://thememorybank.co.uk" } }, { "crawlTimeMsec" : "1371016291875", "timestampUsec" : "1371016291875501", "id" : "tag:google.com,2005:reader/item/e3e18776dfb980cd", "categories" : [ "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/read", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/starred", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/fresh" ], "title" : "Update on Pooh, Tigger, and the 2 Presidents: Art Recreates Life, not Vice Versa", "published" : 1371009117, "updated" : 1371009117, "canonical" : [ { "href" : "http://Theatlantic.feedsportal.com/c/34375/f/625833/s/2d29f3e0/l/0L0Stheatlantic0N0Cchina0Carchive0C20A130C0A60Cupdate0Eon0Epooh0Etigger0Eand0Ethe0E20Epresidents0Eart0Erecreates0Elife0Enot0Evice0Eversa0C2767820C/story01.htm" } ], "alternate" : [ { "href" : "http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/JamesFallows/~3/R4i6eLTS4uA/story01.htm", "type" : "text/html" } ], "content" : { "direction" : "ltr", "content" : "Last night <a href=\"http://www.theatlantic.com/china/archive/2013/06/life-recreates-art-sunnylands-division/276738/\">I posted</a> the wonderful Weibo-viral-hit matchup of Xi Jinping walking with Barack Obama, and Winnie the Pooh walking with Tigger. In case you've forgotten:<div><br></div><div><a href=\"http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/mt/assets/jamesfallows/assets_c/2013/06/WeiboObamaXi.jpg-jpg-thumb-620x859-124110.jpg\"><img alt=\"Thumbnail image for WeiboObamaXi.jpg-jpg\" src=\"http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/mt/assets/jamesfallows/assets_c/2013/06/WeiboObamaXi.jpg-jpg-thumb-620x859-124110-thumb-500x692-124111.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"692\"></a></div><div><br></div><div>Many readers have written in to underscore a point that was clear pretty early on. This is almost certainly a case of <i>art recreating life</i>, rather than vice versa. The Pooh/Tigger pose is <i>too</i> perfect a match for the shot of the two presidents. Shadows, gait, proportions, background, placement, expressions. Also, through the magic of Google Image Search, there don't seem to be any examples of the Pooh/Tigger scene before the Sunnylands meeting. <a href=\"https://www.google.com/search?tbs=sbi:AMhZZitr5_1CD_1iyxW-h9g0fCxFIrsrEjpmBM1d7VXcRRM3yuzYEB-TCQtiGvWQgaExFXYnQ7-OsIl8CiVCVHtICbVyEipmZZMm_1ZE4WVydAyxdJGXhlvFQXKyEaqmL3CjsjeyAScsUDtcHZmZ7fU-GWp18fl4tfGmaQZDVrWF0AnYr4vebHL0LSVQW6CPzzoBfbxFXNyGLs07VAzhNyWHEdyikjxF0zNkoNwDVAtpEbVtD0DMGOFNfj4VYCRBgQIOsVYoX0rexnKc8wCkj0D9oTq1ye9r0-S3sKIV4-47smhaDIERWWLglgP0G_18yYsZCqTZkRXSIRN-14N6anE_1rca3eDeAT8VvQYvk6yueI7CiFVwKHBXOxWEdezMlljC98F6f0rMN_1tR1NmORb-QjXK-EEZVo92AyQILgmGSDDaig5XnKZefx9GCcu_15xS7WyZ_1KUf-DM2i5bZ7RFESN1JauOPYO6JM85njg1X1dHpcaYGL9wSm8WhWg-07jzKkK0j0BqHn7s0-MvzTVd3ULpy_1slTX8ZarPxJjR3_1KXOGJzKxc5bbKYm5CZla_1bSJi3MTmOItAIgnsRnuoPW1YF2zjq7y17yQ0fcDfGvaL5qFZly6DR9iEVFE8JolbKFpbn2y61K3yyz9JohZJgNkHgdmFfoMIfwg6t2a3Q4P7Ndv5rsEcoDmBCQkqI09vV57KG0oSJW2T1K1pvgNVfME7Jt95W_1tthrroVoFJkfYSvdlzq-TqVgaLPQ4IUayi9WecHDLkt5I5Ofwf0Ve2VkfxDYv1t1WbKAhsJJHRl6cpz7-Vm463pRxMqNGxe2it4gvJ-DQNUFn9G8RwBn2XmplLhSyoN6vV1XsSL6l63z2-voWBy3XMg00Ohfcc0De-RAc6c2NcSJg8EDQeQpTtAd21Q5fK5noRjPpKkKxT-a57oRtrf4sg4h1Q0PxlY0FbYcoPWU4nGvYOXtbVst-G8tOpSveioIKlGP-4zZoTcBd3pT-HLfH8Yy0zkPGWsMqR7VSFNDcHm785E17vw14R0A0apPIY9Nuy2CsI-8p_1_1K93U_1ktloefvsVqWDWEDREt_1s3p8Pds3UUsj12DO1YNgkR4WLRcrG-i1J8SUkdUFxlJmg2ryznj5fHPZrRqhSvTvGazxx2L_1BO19zcknglMO7KxdOYg0uVQr57L9IvGDtb016Py92Nb0lIf9AiznqeLKwuJ7baw7U6LCWJxv1pe3Eb3z7TXiGw4-afI2vvE9kFTzhNQUvCcxfnIePie8Wz65S-OCRAkHYEpxwpW0UQze4XuouTNyXqFIjXOH4GVJzIzcfAuyyHZ0h4Tnvrug&safe=off&hl=en&biw=2224&bih=1127&site=imghp&sa=X&ei=EuG3Ua6RIIrk0QHAwIGwCQ&ved=0CFAQ9Q8oAA\">Try it</a> yourself.</div><div><br></div><div>This doesn't bother me at all. After all, any depiction of Pooh and Tigger is imaginary. So I credit whatever (yet) unidentified artist came up with the idea, and executed it. But for the record, the artistry seems to have been with whoever put together the Pooh/Tigger image, rather than a person who noticed a similarity. </div><img width=\"1\" height=\"1\" src=\"http://Theatlantic.feedsportal.com/c/34375/f/625833/s/2d29f3e0/mf.gif\" border=\"0\"><div><table border=\"0\"><tr><td valign=\"middle\"><a href=\"http://share.feedsportal.com/share/twitter/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.theatlantic.com%2Fchina%2Farchive%2F2013%2F06%2Fupdate-on-pooh-tigger-and-the-2-presidents-art-recreates-life-not-vice-versa%2F276782%2F&t=Update+on+Pooh%2C+Tigger%2C+and+the+2+Presidents%3A+Art+Recreates+Life%2C+not+Vice+Versa\"><img src=\"http://res3.feedsportal.com/social/twitter.png\" border=\"0\"></a> <a href=\"http://share.feedsportal.com/share/facebook/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.theatlantic.com%2Fchina%2Farchive%2F2013%2F06%2Fupdate-on-pooh-tigger-and-the-2-presidents-art-recreates-life-not-vice-versa%2F276782%2F&t=Update+on+Pooh%2C+Tigger%2C+and+the+2+Presidents%3A+Art+Recreates+Life%2C+not+Vice+Versa\"><img src=\"http://res3.feedsportal.com/social/facebook.png\" border=\"0\"></a> <a href=\"http://share.feedsportal.com/share/linkedin/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.theatlantic.com%2Fchina%2Farchive%2F2013%2F06%2Fupdate-on-pooh-tigger-and-the-2-presidents-art-recreates-life-not-vice-versa%2F276782%2F&t=Update+on+Pooh%2C+Tigger%2C+and+the+2+Presidents%3A+Art+Recreates+Life%2C+not+Vice+Versa\"><img src=\"http://res3.feedsportal.com/social/linkedin.png\" border=\"0\"></a> <a href=\"http://share.feedsportal.com/share/gplus/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.theatlantic.com%2Fchina%2Farchive%2F2013%2F06%2Fupdate-on-pooh-tigger-and-the-2-presidents-art-recreates-life-not-vice-versa%2F276782%2F&t=Update+on+Pooh%2C+Tigger%2C+and+the+2+Presidents%3A+Art+Recreates+Life%2C+not+Vice+Versa\"><img src=\"http://res3.feedsportal.com/social/googleplus.png\" border=\"0\"></a> <a href=\"http://share.feedsportal.com/share/email/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.theatlantic.com%2Fchina%2Farchive%2F2013%2F06%2Fupdate-on-pooh-tigger-and-the-2-presidents-art-recreates-life-not-vice-versa%2F276782%2F&t=Update+on+Pooh%2C+Tigger%2C+and+the+2+Presidents%3A+Art+Recreates+Life%2C+not+Vice+Versa\"><img src=\"http://res3.feedsportal.com/social/email.png\" border=\"0\"></a></td><td valign=\"middle\"></td></tr></table></div><br><br><a href=\"http://da.feedsportal.com/r/165665080047/u/49/f/625833/c/34375/s/2d29f3e0/a2.htm\"><img src=\"http://da.feedsportal.com/r/165665080047/u/49/f/625833/c/34375/s/2d29f3e0/a2.img\" border=\"0\"></a><img width=\"1\" height=\"1\" src=\"http://pi.feedsportal.com/r/165665080047/u/49/f/625833/c/34375/s/2d29f3e0/a2t.img\" border=\"0\"><div>\n<a href=\"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/JamesFallows?a=R4i6eLTS4uA:Ev74HlWc59g:yIl2AUoC8zA\"><img src=\"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/JamesFallows?d=yIl2AUoC8zA\" border=\"0\"></a>\n</div><img src=\"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/JamesFallows/~4/R4i6eLTS4uA\" height=\"1\" width=\"1\">" }, "author" : "James Fallows", "comments" : [ ], "annotations" : [ ], "origin" : { "streamId" : "feed/http://feeds.feedburner.com/JamesFallows", "title" : "James Fallows : The Atlantic", "htmlUrl" : "http://www.theatlantic.com/james-fallows/" } }, { "crawlTimeMsec" : "1371016206201", "timestampUsec" : "1371016206201027", "id" : "tag:google.com,2005:reader/item/7d904e480f51fc70", "categories" : [ "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/read", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/starred", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/fresh" ], "title" : "From The Big Ear To The Universal Ear", "published" : 1371008280, "updated" : 1371018667, "canonical" : [ { "href" : "http://econospeak.blogspot.com/2013/06/from-big-ear-to-universal-ear.html" } ], "alternate" : [ { "href" : "http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/espeak/~3/StWq_wN2jr8/from-big-ear-to-universal-ear.html", "type" : "text/html" } ], "replies" : [ { "href" : "http://econospeak.blogspot.com/feeds/266792152426401305/comments/default", "title" : "Post Comments", "type" : "application/atom+xml" }, { "href" : "http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4900303239154048192&postID=266792152426401305&isPopup=true", "title" : "0 Comments", "type" : "text/html" } ], "content" : { "direction" : "ltr", "content" : "In 1958 a radio silence zone was created in eastern West Virginia around the Green Bank radio telescope. During the next few years it was thought there might be a way of monitoring of Soviet military/intel communications by catching them bouncing off the moon. A project was initiated to do just that, the "Big Ear," with a site selected at Sugar Grove, West VA, about 30 miles from Green Bank and within its radio silence zone, which would make it easier to pick up the signals. For a variety of reasons this project was discontinued in 1962, but the materials and equipment were in place at Sugar Grove, just over the Shenandoah Mountain range from the central Shenandoah Valley, and became attractive to other customers for other communications purposes.<br>\n<br>\nSo it was that the Sugar Grove Naval Station opened in 1969, although with minimal publicity, under the oversight of the Naval Informations Operations Command (NAVIOCOM). To the few who became aware of this station in the area it was let out that it was involved in long wave communications with submarines, which apparently was a function that it did. Over time, a variety of obvious pieces of equipment appeared there that could carry out such activities, eventually three large dishes (each much smaller than the originally planned Big Ear), as well as some large circular arrays, all of this readily visible from nearby mountaintops, particularly Reddish Knob on the Shenandoah range, a high point where a James Madison University, Norlyn Bodkin, would find a previously unknown species of plant left over from the ice age, along with a parking lot, where students and many locals would regularly repair for picnics and wild parties, with all those very visible communications devices down below providing fodder for all kinds of amusing speculations.<br>\n<br>\nAnd then in 1982 James Bamford published a book about an agency whose existence had previously been officially classified, although its existence had surfaced briefly during the 1975 Church committee on abuses by US intelligence agencies. One upshot of those hearings related to this agency whose existence was still classified was a 1978 act establishing a secret court to determine when this agency (and any others) could listen to telephone calls by US citizens. The agency was the National Security Agency (NSA), whose initials had long been claimed jokingly to stand for "Never Say Anything," <br>\n<br>\nAmong the more important secrets revealed about the NSA in Bamford's book was about the Sugar Grove Naval Station. Not only did it communicate with submarines, it also was the top listening post for the NSA on the US East Coast, able to listen to all long distance telephone calls, the technology of that time being that such calls were transmitted by shortwaves, with local calls sticking to cables. While all such calls could be listened to, at that time only ones using key words and with foreigners were supposedly listened to, but the potential was clear for what could be done, particularly in connection with the NSA being the regular first customer for whatever was the latest Cray supercomputer to roll out of the barns in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, which could be programmed to direct such mass targeting of long distance telephone calls.<br>\n<br>\nWell, time and technology have moved on. The importance of Sugar Grove began to decline in the 1990s as long distance calls increasingly were transmitted via fiber optic cables rather than shortwave transmissions, hence not readily picked up by the ears at Sugar Grove (not to mention that some attention got focused on the even more secret spy satellite operater NRO, whose existence had continued to be classified until then: how widely are they watching people?), although reportedly there was quite a bit of construction there during 2000-04. I do not know how NSA sweeps up those calls now, but obviously they have the tech, and the computer tech has only massively increased. <br>\n<br>\nLast year in Wired magazine, Bamford reported that NSA was building a massive new data center in Utah, able to "intercept, decipher, analyze, and store vast swaths of the world's communications as they zap down from satellites and zip through the underground and undersea cables of international, foreign, and domestic networks," as quoted in an article by the superknowledgeable Walter Pincus in today's Washington Post. Not many paid much attention, any more than many had paid attention in 2006 when USA Today, of all sources, according to Pincus, had reported that NSA "has been secretly collecting the phone records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon, and BellSouth." However, this did trigger some reaction with President Bush defending the program in terms reminiscent of those now defending PRISM, with NSA's ability to do this expanded with the 2008 FISA.<br>\n<br>\nAs for Sugar Grove, ironically the announcement of the end came just before Edward Snowden publicly revealed PRISM and related activities by the NSA, amounting to a Universal Ear picking up all telephone calls, not to mention a whole lot emails and other communications. On April 23 of this year, NAVIOCOM sent an order moving the naval command at Sugar Grove to NSA headquarters at Fort Meade, Maryland. I have no idea what, if anything, will still happen at Sugar Grove, but I suspect that those dishes and circular arrays will still be around for some time for the picnickers and partiers from around where I live in the central Shenandoah Valley to look at and speculate about while they do their things on top of Reddish Knob.<br>\n<br>\nBarkley Rosser<br>\n<br>" }, "author" : "rosserjb@jmu.edu", "comments" : [ ], "annotations" : [ ], "origin" : { "streamId" : "feed/http://econospeak.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default", "title" : "EconoSpeak", "htmlUrl" : "http://econospeak.blogspot.com/" } }, { "crawlTimeMsec" : "1370974323902", "timestampUsec" : "1370974323902841", "id" : "tag:google.com,2005:reader/item/6d8fba624741bb5b", "categories" : [ "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/read", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/starred", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/fresh" ], "title" : "The network is reliable", "published" : 1370219696, "updated" : 1370735049, "alternate" : [ { "href" : "http://aphyr.com/posts/288-the-network-is-reliable", "type" : "text/html" } ], "content" : { "direction" : "ltr", "content" : "\n\n<p><em>I’ve been discussing <a href=\"http://aphyr.com/tags/jepsen\">Jepsen</a> and partition tolerance\nwith <a href=\"https://twitter.com/pbailis/\">Peter Bailis</a> over the past few\nweeks, and I’m honored to present this post as a collaboration between the two\nof us. We’d also like to extend our sincere appreciation to everyone who\ncontributed their research and experience to this piece.</em></p>\n\n<p>Network partitions are a contentious subject. Some claim that modern\nnetworks are reliable and that we are too concerned with designing for\n<em>theoretical</em> failure modes. They often accept that single-node failures are\ncommon but argue that we can <a href=\"http://blog.voltdb.com/clarifications-cap-theorem-and-data-related-errors/\">reliably\ndetect and handle them</a>. Conversely, others <a href=\"http://www.rgoarchitects.com/files/fallacies.pdf\">subscribe</a> to Peter\nDeutsch’s <a href=\"https://blogs.oracle.com/jag/resource/Fallacies.html\">Fallacies of\nDistributed Computing</a> and disagree. They attest that partitions do occur\nin their systems, and that, as James Hamilton of Amazon Web Services <a href=\"http://perspectives.mvdirona.com/2010/04/07/StonebrakerOnCAPTheoremAndDatabases.aspx\">neatly\nsummarizes</a>,\n“network partitions should be rare but net gear continues to cause more issues\nthan it should.” The answer to this debate <a href=\"http://henryr.github.io/cap-faq/\">radically affects</a> the design of\ndistributed databases, queues, and applications. So who’s right?</p>\n\n<p>A key challenge in this dispute is the lack of evidence. We have few normalized\nbases for comparing network and application reliability–and even less data.\nWe can track link availability and estimate packet loss, but understanding the\nend-to-end effect on <em>applications</em> is more difficult. The scant evidence we\nhave is difficult to generalize: it is often deployment-specific and closely\ntied to particular vendors, topologies, and application designs. Worse, even\nwhen an organization has clear picture of their network’s behavior, they rarely\nshare specifics. Finally, distributed systems are designed to resist failure,\nwhich means <em>noticeable</em> outages often depend on complex interactions of\nfailure modes. Many applications silently degrade when the network fails, and\nresulting problems may not be understood for some time–if they are understood\nat all.</p>\n\n<p>As a result, much of what we know about the failure modes of real-world\ndistributed systems is founded on guesswork and rumor. Sysadmins and developers\nwill swap stories over beers, but detailed, public postmortems and\ncomprehensive surveys of network availability are few and far between. In this\npost, we’d like to bring a few of these stories together. We believe this is a\nfirst step towards a more open and honest discussion of real-world partition\nbehavior, and, ultimately, more robust distributed systems design.</p>\n\n<h2>Rumblings from large deployments</h2>\n\n<p>To start off, let’s consider evidence from big players in distributed systems:\ncompanies running globally distributed infrastructure with hundreds of\nthousands of nodes. Of all of the data we have collected, these reports best\nsummarize operation in the large, distilling the experience of operating what\nare likely the biggest distributed systems ever deployed. Their publications\n(unlike many of the case studies we will examine later) often capture aggregate\nsystem behavior and large-scale statistical trends, and indicate (often\nobliquely) that partitions are a significant concern in their deployments.</p>\n\n<h3>The Microsoft Datacenter Study</h3>\n\n<p>A team from the University of Toronto and Microsoft Research <a href=\"http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/navendu/papers/sigcomm11netwiser.pdf\">studied\nthe behavior</a> of network failures in several of Microsoft’s datacenters. They\nfound an average failure rate of 5.2 devices per day and 40.8 links per day\nwith a median time to repair of approximately five minutes (and up to one\nweek). While the researchers note that correlating link failures and\ncommunication partitions is challenging, they estimate a median packet loss of\n59,000 packets per failure. Perhaps more concerning is their finding that\nnetwork redundancy improves median traffic by only 43%; that is, network\nredundancy does not eliminate many common causes of network failure.</p>\n\n<h3>HP Enterprise Managed Networks</h3>\n\n<p>A joint study between researchers at University of California, San Diego and HP\nLabs <a href=\"http://www.hpl.hp.com/techreports/2012/HPL-2012-101.pdf\">examined</a> the\ncauses and severity of network failures in HP’s managed networks by analyzing\nsupport ticket data. “Connectivity”-related tickets accounted for 11.4% of\nsupport tickets (14% of which were of the highest priority level), with a\nmedian incident duration of 2 hours and 45 minutes for the highest priority\ntickets and and a median duration of 4 hours 18 minutes for all priorities.</p>\n\n<h3>Google Chubby</h3>\n\n<p>Google’s <a href=\"http://research.google.com/archive/chubby-osdi06.pdf\">paper</a>\ndescribing the design and operation of Chubby, their distributed lock manager,\noutlines the root causes of 61 outages over 700 days of operation across\nseveral clusters. Of the nine outages that lasted greater than 30 seconds, four\nwere caused by network maintenance and two were caused by “suspected network\nconnectivity problems.”</p>\n\n<h3>Google’s Design Lessons from Distributed Systems</h3>\n\n<p>In <a href=\"http://www.cs.cornell.edu/projects/ladis2009/talks/dean-keynote-ladis2009.pdf\">Design\nLessons and Advice from Building Large Scale Distributed Systems</a>, Jeff Dean\nsuggests that a typical first year for a new Google cluster involves:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>5 racks going wonky (40-80 machines seeing 50% packet loss)</li>\n<li>8 network maintenances (4 might cause ~30-minute random connectivity losses)</li>\n<li>3 router failures (have to immediately pull traffic for an hour)</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>While Google doesn’t tell us much about the application-level consequences of\ntheir network partitions, “Lessons From Distributed Systems” suggests they\nare a significant concern, citing the challenge of “[e]asy-to-use abstractions\nfor resolving conflicting updates to multiple versions of a piece of state” as\nuseful in “reconciling replicated state in different data centers after\nrepairing a network partition.”</p>\n\n<h3>Amazon Dynamo</h3>\n\n<p>Amazon’s <a href=\"http://www.allthingsdistributed.com/files/amazon-dynamo-sosp2007.pdf\">Dynamo\npaper</a> frequently cites the incidence of partitions as a driving design\nconsideration. Specifically, the authors note that they rejected designs from\n“traditional replicated relational database systems” because they “are not\ncapable of handling network partitions.”</p>\n\n<h3>Yahoo! PNUTS/Sherpa</h3>\n\n<p><a href=\"http://www.mpi-sws.org/~druschel/courses/ds/papers/cooper-pnuts.pdf\">Yahoo!\nPNUTS/Sherpa</a> was designed as a distributed database operating out of\nmultiple, geographically distinct sites. Originally, PNUTS supported a strongly\nconsistent “timeline consistency” operation, with one master per data item.\nHowever, the developers <a href=\"http://developer.yahoo.com/blogs/ydn/sherpa-7992.html#4\">noted that</a>,\nin the event of “network partitioning or server failures,” this design decision\nwas too restrictive for many applications:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n<p>The first deployment of Sherpa supported the timeline-consistency model —\nnamely, all replicas of a record apply all updates in the same order — and\nhas API-level features to enable applications to cope with asynchronous\nreplication. Strict adherence leads to difficult situations under network\npartitioning or server failures. These can be partially addressed with\noverride procedures and local data replication, but in many circumstances,\napplications need a relaxed approach.“</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<h2>Application-level failures</h2>\n\n<p>Not all partitions originate in the physical network. Sometimes dropped or\ndelayed messages are a consequence of crashes, race conditions, OS scheduler\nlatency, or overloaded processes. The following studies highlight the fact that\npartitions–wherein the system delays or drops messages–can occur at any layer\nof the software stack.</p>\n\n<h3>CPU use and service contention</h3>\n\n<p>Bonsai.io <a href=\"http://www.bonsai.io/blog/2013/03/05/outage-post-mortem\">discovered</a>\nhigh CPU and memory use on an ElasticSearch node combined with difficulty\nconnecting to various cluster components, likely a consequence of an\n"excessively high number of expensive requests being allowed through to the\ncluster.”</p>\n\n<p>They restarted the cluster, but on restarting the cluster partitioned itself\ninto two independent components. A subsequent cluster restart resolved the\npartition, but customers complained they were unable to delete or create\nindices. The logs revealed that servers were repeatedly trying to recover\nunassigned indices, which “poisoned the cluster’s attempt to service normal\ntraffic which changes the cluster state.” The failure led to 20 minutes of\nunavailability and six hours of degraded service.</p>\n\n<p>Bonsai concludes by noting that large-scale ElasticSearch clusters should use\ndedicated nodes which handle routing and leader election without serving normal\nrequests for data, to prevent partitions under heavy load. They also emphasize\nthe importance of request throttling and setting proper quorum values. </p>\n\n<h3>Long GC pauses</h3>\n\n<p>Stop-the-world garbage collection can force application latencies on the order\nof seconds to minutes. As Searchbox.io <a href=\"http://blog.searchbox.io/blog/2013/03/03/january-postmortem\">observed</a>,\nGC pressure in an ElasticSearch cluster can cause secondary nodes to declare a\nprimary dead and to attempt a new election. Because their configuration used a\nlow value of <code>zen.minimum_master_nodes</code>, ElasticSearch was able to elect two\nsimultaneous primaries, leading to inconsistency and downtime.</p>\n\n<h3>MySQL overload and a Pacemaker segfault</h3>\n\n<p>Github relies heavily on Pacemaker and Heartbeat: programs which coordinate\ncluster resources between nodes. They use Percona Replication Manager, a\nresource agent for Pacemaker, to replicate their MySQL database between three\nnodes.</p>\n\n<p>On September 10th, 2012, <a href=\"https://github.com/blog/1261-github-availability-this-week\">a routine database migration caused unexpectedly high\nload on the MySQL primary</a>. Percona Replication Manager, unable to perform\nhealth checks against the busy MySQL instance, decided the primary was down and\npromoted a secondary. The secondary had a cold cache and performed poorly.\nNormal query load on the node caused it to slow down, and Percona failed <em>back</em>\nto the original primary. The operations team put Pacemaker into\nmaintenance-mode, temporarily halting automatic failover. The site appeared to\nrecover.</p>\n\n<p>The next morning, the operations team discovered that the standby MySQL node\nwas no longer replicating changes from the primary. Operations decided to\ndisable Pacemaker’s maintenance mode to allow the replication manager to fix\nthe problem.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n<p>Upon attempting to disable maintenance-mode, a Pacemaker segfault occurred\nthat resulted in a cluster state partition. After this update, two nodes\n(I’ll call them ‘a’ and ‘b’) rejected most messages from the third node\n(‘c’), while the third node rejected most messages from the other two.\nDespite having configured the cluster to require a majority of machines to\nagree on the state of the cluster before taking action, two simultaneous\nmaster election decisions were attempted without proper coordination. In the\nfirst cluster, master election was interrupted by messages from the second\ncluster and MySQL was stopped.</p>\n\n<p>In the second, single-node cluster, node ‘c’ was elected at 8:19 AM, and any\nsubsequent messages from the other two-node cluster were discarded. As luck\nwould have it, the ‘c’ node was the node that our operations team previously\ndetermined to be out of date. We detected this fact and powered off this\nout-of-date node at 8:26 AM to end the partition and prevent further data\ndrift, taking down all production database access and thus all access to\ngithub.com.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>The partition caused inconsistency in the MySQL database–both between the\nsecondary and primary, and between MySQL and other data stores like Redis.\nBecause foreign key relationships were not consistent, Github showed private\nrepositories to the wrong users' dashboards and incorrectly routed some newly\ncreated repos.</p>\n\n<p>Github thought carefully about their infrastructure design, and were still\nsurprised by a complex interaction of partial failures and software bugs. As\nthey note in the postmortem:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n<p>… if any member of our operations team had been asked if the failover\nshould have been performed, the answer would have been a resounding\n<b>no</b>.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Distributed systems are <em>hard</em>.</p>\n\n<h2>NICs and drivers</h2>\n\n<h3>BCM5709 and friends</h3>\n\n<p>Unreliable NIC hardware or drivers are implicated in a broad array of\npartitions. <a href=\"http://www.spinics.net/lists/netdev/msg210485.html\">Marc\nDonges and Michael Chan</a> bring us a thrilling report of the popular Broadcom\nBCM5709 chipset abruptly dropping inbound <em>but not outbound</em> packets to a\nmachine. Because the NIC dropped inbound packets, the node was unable to\nservice requests. However, because it could still <em>send</em> heartbeats to its hot\nspare via keepalived, the spare considered the primary alive and refused to\ntake over. The service was unavailable for five hours and did not recover\nwithout a reboot.</p>\n\n<p>Sven Ulland <a href=\"http://www.spinics.net/lists/netdev/msg210491.html\">followed up</a>,\nreporting the same symptoms with the BCM5709S chipset on Linux\n2.6.32-41squeeze2. Despite pulling commits from mainline which supposedly fixed\na similar set of issues with the bnx2 driver, they were unable to resolve the\nissue until version 2.6.38.</p>\n\n<p>Since Dell shipped a large number of servers with the BCM5709, the impact of\nthese firmware bugs was widely observed. For instance, the 5709 and some\nchips had a bug in their <a href=\"http://monolight.cc/2011/08/flow-control-flaw-in-broadcom-bcm5709-nics-and-bcm56xxx-switches/\">802.3x\nflow control code</a> causing them to spew PAUSE frames when the chipset\ncrashed or its buffer filled up. This problem was magnified by the BCM56314\nand BCM56820 switch-on-a-chip devices (a component in a number of Dell’s\ntop-of-rack switches), which, by default, spewed PAUSE frames at <em>every</em>\ninterface trying to communicate with the offending 5709 NIC. This led to\ncascading failures on entire switches or networks.</p>\n\n<p>The bnx2 driver could also cause transient or flapping network failures, as\ndescribed in this <a href=\"http://elasticsearch-users.115913.n3.nabble.com/Cluster-Split-Brain-td3333510.html\">ElasticSearch\nsplit brain report</a>. Meanwhile, the the Broadcom 57711 was notorious for\ncausing <a href=\"http://communities.vmware.com/thread/284628?start=0&tstart=0\">extremely\nhigh latencies under load with jumbo frames</a>, a particularly thorny issue\nfor ESX users with iSCSI-backed storage.</p>\n\n<h3>A GlusterFS partition caused by a driver bug</h3>\n\n<p>After a scheduled upgrade, <a href=\"https://www.citycloud.eu/cloud-computing/post-mortem/\">CityCloud noticed\nunexpected network failures</a> in two distinct GlusterFS pairs, followed\nby a third. Suspecting link aggregation, CityCloud disabled the feature on\ntheir switches and allowed self-healing operations to proceed.</p>\n\n<p>Roughly 12 hours later, the network failures returned on one node. CityCloud\nidentified the cause as a driver issue and updated the downed node, returning\nservice. However, the outage resulted in data inconsistency between GlusterFS\npairs:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n<p>As the servers lost storage abruptly there were certain types of Gluster\nissues where files did not match each other on the two nodes in each storage\npair. There were also some cases of data corruption in the VMs filesystems\ndue to VMs going down in an uncontrolled way.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<h2>Datacenter network failures</h2>\n\n<p>Individual network interfaces can fail, but they typically appear as single-node\noutages. Failures located in the physical network are often more nefarious. Switches are subject to power failure, misconfiguration, firmware\nbugs, topology changes, cable damage, and malicious traffic. Their failure\nmodes are accordingly diverse:</p>\n\n<h3>Power failure on both redundant switches</h3>\n\n<p>As Microsoft’s SIGCOMM paper suggests, redundancy doesn’t always prevent link\nfailure. <a href=\"http://status.fogcreek.com/2011/06/postmortem.html\">When a\npower distribution unit failed</a> and took down one of two redundant\ntop-of-rack switches, Fog Creek lost service for a subset of customers on that\nrack but remained consistent and available for most users. However, the\nother switch in that rack <em>also</em> lost power for undetermined reasons.\nThat failure isolated the two neighboring racks from one another, taking\ndown all On Demand services.</p>\n\n<h3>Switch split-brain caused by BPDU flood</h3>\n\n<p><a href=\"http://status.fogcreek.com/2012/05/may-5-6-network-maintenance-post-mortem.html\">During\na planned network reconfiguration to improve reliability</a>, Fog Creek\nsuddenly lost access to their network.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n<p>A network loop had formed between several switches.</p>\n\n<p>The gateways controlling access to the switch management network were\nisolated from each other, generating a split-brain scenario. Neither were\naccessible due to a sudden traffic flood. </p>\n\n<p>The flood was the result of a multi-switch BPDU (bridge protocol data unit)\nflood, indicating a spanning-tree flap. This is most likely what was changing\nthe loop domain.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>According to the BPDU standard, the flood <em>shouldn’t have happened</em>. But it\ndid, and this deviation from the system’s assumptions resulted in two hours of\ntotal service unavailability.</p>\n\n<h3>Bridge loops, misconfiguration, broken MAC caches</h3>\n\n<p>In an effort to address high latencies caused by a daisy-chained network\ntopology, Github <a href=\"https://github.com/blog/1346-network-problems-last-friday\">installed a\nset of aggregation switches</a> in their datacenter. Despite a redundant\nnetwork, the installation process resulted in bridge loops, and switches\ndisabled links to prevent failure. This problem was quickly resolved, but later\ninvestigation revealed that many interfaces were still pegged at 100% capacity.</p>\n\n<p>While investigating that problem, a misconfigured switch triggered aberrant\nautomatic fault detection behavior: when one link was disabled, the fault\ndetector disabled <em>all</em> links. This caused 18 minutes of hard downtime. The\nproblem was later traced to a firmware bug preventing switches from updating\ntheir MAC address caches correctly, which forced them to broadcast most packets\nto every interface. </p>\n\n<h3>Mystery RabbitMQ partitions</h3>\n\n<p>Sometimes, nobody knows why a system partitions. This <a href=\"http://serverfault.com/questions/497308/rabbitmq-network-partition-error\">RabbitMQ\nfailure</a> seems like one of those cases: few retransmits, no large gaps\nbetween messages, and no clear loss of connectivity between nodes. Upping the\npartition detection timeout to 2 minutes reduced the frequency of partitions\nbut didn’t prevent them altogether. </p>\n\n<h3>DRBD split-brain</h3>\n\n<p>When a two-node cluster partitions, there are no cases in which a node can\nreliably declare itself to be the primary. When this happens to a DRBD filesystem, <a href=\"http://serverfault.com/questions/485545/dual-primary-ocfs2-drbd-encountered-split-brain-is-recovery-always-going-to-be\">as one user reported</a>, both nodes can remain online and accept writes, leading\nto divergent filesystem-level changes. The only realistic option for resolving\nthese kinds of conflicts is to discard all writes not made to a selected\ncomponent of the cluster.</p>\n\n<h3>A NetWare split-brain</h3>\n\n<p>Short-lived failures can lead to long outages. In this <a href=\"http://novell.support.cluster-services.free-usenet.eu/Split-Brain-Condition_T31677168_S1\">Usenet\npost to novell.support.cluster-services</a>, an admin reports their two-node\nfailover cluster running Novell NetWare experienced transient network outages.\nThe secondary node eventually killed itself, and the primary (though still\nrunning) was no longer reachable by other hosts on the network. The post goes\non to detail a series of network partition events correlated with backup jobs!</p>\n\n<h3>MLAG, Spanning Tree, and STONITH</h3>\n\n<p>Github writes great postmortems, and this one is no exception. On <a href=\"https://github.com/blog/1364-downtime-last-saturday\">December 22nd,\n2012</a>, a planned software update on an aggregation switch caused some mild\ninstability during the maintenance window. In order to collect diagnostic\ninformation about the instability, the network vendor killed a particular\nsoftware agent running on one of the aggregation switches.</p>\n\n<p>Github’s aggregation switches are clustered in pairs using a feature called\nMLAG, which presents two physical switches as a single layer 2 device. The MLAG\nfailure detection protocol relies on <em>both</em> ethernet link state <em>and</em> a logical\nheartbeat message exchanged between nodes. When the switch agent was killed, it\nwas <em>unable</em> to shut down the ethernet link. Unlucky timing confused the MLAG\ntakeover, preventing the still-healthy agg switch from handling link\naggregation, spanning-tree, and other L2 protocols as normal. This forced a\nspanning-tree leader election and reconvergence for all links, <em>blocking all\ntraffic between access switches for 90 seconds</em>.</p>\n\n<p>The 90-second network partition caused fileservers using Pacemaker and DRBD for\nHA failover to declare each other dead, and to issue STONITH (Shoot The Other\nNode In The Head) messages to one another. The network partition delayed\ndelivery of those messages, causing some fileserver pairs to believe they were\n<em>both</em> active. When the network recovered, both nodes shot each other at the\nsame time. With both nodes dead, files belonging to the pair were unavailable.</p>\n\n<p>To prevent filesystem corruption, DRBD requires that administrators ensure the\noriginal primary node is still the primary node before resuming replication.\nFor pairs where both nodes were primary, the ops team had to examine log files\nor bring the node online in isolation to determine its state. Recovering\nthose downed fileserver pairs took five hours, during which Github service was\nsignificantly degraded.</p>\n\n<h2>Hosting providers</h2>\n\n<p>Running your own datacenter can be cheaper and more reliable than using public\ncloud infrastructure, but it also means you have to be a network and server\nadministrator. What about hosting providers, which rent dedicated or\nvirtualized hardware to users and often take care of the network and hardware\nsetup for you?</p>\n\n<h3>An undetected GlusterFS split-brain</h3>\n\n<p>Freistil IT hosts their servers with a colocation/managed-hosting provider.\nTheir monitoring system <a href=\"http://www.freistil.it/2013/02/post-mortem-network-issues-last-week/\">alerted\nFreistil</a> to 50–100% packet loss localized to a specific datacenter. The\nnetwork failure, caused by a router firmware bug, returned the next day.\nElevated packet loss caused the GlusterFS distributed filesystem to enter\nsplit-brain undetected:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n<p>Unfortunately, the malfunctioning network had caused additional problems\nwhich we became aware of in the afternoon when a customer called our support\nhotline because their website failed to deliver certain image files. We found\nthat this was caused by a split-brain situation on the storage cluster\n“stor02″ where changes made on node “stor02b” weren’t reflected on “stor02a”\nand the self-heal algorithm built into the Gluster filesystem was not able to\nresolve this inconsistency between the two data sets.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Repairing that inconsistency led to a “brief overload of the web nodes because\nof a short surge in network traffic.”</p>\n\n<h3>An anonymous hosting provider</h3>\n\n<p>From what we can gather informally, <em>all</em> the major managed hosting providers\nexperience regular network failures. One company running 100-200 nodes on a\nmajor hosting provider reported that in a 90-day period the provider’s network\nwent through five distinct periods of partitions. Some partitions disabled\nconnectivity between the provider’s cloud network and the public internet, and\nothers separated the cloud network from the provider’s internal managed-hosting\nnetwork. The failures caused unavailability, but because this company wasn’t\nrunning any significant distributed systems <em>across</em> those partitioned\nnetworks, there was no observed inconsistency or data loss.</p>\n\n<h3>Pacemaker/Heartbeat split-brain</h3>\n\n<p>A post to Linux-HA <a href=\"http://readlist.com/lists/lists.linux-ha.org/linux-ha/6/31964.html\">details\na long-running partition between a Heartbeat pair</a>, in which two Linode VMs\neach declared the other dead and claimed a shared IP for themselves. Successive\nposts suggest further network problems: emails failed to dispatch due to DNS\nresolution failure, and nodes reported “network unreachable.” In this case, the\nimpact appears to have been minimal–in part because the partitioned\napplication was just a proxy.</p>\n\n<h2>Cloud networks</h2>\n\n<p>Large-scale virtualized environments are notorious for transient latency,\ndropped packets, and full-blown network partitions, often affecting a\nparticular software version or availability zone. Sometimes the failures occur\nbetween specific subsections of the provider’s datacenter, revealing planes of\ncleavage in the underlying hardware topology.</p>\n\n<h3>An isolated MongoDB primary on EC2</h3>\n\n<p>In a comment on <a href=\"http://aphyr.com/posts/284-call-me-maybe-mongodb\">Call\nme maybe: MongoDB</a>, Scott Bessler observed exactly the same failure mode\nKyle demonstrated in the Jepsen post:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n<p>“Prescient. The w=safe scenario you show (including extra fails during\nrollback/re-election) happened to us today when EC2 West region had network\nissues that caused a network partition that separated PRIMARY from its 2\nSECONDARIES in a 3 node replset. 2 hours later the old primary rejoined and\nrolled back everything on the new primary. Our bad for not using w=majority.”</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>This partition caused <b>two hours of write loss</b>. From our conversations\nwith large-scale MongoDB users, we gather that network events causing failover\non EC2 are common. Simultaneous primaries accepting writes for <em>multiple days</em>\nare not unknown. </p>\n\n<h3>Mnesia split-brain on EC2</h3>\n\n<p>EC2 outages can leave two nodes connected to the internet but unable to see\neach other. This type of partition is especially dangerous, as writes to both\nsides of a partitioned cluster can cause inconsistency and lost data. That’s\nexactly what happened to <a href=\"http://dukesoferl.blogspot.com/2008/03/network-partition-oops.html?m=1\">this\nMnesia cluster</a>, which diverged overnight. Their state wasn’t critical, so\nthe operations team simply nuked one side of the cluster. They conclude: “the\nexperience has convinced us that we need to prioritize up our network partition\nrecovery strategy”.</p>\n\n<h3>EC2 instability causing MongoDB and ElasticSearch unavailability</h3>\n\n<p>Network disruptions in EC2 can affect only certain groups of nodes.\nFor instance, <a href=\"https://forums.aws.amazon.com/thread.jspa?messageID=454155\">this report\nof a total partition between the frontend and backend stacks</a> states that\ntheir the web servers lose their connections to all backend instances for a few\nseconds, several times a month. Even though the disruptions were short, cluster\nconvergence resulted in 30-45 minute outages and a corrupted index for\nElasticSearch. As problems escalated, the outages occurred “2 to 4 times a\nday.”</p>\n\n<h3>VoltDB split-brain on EC2</h3>\n\n<p>One VoltDB user reports <a href=\"https://forum.voltdb.com/showthread.php?552-Nodes-stop-talking-to-each-other-and-form-independent-clusters\">regular\nnetwork failures causing replica divergence</a> but also indicates that\ntheir network logs included no dropped packets. Because this cluster had not\nenabled split-brain detection, both nodes ran as isolated primaries,\ncausing significant data loss. </p>\n\n<h3>ElasticSearch discovery failure on EC2</h3>\n\n<p><a href=\"http://elasticsearch-users.115913.n3.nabble.com/EC2-discovery-leads-to-two-masters-td3239318.html\">Another\nEC2 split-brain</a>: a two-node cluster failed to converge on “roughly 1 out of\n10 startups” when discovery messages took longer than three seconds to\nexchange. As a result, both nodes would start as primaries with the same cluster\nname. Since ElasticSearch doesn’t demote primaries automatically, split-brain\npersisted until administrators intervened. Upping the discovery timeout to 15\nseconds resolved the issue.</p>\n\n<h3>RabbitMQ and ElasticSearch on Windows Azure</h3>\n\n<p>There are a few <a href=\"http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/WAVirtualMachinesforWindows/thread/b261e1aa-5ec4-42fc-80ef-5b50a0a00618\">scattered\nreports of Windows Azure partitions</a>, such as <a href=\"http://rabbitmq.1065348.n5.nabble.com/Instable-HA-cluster-td24690.html\">this\naccount</a> of a RabbitMQ cluster which entered split-brain on a weekly basis.\nThere’s also this report of <a href=\"https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!topic/elasticsearch/muZtKij3nUw\">an\nElasticSearch split-brain</a>, but since Azure is a relative newcomer compared\nto EC2, descriptions of its network reliability are limited.</p>\n\n<h3>AWS EBS outage</h3>\n\n<p>On April 21st, 2011, Amazon Web Services <a href=\"http://aws.amazon.com/message/65648/\">went down for over 12 hours</a>,\ncausing hundreds of high-profile web sites to go offline. As a part of normal\nAWS scaling activities, Amazon engineers shifted traffic away from a router in\nthe Elastic Block Store (EBS) network in a single US-East Availability Zone\n(AZ).</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n<p>The traffic shift was executed incorrectly and rather than routing the\ntraffic to the other router on the primary network, the traffic was routed\nonto the lower capacity redundant EBS network. For a portion of the EBS\ncluster in the affected Availability Zone, this meant that they did not have\na functioning primary or secondary network because traffic was purposely\nshifted away from the primary network and the secondary network couldn’t\nhandle the traffic level it was receiving. As a result, many EBS nodes in the\naffected Availability Zone were completely isolated from other EBS nodes in\nits cluster. Unlike a normal network interruption, this change disconnected\nboth the primary and secondary network simultaneously, leaving the affected\nnodes completely isolated from one another.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>The partition coupled with aggressive failure-recovery code caused a mirroring\nstorm, which led to network congestion and triggered a previously unknown race\ncondition in EBS. EC2 was unavailable for roughly 12 hours, and EBS was\nunavailable or degraded for over 80 hours.</p>\n\n<p>The EBS failure also caused an outage in Amazon’s Relational Database Service.\nWhen one AZ fails, RDS is designed to fail over to a different AZ. However,\n2.5% of multi-AZ databases in US-East failed to fail over due to “stuck” IO.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n<p>The primary cause was that the rapid succession of network interruption\n(which partitioned the primary from the secondary) and “stuck” I/O on the\nprimary replica triggered a previously un-encountered bug. This bug left the\nprimary replica in an isolated state where it was not safe for our monitoring\nagent to automatically fail over to the secondary replica without risking\ndata loss, and manual intervention was required.“</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>This correlated failure caused widespread outages for clients relying\non AWS. For example, <a href=\"https://status.heroku.com/incidents/151\">Heroku\nreported</a> between 16 and 60 hours of unavailability for their users'\ndatabases.</p>\n\n<h2>WAN links</h2>\n\n<p>While we have largely focused on failures over local area networks (or\nnear-local networks), wide area network (WAN) failures are also common–if less\nfrequently documented. These failures are particularly interesting because\nthere are often fewer redundant WAN routes and because systems guaranteeing\nhigh availability (and disaster recovery) often require distribution across multiple datacenters. Accordingly, graceful degradation under partitions or increased latency is especially important for geographically widespread services.</p>\n\n<h3>PagerDuty</h3>\n\n<p>PagerDuty designed their system to remain available in the face of node,\ndatacenter, or even <em>provider</em> failure; their services are replicated between\ntwo EC2 regions and a datacenter hosted by Linode. On April 13, 2013, <a href=\"http://blog.pagerduty.com/2013/04/outage-post-mortem-april-13-2013/\">an\nAWS peering point in northern California degraded</a>, causing connectivity\nissues for one of PagerDuty’s EC2 nodes. As latencies between AWS availability\nzones rose, the notification dispatch system lost quorum and stopped\ndispatching messages entirely.</p>\n\n<p>Even though PagerDuty’s infrastructure was designed with partition tolerance in\nmind, correlated failures due to a shared peering point between two datacenters\ncaused 18 minutes of unavailability, dropping inbound API requests and delaying\nqueued pages until quorum was re-established.</p>\n\n<h3>CENIC Study</h3>\n\n<p>Researchers at the University of California, San Diego <a href=\"http://cseweb.ucsd.edu/~snoeren/papers/cenic-sigcomm10.pdf\">quantitatively\nanalyzed</a> five years of operation in the CENIC wide-area network, which\ncontains over two hundred routers across California. By cross-correlating link\nfailures and additional external BGP and traceroute data, they discovered over\n508 "isolating network partitions” that caused connectivity problems between\nhosts. Average partition duration ranged from 6 minutes for software-related\nfailures to over 8.2 hours for hardware-related failures (median 2.7 and 32\nminutes; 95th percentile of 19.9 minutes and 3.7 days, respectively).</p>\n\n<h2>Global routing failures</h2>\n\n<p>Despite the high level of redundancy in internet systems, some network failures\ntake place on a globally distributed scale. </p>\n\n<h3>Cloudflare</h3>\n\n<p>CloudFlare runs 23 datacenters with redundant network paths and anycast\nfailover. <a href=\"http://blog.cloudflare.com/todays-outage-post-mortem-82515\">In response\nto a DDoS attack against one of their customers</a>, their operations team\ndeployed a new firewall rule to drop packets of a specific size. Juniper’s\nFlowSpec protocol propagated that rule to all CloudFlare edge routers–but then:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n<p>What should have happened is that no packet should have matched that rule\nbecause no packet was actually that large. What happened instead is that the\nrouters encountered the rule and then proceeded to consume all their RAM\nuntil they crashed.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Recovering from the failure was complicated by routers which failed to reboot\nautomatically, and inaccessible management ports.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n<p>Even though some data centers came back online initially, they fell back over\nagain because all the traffic across our entire network hit them and\noverloaded their resources.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>CloudFlare monitors their network carefully and the ops team had immediate\nvisibility into the failure. However, coordinating globally distributed systems\nis complex, and calling on-site engineers to find and reboot routers by\nhand takes time. Recovery began after 30 minutes, and was complete after an\nhour of unavailability.</p>\n\n<h3>Juniper routing bug</h3>\n\n<p>A firmware bug introduced as a part of an upgrade in Juniper Networks’s routers\n<a href=\"http://www.eweek.com/c/a/IT-Infrastructure/Bug-in-Juniper-Router-Firmware-Update-Causes-Massive-Internet-Outage-709180/\">caused\noutages</a> in Level 3 Communications’s networking backbone. This subsequently\nknocked services like Time Warner Cable, RIM BlackBerry, and several UK\ninternet service providers offline.</p>\n\n<h3>Global BGP outages</h3>\n\n<p>There have been several global Internet outages related to BGP\nmisconfiguration. Notably, in 2008, Pakistan Telecom, responding to a\ngovernment edict to block YouTube.com, incorrectly advertised its (blocked)\nroute to other provides, which hijacked traffic from the site and <a href=\"http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9878655-7.html\">briefly rendered it\nunreachable</a>. In 2010, a group of Duke University researchers achieved a\nsimilar effect by <a href=\"http://www.merit.edu/mail.archives/nanog/msg11505.html\">testing</a> an\nexperimental flag in the BGP protocol. Similar incidents occurred <a href=\"http://www.renesys.com/2006/01/coned-steals-the-net/\">in 2006</a>\n(knocking sites like Martha Stewart Living and The New York Times offline), <a href=\"http://www.renesys.com/2005/12/internetwide-nearcatastrophela/\">in\n2005</a> (where a misconfiguration in Turkey attempted in a redirect for the\n<em>entire internet</em>), and <a href=\"http://merit.edu/mail.archives/nanog/1997-04/msg00380.html\">in 1997</a>.</p>\n\n<h2>Where do we go from here?</h2>\n\n<p>This post is meant as a reference point–to illustrate that, according to a\nwide range of accounts, partitions occur in many real-world environments.\nProcesses, servers, NICs, switches, local and wide area networks can all fail,\nand the resulting economic consequences are real. Network outages can suddenly arise in systems that are stable for months at a time, during routine upgrades, or as a result of emergency maintenance. The consequences of these outages range from increased latency and temporary unavailability to inconsistency, corruption, and data loss. Split-brain is not an academic concern: it happens to all kinds of systems–sometimes for <em>days on end</em>. Partitions deserve serious consideration.</p>\n\n<p>On the other hand, some networks really <em>are</em> reliable. Engineers at major\nfinancial firms report that despite putting serious effort into designing\nsystems that gracefully tolerate partitions, their networks rarely, if ever,\nexhibit partition behavior. Cautious engineering (and lots of money) can\nprevent outages.</p>\n\n<p>However, not all organizations can afford the cost or operational complexity of\nhighly reliable networks. From Google and Amazon (who operate commodity\nand/or low-cost hardware due to sheer scale) to one-man startups built on\nshoestring budgets, communication-isolating network failures are a real risk.</p>\n\n<p>It’s important to consider this risk <em>before</em> a partition occurs–because it’s\nmuch easier to make decisions about partition tolerance on a whiteboard than to\nredesign, re-engineer, and upgrade a complex system in a production\nenvironment–especially when it’s throwing errors at your users. For some\napplications, failure <em>is</em> an option–but you should characterize and explicitly account for it as a part of your design.</p>\n\n<p><em>We invite you to contribute your own experiences with or without network\npartitions. Open a pull request on <a href=\"https://github.com/aphyr/partitions-post\">https://github.com/aphyr/partitions-post</a>,\nleave a comment, write a blog post, or release a post-mortem. Data will inform\nthis conversation, future designs, and, ultimately, the availability of the\nsystems you depend on.</em></p>" }, "author" : "Aphyr", "comments" : [ ], "annotations" : [ ], "origin" : { "streamId" : "feed/http://aphyr.com/posts.atom", "title" : "Aphyr: Posts", "htmlUrl" : "http://aphyr.com/" } }, { "crawlTimeMsec" : "1370846112893", "timestampUsec" : "1370846112893152", "id" : "tag:google.com,2005:reader/item/580c2f264c4096b0", "categories" : [ "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/read", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/starred", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/fresh" ], "title" : "Announcing AMP", "published" : 1369824912, "updated" : 1369824912, "alternate" : [ { "href" : "http://www.lowdo.net/lowdo-blog/announcing-amp", "type" : "text/html" } ], "summary" : { "direction" : "ltr", "content" : "\n<div>\n <div>\n <div><p><a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amplification\">Amplification</a> is the fundamental process of addition. Life is not either/or; it is both/and.</p>\n<p><a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/groups/ghanamakers/\">Ghana Makers</a> is a social network, right now on fb. <a href=\"https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YddPhljsknt8RGMFyBFcH-KPQgPYmrsF4bF1gUXD7Oc/pub\">AMP</a> to date is a makerspace project that lowdo, <a href=\"http://neo-nomad.net/\">Yasmine Abbas</a> and my <a href=\"http://aqueousol.blogspot.com/\">father</a> have been plotting. We used the Rockefeller <a href=\"http://challenge.rockefellerfoundation.org/\">informal round</a> as an excuse to conceptualize it. Proposal is for a locally-fabricated modular, scalable, coupled digital and physical infrastructure for open-source design and making in Africa+</p>\n<p>More and more, people ask for more information or express an interest in collaborative production. And it can be hard to explain to them what we are doing. For most people it's slightly too complicated for them to conceptualize fully.</p>\n<p>In August, we want to run a limited startup phase to work with a select number of architects, programmers, artists, systems thinkers and makers in any field to jointly develop a more coherent model for visualizing and communicating the project. More details soon. (Builds off this working theorem on design innovation *<a href=\"http://afrch.blogspot.com/search/label/stellate\">stellation</a>*)</p>\n<p><img src=\"http://www.lowdo.net/sites/default/files/users/dk/brekship1.jpg\" width=\"600\" height=\"358\" alt=\"\"></p>\n<p><img src=\"http://www.lowdo.net/sites/default/files/users/dk/brekship1%202.jpg\" width=\"600\" height=\"358\" alt=\"\"></p>\n<p><img src=\"http://www.lowdo.net/sites/default/files/users/dk/brekship1%203.jpg\" width=\"600\" height=\"358\" alt=\"\"></p>\n<p><img src=\"http://www.lowdo.net/sites/default/files/users/dk/brekship1%204.jpg\" width=\"600\" height=\"358\" alt=\"\"></p>\n<p><img src=\"http://www.lowdo.net/sites/default/files/users/dk/brekship1%205.jpg\" width=\"600\" height=\"358\" alt=\"\"></p>\n<p><img src=\"http://www.lowdo.net/sites/default/files/users/dk/brekship1%206.jpg\" width=\"600\" height=\"358\" alt=\"\"></p>\n<p>images are brekship1 from <a href=\"http://lowdo.net/berekuso-hill-station\">Brekuso Hill Station</a>, where building off the <a href=\"http://lowdo.net/lowdo-blog/bamboo-bot-updates\">bamboo robots</a> line we are planning toward kinematic and aeronautic roofing. Yes, that means roof structures that (eventually - this will be years of research) can fly. This is 20 ft container; we are starting with much smaller 10 ft. version</p>\n<p>Also: Check out what <a href=\"http://wlab.weebly.com/\">Wɔɛlab</a> is working on in Togo: <a href=\"http://spaceappschallenge.org/project/wafate-to-mars/\">W.AFATE to MARS</a>!</p>\n<p>Don't know what a \"makerspace\" is? Read <a href=\"http://afrch.blogspot.com/2013/03/5-notes-on-maker-future.html\">this</a>.</p>\n</div>\n </div>\n</div>\n\n<div>\n <div>Intro Text </div>\n <div>\n <div>Agbogbloshie Makerspace Platform: toward a locally-fabricated modular, scalable, coupled digital and physical infrastructure for open-source design and making in Africa+</div>\n </div>\n</div>\n\n<div>\n <div>Featured Post </div>\n <div>\n <div>Yes</div>\n </div>\n</div>\n\n<div>\n <div>Preview Image </div>\n <div>\n <div><img src=\"http://www.lowdo.net/sites/default/files/brekship1_wh.jpg\" width=\"1200\" height=\"900\" alt=\"\"></div>\n </div>\n</div>\n\n<div>\n <div>Tags </div>\n <div>\n <div><a href=\"http://www.lowdo.net/tags/amp\">amp</a></div>\n <div><a href=\"http://www.lowdo.net/tags/makerspace\">makerspace</a></div>\n </div>\n</div>\n\n<div>\n <div>Blog Category </div>\n <div>\n <div><a href=\"http://www.lowdo.net/blog-category/community\">Community</a></div>\n <div><a href=\"http://www.lowdo.net/blog-category/construction\">Construction</a></div>\n <div><a href=\"http://www.lowdo.net/blog-category/culture\">Culture</a></div>\n <div><a href=\"http://www.lowdo.net/blog-category/design\">Design</a></div>\n <div><a href=\"http://www.lowdo.net/blog-category/news\">News</a></div>\n </div>\n</div>\n\n<div>\n <div>Related Projects </div>\n <div>\n <div>Berekuso Hill Station</div>\n </div>\n</div>" }, "author" : "dk", "comments" : [ ], "annotations" : [ ], "origin" : { "streamId" : "feed/http://www.lowdo.net/blog/feed", "title" : "Low Design Office blogs", "htmlUrl" : "http://www.lowdo.net/blog" } }, { "crawlTimeMsec" : "1370845941011", "timestampUsec" : "1370845941011208", "id" : "tag:google.com,2005:reader/item/563959516a20cfd7", "categories" : [ "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/read", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/starred", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/fresh", "Research Tips", "Anthropological Musings" ], "title" : "A Guide: Six Steps for Writing a Scholarly Article or Paper in Grad School", "published" : 1369942800, "updated" : 1371219764, "alternate" : [ { "href" : "http://cfolch.blogspot.com/2013/05/a-guide-six-steps-for-writing-scholarly.html", "type" : "text/html" } ], "replies" : [ { "href" : "http://cfolch.blogspot.com/feeds/4156500357995705287/comments/default", "title" : "Post Comments", "type" : "application/atom+xml" }, { "href" : "http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4281969930440774536&postID=4156500357995705287", "title" : "1 Comments", "type" : "text/html" } ], "content" : { "direction" : "ltr", "content" : "<div style=\"color:#444444;font-family:inherit;text-align:justify\">Although I enjoy writing, I still find it a challenge and I’m often curious about how other writers work as they’re producing scholarship. My own technique is something that I developed in graduate school and continue tweaking even now as I’m a professor. The Six Steps I’ve listed below are the steps <i>I</i> go through in order to produce a draft of an article or paper—I realize that others do things differently and<b style=\"color:black\"> the key principle is to figure out and go with what works for you. You’re not doing it wrong if you’re doing it. </b></div><div style=\"color:#444444;font-family:inherit;text-align:justify\"><br></div><div style=\"color:#444444;font-family:inherit;text-align:justify\">It feels a bit vulnerable to reveal the unfinished product, but because graduate school can be so grueling, I thought it’d be worth it to put my process out there. All the disclaimers apply: I'm an anthropologist and this is me writing ethnography, disciplinary conventions from humanities, STEM, and even other social sciences are very different. There are other sites (<a href=\"http://chronicle.com/article/10-Tips-on-How-to-Write-Less/124268/\">here</a> and <a href=\"http://www.insidehighered.com/advice\">here</a> and <a href=\"http://theprofessorisin.com/pearlsofwisdom/\">here</a> and <a href=\"http://backupminds.wordpress.com/\">here</a> and <a href=\"http://chronicle.com/article/10-Tips-on-How-to-Write-Less/124268/\">here</a>) that also give great advice on the doing of graduate school and the work we're to produce.</div><div style=\"color:#444444;font-family:inherit;text-align:justify\"><br></div><div style=\"color:#444444;font-family:inherit;text-align:justify\">You’ll notice two things from the start:<b><span style=\"color:black\"> </span></b><br><b><span style=\"color:black\">1) I do a lot of pre-writing.</span></b><br>(I call this “writing.”)<span style=\"color:black\"><b> </b></span><br><span style=\"color:black\"><b>2) I do a lot of it by hand.</b> </span><br>(Writing by hand does something different for my brain as I’m trying to work through ideas or pushing through a moment of “writer’s block.” Also, typing on the computer makes it oh-so-tempting to start reading my email or fret about the <a href=\"http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/28/health/france-coronavirus-death/index.html\">WHO news on the coronavirus</a>.)</div><div style=\"color:#444444;font-family:inherit;text-align:justify\"><br></div><div style=\"color:#444444;font-family:inherit;text-align:justify\"><b style=\"color:black\">The goal here is to produce a draft (not a perfect final version) and this takes time</b>. Interspersed with all these steps are coffee, eating, sleeping, grading, lecturing, commuting, bathing, jogging, interacting with human beings who are not my students. These steps won’t work very well the night before something is due.</div><div style=\"color:#444444;font-family:inherit;text-align:center\"><br></div><div style=\"color:black;font-family:inherit;text-align:center\"><span style=\"font-size:large\"><u><b>STEP ONE: Initial Brainstorming [by hand!]</b></u></span></div><div style=\"color:black;font-family:inherit;text-align:center\">Main Question: What’s interesting?</div><div style=\"color:#444444;font-family:inherit\"><br></div><div style=\"color:#444444;font-family:inherit;text-align:justify\">To come up with an idea for a paper (or article), start with the question “What’s interesting?” What’s the data puzzle that caught you eye? What’s the question or confusion that you find intriguing?</div><div style=\"color:#444444;font-family:inherit;text-align:justify\"><br></div><div style=\"color:#444444;font-family:inherit;text-align:justify\">2 examples from my own writing:</div><div style=\"color:#444444;font-family:inherit;text-align:justify\"><b><br></b></div><ul style=\"text-align:justify\"><li><b>Why didn’t yerba mate catch on during European colonialism in the same way that coffee and tea did, since they’re all non-European products and all have a bitter taste? (This led to an article I placed with <i>Comparative Studies in Society and History</i> <a href=\"http://www.academia.edu/2780114/Stimulating_Consumption_Yerba_Mate_Myths_Markets_and_Meanings_from_Conquest_to_Present\">here</a>.)</b></li></ul><ul style=\"text-align:justify\"><li><b>Something I noticed in my ethnographic field work was that there are different versions of the “origin stories” for the massive Itaipú dam construction debt (and whether it was being repaid) and these versions seem to coincide with the political and social position of the individual. Note: images I’ve included in this post are the real notes for this paper. </b></li></ul><div style=\"color:#444444;font-family:inherit;text-align:justify\"><br></div><div style=\"color:#444444;font-family:inherit;text-align:justify\">I actually write down questions like this in a notebook or on a pad of paper. And then I try to figure out the “why” and the “so what.”</div><div style=\"color:#444444;font-family:inherit\"><br><br></div><div style=\"color:black;font-family:inherit;text-align:center\"><u><b><span style=\"font-size:large\">STEP TWO: The Basics [by hand!]</span></b></u></div><div style=\"color:black;font-family:inherit;text-align:center\">Main Question: What’s going on? Why does it matter?</div><div style=\"color:#444444;font-family:inherit\"><br></div><div style=\"color:#444444;font-family:inherit;text-align:justify\">On a piece of paper (usually legal paper turned sideways), I’ll label four sections entitled:</div><div style=\"color:#444444;font-family:inherit;text-align:justify\"><br></div><ul style=\"text-align:justify\"><li><b>The Issue</b></li><li><b>The Data</b></li><li><b>Theory</b></li><li><b>So What?</b></li></ul><div style=\"color:#444444;font-family:inherit;text-align:justify\"><br></div><div style=\"color:#444444;font-family:inherit;text-align:justify\">And then I’ll jot down bullet points (sometimes entire sentences) underneath each and answer the following questions:</div><br><ul><li><b>The Issue: What is the issue, the main idea of this paper?</b></li></ul><ul><li><b>The Data: What data, what evidence do I have that connects to the issue? (specific documents, interviews, participant-observation)</b></li></ul><ul><li><b>Theory: What theories help explain what I’m seeing in my data?</b></li></ul><ul><li><b>So What?: Why does this matter? What can we learn from this?</b></li></ul><div style=\"color:#444444;font-family:inherit;text-align:justify\"><br></div><div style=\"color:#444444;font-family:inherit;text-align:justify\">In this and the next step, I’ll read new articles and books that connect with the issue and the data. I annotate as I read (and even jot down imaginary conversations with the authors): How does W account for what she has uncovered? How is X challenging the accepted way of thinking about this? What would Y ask about my findings? What would Z point out is missing from my assertions? </div><div style=\"color:black;font-family:inherit\"><br><br></div><div style=\"color:black;font-family:inherit;text-align:center\"><u><span style=\"font-size:large\"><b>STEP THREE: The Set Pieces [by hand!]</b></span></u></div><div style=\"color:black;font-family:inherit;text-align:center\">Main Question: What are the major set pieces, the major components of this article?</div><div style=\"clear:both;text-align:center\"><a href=\"http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DN_5i29Urhg/UaednZSw6tI/AAAAAAAABSM/ZF5PxqKuMxU/s1600/SKMBT_C360-13053013180.jpg\" style=\"margin-left:1em;margin-right:1em\"><img border=\"0\" height=\"307\" src=\"http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DN_5i29Urhg/UaednZSw6tI/AAAAAAAABSM/ZF5PxqKuMxU/s400/SKMBT_C360-13053013180.jpg\" width=\"400\"></a><a href=\"http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-qhv4q7vC3aM/UaednhKeD0I/AAAAAAAABSU/w7NUzcFcmKs/s1600/SKMBT_C360-13053013161.jpg\" style=\"margin-left:1em;margin-right:1em\"><img border=\"0\" height=\"307\" src=\"http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-qhv4q7vC3aM/UaednhKeD0I/AAAAAAAABSU/w7NUzcFcmKs/s400/SKMBT_C360-13053013161.jpg\" width=\"400\"></a></div><div style=\"color:#444444;font-family:inherit\"><br><br><table cellpadding=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\" style=\"margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;text-align:center\"><tbody><tr><td style=\"text-align:center\"><a href=\"http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bWkMrKbwC0A/UaednGU8FzI/AAAAAAAABSI/l7Jf86YnIyE/s1600/SKMBT_C360-13053013181.jpg\" style=\"margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto\"><img border=\"0\" height=\"307\" src=\"http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bWkMrKbwC0A/UaednGU8FzI/AAAAAAAABSI/l7Jf86YnIyE/s400/SKMBT_C360-13053013181.jpg\" width=\"400\"></a></td></tr><tr><td style=\"text-align:center\">I began in pencil, with the boxes around what I thought might be the \"major set pieces\" of the article, then I drew connecting arrows and annotations to my various bullet points. On another day, I used the blue pen and then, at the end, went back to pencil to try to figure out the logical flow of various sections.</td></tr></tbody></table><br></div><div style=\"color:#444444;font-family:inherit;text-align:justify\">On another piece of paper (see the accompanying images), write out five sections that will help you figure out what the main set pieces of the article will be. You can see that I mark up this document repeatedly… I don’t start out with Roman numerals or any kind of order. You’ll see marginalia, arrows, and different colored ink. This is me iterating through ideas and connections. I’m very opposed to starting out with a pre-determined order or hierarchy of information. In fact, that’s one of the very questions that this step is supposed to help me work out. I certainly don’t know it from the start. </div><div style=\"color:#444444;font-family:inherit;text-align:justify\"><br></div><div style=\"color:#444444;font-family:inherit;text-align:justify\">Under each of the section headings I’ll write out bullet points and even entire sentences and sometimes I’ll realize that one section actually has three main components. I usually draw boxes around the section headings (you can see it on the yellow paper):<br><br><div style=\"color:black;font-family:inherit\"></div></div><br><b>Introduction: </b><br><ul><li><b>All articles need them.</b></li></ul><br><b>Background/History/Primer: </b><br><ul><li><b>What background does the reader need to know to be able to understand what’s interesting about the data?</b></li></ul><br><b>The Data: </b><br><ul><li><b>In this case, since these are notes about Itaipú dam and the construction debt, my data seemed to fall into two areas: a) How the debt grew in the first place; b) How different groups interpret that story.</b></li></ul><br><b>Theory/Literature: </b><br><ul><li><b>Writers and key bodies of literature and approaches that connect to the data. </b></li><li><b>For the paper I was sketching out, the two main debates were: a) literature on hydroelectric dams; b) literature on credit/debt. I ended up focusing on the latter.</b></li></ul><br><b>Effects/Findings/Outcomes: </b><br><ul><li><b>What has happened as a result of the data?</b></li><li><b>What are my major conclusions, major interpretations of the data and the theory? </b></li><li><b>What is my argument for why we’re seeing the data we’re seeing? </b></li><li><b>Why does this matter?</b></li></ul><ul style=\"color:black\"> </ul><div style=\"font-family:inherit;text-align:justify\"><br></div><div style=\"color:#444444;font-family:inherit;text-align:justify\">You can see that this step is several pages long and not everything that I write here ends up in the final article. Some of it ends up as fodder for other papers, because one of the main goals of this step is to really focus on the heart of this article. The question is “What is this article about? What is the story that I’m telling? What are the main components necessary to tell that story?”</div><div style=\"color:#444444;font-family:inherit;text-align:justify\"><br></div><div style=\"color:#444444;font-family:inherit;text-align:justify\">Stare and stare at these set pieces and create a logical flow through them (notice the labeling of I, Ib, II, III, IIIb, IV, V).<span> </span>I do this only after writing down and detailing all the components. For me, the order arises from my ideas and the data. It’s not some formula that I begin with and then fill out. </div><div style=\"color:#444444;font-family:inherit\"><br><br></div><div style=\"color:black;font-family:inherit;text-align:center\"><span style=\"font-size:large\"><u><b>STEP FOUR: Outline [typed!]</b></u></span></div><div style=\"color:#444444;font-family:inherit;text-align:justify\"><br><div style=\"clear:both;text-align:center\"><a href=\"http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-LTIP2eTQH7M/Uaec_lV1flI/AAAAAAAABRQ/MzyvEmrmOuE/s1600/SKMBT_C360-13053013191.jpg\" style=\"margin-left:1em;margin-right:1em\"><img border=\"0\" height=\"640\" src=\"http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-LTIP2eTQH7M/Uaec_lV1flI/AAAAAAAABRQ/MzyvEmrmOuE/s640/SKMBT_C360-13053013191.jpg\" width=\"494\"></a></div><br><br></div><div style=\"color:#444444;font-family:inherit;text-align:justify\">Type up the work you’ve done, using the logical flow order and using bullet points (and complete sentences… anecdotes, formulations of the argument) for the various subsections of each. I aim for complete sentences (just because it helps me start linking ideas), but this isn’t absolutely necessary.</div><div style=\"color:#444444;font-family:inherit\"><br></div><div style=\"color:black;font-family:inherit\"><br><div style=\"text-align:center\"><u><b><span style=\"font-size:large\">STEP FIVE: Iterating the Outline [by hand and typed!]</span></b></u></div></div><div style=\"clear:both;text-align:center\"><a href=\"http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5hRw2PFjq_c/UaedAO4d83I/AAAAAAAABRg/3GfErD3Ifok/s1600/SKMBT_C360-13053013200.jpg\" style=\"margin-left:1em;margin-right:1em\"><img border=\"0\" height=\"320\" src=\"http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5hRw2PFjq_c/UaedAO4d83I/AAAAAAAABRg/3GfErD3Ifok/s320/SKMBT_C360-13053013200.jpg\" width=\"247\"></a></div><div style=\"color:#444444;font-family:inherit;text-align:justify\"><br><br><table align=\"center\" cellpadding=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\" style=\"margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;text-align:center\"><tbody><tr><td style=\"text-align:center\"><a href=\"http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-OI4rInN6iU0/UaedARD8f3I/AAAAAAAABRk/Il_1qemCbYY/s1600/SKMBT_C360-13053013202.jpg\" style=\"margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto\"><img border=\"0\" height=\"320\" src=\"http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-OI4rInN6iU0/UaedARD8f3I/AAAAAAAABRk/Il_1qemCbYY/s320/SKMBT_C360-13053013202.jpg\" width=\"247\"></a></td></tr><tr><td style=\"text-align:center\">This is the back of one of these pages, where I wanted more space and was trying to think through the way different constituencies were gathering data and making their claims about the debt from Itaipú dam.</td></tr></tbody></table>Format the narrative outline with wide margins for notes and, by hand, comment and annotate on what you’ve written. Ask:</div><div style=\"color:#444444;font-family:inherit;text-align:justify\"><br>“So what?”</div><div style=\"color:#444444;font-family:inherit;text-align:justify\">“What else needs to go here?”</div><div style=\"color:#444444;font-family:inherit;text-align:justify\">“What are the steps?”</div><div style=\"color:#444444;font-family:inherit;text-align:justify\">“How does theory connect?”</div><div style=\"color:#444444;font-family:inherit;text-align:justify\">“What’s significant?”</div><div style=\"color:#444444;font-family:inherit;text-align:justify\">“Why?”</div><div style=\"color:#444444;font-family:inherit;text-align:justify\">“What’s missing here? What are the gaps?”</div><div style=\"color:#444444;font-family:inherit;text-align:justify\"><br></div><div style=\"color:#444444;font-family:inherit;text-align:justify\">You might retype the outline with the added commentary, print it out, and do this process again. The aim is to get to a place where you’ve commented as much as you possibly can and gotten to the point where there’s little more brainstorming that you can do to help focus the article and interpret the data. </div><div style=\"color:#444444;font-family:inherit;text-align:justify\"><br></div><div style=\"color:black;font-family:inherit;text-align:justify\"><b>This isn’t the moment for exciting rabbit trails into other areas of research or articles.</b></div><div style=\"color:#444444;font-family:inherit\"><br><div style=\"text-align:center\"><br></div></div><div style=\"color:black;font-family:inherit;text-align:center\"><u><b><span style=\"font-size:large\">STEP SIX: Drafting [typed!]</span></b></u></div><div style=\"color:#444444;font-family:inherit\"><br></div><div style=\"color:#444444;font-family:inherit;text-align:justify\"><br><br><br><a href=\"http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ESjOvG88IGs/UaedBKvCqDI/AAAAAAAABR4/OJv-h_QtgAI/s1600/SKMBT_C360-13053013211.jpg\" style=\"margin-left:1em;margin-right:1em\"><img border=\"0\" height=\"320\" src=\"http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ESjOvG88IGs/UaedBKvCqDI/AAAAAAAABR4/OJv-h_QtgAI/s320/SKMBT_C360-13053013211.jpg\" width=\"247\"></a> <a href=\"http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Rk7v-L86xCQ/UaedAy8I82I/AAAAAAAABRw/Psxq4OKxDfY/s1600/SKMBT_C360-13053013210.jpg\" style=\"margin-left:1em;margin-right:1em\"><img border=\"0\" height=\"320\" src=\"http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Rk7v-L86xCQ/UaedAy8I82I/AAAAAAAABRw/Psxq4OKxDfY/s320/SKMBT_C360-13053013210.jpg\" width=\"247\"></a><br><br><br>After a few days of iterating through the outline, it’s time to write. I’d suggest starting at the beginning of your outline and just write the information into paragraphs. My writing goal is a minimum of 300 words a day, but when I’ve commented and iterated through the outline, I can do triple that in a few hours.</div><div style=\"color:#444444;font-family:inherit;text-align:justify\"><br></div><div style=\"color:#444444;font-family:inherit;text-align:justify\">When you feel stuck or tired with writing, print it out and write additional paragraphs by hand on the back sides of the pages. Part of the reason for printing it out is sheer paranoia—in case the computer dies, I have a hard copy.</div><div style=\"color:#444444;font-family:inherit;text-align:justify\"><br></div><div style=\"color:#444444;font-family:inherit;text-align:justify\">Do only minimal editing on what’s already been written because the goal is to finish an entire draft, not to perfectly polish the first three paragraphs over and over. </div><div style=\"color:#444444;font-family:inherit;text-align:justify\"><br></div><div style=\"color:#444444;font-family:inherit;text-align:justify\">Once the full draft is done, you can go and ask, again “What’s missing?” “What’s out of order?” “What’s too thin?”<br><br><div style=\"color:#444444\">That's my process. Your suggestions? <span style=\"font-size:xx-small\"><span style=\"color:white\">How to write tips Ph.D. advice academic journal article publishing publication journal peer-reviewed academic writing anthropology ethnography academia author tenure \"publish or perish\" peer-review doctoral program edit revise faculty</span></span></div><span style=\"font-size:xx-small\"><span style=\"color:#444444\"><span style=\"color:white\"> </span> </span><span style=\"color:white\">\"writing culture\" \"How I write\"</span></span></div>" }, "author" : "Christine Folch", "comments" : [ ], "annotations" : [ ], "origin" : { "streamId" : "feed/http://cfolch.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default", "title" : "Defringing Latin America", "htmlUrl" : "http://cfolch.blogspot.com/" } }, { "crawlTimeMsec" : "1370754979172", "timestampUsec" : "1370754979172798", "id" : "tag:google.com,2005:reader/item/3494c04204ebae5e", "categories" : [ "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/read", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/starred", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/tracking-body-link-used", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/fresh", "poetry", "storytelling", "stories", "Internet" ], "title" : "Koranteng's Toli: A Resource Action", "published" : 1370547354, "updated" : 1370547354, "alternate" : [ { "href" : "http://protoslacker.tumblr.com/post/52318753111", "type" : "text/html" } ], "summary" : { "direction" : "ltr", "content" : "<a href=\"https://koranteng.blogspot.com/2013/06/a-resource-action.html\">Koranteng's Toli: A Resource Action</a>: <p>It’s rare on the Internet for writing to engage me for a good long time. Koranteng Ofosu-Amaah’s writing draws me in and I frequently find myself spending a long time and always feel wowed.</p>\n<p>This is a hyper-linked poem. The links sometimes made me smile, and because I have read some of his own posts he points to there was a trace that brought new meaning to the poem and to the pieces themselves.</p>" }, "comments" : [ ], "annotations" : [ ], "origin" : { "streamId" : "feed/http://protoslacker.tumblr.com/rss", "title" : "Three Good Links", "htmlUrl" : "http://protoslacker.tumblr.com/" } }, { "crawlTimeMsec" : "1370676080689", "timestampUsec" : "1370676080689521", "id" : "tag:google.com,2005:reader/item/ed8efcee40259d1f", "categories" : [ "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/read", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/starred", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/tracking-mobile-read", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/fresh" ], "title" : "A Cheap Market Will Always Be Full of Cheap Hustlers", "published" : 1370295240, "updated" : 1370295278, "canonical" : [ { "href" : "http://econospeak.blogspot.com/2013/06/a-cheap-market-will-always-be-full-of.html" } ], "alternate" : [ { "href" : "http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/espeak/~3/hb7t-8XS2B4/a-cheap-market-will-always-be-full-of.html", "type" : "text/html" } ], "replies" : [ { "href" : "http://econospeak.blogspot.com/feeds/9006793285869897786/comments/default", "title" : "Post Comments", "type" : "application/atom+xml" }, { "href" : "http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4900303239154048192&postID=9006793285869897786&isPopup=true", "title" : "0 Comments", "type" : "text/html" } ], "content" : { "direction" : "ltr", "content" : "Case in point: Stephen Gordon writes today, at Maclean's <a href=\"http://www2.macleans.ca/2013/06/03/intro-to-productivity-that-thing-canadians-are-apparently-so-bad-at/\">Econowatch</a>:\n<br>\n<blockquote>\nAnother popular misconception is that increased productivity means higher unemployment. If the same amount of output can be produced by fewer people, then what happens to those excess workers? This is the “lump of labour” argument, the notion that the quantity of work to be done is a fixed constant. It is also a well-known fallacy: higher productivity increases the demand for labour, because more productive workers are more valuable to employers. Although higher productivity in a given industry may reduce employment in that sector, the increase in total output and income across the economy will create new, better-paying, employment opportunities elsewhere.</blockquote>\nThus Professor Gordon performs the academically-sanctioned equivalent of the thimblerig or the pigeon drop. He will no doubt pull off his swindle with impunity, as have hundreds of economists and economists-manque before him, however much Jonathan Chait may inveigh in vain against debating straw men: \"If you’re arguing against an idea, you need to accurately describe the people who hold them [sic]. If at all possible, link to them and quote their argument. This is a discipline that forces opinion writers to prove that they’re debating an idea somebody actually holds.\"<br>\n<br>\nIn his 1891 article, \"Why Working Men Dislike Piece Work,\" David F. Schloss, reported a conversation with a laborer making washers on piece work. \"<i>I know I am doing wrong,</i>\" Schloss quotes him. \"<i>I am taking away the work of another man.</i> But I have permission from the Society.\" It was to those italicized passages that Schloss assigned the name, \"the Theory of the Lump of Labour.\"<br>\n<br>\nThe remarkable thing about the laborer referred to by Schloss is that he was working <i>in violation of</i>, not in conformity to, the dictates of his supposed theory. Furthermore, he had permission from his union to do so.<br>\n<br>\nThis unnamed washer-boring workman has the distinction of being one of the very few individuals whose spoken words (whether authentic or apocryphal) have <i>ever</i> been cited in evidence of a belief in the alleged lump-of-labour theory. By contrast, for example, the prominent agitator for the eight-hour day, Tom Mann, \"looked for the absorption of the unemployed by the distribution of work; <i>while disclaiming the fallacy that there is only a fixed amount of work to be done</i>.\"<br>\n<br>\nIn fact, <i>disclaiming</i> the alleged fallacy had been honed to a fine edge decades before Schloss coined the quaint 'lump-of-labour' sobriquet. The transactions of a miners' conference held at Leeds in 1863 contained an introductory report that astutely mocked the hypocrisy of political economists and employers who, on the one hand, decried the \"ignorance and folly\" of those who would attempt to regulate grievously long hours, which were supposedly the \"infallible and inevitable result of demand and supply\" while \"constantly telling the men that wages must be reduced in consequence of over-supply [of labor].\" Meanwhile, the coal-owners themselves maintained restrictions on the production of coal -- known as \"the limitation of the vend\" -- from 1771 to 1845.<br>\n<br>\n\"Unvarying\" is the supposed quantity of labor to be performed, allegedly assumed by the typically anonymous offender against the fallacy taboo. <br>\n<blockquote>\nAt the bottom of these contrivances for artificially increasing the amount of employment, there seems to lurk the fallacy of supposing that <b>the labour required to be done in any department of trade, or in the country generally, is a fixed quantity</b>; therefore, in order to secure an aliquot portion of it to the greatest number, the labour must be spread out thin. The teaching of sound Political Economy is directly the reverse of this.</blockquote>\nwrote the author of an article on Trades Unions in the <i>Edinburgh Review</i> of 1867.<br>\n<blockquote>\nThe League is only an offshoot of the Unions... <b>Their theory is that the amount of work to be done is a fixed quantity</b>, and that in the interest of the operatives, it is necessary to spread it thin in order to make it go far.</blockquote>\nwrote the London correspondent to the <i>New York Times</i> in 1871.<br>\n<blockquote>\nThe root of the mania which has had such a disastrous effect on the material prosperity of the country, and, above all, of the working classes, is <b>the idea that the amount of work to be done is a fixed quantity</b>, quite independent of any efforts which may be made to encourage and stimulate demand, and that, therefore, the best course is to spread it thin in order to make it go as far as possible.</blockquote>\nis how the author of an article in <i>The Saturday Review of Politics, Literature, Science and Art</i> put it in 1876.<br>\n<br>\nI have a database of over 540 entries, from 1871 to 2011, most of which invoke some variation on the lump-of-labour fallacy claim. A precious few refute the fallacy claim and there are perhaps a dozen or so duplications. With very few exceptions, these parroters of the claim do not cite any actual person who holds the fallacious idea.<br>\n<br>\n\"These people think that the amount of work to be done is a fixed quantity.\"<br>\n<br>\n\"If we are to proceed on the assumption that the amount of work to be done is a fixed quantity...\"<br>\n<br>\n\"The theory of the Lump of Labour will be seen to rest upon the utterly untenable supposition that a fixed amount of work exists.\"<br>\n<br>\n\"But there is not, as this argument assumes, a fixed Work-Fund, a certain amount of work which has to be done, whatever the price of labour.\"<br>\n<br>\n\"The Leaders of the Federation said that there was a certain amount of work to be done in Atlantis...\"<br>\n<br>\n\"The notion is that there is exactly so much labor predetermined to be done; therefore, if machines are introduced, there is that much less for men to do...\"<br>\n<br>\n\"This means, roughly speaking, that there is a certain total number of hours of work to be done each week.\"<br>\n<br>\n\"This view -- that the amount of work to be done is fixed -- is called the lump-of-labor fallacy.\"<br>\n<br>\n\"Very similar to the general overproduction fallacy is the erroneous belief that there is only a certain amount of work in the community to be done...\"<br>\n<br>\n\"At the bottom of these contrivances...\" <br>\n<br>\n\"We have touched the fallacy which lies at the bottom of this whole system...\"<br>\n<br>\n\"The real question which lies at the bottom of the dispute...\"<br>\n<br>\n\"The root of the mania...\"<br>\n<br>\nAnd on... and on... and on... and on...<br>\n<br>\nGetting to the <b>bottom</b> of the fallacy claim took 15 years of patient, persistent inquiry. The economists who pedantically recite the fallacy claim and insist upon its authority know nothing of its origins (or, for that matter, its subsequent career)! The lump-of-labour label was a late Victorian addendum that alluded impishly to the colloquial term for a kind of labor sub-contracting, \"lump work,\" which explicitly specified the amount of work to be done as a fixed quantity. Henry Mayhew chronicled the practice in his mid-century reportage on \"London Labour and the London Poor\": <br>\n<blockquote>\nIt is this contract or lump work which constitutes the great evil of the carpenter's, as well as of many other trades; and as in those crafts, so in this, we find that the lower the wages are reduced the greater becomes the number of trading operatives or middlemen...<br>\n<br>\n\"Lump\" work, \"piece\" work, work by \"the job,\" are all portions of the contract system. The principle is the same. \"Here is this work to be done, what will you undertake to do it for?\"</blockquote>\nSo, if lump work was <i>by definition</i> \"a fixed amount of work to be done\" from whence does the \"fallacy\" arise? The lump-of-labour and its antecedent, lump work, turn out to be blind alleys. The origin of the fallacy claim had to do with the introduction of machinery rather than with piece-work or working time (not to mention immigration or early retirement). Dorning Rasbotham, a magistrate in the county of Lancashire, England, published a pamphlet, \"Thoughts on the Use of Machines in the Cotton Manufacture,\" in 1780 in response to rioting that had occurred the previous year near Blackburn. In it, on page 18, occurs what appears to be the seminal instance of the fallacy claim, expressed in words unmistakably paraphrased by the now standard \"fixed amount of work to be done\":<br>\n<blockquote>\n<table align=\"center\" cellpadding=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\" style=\"float:left;margin-right:1em;text-align:left\"><tbody>\n<tr><td style=\"text-align:center\"><a href=\"http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4MjzUNZ9n1U/UA7tTEwjeVI/AAAAAAAAAnY/dY9uGe38_SI/s1600/rastamp.JPG\" style=\"margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto\"><img border=\"0\" src=\"http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4MjzUNZ9n1U/UA7tTEwjeVI/AAAAAAAAAnY/dY9uGe38_SI/s400/rastamp.JPG\" height=\"292\" width=\"241\"></a></td></tr>\n<tr><td style=\"text-align:center\">Dorning Rasbotham, Esq.</td></tr>\n</tbody></table>\n\"There is, say they, <b><i>a certain quantity</i> of labour to be performed</b>. This used to be performed by <i>hands</i>, without machines, or with very little help from them. But if now machines perform a <i>larger share</i> than before, suppose one <i>fourth part, so many hands</i> as are necessary to work that fourth part, will be <i>thrown out of work</i>, or suffer in their wages. <b>The principle itself is <i>false</i>. There is not a precise limited <i>quantity</i> of labour, <i>beyond</i> which there is no demand.</b> Trade is not hemmed in by <i>great walls</i>, beyond which it cannot go. By bringing our goods <i>cheaper</i> and <i>better</i> to market, we open <i>new markets</i>, we get <i>new customers</i>, we encrease the quantity of labour necessary to supply these, and thus we are encouraged to push on, in hope of <i>still new</i> advantages. <i>A cheap market will always be full of customers.</i> Men will cross land and sea to go thither.\"</blockquote>\nAlthough virtually forgotten today, Rasbotham's pamphlet was well-enough known in the early 19th century for his views to have been cited with admiration by John R. M'Culloch in an 1827 <i>Edinburgh Review</i> article on the cotton industry:<br>\n<blockquote>\nDorning Rasbotham, Esq., a magistrate near Bolton, printed some time about the period referred to, a sensible address to the weavers and spinners, in which he endeavoured to convince them that it was for their interest to encourage inventions for abridging labour. The result has shown the soundness of Mr Rasbotham's opinion.... There is, in fact, no idea so groundless and absurd, as that which supposes that an increased facility of production can under any circumstances be injurious to the labourers.</blockquote>\nUnlike David Schloss's account, more than a century later, of a conversation with a workman who subscribed to the Theory of the Lump of Labour, Rasbotham's pamphlet presented no indication of who \"they\" were who allegedly said there was \"<i>a certain quantity</i> of labour to be performed.\" But it would be rash to judge his argument solely on this singular lack of evidence. Indeed, a careful reading of the pamphlet reveals this supposedly \"sensible address to the weavers and spinners\" to be a smug, patronizing exercise in diminishing the actual grievances of the working population while extolling the abstract virtues of trade and technology detached from the circumstances of their employment by the rich. The author who on the first page styles himself \"from the bottom of my heart, <i>a Friend to the Poor</i>,\" concludes his peroration berating his erstwhile \"friends\" for their improvidence and their propensity to \"carry their money to the Alehouse\" rather than seize the burgeoning opportunities for self improvement. The real core of Squire Rasbotham's argument, though, occurs in the fourth of seven enumerated principles: <br>\n<blockquote>\nIt is the use of <i>Machines</i>, which chiefly distinguishes men in <i>society</i> from men in a <i>savage state</i>. Some have thought it no bad description of a human being, that he is a <i>tool-making</i>, or a <i>machine-making</i> animal. What are the most <i>common instruments</i> or <i>furniture</i> of our houses, but <i>machines to shorten labour?</i> What is an <i>ax</i>, a <i>hammer</i>, a <i>saw</i>, a <i>pair of bellows</i>, but <i>machines</i> for this end? [...] If we must go upon the principle of having <i>no machines</i>, we must <i>pull them all down</i>, and bruise our corn in <i>Mortars</i>. -- What do I say? The <i>Mortar and Pestle</i> are <i>machines</i> for shortening labour. We mull crush our corn <i>between two stones</i>, or beat out the flour with <i>sticks</i>. </blockquote>\nIt is just such a disquisition as this Marx had in mind in the section in volume one of <i>Capital</i> titled, \"The Theory of Compensation as Regards the Workpeople Displaced by Machinery,\" where he presented his parody of Bill Sikes, the villain from <i>Oliver Twist</i>, addressing the jury:<br>\n<blockquote>\nGentlemen of the jury, no doubt the throat of this commercial traveler has been cut. But that is not my fault; it is the fault of the knife! Must we, for such a temporary inconvenience, abolish the use of the knife? Only consider! Where would agriculture and trade be without the knife? Is it not as beneficial in surgery as it is in anatomy? And in addition a willing help at the festive table? If you abolish the knife — you hurl us back into the depths of barbarism.</blockquote>\nMarx's point, of course, was that it was not the machines that threw people out of work, any more than it was the knife that cut the throat of the traveling salesman. It was how the machines were used by those who owned them that threw people out of work. Similarly, the argument advanced by M'Culloch, James Mill, Robert Torrens, Nassau Senior and John Stuart Mill -- that \"all machinery that displaces workmen, simultaneously and necessarily sets free an amount of capital adequate to employ the same identical workmen\" -- was groundless. Instead,<br>\n<blockquote>\nThe labourers that are thrown out of work in any branch of industry, can no doubt seek for employment in some other branch. If they find it, and thus renew the bond between them and the means of subsistence, this takes place only by the intermediary of a new and additional capital that is seeking investment; not at all by the intermediary of the capital that formerly employed them and was afterwards converted into machinery.</blockquote>\nNote that Marx's specification of the necessity of \"new and additional capital\" is not at all the same thing as assuming that there is a fixed amount of work to be done. There is more work to be done; but whether or not it <i>is</i> done depends on additional investment. As Keynes phrased it some 60 years later, the economic system is not \"self-adjusting\" as assumed by \"almost the whole body of organized economic thinking and doctrine of the last hundred years.\"<br>\n<br>\nThis self-adjusting, automatically-compensating for displacement doctrine made a notable appearance in William Stanley Jevons's speculations regarding <i>The Coal Question</i> and thus has implications for contemporary debates about energy consumption, conservation and climate change. Jevons maintained that, \"<i>It is wholly a confusion of ideas to suppose that the economical use of fuel is equivalent to a diminished consumption. The very contrary is the truth</i> [emphasis in original].\" He went on to explain:<br>\n<blockquote>\n<table cellpadding=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\" style=\"float:right;margin-left:1em;text-align:right\"><tbody>\n<tr><td style=\"text-align:center\"><a href=\"http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-L-_FolL2r3U/UA8tSFcE1_I/AAAAAAAAAno/zwuULSeIfHk/s1600/william_stanley_jevons2.jpg\" style=\"clear:right;margin-bottom:1em;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto\"><img border=\"0\" src=\"http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-L-_FolL2r3U/UA8tSFcE1_I/AAAAAAAAAno/zwuULSeIfHk/s400/william_stanley_jevons2.jpg\" height=\"340\" width=\"241\"></a></td></tr>\n<tr><td style=\"text-align:center\">William Stanley Jevons</td></tr>\n</tbody></table>\nAs a rule, new modes of economy will lead to an increase of consumption according to a principle recognised in many parallel instances. The economy of labour effected by the introduction of new machinery throws labourers out of employment for the moment. But such is the increased demand for the cheapened products, that eventually the sphere of employment is greatly widened. Often the very labourers whose labour is saved find their more efficient labour more demanded than before.</blockquote>\nIf we subscribe to Marx's and Keynes's refutation of the self-adjusting, compensation principle, the 'good news' is that increasing energy efficiency doesn't necessarily lead to increased consumption, as the Jevons Paradox or 'rebound effect' implies.<br>\n<br>\nThe bad news, though, is that to whatever extent the self-adjusting principle doesn't apply to fuel, it also doesn't apply to employment. Meanwhile employment, as conventionally defined, is deeply entangled with energy consumption. Whatever we might do to expand aggregate employment will likely increase the consumption of energy if past performance is any indicator.<br>\n<br>\nBut of one thing we can be certain: a cheap market will always be full of cheap hustlers." }, "author" : "Sandwichman", "comments" : [ ], "annotations" : [ ], "origin" : { "streamId" : "feed/http://econospeak.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default", "title" : "EconoSpeak", "htmlUrl" : "http://econospeak.blogspot.com/" } }, { "crawlTimeMsec" : "1370556392291", "timestampUsec" : "1370556392291436", "id" : "tag:google.com,2005:reader/item/ae71c7200b336b82", "categories" : [ "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/read", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/starred", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/fresh" ], "title" : "Resentment against Erdogan explodes", "published" : 1370182313, "updated" : 1370182313, "alternate" : [ { "href" : "http://www.economist.com/blogs/charlemagne/2013/06/turkish-politics?fsrc=rss", "type" : "text/html" } ], "summary" : { "direction" : "ltr", "content" : "<p><div><img src=\"http://cdn.static-economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/full-width/images/2013/06/blogs/charlemagne/turkey590_0.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"\" width=\"595\" height=\"336\"></div></p><p>IT ALL began with a grove of sycamores. For months a tight band of environmentalists had been protesting against a government-backed project to chop the trees down in order to make room for a mall and residential complex in Istanbul’s Taksim Square. Last week they organised a peaceful sit in, camping, singing and dancing by the threatened trees.</p><p></p><p>On May 31st, in a predawn raid, riot police moved in. They set fire to the demonstrators’ tents and doused them with pressurised water and tear gas. Images depicting police brutality spread like wildfire across social media. Within hours thousands of outraged citizens began streaming towards Taksim Square. Backed by armoured personnel carriers and water cannons, police retaliated with even more brutish force. Tidal waves of pepper spray sent protestors reeling and gasping for air. Hundreds of demonstrators were arrested, and scores of others injured, in the clashes that ensued. Copycat demonstrations erupted in Ankara, the Turkish capital, and elsewhere across the country. Turkey’s “Tree Revolution” had begun.</p><p>In fact the mass protests that are sweeping the country are not just about the trees, nor do they constitute a revolution. They are the expression of the long-stifled resentment felt by nearly half of the electorate who did not vote for the ruling Justice and Development (AK) party in the June 2011 parliamentary elections. These swept Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the prime minster, to power for a third consecutive term.</p><p>The wave of unrest was completely unexpected. The protestors cut across ideological, religious and class lines. Many are strikingly young. But there are plenty of older Turks, many of them secular-minded, some overtly pious. There are gays, Armenians, anarchists and atheists. There are also members of Turkey’s Alevi Muslim minority. What joins them is the common sentiment that an increasingly autocratic Mr Erdogan is determined to impose his worldview. The secularists point to a raft of <a href=\"http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21578657-mildly-islamist-government-brings-tough-alcohol-restrictions-not-so-good-you\">restrictions on booze</a>; liberals to the number of journalists in jail (there are more journalists in prison than in any other country in the world). Thousands of activists of varying stripes (mainly Kurds), convicted under Turkey’s vaguely worded anti-terror laws, are also behind bars. Then there are those incensed by mega urban-development projects, including a third bridge over the Bosphorus, which will entail felling thousands of trees. Scenting the public mood, retailers announced that they had pulled out of the planned arcade in Taksim Square. “This is not about secularists versus Islamists—it’s about pluralism versus authoritarianism,” commented a foreign diplomat.</p><p>Mr Erdogan wants to be elected president when the post comes free in August 2014. And he has made no secret of his desire to boost the powers of the presidency “a la Turca” as he put it, spurring accusations that what Erdogan really wants is to become a “Sultan”.</p><p>“Tayyip [Erdogan] <em>istifa</em>”, a call for the prime minister to resign, was the slogan most commonly chanted by the protestors. Not that most Turks would have known. Media bosses fearful of jeopardising their other business interests shunned coverage of the protests for nearly two days, opting instead to screen programmes about breast-reduction surgery and gourmet cooking. Faced with a public outcry, the main news channels began broadcasting live from Taksim Square. But pro-government papers continue to point the finger of blame at provocateurs and “foreign powers” bent on undermining Turkey. It seems an odd description of the thousands of housewives leaning over their balconies clanging their pots.</p><p>Meanwhile, Turkey’s main opposition, the secular Republican People’s Party (CHP), is scrambling to woo the protestors. “Erdogan is a dictator—it's time for him to resign,” insisted Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the CHP leader. Yet Mr Erdogan was elected in free and fair elections and remains the most popular leader in modern Turkish history.</p><p>For all its recent setbacks, the AK party would probably win again if elections were held today. Like most people, Turks tend to vote with their pockets. A decade of AK rule has brought unprecedented prosperity. Per-capita income has trebled, exports have increased nearly tenfold and Turkish banks are in good health. Mr Erdogan’s bold initiative to end decades of conflict with the country’s Kurds is making good progress. The opposition parties (save the Kurds) remain weak and divided.</p><p>Mr Erdogan has grown overconfident, alienating his liberal supporters, and seems increasingly out of touch. The protests are a wake-up call and there are hopeful signs that Mr Erdogan is paying heed. On the second day of the protests he ordered the police to pull out of Taksim Square, admitted that police had overdone it with tear gas and allowed tens of thousands of demonstrators to gather peacefully. And though Mr Erdogan insists that the Taksim project will proceed, he also said that the building might house a “modern museum” rather than a shopping mall.</p><p>Above all, the protests suggest that Turkey’s democracy is maturing and that civil society has taken root. The protesters are determined not to allow their movement to be hijacked by mischief-makers. They shun violence, clear the litter after each rally, and have set up hotlines for the injured—cats and dogs included. Restaurants and hotels have thrown open their doors. Pro-secularists seem to have cast off their dependency on the army. A sense of solidarity and confidence prevails. EU-inspired reforms that were rammed through by the AK party helped pave the way. Mr Erdogan may well be wondering whether he is the victim of his own success.</p><p>(Photo credit: AFP)</p><div></div>" }, "comments" : [ ], "annotations" : [ ], "origin" : { "streamId" : "feed/http://www.economist.com/blogs/charlemagne/index.xml", "title" : "Charlemagne", "htmlUrl" : "http://www.economist.com/node/21003992/index.xml" } }, { "crawlTimeMsec" : "1370154844771", "timestampUsec" : "1370154844771795", "id" : "tag:google.com,2005:reader/item/7a74ab2ebb0fe491", "categories" : [ "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/read", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/starred", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/fresh" ], "title" : "Why We Lie", "published" : 1369913482, "updated" : 1369913482, "alternate" : [ { "href" : "http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/05/why_we_lie.html", "type" : "text/html" } ], "summary" : { "direction" : "ltr", "content" : "<p><a href=\"http://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2011/03/21/08-50345.pdf\">This</a>, by Judge Kozinski, is from a Federal court ruling about false statements and First Amendment protection</p>\n\n<blockquote>Saints may always tell the truth, but for mortals living means lying. We lie to protect our privacy (\"No, I don't live around here\"); to avoid hurt feelings (\"Friday is my study night\"); to make others feel better (\"Gee you've gotten skinny\"); to avoid recriminations (\"I only lost $10 at poker\"); to prevent grief (\"The doc says you're getting better\"); to maintain domestic tranquility (\"She’s just a friend\"); to avoid social stigma (\"I just haven't met the right woman\"); for career advancement (\"I'm sooo lucky to have a smart boss like you\"); to avoid being lonely (\"I love opera\"); to eliminate a rival (\"He has a boyfriend\"); to achieve an objective (\"But I love you so much\"); to defeat an objective (\"I'm allergic to latex\"); to make an exit (\"It's not you, it's me\"); to delay the inevitable (\"The check is in the mail\"); to communicate displeasure (\"There's nothing wrong\"); to get someone off your back (\"I'll call you about lunch\"); to escape a nudnik (\"My mother's on the other line\"); to namedrop (\"We go way back\"); to set up a surprise party (\"I need help moving the piano\"); to buy time (\"I'm on my way\"); to keep up appearances (\"We're not talking divorce\"); to avoid taking out the trash (\"My back hurts\"); to duck an obligation (\"I've got a headache\"); to maintain a public image (\"I go to church every Sunday\"); to make a point (\"<i>Ich bin ein Berliner</i>\"); to save face (\"I had too much to drink\"); to humor (\"Correct as usual, King Friday\"); to avoid embarrassment (\"That wasn't me\"); to curry favor (\"I've read all your books\"); to get a clerkship (\"You're the greatest living jurist\"); to save a dollar (\"I gave at the office\"); or to maintain innocence (\"There are eight tiny reindeer on the rooftop\")….\n\n<p>An important aspect of personal autonomy is the right to shape one’s public and private persona by choosing when to tell the truth about oneself, when to conceal, and when to deceive. Of course, lies are often disbelieved or discovered, and that, too, is part of the push and pull of social intercourse. But it’s critical to leave such interactions in private hands, so that we can make choices about who we are. How can you develop a reputation as a straight shooter if lying is not an option?</p></blockquote>\n\n<p>Two books on the evolutionary psychology of lying are related: David Livingstone Smith's <a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/dp/B008BJ05WK/?tag=counterpane\"><i>Why We Lie</i></a>, and Dan Ariely's <a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/dp/B006IYFCIM/?tag=counterpane\"><i>The Honest Truth about Dishonesty</i></a>.</p>" }, "author" : "schneier", "comments" : [ ], "annotations" : [ ], "origin" : { "streamId" : "feed/http://feeds.feedburner.com/schneier/fulltext", "title" : "Schneier on Security", "htmlUrl" : "http://www.schneier.com/blog/" } }, { "isReadStateLocked" : true, "crawlTimeMsec" : "1369747738578", "timestampUsec" : "1369747738578901", "id" : "tag:google.com,2005:reader/item/33d495698f33e374", "categories" : [ "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/read", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/starred", "Heather", "Miscellaneous", "Technology", "birth rate", "historical geography", "Martin W. Lewis", "overpopulation", "Population Bomb", "soap operas", "total fertility rate" ], "title" : "Soap Operas versus the Population Bomb?", "published" : 1369641617, "updated" : 1369641617, "alternate" : [ { "href" : "http://www.lastwordonnothing.com/2013/05/27/soap-operas-versus-the-population-bomb/", "type" : "text/html" } ], "content" : { "direction" : "ltr", "content" : "<p><a href=\"http://www.lastwordonnothing.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/shutterstock_112517477.jpg\"><img alt=\"shutterstock_112517477\" src=\"http://www.lastwordonnothing.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/shutterstock_112517477.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"334\"></a>It’s early morning in a Mumbai train station. The <a href=\"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1eAP-BoxVkg\">video</a> is grainy, but you can clearly make out a dense swarm of humanity along the platform. By my count, the crowd stands at least ten or twelve people deep, males for the most part, many dressed in light short-sleeved shirts, the kind you’d wear in an office. As the train rumbles into the station, the men surge forward as if one. It’s the first stop along the route, and in seconds the train is sardine-can full.</p>\n<p>Local observers say that if you want to understand just how congested Indian cities are today, try squeezing into one of Mumbai’s commuter trains. And indeed such Indian scenes of teeming humanity have become enduring memes for the problem of human overpopulation. In 1960s, for example, Stanford University ecologist Paul Erhlich and population biologist Anne Ehrlich gazed from a car in growing horror as they wound through the streets of New Delhi. <span></span> <a href=\"http://www.lastwordonnothing.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/shutterstock_129277118.jpg\"><img alt=\"shutterstock_129277118\" src=\"http://www.lastwordonnothing.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/shutterstock_129277118.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\"></a>Everywhere they looked, the Ehrlichs saw “people eating, people washing, people sleeping,” as they later noted in <a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/The-Population-Bomb-Paul-Ehrlich/dp/B000EI3XOS\"><i>The Population Bomb</i></a>. For the Ehrlichs, the teeming streets were a bellwether of disaster: famine, they concluded, was inevitable. The only possible solution for India was sterilization—forced sterilization if need be.</p>\n<p>I read <i>The Population Bomb</i> as a university student, and was deeply impressed by its message, as were so many of my generation. But today few of the Erhlichs’ dire predictions of global famine have come to pass. And while India did indeed impose a mass sterilization campaign in the mid-1970s—denying food rations and other key government programs to the unsterilized—poor Indians rioted in the streets, forcing officials to jettison the campaign.</p>\n<p>But then a strange thing happened to India’s fertility rate. Instead of soaring dramatically, it declined. And it has dropped steadily since. Today, according to the <a href=\"https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook//rankorder/2127rank.html\">World Factbook</a>, India boasts a Total Fertility Rate of 2.55—a little more than the United States, whose rate is 2.1, but much lower than Guatemala at 3.92, Afghanistan at 5.54 or Uganda at 6.06. (The Total Fertility Rate is the average number of children women would have if they lived to menopause and bore children at a given fertility rate.)</p>\n<p>So what accounts for this surprising decline? Historical geographer <a href=\"http://www.stanford.edu/~mwlewis/\">Martin Lewis</a> at Stanford University recently wrestled with this question in a lengthy <a href=\"http://geocurrents.info/population-geography/indias-plummeting-birthrate-a-television-induced-transformation\">post</a> on one of my favorite blogs, <a href=\"http://geocurrents.info/\">GeoCurrents</a>. Lewis noted, first off, that India’s total fertility rate didn’t fall in a uniform way across the subcontinent: that, of course, would be far too simple. Instead, provinces in the south and in the far north and far north east had rates in 2012 of 1.9: those in the heartland were as high as 3.5.</p>\n<p>Demographers and geographers had previously proposed several possible explanations for India’s overall fertility decline—increased rates of female education; economic development; urbanization; and technological innovation. So Lewis mapped geographic data for each of these variables in India. Then he compared each of the resulting maps to India’s fertility rate map. The geographic distribution of female education and economic development compared quite well with low fertility rates. But what Lewis discovered is that the geographic pattern of one variable—television ownership—looked an awful lot like that of the fertility rates. Where television ownership is common in India, fertility rates are generally low.</p>\n<p><a href=\"http://www.lastwordonnothing.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/shutterstock_130604639.jpg\"><img alt=\"shutterstock_130604639\" src=\"http://www.lastwordonnothing.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/shutterstock_130604639-300x200.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\"></a>Lewis concedes that these correlations don’t constitute causation. But he suggests that television-viewing likely exposes women to middle-class values and modern ideas about small families. And not just any television-viewing: soap operas are particularly influential. In Brazil, for example, economist Eliana La Ferrara and her colleagues found a strong geographic correlation between lower fertility rates and the spread of the television signal of Redo Globo, a network famous for its exceptionally popular soap operas, or <i>novelas</i>. These programs idealize small families—something not lost on poor women.</p>\n<p>The “presence of the Globo signal,” concluded La Ferrara and her colleagues in a 2008 <a href=\"http://www.iadb.org/res/publications/pubfiles/pubWP-633.pdf\">paper</a>, “leads to significantly lower fertility. This effect is stronger for women of low socioeconomic status, as measured by education or durable goods ownership. The effect is also stronger for women who are in the middle and late phases of their child-bearing life, suggesting that television contributed more to stopping behavior than to delayed first births, consistent with demographic patterns documented for Brazil.”</p>\n<p>I confess that I was taken aback by all these findings. Like many other feminists of my generation, I’ve long slagged shows like <i>Days of Our Lives</i> and <i>The Young and the Restless</i>. But it turns out that soaps may be a potent force for the good in the developing world. Lewis now suggests that the best way to lower fertility rates in countries like Uganda may involve working on three fronts: educating girls; promoting economic development; and bringing electricity, televisions and soap operas to poor communities.</p>\n<p>Who would have thought?</p>\n<p> </p>\n<p><i>On a personal note, this is my last post as a regular LWONer. It’s been a great ride, and you’ve been wonderful readers – perceptive, discerning, informed, and generous with your comments. When LWON was born, we could never have foreseen such an engaged and engaging community of readers. Thank you for everything. I’m off now to get serious about writing a new book. I hope to return from time to time as a guest writer. I hate the word goodbye. </i></p>\n<p> </p>\n<p><i>Photos: <a href=\"javascript:void(0);\">Mumbai Train Station</a>, <a href=\"javascript:void(0);\">Children in the Slums of New Delhi</a>, and I<a href=\"javascript:void(0);\">ndian rural house with satellite antenna</a>, all courtesy Shutterstock<br>\n</i></p>" }, "author" : "Heather Pringle", "comments" : [ ], "annotations" : [ ], "origin" : { "streamId" : "feed/http://www.lastwordonnothing.com/feed/", "title" : "The Last Word On Nothing", "htmlUrl" : "http://www.lastwordonnothing.com" } }, { "isReadStateLocked" : true, "crawlTimeMsec" : "1369663322424", "timestampUsec" : "1369663322424897", "id" : "tag:google.com,2005:reader/item/3fa729ec846222b7", "categories" : [ "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/read", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/starred", "development", "economics", "political science", "research", "cash transfers", "credit constraints", "field experiment", "northern Uganda", "occupational choice", "program evaluation", "randomized trials", "structural change", "Uganda" ], "title" : "Dear governments: Want to help the poor and transform your economy? Give people cash.", "published" : 1369339781, "updated" : 1369339781, "alternate" : [ { "href" : "http://chrisblattman.com/2013/05/23/dear-governments-want-to-help-the-poor-and-transform-your-economy-give-people-cash/", "type" : "text/html" } ], "content" : { "direction" : "ltr", "content" : "<p>I’ve just finished a new paper with a clunky title (the kind that economics referees hopefully love), <a href=\"http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2268552\">Credit Constraints, Occupational Choice, and the Process of Development: Long Run Evidence from Cash Transfers in Uganda</a>. It’s with Nathan Fiala and Sebastian Martinez, run along with <a href=\"http://www.poverty-action.org/project/0189\">Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA)</a>.</p>\n<p>We tackle one of the big questions in development: How to create jobs and speed up the shift from agriculture to industry in developing countries? We look for answers not at the macro level, but with a field experiment and micro-level data in Uganda.</p>\n<p>Countries like Uganda have mostly young, poor, populations. No one is unemployed. If you have no income, you’re in trouble. So you scrape by doing odd jobs and low return activities. The real problems are underemployment (not enough hours) and low productivity employment (low return, low wage work).</p>\n<p>So how do you create “good” jobs and productive work? Another way of asking this question is “what is holding young people back?” or “what constrains them?”</p>\n<p>Every government or NGO program has an answer to this question, even when they don’t know it. From the vast, vast number of training programs–financial literacy, trade skills, life skills–the default answer seems to be “skills”. If you think these programs are worth doing, presumably it’s because you think (1) youth lack these skills, (2) they can’t otherwise get them, and (3) giving them these skills will produce high returns.</p>\n<p>Development economics has a slightly different answer. The evidence is pretty pessimistic about job training programs and financial literacy in poor countries. It’s more optimistic about returns to primary and secondary school in poor countries–wages go up maybe 10-15% with every extra year of schooling. Given how much time and money school takes, though, that’s not always the best return.</p>\n<p>More and more, economists think that the real constraint is capital. Studies show that the poor, on average, have high-earning opportunities if they get a little cash or equipment. Studies with existing farmers or businesspeople have seen returns of 40 to 80% a year on cash grants.</p>\n<p>This gels with economic theory, which says that infusions of capital should expand people’s choice of occupations, self-employment, and earnings. People can’t get access to that capital through loans because credit markets are so broken and expensive. This can be a development trap, or at the very least a drag on growth.</p>\n<p>The studies we have, however, overstate what we know. Most of it comes from Asia. Most of it looks at existing businesspeople and farmers only. So we don’t know a lot about giving cash to the very poor and unemployed, or how to help people shift from agriculture to cottage industry–the structural change so fundamental to modern economic growth.</p>\n<p>Enter our study. We look at a large, randomized, relatively unconditional cash transfer program in Uganda, one the government designed to stimulate this kind of job growth and structural change.</p>\n<p>The Ugandan government did what dozens of African governments are doing under the guise of “Social Action Funds” and “Community Driven Development”: they sent $10,000 to a group of 20 or so young people who applied for it. This is about $400 a person, equal to their annual incomes.</p>\n<p>To many people, this sounds like a crazy development strategy. We don’t trust the poor (let alone a bunch of rural 25-year olds) to spend that kind of money responsibly. We want to tie their hands, or make the decisions for them, or at least make them dig useless ditches for three months in exchange for cash.</p>\n<p>We wanted to know. So we worked with the government and World Bank to randomize the grants, and followed nearly 2500 people two and four years afterwards.</p>\n<p>Here’s the “surprise”: Most start new skilled trades like metalworking or tailoring. They increase their employment hours about 17%. Those new hours are spent in high-return activities, and so earnings rise nearly 50%, especially women’s.</p>\n<p>The people who do the best are those who had the least capital and credit to begin with–consistent with the idea that credit constraints are holding back youth. The more tightly coiled the spring, the bigger the bounce on release.</p>\n<p>What’s more, credit constraints seem to be less binding on men, since men in the control group start to catch up over time. Female controls do not, partly because they have worse access to starting capital. With the grant they take off, further even than men. Without it, they stagnate, even more so than men.</p>\n<p>This is not a unique result. Two weeks ago <a href=\"http://chrisblattman.com/2013/05/02/invest-in-women/\">I put out a report with IPA</a> on a different program in Uganda, with poor women only. their incomes doubled after getting small grants.</p>\n<p>Last, we go beyond economic returns and look for broader social effects. Why? The other belief many people hold dearly: Poor, unemployed men are more likely to fight, riot or rebel.</p>\n<p>Because of this, governments and aid agencies routinely justify their employment programs on reducing social instability, or promoting cohesion. Indeed, that was the express goal of the Ugandan program.</p>\n<p>Even though we see huge economic effects, we see almost no impact on cohesion, aggression, and collective action (peaceful or violent). If that’s true more broadly, we probably can’t justify all this public spending on the grounds of social stability. But the impacts on poverty and structural change alone probably justify big public investment.</p>\n<p>So is it time to stop giving people skills? Not entirely. Part of the reason these Ugandan youth did well is that they invested some of their grants–maybe a third–in skills training. But mostly they invested the grant in tools and inventory and inputs. It was their choice.</p>\n<p>I used to think skills and capital were like right and left shoes: one’s not so useful without the other. Now I think of capital like the shoes and skills like the laces: if I have capital, i can jog a good pace, but I can’t really run unless I have the skills. But first I need the shoes. (And cash can buy me both.)</p>\n<p>The problem is: too many programs just hand out laces. Old, ratty laces that don’t even fit people’s shoes. I don’t know why we do that. Maybe because we academics and NGO workers and elite government officials all live in a world where we ourselves invest in skills because there are things out there called firms and bureaucracies that have capital, and will pay us to use it.</p>\n<p>The poorest don’t have firms ready to hire them. Perhaps we need to stop projecting our own labor markets and biases and low opinions of our own self-control onto the poor, and show them the money.</p>\n<p>Read the full paper, which has some of the backup for my claims and references above, <a href=\"http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2268552\">here</a>. See the project summary and policy brief <a href=\"http://www.poverty-action.org/project/0189\">on the IPA site</a>.</p>\n<p>The post <a href=\"http://chrisblattman.com/2013/05/23/dear-governments-want-to-help-the-poor-and-transform-your-economy-give-people-cash/\">Dear governments: Want to help the poor and transform your economy? Give people cash.</a> appeared first on <a href=\"http://chrisblattman.com\">Chris Blattman</a>.</p>" }, "author" : "Chris Blattman", "comments" : [ ], "annotations" : [ ], "origin" : { "streamId" : "feed/http://chrisblattman.com/feed/", "title" : "Chris Blattman", "htmlUrl" : "http://chrisblattman.com" } }, { "isReadStateLocked" : true, "crawlTimeMsec" : "1369097162754", "timestampUsec" : "1369097162754168", "id" : "tag:google.com,2005:reader/item/9630cab6457a9d1c", "categories" : [ "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/read", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/starred", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/tracking-mobile-read" ], "title" : "Carrying home the evolutionary advantage", "published" : 1369071067, "updated" : 1369071067, "alternate" : [ { "href" : "http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2013/05/infant-behaviour?fsrc=rss", "type" : "text/html" } ], "summary" : { "direction" : "ltr", "content" : "<p><div><img src=\"http://media.economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/full-width/images/2013/05/blogs/babbage/20130525_stp501.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"\" width=\"595\" height=\"335\"></div></p><p>A GENTLE pat on the back and a short walk can put a crying baby to sleep. Four-legged newborns, too, calm down when their mothers hold them by the nape of their necks to carry them. Precisely why, though, has remained a mystery. Kumi Kuroda, of RIKEN Brain Science Institute, in Japan, and her colleagues decided to find out.</p><p>The researchers monitored the heart rates of twelve human infants aged between one to six months under three conditions: while they lay by themselves in a crib, immediately after they were picked by their mothers, and while they were carried around. Specifically, they measure the heart rate variability (HRV), or the tiny differences in the interval between successive heart beats, since previous research showed that lower HRV is tied to higher stress.</p><p></p><p>As the researchers report in <em>Current Biology</em>, true to stereotype, the babies' HRV increased significantly when they were carried, suggesting less stress. The results persisted when controlled for things like crying, which can increase the heart rate considerably and skew HRV readings. Given the ethical constraints on experiments involving human babies, Dr Kuroda and her team then turned to mice. </p><p>After ascertaining that murine newborns, too, show the same physiological response to carrying as human infants do, they examined the sensory mechanisms which might give rise to the phenomenon. First, they used a local anaesthetic to numb the skin on back of the mice’s neck. This blocked the neural signals that are produced by touch. Anesthetised mice were more fidgety while carried than those that were not.</p><p>Next, Dr Kuroda gave the mice a large dose of vitamin B6, to strip them of the ability to judge the relative position of their body parts, or proprioception, as it is known in the argot. Mice plied with the vitamin were also friskier than those that weren't, judged both by observed behaviour and physiological measures such as HRV.</p><p>Finally, the researchers used a drug to suppress the mice's parasympathetic nervous system. This is responsible for unconscious "rest-and-digest" or "feed-and-breed" activities like sexual arousal, salivation or urination, that occur when the body is at rest. When parasympathetic nerves were impaired, the carrying-induced, stress-lowering spike in the HRV was not seen, suggesting that the cardiac effect resulting from carrying did indeed stem from the parasympathetic nerve.</p><p>Crucially, the nervousness caused by pups' impaired senses meant that murine mothers took longer to carry them to part of the enclosure considered safe. Because the young often squirm when sensing danger, such impairment would make whisking them away from potential threats harder. The calming mechanism, then, appears to have evolved to facilitate such extraction. Although human offsrping are not exposed to as many existential threats as their murine counterparts, their parents will no doubt be grateful anyway.</p><div></div>" }, "comments" : [ ], "annotations" : [ ], "origin" : { "streamId" : "feed/http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/index.xml", "title" : "Babbage", "htmlUrl" : "http://www.economist.com/node/21005042/index.xml" } }, { "isReadStateLocked" : true, "crawlTimeMsec" : "1369096567850", "timestampUsec" : "1369096567850637", "id" : "tag:google.com,2005:reader/item/42afa3010ea0ab2b", "categories" : [ "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/read", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/starred", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/tracking-mobile-read" ], "title" : "Difference Engine: Circle of life", "published" : 1369060902, "updated" : 1369060902, "alternate" : [ { "href" : "http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2013/05/changing-chaparral?fsrc=rss", "type" : "text/html" } ], "summary" : { "direction" : "ltr", "content" : "<p><div><img src=\"http://media.economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/full-width/images/2013/05/blogs/babbage/20130518_stp502.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"\" width=\"595\" height=\"335\"></div></p><p>THE fire season has come much earlier than usual to southern California—and with a vengeance fuelled by one of the driest winters on record. So far this year, the region has received only a quarter of its normal rainfall. Making matters worse, the only serious rains of the season occurred during four days in late January, just as much of the vegetation was awakening from its dormant phase. Had the rains come a week or two earlier, or even several weeks later, their effect would have been minimal. But their coming when they did soon made the hills knee-high in a bumper crop of grass and brush. Baked by the sun, this is now one more load of tinder waiting to catch fire.<br><br>Even the hot, dry Santa Ana winds have come whistling out of the desert and through the canyons months before they are normally expected. Temperatures have soared as a result, to over 40ºC, causing spontaneous wildfires to race across the Santa Monica mountains and down to the sea. In one conflagration, 11,200 hectares (28,000 acres) of Ventura county were blackened within a day or so (see photo above). This past week, wildfires have raged in several locations less than an hour from downtown Los Angeles.<br><br>Fire is no stranger to California. Thanks to its Mediterranean climate of hot, dry summers and mild, wet winters, the region is home to one of the largest chaparral biomes in the world. These dense scrublands owe their existence to cool, moist air from the ocean colliding with an unusually warm land mass. The result is ground cover comprising mainly small oaks, manzanitas, lilacs, sumacs, buckwheat and sagebrush. Chaparral covers most of the southern part of coastal California and northern Mexico.<br><br>With precipitation ranging from 30 to 100cm (12 to 40 inches) a year, the chaparral’s native plants rely on small, waxy, evergreen leaves to conserve water by limiting transpiration. Unfortunately, the same waxy leaves that help those plants survive the baking summers make them especially vulnerable to fire.<br><br>Fire can strike the same stretches of chaparral as often as once a decade, or as infrequently as once in half a century. Sooner or later, though, the chaparral will burn—whether as a result of lightning strikes or human action. For centuries, the local Chumash people torched large swathes of chaparral in Babbage’s neighbourhood to replenish the vegetation and provide better hunting. Spanish settlers continued the practice. With its resinous foliage, woody stems and accumulated leaf litter, the chaparral always has been, and always will be, a tinderbox in search of a flint.<br><br>Even so, Babbage remains impressed by how quickly the chaparral’s scorched earth recovers after a fire. Some species—the native cacti, in particular—are natural survivors. The paddle or prickly-pear cactus have pads containing water that help them withstand the ravages of wildfire. Most plants, though, are not so lucky. Fortunately, when the first rains arrive after a fire, the lack of shade that would otherwise hinder the growth of new plants allows the hills to bloom with a profusion of native wildflowers—including orange poppies, golden lilies, purple snapdragons, blue hyacinths, crimson campions and pink wild onions. <br><br>The success of these “fire followers” depends on their seeds being retained dormant in the soil for decades, ready to germinate with the heat shock of a passing wildfire, aided by chemicals precipitating from the subsequent smoke. The colourful annuals die back during long, dry periods, only to be replaced as the woody, underground stumps (basal burls) of charred chamise, manzanita and other shrubs send up fresh shoots through the nutrient-rich, ashy soil to recolonise the hillsides. Within a few short years, the wildfire’s passage can barely be detected.<br><br>The age-old puzzle of how, after a wildfire, long-dormant seeds in the soil get a wake-up call has finally been pieced together by a team at the Salk Institute and nearby University of California, San Diego. As trees and shrubs burn, chemicals known as karrikins are created in the smoke. When molecules of one particular karrikin come in contact with dormant seeds, they attach themselves to receptor sites on the protein responsible for germination. In doing so, the karrikin changes the protein’s shape, causing it to signal to other proteins to activate the genetic pathway regulating germination.<br><br>This finding answers one of the most important “circle of life” questions in plant ecology. It could also provide useful clues to help scientists develop plant varieties capable of restoring and maintaining other important ecosystems. Personally, Babbage is fascinated by the idea of dying plants sending messages to subsequent generations, telling them it is time to sprout and get on with life.<br><br>With fire having been a recurring feature of the chaparral for thousands of years, only plants that have adapted successfully to being able to recover from flames have persisted. As a result, many plants rely on either the fire itself or the environmental conditions that follow a blaze to reproduce. But that does not mean the chaparral needs to burn as frequently as it does.<br><br>As housing developments have pushed ever further into the wilderness, human carelessness means wildfires have increased dramatically. Many contend that fire suppression—with firefighters rushing to snuff out every blaze for fear that property may be lost and people might die—has caused an unnatural accumulation of old brush (ie, “fuel”) that encourages fires to spread and become more dangerous. In their view, suppression should be curtailed. Besides, they say, the chaparral needs to burn for its own good.<br><br>But letting wildfires run their course—especially at the frequency they occur nowadays—can render the chaparral vulnerable to invasive, non-native species. More to the point, there is no evidence that the age of the fuel load affects the probability of fire. When the hot Santa Ana winds blow and a downed power-line arcs, fire sweeps through all chaparral stands irrespective of their age. If anything, the balance of informed opinion has swung back in favour of fire suppression. At least, it has led to fewer, larger fires in the chaparral.</p><p>This may be an even smarter move than ever, now climate change has to be taken into account as well. According to an index developed by the United States Geological Survey, coastal land in southern California has either a “high” or “very high” vulnerability to climate change. Habitats from San Luis Obispo to the Mexican border are among the most threatened in the world.<br><br>What bothers Babbage is the thought that a changing climate could alter the chaparral in irreversible ways. For instance, southern varieties of Californian sagebrush, a fragrant grey-green shrub found on coastal hillsides, are expected to adjust to climate change better than many other plants. As a resident of the chaparral biome, sagebrush could come to dominate the habitat. While he would not object to the smell (sagebrush is not called “cowboy cologne” for nothing), he would genuinely miss the present palette that colours the Californian landscape. All the more so when the occasional wildfire prompts such a bright profusion of wildflowers.</p><div></div>" }, "comments" : [ ], "annotations" : [ ], "origin" : { "streamId" : "feed/http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/index.xml", "title" : "Babbage", "htmlUrl" : "http://www.economist.com/node/21005042/index.xml" } }, { "isReadStateLocked" : true, "crawlTimeMsec" : "1368757787681", "timestampUsec" : "1368757787681205", "id" : "tag:google.com,2005:reader/item/2e239f0f20b28fa9", "categories" : [ "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/read", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/starred", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/tracking-emailed", "Bar/Restaurant", "Cultural Workshops", "Feature Story", "Food", "Ghana", "Street Style", "African street food", "boflot", "fante kenkey", "gari and beans", "hausa koko", "kokorr", "koose", "Nima", "porridge", "shito", "street food", "waa gashi", "waakye" ], "title" : "NIMA: The Street Food Edition", "published" : 1368706855, "updated" : 1368706855, "alternate" : [ { "href" : "http://accradotalttours.wordpress.com/2013/05/16/nima-the-street-food-edition/", "type" : "text/html" } ], "content" : { "direction" : "ltr", "content" : "<p>By <a href=\"https://twitter.com/NanaSirOsei\">Nana Osei Kwadwo</a></p>\n<div style=\"width:594px\"><a href=\"http://accradotalttours.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/nima-street-food-07-e28093-strolling-goats-e28093-march-2013.jpg\"><img alt=\"The Street Food Culture\" src=\"http://accradotalttours.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/nima-street-food-07-e28093-strolling-goats-e28093-march-2013.jpg?w=584&h=389\" width=\"584\" height=\"389\"></a><p>The Street Food Culture</p></div>\n<p>Street food is a way of life in Accra. In fact, it’s the only <i>fast food</i> you’ll find in town. Easy and convenient, affordable and ready to eat, street food for many Accra city people is the way to do it.</p>\n<p><span></span>Street food is for the occasional cook or those on the move in the city – battling traffic on the way to work or back home – and you can’t resist the lingering smells of kelewele, red red or fried fish all around. Or maybe your light dey off [chale, Ghana dey be!]. Street food is everyone’s friend – it won’t break the poor man or rich man’s pocket.</p>\n<p>Nima is a great place to sample a smorgasbord of Accra’s finest street food. Warm your taste buds and check out this enticing photo stroll of our favorite eats on the go.</p>\n<div style=\"width:594px\"><a href=\"http://accradotalttours.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/nima-street-food-02-strolling-goats-march-2013-e1368647759278.jpg\"><img alt=\"Gari and Bean in the Making\" src=\"http://accradotalttours.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/nima-street-food-02-strolling-goats-march-2013-e1368647759278.jpg?w=584&h=876\" width=\"584\" height=\"876\"></a><p>Gari and Beans in the Making</p></div>\n<p><b>GARI AND BEANS—-</b></p>\n<p>Gari is the West African name for roasted cassava shavings. It is mixed with cooked beans, pepper and palm oil and served with <i>kokorr</i> – an Akan name for fried ripe plantain.</p>\n<p><a href=\"http://accradotalttours.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/nima-street-food-04-e28093-strolling-goats-e28093-march-2013.jpg\"><img alt=\"Food is almost ready\" src=\"http://accradotalttours.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/nima-street-food-04-e28093-strolling-goats-e28093-march-2013.jpg?w=584&h=389\" width=\"584\" height=\"389\"></a></p>\n<p><a href=\"http://accradotalttours.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/nima-street-food-03-e28093-strolling-goats-e28093-march-20132-e1368648653183.jpg\"><img alt=\"Some Korkorr to go with our Gari and Beans\" src=\"http://accradotalttours.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/nima-street-food-03-e28093-strolling-goats-e28093-march-20132-e1368648653183.jpg?w=584&h=876\" width=\"584\" height=\"876\"></a></p>\n<p><a href=\"http://accradotalttours.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/nima-street-food-05-e28093-strolling-goats-e28093-march-2013.jpg\"><img alt=\"Yummy!\" src=\"http://accradotalttours.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/nima-street-food-05-e28093-strolling-goats-e28093-march-2013.jpg?w=584&h=389\" width=\"584\" height=\"389\"></a></p>\n<p><b>WAAKYE—– </b></p>\n<p>This popular meal is made of rice and beans mixed together. The fresh waakye leaves cooked with the rice and beans gives the meal it’s distinctive brown color. Waakye is mostly eaten with shito (black pepper), meat or fish. For those who like to get down, you can add pasta, a boiled egg or gari. For extra zest, add some fried plantain.</p>\n<div style=\"width:594px\"><a href=\"http://accradotalttours.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/nima-street-food-22-e28093-strolling-goats-march-2013.jpg\"><img alt=\"Serve Us Waakye!\" src=\"http://accradotalttours.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/nima-street-food-22-e28093-strolling-goats-march-2013.jpg?w=584&h=876\" width=\"584\" height=\"876\"></a><p>Serve Us Waakye!</p></div>\n<p><a href=\"http://accradotalttours.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/nima-street-food-23-e28093-strolling-goats-march-2013.jpg\"><img alt=\"Waakye in Fresh Leaves\" src=\"http://accradotalttours.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/nima-street-food-23-e28093-strolling-goats-march-2013.jpg?w=584&h=876\" width=\"584\" height=\"876\"></a></p>\n<p><a href=\"http://accradotalttours.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/nima-street-food-24-e28093-strolling-goats-march-2013.jpg\"><img alt=\"Waakye is good for everybody\" src=\"http://accradotalttours.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/nima-street-food-24-e28093-strolling-goats-march-2013.jpg?w=584&h=389\" width=\"584\" height=\"389\"></a></p>\n<div style=\"width:594px\"><a href=\"http://accradotalttours.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/nima-street-food-25-e28093-strolling-goats-march-2013.jpg\"><img alt=\"Add some meat and shito\" src=\"http://accradotalttours.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/nima-street-food-25-e28093-strolling-goats-march-2013.jpg?w=584&h=389\" width=\"584\" height=\"389\"></a><p>Add some meat and shito</p></div>\n<p><a href=\"http://accradotalttours.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/nima-street-food-27-e28093-strolling-goats-march-2013.jpg\"><img alt=\"We want our Waakye wrapped\" src=\"http://accradotalttours.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/nima-street-food-27-e28093-strolling-goats-march-2013.jpg?w=584&h=389\" width=\"584\" height=\"389\"></a></p>\n<p><b>KOOSE—–</b></p>\n<p>Koose refers to beans, vegetables and pepper fried together in vegetable oil. It is used to eat <i>Hausa Koko</i> – a sweet brown porridge made from millet cereal. This is a breakfast meal for folks on the go.</p>\n<div style=\"width:594px\"><a href=\"http://accradotalttours.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/nima-street-food-14-strolling-goats-march-2013.jpg\"><img alt=\"The Koose preparations have begun!\" src=\"http://accradotalttours.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/nima-street-food-14-strolling-goats-march-2013.jpg?w=584&h=389\" width=\"584\" height=\"389\"></a><p>The Koose preparations have begun!</p></div>\n<p><a href=\"http://accradotalttours.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/nima-street-food-15-strolling-goats-march-2013.jpg\"><img alt=\"The Koose preparations have begun!\" src=\"http://accradotalttours.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/nima-street-food-15-strolling-goats-march-2013.jpg?w=584&h=389\" width=\"584\" height=\"389\"></a></p>\n<p><a href=\"http://accradotalttours.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/nima-street-food-21-e28093-strolling-goats-march-2013.jpg\"><img alt=\"Nima Street Food 21 – Strolling Goats- March 2013\" src=\"http://accradotalttours.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/nima-street-food-21-e28093-strolling-goats-march-2013.jpg?w=584&h=389\" width=\"584\" height=\"389\"></a> <a href=\"http://accradotalttours.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/nima-street-food-10-strolling-goats-march-2013.jpg\"><img alt=\"Nima Street Food 10 - Strolling Goats - March 2013\" src=\"http://accradotalttours.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/nima-street-food-10-strolling-goats-march-2013.jpg?w=584&h=876\" width=\"584\" height=\"876\"></a></p>\n<p><b>HAUSA KOKO—-</b></p>\n<p>This addictive porridge is made from millet cereal and mixed with local spices, pepper and sugar. This is a standard breakfast meal for many communities across Ghana.</p>\n<div style=\"width:594px\"><a href=\"http://accradotalttours.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/nima-street-food-77-strolling-goats-in-accra-march-2013-photo-by-accra-dot-alt.jpeg\"><img alt=\"Ante up for some Hausa Koko\" src=\"http://accradotalttours.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/nima-street-food-77-strolling-goats-in-accra-march-2013-photo-by-accra-dot-alt.jpeg?w=584&h=389\" width=\"584\" height=\"389\"></a><p>Ante up for some Hausa Koko</p></div>\n<p><a href=\"http://accradotalttours.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/nima-street-food-16-strolling-goats-march-2013.jpg\"><img alt=\"Nima Street Food 16 - Strolling Goats - March 2013\" src=\"http://accradotalttours.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/nima-street-food-16-strolling-goats-march-2013.jpg?w=584&h=389\" width=\"584\" height=\"389\"></a> <a href=\"http://accradotalttours.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/nima-street-food-17-e28093-strolling-goats-march-2013.jpg\"><img alt=\"Nima Street Food 17 – Strolling Goats- March 2013\" src=\"http://accradotalttours.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/nima-street-food-17-e28093-strolling-goats-march-2013.jpg?w=584&h=389\" width=\"584\" height=\"389\"></a> <a href=\"http://accradotalttours.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/nima-street-food-20-e28093-strolling-goats-march-2013.jpg\"><img alt=\"Nima Street Food 20 – Strolling Goats- March 2013\" src=\"http://accradotalttours.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/nima-street-food-20-e28093-strolling-goats-march-2013.jpg?w=584&h=389\" width=\"584\" height=\"389\"></a><b>FANTE KENKEY—-</b></p>\n<p>This delectable dish is made of fermented corn dough cooked in dry plantain leaves and shaped into a textured cornball. Kenkey is eaten with chilli sauce, fish, vegetables or soup.</p>\n<div style=\"width:594px\"><a href=\"http://accradotalttours.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/nima-street-food-12-strolling-goats-march-2013.jpg\"><img alt=\"Hot Fante Kenkey coming up\" src=\"http://accradotalttours.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/nima-street-food-12-strolling-goats-march-2013.jpg?w=584&h=876\" width=\"584\" height=\"876\"></a><p>Hot Fante Kenkey coming up</p></div>\n<p><a href=\"http://accradotalttours.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/nima-street-food-e28093-strolling-goats-e28093-march-2013.jpg\"><img alt=\"Nima Street Food – Strolling Goats – March 2013\" src=\"http://accradotalttours.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/nima-street-food-e28093-strolling-goats-e28093-march-2013.jpg?w=584&h=876\" width=\"584\" height=\"876\"></a><b>WAA GASHI—-</b></p>\n<p>Waa Gashi is the Hausa word for delicious, fried milk. The snack tastes quite similar to thick slices of cheese pizza. Waa Gashi is mostly eaten with rice & peas and an assortment of meat and fish. It is best served piping hot and with barbecue pepper.</p>\n<div style=\"width:594px\"><a href=\"http://accradotalttours.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/nima-street-food-37-e28093-strolling-goats-march-2013.jpg\"><img alt=\"Fresh Cow Milk\" src=\"http://accradotalttours.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/nima-street-food-37-e28093-strolling-goats-march-2013.jpg?w=584&h=876\" width=\"584\" height=\"876\"></a><p>Fresh Cow Milk</p></div>\n<div style=\"width:594px\"><a href=\"http://accradotalttours.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/nima-street-food-36-e28093-strolling-goats-march-2013.jpg\"><img alt=\"Nima Street Food 36 – Strolling Goats- March 2013\" src=\"http://accradotalttours.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/nima-street-food-36-e28093-strolling-goats-march-2013.jpg?w=584&h=876\" width=\"584\" height=\"876\"></a><p>Leaves placed on top gives the Waa Gashi this bright red color</p></div>\n<div style=\"width:594px\"><a href=\"http://accradotalttours.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/nima-street-food-26-e28093-strolling-goats-march-2013.jpg\"><img alt=\"Yummy Waa Gashi served with Waakye\" src=\"http://accradotalttours.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/nima-street-food-26-e28093-strolling-goats-march-2013.jpg?w=584&h=876\" width=\"584\" height=\"876\"></a><p>Yummy Waa Gashi served with Waakye</p></div>\n<p><b>TÒÒGBεε—-</b></p>\n<p>This scrumptious doughnut ball is made of flour, nutmeg and sugar and fried in vegetable oil. Lightly sweet fried goodness! For breakfast on the run, pair with koko, marmalade or honey. TÒÒGBεε is Ga for “goat’s balls” which looks quite similar to the delicacy eaten throughout Ghana.<b> </b>Also popularly referred to as <em>Boflot</em>.</p>\n<div style=\"width:594px\"><a href=\"http://accradotalttours.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/nima-street-food-52-e28093-strolling-goats-march-2013.jpg\"><img alt=\"Chale....\" src=\"http://accradotalttours.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/nima-street-food-52-e28093-strolling-goats-march-2013.jpg?w=584&h=389\" width=\"584\" height=\"389\"></a><p>Chale….</p></div>\n<p><a href=\"http://accradotalttours.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/nima-street-food-53-e28093-strolling-goats-march-2013.jpg\"><img alt=\"Nima Street Food 53 – Strolling Goats- March 2013\" src=\"http://accradotalttours.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/nima-street-food-53-e28093-strolling-goats-march-2013.jpg?w=584&h=876\" width=\"584\" height=\"876\"></a></p>\n<p><a href=\"http://accradotalttours.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/nima-street-food-55-e28093-strolling-goats-march-2013.jpg\"><img alt=\"Nima Street Food 55 – Strolling Goats- March 2013\" src=\"http://accradotalttours.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/nima-street-food-55-e28093-strolling-goats-march-2013.jpg?w=584&h=389\" width=\"584\" height=\"389\"></a> <a href=\"http://accradotalttours.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/nima-street-food-50-e28093-strolling-goats-march-2013.jpg\"><img alt=\"Nima Street Food 50 – Strolling Goats- March 2013\" src=\"http://accradotalttours.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/nima-street-food-50-e28093-strolling-goats-march-2013.jpg?w=584&h=876\" width=\"584\" height=\"876\"></a></p>\n<p>Stay tuned for more street food chronicles right here.</p>\n<br>Filed under: <a href=\"http://accradotalttours.wordpress.com/category/barrestaurant/\">Bar/Restaurant</a>, <a href=\"http://accradotalttours.wordpress.com/category/cultural-workshops/\">Cultural Workshops</a>, <a href=\"http://accradotalttours.wordpress.com/category/feature-story/\">Feature Story</a>, <a href=\"http://accradotalttours.wordpress.com/category/food/\">Food</a>, <a href=\"http://accradotalttours.wordpress.com/category/ghana/\">Ghana</a>, <a href=\"http://accradotalttours.wordpress.com/category/street-style/\">Street Style</a> Tagged: <a href=\"http://accradotalttours.wordpress.com/tag/african-street-food/\">African street food</a>, <a href=\"http://accradotalttours.wordpress.com/tag/boflot/\">boflot</a>, <a href=\"http://accradotalttours.wordpress.com/tag/fante-kenkey/\">fante kenkey</a>, <a href=\"http://accradotalttours.wordpress.com/tag/gari-and-beans/\">gari and beans</a>, <a href=\"http://accradotalttours.wordpress.com/tag/hausa-koko/\">hausa koko</a>, <a href=\"http://accradotalttours.wordpress.com/tag/kokorr/\">kokorr</a>, <a href=\"http://accradotalttours.wordpress.com/tag/koose/\">koose</a>, <a href=\"http://accradotalttours.wordpress.com/tag/nima/\">Nima</a>, <a href=\"http://accradotalttours.wordpress.com/tag/porridge/\">porridge</a>, <a href=\"http://accradotalttours.wordpress.com/tag/shito/\">shito</a>, <a href=\"http://accradotalttours.wordpress.com/tag/street-food/\">street food</a>, <a href=\"http://accradotalttours.wordpress.com/tag/waa-gashi/\">waa gashi</a>, <a href=\"http://accradotalttours.wordpress.com/tag/waakye/\">waakye</a> <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/gocomments/accradotalttours.wordpress.com/3176/\"><img alt=\"\" border=\"0\" src=\"http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/comments/accradotalttours.wordpress.com/3176/\"></a> <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/godelicious/accradotalttours.wordpress.com/3176/\"><img alt=\"\" border=\"0\" src=\"http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/delicious/accradotalttours.wordpress.com/3176/\"></a> <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/gofacebook/accradotalttours.wordpress.com/3176/\"><img alt=\"\" border=\"0\" src=\"http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/facebook/accradotalttours.wordpress.com/3176/\"></a> <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/gotwitter/accradotalttours.wordpress.com/3176/\"><img alt=\"\" border=\"0\" src=\"http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/twitter/accradotalttours.wordpress.com/3176/\"></a> <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/gostumble/accradotalttours.wordpress.com/3176/\"><img alt=\"\" border=\"0\" src=\"http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/stumble/accradotalttours.wordpress.com/3176/\"></a> <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/godigg/accradotalttours.wordpress.com/3176/\"><img alt=\"\" border=\"0\" src=\"http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/digg/accradotalttours.wordpress.com/3176/\"></a> <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/goreddit/accradotalttours.wordpress.com/3176/\"><img alt=\"\" border=\"0\" src=\"http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/reddit/accradotalttours.wordpress.com/3176/\"></a> <img alt=\"\" border=\"0\" src=\"http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=accradotalttours.wordpress.com&blog=22576869&post=3176&subd=accradotalttours&ref=&feed=1\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\">" }, "author" : "Accradotalt", "comments" : [ ], "annotations" : [ ], "origin" : { "streamId" : "feed/http://accradotalttours.wordpress.com/feed/", "title" : "ACCRA [dot] ALT Radio", "htmlUrl" : "http://accradotalttours.wordpress.com" } }, { "isReadStateLocked" : true, "crawlTimeMsec" : "1368601308899", "timestampUsec" : "1368601308899906", "id" : "tag:google.com,2005:reader/item/54a0855438c50d86", "categories" : [ "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/read", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/starred", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/tracking-body-link-used", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/tracking-item-link-used", "HTTP", "Protocol Design", "Standards", "Web Services" ], "title" : "Indicating Problems in HTTP APIs", "published" : 1368576814, "updated" : 1368576817, "alternate" : [ { "href" : "http://www.mnot.net/blog/2013/05/15/http_problem", "type" : "text/html" } ], "content" : { "direction" : "ltr", "content" : "<p>A common part of HTTP-based APIs is telling the client that something has gone wrong. Most APIs do this in some fashion, whether they call it a “Fault” (very SOAP-y), “Error” or whatever.</p>\n<p>Most of them define a new format for just this purpose; for examples, see <a href=\"http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/APIReference/api-error-codes.html#api-Example-Error\">Amazon’s</a>, <a href=\"http://docs.openstack.org/api/openstack-compute/2/content/Synchronous_Faults-d1e1729.html\">OpenStack’s</a>, <a href=\"https://dev.twitter.com/docs/error-codes-responses\">Twitter’s</a>, <a href=\"https://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/api/errors/\">Facebook’s</a>, and <a href=\"http://www.salesforce.com/us/developer/docs/api_rest/index.htm\">SalesForce’s</a>. Twitter's is fairly representative: </p>\n<pre>{\"errors\":[{\"message\":\"Sorry, that page does not exist\",\"code\":34}]}</pre>\n<p>Here, they associate a human-readable message and an error code with the error. That’s a good start, but how is it related to the HTTP status code? And, how am I supposed to know how to find that code?</p>\n<p>Good HTTP APIs don’t make developers hunt through documentation to find things like this; self-documenting formats give is a way to communicate these kinds of details in a way that’s easy to find.</p>\n<p>Good HTTP APIs also use media types to indicate the format of the content, for similar reasons; however, most of these don’t, and as a result developers and tools again need to understand that they’re working with a particular API, rather than just examining the message.</p>\n<p>Of course, there’s a good reason these formats are so casually defined; doing it the “right” way can be onerous, with a trip through <a href=\"http://www.iana.org/cgi-bin/mediatypes.pl\">IANA</a> and the <a href=\"https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf-types\">media type review list</a>. Who wants to bother - especially when you have enough market power to force your users to suck it up?</p>\n<p>I think we can do better. Clients shouldn’t have to pick through 30 slightly different formats and implement parsers specific to each one; it’s a waste of energy. People creating APIs shouldn’t have to guess what a good format looks like, only running into problems down the road. And they certainly shouldn’t have to register new media types for “Fault” formats of every API they create.</p>\n<p>So, a while back I decided to come up with a generic format for indicating the details of a problem encountered in using an HTTP-based API. The <a href=\"http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-nottingham-http-problem\">current draft</a> has an example:</p>\n<pre> HTTP/1.1 403 Forbidden\n Content-Type: application/api-problem+json\n Content-Language: en\n\n {\n \"problemType\": \"http://example.com/probs/out-of-credit\",\n \"title\": \"You do not have enough credit.\",\n \"detail\": \"Your current balance is 30, but that costs 50.\",\n \"problemInstance\": \"http://example.net/account/12345/msgs/abc\",\n \"balance\": 30,\n \"accounts\": [\"http://example.net/account/12345\",\n \"http://example.net/account/67890\"]\n }\n</pre>\n<p>Notice that there’s a firm association between the problem type and the HTTP status code it’s conveyed within; that the problem type is identified with a URL, allowing folks to look it up, reference it unambiguously, and even reuse it in other APIs. Also, see how the format is extensible, so that you can convey machine-readable details of a problem. The optional “problemInstance” property even gives a unique identifier for <strong>this</strong> occurrence of the problem, to allow your support folks to figure out what’s going on.</p>\n<p>Current APIs can introduce this format in a backwards-compatible fashion using content negotiation; if the client includes “Accept: application/api-problem+json” in the request, you know that they understand the format. Likewise, client tools can now abstract out problems into a common interface, rather than forcing developers to dig through the format.</p>\n<p>There’s also a healthy dose of advice about how to use HTTP well (“RESTfully”, if you must), and <a href=\"http://dret.net/netdret/\">Erik Wilde</a> has also included an XML-based format whose canonical data model is the JSON, for those APIs that still choose to use XML.</p>\n<p>To be clear - this isn’t going to solve world hunger, but I do think that APIs that choose to adopt it will avoid a few headaches, and their users will appreciate not having quite so many API-specific special cases to deal with. After all, the whole point of using HTTP for APIs is to get as much leverage as we can out of shared code and concepts.</p>\n<p>Please have a read through <a href=\"http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-nottingham-http-problem\">the draft</a>; lots of folks have reviewed it, and I think it’s nearly ready, but I’d still love any feedback you have. I’m going to be pushing for its use in IETF HTTP-based APIs, as well as others I come into contact with.</p>\n\n\n" }, "author" : "Mark Nottingham", "comments" : [ ], "annotations" : [ ], "origin" : { "streamId" : "feed/http://www.mnot.net/blog/index.atom", "title" : "mnot’s blog", "htmlUrl" : "http://www.mnot.net/blog/" } }, { "isReadStateLocked" : true, "crawlTimeMsec" : "1368507733848", "timestampUsec" : "1368507733848293", "id" : "tag:google.com,2005:reader/item/73ead00984a3304d", "categories" : [ "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/read", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/starred", "Uncategorized" ], "title" : "Africa Confidential on Ibrahim Bah and a ridiculous Italian businessman", "published" : 1368486952, "updated" : 1368486952, "alternate" : [ { "href" : "http://shelbygrossman.com/2013/05/africa-confidential-on-ibrahim-bah-and-a-ridiculous-italian-businessman/", "type" : "text/html" } ], "content" : { "direction" : "ltr", "content" : "<p>Africa Confidential turns its focus this week to Ibrahim Bah, who was a key financial conduit between the RUF and Charles Taylor during the Liberian and Sierra Leonean wars [the articles are gated]. Despite being under a UN travel ban and asset freeze, Bah travels in and out of Sierra Leone frequently and conducts business unencumbered in Freetown. In 2008 he had a gold and diamond trading company based out of an office very close to a police station in Freetown. He is also involved in a mercenary firm that has tried unsuccessfully to engage in recent conflicts in Cote d’Ivoire and Libya. Sierra Leonean officials turn a blind eye to all of this.</p>\n<p>The highlight of the Bah articles, however, is the connection between Bah and an Italian businessman named Vittorio Narciso Ruello. Bah appears to have screwed over Ruello repeatedly, taking hundreds of thousands of dollars to buy diamonds but never delivering the diamonds.</p>\n<blockquote><p>In a statement to the police, Bah claimed he was not defrauding Ruello but suffering from the ups and downs of an uncertain business.</p></blockquote>\n<p>The best part, though, is that Ruello paid Bah to make him a Sierra Leonean honorary consul to Guinea Bissau (a la <a href=\"http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2048877/\">The Ambassador</a>). This is even more outrageous than the Central African Republic attempt as you can’t even be a Sierra Leonean <em>citizen</em> unless you are of “Negro African descent” (for more on this see <a href=\"http://www.refworld.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/rwmain?docid=3ae6b50610\">here</a> and <a href=\"http://www.sierra-leone.org/Laws/2006-11.pdf\">here</a>). Anyways, Bah didn’t come through; it didn’t work. So Ruello went to the Sierra Leonean police to complain of being cheated!</p>\n<a href=\"http://www.addtoany.com/share_save?linkurl=http%3A%2F%2Fshelbygrossman.com%2F2013%2F05%2Fafrica-confidential-on-ibrahim-bah-and-a-ridiculous-italian-businessman%2F&linkname=Africa%20Confidential%20on%20Ibrahim%20Bah%20and%20a%20ridiculous%20Italian%20businessman\"><img src=\"http://shelbygrossman.com/wp-content/plugins/add-to-any/share_save_171_16.png\" width=\"171\" height=\"16\" alt=\"Share/Bookmark\"></a>" }, "author" : "Shelby", "comments" : [ ], "annotations" : [ ], "origin" : { "streamId" : "feed/http://shelbygrossman.com/feed/", "title" : "Shelby Grossman", "htmlUrl" : "http://shelbygrossman.com" } }, { "isReadStateLocked" : true, "crawlTimeMsec" : "1368471007496", "timestampUsec" : "1368471007496300", "id" : "tag:google.com,2005:reader/item/6a5728b722c0bc77", "categories" : [ "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/read", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/starred" ], "title" : "The Day Those Mothas Ruined Mother’s Day for New Orleans", "published" : 1368456954, "updated" : 1368456954, "alternate" : [ { "href" : "http://nicholaspayton.wordpress.com/2013/05/13/the-day-those-mothas-ruined-mothers-day-for-new-orleans/", "type" : "text/html" } ], "content" : { "direction" : "ltr", "content" : "<p>I won’t address yesterday’s Mother’s Day massacre because it’s not unlike the violence that is pervasive in our city’s streets any other day of the week. Clearly, many of you don’t want to address it either. I’ve read so many tweets about not letting the shootings destroy our love for a good ol’ second line. Man, mothafuck a second line. That’s the problem with this city. That’s the problem with America. Everyone’s always so concerned with returning to a state of normalcy as not to let the “terrorists” win, that the root of violence gets ignored.</p>\n<p>. . . And mothafuck this <em>laissez-faire</em> attitude that sweeps corruption under the rug.</p>\n<p>I recently read a quote from this city’s administration about the long-standing problem with violence in The Big Easy. Well, if some of you don’t recall, we were on the upswing about 15 years ago. The Morial administration lowered NOLA crime rates successfully with Chief Richard Pennington. Don’t think it’s impossible, it’s very fucking possible. Click the pic, if you need proof:</p>\n<p style=\"text-align:center\"><a href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/1998/02/17/us/new-orleans-mayor-thrives-on-lower-crime-and-lifted-spirit.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm\"><img alt=\"penningtonmorial31210jpg-0d07b5fd3106e0b9_medium\" src=\"http://nicholaspayton.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/penningtonmorial31210jpg-0d07b5fd3106e0b9_medium.jpg?w=640\"></a></p>\n<p>So contrary to what some of our city’s administrators seem to think, a quick turnaround for this city can happen long before 2018. And all of us don’t have to decide to do something about it for the senseless violence to cease. But, what do you expect when you live in a city that trains prisoners to be more skillful criminals inside than they were on the outside? I’ve heard solutions like maybe we need a stronger military presence like we had post-flood of 2005. Really? More guns is the answer? I have a solution that’s simple, safe, and attainable: Let’s clean up the dirty politics and prioritize education and employment.</p>\n<p>So what do we do? Pray and leave it in God’s hands? Hope that the faulty system miraculously gets better? Should citizens who’ve done well for themselves go into the communities and counsel at-risk youth? I think the regular folks — no matter how earnest in their attempts — will hit a wall trying to offer encouragement and support on a personal basis. For even if you can change a child’s outlook, they still have to deal with this cold, cruel world. It’s not the caring citizens that created the problem, so I think it’s futile for them to try to resolve it. It’s damn near impossible for the “good” folk of the community to eradicate a construct they haven’t erected. So I suggest you don’t fall prey to feeling guilted into thinking there is something more you can do. Martyrdom is not the answer. Most martyrs reach the same end and the world continues to be a fucked up place. Why sacrifice your peace and sanity for a hopeless cause? That’s not to say don’t help others, but focus your energies in tangible ways that can affect change. Put pressure on the Big Boys to take care of the Big Problems. We must hold our leaders accountable.</p>\n<p>What we see every day on the streets of New Orleans is a microcosm of what’s both beautiful and ugly about America. It has been said that New Orleans is the soul of the United States. I find that to be true in many ways —geographically, spiritually, and otherwise. By the mouth of the Delta, we feed this country through our tributaries of tradition and contradiction. The Crescent City is the cradle of birth and death. But because we celebrate life and its passing does not mean we must overindulge in decadence to the point of our demise. As long as we continue to pacify our sins in the roux of the Mighty Mississippi, we will find ourselves gridlocked between the trinity of lust, shame, and abstinence. We say “New Orleans,” but it might as well be called “Old Orleans” because most people who live here are content with repeating the same shit. You can’t be new unless you are willing to do away with old patterns. You can’t realize a better version of yourself until you are fearless enough to shed the dead skin.</p>\n<p>Yeah, we celebrate death until it is our time to die so that we may reach our highest potential. To our detriment, we’re killing all the good shit and letting the bad stuff survive. That’s not New Orleans, that’s Old Orleans — afraid to be the best it can be.</p>\n<p>I wish I had a better ending to the story, but that depends on you mothafuckas.</p>\n<p><strong>#MFCOMN</strong></p>\n<p>- Nicholas Payton aka The Savior of Archaic Pop</p>\n<p style=\"text-align:center\">\n<br> <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/gocomments/nicholaspayton.wordpress.com/4841/\"><img alt=\"\" border=\"0\" src=\"http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/comments/nicholaspayton.wordpress.com/4841/\"></a> <img alt=\"\" border=\"0\" src=\"http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=nicholaspayton.wordpress.com&blog=4110628&post=4841&subd=nicholaspayton&ref=&feed=1\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\"></p>" }, "author" : "nicholaspayton", "comments" : [ ], "annotations" : [ ], "origin" : { "streamId" : "feed/http://nicholaspayton.wordpress.com/feed/", "title" : "Nicholas Payton", "htmlUrl" : "http://nicholaspayton.wordpress.com" } }, { "isReadStateLocked" : true, "crawlTimeMsec" : "1368424951943", "timestampUsec" : "1368424951943701", "id" : "tag:google.com,2005:reader/item/d4ee25c0e0ca81b6", "categories" : [ "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/read", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/starred", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/tracking-body-link-used", "beledougou", "mariam bagayogo", "mali", "bambara", "balafon" ], "title" : "Videos", "published" : 1368360900, "updated" : 1368387509, "replies" : [ { "href" : "http://wrldsrv.blogspot.com/feeds/6992874493586869559/comments/default", "title" : "Post Comments", "type" : "application/atom+xml" }, { "href" : "http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=7791963494354887351&postID=6992874493586869559", "title" : "0 Comments", "type" : "text/html" } ], "alternate" : [ { "href" : "http://wrldsrv.blogspot.com/2013/05/videos.html", "type" : "text/html" } ], "content" : { "direction" : "ltr", "content" : "This post is mostly intended to draw your attention to this remarkable video posted on YouTube by <a href=\"http://www.youtube.com/user/ngoniba?feature=watch\">Ngoniba</a>:<br><iframe width=\"480\" height=\"360\" src=\"http://www.youtube.com/embed/OPVoTo4xNtY\" frameborder=\"0\"></iframe><br><br>And if, like me, you can't get enough of these videos, please look around for more on Ngoniba's Youtube channel. <a href=\"http://youtu.be/rEmxN-2hznA\">Here</a> is one to help you on your way.<br><br>The principle star of these videos is, of course, <b>Mariam Bagayogo</b>. You may remember the <a href=\"http://wrldsrv.blogspot.nl/2009/10/balafon-dancing.html\">video</a> I posted a few years ago. As I mentioned then, besides the singing and the balafons accompanying her I was particularly fascinated by the dancing. And, having watched Ngoniba's videos a few times, I am again fascinated by the intricate dancing in these videos.<br><br>It is no secret that dance is at the core of a lot of (if not most) music in Africa. When I first started interviewing Malian artists in the 1980s I was struck by the frequent use of the word \"rythme\" when they were talking about songs. It soon became clear to me that this was not accidental, but that rhythm and music are the same thing, or part of the same thing. And that rhythm also meant dance. Talking to <b>Daouda 'Flani' Sangaré</b> and <b>Alou Fané</b>, who had both been dancers with the Ballet National du Mali, I learnt that all the dances have a meaning, as does the rhythm. A dance can carry a message, like \"I fancy you\" or \"I respect you\", or can - for example - be used to underline the dancers' identity as part of a group, family, caste etcetera.<br><br>When it comes to dances there still are many misconceptions with the 'general public' in the western world. \"African dances\" often are seen as very exhuberant, with arms and legs flapping all over the place, and - preferably - with loud djembe drumming. Fortunately, most dances are not like this, and are actually very controlled and wonderfully subtle. I remind you of that fantastic dancer in the Oumou Sangaré video I <a href=\"http://wrldsrv.blogspot.nl/2008/10/moussolou.html\">posted</a> earlier, or Alou Fané's delightfully understated dancing in <a href=\"http://youtu.be/2iTyQSmjuOU\">this video</a>. <br>The movements of the dances by Mariam Bagayogo also do not conform with the general idea of \"african dances\". Look at this video by Mariam from 1986 for example (another one from Ngoniba):<br><iframe width=\"480\" height=\"360\" src=\"http://www.youtube.com/embed/18KtzbZBupo\" frameborder=\"0\"></iframe><br>The flexing of the knees, the step: dance and music are one.<br><br>EDIT May 12, 2013: Ngoniba has sent me a link to a recent and <a href=\"http://www.maliweb.net/news/musique/2013/04/24/article,141715.html\">very interesting article</a> on Maliweb about Mariam Bagayoko. In this article she talks about her career and about her situation at the age of 70. Apparently she has taken over the care of the 17 children and 4 wives of two of her brothers who have passed away. Her message to Malian readers is that they should follow in the footsteps of their elders, i.e. respect the traditions. <br><br><br><br>" }, "author" : "WrldServ", "comments" : [ ], "annotations" : [ ], "origin" : { "streamId" : "feed/http://wrldsrv.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default", "title" : "worldservice", "htmlUrl" : "http://wrldsrv.blogspot.com/" } }, { "isReadStateLocked" : true, "crawlTimeMsec" : "1368368840513", "timestampUsec" : "1368368840513194", "id" : "tag:google.com,2005:reader/item/c093df1445687aaf", "categories" : [ "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/read", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/starred", "Science" ], "title" : "The arithmetic of interstellar travel", "published" : 1368353831, "updated" : 1368353831, "alternate" : [ { "href" : "http://crookedtimber.org/2013/05/12/the-arithmetic-of-interstellar-travel/", "type" : "text/html" } ], "content" : { "direction" : "ltr", "content" : "<p>There's been a lot of excitement about the discovery of two Earth-like[^1] planets, <a href=\"http://www.examiner.com/list/earth-like-planets-found-perfect-habitable-zone-1-200-light-years-distant\">a mere 1200 light years away</a>. Pretty soon, I guess, we'll be thinking about sending colonists. So, I thought it might be worthwhile to a little bit of arithmetic on the exercise.</p>\n\n<p>I'm going to assume (generously, I think) that the minimum size for a successful colony is 10 000. The only experience we have is the Apollo program, which transported 12 astronauts to the Moon (a distance of 1 light second) at a cost of $100 billion or so (current values). So, assuming linear scaling (again, very generously, given the need to accelerate to near lightspeed), that's a cost of around $100 trillion per light-second for 10 000 people. 1200 light-years is around 30 billion light-seconds, so the total cost comes out roughly equal to the value of current world GDP accumulated over the life of the universe.</p>\n\n<p>Even supposing that technological advances made travel possible over such distances possible, why would we bother. By hypothesis, that would require the ability to live in interstellar space for thousands of years. A civilisation with that ability would have no need of planets.</p>\n\n<p>On behalf of my fellow Australians, I'm going to make a counter-offer. For a mere $10 trillion, we can find you an area of land larger than a typical European country, almost certainly more habitable than the new planets, and much closer. We'll do all the work of supplying water and air, build 10 000 mansions for the inhabitants and guarantee a lifetime supply of food. I'm hoping for a spotters fee of 0.01 per cent.</p>\n\n<p>On a related point, what should we be wishing for here? The fact that no-one has sent a detectable signal in our direction suggests that intelligent life forms similar to humans are very rare. If habitable planets are very rare, then this is unsurprising - interstellar distances preclude both travel and any kind of two-way communication. If on the other hand, the emergence of intelligent life is common, then the evidence suggests that its disappearance, through processes like nuclear war, must also be common.</p>\n\n<p>[^1] Where Earth-like means somewhere between Venus-like and Mars-like.</p>" }, "author" : "John Quiggin", "comments" : [ ], "annotations" : [ ], "origin" : { "streamId" : "feed/http://crookedtimber.org/feed/", "title" : "Crooked Timber", "htmlUrl" : "http://crookedtimber.org" } }, { "isReadStateLocked" : true, "crawlTimeMsec" : "1368339482277", "timestampUsec" : "1368339482277707", "id" : "tag:google.com,2005:reader/item/84c25c636b707078", "categories" : [ "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/read", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/starred", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/tracking-mobile-read", "Breakfast", "Gluten-Free", "Photo", "Pudding" ], "title" : "yogurt panna cotta with walnuts and honey", "published" : 1366988860, "updated" : 1366988860, "canonical" : [ { "href" : "http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2013/04/yogurt-panna-cotta-with-walnuts-and-honey/" } ], "alternate" : [ { "href" : "http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/smittenkitchen/~3/t_w8asbkyNg/", "type" : "text/html" } ], "content" : { "direction" : "ltr", "content" : "<p><a href=\"http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2013/04/yogurt-panna-cotta-with-walnuts-and-honey/\" title=\"yogurt panna cotta with walnuts and honey\"><img src=\"http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8400/8682467912_efaa762c89.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"333\" alt=\"yogurt panna cotta with walnuts and honey\"></a></p>\nGuys, I just discovered the ultimate weekend brunch treat/decadent dessert that still contains a whiff of moderation/<a href=\"http://www.flickr.com/photos/smitten/8681658077/in/photostream\">preschooler</a> snack. The ingredient list is so short, and the cooking process is so simple that you’ll have the recipe memorized by the time you make it the second time. And you will make it a second time, maybe even within a week. It looks pretty, tastes luxurious and… well, most of you probably discovered panna cotta a decade ago.\n<p><a href=\"http://www.flickr.com/photos/smitten/8682466230/\" title=\"lemon, gelatin, sugar, milk/cream, yogurt\"><img src=\"http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8395/8682466230_9e19d63848.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"333\" alt=\"lemon, gelatin, sugar, milk/cream, yogurt\"></a><br>\n<a href=\"http://www.flickr.com/photos/smitten/8682466352/\" title=\"thick greek yogurt\"><img src=\"http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8262/8682466352_5a3120eb08.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"333\" alt=\"thick greek yogurt\"></a></p>\n<p>I’m sorry, I’m just slow. For example, this week I started reading <a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1594483299/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1594483299&linkCode=as2&tag=smitten-20\">this new book</a> that everyone was talking about in September … 2007. And that’s just the beginning. Gallery wall? Skinny jeans? Arrested Development? Quinoa? People, I am <i>on it</i>. True to sluggish form, it’s been a full four years since my friend Nicole gushed to me about the wonders of yogurt panna cotta. I put it on my cooking to-do list, blinked, and that about brings us up to last week when I saw it on my list and thought, “right, wasn’t I going to make that a few days ago?”</p>\n<p><a href=\"http://www.flickr.com/photos/smitten/8681355169/\" title=\"yogurt whisked with milk or cream\"><img src=\"http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8522/8681355169_9657d4a377.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"333\" alt=\"yogurt whisked with milk or cream\"></a></p>\n<p><b>... Read the rest of <a href=\"http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2013/04/yogurt-panna-cotta-with-walnuts-and-honey/\">yogurt panna cotta with walnuts and honey</a> on <a href=\"http://smittenkitchen.com\">smittenkitchen.com</a></b></p>\n<hr>\n<p><small>© smitten kitchen 2006-2012. |\n<a href=\"http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2013/04/yogurt-panna-cotta-with-walnuts-and-honey/\">permalink to <b>yogurt panna cotta with walnuts and honey</b></a> | <a href=\"http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2013/04/yogurt-panna-cotta-with-walnuts-and-honey/#comments\">230 comments</a> to date | see more: <a href=\"http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/category/breakfast/\" title=\"View all posts in Breakfast\" rel=\"category tag\">Breakfast</a>, <a href=\"http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/category/gluten-free/\" title=\"View all posts in Gluten-Free\" rel=\"category tag\">Gluten-Free</a>, <a href=\"http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/category/photo/\" title=\"View all posts in Photo\" rel=\"category tag\">Photo</a>, <a href=\"http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/category/pudding/\" title=\"View all posts in Pudding\" rel=\"category tag\">Pudding</a>\n</small></p>" }, "author" : "deb", "comments" : [ ], "annotations" : [ ], "origin" : { "streamId" : "feed/http://feeds.feedburner.com/smittenkitchen", "title" : "smitten kitchen", "htmlUrl" : "http://smittenkitchen.com" } }, { "isReadStateLocked" : true, "crawlTimeMsec" : "1368226377092", "timestampUsec" : "1368226377092674", "id" : "tag:google.com,2005:reader/item/4bc168b9724cfa8e", "categories" : [ "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/read", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/starred", "Dust It Off", "funk", "pop", "Prince", "rock", "soul" ], "title" : "DUST IT OFF: Prince’s “Lovesexy”…25 Years Later", "published" : 1368202411, "updated" : 1368202539, "replies" : [ { "href" : "http://www.thisisbooksmusic.com/2013/05/10/dust-it-off-prince-lovesexy-25-years-later/#comments", "type" : "text/html" }, { "href" : "http://www.thisisbooksmusic.com/2013/05/10/dust-it-off-prince-lovesexy-25-years-later/feed/atom/", "type" : "application/atom+xml" } ], "alternate" : [ { "href" : "http://www.thisisbooksmusic.com/2013/05/10/dust-it-off-prince-lovesexy-25-years-later/", "type" : "text/html" } ], "content" : { "direction" : "ltr", "content" : "<p><a href=\"http://s1039.photobucket.com/user/johmbolaya/media/covers/Prince_Lovesexy_zpsa22849de.jpg.html\"><img src=\"http://i1039.photobucket.com/albums/a474/johmbolaya/covers/Prince_Lovesexy_zpsa22849de.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"Prince photo Prince_Lovesexy_zpsa22849de.jpg\"></a><br>\nAs a Prince fan, I had been waiting to find out what his follow-up to <i>Sign ‘O’ The Times</i> would be. <i>Sign ‘O’ The Times</i> was an album that had to grow on me in the first month I was listening to it, perhaps because his previous album (1986′s <i>Parade</i>) was one I got into completely. There was a lot of territory covered on <i>Sign ‘O’ The Times</i> that I had to, as he says in “Slow Love”, take my time in listening to things. Up to the rlease of <i>Sign ‘O’ The Times</i>, there was a lot of coverage in <i>Rolling Stone</i> magazine about the album he was working on, and how that was scrapped and turned into the record we now know. When the singers were released and Prince was ready to try something new, more news in <i>Rolling Stone</i> surfaced that he was working on a grittier, dirtier, and raunchy album, perhaps even more filthy than his earlier works, or at least it was compared to the Prince of yesteryear, before he was embraced by the mainstream post-<i>Purple Rain</i>. I was highly looking forward to this new dose of dirty music, but as time moved on in the early spring of 1988, there was word that Prince was not happy, that he allegedly rejected this submitted album, almost as in a way to say “if I were to die, I don’t want this to be my last statement”. However, review copies of <i>The Black Album</i> were sent to journalists and that became the hot item to have. Except most people didn’t have it or couldn’t obtain it, at least not yet. Eventually, Warner Bros. Records revealed that Prince would be releasing something that would be more acceptable/accessible to the public. No black cover, no raunchy songs, and with the exception of one song, no trace of anything that was on <i>The Black Album</i>.</p>\n<p>When <i>Lovesexy</i> was released on May 10, 1988, “Alphabet St.” was the first single from it, promoted by a video that looked like it was shot on a public access cable show with the cheapy graphics to match. The song was incredibly funky with a nice pop shine, but due to how irresistible it was, fans loved it enough to help get it into the Top 10 of Billboard’s Singles chart. As with most first singles, this was the entry way into an album that, in effect, represented <i>The Black Album</i>‘s replacement album, but people seemed to be taken aback by him sitting nude with a photograph of a flower behind him. Some had felt the flower featured a phallic component that represented its penis, which made things worse for stores who refused to sell the album. In some cities, the album cover was censored while other stores would sell them behind the counter, the old school practice way of selling something to the public that was considered offensive. In some cases, the album would not be stocked which resulted in lower-than-expected sales, which is sad considering how good <i>Lovesexy</i> is.</p>\n<p>The album was supported by three singles: the aforementioned “Alphabet St.”, “Glam Slam”, and “I Wish U Heaven”. “Glam Slam” was one of Prince’s great efforts at making pop, right alongside “Raspberry Beret”, and the video featured him and his group performing at the warehouse in Chanhassen, Minnesota that was his rehearsal space at Paisley Park studios. The song is meant to be a representation of love and beauty in the way Prince does it best, but it did not do as well as a single as “Alphabet St.”, at least in the U.S. The third and final single was the short and sweet “I Wish U Heaven”, another pop gem that seemed to be influenced by everyone from Sly Stone to Larry Graham to Curtis Mayfield, with nice gospel overtones heard in Prince’s own multi tracked background vocals. As quirky as the song was, with its 1960′s pop single length of 2:43, it seemed to be pure perfection. While Prince was a master of releasing extended performances of his songs, a song like “I Wish U Heaven” very much showed that there was someone who was very much the king of pop in his own right, when he could be.</p>\n<p>Even in the seven months following the release of <i>Lovesexy</i>, I always wondered if Prince made the right choices in singles. While “Glam Slam” is a decent song, “Anna Stesia” is far more incredible although perhaps the spiritual overtones of the second half may have been considered a threat to pop radio, even though I’d like to think it would have been a massive hit on the black charts. It’s a song where he proudly finds a love he can’t get enough of:<br>\n“<i>Anna Stesia come to me<br>\nTalk to me, ravish me<br>\nLiberate my mind</i></p>\n<p>Tell me what you think of me<br>\nPraise me, craze me<br>\nOut this space and time”</p>\n<p>The second half of the song almost seems like a much lighter version of “Temptation” from <i>Around The World In A Day</i>, but again, not released as a single. Nonetheless, it was a moving way to end Side 1, and the opening song on Side 2 should have been released as a single too. “Dance On” was irresistible from the moment he yells “PICK IT UP”, but at a time when R&B music was not this deep in the pocket, it may have been too much. The only song from <i>The Black Album</i> that survived on <i>Lovesexy</i> was “When 2 R in Love”, a beautiful ballad that might have thrown off some fans, who knew this was from the raunchy album but outside of talking about things that shouldn’t be forbidden and taboo, it seemed fairly safe for a Prince song. A video was made for it, but like the album it was originally meant for, it consisted of nothing but black.</p>\n<p><i>Lovesexy</i> ends with “Positivity”, with the line “have you had your plus sign today?” a part of its chorus. It seemed to be the antithesis to what <i>The Black Album</i> was supposed to represent, a bit of Dr. Jeckyl & Mr. Hyde, a Prince with two personalities, one feeling completely guilty of the other. For the time being, no one had heard <i>The Black Album</i> and had nothing to compare it to. However, by the summer of 1988, cassette copies were being circulated by fans, some of which were sold in stores as the real thing. For many, <i>The Black Album</i> was the real thing, or at least better than the “thing” that fans felt was <i>Lovesexy</i>, the untouchable album that few wanted to hear, yet alone hold in their hands. The speed of distribution and bootleg sales were so strong, it moved a group of anonymous British musicians to perform <i>The Black Album</i> note for note and pass it off as being a dub of the album. The most noticeable differences is when you hear British men say “2 Nigs United 4 West Compton” with a British accent. Did underground sales and distribution of <i>The Black Album</i> do better than <i>Lovesexy</i>? Some will say yes, but it didn’t stop Warner Bros. from finally releasing the album six years later.</p>\n<p>Looking back at “Alphabet St.” and its success, would “Anna Stesia” and “Dance On” have been more successful than “Glam Slam” and “I Wish U Heaven”? No one would ever think “If I Was Your Girlfriend” and “U Got The Look” (from <i>Sign ‘O’ The Times</i>) would become hits in their own right, but they were. <i>Lovesexy</i> should not be looked at as the replacement album, because now that we do have <i>The Black Album</i> available, it can be placed between <i>Sign ‘O’ The Times</i> and <i>Lovesexy</i>. Or just like countless hip-hop artists, consider it his street album, which is exactly what it is. Prince may love being uptown, but <i>The Black Album</i> was his downtown release. <i>Lovesexy</i> holds up quite well despite the flaws I may have felt upon first listen, and is arguably the last bit of glory in the 1980′s before he released <i>Batman</i> and <i>Graffiti Bridge</i> in 1990. Was this the start of Prince running out of ideas or coming up with great songs? It’s easy to debate about it, but Prince would eventually come up with tracks like “Joy In Repetition”, “Scandalous”, “Thieves In The Temple”, “Money Don’t Matter 2 Nite”, “Diamonds & Pearls”, “Strollin’”, “Live 4 Love”, “The Morning Papers”, “Blue Light”, “Come”, “The Most Beautiful Girl In The World”, “Dolphin”, and “Had U”, and these songs barely skim the surface of what Prince has done in the 25 years since <i>Lovesexy</i>. If one is to look at Prince’s discography, you can either love the hits and only the hits, or take him on for the duration. Prince has tested the limits of not only his fans, but very much himself, and <i>Lovesexy</i> is barely an album that people should complain about it. We’re still talking about its music 25 years later, and he should be proud of that fact. Yet most likely, he spends less time talking about what was and continuing on with what will come next. Maybe Prince himself.</p>\n<p></p>" }, "author" : "thisisjohnbook", "comments" : [ ], "annotations" : [ ], "origin" : { "streamId" : "feed/http://www.thisisbooksmusic.com/feed/atom/", "title" : "This Is Book's Music", "htmlUrl" : "http://www.thisisbooksmusic.com/" } }, { "isReadStateLocked" : true, "crawlTimeMsec" : "1368173706247", "timestampUsec" : "1368173706247013", "id" : "tag:google.com,2005:reader/item/b2e8157d1bc9fcfb", "categories" : [ "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/read", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/starred", "Music", "analysis", "Thoughts and Reflections", "lovesexy", "Prince" ], "title" : ""Hundalasiliah!": The Story of Lovesexy and Why It's One of the Most Underrated Prince Albums", "published" : 1368142620, "updated" : 1369523644, "replies" : [ { "href" : "http://thatonefunkkid.blogspot.com/feeds/7921166165664404761/comments/default", "title" : "Post Comments", "type" : "application/atom+xml" }, { "href" : "http://thatonefunkkid.blogspot.com/2013/05/hundalasiliah-story-of-lovesexy-and-why.html#comment-form", "title" : "6 Comments", "type" : "text/html" } ], "alternate" : [ { "href" : "http://thatonefunkkid.blogspot.com/2013/05/hundalasiliah-story-of-lovesexy-and-why.html", "type" : "text/html" } ], "content" : { "direction" : "ltr", "content" : "<table cellpadding=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\" style=\"float:left;margin-right:1em;text-align:left\"><tbody><tr><td style=\"text-align:center\"><a href=\"http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-_sK7U4twRtg/UYfvh0f4DBI/AAAAAAAAAOc/ni-IVPs-YQ0/s1600/prince-lovesexy-j2334c.jpg\" style=\"clear:left;margin-bottom:1em;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto\"><img border=\"0\" height=\"200\" src=\"http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-_sK7U4twRtg/UYfvh0f4DBI/AAAAAAAAAOc/ni-IVPs-YQ0/s200/prince-lovesexy-j2334c.jpg\" width=\"200\"></a></td></tr><tr><td style=\"text-align:center\">Prince - <i>Lovesexy</i> (1988)</td></tr></tbody></table><blockquote><span style=\"font-family:Times,Times New Roman,serif;font-size:large\"><b><i>\"The feeling you get when you fall in love, not with a girl or boy, but with the heavens above.\" - </i>Prince</b></span></blockquote><span style=\"font-family:Times,Times New Roman,serif\"><br></span><span style=\"font-family:Times,Times New Roman,serif\">What better time to discuss why <i>Lovesexy</i> is one of the most overlooked albums in Prince's career than the 25th anniversary? But, first off, for those of you that don't know, keep reading for a history of the album.</span><br><span style=\"font-family:Times,Times New Roman,serif\"><br></span><span style=\"font-family:Times,Times New Roman,serif\">In order to properly discuss the history of <i>Lovesexy</i>, one must also include the story behind \"The Black Album\" from the end of the previous year. Feel free to skip past this if it's old news for you!</span><br><span style=\"font-family:Times,Times New Roman,serif\"><br></span><br><table cellpadding=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\" style=\"float:right;margin-left:1em;text-align:right\"><tbody><tr><td style=\"text-align:center\"><a href=\"http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9p5vbkEhK0Y/UYe96aJ86QI/AAAAAAAAAOM/hU9sAY_dZrg/s1600/prince_the_black_album.jpg\" style=\"clear:right;margin-bottom:1em;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto\"><span style=\"font-family:Times,Times New Roman,serif\"><img border=\"0\" height=\"200\" src=\"http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9p5vbkEhK0Y/UYe96aJ86QI/AAAAAAAAAOM/hU9sAY_dZrg/s200/prince_the_black_album.jpg\" width=\"200\"></span></a></td></tr><tr><td style=\"text-align:center\"><span style=\"font-family:Times,Times New Roman,serif\">Original planned release of <i>\"The Black Album\"<br> </i>(1987)</span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style=\"font-family:Times,Times New Roman,serif;font-size:large\"><b>The Legend of The Funk Bible</b></span><br><span style=\"font-family:Times,Times New Roman,serif\">Prince himself has never really talked much about \"The Black Album,\" other than the Prince-terminology explanation of its pull from release in the Lovesexy Tour booklet, which we'll get to later. Despite this, many close Prince associates have discussed the many rumors that surround the album, and that have helped give it the legendary status that it has today (anything that Prince didn't say himself is considered a rumor in my eyes)</span><span style=\"font-family:Times,'Times New Roman',serif\">.</span><br><span style=\"font-family:Times,Times New Roman,serif\"><br></span><span style=\"font-family:Times,Times New Roman,serif\">\"The Black Album\" is said to have started off as a series of songs composed for a birthday party that Prince threw for Sheila E., a long-time collaborator, singer, and drummer for him. Among these tracks were \"Le Grind,\" \"Bob George,\" and the wild instrumental \"2 Nigs United 4 West Compton\" (I'd like to hope that the lyrics to \"Bob George\" were not written yet). Prince then took some pre-recorded songs including \"Superfunkycalifragisexy\", the rap parody \"Dead on It,\" ode to supermodel Cindy Crawford \"Cindy C.,\" and \"Rockhard in a Funky Place\" (originally planned for the unreleased <i><a href=\"http://princevault.com/index.php/Album:_Camille\">Camille</a></i> album) from different periods in 1986 and compiled them together. He finally recorded "When 2 R in Love" in October of 1987, making it the final track recorded for the album. </span><br><br><span>The physical release of the album (both LP and CD) was to be in a plain black sleeve with no printed artist, album title or track listing on the outside, but a track listing on the actual disc (albeit still no artist or album title). On the spine of the release, the catalog number (originally 25677) could be found. However, there was no other indication of an artist or album title. Due to the nature of the release, fans just simply called it \"The Black Album\" (the more prominent title) or \"The Funk Bible\" (due to the spoken word intro to the first song, \"Le Grind\").</span><br><span style=\"background-color:white;font-family:Times,'Times New Roman',serif;line-height:19.1875px\"><br></span><span style=\"font-family:Times,'Times New Roman',serif\">\"The Black Album\" was created in response to music critics and fans that had begun to say that Prince's music was too \"pop-oriented\" and that he had abandoned his black audience. Prince compiled the album quickly out of spite and possibly a bit of anger to respond to these critics. Warner Bros. were also not fans of the idea of releasing the album so soon after <i>Sign \"☮\" the Times</i>, released earlier in the year. Let's be honest, when did Warner ever support Prince's ideas? But that's a story for a different time. Despite this, the shelving of the album was completely Prince's decision. He grew to believe the album was evil, and powered by \"Spooky Electric\" (the Devil). Close associates (specifically sound engineer Susan Rogers) have attributed this feeling to an ecstasy trip that Prince encountered after completion of the album. As a result, a week before the album's release, he pulled all 500,000 pressed copies from release. He later explained this decision in a way that only he could, describing the battle between \"Camille\" and \"Spooky Electric\" in the 1988 Lovesexy Tour program. Here's an excerpt (taken from <a href=\"http://theblackalbum.info/\">theblackalbum.info</a>):</span><br><blockquote style=\"font-style:italic\"><span style=\"font-family:Times,Times New Roman,serif\">“Camille set out to silence his critics. No longer daring - his enemies laughed. No longer glam, his funk is half-assed...<br>Tuesday came. Blue Tuesday. His canvas full, and lying on the table, Camille mustered all the hate that he was able. Hate 4 the ones who ever doubted his game. Hate 4 the ones who ever doubted his name.<br>Tis nobody funkier -- let the Black Album fly. Spooky Electric was talking, Camille started 2 cry. Tricked.<br>A fool he had been. In the lowest utmostest. He had allowed the dark side of him 2 create something evil.<br>2 Nigs United 4 West Compton. Camille and his ego. Bob George. Why? Spooky Electric must die.”</span></blockquote><span style=\"font-family:Times,Times New Roman,serif\">Prince even included a hidden message in the music video for "Alphabet St." (1988) saying, "Don't buy The Black Album, I'm sorry." The album would later be released in 1994 as an effort to fulfill Prince's contract at Warner Bros., which he was desperately trying to end. At the time, it is said that he was still not in favor of the album spiritually. Therefore, it was released as a limited edition with very little promotion. After the shelving of "The Black Album" and Prince's spiritual rebirth, he returned to the studio for seven weeks, recording new tracks. He used 8 of these new songs along with The Black Album-penned "When 2 R in Love", and <i>Lovesexy</i> was born.</span><br><span style=\"font-family:Times,Times New Roman,serif\"><br></span><span style=\"font-family:Times,Times New Roman,serif;font-size:large\"><b>The Words of Lovesexy: Spirituality and Sexuality</b></span><br><table cellpadding=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\" style=\"float:left;margin-right:1em\"><tbody><tr><td style=\"text-align:center\"><a href=\"http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-uh-qntxw2Aw/UYe666psC6I/AAAAAAAAAOA/wzdJQ_v-FyI/s1600/Lovesexy.jpg\" style=\"clear:left;margin-bottom:1em;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto\"><img border=\"0\" height=\"200\" src=\"http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-uh-qntxw2Aw/UYe666psC6I/AAAAAAAAAOA/wzdJQ_v-FyI/s200/Lovesexy.jpg\" width=\"200\"></a></td></tr><tr><td style=\"text-align:center\">Prince - <i>Lovesexy</i> (1988)</td></tr></tbody></table><span style=\"font-family:Times,'Times New Roman',serif\">Released on May 10, 1988, <i>Lovesexy</i> became the 10th studio album by Prince. The cover art has become infamous in itself, bearing a completely nude Prince. Initially, some record stores displayed this album in a black outer sleeve due to the content. Upon actually hearing the record, however, it becomes evident that it makes perfect sense for him to be nude on the cover. It symbolizes purity and rebirth, which are two of the main recurring themes throughout the album. </span><br><span style=\"font-family:Times,Times New Roman,serif\"><br></span><span style=\"font-family:Times,Times New Roman,serif\"><i>Lovesexy</i> was an album that was the complete opposite of The Black Album. Though both albums share \"When 2 R in Love,\" they are totally different in concept and theme. It is interesting how well \"When 2 R in Love\" fits on <i>Lovesexy</i>, communicating yet another message of love versus being in the middle of the somewhat-chaotic Black Album. </span><br><span style=\"font-family:Times,'Times New Roman',serif\"><br></span><span style=\"font-family:Times,'Times New Roman',serif\">\"The Black Album\" showed Prince's \"darker\" side. However, it also included comical themes as well with gangsta-rap parodies like \"Dead on It\" and \"Bob George\". It serves as Prince's ultimate in-your-face backlash to the black audiences that had criticized him. It's sort of like he was saying: \"You want 'black' music, well here it is.\" Though it is one of the most recognized underground albums, and has since become the most bootlegged album in music history, it seems as though it was just thrown together and almost can't be taken seriously.</span><br><span style=\"font-family:Times,Times New Roman,serif\"><br></span><span style=\"font-family:Times,Times New Roman,serif\"><i>Lovesexy</i>, on the other hand, is full of much more light, spiritually-oriented music that's sexual at the same time. Both lyrically and musically complex, this album is the best representation of Prince's ability to unite his spirituality and sexuality as one. One of the best examples of this comes out of track 3 on the album, \"Glam Slam\":</span><br><blockquote><i>This thing we got-it's alive!<br>It seems 2 transcend the physical<br>One touch and I'm satisfied<br>Must be a dream, it's so magical</i></blockquote>The interesting thing about these lyrics is that, knowing Prince's nature, they can most definitely be attributed to lust. However, they also have another meaning. When you think about it, these same lyrics could be applied to God as well. Though the chorus says \"Glam slam, thank you ma'am,\" the meaning of the song still has a double context. Prince is possibly even implying here that God could be female.<br><br>He does the same thing again in the lyrics of the title song:<br><blockquote><i>This feeling's so good in every single way<br>I want it morning, noon, and night of every day<br>And if by chance I cannot have it-I can't say<br>But with it \"eye\" no heaven's just a kiss away</i></blockquote>Coming out of the darkness, one must reach the state of \"lovesexy,\" uniting spirituality and sexuality. This concept in itself is genius. Many critics and even some fans of Prince fail to acknowledge his extraordinary lyricism in certain aspects. Religious imagery can be found in his music as early as <i>Controversy</i>. However, it becomes much more prominent in <i>Lovesexy</i>.<br><br>In the lead (and only major hit) single from the album, \"Alphabet St.,\" we see Prince put forth a message on the power of words in rapping to a girl in the beginning of the song, and by the end, speaking on cruelty in the world. The album is filled with positive and uplifting messages in addition to the spirituality. Other examples include the socially conscious \"Dance On\" and a song that personally has gotten me through some very tough times, \"Positivity.\" In the latter song, Prince asks the questions, \"Have U had yo plus sign 2day? Do we mark U present, or do we mark U late?\" The word \"YES\" is constantly repeated despite \"NO\" being more a part of the other parts of the album. It is interesting that Prince constantly uses the word \"no\" in place of \"know\" in the lyric booklet. Yet, by the end of the work in \"Positivity\", all you hear is \"yes\". The message that can be inferred here, from the way the lyrics are worded, is NO to Spooky Electric, and YES to God. In the first track, \"'Eye' No\", Prince says:<br><blockquote><i>No! Is what Spooky Electric say, it's not ok<br>But \"Eye\" no love is the only way 'til my dying day</i></blockquote>In essence, he's saying <i>no</i> to the devil, and at the same time, saying he <i>knows </i>the way to God. <i>Lovesexy</i> tells sort of a non-chronological story. It is the closest thing to a concept album Prince has ever created. Ultimately, it speaks of a lost soul that eventually finds its way to God and positivity.<br><br><span style=\"font-size:large\"><b>\"Love is God, God is Love\"</b></span><br>\"Anna Stesia,\" track 4 and closer of side 1 of the record, can be considered one of the most complex songs Prince has ever composed, when it comes to both musicality and lyricism. An entire different post could be made here on the song itself, but I'll try to sum up the remarkableness of it in just a few paragraphs.<br><br>The keyword here is \"try.\"<br><br>\"Anna Stesia\" tells a story of realization, rebirth, and resurrection. The title likely comes from the name \"Anastasia,\" with Greek origins meaning resurrection. It has also been said that the title could be derived from \"anesthesia.\" Could it be both? Or neither? Only Prince truly knows. However, with the chorus of the song stating, \"Anna Stesia come 2 me, talk 2 me, ravish me, liberate my mind,\" it makes more sense for it to be attributed to resurrection rather than an allusion to being put under.<br><br>The song begins with about four seconds of silence, followed by single notes on a piano creeping in. The sound is almost <i>haunting</i>. Prince asks two questions in the first verse:<br><blockquote><i>Have U ever been so lonely that U felt like U were the only one in this world?<br>Have U ever wanted 2 play with someone so much, U'd take anyone boy or girl?</i></blockquote>Then, the second verse goes further in depth to what can be interpreted as battles that Prince had with himself before he truly discovered God, and how he discovered Him.<br><blockquote><i>Between white and black, night and day<br>Black night seemed like the only way... So I danced<br>Music late, nothing great, no way 2 differentiate<br>I took a chance...<br>Gregory looks just like a ghost<br>And then a beautiful girl, the most, wets her lips 2 say,<br>\"We could live 4 a little while, if U could just learn 2 smile, U and I could fly away.\"</i></blockquote>It seems as though he is specifically speaking about \"The Black Album\" in this verse. The darkness that he felt at the time seemed like the only way to go to silence the critics, so he obliged. Gregory looks just like a ghost? Finding that the name \"Gregory\" has Greek origins in meaning \"watchful\" or \"alert\", could Gregory be his conscience watching what he was doing? Or did he just see Greg Brooks and think he was a ghost? Next, Anna Stesia (or resurrection) comes to him, implying that he can rise above all the darkness. He then sings in the bridge:<br><blockquote><i>Maybe, I could learn 2 love, the right way, the only way.<br>Perhaps U could show me, baby.<br>Maybe I could learn 2 love, if I was just closer to somethin'<br>Closer 2 my higher self, closer to heaven... closer 2 God (repeats 2x)</i></blockquote><div>He then proceeds to pour his heart out to Jesus, claiming he'd been a fool not to see his power and that now he understands. The song then closes out with the chant (likely the voices of Cat Glover and Sheila E.), \"Love is God, God is love, girls and boys love God above.\"</div><div><iframe align=\"right\" frameborder=\"5\" height=\"240\" src=\"http://www.dailymotion.com/embed/video/xdryfe\" width=\"320\"></iframe></div><div><br></div><div>\"Anna Stesia\" was a genius way of Prince explaining his way of capturing where he had been led astray, and how he got back on the right track. In the live performance of the song from the 1988 Lovesexy Tour concert in Dortmund, Germany (found at the right), this becomes even more evident. The amount of emotion and passion that was put into this performance is unlike any other performance from the show, and is arguably the highlight of the entire concert. The mini 'sermon' that he preaches along with the music near the end of the performance only adds to the notion that he found the right way to love and the right way to God. The song was performed as the last song of Act I of the show or the \"darker\" half where a couple of songs from The Black Album were also performed. Even with the tour shows, Prince still told a story of this period of darkness and how he has changed since then. Act II of the show was then heavily bombarded with other, more uplifting and spiritual material from <i>Lovesexy</i> and some other hits. "Anna Stesia" served as the ultimate transition between the darkness and the light. Thus, further proving his new-found glory.</div><div><br></div><div><b><span style=\"font-size:large\">And That Says What?</span></b></div><div>So, all this deep analysis to say what? Well, for starters, in the United States, <i>Lovesexy</i> did not fare very well commercially, while it did excellent overseas. Could it be that America was not smart enough to see the message that Prince was communicating at the time? There's no way to tell for sure, but in recent years, reviews of <i>Lovesexy</i> have been much more favoring. Some even discussed some of the messages behind the music as well. The point of all this is to say that still, <i>Lovesexy</i> is certainly not the only underrated Prince album, but the messages and double connotations that reside in the lyrics, and the overall musicality of the work make it one of the more prominent ones. The average person that has heard this album may not realize all that happened in regards to the creation of the album, and what the album has to say. Judging by popular culture, "Alphabet St." is really the only song that has remained a part of Prince's legacy from this album. Nonetheless, concept albums like Pink Floyd's classic <i>The Dark Side of the Moon</i> (1973) has been greatly praised for musical and lyrical greatness, which it absolutely deserves. In sum, <i>Lovesexy</i> is right up there with the other great musical masterpieces.</div><div><br></div><div>From a personal standpoint, <i>Lovesexy</i> is not my favorite Prince album of all time. However, if it were at all possible to make a top five, I am positive that it would be included. In essence, this album is a perfect example of what Prince does best: musical diversity, lyrical genius, and of course great instrumentation. Everything about this album is perfection, from the arrangements during the instrumental section of "Glam Slam", even down to the funky version of the word "hallelujah!" that is shouted in "'Eye' No" as "hundalasiliah!" A bit of his controversial side even showed with the third and final single from the album "I Wish You Heaven," being paired with the other-end-of-the-spectrum B-side "Scarlet Pussy." In contrast to The Black Album, <i>Lovesexy</i> is very much, but not limited to a \"pop\" sort of effort. This, however, should not be a surprise to any follower of Prince's career because he has played different musical styles since the very beginning. His music is not \"black\" or \"white\". Prince does what Prince wants. And we love him all the same for it. Happy 25th anniversary to <i>Lovesexy</i>, one of the greatest albums in Prince's near 4-decade career.</div><div><br></div><div>Until next time, Peace & B Wild.</div><div><br></div><div>Further reading:</div><div><a href=\"http://theblackalbum.info/\">The Black Album Info Site</a></div><div><a href=\"http://princevault.com/index.php/Album:_Lovesexy\">Lovesexy</a> at <a href=\"http://princevault.com/\">PrinceVault</a></div><div><a href=\"http://princevault.com/index.php/Album:_The_Black_Album\">The Black Album</a> at PrinceVault</div>" }, "author" : "Tanasio Loudermill", "comments" : [ ], "annotations" : [ ], "origin" : { "streamId" : "feed/http://thatonefunkkid.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default", "title" : "Revelations from a Weirdo", "htmlUrl" : "http://thatonefunkkid.blogspot.com/" } }, { "isReadStateLocked" : true, "crawlTimeMsec" : "1368162664780", "timestampUsec" : "1368162664780742", "id" : "tag:google.com,2005:reader/item/3b7fb8829af046e1", "categories" : [ "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/read", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/starred", "Asides" ], "title" : "The virtues of engineering", "published" : 1368112914, "updated" : 1368113062, "replies" : [ { "href" : "http://memex.naughtons.org/archives/2013/05/09/18498#comments", "type" : "text/html" }, { "href" : "http://memex.naughtons.org/archives/2013/05/09/18498/feed/atom", "type" : "application/atom+xml" } ], "alternate" : [ { "href" : "http://memex.naughtons.org/archives/2013/05/09/18498", "type" : "text/html" } ], "content" : { "direction" : "ltr", "content" : "<p>Standing on a railway platform and a high-speed express train comes through. 250 tons of steel hurtles along at 125 mph, safely and predictably. And I’m thinking: this is the kind of unimaginable feat that good engineering makes possible. But when my friend Tim Minshall was thinking about this the only mention of “engineering” he could find in connection with railways were notices of travel delays “due to engineering work”. The result: an entire country which associates engineering only with trouble.</p>" }, "author" : "jjn1", "comments" : [ ], "annotations" : [ ], "origin" : { "streamId" : "feed/http://memex.naughtons.org/feed/atom/", "title" : "Memex 1.1", "htmlUrl" : "http://memex.naughtons.org/" } }, { "isReadStateLocked" : true, "crawlTimeMsec" : "1368037749927", "timestampUsec" : "1368037749927645", "id" : "tag:google.com,2005:reader/item/f20589bd85058c54", "categories" : [ "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/read", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/starred", "Uncategorized" ], "title" : "THE BIRTH OF THE OAU", "published" : 1368017334, "updated" : 1368017334, "alternate" : [ { "href" : "http://cameronduodu.com/uncategorized/the-birth-of-the-oau-2", "type" : "text/html" } ], "content" : { "direction" : "ltr", "content" : "<p> </p>\n<h2></h2>\n<h1><span style=\"font-size:xx-large\"><b>THE BIRTH OF THE OAU </b></span></h1>\n<h1><span style=\"font-size:xx-large\"><b>By CAMERON DUODU</b></span></h1>\n<p><span style=\"font-size:xx-large\"><b>To us in Ghana, the conference that was held in Addis Ababa in May 1963 to give birth to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) was as exciting as an international football match.</b></span></p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size:xx-large\"><b>Lined up on one side of the “pitch” was a group of African states known as the ‘Monrovia Group’. Most of its members were drawn from an earlier group called the ‘Brazzaville Group’ formed in 1960 by mainly French-speaking countries that had gained their independence that year. (Initially, the group was a gathering of the ‘French African Community’ countries and was known as the “Afro-Malagasy Union” or “UAM”). </b></span></p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size:xx-large\"><b>The countries in this ‘Brazzaville Group were Cameroon, Congo-Brazzaville, Cote d’lvoire, Dahomey (now Benin), Gabon, Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso), Madagascar, Mauritania, Niger, the Central African Republic, Senegal and Chad. Later, the Group was expanded to include Ethiopia, Liberia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Togo, Tunisia and Congo (Kinshasa). In “journalistic shorthand”, especially in the Western media, they were usually described as “conservative” or “pro-western”. Yet ‘pro-Western’ Tunisia was given enormous assistance to the Algerians in their fight for independence against France! So much for accuracy in the reporting of Africa by the world media!, especially, the Western media.</b></span></p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size:xx-large\"><b>On the other side of the imaginary ‘football pitch’ were the “Casablanca Group”. This Group emerged in 1961 and comprised seven countries: Algeria, Egypt, Ghana, Guinea, Libya, Mali, and Morocco. They were regarded as “radical” or at the very least, adherents of ‘positive neutrality’ or ‘non-alignment’. But this description, again, begged many questions. The Governments of both Morocco and Libya, for instance, were both feudal monarchies. How could they be described as “radical”, then? Morocco was a close ally of France, and to some extent, the US (the Voice of America had installed a powerful radio transmitter in Tangier to broadcast American propaganda to Africa and the Middle East!) Yet, because it belonged to the Casablanca Group — indeed, the Group was named after the Moroccan city where it was born – Morocco was somehow linked with “anti-Western” sentiment in Africa. Libya, for its part, was practically an American ‘business enclave’ in North Africa. So the ‘omniscience’ of Western journalists who engaged in labelling African countries, for convenience, needed to be called into question.</b></span></p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size:xx-large\"><b>Now, one of the most vociferous advocates of African unity at the time was Ghana’s President, Dr Kwame Nkrumah. He made countless speeches about African unity and published an excellent and most informative book entitled </b></span><em><span style=\"font-size:xx-large\"><b>Africa Must Unite</b></span></em><span style=\"font-size:xx-large\"><b>. Nkrumah possessed a sharp analytical mind and he realised clearly that there were too many contradictions in the groupings that existed in Africa, including the Casablanca Group, to which his own country, Ghana, belonged. But he was pragmatic enough to accept that he could not isolate Ghana altogether from both of them. He was, however, tremendously disheartened by the existence of the two Groups, which only served to advertise the divided nature of Africa and undermined Africa’s voice at international forums, such as the United Nations. </b></span></p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size:xx-large\"><b>President Sekou Toure of Guinea (a member of the Casablanca Group) was also unhappy with the political division prevalent in Africa, and he linked up with Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia to try and organise a conference of the foreign ministers of the two Groups, preparatory to a summit of their heads state. </b></span></p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size:xx-large\"><b>When Dr Nkrumah heard of this, he was irritated that his former ally, Sekou Toure, seemed to be tying to steal Nkrumah’s thunder as the unacknowledged ‘father of African unity.’ Wasn’t it Nkrumah who had saved Guinea from collapse when it declared itself independent after voting “Non” in the referendum organised by France in 1958 and the French left Guinea precipitately, leaving the country penniless? Hadn’t Nkrumah come to the aid of Guinea with a “loan” (a grant, actually) of £10 million — probably worth about $200 million in today’s money)? Hadn’t Ghana and Guinea formed a ‘Union’, to serve as a practical example of ‘African unity’, which had seemed so desirable that Mali had also acceded to it and turned it into the ‘Ghana-Guinea-Mali Union’? Hadn’t Nkrumah also given Mali £5m — probably worth about $100m US today – to help it in its own development? </b></span></p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size:xx-large\"><b>Now Sekou Toure was ‘organising ‘African unity’ behind Nkrumah’s back? Nkrumah immediately set his own secret diplomatic moves in motion to try and get the Monrovia and Casablanca Groups to merge and form a single continental organisation. He dispatched one of his most trusted aides, Kwesi Armah (better known as Ghana’s High Commissioner in London), to Liberia to see President William Tubman, who was widely respected as one of the ‘old wise men’ of Africa. Tubman had won this respect, despite his country’s extremely close ties to America. (Nkrumah had a high regard for Tubman personally: Liberia was the first country in Africa that Nkrumah visited officially, shortly after Ghana became independent in 1957. Tubman, in fact, played a prominent role, behind the scenes, in helping Nkrumah to organise a “Conference of Independent African States” in Accra in April 1958 — the first Conference of its kind ever to be held in Africa. It was attended by Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Liberia, Libya, Morocco and Tunisia.)</b></span></p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size:xx-large\"><b>Nkrumah’s message was warmly received by Tubman, who set out to convince his fellow members of the Monrovia Group that the pressing issues facing the world and Africa – disarmament, the Cold War, non-alignment, economic co-operation with each other and with other nations, and, above all, how to safeguard the independence recently won by African and Asian nations – could best be addressed in unison. After all, there was the Organisation of American States (OAS) which united North and South America; the Middle East had its Arab League; the Western Powers were bound together in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation(NATO); while the Soviet Bloc had its Warsaw Pact. Why should Africa not emulate them by forming an organisation that spoke with one voice?</b></span></p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size:xx-large\"><b>To his great credit, Tubman was able to persuade Emperor Haile Selassie — his old friend from the days when there were only two independent African States in the comity of nations — to work with him to get the Foreign Ministers of both Groups to meet at Sanniquelle in Liberia, to express an interest, through the “Sanniquelle Declaration”, in coming together in a common continental organisation.</b></span></p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size:xx-large\"><b>But even as Dr Kwame Nkrumah was trying to sort out the diplomatic challenges in which he was embroiled on the continent of Africa, a new development occurred closer to home that was disastrous in the message it conveyed to the rest of Africa about himself. On 13 January 1963, one of Nkrumah’s bêtes noires in Africa, the President of neighbouring Togo, Mr Sylvanus Olympio, was assassinated in a military coup and his Government overthrown. </b></span></p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size:xx-large\"><b>Many ‘political observers’ and journalists specialising in writing about Africa immediately concluded that Nkrumah was ‘behind’ this coup. This was because antagonism had existed between Nkrumah and Olympio as far back as the early 1950s, when the Gold Coast was about to achieve its independence and become Ghana. Part of the Gold Coast – Trans/Volta Togoland — had once been part of Togo, which was then a German colony. But after the defeat of Germany in World War One (1914-18), Togo was divided into two by the League of Nations (the World Organisation that was later to be replaced by the United Nations). One part was given to France to administer as a separate colony under a League of Nations “mandate”, while the other part was given to Britain to administer under the same “mandate” conditions. </b></span></p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size:xx-large\"><b>But typically, the British did not accept the simple method of administering Trans/Volta Togoland as a separate territory (as the French had done), but instead, chose the fat more complex method of attaching Trans/Volta to its old colony next door, the Gold Coast. The British didn’t, of course, bother to ask the inhabitants of the two territories that were to be brought together in a ‘shotgun’ wedding, what their own views of the British plan were.</b></span></p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size:xx-large\"><b>Had the British bothered to ask, they would no doubt have been told that the plan was a diabolical one. For it would segregate forcibly behind separate borders, ethnic groups that had traditionally lived as single entities before the European colonisers came. The Ewe people in particular, were deeply resentful of this division that was imposed on them, which separated many families from one another and thus placed tremendous social hardships on them. </b></span></p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size:xx-large\"><b>Fast-forward to the mid-1950s. The British are now happily preparing their “model colony” in West Africa, the Gold Coast, for independence, to show the world that the ‘enlightened imperialism; the British had exhibited by granting full independence to India and Burma, had not ended in Asia but would be extended to Africa. However, the question of Trans/Volta Togoland then rears its head: what is to be done with it? </b></span></p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size:xx-large\"><b>The ‘trusteeship’ arrangement with the United Nations that had replaced the League of Nations ‘mandate’ (after Word War Two) made it obligatory to ascertain the wishes of the people of any ‘trust territory’ — as endorsed by the United Nations – before any change could be effected in the status of the territory. The Gold Coast was to become the independent nation of Ghana. Fine. What was to become of the Trans/Volta ‘appendage’ of the Gold Coast? Was it to be allowed to achieve independence with the Gold Coast, or to secede and unite, instead, with the territory of which it had once formed part — now called ‘French Togoland’ and also envisaged, by France, to achieve independence soon, under the name of Togo?</b></span></p>\n<p>‘<span style=\"font-size:xx-large\">T</span><strong><span style=\"font-size:xx-large\">he politicians who ruled in the Gold Coast, led by Dr Kwame Nkrumah (whose undeclared ‘deputy’ was a prominent Ewe, Komla Agbeli Gbedemah) wanted Trans/Volta to stay with the Gold Coast and become part of Ghana. But Ewe politicians in French Togoland and their Ewe allies in the Gold Coast — mainly the Anlos – wanted “</span></strong><em><span style=\"font-size:xx-large\">Ablode”</span></em><strong><span style=\"font-size:xx-large\">: that is the unification of Trans/Volta Togoland with French Togoland. That, they said, was the only just way to bring together again, the ethnic groups who had been forcibly separated from their kith and kin by the British and French colonialists.</span></strong></p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size:xx-large\"><b>In line with its ‘trusteeship’ policy, the United Nations decided to hold a ‘plebiscite’ in 1956 to allow the people of both parts of Togoland to decide on their own future. In the plebiscite, however, the majority of the people of Trans/Volta Togoland decided that they wanted to stay as part of Ghana. Sylvanus Olympio and his Ewe allies in Ghana were enraged. They never accepted that decision, and when Togo, in it s turn, became independent in 1960, it became a haven for opposition politicians who had fled from Nkrumah’s Ghana. Nkrumah returned the favour and Togolese opponents of Olympio were equally welcomed in Ghana. </b></span></p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size:xx-large\"><b>Indeed, on the day of the coup in Togo, Radio Ghana made the mystifying announcement that a man called Antoine Meachi was leaving Accra for Togo! The clear implication was that Meachi would become one of the leaders of the new Togolese Government, or probably, even its leader. And he was an Nkrumah protégée of sorts. </b></span></p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size:xx-large\"><b>In fact, the architects of the coup did ‘entrust’ the presidency of Togo to Meachi for a brief period, but the French, upon whom the Togolese ex-soldiers led by Emmanuel Bodjollé and Gnassingbe Eyadema (who had overthrown Olympio, were depending for money) manoeuvred to get Meachi replaced with their own nominee, Nicholas Grunitzky.</b></span></p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size:xx-large\"><b>Of course, the Togolese affair played into the hands of all those who suspected Nkrumah of seeking to dominate the African scene by subverting the regimes of other African states, especially, his immediate neighbours. So his overtures to other African states in relation to African unity were received with a pinch of salt. However, Emperor Haile Selassie and President Tubman, among others, deduced that even if Nkrumah harboured ambitions to replace some African leaders with his own henchmen, Nkrumah would be much easier to control if he was inside the same organisational “tent” with them, than if he was left outside in isolation, to “piss into the tent”.</b></span></p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size:xx-large\"><b>With the psychological preparation done at the Sanniquelle Conference, a series of follow-up meetings were held to harmonise views on how to proceed. It was agreed that the foreign ministers of Africa should meet in Addis Ababa in May 1963 to prepare an agenda for an African summit conference at the same venue immediately afterwards. Despite the well-known disagreement over whether a continental government should be formed immediately or step-by-step, a compromise agreement was hatched on a Charter which set out the articles of a body to be known as the Organisation of African unity (OA). The Charter was signed on 25 May 1963. That date has become known as “Africa Day” </b></span></p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size:xx-large\"><b>Of course, the Charter, being the product of compromise did not fully meet everyone’s expectations, but was adopted as a document that would be improved by future generations. And indeed, the organisation that was formed in 1963, keeps changing. Several new Articles — and organisational bodies — have been added to those that were denominated in the original Charter of 1963, and the apex organisation itself has undergone a transformation in name, and is now called the ‘African Union ‘. And its chief official is now called its “Chair” instead of its “Secretary-General”. </b></span></p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size:xx-large\"><b>It is left to new generations of Africans yet unborn to scrutinise it and reshape it in the light of their current realities, until it comes as close as possible to meeting the aspirations of the African people as a whole. </b></span></p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size:xx-large\"><b>For Africans do deserve to be able, like, say, their European counterparts, to come and go across their own continent without visas, as was the case before the Europeans came and divided up the continent among themselves in their “Scramble for Africa”; to work where they like, within their own continent; and expect to be treated as if they were “home” – despite being far away, geographically speaking, from the territorial limits which they were originally born into. </b></span></p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size:xx-large\"><b>Africans also want to be able to trade with one another without paying customs duty on the goods they export or import; to be able to buy and sell goods everywhere in Africa without needing to change currency. Above all, they want a supra-national body to be able to intervene </b></span><em><span style=\"font-size:xx-large\"><b>effectively</b></span></em><span style=\"font-size:xx-large\"><b> on behalf of any group of African people who are oppressed or discriminated against by their own Government, or are denied their human rights by a totalitarian Government.</b></span></p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size:xx-large\"><b>Those were the dreams of our fathers. And it must be the goal of all of us to ensure that the dreams become a reality. In our lifetime.</b></span></p>\n<p><a href=\"http://www.addtoany.com/share_save#url=http%3A%2F%2Fcameronduodu.com%2Funcategorized%2Fthe-birth-of-the-oau-2&title=THE%20BIRTH%20OF%20THE%20OAU\"><img src=\"http://cameronduodu.com/wp-content/plugins/add-to-any/share_save_171_16.png\" width=\"171\" height=\"16\" alt=\"Share\"></a></p>" }, "author" : "admin", "comments" : [ ], "annotations" : [ ], "origin" : { "streamId" : "feed/http://cameronduodu.com/feed", "title" : "Cameron Duodu", "htmlUrl" : "http://cameronduodu.com" } }, { "isReadStateLocked" : true, "crawlTimeMsec" : "1368037497007", "timestampUsec" : "1368037497007021", "id" : "tag:google.com,2005:reader/item/62d5ed497216ea25", "categories" : [ "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/read", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/starred", "business modeling", "power-laws and networks" ], "title" : "Metering, discriminatory pricing, subscriptions … Adobe.", "published" : 1368025724, "updated" : 1368025724, "replies" : [ { "href" : "http://enthusiasm.cozy.org/archives/2013/05/metering-discriminatory-pricing-subscriptions-adobe#comments", "type" : "text/html" }, { "href" : "http://enthusiasm.cozy.org/archives/2013/05/metering-discriminatory-pricing-subscriptions-adobe/feed/atom", "type" : "application/atom+xml" } ], "alternate" : [ { "href" : "http://enthusiasm.cozy.org/archives/2013/05/metering-discriminatory-pricing-subscriptions-adobe", "type" : "text/html" } ], "content" : { "direction" : "ltr", "content" : "<p>Pricing is a mess. On the one hand you can argue that things should cost exactly what they cost to produce (including, of course, a pleasant lifestyle for their producers). On the other hand you can argue that they should cost exactly whatever value their users extract from the product. Surplus is the term of art. If you charge less than the value extracted the consumer is left to capture the surplus value.</p>\n<p>More than a decade ago I had a bit of fun at the expense of my employeer arguing that we should switch all our pricing to subscription, just as Adobe has just recently decided to. My suggestion was greeted with an abundance eye rolling and head shaking.</p>\n<p>Leaving surplus value on the table can be very risky for the producer. It’s not just about how pleasant a lifestyle he get’s (aka greed). Businesses are multi-round games; what you can invest in the next round of the game depends on how much of the surplus value you capture v.s. your competitors. But also businesses with large market share and large volumes gain scale advantages that drive down costs, establish standards, and generally create positive feedback loops. (That leads to the perverse tendency for the largest vendor to be the best and the cheapest.) Which brings us to discriminatory pricing, aka value pricing.</p>\n<p>The demand side network effects depend on the scale of your installed base. Discounting lets you reach users that you wouldn’t otherwise. If you can segment your market then you can enlarge it. There is a standard text book illustration for this.</p>\n<p style=\"text-align:center\"><a href=\"http://cdn-enthusiasm.cozy.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/priceing.png\"><img alt=\"priceing\" src=\"http://cdn-enthusiasm.cozy.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/priceing.png\" width=\"360\" height=\"292\"></a></p>\n<p style=\"text-align:left\">That chart shows the number of buyers your product will have if you charge various prices, or looking at it another way it’s showing you how much value users think they will get from your product. If you’d like a lot of users you should charge the green price. Your total revenue is, of course, the volume of the rectangle. Why not both? Why stop there? <span style=\"line-height:1.714285714;font-size:1rem\"> As a vendor, what you’d love charge everybody exactly what they are willing to pay. You could have both the maximum number of users and all the volume (revenue) under that curve.</span></p>\n<p style=\"text-align:left\">Subscription pricing gives you a tool, because it lets’ you meter usage, that can stand in as a proxy for the value the users are getting from the product.</p>\n<p style=\"text-align:left\">I was surprised by Adobe’s subscription pricing, not because it’s expensive and draconian. No, I was surprised because it appears to have no metering. My insta-theory for why? Well I think what we are seeing at this stage is the classic: e.g. “list price.” That they will start offering various discounted variations on the service. It would be odd if they don’t. Because, otherwise, they are leaving two things on the table. They are shunning a huge pool of users, missing out on all the demand side network effects they create, and encouraging competitors to fill into that abandoned market segment. And, they are leaving money on the table.</p>\n<p style=\"text-align:left\">I’ve no idea what they will meter, but I’d be surprised if they don’t.</p>\n<p> </p>" }, "author" : "bhyde", "comments" : [ ], "annotations" : [ ], "origin" : { "streamId" : "feed/http://enthusiasm.cozy.org/feed/atom/", "title" : "Ascription is an Anathema to any Enthusiasm", "htmlUrl" : "http://enthusiasm.cozy.org/" } }, { "isReadStateLocked" : true, "crawlTimeMsec" : "1368035200964", "timestampUsec" : "1368035200964969", "id" : "tag:google.com,2005:reader/item/9985b72dbe582e6e", "categories" : [ "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/read", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/starred" ], "title" : "Fedora", "published" : 1368029175, "updated" : 1369063179, "canonical" : [ { "href" : "http://nplusonemag.com/fedora" } ], "alternate" : [ { "href" : "http://feeds.nplusonemag.com/~r/nplusonemag_main/~3/DZncgnxp5C0/fedora", "type" : "text/html" } ], "content" : { "direction" : "ltr", "content" : "<p>\nby Dayna Tortorici\n</p>\n\n\n\n<div>\n<img src=\"http://nplusonemag.com/images/txp/image.php?width=450&quality=95&image=http://nplusonemag.com/images/txp/1034.jpg\" alt=\"\">\n<p><span>Image: </span>Jemima Kirke as Jessa on <i>Girls</i>.</p>\n\n\n</div>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<div>\n\n<p>Paris was the first to wear the fedora in the way of my thinking, but feels, as founders of a line sometimes do, like a decoy. Her adoption of the men’s hat wasn’t a bellwether so much as an accident, something she happened upon in her personal experiments with costume. Every day was Halloween for Paris. She was literal about social uniforms, and knew how to sexify them according to the rules of her own personal drag: sexy navy, sexy newsboy, sexy farmer, sexy cowboy. Familiar dress was cropped, ripped up, bedazzled, and always topped off with the attendant hat. On Paris, the fedora was sexy Fred Astaire, with a touch of Michael Jackson—something about how the brim offset the narrow slope of her nose, or how she managed to look like a wax replica of herself without appearing dead, as Michael, even while living, looked embalmed. Paris was literal, but the way a dream is literal: a walking wish fulfillment swathed in symbols so obvious they’re comic. All unconscious, she carried the therelessness of Los Angeles in her strut. It took someone with as little nuance as Paris Hilton to bring back the men’s hat as a symbol of modern female sexuality and confused morals. A subtler person would have chosen something else.</p>\n<p>Lindsay’s hat was not this way—and to me, the hat began with Lindsay. I would like to know which Hollywood stylist put a fedora on Lindsay Lohan’s head because I think that person is a genius. Lindsay first began to appear in hats after the first cycle of her eating disorder, post-rehab, during her lesbian relationship with Samantha Ronson. It was Lindsay’s funny way of saying that she was the femme—because of course Ronson, a DJ with a UK skater-boy thing, would always out-butch her: tight pants, big shoes, greasy hair tucked back, vampiric dark circles. In photos Samantha was always snarling like a tough orphan, though under the soot and freckles you knew she had nice parents. Instead of just wearing lipstick to imitate a woman, Lindsay wore a fedora to imitate a man imitating a woman—imitating, more specifically, a sort of closeted ’50s homosexual whose excessive display of formal masculinity revealed how much of life was costume. On Lindsay the hat said: Yes, I am experimenting, but not in the way you think. Also: leave me alone. This is an essential quality of hats: they announce one’s desire to be unannounced. A hat is an advertisement for a disguise.</p>\n<p>Lindsay courted the paparazzi with her hats, padding around West Hollywood like Carmen Sandiego on house arrest—her skin spray-tan orange with brown creases behind her knees and in the palms of her hands, arms covered in an anorexic down, silky scarves streaming behind her. In my memory they are always at the gas station, Lindsay and Samantha, arguing on the heels of a coke binge, in a car they’re about to drive in the wrong direction on the 110 freeway. Always in men’s hats.</p>\n<p>In fact, if not feeling, it was not exactly like this. In old photos I see that Samantha wore a fedora most of the time, though they both would, together, and sometimes, when Sam wasn’t around, Lindsay would alone. Lindsay never wore a hat around Samantha if Samantha was not also wearing a hat. This made it seem like a prosthetic they passed back and forth, like a toy. There was precedent for this: Madonna wore the men’s hat like a strap-on. Marlene Dietrich, Katherine Hepburn, and other Hollywood stars of the 20th century retrospectively accused of lesbianism had more style. They were gentlemen in tails, the ringleaders of a gender circus where they themselves were the lions to tame, so they straddled the chair backwards in victory. In photos, their grin is the grin of a flasher, the smirk of a pervert, of a cannibal licking his fingers. Men had good reason to fear them.</p>\n<p>On Samantha—and Lindsay, too—the hat wasn’t so scary. Hepburn, majestic, was a lion; Ronson snarled because she was just a cub. But the hat nevertheless made her comprehensible as a bad influence from the UK, since we already had Pete Doherty in soiled evening dress destroying Kate Moss. The hat was like a cold sore we got from the British sometime around 2005. We still have flare-ups: teetering away from dinner with her lawyers in stilettos, beating back the misdemeanors of her past, Lindsay still wears a fedora, stuck in the year everything went wrong for her.</p>\n<p>Because culture is racist, a fedora on anyone “ethnic” signals dirty money and the shame of not knowing how to spend it well. Hats are for organized criminals, pimps and mafia dons, zoot-suiters and the Warren G. “Regulate” video. When Janet Jackson wears a fedora with a short yellow feather stitched into it, the fashion magazine calls it “Lady Mobster.” The fedora peaked, in popularity, with prohibition; on Lindsay it peaked with probation. Lindsay, not only white, was also the most disorganized criminal. She had not a single ally. The hat’s suggestion that there was a gang to which she could belong only called more attention to the loneliness of her brushes with the law. </p>\n<p>Power, queerness, privilege, trash, camp, celebrity, anachronism, and crime—the expert coupling of showiness and shame: this is why the fedora belonged to Lindsay.</p>\n\n<center>+ + +</center>\n\n<p>A brief interlude for hats in life:</p>\n<p>One rainy morning in March, a tall man steps onto the train wearing, on his head, a stiff cherry-red fedora wrapped in clear plastic. His shirt is soaked through, beads of water tremble on the plastic around this magnificent, impervious hat, and it’s amazing—like he’s playing with the action figure still in the packaging. To me it confirms that the hat is no longer an accessory in the sense of a tool (say, for keeping a head dry) but an accessory in the sense of a co-conspirator: hats are everywhere producing bafflement, everywhere punking everyone.</p>\n<p>The last Sunday of the month, the barista at the coffee shop is wearing a black felt and beribboned hat for which there is a name. An editor told it to me once, asking if this word was common parlance or just another example of the female writer’s tendency toward over-specificity. He said: Do you know what a “borsalino” is, without using Google? I didn’t. The barista in the borsalino is tall, limby, wearing plum-brown lipstick and adult braces. Taking orders, I can hear that she is either on her way in or out of an English accent. This seems key. On her, the hat works—she pulls it off. There is such thing as hat realness, in the drag sense.</p>\n<p>On both of these strangers the absurdity of the hat has an underlying aggression I cannot place. It recalls the murderous dandyism of Malcolm McDowell in <em>A Clockwork Orange</em>. Freddy Kruger, too, wore a fedora.</p>\n\n<center>+ + +</center>\n\n<p>Fedoras are “for men.” When a woman wears one, it’s meant to be an aberration. The winking transgression—however innocent or innocuous—that’s the whole point. </p>\n<p>This seems somewhat defeated when we learn that the first fedora was a woman’s. It was named after the heroine of a 19th-century play—<em>Fédora</em>—who screwed up her love life while happening to wear a hat. Like the contemporary woman, Princess Fédora Romazoff is “passionate and self reliant.” As of the beginning of the play, she has had a disappointing love life, but trusts the man she is about to marry. Naturally, he cheats on her with another man’s wife. When this other man, Loris Japonoff, finds out, he kills Fédora’s fiancé and flees to France. Fédora decides to follow Loris, seduce him, and then kill him. Little does she know that Loris has actually saved her—“saved her from becoming the wife of a miscreant,” in the playwright’s words. This at least is the logic of <em>Fédora</em>. The details—moral, chronological—are ambiguous.</p>\n<p>Princess Fédora falls for Loris, but “stifles her love” for the sake of manners, principles, and the rascal she’d hoped to marry. Even in a hat, a woman follows rules where a man does not. Loris addresses Fédora in cryptic doublespeak, suggesting, too subtly, that he has killed her fiancé because he loves her. Not the best reader, Fédora brings tragedy upon herself. She turns Loris in before he has a chance to confess his love. He’s dragged off by French cops; she kills herself “in expiation.”</p>\n<p>Female celebrities possess a superhuman ability to set trends, and as Princess Fédora, Sarah Bernhardt—“the most famous actress in the world”—convinced French women to take up the fedora. One wonders if these women also took on some kind of curse. <em>Fédora</em>, the play, with its presumed history of failed loves, its conception of seduction as revenge, its miscommunications and missed connections, is a play about the horrors of dating. The fedora—on television, in the pages of the <em>New York Times</em> style section—is now a universal signifier of women’s romantic troubles. Perhaps it always has been.</p>\n<p>Not so long ago the <em>Times</em> ran a story called “The End of Courtship?” Beneath it was a photo. “Denise Hewett says hanging out has replaced dating,” said the caption. Jennifer S. Altman for the <em>New York Times</em> had photographed Denise on a velvety mustard couch in a hotel lobby, wearing a tan fedora with a mustard ribbon for trim. The mustard ribbon matched the mustard couch matched the mustard highlights of Denise’s impeccable blowout. Denise was looking at her phone, texting with two hands, as if handling a Gameboy. She was waiting for her OKCupid date. </p>\n<p>Hanna Rosin, corporate psychic, foreseer of the end of men, was brought in for expert opinion. “Many young men these days have no experience in formal dating and feel the need to be faintly ironic about the process,” she told the <em>Times</em>, “to ‘date’ in quotation marks”—because they are “worried that they might offend women by dating in an old-fashioned way.”</p>\n<p>In other words, dating is like wearing a hat, available only through irony. Stylists and art directors know this. The image of a young woman wearing a hat signals to the reader: <em>Manners have become so confused—this woman is wearing a hat! There are no mates for her</em>. The fedora is not Monica Lewinsky’s sex-guerrilla beret made sweet with a bow, taking no prisoners with an infantile feminine twist. Nor is it Mary Tyler Moore throwing her beret to the sky—<em>You’re gonna make it after all</em>. We are not sure whether we’re going to make it, in a fedora.</p>\n<p>But why a fedora? Princess Fédora does not deserve so much credit. One can only imagine that the women who wear fedoras are acting out a deeper cultural melancholia. Not sadness, but melancholia, in the sense Freud defined in <em>Mourning and Melancholia</em>, as a mechanism for dealing with loss. Without decent romantic prospects, the straight woman suffers an ungrieved loss. She has not lost any actual man—there are still plenty of those—but rather the fantasy of an ideal man, which her sisters have wisely told her is pointless to indulge. This fantasy has meant more than said partner, manifest, ever could, but now it’s a bad look; it’s another era’s out-of-fashion false consciousness, not to be worn. Denied the right to atavistically yearn for letters and sodas, the woman in the hat retains the fantasy of wanting a Perfect Man—a dominant man who will carry her across the threshold, call her on the phone and not text “sup” after eleven—by adopting his characteristics. By adopting his hat. </p>\n<p>In order to preserve him, she must become him. This may or may not have been what Gloria Steinem had in mind when she said, “We are becoming the men we wanted to marry.” But the signal is complicated. This woman does not wear a fedora to say that she wants Don Draper. She wears a fedora to say, I want a man who is like a woman in a hat. That is, the best of both men and women; I want Feminist Ryan Gosling. She sustains the dime-store, midcentury masculine hero by taking on his dress as her own, but idealizes it all the more by feminizing it—since the problem with those men all along, the men in fedoras, was that they were nothing <em>but</em> money, manners, and chivalry. Their precise appeal rested on their chauvinism, a chauvinism that a woman today, wearing the hat and the pants, no longer accepts. This is where the hapless men who think they can trick women into finding them sexy or desirable by wearing a fedora make a serious misstep. Perceiving a vacuum in the market, this OKCupid subset acts the part of Lothario by posting fedora selfies with captions like “as a side note . . . I <em>do</em> own a toy collection to use on another for their delight.” This is the worst kind of man—fronting, opportunistic. The kind of man who picks you up at a funeral. Little do they realize: the funeral is their own.</p>\n\n<center>+ + +</center>\n\n<p>Is the young woman in a fedora like princess Fédora, unhappy in love and yet naively hopeful for its future, seeking revenge—or is she like Lindsay, wearing a hat for confusion, fun, disguise, experiment? Is she drawn to the miscreant on OKCupid and incapable of seeing the truly loyal man whose principles keep him from rakishily, untowardly, taking what he wants for his own—or is she just trying on girls for a while? The woman in a hat does waste time on a detective game, in her Private Investigator outfit, hunting revenge for some past hurt and applying her interpretive skills to the wrong text. There is something tragic about her, and certainly about Lindsay. Stuck in the sun-in past of her child-star potential, when she was promised everything and it was all in front of her, she is an amnesiac, still paying old dues—going on dates, getting fired from bad movies. Lindsay still wears hats, but has gone on to date men. Men much worse for her than Samantha.</p>\n\n</div>\n\n \n<div>\n\n<div>\n\n<span style=\"font-size:large\"><span style=\"color:#b82500\"><a href=\"http://shop.nplusonemag.com/products/print-and-digital-subscription\"><span style=\"text-decoration:underline\">Subscribe</span></a> to <i>n+1</i>.</span>\n\n</span></div>\n\n\n<div>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"http://shop.nplusonemag.com/\">Purchase print issue »</a></p>\n<div>\n<a href=\"http://feeds.nplusonemag.com/~ff/nplusonemag_main?a=DZncgnxp5C0:oea2a6a4Oss:yIl2AUoC8zA\"><img src=\"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/nplusonemag_main?d=yIl2AUoC8zA\" border=\"0\"></a> <a href=\"http://feeds.nplusonemag.com/~ff/nplusonemag_main?a=DZncgnxp5C0:oea2a6a4Oss:qj6IDK7rITs\"><img src=\"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/nplusonemag_main?d=qj6IDK7rITs\" border=\"0\"></a>\n</div><img src=\"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nplusonemag_main/~4/DZncgnxp5C0\" height=\"1\" width=\"1\"></div></div>" }, "author" : "n+1 magazine", "comments" : [ ], "annotations" : [ ], "origin" : { "streamId" : "feed/http://feeds.nplusonemag.com/nplusonemag_main/", "title" : "n+1", "htmlUrl" : "http://nplusonemag.com/" } }, { "isReadStateLocked" : true, "crawlTimeMsec" : "1368023254544", "timestampUsec" : "1368023254544216", "id" : "tag:google.com,2005:reader/item/c2531d377e269819", "categories" : [ "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/read", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/starred", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/tracking-item-link-used", "Journalism", "New Statesman" ], "title" : "The madness of crowds: Thatcher’s funeral", "published" : 1368002750, "updated" : 1367949049, "replies" : [ { "href" : "http://will-self.com/2013/05/08/the-madness-of-crowds-thatchers-funeral/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-madness-of-crowds-thatchers-funeral#comments", "type" : "text/html" }, { "href" : "http://will-self.com/2013/05/08/the-madness-of-crowds-thatchers-funeral/feed/atom/", "type" : "application/atom+xml" } ], "alternate" : [ { "href" : "http://will-self.com/2013/05/08/the-madness-of-crowds-thatchers-funeral/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-madness-of-crowds-thatchers-funeral", "type" : "text/html" } ], "content" : { "direction" : "ltr", "content" : "<p>At the time of Diana Spencer’s funeral in 1997, I remember writing this: “When the corpse of a 36-year-old woman is dragged around town on a cart you have to acknowledge something strange is going on . . .” My concern was to consider the death-drag as an example of how London acted as a stage set upon which collective fantasies of intimacy with power were being played out. Sixteen years on, the sentence requires only minor adaptation to establish the necessary degree of anthropological estrangement from the funeral of Margaret Thatcher.</p>\n<p>With Spencer’s funeral, the cortège travelled in a complete revolution – Kensington Palace to Westminster Abbey, via Trafalgar Square, before heading north for her island interment at Althorp. This death-drag allowed for her corpse symbolically to visit sites of pleasure (the Royal Parks) and power (the Palace of Westminster), while its circular form symbolised her feminine mystique. With Thatcher the death-drag was linear – even phallic – a straightforward spear-chuck from the Chapel of St Mary Undercroft in the bowels of parliament to St Paul’s.</p>\n<p>Thus Thatcher’s corpse took the journey made by living English monarchs when, upon accession, they were required to meet with the aldermen of the City of London and renew its charter. It was decanted into St Clement Danes, before being hauled on by a fresh team of warriors. I say “warriors” advisedly: the key thing about Thatcher’s death-drag was that while it connected temporal power (parliament), with Mammon (the City), and this connection was sanctified by men wearing dresses (the high priests), the set-dressing projected an image of a fallen warrior queen (think Boudicca). Thatcher was said to have sanctioned this route, which allowed her body to draw sustenance for the afterlife from the bronze imago of Churchill and the stone one of Nelson. The crowds who turned out to line the route of the death-drag were – compared with those who witnessed the Spencer charade – sparse. But in both cases the numbers were far lower than the intense pre-mediatisation of the event would’ve led one to expect. In part this has to be a function of the positive feedback loop embodied in mass behaviour: a crowd increasingly stays away the more it is told that greater numbers are anticipated. But the failure of people to turn up for Thatcher’s funeral also betokens – or so I like to think – a certain credulousness about the event itself. Intuitively, people grasped that Thatcher’s interment had very little to do with Thatcher or her “legacy”, and everything to do with the parlous state of representative democracy.</p>\n<p>Those who did line the route and who applauded – and even cheered – the removal of the boxed corpse from the Temple of the Sky God (an astonishingly infra dig performance for such ardent Churchillians, many of whom, surely, would’ve been aware of the universal hush that attended his death-drag), were as deluded as those who turned their backs on the procession. Their madness was to take the spectacle at face value; in Freudian terms, they saw only its manifest content and were blind to its latent meaning. I would go further – but then I always do – Thatcherites and anti-Thatcherites were co-opted into a fantasy of historical agency, in which their support or lack of it was integral to the sanctifying of the state’s monopoly on violence.</p>\n<p>Thatcher’s mystique – contra that of Diana – rested entirely on her deployment, when in office, of internal repression – directed against NUM picket lines, the IRA, poll tax rioters etc – and external violence – primarily enacted in the form of the murders of 323 Argentine sailors (mostly young conscripts). The military honours accorded Thatcher were the recognition by the current holders of the monopoly – the coalition government – of her perceived effectiveness in maintaining this, and their ardent desire that the crowd should see them, by association, as similarly effective monopolists. All so-called opposition MPs who colluded in the death-drag were complicit in this mass-hypnosis.</p>\n<p>The truth is, of course, that Thatcher died a long time ago. She died when she left office. Then, when the Alzheimer’s began to cobweb her synapses, she died again. This triple-death of Thatcher underscores the dialectic that now achieves a new synthesis. The death-drag passed off without too much trouble, overseen by men (and the odd woman) armed with fully automatic rifles capable of firing 600 rounds a minute.</p>" }, "author" : "Chris H", "comments" : [ ], "annotations" : [ ], "origin" : { "streamId" : "feed/http://will-self.com/feed/atom/", "title" : "Will Self", "htmlUrl" : "http://will-self.com/" } }, { "isReadStateLocked" : true, "crawlTimeMsec" : "1367993921606", "timestampUsec" : "1367993921606044", "id" : "tag:google.com,2005:reader/item/c6aa6d464a4b917a", "categories" : [ "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/read", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/starred", "Uncategorized", "ABLODE", "AU", "Casablanca Group", "Emperor Haile Selassie", "Kwame Nkrumah", "League of Nations mandate", "Modibo Keita", "Monrovia Group", "Nicholas Grunitski", "OAU", "PLEBISCITE", "Sekou Toure", "Sylvanus Olympio", "togo", "UN Trusteeship", "visa-free Africa", "Volta", "William Tubman" ], "title" : "THE BIRTH OF THE OAU", "published" : 1367952871, "updated" : 1367952871, "alternate" : [ { "href" : "http://cameronduodu.com/uncategorized/the-birth-of-the-oau", "type" : "text/html" } ], "content" : { "direction" : "ltr", "content" : "<h1><span style=\"font-size:x-large\"><b>THE BIRTH OF THE OAU </b></span></h1>\n<h1><span style=\"font-size:x-large\"><b>By CAMERON DUODU</b></span></h1>\n<p> </p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size:x-large\"><b>To us in Ghana, the conference that was held in Addis Ababa in May 1963 to give birth to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) was as exciting as an international football match.</b></span></p>\n<p> </p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size:x-large\"><b>Lined up on one side of the “pitch” was a group of African states known as the ‘Monrovia Group’. Most of it members were drawn from an earlier group called the ‘Brazzaville Group’ formed in 1960 by mainly French-speaking countries. (Initially, the group was known as the “Afro-Malagasy Union”) </b></span></p>\n<p> </p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size:x-large\"><b>The countries in this ‘Brazzaville Group were Cameroon, Congo-Brazzaville, Cote d’lvoire, Dahomey (Benin), Gabon, Upper Volta (Burkina Faso), Madagascar, Mauritania, Niger, the Central African Republic, Senegal and Chad. Later, the Group was expanded to include Ethiopia, Liberia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Togo, Tunisia and Congo (Kinshasa). In “journalistic shorthand”, especially in the Western media, they were usually dubbed as “conservative” or “pro-west”.</b></span></p>\n<p> </p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size:x-large\"><b>On the other side of the pitch were the “Casablanca Group”, This Casablanca Group emerged in 1961 and comprised seven countries: Algeria, Egypt, Ghana, Guinea, Libya, Mali, and Morocco. They were regarde4dv as “radical” or at the very least, </b></span><span style=\"font-size:x-large\"><b>adherents of positive neutralism. </b></span><span style=\"font-size:x-large\"><b>But this begged many questions. To take but one example: Morocco’s government was a feudal monarchy. How could it be described as “radical”? Again, Morocco was a close ally of France, and to some extent, the US (the Voice of America had installed a powerful radio transmitter in Tangier to broadcast American propaganda to Africa and the Middle East!) Yet, because it belonged to the Casablanca Group — indeed, the Group was named after a Moroccan city — Morocco was somehow linked with “anti-Western” sentiment in Africa. So much for the ‘omniscience’ of journalists, especially Western ones.</b></span></p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size:x-large\"><b>The greatest advocate of African unity at the time was Ghana’s President, Dr Kwame Nkrumah. He possessed enough analytical powers to realise that there were too many contradictions in the groupings that existed in Africa, especially the Casablancsa Group, to which Ghana belonged. But he could not isolate Ghana altogether from both of them. He was, however, tremendously disheartened by the existence of the two Groups, which only served to advertise the divided nature of Africa and undermined Africa’s voice at international forums, such as the United Nations. </b></span></p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size:x-large\"><b> President Sekou Toure of Guinea (a member of the Casablanca Group) was also unhappy with the political division prevalent in Africa, and he linked up with Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia to try and organise a conference of the foreign ministers of the two Groups, preparatory to a summit of their heads state. </b></span></p>\n<p> </p>\n<p> </p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size:x-large\"><b>When Dr Nkrumah heard of this, he was irritated that his former ally, Sekou Toure, seemed to be tying to steal Nkrumah’s thunder as the unacknowledged ‘father of African unity.’ Wasn’t it Nkrumah who saved Guinea from collapse when it declared itself independent after voting “Non” in the referendum organised by France in 1958 and the French left Guniea precipitately, leaving the country penniless? Hadn’t Nkrumah come to the sauid of Guinea with a “loan” (a grant, actually) of £10 million — about $200 million nin today’s money)? Hadn’t Ghana and Guinea formed a ‘Union’, to which Mali had later acceded? Hadn’t Nkrumahalso given Mali £5m to help in its development? </b></span></p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size:x-large\"><b>Now Sekou Toure was ‘organising ‘African unity’ behind </b></span><span style=\"font-size:x-large\"><b>Nkrumah’s back? No way! So Nkrumah set his own secret diplomatic moves in motion to get the Monrovia and Casablanca Groups to merge and form a common organisation. He dispatched one of his most trusted aides, Kwesi Armah (better known as Ghana’s High Commissioner in London), to Liberia to see President William Tubman, who was widely respected as one of the ‘old wise men’ of Africa. Tubman had won this respect despite his country’s extremely close ties to America. (Nkrumah respected Tubman greatly: Liberia was the first country Nkrumah visited shortly after Ghana became independent in 1957. Tubman, in fact, played a prominent role, behind the scenes, in helping Nkrumah to organise a “Conference of Independent African States” in Accra in April 1958 — the first Conference of its kind ever to be held in Africa. It was attended by Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Liberia, Libya, Morocco and Tunisia.)</b></span></p>\n<p> </p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size:x-large\"><b>Nkrumah’s message spurred Tubman to convince his fellow members of the Monrovia Group that the pressing issues facing the world and Africa – disarmament, the Cold War, non-alignment, economic co-operation with each other and with other nations, and, above all, how to safeguard the independence recently won by African and Asian nations – could best be addressed in unison. After all, there was the Organisation of American States (OAS) which united North and South America; the Middle East had its Arab League; the Western Powers were bound together in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation(NATO); while the Soviet Bloc had its Warsaw Pact. Why should Africa not emulate them by forming an organisation that spoke with one voice? To his credit, Tubman was able to get the Foreign Ministers of both Groups to meet at Sanniquelle in Liberia, to express an interest in coming together in a common continental organisation.</b></span></p>\n<p> </p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size:x-large\"><b>But even as Nkrumah was trying to sort out the diplomatic challenges he saw in Africa, a new development occurred close to home that was disastrous in the message it conveyed to the rest of Africa. On 13 January 1963, one of Nkrumah’s bêtes noires in Africa, the President of neighbouring Togo, Mr Sylvanus Olympio, was assassinated in a coup and his Government overthrown. </b></span></p>\n<p> </p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size:x-large\"><b>Many ‘political observers’ and journalists writing about Africa believed that Nkrumah was ‘behind’ this coup. This was because antagonism had existed between Nkrumah and Olympio as far back as the early 1950s, when the Gold Coast was about to achieve its independence and become Ghana. Part of the Gold Coast – Trans/Volta Togoland — had once been part of Togo, which was then a German colony. But after the defeat of Germany in World War One (1914-18), Togo was divided into two by the League of Nations (the World Organisation that was later to be replaced by the United Nations). One part was given to France to administer as a separate colony under a League of Nations “mandate”, while the other part was given to Britain to administer under the same “mandate” conditions. But typically, the British did not accept the simple method of administering Trans/Volta Togoland as a separate territory (as the French had done), but instead, chose the complex method of attaching Trans/Volta to its colony next door, the Gold Coast. The British didn’t, of course, bother to ask the inhabitants of the two territories that were to be brought together in a ‘shotgun’ marriage, what their own views of the British plan were.</b></span></p>\n<p> </p>\n<p> </p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size:x-large\"><b>Had the British asked, they would no doubt have been told that the plan was a diabolical one. For it would segregate forcibly behind separate borders, ethnic groups that had traditionally lived as single entities before the European colonisers came. The Ewe people in particular, were deeply resentful of this division that was imposed on them, which separated many families from one another and thus placed tremendous social hardships on them. </b></span></p>\n<p> </p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size:x-large\"><b>Fast-forward to the mid-1950s. The British are now busy preparing their “model colony” in West Africa, the Gold Coast, for independence. But the question of Trans/Volta Togoland has reared its head. What is to be done with it? The ‘trusteeship’ arrangement with the United Nations that had replaced the League of Nations ‘mandate’ (after Word War Two) made it obligatory to ascertain the wishes of the people of any ‘trust territory’ before a change could be effected in the status of the territory. The Gold Coast was to become the independent nation of Ghana. What was to become of the Trans/Volta section of the Gold Coast? Was it to be allowed to achieve independence with the Gold Coast, or to secede and unite, instead, with the territory of which it had once formed part — ‘French Togoland’?</b></span></p>\n<p>‘<span style=\"font-size:x-large\">T<strong>he politicians who ruled in the Gold Coast, led by Dr Kwame Nkrumah (whose undeclared ‘deputy’ was a prominent Ewe, Komla Agbeli Gbedemah) wanted Trans/Volta to stay with the Gold Coast and become part of Ghana. But Ewe politicians in French Togoland and their Ewe allies in the Gold Coast, wanted “<em>Ablode”</em> : that is the unification of Trans/Volta Togoland with French Togoland. That, they said, was the only just thing to do, as it would bring together again, the ethnic groups that had been forcibly separated from their kith and kin.</strong></span></p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size:x-large\"><b>The United Nations decided to hold a ‘plebiscite’ in 1956 to allow the people of both parts of Togoland to decide on their own future. In the plebiscite, however, the people of Trans/Volta Togoland decided that they wanted to stay as part of Ghana. Sylvanus Olympio and his allies in Ghana were enraged. They never accepted that decision, and when Togo, in it s turn, became independent in 1960, it became a haven for opposition politicians from Ghana who had fled from Nkrumah’s Ghana. Nkrumah returned the favour and Togolese opponents of Olympio were equally welcomed in Ghana. Indeed, on the day of the coup in Togo, Radio Ghana made the mystifying announcement stating that a man called Antoine Meachi was leaving Accra for Togo! The clear implication was that Meachi would become one of the leaders of the new Togolese Government, or probably, even its leader.</b></span></p>\n<p> </p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size:x-large\"><b> In fact, the architects of the coup entrusted the presidency of Togo to Meachi for a brief period, but the French, upon whom the Togolese ex-soldiers led by Emmanuel Bodjollé and Gnassingbe Eyadema (who had overthrown Olympio, were depending for money) got Meachi replaced with their own candidate, Mr Nicholas Grunitzky.</b></span></p>\n<p> </p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size:x-large\"><b>Of course, the Togolese affair played into the hands of all those who suspected Nkrumah of seeking to dominate the African scene by subverting the regimes of other African states, especially, his immediate neighbours. So his overtures to other African states in relation to African unity were received with a pinch of salt. However, Emperor Haile Selassie and President Tubman, among others, deduced that even if Nkrumah harboured ambitions to replace some African leaders with his own henchmen, Nkrumah would be much easier to control if he was inside the same organisational “tent” with them, than if he was left outside in isolation, to “piss into the tent”.</b></span></p>\n<p> </p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size:x-large\"><b>With the psychological preparation done at the Sanniquelle Conference, a series of followup meetings were held to harmonise views on how to proceed. It was agreed that the foreign ministers of Africa should meet in Addis Ababa in May 1963 to prepare an agenda for an African summit conference at the same venue immediately afterwards. Despite the well-known disagreement over whether a continental government should be formed immediately or step-by-step, agreement was reached on a Charter which set out the articles of a body to be known as the Organisation of African unity (OA). The Charter was signed on 25 May 1963. That date has become known as “Africa Day” </b></span></p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size:x-large\"><b>If course, the Charter did not meet everyone’s expectations, but was adopted as a document that would be improved by future generations. And indeed, the organisation that was formed in 1963, keeps changing. Several new Articles — and organisational bodies — have been added to those that were denominated in the original Charter and the organisation itself has undergone a transformation in name, It is now called the ‘African Union’. </b></span></p>\n<p> </p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size:x-large\"><b>It is left to generations of Africans yet unborn to scrutinise it and reshape it until it comes as close as possible to meeting the aspirations of the African people as a whole. </b></span></p>\n<p> </p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size:x-large\"><b>For Africans do deserve to be able, like, say, their European counterparts, to come and go across the continent without visas; to work where they like, within their continent; and expect to be treated as if they were “home” – despite being far away, geographically speaking, from the territorial limits into which they were originally born. Africans also want to be able to trade with one another without paying customs duty on the goods they export or import; to be able to buy and sell goods everywhere in Africa without needing to change currrency. </b></span></p>\n<p> </p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size:x-large\"><b>Those were the dreams of our fathers. And it must be the goal of all of us to ensure that the dreams become a reality. In our lifetime.</b></span></p>\n<p> </p>\n<p><a href=\"http://www.addtoany.com/share_save#url=http%3A%2F%2Fcameronduodu.com%2Funcategorized%2Fthe-birth-of-the-oau&title=THE%20BIRTH%20OF%20THE%20OAU\"><img src=\"http://cameronduodu.com/wp-content/plugins/add-to-any/share_save_171_16.png\" width=\"171\" height=\"16\" alt=\"Share\"></a></p>" }, "author" : "admin", "comments" : [ ], "annotations" : [ ], "origin" : { "streamId" : "feed/http://cameronduodu.com/feed", "title" : "Cameron Duodu", "htmlUrl" : "http://cameronduodu.com" } }, { "isReadStateLocked" : true, "crawlTimeMsec" : "1367960699277", "timestampUsec" : "1367960699277074", "id" : "tag:google.com,2005:reader/item/bc0f6b87236f1ae9", "categories" : [ "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/read", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/starred", "FEATURED", "MEDIA", "MUSIC", "VIDEO", "Chronik", "Deepest Darkest", "Heart of Darkness", "Margaret Thatcher", "VICE.COM" ], "title" : "Grime artist Chronik and Noisey’s “Deepest Darkest” Africa", "published" : 1367931648, "updated" : 1367931648, "alternate" : [ { "href" : "http://africasacountry.com/2013/05/07/grime-artist-chronik-and-noiseys-deepest-darkest-africa/", "type" : "text/html" } ], "content" : { "direction" : "ltr", "content" : "<p><img alt=\"\" src=\"http://africasacountry.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/56a0569b9ddb7608bf030bc8666687fe.jpg?w=610&h=333\" width=\"610\" height=\"333\"><br>\n<strong>Guest Post by Jack Van Cooten</strong></p>\n<p>Those who have an interest in UK grime music may have stumbled across Chronik’s latest offering “Deepest Darkest”. The video, released via Noisey last week, was filmed in Ghana earlier this year and is staged in the fictional nation ‘The Democratic Republic of ‘Uduno’’, which is assumed to be the DRC, based on the map at the beginning of the video. Whilst <a href=\"http://africasacountry.com/2013/04/23/vice-and-the-new-journalism-model/\">VICE</a>, who curate Noisey, aren’t exactly well-known for <a href=\"http://africasacountry.com/2013/04/23/vice-and-the-new-journalism-model/\">their diligent and impartial reporting style</a> when it comes to foreign affairs, this seems to have taken them to new levels of sensationalism. <span></span></p>\n<p><span style=\"text-align:center;display:block\"><iframe width=\"610\" height=\"374\" src=\"http://www.youtube.com/embed/9DH6Uaeo7nk?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent\" frameborder=\"0\"></iframe></span></p>\n<p>It features Chronik as a heavily armed rebel leader who is reported to be the “new face of terror in Africa” (by British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in 1978; not sure who fact-checked that one). At one point, the camouflage-clad leader ominously claims</p>\n<p style=\"padding-left:30px\">All those who do not comply to my rules and regulations will meet the full force of my entire army. We will go anywhere we have to go, and crush anyone we have to crush. We will destroy your livestock. We will destroy any means you have of survival. Slew dem, slew dem, slew dem.</p>\n<p>Whilst grime is no stranger to hyperbolically violent videos and lyrics, this is perhaps the most extreme example that I can recollect. It explicitly glorifies African conflict and capitalizes on the fear and violence that it entails. Complete with the usual Heart of Darkness discourses, many of the scenes involve terrified villagers running away from Chronik and his gun-wielding soldiers. As if this wasn’t ridiculous enough, the rapper from Stratford also appears to have developed a bizarre affinity with a crocodile, which he sits on throughout the video as he spouts his dire lyrics.</p>\n<p><img alt=\"\" src=\"http://africasacountry.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/chronik-1.png?w=610&h=341\" width=\"610\" height=\"341\"></p>\n<p><img alt=\"\" src=\"http://africasacountry.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/chronik-2.png?w=610&h=342\" width=\"610\" height=\"342\"></p>\n<p><img alt=\"\" src=\"http://africasacountry.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/chronik-3.png?w=610&h=342\" width=\"610\" height=\"342\"><br>\nAside from the almost humorously ignorant visuals, the lyrics are nothing more than a series of consecutive menacing and aimless threats, devoid of substance, direction or flow.</p>\n<p>I would like to think that Chronik is presenting some kind of clever critique of the way that the media represents Africans and African conflict as savage and barbaric, and that it’s just too clever a metaphor for me to understand. Yeah, it’s probably that.</p>\n<p><em>* Jack Van Cooten is a Geography undergraduate at the University of Sheffield, keen traveler and music enthusiast. He runs the <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/pages/Banana-Hill/132226756850862\">Banana Hill</a> music events in Sheffield.</em></p>\n<br> <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/gocomments/africasacountry.wordpress.com/67429/\"><img alt=\"\" border=\"0\" src=\"http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/comments/africasacountry.wordpress.com/67429/\"></a> <img alt=\"\" border=\"0\" src=\"http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=africasacountry.com&blog=8438986&post=67429&subd=africasacountry&ref=&feed=1\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\">" }, "author" : "Sean Jacobs", "comments" : [ ], "annotations" : [ ], "origin" : { "streamId" : "feed/http://africasacountry.wordpress.com/feed/", "title" : "AFRICA IS A COUNTRY", "htmlUrl" : "http://africasacountry.com" } }, { "isReadStateLocked" : true, "crawlTimeMsec" : "1367875174872", "timestampUsec" : "1367875174872694", "id" : "tag:google.com,2005:reader/item/12d167ad5194b855", "categories" : [ "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/read", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/starred", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/tracking-item-link-used", "Uncategorized" ], "title" : "Painted an Elephant Blue", "published" : 1367845370, "updated" : 1367845370, "alternate" : [ { "href" : "http://amitavghosh.com/blog/?p=5958", "type" : "text/html" } ], "replies" : [ { "href" : "http://amitavghosh.com/blog/?p=5958#comments", "type" : "text/html" }, { "href" : "http://amitavghosh.com/blog/?feed=atom&p=5958", "type" : "application/atom+xml" } ], "summary" : { "direction" : "ltr", "content" : " In my research I’ve come across many stories that have led me to wonder what really happened. This one is about the crew of a German steamer, Barenfels S.S. (which would be torpedoed and sunk by a British submarine on April 14th, 1944, at Takseraag, Norway, thirty-eight years after the events described below). [...]" }, "author" : "Chrestomather", "comments" : [ ], "annotations" : [ ], "origin" : { "streamId" : "feed/http://amitavghosh.com/blog/?feed=atom", "title" : "Amitav Ghosh", "htmlUrl" : "http://amitavghosh.com/blog" } }, { "isReadStateLocked" : true, "crawlTimeMsec" : "1367863255056", "timestampUsec" : "1367863255056326", "id" : "tag:google.com,2005:reader/item/51e379a6611d74cb", "categories" : [ "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/read", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/starred", "Peepal Tree Press", "Malachi Smith", "Animists", "and Iconoclasts", "Scott McCloud Classicists", "Derek Walcott", "Mervyn Morris", "Lorna Goodison", "Kamau Brathwaite", "Formalists", "Dennis Scott" ], "title" : "The Four Tribes of Anglophone Caribbean Literature", "published" : 1367838000, "updated" : 1367838000, "canonical" : [ { "href" : "http://geoffreyphilp.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-four-tribes-of-anglophone-caribbean.html" } ], "alternate" : [ { "href" : "http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/EVfd/~3/uucT6w76O2c/the-four-tribes-of-anglophone-caribbean.html", "type" : "text/html" } ], "summary" : { "direction" : "ltr", "content" : "<br>\n<div style=\"clear:both;text-align:center\">\n<a href=\"http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-OOcbtaKbvYw/UYbTvSieCDI/AAAAAAAAJZE/41jjFIrWG_4/s1600/four+campfires.jpg\" style=\"margin-left:1em;margin-right:1em\"><img border=\"0\" height=\"240\" src=\"http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-OOcbtaKbvYw/UYbTvSieCDI/AAAAAAAAJZE/41jjFIrWG_4/s400/four+campfires.jpg\" width=\"400\"></a></div>\n<div>\n<span style=\"font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"\"><br></span></div>\n<div>\n<span style=\"font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"\">There's an\nold saying about your children keeping you young, and for the past week, I've\nseen the wisdom of that adage. My children love comics and frequently send me\nlinks to interesting stories about superhero movies or TED talks. One TED talk\nthat caught my attention was <a href=\"http://www.ted.com/talks/scott_mccloud_on_comics.html\"><span style=\"color:black\">Scott</span><span style=\"color:black\"> McCloud</span><span style=\"color:black\"> on Comics.</span></a></span></div>\n<div>\n<br></div>\n<div>\n<span style=\"font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"\">In his TED\ntalk, McCloud developed a theory about comics and artists based on Jung's theory\nof the four basic functions of the psyche: <b><a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personality_type\"><span style=\"color:black\">sensation, intuition, thinking, and feeling.</span></a></b></span></div>\n<div>\n<br></div>\n<div style=\"margin-left:67.5pt\">\n<span style=\"font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"\">According\nto Jung, the psyche is an apparatus for adaptation and orientation, and\nconsists of a number of different psychic functions. Among these he distinguishes\nfour basic functions:</span></div>\n<div>\n<br></div>\n<div style=\"margin-left:1.0in\">\n<span style=\"font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"\">Sensation—perception\nby means of the sense organs</span></div>\n<div style=\"margin-left:1.0in\">\n<span style=\"font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"\">Intuition—perceiving\nin unconscious way or perception of unconscious contents</span></div>\n<div style=\"margin-left:1.0in\">\n<span style=\"font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"\">Thinking—function\nof intellectual cognition; the forming of logical conclusions</span></div>\n<div style=\"margin-left:1.0in\">\n<span style=\"font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"\">Feeling—function\nof subjective estimation</span></div>\n<div>\n<br></div>\n<div>\n<span style=\"font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"\">From these\nfour types, McCloud has extrapolated four types of artists, <b>Classicists, Animists, Formalists, and Iconoclasts,</b>\nwhich he divided into four quadrants representing different attitudes toward\nbeauty and truth; life and art; content and style; tradition and revolution.</span></div>\n<div>\n<span style=\"font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"\"><br></span></div>\n<div>\n<span style=\"font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"\"><a href=\"http://thinkinggrounds.blogspot.com/2010/07/arts-four-campfires.html\"><span style=\"color:black\">Thinking Ground has a remarkable summary:</span></a></span></div>\n<div>\n<br></div>\n<div style=\"margin-left:1.0in\">\n<span style=\"font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"\">The\n<b>Classicists</b> admire craftsmanship and\nmastery of the art form. Their goals include creating lasting works of art\nwhich adhere to traditional aesthetic principles. Perfection is impossible, but\nthat doesn't mean they can't try for it. According to McCloud, their catch-word\nis <b>beauty,</b> and they are an extension\nof Jung's<b> sensation</b> archetype.</span></div>\n<div style=\"margin-left:1.0in\">\n<br></div>\n<div style=\"margin-left:1.0in\">\n<span style=\"font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"\">The\n<b>Animists </b>are interested in <b>content.</b> They aim for the clearest\npresentation of their story or ideas. To some extent the medium must always\ninterfere with the message, but the animist's focus on the content means they\ntry to make the form as transparent as they possibly can. Their catch-word is\ncontent, and McCloud considers them an extension of Jung's <b>intuition </b>archetype.</span></div>\n<div style=\"margin-left:1.0in\">\n<br></div>\n<div style=\"margin-left:1.0in\">\n<span style=\"font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"\">The\n<b>Formalists </b>are fascinated with their\nchosen medium's form. They create their art to explore its boundaries and\ncontours, to learn what it can be capable of and how it works internally. Their\nworks of art incorporate experiments, and they often double as analytical\ncritics. Their catch-word is <b>form, </b>and\nin McCloud's scheme they correspond to Jung's <b>thinking</b> archetype.</span></div>\n<div style=\"margin-left:1.0in\">\n<br></div>\n<div style=\"margin-left:1.0in\">\n<span style=\"font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"\">The\n<b>Iconoclasts</b> value truth and\nexperience in art. To them art must be authentic, must show life as it is. They\ntake aim at artistic conventions that gloss over the imperfections and\ndisappointments at life. Artists who speak of \"honesty\" or \"rawness\"\nare voicing iconoclastic ideas. Their catch-word is <b>truth,</b> and they are Jung's <b>feeling</b>\narchetype.</span></div>\n<div>\n<br></div>\n<div>\n<br></div>\n<div>\n<span style=\"font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"\"><a href=\"http://jonaquino.blogspot.com/2009/02/scott-mcclouds-unifying-quadrants.html\"><span style=\"color:black\">As Jon Aquino states</span></a>, \"playing\naround with this, it's interesting to deduce that\":</span></div>\n<div>\n<br></div>\n<div style=\"margin-left:1.0in\">\n<span style=\"font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"\">Tradition\n= Sensation + Intuition</span></div>\n<div style=\"margin-left:1.0in\">\n<span style=\"font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"\">Revolution\n= Thinking + Feeling</span></div>\n<div style=\"margin-left:1.0in\">\n<span style=\"font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"\">Art\n= Sensation + Thinking</span></div>\n<div style=\"margin-left:1.0in\">\n<span style=\"font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"\">Life\n= Intuition + Feeling</span></div>\n<div style=\"margin-left:1.0in\">\n<span style=\"font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"\">Revolution\n+ Art = Form</span></div>\n<div style=\"margin-left:1.0in\">\n<span style=\"font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"\">Tradition\n+ Life = Content</span></div>\n<div style=\"margin-left:1.0in\">\n<span style=\"font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"\">Art\n+ Tradition = Beauty</span></div>\n<div style=\"margin-left:1.0in\">\n<span style=\"font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"\">Life\n+ Revolution = Truth</span></div>\n<div>\n<br></div>\n<div>\n<br></div>\n<div>\n<span style=\"font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"\"><a href=\"http://tbgloops.blogspot.com/2008/01/scott-mccloud-observation.html\"><span style=\"color:black\">As Mr. Trombley notes</span></a>:\n\"Each of these have specific reservations about the mediocre works of\nother three:</span></div>\n<div>\n<br></div>\n<div style=\"margin-left:1.0in\">\n<span style=\"font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"\">1.\nThe <b>Classicist </b>accuses the animist\nof simplicity, the formalist of meaninglessness, and the iconoclast of ugliness</span></div>\n<div style=\"margin-left:1.0in\">\n<span style=\"font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"\">2.\nThe <b>Animist </b>accuses the classicist\nof pointless overdrawing, the formalist of unnecessary density, and the\niconoclast of pretentiousness</span></div>\n<div style=\"margin-left:1.0in\">\n<span style=\"font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"\">3.\nThe <b>Formalist</b> accuses the classicist\nof artistic conservatism, the animist of pointlessness, and the iconoclast of\nself-absorption</span></div>\n<div style=\"margin-left:1.0in\">\n<span style=\"font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"\">4.\nThe <b>Iconoclast </b>accuses the\nclassicist of soullessness, the animist of dullness, and the formalist of\nmeaningless abstraction</span></div>\n<div style=\"margin-left:1.0in\">\n<br></div>\n<div>\n<br></div>\n<div>\n<span style=\"font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"\"><a href=\"http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2008/aug/26/thetribesofart\"><span style=\"color:black\">Damien G Walter</span></a> continues\nwith his observations:</span></div>\n<div>\n<br></div>\n<div style=\"margin-left:1.0in\">\n<b><span style=\"font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"\">Animists </span></b><span style=\"font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"\">are the first artists, the shamen\ndancing around the tribal fire who drag raw emotion from their soul and give it\nto the audience. They are the instinctual artists, concerned above all with\ncontent. </span></div>\n<div style=\"margin-left:1.0in\">\n<br></div>\n<div style=\"margin-left:1.0in\">\n<b><span style=\"font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"\">Classicists </span></b><span style=\"font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"\">worship at the altar of beauty, and\nyearn to create art that achieves greatness. They believe in objective\nstandards of good and bad, and establish the canon of great artists who embody\nthose ideals. </span></div>\n<div style=\"margin-left:1.0in\">\n<br></div>\n<div style=\"margin-left:1.0in\">\n<b><span style=\"font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"\">Iconoclasts</span></b><span style=\"font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"\"> are either the first against the\nwall when the revolution comes, or at the front leading the charge. They use\nart as a means of personal and political expression, and when asked will say\nthat they value truth over all else. </span></div>\n<div style=\"margin-left:1.0in\">\n<br></div>\n<div style=\"margin-left:1.0in\">\n<b><span style=\"font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"\">Formalists </span></b><span style=\"font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"\">love talking about art almost as\nmuch as they enjoy creating it. They are the experimenters of any given art,\nobsessing about details of style and technique in their own work and the work\nof others. </span></div>\n<div style=\"margin-left:1.0in\">\n<br></div>\n<div style=\"margin-left:1.0in\">\n<span style=\"font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"\">The\nreal fun begins when you start to look at synergies and conflicts that exist\nbetween the tribes. Between the Classicists and Animists is the shared belief\nthat tradition is important, a belief which both the Formalists and Iconoclasts\ngive the finger to in favour of revolution and change. However, the Formalists\nand Classicists both believe first and foremost in the value of art, whereas\nAnimists and Iconoclasts both make art secondary to life.</span></div>\n<div style=\"margin-left:1.0in\">\n<br></div>\n<div style=\"margin-left:1.0in\">\n<span style=\"font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"\">These\nmight seem fairly arbitrary distinctions, until you relate them to those\nunending arguments in the arts, which start to look like ongoing territorial\nsquabbles between competing tribes. What is the age-old debate between truth\nand beauty, if not a fight between the Classicists and the Iconoclasts? Who is\nmore passionate about style v content than Formalists and Animists?</span></div>\n<div style=\"margin-left:1.0in\">\n<br></div>\n<div style=\"margin-left:1.0in\">\n<span style=\"font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"\">But\nevery tribe has weaknesses to balance their strengths. For all their ability to\nmove an audience, Animists are often the most colloquial and narrow-minded\nartists. Classicists might know what is great, but in constantly repeating it\ncan easily become boring. While style-conscious Formalists can be so concerned\nwith experimentation that their creations lack heart and soul. And the\nIconoclasts, determined to change the world, risk making art consumed by\nnegativity and anger.</span></div>\n<div>\n<br></div>\n<div>\n<br></div>\n<div>\n<span style=\"font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"\">From\nMcCloud's formulations, I've realized that many Anglophone Caribbean poets fall\ninto these quadrants:</span></div>\n<div>\n<br></div>\n<div>\n<b><span style=\"font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"\">Classicists:</span></b><span style=\"font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"\"> John Figueroa, Louis Simpson, Ralph\nThompson</span></div>\n<div>\n<b><span style=\"font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"\">Animists:</span></b><span style=\"font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"\"> Jean Binta Breeze, Mutabaruka,\nMalachi Smith, Linton Kwesi Johnson</span></div>\n<div>\n<b><span style=\"font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"\">Formalists</span></b><span style=\"font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"\">: Derek Walcott, Edward Baugh,\nMervyn Morris, Dennis Scott</span></div>\n<div>\n<b><span style=\"font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"\">Iconoclasts</span></b><span style=\"font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"\">: Kamau Brathwaite, Lorna Goodison,\nTony McNeill</span></div>\n<div>\n<br></div>\n<div>\n<span style=\"font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"\">One of the\nstartling revelations of this typology is that both Walcott and Brathwaite are\nrevolutionaries, but in different ways. Walcott, \"the mulatto of\nstyle\" has shown a preference for art over the raw details of life. And as\nfar as race and ethnicity are concerned, it wasn't that Walcott didn't think\nthat he was black, he simply didn't have a form to express the horrors of the\nAtlantic Holocaust. It took him over thirty years to realize a form that could encompass\nhis vision. The result was his magnificent work, <i>Omeros.</i></span></div>\n<div>\n<br></div>\n<div>\n<span style=\"font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"\">The\nclassification also helped me to see why many formalists are not viewed as\n\"authentic\" Caribbean writers. Caribbean literature and publishing is\ndominated by the <b>Animists</b>. In the\npopular mind, dub poetry and the \"raw\" stories of Caribbean life\n(content over form; truth over beauty) have become the <i>de facto</i> definitions of Caribbean literature.</span></div>\n<div>\n<br></div>\n<div>\n<span style=\"font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"\">Finally,\nI've also come to appreciate the catholic tastes of Jeremy Poynting and Peepal\nTree Press, who have been publishing writers from all four tribes--an\nachievement that not many publishers, main stream and independent have been\nable to accomplish.</span></div>\n<div>\n<br></div>\n<div>\n<span style=\"font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"\">It will be\ninteresting to see how far down the rabbit hole I will be heading with these\nnew insights. But then, again, what did you expect from a <a href=\"http://geoffreyphilp.blogspot.com/2013/04/a-magpies-wisdom.html\"><span style=\"color:black\">magpie</span></a>?</span></div>\n<div>\n<br></div>\n<div>\n<br></div>\n<div>\n<br></div>\n<div><br>\n<br>\n<center>\"Set the captives free...\"\n<br>\n<br>\n<b> Geoffrey Philp, author of <a href=\"http://amzn.to/jffTOL\">Marcus and the Amazons</a></b>\n<br>\nContact: geoffreyphilp101 [at] gmail.com\n\n\n<a href=\"http://www.linkwithin.com/\"><img src=\"http://www.linkwithin.com/pixel.png\" alt=\"Related Posts.\" style=\"border:0\"></a>\n<br>\n<br>\n</center></div><div>\n<a href=\"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/EVfd?a=uucT6w76O2c:ihF25GtSeDI:7Q72WNTAKBA\"><img src=\"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/EVfd?d=7Q72WNTAKBA\" border=\"0\"></a> <a href=\"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/EVfd?a=uucT6w76O2c:ihF25GtSeDI:qj6IDK7rITs\"><img src=\"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/EVfd?d=qj6IDK7rITs\" border=\"0\"></a> <a href=\"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/EVfd?a=uucT6w76O2c:ihF25GtSeDI:gIN9vFwOqvQ\"><img src=\"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/EVfd?i=uucT6w76O2c:ihF25GtSeDI:gIN9vFwOqvQ\" border=\"0\"></a> <a href=\"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/EVfd?a=uucT6w76O2c:ihF25GtSeDI:yIl2AUoC8zA\"><img src=\"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/EVfd?d=yIl2AUoC8zA\" border=\"0\"></a> <a href=\"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/EVfd?a=uucT6w76O2c:ihF25GtSeDI:63t7Ie-LG7Y\"><img src=\"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/EVfd?d=63t7Ie-LG7Y\" border=\"0\"></a> <a href=\"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/EVfd?a=uucT6w76O2c:ihF25GtSeDI:m_dHZg_EWUA\"><img src=\"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/EVfd?d=m_dHZg_EWUA\" border=\"0\"></a> <a href=\"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/EVfd?a=uucT6w76O2c:ihF25GtSeDI:KBC2T5LBHXo\"><img src=\"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/EVfd?d=KBC2T5LBHXo\" border=\"0\"></a> <a href=\"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/EVfd?a=uucT6w76O2c:ihF25GtSeDI:TzevzKxY174\"><img src=\"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/EVfd?d=TzevzKxY174\" border=\"0\"></a>\n</div><img src=\"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/blogspot/EVfd/~4/uucT6w76O2c\" height=\"1\" width=\"1\">" }, "author" : "noreply@blogger.com (Geoffrey Philp)", "comments" : [ ], "annotations" : [ ], "origin" : { "streamId" : "feed/http://geoffreyphilp.blogspot.com/atom.xml", "title" : "Geoffrey Philp: Support Marcus Garvey's Exoneration: http://goo.gl/cJKzA", "htmlUrl" : "http://geoffreyphilp.blogspot.com/" } }, { "isReadStateLocked" : true, "crawlTimeMsec" : "1367863221160", "timestampUsec" : "1367863221160950", "id" : "tag:google.com,2005:reader/item/70bb180d2dc1b359", "categories" : [ "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/read", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/starred", "Africa", "Gadgets", "Strategy", "Web Stuff", "africa", "brck", "brick", "connectivity", "generator", "internet", "kenya", "power" ], "title" : "Building the BRCK: A backup generator for the internet", "published" : 1367824846, "updated" : 1367824846, "canonical" : [ { "href" : "http://whiteafrican.com/2013/05/06/building-the-brck-a-backup-generator-for-the-internet/" } ], "alternate" : [ { "href" : "http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/white_african/~3/C4mNp-eXBT8/", "type" : "text/html" } ], "content" : { "direction" : "ltr", "content" : "<p>Why do we rely on equipment made for the Berlin, Orlando and Tokyo when the conditions we have in Nairobi, Lagos or New Delhi are completely different?</p>\n<p><a href=\"http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1776324009/brck-your-backup-generator-for-the-internet\"><img src=\"http://whiteafrican.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/brck-in-car-in-town-600x450.jpg\" alt=\"The BRCK is Africa's answer to internet connectivity\" width=\"600\" height=\"450\"></a></p>\n<p>Today we’re announcing the <a href=\"http://brck.com\">BRCK</a>: The easiest, most reliable way to connect to the internet, anywhere in the world, even when you don’t have electricity. </p>\n<p><strong>We have a <a href=\"http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1776324009/brck-your-backup-generator-for-the-internet\">BRCK Kickstarter</a> going, where we’re asking for your on taking it from prototype to production.</strong></p>\n<p>The BRCK is a simple, and it came from us asking:</p>\n<blockquote><p>“How would we design a redundant internet device for Africa?”</p></blockquote>\n<p>It would need to do the following:</p>\n<ul>\n<li>A router for 20 people</li>\n<li>With 8+ hours of battery for when the power goes out</li>\n<li>That fails over to 3g when the Internet goes out</li>\n<li>That travels, so you become a mobile hotspot</li>\n<li>With cloud-based backend that supports every country</li>\n<li>On device with both a software and hardware API</li>\n</ul>\n<p>As a web company, being connected to the internet when you need it is a big deal, small outages cause lag that ripple through the organization. Even in Nairobi with it’s 4 undersea cables and growing tech scene, we still have power and connectivity problems. Could we do something to scratch this itch of ours that would help others too?</p>\n<p>Since we travel a lot, we decided that it needed to work in every country. The BRCK had to work when the power was off for a full day (8 hours), had to fail over to 3g internet when the ethernet didn’t work, it also had to work in any country we were in, by just changing the SIM card. At the same time we wanted it to be accessible for both software and hardware extensions by others.</p>\n<p>Having a BRCK cloud means that you can login to your device from anywhere in the world, load apps and services on to it, such as a VPN, Dropbox or other services and also control sensors and other devices connected to the hardware. <strong>We think that the BRCK model of both a software and hardware API represents the glue that will make the internet of things work.</strong></p>\n<p>As Ushahidi we’ve always used simple technology to create tools and platforms that work for us in Africa, and which is also useful globally. This holds true for the BRCK too. We’re redesigning technology that’s been around for years, but making it work for our needs in Kenya. </p>\n<p><a href=\"http://whiteafrican.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/BRCK-header.png\"><img src=\"http://whiteafrican.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/BRCK-header-600x228.png\" alt=\"BRCK-header\" width=\"600\" height=\"228\"></a></p>\n<h3>Some History</h3>\n<p>A year ago I jumped on a plane from South Africa back to Kenya without my book and my phone battery almost dead. Funny enough, these happenstances which leave me bored and with nothing to do but think have lead to my most interesting ideas (<em>I’m sure there’s a lesson in there somewhere…</em>). I subsequently broke out my notebook and started sketching out what I thought would be a fun hardware side-project for Ushahidi’s core team that would give us something to work on, when we were too fatigued with the normal coding/work.</p>\n<p>We live in possibly the most interesting time for technology in history, where we’ve created this incredible thing called the internet, connecting us globally while at the same time getting to the point where the people who can code software can also “do” hardware. An era where analog and digital are democratized and the making of both attainable by anyone with a computer.</p>\n<p>Making things is hard. It’s harder in Africa. I can’t overnight an order of processors, boards or 3d printing filament here. There aren’t an over abundance of local fabrication facilities or tools, and the milling machine you find might be in disrepair and take you two days to calibrate. We’ve got our work cut out to create the right spaces for prototyping and small-scale fabrication on the continent. </p>\n<p>We actually started with Jon Shuler doing a lot of the early builds being done by him at his home in California. I’d bring these builds back to Brian Muita and team in Kenya where he was hacking on the firmware to make the system work. All the while hoping that air travel security would let me through with what to all appearances looked like a remote detonation device… </p>\n<p><a href=\"http://whiteafrican.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/BRCKv-fablab-nairobi.jpg\"><img src=\"http://whiteafrican.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/BRCKv-fablab-nairobi-600x447.jpg\" alt=\"The BRCK being built at the University of Nairobi FabLab\" width=\"600\" height=\"447\"></a></p>\n<p>By prototype version 5 we were in Nairobi with a bunch of plastic, using the University of Nairobi’s <a href=\"http://fablab.uonbi.or.ke/\">FabLab</a> to mill the body. There was a fair bit of repair and adjustment needed on the machines to make it work. Like most things in Africa, you either fix what you have or you don’t do it, because there isn’t another option. After a couple days we got it within close enough allowances that we could do it. It still wasn’t pretty, but we knew it would work by then. </p>\n<p>That was all just the hardware bit. Concurrently we wireframed the software side, ensuring that this device was much more useful than just a MiFi on steroids. The BRCK Cloud falls directly in Ushahidi’s software development wheelhouse, so we set about creating a simple responsive interface that would work on both phones and big screens. </p>\n<p><a href=\"http://whiteafrican.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/mobile-brck5.png\"><img src=\"http://whiteafrican.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/mobile-brck5-297x600.png\" alt=\"BRCK setup - mobile web\" width=\"200\"></a></p>\n<p>The software side does three things:</p>\n<ul>\n<li>A <strong>simple setup</strong> interface with only 3 form fields. Router setup is scary and hard, so we’re trying to take the pain out of it.\n</li>\n<li>A <strong>dashboard</strong>, so you can see if your BRCK is running on backup or primary power, how fast your current internet connection is, your provider, and how all of these have done over the last hour, day, week and month.\n</li>\n<li>A <strong>marketplace</strong> for free apps and services, as well as the place for others to offer up their own creations to the rest of the BRCK users around the world.</li>\n</ul>\n<p>While having a device that was remotely programmable and that could run its own apps and service is important, we realized this was only half of the equation. We would need to create a similar interface for hardware creators and users. This means we needed the device to have hardware ports for everything to connect to, from temperature sensors to Raspberry Pi’s (<em>as an aside, I want to get a Raspberry Pi hooked into the BRCK, thereby making a small, working server</em>). We also decided to put special hex nuts at the top that would allow you to pop the top and get into the guts easily to do your own re-jigging.</p>\n<p>The plan for the future is that you’ll be able to stack components under the BRCK like Legos, so that if you need an additional battery pack, a temperature sensor, solar charger, or other product you could do so with ease. </p>\n<p>For a full rundown of the all that the BRCK can do, check out the Kickstarter. If you want to get into the real details, see the <a href=\"http://brck.com/specs\">spec sheet</a>.</p>\n<h3>Final Thoughts</h3>\n<p>This week I’m in Berlin to speak at re:publica – and as this post goes live I’m finalizing my talk. I find myself driven to tell the story of Africa’s great potential and growth, tempered by my experience building companies, communities and products here. I see the other entrepreneurs, hungry to create new products and driven by the same powers that are seen in their European and American counterparts. Here, it’s a harder road to hoe in many ways, it takes more grit, more determination and more belief in a future that is not yet realized to do it. </p>\n<p>I look at the success we’ve had as Ushahidi and what this new hardware product means to us, and I’m humbled that we have the luxury to self-fund the R&D to get it to this stage, while so many my peers are struggling to take great concepts to even the prototype stage. The opportunities afforded us by our international awareness, the advantage of attracting and hand-picking the top talent that come through the iHub, the ability to have funds that we can risk on a half-baked original idea, a Board who believes in us and trusts our decisions – these are what I’m grateful for.</p>\n<p>For this same reason, we’re committed to making a difference for our friends and peers in Nairobi. We’re going to build a makerspace through the iHub that allows others to start from a better position. A place that will give hardware hackers and entrepreneurs a chance to get trained on tools and machines, meet their peers and take risks on their own crazy half-baked hardware ideas. We’re calling this Gearbox. </p>\n<p><a href=\"http://whiteafrican.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/gearbox2.jpg\"><img src=\"http://whiteafrican.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/gearbox2-600x187.jpg\" alt=\"Gearbox - an iHub Nairobi initiative for makers\" width=\"600\" height=\"187\"></a></p>\n<p>We’re looking for corporate, academic and other partners right now to make it a reality. I’ll write about it more at another time (as this post is already too long). However, if you’re interested in being a part of this initiative, do let me know. </p>\n<div>\n<a href=\"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/white_african?a=C4mNp-eXBT8:VPsGiX51JOQ:yIl2AUoC8zA\"><img src=\"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/white_african?d=yIl2AUoC8zA\" border=\"0\"></a> <a href=\"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/white_african?a=C4mNp-eXBT8:VPsGiX51JOQ:D7DqB2pKExk\"><img src=\"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/white_african?i=C4mNp-eXBT8:VPsGiX51JOQ:D7DqB2pKExk\" border=\"0\"></a>\n</div><img src=\"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/white_african/~4/C4mNp-eXBT8\" height=\"1\" width=\"1\">" }, "author" : "HASH", "comments" : [ ], "annotations" : [ ], "origin" : { "streamId" : "feed/http://whiteafrican.com/?feed=atom", "title" : "White African", "htmlUrl" : "http://whiteafrican.com" } }, { "isReadStateLocked" : true, "crawlTimeMsec" : "1367859830963", "timestampUsec" : "1367859830963156", "id" : "tag:google.com,2005:reader/item/3ca350c609f3a5b6", "categories" : [ "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/read", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/starred" ], "title" : "The Secret of the Weak Recovery: We Had a F***ing Housing Bubble", "published" : 1367831312, "updated" : 1367831312, "canonical" : [ { "href" : "http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/the-secret-of-the-weak-recovery-we-had-a-fing-housing-bubble" } ], "alternate" : [ { "href" : "http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/beat_the_press/~3/3WrZewbP6jU/the-secret-of-the-weak-recovery-we-had-a-fing-housing-bubble", "type" : "text/html" } ], "summary" : { "direction" : "ltr", "content" : "<p>The problem with economics is not that it's too complicated; the problem is that it's too damn simple. This problem is amply demonstrated by all the heroic efforts made by economists to explain the weakness of the current recovery.</p>\n<p>We've had economists tell us that the problem is that we are now a <a href=\"http://behl.berkeley.edu/files/2013/02/BEHLWP2013-04_olneypacitti_2-26-13.pdf\">service sector economy</a> rather than a manufacturing economy. The story is that inventory fluctuations explain much of the cycle. Since we don't inventory services, we will have a slower bounceback in terms of production and employment. (There is a simple problem, since we don't inventory services, the downturn should also be less severe in a service dominated economy. How does this story fit with the worst downturn since the Great Depression?)</p>\n<p>We've also been told that <a href=\"http://faculty.chicagobooth.edu/amir.sufi/MianRaoSufi_EconomicSlump_Nov2011.pdf\">the problem is underwater homeowners</a> who can't spend like the good old days because they are underwater in their mortgages. The problem with this one is that we <em>only</em> have around 10 million underwater homeowners, the vast majority of whom have relatively modest incomes. The emphasis is on \"only\" because, while 10 million is a lot of people to be underwater, it is not a lot of people to move the economy.</p>\n<p>The median income for homeowners is $70,000. (Median is probably appropriate here rather than average, since it is unlikely that many wealthy people are underwater.) Suppose that being above water would increase consumption by each of these homeowners by $5,000 a year. This is a huge jump in consumption for people with income of $70k. (Do we think these homeowners are saving an average of $5,000 a year now?) This would lead to an increase in annual consumption of $50 billion a year or less than 0.3 percent of GDP. This would be a nice boost to output, but it would not qualitatively change the nature of the recovery.</p>\n\n<p>Today we have Robert Samuelson telling us that <a href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/employers-lack-confidence-not-skilled-labor/2013/05/05/757340c8-b411-11e2-9a98-4be1688d7d84_story.html?wprss=rss_opinions\">the reason employers are not hiring is uncertainty</a>:</p>\n<p>\"Businesses have become more risk-averse. They’re more reluctant to hire. They’ve raised standards. For many reasons, they’ve become more demanding and discriminating. These reasons could include (a) doubts about the recovery; (b) government policies raising labor costs (example: the Affordable Care Act’s insurance mandates); (c) unwillingness to pay for training; and (d) fear of squeezed profits.\"</p>\n<p>Hmmm, they're worried about squeezed profits when the profit share of income is at its highest level in more than 60 years? The story of the Affordable Care Act raising costs could at best only explain the behavior of a small group of businesses (firms with close to 50 employees who do not currently provide health care insurance).</p>\n<p>But there is a simple way to test the idea that firms would otherwise be hiring but are deterred due to uncertainty about the future: look at the length of workweeks. The logic is simple; increasing hours per worker and hiring more workers are alternative ways to meeting increased demand for labor. Adding work hours involves none of the commitments that apply to hiring addtional workers. If uncertainty, as opposed to lack of demand, is keeping businesses from hiring, then we should be seeing a big increase in the length of the average workweek.</p>\n<p>We don't. The length of the average workweek fell by 0.2 hours to 34.4 hours in April. This compares to an average of more than 34.5 hours in the 2006 and 2007. In short there is no evidence that employers are seeing the sort of demand that would justify increasing the size of the workforce but are being kept from doing so because of the concerns raised by Samuelson.</p>\n<p>If none of these stories, or any of the others that economists develop to stay employed, explain the length of the downturn, what does? Well, it's pretty damn simple, we had a housing bubble driving the economy before the collapse and there is nothing to fill the gap created. The bubble led residential construction to soar to more than 6.0 percent of GDP at the peak of the boom in 2005. It is now a bit over 2 percent of GDP implying a loss in annual demand of more than $600 billion. The $8 trillion in housing wealth created by the bubble led the saving rate to fall to almost zero due to the housing wealth effect (people increase annual spending by 5-7 cents for each dollar in housing wealth). With the saving rate hovering near 4 percent, we have lost close to $400 billion in annual consumption demand. </p>\n<p>The cumulative loss of annual demand is more than $1 trillion. What did we think would replace this demand? Investment in equipment and software is actually close to its pre-recession level measured as a share of GDP. Furthermore, this component of investment has never been a much larger share of GDP, even in the Internet bubble years. Why would anyone expect it to expand rapidly at a time when many firms still have large amounts of excess capacity? (Structure investment is depressed because there was a bubble in non-residential construction as well, leading to large amounts of excess capacity in most areas of non-residential construction.)</p>\n<p>Do we somehow think that consumers will spend at the same rate after they have lost $8 trillion in housing wealth as when they had this wealth? Why? Net exports could fill the gap, but the dollar has to fall. Net exports could fill the gap, but the dollar has to fall. (I repeated that one in case any economists are reading.) The value of the dollar is the main determinant of our trade deficit, if we want a lower deficit then we will need a sharp decline in the dollar, which has not happened.</p>\n<p>This only leaves the government sector to fill the gap with deficits, which our Serious People types have demanded that we hold down. So, based on the good old intro econo that tens of millions have been subjected to, we know that this recovery will be slow and weak. We simply lack a component of demand to fill the gap created by the housing bubble.</p>\n<p>If it seems absurd that economists can't see something this simple, readers should realize that this is a common problem. Just last Friday Robert Samuelson had a useful <a href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/robert-samuelson-europe-has-no-exit/2013/05/02/6bf609b8-b34e-11e2-9a98-4be1688d7d84_story.html\">column</a> that pointed out the huge imbalances that persist in the euro zone and pointed out that the region's crisis is far from over. While he is exactly right, the amazing part of the story is that competent economists somehow did not see these imbalances developing.</p>\n<p>As<a href=\"http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/the-european-central-bank-good-paying-jobs-for-people-without-skills\"> I pointed out</a>, several of the current crisis countries already had incredible trade deficits long before the crash as the world's leading economists were celebrating the "Great Moderation." </p>\n<p style=\"text-align:center\"><strong>Current Account Balance as a Percent of GDP</strong></p>\n<table align=\"center\" border=\"1\" cellpadding=\"2\" cellspacing=\"0\">\n<tbody>\n<tr><th>Country</th><th align=\"right\">2003</th><th align=\"right\">2004</th><th align=\"right\">2005</th><th align=\"right\">2006</th><th align=\"right\">2007</th><th align=\"right\">2008</th></tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Greece</td>\n<td align=\"right\">-6.533</td>\n<td align=\"right\">-5.785</td>\n<td align=\"right\">-7.637</td>\n<td align=\"right\">-11.388</td>\n<td align=\"right\">-14.609</td>\n<td align=\"right\">-14.922</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Portugal</td>\n<td align=\"right\">-6.433</td>\n<td align=\"right\">-8.327</td>\n<td align=\"right\">-10.323</td>\n<td align=\"right\">-10.685</td>\n<td align=\"right\">-10.102</td>\n<td align=\"right\">-12.638</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Spain</td>\n<td align=\"right\">-3.508</td>\n<td align=\"right\">-5.248</td>\n<td align=\"right\">-7.353</td>\n<td align=\"right\">-8.961</td>\n<td align=\"right\">-9.995</td>\n<td align=\"right\">-9.623</td>\n</tr>\n</tbody>\n</table>\n<p> Source: <a href=\"http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2013/01/weodata/weorept.aspx?pr.x=57&pr.y=17&sy=2003&ey=2008&scsm=1&ssd=1&sort=country&ds=.&br=1&c=182%2C174%2C184&s=BCA_NGDPD&grp=0&a=\">International Monetary Fund</a>.</p>\n<p>How did the folks at the European Central Bank think that these deficits would fall to a sustainable level without some sort of disastrous crisis? This one should have been simple, but the world's leading economists all missed it.</p>\n<p>I recall back in the 1990s and the last decade when both Republican and Democratic economists wanted to invest Social Security funds in the stock market. (Democrats generally wanted to invest the fund collectively rather through individual accounts.) I tried to <a href=\"http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=4&cad=rja&ved=0CEsQFjAD&url=http%3A%2F%2Fold.tcf.org%2Fpublications%2F1999%2F3%2Fpb336&ei=gYGHUaW2NbfG4AO4zYCgBA&usg=AFQjCNEFXJQxYgWF8PnBsN3Jjg3zqqpY-g&sig2=Wm2wzNn0R5L-LZ-ucMRtfA&bvm=bv.45960087,d.dmg\">point out</a> that both were assuming impossible rates of return given the fact that the stock market was at price to earnings ratios that were far higher than historic averages.</p>\n<p>When this issue was highlighted in the debate over President Bush's privatization plan (see the <a href=\"http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=4&cad=rja&ved=0CEEQFjAD&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cepr.net%2Fdocuments%2Fpublications%2Fnoeconleftbehind_2004_11.pdf&ei=5oGHUd6BMsvj4AP7pIGIDw&usg=AFQjCNH6AOdoVsg8I8BnRrmax65AjTo1Rg&sig2=k_lQR1HAB8ANy8nTnQFc9g&bvm=bv.45960087,d.dmg\">No Economist Left Behind</a> test) Brad DeLong suggested that we do a paper on it for a Brookings conference. I didn't think that this simple arithmetic could warrant a Brookings paper, even though the issue was hugely important. To get it in Brad (along with Paul Krugman) added <a href=\"http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=4&ved=0CEgQFjAD&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.fordham.edu%2Feconomics%2Fmcleod%2FBakerDeLongKrugmanBPEA2005.pdf&ei=wIKHUeqSELGx0AGLzICQAg&usg=AFQjCNGwhNtXrtb6bRhN6MQlSbajc4Er1g&sig2=F_6IijpI2hOGXXRuptCjZg&bvm=bv.45960087,d.dmg&cad=rja\">a model of optimal consumption paths</a> given a declining rate of labor force growth. While the model was fine, it had nothing to do with the basic issue that the stock market was over-valued at the time that people were thinking of investing workers' Social Security money in it. The model did add sufficient complexity so that we got the Brookings crew to take the simple argument seriously.</p>\n<p>The same story held during the housing bubble years. I had many people ask me why I didn't publish anything in journals on the bubble in the years 2002-2007 when I was writing for CEPR's website and popular publications. The reason is that it was too simple a story for any serious journal.</p>\n<p>The basic story was that house prices had diverged sharply from their long-term trend and there was no plausible story rooted in the fundamentals of the housing market that could explain this divergence. While this was certainly compelling in my view, the American Economic Review is not going to publish an article that shows house prices just keeping pace with inflation for 100 years and then suddenly rising by 70 percent in real terms from 1996-2006. It would be necessary to somehow make the story complicated to get economists to take it seriously.</p>\n<p>To my view this is the fundamental problem of economics. There is a need to find ways to make economic issues complex even when they can be explained by the simple economics that we teach in econ 101. This is not a pretty picture.</p>\n<p> </p>\n<p>Note:</p>\n<p>Aaron Pacitti, the co-author of the paper I referenced that attributes the slow pace of recovery to the increasing importance of the service sector, called my attention to the fact that the paper does not address the question of the severity of the downturn. The point is that given the severity of the recession, we should expect a slower recovery in an economy with a relatively larger service sector. </p>\n<p> </p><div>\n<a href=\"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/beat_the_press?a=3WrZewbP6jU:81vfWtS5Ltk:yIl2AUoC8zA\"><img src=\"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/beat_the_press?d=yIl2AUoC8zA\" border=\"0\"></a> <a href=\"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/beat_the_press?a=3WrZewbP6jU:81vfWtS5Ltk:V_sGLiPBpWU\"><img src=\"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/beat_the_press?i=3WrZewbP6jU:81vfWtS5Ltk:V_sGLiPBpWU\" border=\"0\"></a> <a href=\"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/beat_the_press?a=3WrZewbP6jU:81vfWtS5Ltk:qj6IDK7rITs\"><img src=\"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/beat_the_press?d=qj6IDK7rITs\" border=\"0\"></a> <a href=\"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/beat_the_press?a=3WrZewbP6jU:81vfWtS5Ltk:gIN9vFwOqvQ\"><img src=\"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/beat_the_press?i=3WrZewbP6jU:81vfWtS5Ltk:gIN9vFwOqvQ\" border=\"0\"></a>\n</div><img src=\"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/beat_the_press/~4/3WrZewbP6jU\" height=\"1\" width=\"1\">" }, "comments" : [ ], "annotations" : [ ], "origin" : { "streamId" : "feed/http://feeds.feedburner.com/beat_the_press", "title" : "Beat the Press", "htmlUrl" : "http://www.cepr.net/" } }, { "isReadStateLocked" : true, "crawlTimeMsec" : "1367605721341", "timestampUsec" : "1367605721341422", "id" : "tag:google.com,2005:reader/item/392723b958226815", "categories" : [ "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/read", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/starred", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/tracking-mobile-read", "Apache", "Social Network Analysis" ], "title" : "Mapping the Apache Software Foundation", "published" : 1367593319, "updated" : 1367593319, "canonical" : [ { "href" : "http://www.robweir.com/blog/2013/05/mapping-apache.html?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=mapping-apache" } ], "alternate" : [ { "href" : "http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/robweir/antic-atom/~3/DFRp7_Izmao/mapping-apache.html", "type" : "text/html" } ], "content" : { "direction" : "ltr", "content" : "<p></p><p><a href=\"http://www.robweir.com/blog/images/apache-map-large.png\"><img alt=\"\" src=\"http://www.robweir.com/blog/images/apache-map.png\" width=\"800\" height=\"800\"></a></p>\n<p>So, what do we have here? This is a graph of Apache projects and how they are related, by one definition of “related” in any case. Click on the image for a larger PNG version, or<a href=\"http://www.robweir.com/blog/images/apache-map.svg\"> here if you would like an SVG</a>.</p>\n<p>Each labeled circle (node) in the graph represents one project at Apache. Or to be specific it represents the membership of a single Project Management Committee (PMC), the leadership committee that each Apache project has. The size of the node is proportionate to the size of the PMC. You can see that the largest PMCs are Apache Axis (56 members), Httpd (55 members), Subversion (42 members), WS (41 members) and Geronimo (also 41 members).</p>\n<p>The edges between the PMC nodes represent the ties between the PMCs as revealed by overlapping membership. So PMCs that have a larger number of members in common have a thicker line connecting them. I used the <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%B8rensen%E2%80%93Dice_coefficient\">Sørensen–Dice coefficient</a> to express the overlap. This is a simple calculation that looks at the overlap in membership of two sets, scaled by the size of the individual sets. It varies from 0 to 1, with 0 meaning no overlap at all and 1 meaning total overlap. An example: Look at the bottom of the graph at the thick line connecting Apache Flume and Sqoop. The Flume PMC has 20 members and the Sqoop PMC has 13. They have 6 members in common, so the Dice coefficient is (2*6)/(20+13) = 0.36. The highest weight edge in the graph is that between Apache Httpd and the Apache Portable Runtime (APR), with a coefficient of 0.52.</p>\n<p>(Observant Apache participants will note that the chart is missing some PMCs. I omitted Apache Labs, Incubator and Attic since they are umbrella projects representing parts of a project lifecycle. They don’t have a specific technical orientation and the commonality in membership would not mean anything. I left out Comdev as well, for the similar reasons.)</p>\n<p>The color for each node was determined by a community-detection algorithm (modularity) which finds projects that have a high degree of interconnection. This has brought out some of the larger trends within Apache, such as the grouping of cloud-related projects, big data related ones, content management, enterprise middleware, etc. What is interesting is that this graph was created without knowing anything at all about the technology within each project. The graph is based on PMC membership data only. So individual volunteers, by their choice of what projects they work, is the motive force behind these groupings.</p>\n<p>Some other interesting facts:</p>\n<ul>\n<li>The PMCs with connections to the most other PMCs are Commons (34), WS (32), DirectMemory (31), Aries (28) and Geronimo (28).</li>\n<li>If you look at the most connections to other PMCs (subtly different from the above since it is possible to have more than one member in another PMCs) the top projects are: DirectMemory, Karaf, Servicemix, BVal and Geronimo.</li>\n<li><a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betweenness_centrality\">Betweeness centrality</a> looks at the importance of a node with respect to helping connect other nodes. It looks at the shortest path between all pairs of nodes, and which specific nodes are most often the ones that are passed through on these shortest paths. If we were looking at a graph of air traffic routes, the hub cities would be the ones with the highest centrality. If we were looking at how to communicate an idea, influence opinion, or to spread an infectious disease (all the same thing, really), these central nodes are ones to look at. The PMCs at Apache with the highest betweeness are: Commons, DirectMemory, WS, Httpd and Portals.</li>\n</ul>\n<p>So how did I do this?</p>\n<p>The core data I got from scraping this page, which lists <a href=\"http://people.apache.org/committer-index.html\">all Apache committers</a>. I did this in Python using BeautifulSoup, building up the PMC membership in a dictionary. Then Python’s set operations made calculating the Dice coefficient a simple task:</p>\n<div>\n<pre> intersect = SetA.intersection(SetB)\n\n dice = (2.0*len(intersect)/(len(SetA)+len(SetB)))</pre>\n</div>\n<p>The script then wrote out the graph data, include node size and edge weight into a Gexf-format XML file, which I then processed using <a href=\"https://gephi.org/\">Gephi</a>. Here’s <a href=\"http://www.robweir.com/blog/attachments/apache.gexf\">the data file I used</a> if you want to play with the data yourself.</p>\n<p>In Part II of this series, I’ll take a look at finer-grained data, at <a href=\"http://www.robweir.com/blog/2013/05/mapping-the-asf-part-ii.html\">the social network graph of Apache Software Foundation participants at the individual level</a>.</p>\n<div>\n<p>Related posts:<ol>\n<li><a href=\"http://www.robweir.com/blog/2013/05/mapping-the-asf-part-ii.html\" rel=\"bookmark\" title=\"Mapping the ASF, Part II\">Mapping the ASF, Part II</a></li>\n<li><a href=\"http://www.robweir.com/blog/2011/06/apache-openoffice-how-to-get-involved.html\" rel=\"bookmark\" title=\"Apache OpenOffice: How to Get Involved\">Apache OpenOffice: How to Get Involved</a></li>\n<li><a href=\"http://www.robweir.com/blog/2012/01/apache-odf-toolkit-release.html\" rel=\"bookmark\" title=\"First release of the Apache ODF Toolkit\">First release of the Apache ODF Toolkit</a></li>\n</ol></p>\n</div>\n<div>\n<a href=\"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/robweir/antic-atom?a=DFRp7_Izmao:T25Jm14C8yM:yIl2AUoC8zA\"><img src=\"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/robweir/antic-atom?d=yIl2AUoC8zA\" border=\"0\"></a> <a href=\"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/robweir/antic-atom?a=DFRp7_Izmao:T25Jm14C8yM:gIN9vFwOqvQ\"><img src=\"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/robweir/antic-atom?i=DFRp7_Izmao:T25Jm14C8yM:gIN9vFwOqvQ\" border=\"0\"></a> <a href=\"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/robweir/antic-atom?a=DFRp7_Izmao:T25Jm14C8yM:V_sGLiPBpWU\"><img src=\"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/robweir/antic-atom?i=DFRp7_Izmao:T25Jm14C8yM:V_sGLiPBpWU\" border=\"0\"></a> <a href=\"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/robweir/antic-atom?a=DFRp7_Izmao:T25Jm14C8yM:-BTjWOF_DHI\"><img src=\"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/robweir/antic-atom?i=DFRp7_Izmao:T25Jm14C8yM:-BTjWOF_DHI\" border=\"0\"></a> <a href=\"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/robweir/antic-atom?a=DFRp7_Izmao:T25Jm14C8yM:YwkR-u9nhCs\"><img src=\"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/robweir/antic-atom?d=YwkR-u9nhCs\" border=\"0\"></a> <a href=\"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/robweir/antic-atom?a=DFRp7_Izmao:T25Jm14C8yM:F7zBnMyn0Lo\"><img src=\"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/robweir/antic-atom?i=DFRp7_Izmao:T25Jm14C8yM:F7zBnMyn0Lo\" border=\"0\"></a> <a href=\"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/robweir/antic-atom?a=DFRp7_Izmao:T25Jm14C8yM:qj6IDK7rITs\"><img src=\"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/robweir/antic-atom?d=qj6IDK7rITs\" border=\"0\"></a>\n</div><img src=\"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/robweir/antic-atom/~4/DFRp7_Izmao\" height=\"1\" width=\"1\">" }, "author" : "Rob", "comments" : [ ], "annotations" : [ ], "origin" : { "streamId" : "feed/http://feeds.feedburner.com/robweir/antic-atom", "title" : "Rob Weir: An Antic Disposition", "htmlUrl" : "http://www.robweir.com/blog" } }, { "isReadStateLocked" : true, "crawlTimeMsec" : "1367605632984", "timestampUsec" : "1367605632984775", "id" : "tag:google.com,2005:reader/item/8085e5afd83a97e7", "categories" : [ "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/read", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/starred", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/tracking-mobile-read", "Uncategorized" ], "title" : "Upcoming is downgoing, Elm City is ongoing", "published" : 1367596327, "updated" : 1367596327, "alternate" : [ { "href" : "http://blog.jonudell.net/2013/05/03/upcoming-is-downgoing-elm-city-is-ongoing/", "type" : "text/html" } ], "content" : { "direction" : "ltr", "content" : "<p><a href=\"http://jonudell.net/KeeneEventsSpring05/index.html\" title=\"upcoming events in Keene, NH\"><img style=\"float:right;height:200px;margin:10px\" src=\"http://jonudell.net/KeeneEventsSpring05/thumbs/Jerry%20Holland%20%7C%20Nelson%20Town%20Hall%20%7C%20March%2026.JPG\" vspace=\"6\" width=\"144\"></a></p>\n<p>\nHere’s Andy Baio’s <a href=\"http://waxy.org/2013/04/the_death_of_upcomingorg/\">farewell</a> to Upcoming, a service I’ve been involved with for a decade. In a <a href=\"http://jonudell.net/udell/2005-03-21-upcoming-events-in-keene-nh.html\">March 2005 blog post</a> I wrote about what I hoped Upcoming would become, in my town and elsewhere, and offered some suggestions to help it along. One was a request for an API which Upcoming then lacked. Andy soon responded with an API. It was one of the pillars of my Elm City project for a long while until, as Andy notes in his farewell post, it degraded and became useless.\n</p>\n<p>\nToday I pulled the plug and decoupled Upcoming from all the Elm City hubs.\n</p>\n<p>\nIn 2009 Andy and I both spoke at a conference in London. Andy was there to announce a new project that would help people crowdsource funding for creative projects. I was there to announce a project that would help people crowdsource public calendars. Now, of course, Kickstarter is a thing. The Elm City project not so much. But I’m pretty sure I’m on the right track, I’m lucky to be in a position to keep pursuing the idea, and although it’s taking longer than I ever imagined I’m making progress. Success, if it comes, won’t look like Upcoming did in its heyday, but it will be a solution to the same problem that Upcoming addressed — a problem we’ve yet to solve.\n</p>\n<p>\nThat same <a href=\"http://jonudell.net/udell/2005-03-21-upcoming-events-in-keene-nh.html\">March 2005 blog post</a> resonates with me for another reason. That was the day I walked around my town photographing event flyers on shop windows and kiosks. When I give presentations about the Elm City project I still show a montage of those images. They’re beautiful, and they’re dense with information that isn’t otherwise accessible.\n</p>\n<p>\nEvent flyers outperform web calendars, to this day, because they empower groups and organizations to be the authoritative sources for information about their public events, and to bring those events to the attention of the public. The web doesn’t meet that need yet but it can, and I’m doing my best to see that it does.</p>\n<br> <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/gocomments/jonudell.wordpress.com/3555/\"><img alt=\"\" border=\"0\" src=\"http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/comments/jonudell.wordpress.com/3555/\"></a> <img alt=\"\" border=\"0\" src=\"http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=blog.jonudell.net&blog=109309&post=3555&subd=jonudell&ref=&feed=1\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\">" }, "author" : "Jon Udell", "comments" : [ ], "annotations" : [ ], "origin" : { "streamId" : "feed/http://jonudell.wordpress.com/feed/", "title" : "Jon Udell", "htmlUrl" : "http://blog.jonudell.net" } }, { "isReadStateLocked" : true, "crawlTimeMsec" : "1367559917535", "timestampUsec" : "1367559917535009", "id" : "tag:google.com,2005:reader/item/b7f56f74efb7ff00", "categories" : [ "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/read", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/starred", "bigdata", "bigstreaming", "computer scaling", "hadoop", "mongodb" ], "title" : "Big Data vs. Big Streaming", "published" : 1367540678, "updated" : 1367540678, "alternate" : [ { "href" : "http://looselyconnected.wordpress.com/2013/05/02/big-data-vs-big-streaming/", "type" : "text/html" } ], "content" : { "direction" : "ltr", "content" : "<p>Although the shop I’m at now handles a lot of data, we don’t qualify as a big data shop. That’s because we’re running constant analyses of big feeds coming in to our system. Once we’ve handled the data, we’re done with it. Keeping it around just costs money and brings no benefit.</p>\n<p>Now, we could pour all that data into a big, open-ended datastore like Hadoop, and crunch it there. But the fact is, once we’ve analysed the data, we don’t really care about it anymore. We’ve got it characterized and encoded, and from that point forward, that’s what we really care about.</p>\n<p>So the Big Data label doesn’t suit us. Instead, we fit the model of Big Streaming.</p>\n<p>Just as there are a bunch of surprising discoveries you find with Big Data, there are a lot of surprising discoveries with Big Streaming. Some of them are:</p>\n<p><strong>Deleting Data is Hard</strong></p>\n<p>Because we don’t want to accumulate a bunch of documents the way we would in a Big Data solution, we want to receive a document, process it, then after some time get rid of it to free up the space. Big static datastores are powerful and wonderful, but they are also very expensive and slow. Extremely slow — when I was working with Hadoop a while back, a simple “hello world” map-reduce could take over a minute to run.</p>\n<p>We need data that drops into a fast datastore, we pull it out in batches for processing, we may keep it a while to refer back to in the UI, but then we want to get rid of it.</p>\n<p>We’re using Mongo. The consequence we had in our first go at it was that we had as much contention from deletes as we did from inserts — in a steady state, we were constantly deleting records from the collections as fast as we were inserting them. There was a brief and painful attempt to use ttl indexes to time the records out, but in each case the insert/delete load on the collection was so high that the ttl fell behind. At one point, a 3-day collection was holding 10 days’ worth of data, and losing ground. Ack!</p>\n<p>That led to a couple of scrambles where we had to implement a new solution in place as the flames grew — there was so much contention that any attempt to delete data just added more contention and made things worse. Fortunately, we pulled out of it each time.</p>\n<p>We could have moved to a capped collection, but because of the difficulty estimating the size of collection we’d need, we didn’t go down that path. Which is too bad, because capped collections in Mongo are completely awesome.</p>\n<p>We needed a batch delete option, and ended up settling on a scheme where we elimiate entire collections at a time, wiping away hours worth of data in a single stroke.</p>\n<p>The upshot: if you’re going Big Streaming, you need a way to wipe out a lot of data fast.</p>\n<p><strong>Inserting Data is Hard</strong></p>\n<p>The other aspect that we struggle with is just getting all the data from the different sources into the system. After a while, all that insert activity does start to create write contention.</p>\n<p>So far, we’ve been lucky with this one, and we’re still able to use a naive solution of pouring it all into a big collection. But we’re going to hit the wall on that in the next few months as our data stream grows.</p>\n<p><strong>Backing up Data is … Interesting</strong></p>\n<p>Backing up transitory data becomes an interesting problem. Even if we did push the data onto some more permanent medium, if we ever needed to restore it, it would be hugely outdated.</p>\n<p>So, instead of relying on backups, we just use replication (in our case, provided by Mongo) to make sure we always have a moving copy of the information we’re getting. We back up some of the results of the analysis, but that wouldn’t be appropriate for the transitory data that we want to get, process, then get rid of.</p>\n<p><strong>Batch Processing Works OK</strong></p>\n<p>Right now the system that I walked into uses a process of saving the data down to a datastore, then pulling it out in batches for the different processing steps. Each of the batch processes is (fortunately) designed to scale horizontally, so that each processes plays nice and does things like create pessimistic lock artifacts, and create shared batch documents. So the system is coded for the kind of distributed processing that Hadoop generalizes with map-reduce.</p>\n<p>I think, however, that in the long run that approach is going to hit a limit. My hope is that we’ll be able to shift to a sort of pipeline processing, where inputs come in through a bank of homogenous processing boxes, and then come out the other side along with any trimming, characterzing, and analysis along the way.</p>\n<p><strong>Think Write-Once</strong></p>\n<p>Just like in the Big Data world, where Write Once / Read Many is a central paradigm, that model helps in the Big Streaming world. Updates are hard, slow, and expensive. So it works out well to write temporary artifacts as read-only artifacts, then pull them out for processing, and delete them (in broad strokes) when they’re not useful any more.</p>\n<p>Particularly in Mongo, inserts are fast and can be done in batch, whereas updates specific to a document require a write lock, a lookup, and a write — even if you take advantage of Mongo’s update mechanisms to speed things up.</p>\n<p><strong>Everything is a Time Interval</strong></p>\n<p>When data like this pours in, it’s all about breaking the data into time intervals, and handling the intervals in the right way. So there’s a lot of date math involved. Also deciding what “now” means at any given moment in the processing can be tricky.</p>\n<p><strong>Latency and Capacity Rule</strong></p>\n<p>The upshot of the whole thing is that working on a Big Streaming system makes you really aware of the clock, and whether your processing is keeping pace with your inputs. The ideas of *latency* and *capacity* suddenly jump to the forefront, because that’s what determines if you can handle more, or if you’re falling behind, even more than the traditional “processing time”.</p>\n<p>It’s really fun, though. Standing in front of a firehose of data and running analysis on the data is exhilarating — when it works.</p>\n<br> <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/gocomments/looselyconnected.wordpress.com/795/\"><img alt=\"\" border=\"0\" src=\"http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/comments/looselyconnected.wordpress.com/795/\"></a> <img alt=\"\" border=\"0\" src=\"http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=looselyconnected.wordpress.com&blog=12380808&post=795&subd=looselyconnected&ref=&feed=1\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\">" }, "author" : "roby2358", "comments" : [ ], "annotations" : [ ], "origin" : { "streamId" : "feed/http://looselyconnected.wordpress.com/feed/", "title" : "Loosely Connected", "htmlUrl" : "http://looselyconnected.wordpress.com" } }, { "isReadStateLocked" : true, "crawlTimeMsec" : "1367448328412", "timestampUsec" : "1367448328412294", "id" : "tag:google.com,2005:reader/item/e345712c53ca00ca", "categories" : [ "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/kept-unread", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/starred", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/tracking-kept-unread", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/read" ], "title" : "Use a Software Bug to Win Video Poker? That?s a Federal Hacking Case", "published" : 1367402400, "updated" : 1367402400, "canonical" : [ { "href" : "http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/05/game-king/" } ], "alternate" : [ { "href" : "http://feeds.wired.com/~r/wired/index/~3/NjHTSjmMay4/", "type" : "text/html" } ], "content" : { "direction" : "ltr", "content" : "On Monday, July 6, 2009, two engineers from Nevada?s Gaming Control Board showed up at the Silverton Casino Lodge. The off-the-strip South Las Vegas casino is best known for its mermaid aquarium, but the GCB geek squad wasn?t there to see swimmers in bikini tops and zip-on fish tails. They?d come to examine machine 50102, a Game King video poker unit on the casino floor that had been waiting for them, taped off like a crime scene, all weekend.<img src=\"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/wired/index/~4/NjHTSjmMay4\" height=\"1\" width=\"1\">" }, "author" : "Kevin Poulsen", "comments" : [ ], "annotations" : [ ], "origin" : { "streamId" : "feed/http://www.wired.com/news_drop/netcenter/netcenter.rdf", "title" : "Wired Top Stories", "htmlUrl" : "http://www.wired.com" } }, { "isReadStateLocked" : true, "crawlTimeMsec" : "1367416733239", "timestampUsec" : "1367416733239855", "id" : "tag:google.com,2005:reader/item/d244323c0bab0597", "categories" : [ "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/read", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/starred", "user/10262491203628253725/state/com.google/tracking-item-link-used", "FEATURED", "OPINION", "POLITICS", "AfDB", "Africa is rising", "African Development Bank", "African Middle Classes", "Aliko Dangote", "Andy Sumner", "Angola", "Boston Consulting Group", "China", "Deloitte", "Francafrique", "Goldman Sachs", "India", "Jumoke Balogun", "McKinsey", "Mthuli Ncube", "Nigeria", "South Africa", "Stanlib", "Thabo Ncalo", "Thandika Mkandawire", "World Bank" ], "title" : "In Search of the “African Middle Class”", "published" : 1367411427, "updated" : 1367411427, "alternate" : [ { "href" : "http://africasacountry.com/2013/05/01/in-search-of-the-african-middle-class/", "type" : "text/html" } ], "content" : { "direction" : "ltr", "content" : "<div style=\"width:559px\"><a href=\"http://africasacountry.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/antoine__tennis_instructor__club_saoti__libreville__gabon-original.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-67254\"><img alt=\"The Other Africa. Image by Philippe Sibelly\" src=\"http://africasacountry.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/antoine__tennis_instructor__club_saoti__libreville__gabon-original.jpg?w=549&h=365\" width=\"549\" height=\"365\"></a><p>“The Other Africa.” Image by <a href=\"http://www.sibellimages.eu/projects.htm\">Philippe Sibelly</a></p></div>\n<p>“Africa Rising” stories have become old news in English-speaking media, so much so that <a style=\"font-size:13px;line-height:19px\" href=\"http://africasacountry.com/2012/11/26/time-magazine-and-the-africa-is-rising-meme/\">Africa is a Country</a> called them a meme not long ago. But only a few have run in French news outlets, and <a href=\"http://www.lemonde.fr/economie/article/2013/04/02/l-afrique-est-bien-partie_3151910_3234.html\">one such op-ed</a> [fr] recently made it to the pages of the well-respected daily newspaper <em>Le Monde</em>. The piece has a specific flavor for a couple of reasons: a condescending and prescriptive tone, also known as the <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fran%C3%A7afrique\">Françafrique</a> touch, as its title trumpeting that “Africa is on the right tracks” (<em>L’Afrique est bien partie</em>) makes clear; an emphasis on the rise of the “African middle class”, portrayed as the cornerstone of the “African economic revolution”, whose origins are to be found in “diversifying and emancipating economies”, enabling “endogenous growth” that is free of the “dependency on raw materials exports” because it is “driven by consumption”. Such a nice Cinderella story! Who would guess that a little over a decade ago Africa was mostly described as <a href=\"http://www.economist.com/printedition/2000-05-13\">“the hopeless continent”</a>?<span></span></p>\n<p><strong>Cape of Good Hope</strong></p>\n<p>This rosy picture can be traced back to the strategic briefs and equity research notes published from 2010 onwards by <a href=\"http://www.bcg.com/media/PressReleaseDetails.aspx?id=tcm:12-49363\">Boston Consulting Group</a>, <a href=\"http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/economic_studies/whats_driving_africas_growth\">McKinsey</a>, <a href=\"http://allafrica.com/download/resource/main/main/idatcs/00031978:a218704b4806a5136c18f03d75a4529c.pdf\">Goldman Sachs</a> (pdf) or <a href=\"https://www.deloitte.com/assets/Dcom-SouthAfrica/Local%20Assets/Documents/rise_and_rise.pdf\">Deloitte</a> (pdf), advertising “the new African consumer”, finally in a position to spend some cash in brand new supermarkets. In a time when growth rates of industrialized countries stutter and when the Chinese and Indian engines of the global economy are somewhat slowing down, financial analysts and investment consultants can’t get enough of the one thing that they have dismissed for so long: Africa.</p>\n<div style=\"width:546px\"><a href=\"http://africasacountry.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/glez-africarising.png\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-67244\"><img alt=\"White man holding Global North's GDP: "You Africans, you're so lucky with your 5% growth rate..." / Black man holding Global South's GDP: "5% of... this much!" Cartoon by Glez published in Jeune Afrique\" src=\"http://africasacountry.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/glez-africarising.png?w=536&h=307\" width=\"536\" height=\"307\"></a><p>White man holding Global North’s GDP: “You Africans, you’re so lucky with your 5% growth rate…” / Black man holding Global South’s GDP: “5% of… this much!” Cartoon by <a href=\"http://www.glez.org/\">Glez</a> <a href=\"http://www.jeuneafrique.com/oeil-de-glez-ARTJAWEB20130404095225.html\">published in Jeune Afrique</a></p></div>\n<p>“That’s where the flavor is,” <a href=\"http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21575769-strategies-putting-money-work-fast-growing-continent-hottest\">said Thabo Ncalo recently</a>, manager of the Africa Fund for Johannesburg-based Stanlib, “the frontier markets,” like Côte d’Ivoire, Nigeria or Rwanda. Close your eyes and let your imagination do the rest: hundreds of millions of purses loosening their strings…</p>\n<p>Of course it’s difficult to sell such a vision if “Africa” remains associated with deadly conflicts, food crises and looming poverty. Thus baiting scaredy-cat investors and lobbying the media with the “African middle class” is downright genius: there’s enough actual change taking place all over the continent to make the notion look respectable, and it remains vague enough to accommodate any expectation and get traction across the board. This is where development organizations, in their quest for better aid efficiency and alternatives to aid, join forces with investors. But despite the evidence piling up of how misleading it can be, change in African countries continues to be examined through its reflection in Western mirrors rather than for itself – and “the rise and rise of the African middle class,” as Deloitte called it, is no exception.</p>\n<p>In April 2011 The African Development Bank (AfDB) released a market brief on <a href=\"http://www.afdb.org/fileadmin/uploads/afdb/Documents/Publications/The%20Middle%20of%20the%20Pyramid_The%20Middle%20of%20the%20Pyramid.pdf\">“The Middle of the Pyramid: Dynamics of the African Middle Class”</a> (pdf). Since then the estimated number of middle class Africans has been arbitrarily set at 350 million, sometimes