Earning The Best (Meta) Reputation Isn't Obvious: Canary Islands 43 Update

Earning The Best (Meta) Reputation Isn't Obvious: Canary Islands 43 Update

Back in Europe, trying to find a Spanish citizen to file the official Requests For Correspondence with the Spanish Civil National Guard, who arrested the Canary Islands 43 last winter .  Europe has a bureaucracy.  But after translating all of the Spanish news stories about the arrest of "E-waste Exporters", including a more factual one in particular from Europol (which corrected a number of sensationalist claims in the original story), a few facts are taking shape.

Fun Facts about the Canary Islands E-Waste Export "Crime"

1. It was mostly cars and car parts, like the chapter of Minter's Secondhand in the Bronx. Not electronics.
2. There is no Totall Reclaim, no Closed Loop, no Intercon, no western recycler mentioned at all.  That's usually the first question press ask for. So it's like the Joe "Hurricane" Benson story, where the Diaspora is in complete control of both the supply lines and the demand purchase order.
3. The Spanish Canarias (Islands) Civil Guard carried out the arrests.  That's not the same as high profile UK Environmental Agency, whose chief (Lord Chris Smith, who first introduced Mike "fishing as a boy" Anane to INTEROL) was stirring enforcement 13 years ago. But like the barrister in the Hurricane Benson case, we expect that some poor local prosecutor has been handed allegations which he'll have trouble making sense of. (Juan Solera said the UK Banniser he interviewed seemed unsure).
4. Canary Islands has the most hotels per Spanish population - a common attraction to Africa's diaspora, whose used electronics networks have snapped up hotel upgrades for decades.

So on Friday I boarded a flight to Spain and sent out an email to 25 people... I'm jumping in the pool, with my Duolingo (396 straight days of Spanish) and Whatsapp Translate.  But how do I complete these forms as an American - and one with a "reputation"?

This is quickly about hoped next steps... But also about your Meta Reputation, and how to steer it.  Show of hands, who remembers St. Louis Cardinals manager Branch Rickey? Other than the fact I grew up watching Cardinal's baseball on a black and white analogue TV at my grandparent's guest bedroom, why do I think Branch Rickey is the ultimate Meta Reputation? How is this obscure American 1940's baseball manager vital to understanding European E-Waste Policy?

So completing the official invitation to request an official response, which asks for my Spanish and European official records, how do I break through the barrier?  Here's our official inquiry:

https://www.interior.gob.es/opencms/es/detalle/articulo/Desarticulada-organizacion-criminal-dedicada-al-trafico-internacional-de-residuos-peligrosos-a-paises-africanos-desde-la-isla-de-Gran-Canaria/

Oficina de Información y Atención al Ciudadano en Madrid: C/ Guzmán el Bueno, nº 110, entreplanta, C.P. 28003, de  Madrid.
Atención a nivel provincial: consulte el buscador de direcciones de los puestos y unidades de la Guardia Civil; pulse aquí para acceder.

Queridos señores y señoras

Respetuosamente solicitamos que nos pongan en contacto con los exportadores de RAEE denunciados en Canarias. Tenemos testimonios e información fáctica que beneficiaría a la Defensa y también puede influir en los Fiscales para reducir la intensidad del caso.

Por favor, ¿me puede dar la información sobre los demandados en el supuesto caso de exportación de RAEE para Gran Canaria?

Soy fundador de Fair Trade Recycling, ex consultor de la EPA de EE. UU., ex director de la División de Residuos de Massachusetts DEP, tengo un título en Relaciones Internacionales y he hecho negocios en África durante décadas.

Nuestra asociación trabajó con un realizador de documentales de España para obtener la liberación de un hombre del Reino Unido nacido en África acusado falsamente de exportación de desechos en 2015. Puedo proporcionar referencias de la Secretaría del Convenio de Basilea.

Signed Robin Ingenthron, with my email address. 

And here's the frustrating response, saying they cannot respond (and "I'm not responding to you now" is Pythonesque) until I identify myself/ourselves "officially", which from my past experience is a problem, being from Vermont.

Estimado señor o señora:

 

En relación a su correo electrónico, le comunicamos que para remitir su solicitud o consulta a esta Oficina de Información y Atención al Ciudadano es necesario que se identifique plenamente, cumplimentando los apartados que a continuación se relacionan:

 

• Nombre y Apellidos
• Documento Nacional de Identidad o carta de identidad
• Domicilio de residencia (calle, número, piso, puerta, código postal, localidad y provincia)
• Teléfono de contacto
• Correo electrónico
• Tema concreto que desea formular
• Motivo

 

Este escrito tiene únicamente efectos informativos, no pone fin a la vía administrativa ni constituye un acto de los descritos en el artículo 112 de la Ley 39/2015, de 1 de octubre, del Procedimiento Administrativo Común de las Administraciones Públicas, por lo que contra el mismo no cabe recurso alguno.

 

Aprovechamos la ocasión para saludarle, quedando a su disposición para cualquier información que desee relativa a esta Institución.

 

Atentamente.

 

 

--

 

Oficina de Información y Atención al Ciudadano

C/ Guzmán el Bueno, núm. 110

C.P. 28003, Madrid (Madrid)

 

Teléfono: 900 101 062

sugerencias@guardiacivil.org

Web: www.guardiacivil.es

So this raises a lot of memories and questions. Who the heck am I? How do I explain myself without just appearing a grandstander, a guy with a reputation as an iconoclast?  And below I will try to answer the meta-question of how all of this helps me to "win" in business. And that leads to a fascinating (to me) look at peoples reputations in the history of USA Major League Baseball.

Well, in 2012, I'd been blogging about the Joseph "Hurricane" Benson arrest for about a year, trying to get journalists who covered his arrest ( @areporter among others) to cover "the other('s)" side of the story. Coming from a Journalism family background, it was just obvious to me that none of the Independent, BBC Panorama, The Guardian etc. coverage had made any inquiries/introductions to the Buyers, the Importers, Africa's Tech Sector. They were filling in for that "side" of the story with pictures of children at dumps.  All I got was a couple of sarcastic twitter responses, then radio silence. Raphael Rowe's ignorance was the worst.

So getting reporters to re-trace their missteps isn't promising. But writing about it, as I was developing a "reputation" for being less and less deferential to my (white) domestic stewardship and compliance industry, seemed risky to friends. Yet that reputation led to an important email and skype interview with a pal of Joe Benson's, Jacques Dorval.  And that led me to fly to Heathrow to interview Benson with my Palm phone camera.  Search for "Bullyboys" 1 and 2 on youtube.

None of that earned my way "in" to meet or influence Benson's prosecutors.  But two journalists took interest.  Juan Solera (sidewaysfilms) and Adam Minter. They both contacted the UK courthouse. Solera was rudely tossed out, but Bloomberg's reputation, as well as Minter's UK publisher contacts (Bloomsbury Press), got all the transcripts to Minter.  Now we had facts, and a story. The ending of Benson's case is unclear, but likely involved a guilty plea to "financial crimes".  There is a lot of gray area in filling out import and export paperwork anywhere, but nothing grayer than Africa's customs.

(Monica Gay is working on a research paper today on how to use "financial crimes" for Interpol to prosecute people like Benson and the Canary Islands 43.  Monica and I met by video chat last month after Zoe Lienkowitcz introduced us. I introduced Monica to Katherina Kummer Pierry.  And hopefully we are learning the lessons of Branch Rickey, the St. Louis Cardinal's baseball manager.)

Here are a couple of helpful charts on the career of baseball manager Branch Rickey, who made a "deep dive" into minor-ity leagues for recruitment (Thanks Las Vegas Review-Journal)

In the timeline above, Branch Rickey's first in trouble with Major League Baseball because the Cardinals are winning too much, due to Rickey's investment in "minor" leagues.  In 1938, the Cards are forced to cut 70 players off the payroll by MLB Commissioner Landis.

What other "minor" - or "minority" - league players was Branch Rickey recruiting then, earning his reputation as a troublemaker and calls for authorities to intervene in his "market development?"

Branch Rickey has two great reputations - today - which were not considered good reputations to have at the time he was most active.  First, he's credited with developing a "minor league" system, where the professional Cardinals team played an active role in financing small non-professionals in emerging baseball markets. 

Branch's second "reputation" was for "breaking the color barrier" by signing Negro League player Jackie Robinson to play for the Brooklyn Dodgers (where Rickey had been hired Executive Manager).

The period in question, for Branch Rickey and the integration of USA Major League Baseball, between 1935 and 1955, I can imagine was a colorful one for Branch amongst he baseball peers.  He was - posthumously - inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1967, two years after his death, and the same year I saw my first St. Louis Cardinals World Series championship, featuring ace pitcher Bob Gibson and my favorite base-stealer, Lou Brock. I'd later use that team in Strat-O-Matic games (a statistical dies and playing card game, 5th grade), where I'd gain a better understanding of the "Moneyball" aspects of paying less for the right talent.

So I'm more than 20 years into a shoving war over my "Minor League" players in Emerging Markets. Asia is now accepted into OEM electronics manufacturing and management. It's like they've always been there, with TCL and Vizio and Samsung calling shots. But it wasn't like that in 2002, when China was spashed as "primitive", and Mike Daisy decried Apple contracts with Foxconn 10 years later. 

So what was the connection in the period when MLB intervened in forcing Branch Rickey to "divest" in minor leagues?  I asked ChatGPT "Who was Branch Rickey's biggest and loudest critic?"  I didn't specify the date, or ask if the minor league and minority leagues were opposed by the same forces.

Kenesaw Mountain Landis, the MLB Commissioner, is the Puritan who tried to staple a Red Letter A only Branch Rickey. Landis, the most powerful man enforcing the segregation of baseball, was appointed to the MLB Hall of Fame almost immediately after his death in 1944.  Jackie Robinson was recruited by Branch Rickey soon thereafter, but Rickey would wait decades to be enlisted into the Hall of Fame.

So back to the Title of this Blog - Earning the Best (Meta) Reputation Isn't Obvious.  This helps answer a question I often get (and subject matter of the May blog "putting myself above others in the industry"). How does obscure, second whitest-state Vermont become at the center of post-Ptolemy, of Emerging Markets?  How did Middlebury Vermont  become integrated with Egypt, Mexico, Peru, Malyasia, China, Ghana, Cameroon etc. etc?

If you were one type of baseball player - say, a white bench player - you'd want to be introduced to Landis.  If you were another type of baseball player - Satchell Paige, Jackie Robinson, Bob Gibson - you'd seek out connections to a guy with a "bad reputation" among whites for studying the statistics and not seeing "Negro Markets" for baseball, but seeing them as "Emerging Markets".

So it was exactly when Retroworks.blogspot.com had its reputation the most tarnished, under a firehose of BS statistics from Basel Action Network, that our reputation was growing in Emerging Markets. If you have faith that the undervalued people in what's labelled "informal sector", you can use "financial crimes" as a shift of the burden of proof.  If it was not entered into a spreadsheet in the Emerging Market, and it WAS entered in the spreadsheet in Europe, the informal market must be presumed not just less reputable, but "likely illegal", the words I saw frequently during the period my reputation suffered/grew (depending on which perspective).

Jim Puckett will no doubt be first into the Hall of Fame for E-waste. 

The rest of today's blog, below, was written by #OpenAI #CHATGPT, and probably spells the sunset of the Good Point Ideas Blog. It's easier today to simply ask the right questions (and non-misleading ones), and copy and paste from there.  It's been a useful tool for the blog telling history. I haven't been able to use it to answer the questions of the Spanish Civil Authorities.

Why can't AI help me today in the Canary Islands case? It's designed not to learn from its own text, and doesn't have access to the most recent internet because of the risk of exponentially feeding on its own product, I think.

I'll post the text of my contacts and response later, but won't call it "Part 2".

Hey ChatGPT - Write a one paragraph biography of the person who recruited Jackie Robinson

Branch Rickey (1881-1965) was an American baseball executive who played a pivotal role in breaking the color barrier in Major League Baseball by recruiting Jackie Robinson to play for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947. Rickey was born in Ohio and played baseball at Ohio Wesleyan University before beginning his career in baseball management. He worked for several teams before joining the Dodgers in 1942, where he became known for his innovative strategies and leadership. Rickey believed that integrating baseball was not only a moral imperative but also a smart business decision, and he carefully selected Robinson to be the first black player to play in the major leagues. His decision to sign Robinson was a bold move that ultimately helped to transform the sport of baseball and pave the way for other black athletes to compete at the highest levels.

What was Branch Rickey's reputation in the 1940s MLB


ChatGPT

In the 1940s, Branch Rickey had a mixed reputation within Major League Baseball (MLB). On one hand, he was regarded as a brilliant baseball mind and an innovative executive. He had previously achieved success with the St. Louis Cardinals, where he built a winning team and implemented modern scouting and player development systems. Rickey was known for his meticulous attention to detail and his ability to analyze the game strategically.

However, Rickey's reputation was also influenced by his strong personality and unorthodox methods. Some people saw him as an abrasive and demanding figure, not afraid to ruffle feathers or challenge established norms. His business-focused approach to the game, emphasizing efficiency and profit, was viewed with skepticism by those who believed in preserving the status quo.

Furthermore, Rickey's decision to integrate baseball by signing Jackie Robinson in 1947 was met with both praise and criticism. While many recognized the historical significance and courage behind the move, others vehemently opposed the breaking of the color barrier and expressed their disapproval.

Overall, Branch Rickey was a polarizing figure in 1940s MLB, with some seeing him as a visionary pioneer and others as a disruptive force challenging the sport's traditions. However, his impact on the game cannot be denied, as his actions paved the way for racial integration and forever changed the face of baseball.