Caudillo, Duce & Führer

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Column

Column (pronounced kol-uhm)

(1) In architecture, a rigid, relatively slender, upright support, composed usually of relatively few pieces.

(2) A decorative pillar, most often associated with the classical architecture of antiquity, composed of stone and typically having a cylindrical or polygonal shaft with a capital and usually a base.

(3) Any column-like object, mass, or formation.

(4) A vertical row or list.

(5) A vertical arrangement on a page of horizontal lines of type, usually typographically justified.

(6) A regular feature or series of articles in a newspaper, magazine, or the like, usually having a readily identifiable heading and the byline; often related to a single subject or theme

(7) A long, narrow formation of troops in which there are more members in line in the direction of movement than at right angles to the direction.  A column one wide is said to be in single-file.

(8) A formation of ships in single file (largely archaic).

(9) In botany, a column-like structure in an orchid flower, composed of the united stamens and style.

(10) In anatomy or zoology, any of various tubular or pillar-like supporting structures in the body, such as the spinal column, each generally having a single tissue origin and function.

(11) In the design of accounting ledgers or computer-based spreadsheets, the vertical array of data (contrast with the row; the horizontal array).

(12) In chemistry, an object used to separate the different components of a liquid or to purify chemical compounds.

(13) As the fifth column (quinta columna), a group of people which clandestinely undermines a larger group, such as a nation, to which it is expected to be loyal.

1400–1450: From the late Middle English columne, columpne & columpe, from the Old French columne, from the Latin columna (column, pillar, post), the construct being colum(e)n (peak) + a (creating the feminine form).  Column replaced the Late Middle English colompne, also a Latin derivation and borrowed from the Anglo-French.  The Latin columna was akin to collis (a hill) & celsus (high), both likely derived from the Ancient Greek κολοφών (kolophṓn), (top, summit).  Ultimate root was probably the Primitive European kel (to project).  The sense of "matter written for a newspaper" dates from 1785; that of the “fifth column” is from 1936.  The most common derived forms are the adjectives columnar, columned or columnated.  The first commercially successful spreadsheet was VisiCalc (1979), Lotus 1-2-3 following in 1983 and Microsoft Excel in 1985; built with columns and rows, the spreadsheet was instantly successful in translating the physical ledger into digital form and is considered the "killer app" which legitimized the use of personal computers in business.

The Fifth Column

A fifth column is group of people who undermine the security of the state in which they’re living, in support of an enemy force, historically as a prelude to invasion.  The more modern and still current variation is the sleeper-cell, individuals or even families integrated into foreign populations where they lie dormant, awaiting activation.  There’s no doubt the origins of the phrase “fifth column” can be traced to the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) but, like many things from those years, the details are contested.  The first recorded instance was in a telegram, sent on 30 September 1936 by a German diplomat to the Foreign Ministry in Berlin reporting a "supposed statement” by the nationalist leader General Franco (Generalissimo Francisco Franco (1892–1975; Caudillo of Spain 1939-1975) claiming that not only did he have four columns of Nationalist troops marching on Madrid but that inside the city, a secret ”fifth column” (quinta columna) of fellow-travelers within the city would support the nationalist’s military campaign and undermine the Republican government from within.

Hitler and Franco, photographed at their day-long meeting at Hendaye, on the Spanish-French border, 23 October 1940.  Their discussions concerned Spain's participation in the War against the British but it proved most unsatisfactory for the Germans, the Führer declaring as he left that he'd rather have "three of four teeth pulled out" than have to again meet with the Caudillo.  Unlike Hitler, Franco was a professional soldier, thought war a hateful business best avoided and had a shrewd understanding of the military potential of the British Empire. 

The first known public use of the term is in the 3 October 1936 issue of the Madrid Communist daily Mundo Obrero.  In a front-page article the party propagandist Dolores Ibárruri (1895–1989; known as la Pasionaria (the Passionflower) for her strident oratory) referred to the same statement as reported to Berlin but attributed it to General Emilio Mola (1887-1937).  On the same day the another activist made a similar claim during a public rally and the Republican newspapers would in subsequent days repeat the story although with variations, some attributing the phrase to a different general.  Whether all this was some of the fog of war or part of the disinformation campaigns inevitable in any conflict will never be known but by mid-October media, the press were already routinely referring to the "famous fifth column".  Historians have never identified the original statement or its source.  All the verified documentary evidence of people using the words quinta columna is of instances after the publication in the Republican press.

Although renowned for its art deco buildings, there's also much neo-classicism in Miami, Florida.  A staple of gossip columns, Lindsay Lohan is pictured here among the columns, December 2013.

The “fifth column” caught the public imagination and became popular, Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) using it as the title of the only play he wrote, published in his 1938 book The Fifth Column and the First Forty-Nine Stories.  Initially, use tended to be restricted to military operations but it came to be applied more broadly to describe sympathizers of any cause not formerly attached to any structure and was by the early 1940s, used to warn of potential sedition and disloyalty within the borders both of the UK and US, the popular press running stories warning of a “Nazi Fifth Column”.  Always one with a fondness for a pungent phrase, Winston Churchill reassured the House of Commons the "…parliament has given us the powers to put down fifth column activities with a strong hand".  In Australia, a radio drama exploring the theme, The Enemy Within, was banned by the censor, the authorities apparently concerned listeners might confuse fact with fiction and become alarmed or worse.

General Franco’s troops interview a suspected fifth columnist.  This was actually a photo "staged" for publicity purposes.

Mausoleum

Mausoleum (pronounced maw-suh-lee-uhm or maw-zuh-lee-uhm)

(1) A stately and magnificent tomb or a building containing tombs (a burial place for the bodies or remains of many individuals, often of a single family, usually in the form of a small building).

(2) In casual use, a large, gloomy, depressing building, room, or the like.

(3) As one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, the tomb erected at Halicarnassus in Asia Minor in circa 353 BC.

1375–1425: From the late Middle English mausoleum, from the Latin mausōlēum, from the Ancient Greek Μαυσωλεῖον (Mausōleîon), from Μαύσωλος (Maúsōlos) (the tomb of satrap of the Persian empire and ruler of Caria, built at Halicarnassus in Asia Minor in circa 353 BC and one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World).  The general use to describe "any stately burial-place" (now usually one designed to contain a number of tombs) is from circa 1600.  Synonyms include burial vault, cemetery, coffin, monument, crypt, sepulcher, catacomb & grave.  Mausoleum is a noun and mausolean is the adjective; the noun plural forms are mausoleums or mausolea, the former now most prevalent.  Although “tomb” is now more common, mausoleum has long been used to refer to any large, above-ground tomb.

Mausoleum at Halicarnassus (1886), engraving by Frederick Knab (1865-1918).

The Μαυσωλεῖον τῆς Ἁλικαρνασσοῦ (Mausoleum at Halicarnassus) was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.  Built between 353-350 BC in Halicarnassus on the coast of Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey), it was destroyed by a number of earthquakes from the twelfth to fifteenth century; when finally if fell, of the seven wonders from Antiquity, only the pyramids at Giza remained.  The name Mausolus  translates as “much blessed” and his wife Artemisia II of Caria was also his sister, something far from unknown at the time.  Nominally a satrap of the Achaemenid Empire, Mausolus was the ruler of Caria between 377–353 BC) having inherited the throne from his father Hecatomnus who became king after assassinating the previous Satrap Tissaphernes, something also far from unknown at the time and since.

The Valle de los Caídos (Valley of the Fallen) is a Roman Catholic basilica and mausoleum which lies in the Cuelgamuros Valley near Madrid.  When built, Generalissimo Francisco Franco (1892-1975; Caudillo of Spain 1939-1975) proclaimed the structure to be a "national act of atonement" and reconciliation.  On a monumental scale, the grounds are 5.25 square miles (13.6 km²) of Mediterranean woodlands and granite and towering over all is a 500 foot (150 m) high Christian cross, still the tallest on Earth and visible 20 miles (32 km) away.  Construction began in 1940, almost as soon as Franco took control of the state and it took some eighteen years to built, the inauguration ceremony held in 1959.  It was partly built by political prisoners of the regime but, in a nice touch, it was noted that in exchange for their labour, they received some remission of their sentences.

Something of a Valhalla of the south, for decades, of the forty-thousand-odd interred dead from both sides in the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), the most controversial corpse in the place was that of Franco himself, the Caudillo laid to rest there upon his death in November 1975 although, in a political irony, he was the only one there who didn’t actually die during the civil war.  There were objections to that but, because the mausoleum is also a basilica, under the rules of the Church, he’s anyway entitled to a place because of his role in “building the church”, a double irony being Franco himself specified he be buried elsewhere.  It was the government’s decision to place his body in the Valley of the Fallen and that ensured the structure would both become a shrine for those who venerate his memory and an ongoing controversy.  Although slowly fading from living memory into history, the civil war and the subsequent Franco years remain a fault-line in Spanish politics.  Successive governments have had their own plans variously to resolve or gloss-over the issues from those decades but it wasn’t until 2019 that Franco’s body was exhumed and taken to Madrid for re-burial.

Adolf Hitler visiting Napoleon's sarcophagus in Les Invalides, Paris, June 1940.

Hitler made only one visit to Paris, less as a victorious warlord and more as a tourist looking at the architectural highlights.  From years of somewhat haphazard study, Hitler was well acquainted with the buildings of the city and genuinely knowledgeable about details such as the interior fittings of the Paris Opera House but told his architect: “The moment in Paris where I saluted Napoleon's tomb was one of the proudest of my life.”  Hitler had always intended a mausoleum for himself in Linz, the centrepiece of which would be a Napoleonic sarcophagus in the centre of a Pantheon-like structure with an oculus directly above, exposed to the elements and thus “directly linked to the universe."  He made a number of sketches, all predictably in the classical style and distinguished mostly by their massive dimensions.

There is an urban myth that the chamber in which Napoleon's sarcophagus is placed was designed in such as way that if seen from the lower lever, the viewer must look-up as if in awe and if seen from above, one must bow.  However, Les Invalides was completed in 1706 and the two levels of the chapel were included so King might attend Mass with his soldiers; the lower level for soldiers & patients, the upper for the royal court.  Only in 1861 was the chapel converted to a mausoleum after Napoleon’s body was returned by the British, almost half a century after his death.

Concebollista & Sincebollista

Concebollista (pronounced kon-sur-ber-ghist-ah)

One who asserts onion is an essential ingredient in Spanish omelettes.

A Spanish form, the construct being con (with) +‎ cebolla (onion) +‎ -ista.  Con is from the Latin cum (with), from the Proto-Italic kom, from the primitive Indo-European ḱóm (next to, at, with, along).  Cebolla is from the Old Spanish cebolla, from the Late Latin cēpulla, diminutive of the Latin cēpa from whence English gained chive.  The –ista suffix is from the Latin -ista, from the Ancient Greek -ιστής (-istḗs) and is used to form nouns indicating “one who follows a principle”, “one belonging to that school of thought”, “one who holds certain values” etc.  The noun plural is concebollistas.

Sincebollista (pronounced sin-suh-ber-ghist-ah)

One who asserts onion must not be an ingredient in Spanish omelettes.

A Spanish form, the construct being sin (without) +‎ cebolla (onion) +‎ -ista.  Sin is from the Old Spanish sin, from the Latin sine.  It was cognate with the English sans, the French sans, the Italian senza and the Portuguese sem.  Cebolla is from the Old Spanish cebolla, from the Late Latin cēpulla, diminutive of the Latin cēpa from whence English gained chive.  The –ista suffix is from the Latin -ista, from the Ancient Greek -ιστής (-istḗs) and is used to form nouns indicating “one who follows a principle”, “one belonging to that school of thought”, “one who holds certain values” etc.  The noun plural is sincebollistas.

On the allium addition

Eagerly awaited results of a survey by the newspaper El Mundo were released in July 2021.  The numbers seem unequivocally to prove Spain’s pro-onion faction has triumphed in the great omelette dispute which centres on whether onions should be included in the nation's signature tortilla de patatas (omelette).  It was no narrow margin: 72.7% of those surveyed were concebollistas (onion lovers) and 25.3% sincebollistas (onion haters) while only 1.9% were indifferent or declined to offer an opinion.

Interestingly for a country in which politics have for decades been polarized, the issue didn’t split opinion across party lines, pro-onion majorities in parties of left and right varying by only a few percentage points:

Socialist Workers’ Party (left): 73.2%

People's Party (right): 72.1%

Vox Party (far-right): 69.4%

Unidas Podemos Party (far-left) 65%

Citizens Party (centre-right): 74.1%

With and without; omelettes for concebollistas & sincebollistas.

Women favored onions (73.3%) slightly more than men (72.2%), while age proved more predictive, onions popularity reaching 65.8% among those aged 18-26, peaking at an even 75% for those between 45-64.  There was a geographical spike among those who disapprove.  In the Basque country, never much in agreement with anything out of Madrid, the view remained it’s only barbarians who add onion to the mix.  Although no evidence was offered, there seemed  a consensus Franco (Generalissimo Francisco Franco (1892-1975), Caudillo of Spain 1939-1975) was an onion man, the Caudillo thus a concebollista.

Corrupt

Corrupt (pronounced kuh-ruhpt)

(1) Guilty of dishonest practices, as bribery; lacking integrity; crooked; willing to act dishonestly for personal gain; willing to make or take bribes; morally degenerate.

(2) Debased in character; depraved; perverted; wicked; evil.

(3) Of a text, made inferior by errors or alterations.

(4) Something infected or tainted; decayed; putrid; contaminated.

(5) In digital storage (1) stored data that contains errors related to the format or file integrity; a storage device with such errors.

(6) To destroy the integrity of; cause to be dishonest, disloyal, etc, especially by coercion, bribery or other forms of inducement.

(7) Morally to lower in standard; to debase or pervert.

(8) To alter a language, text, etc for the worse (depending on context either by the tone of the content or to render it non-original); to debase.

To mar or spoil something; to infect, contaminate or taint.

To make putrid or putrescent (technically an archaic use but there’s much overlap of meaning in the way terms are used).

(11) In digital storage, introduce errors in stored data when saving, transmitting, or retrieving (technically possible also in dynamic data such as memory).

(12) In English Law, to subject (an attainted person) to corruption of blood (historic use only).

(13) In law (in some jurisdictions) a finding which courts or tribunals can hand down describing certain conduct.

1300–1350: From the Middle English verb corrupten (debased in character), from the Middle French corrupt, from the Old French corropt (unhealthy, corrupt; uncouth (of language)) from the Latin corruptus (rotten, spoiled, decayed, corrupted (and the past participle of corrumpō & corrumpere (to destroy, ruin, injure, spoil (figuratively “corrupt, seduce, bribe” (and literally “break to pieces”)), the construct being cor- (assimilated here as an intensive prefix) + rup- (a variant stem of rumpere (to break into pieces), from a nasalized form of the primitive Indo-European runp- (to break), source also of the Sanskrit rupya- (to suffer from a stomach-ache) and the Old English reofan (to break, tear)) + -tus (the past participle suffix).  The alternative spellings corrumpt, corrump & corroupt are effectively all extinct although dictionaries sometimes list them variously as obsolete, archaic or rare.  Corrupt and corrupted are verbs & adjectives (both used informally by IT nerds as a noun, sometimes with a choice adjective), corruptedness, corruption, corruptible, corruptness, corrupter & corruptor are nouns, corruptest is a verb & adjective, corruptive is an adjective, corrupting is a verb and corruptedly, corruptively & corruptly are adverbs; the most common noun plural is corruptions.  Forms (hyphenated and not) such as incorruptible, non-corrupt, over-corrupt, non-corrupt, pre-corrupt & un-corrupt etc are created as needed.

The verb corrupt in the mid-fourteenth century existed in the sense of “deprave morally, pervert from good to bad which later in the 1300s extended to “contaminate, impair the purity of; seduce or violate (a woman); debase or render impure (a language) by alterations or innovations; influence by a bribe or other wrong motive", reflecting generally the senses of the Latin corruptus.  The meanings “decomposing, putrid, spoiled”, “changed for the worse, debased by admixture or alteration (of texts, language etc) and “guilty of dishonesty involving bribery" all emerged in the late fourteenth century.  The noun corruption was from the mid-fourteenth century corrupcioun which was used of material things, especially dead bodies (human & animal) to convey “act of becoming putrid, dissolution; decay”.  It was applied also to matter of the soul and morality, it being an era when the Church was much concerned with “spiritual contamination, depravity & wickedness”.  The form was from the Latin corruptionem (nominative corruptio) (a corruption, spoiling, seducing; a corrupt condition), the noun of action from the past-participle stem of corrumpere (to destroy; spoil (and figuratively “corrupt, seduce, bribe”.  The use as a synonym for “putrid matter” dates from the late 1300s while as applied to those holding public office being tainted by “bribery or other depraving influence” it was first noted in the early 1400.  The specific technical definition of “a corrupt form of a word” came into use in the 1690s.  The adjective corruptible (subject to decay or putrefaction, perishable) was from either the Old French corroptible or directly from Late Latin corruptibilis (liable to decay, corruptible), from the past-participle stem of corrumpere (to destroy; spoil (and figuratively “corrupt, seduce, bribe”.  In fourteenth century English, it applied first to objects and by the mid fifteenth to those “susceptible of being changed for the worse, tending to moral corruption.  The more blatant sense of “open to bribery” appears in the 1670s.

Boris Johnson, hair by Ms Kelly Jo Dodge MBE.

Corruption is probably a permanent part of politics although it does ebb and flow and exists in different forms in different places.  In the UK, the honors system with its intricate hierarchy and consequent determination on one’s place in the pecking order on the Order of Precedence has real world consequences such as determining whether one sits at dinners with the eldest son of a duke or finds one’s self relegated to a table with the surviving wife of a deceased baronet.  Under some prime-ministers the system was famously corrupt and while things improved in the nineteenth century, under David Lloyd George (1863–1945; UK prime-minister 1916-1922) honors were effectively for sale in a truly scandalous way.  None of his successors were anywhere near as bad although Harold Wilson’s (1916–1995; UK prime minister 1964-1970 & 1974-1976) resignation honors list attracted much comment and did his reputation no good but in recent years it’s been relatively quiet on the honors front.  That was until the resignation list of Boris Johnson (b 1964; UK prime-minister 2019-2022) was published.  It included some names which were unknown to all but a handful of political insiders and many others which were controversial for their own reasons but at the bottom of the list was one entry which all agreed was well deserved: Ms Kelly Jo Dodge, for 27 years the parliamentary hairdresser, was created a Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (MBE) for parliamentary service.  In those decades, she can have faced few challenges more onerous than Boris Johnson’s hair yet never once failed to make it an extraordinary example in the (actually technically difficult) “not one hair in place” style.

A corrupted fattie

Corrupt, a drug addict and a failure: The Führer and the Reichsmarschall at Carinhall, discussing beasts of the field.  Hitler once told a visitor; “You should visit the Reichsmarschall at Carinhall, a sight worth seeing.”

Hermann Göring (1893–1946; leading Nazi 1922-1945 and Reichsmarschall 1940-1945) was under few illusions about the sentence he would receive from the International Military Tribunal (IMT) at the first Nuremberg Trial (1945-1946) and resented only the method of execution prescribed was to be "hanged by the neck until dead".  Göring thought that fit only for common criminals and as Germany's highest ranked soldier, he deserved the honor of a firing squad; the death of a gentleman.  In the end, he found his own way to elude the noose but history has anyway judged him harshly as richly deserving the gallows.  He heard many bad things said of him at the trial, most of it true and much of it said by his fellow defendants but the statement which most disappointed him was that Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) had condemned him as “corrupt, a drug addict and a failure”.  Once that was publicized, he knew there would be no romantic legend to grow after his execution and his hope that in fifty years there would be statutes of him all over Germany was futile.  In fairness, even in that he’d been a realist, telling the prison psychologist the statutes might be “…small ones maybe, but one in every home”.  Hitler had of course been right; Göring was corrupt, a drug addict and a failure but that could have been said of many of his paladins and countless others in the lower layers of what was essentially a corrupted, gangster-run state.

Corruption is of course though something bad and corrosive to the state but other people's corruption in other states can be helpful.  In 1940, after the fall of France, the British were genuinely alarmed Spain might enter the war on the side of the Axis, tempted by the return of the Rock of Gibraltar and the acquisition of colonial territory in North Africa.  London was right to be concerned because the loss of Gibraltar would have threatened not only the Royal Navy's ability to operate in the Mediterranean but also the very presence of the British in North African and even the supply of oil from the Middle East, vital to the conduct of the war.  Indeed, the "Mediterranean strategy" was supported strongly by German naval strategists and had it successfully been executed, it would have become much more difficult for the British to continue the war.  Contrary to the assertions of some, Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) did understand the enormous strategic advantage which would be achieved by the taking of Gibraltar which would have been a relatively simple undertaking but to do so was possible only with Spanish cooperation, the Germans lacking the naval forces to effect a seaborne invasion.  Hitler did in 1940 meet with the Spanish leader Generalissimo Francisco Franco (1892-1975; Caudillo of Spain 1939-1975) in an attempt to entice his entry into the conflict and even after the Battle of Britain, Hitler would still have preferred peace with the British rather than their defeat, the ongoing existence of the British Empire better suited to his post-war (ie after victory over the USSR) visions. 

The Führer and the Caudillo at the French railway station in Hendaye, near the Spanish–French border, 23 October 1940.

Franco however was a professional soldier and knew Britain remained an undefeated, dangerous foe and one able to draw on the resources both of her empire and (increasingly) assistance from the US and regarded a victory by the Axis as by no means guaranteed.  Additionally, after a bloody civil war which had waged for four years, the Spanish economy was in no state to wage war and better than most, Franco knew his military was antiquated and unable to sustain operations against a well equipped enemy for even days.  Like many with combat experience, the generalissimo also thought war a ghastly, hateful business best avoided and Hitler left the long meeting after being unable to meet the extraordinary list of conditions demanded to secure Spanish support, declaring he'd "sooner have three teeth pulled than go through that again".  Franco was a practical man who had kept his options open and probably, like the Duce (Benito Mussolini (1883-1945; Duce (leader) & prime-minister of Italy 1922-1943)) would have committed Spain to the cause had a German victory seemed assured.  British spies in Madrid and Lisbon soon understood that and to be sure, the diplomatic arsenal of the UK's ambassador to Madrid, Sir Samuel Hoare (1880-1959), was strengthened with money, the exchequer's investment applied to bribing Spanish generals, admirals and other notables to ensure the forces of peace prevailed.  Surprising neither his friends or enemies, "slippery Sam" proved adept at the dark arts of disinformation, bribery and back-channel deals required to corrupt and although his engaging (if unreliable) memoirs were vague about the details, documents provided by his staff suggest he made payments in the millions at a time a million sterling was a lot of money.  By 1944, the state of the war made it obvious any threat of Spanish belligerency was gone and he returned to London.

The dreaded corrupted FAT

Dating from the mid-1970s, the file allocation table (FAT) is a data structure used by a number of file systems to index and manage the files on storage devices.  First associated with 8 inch (200 mm) floppy diskettes, it became familiar to users when introduced by Microsoft in the early days of PC (personal computer) operating systems (OS) and was used on the precursors to the PC-DOS & MS-DOS OSs which dominated the market during the 1980s.  Over the years there have been a number of implementations, the best known of which are FAT12, FAT16 & FAT32, the evolution essentially to handle the increasing storage capacity of media and the need to interact with enhancements to OSs to accommodate increasing complexities such as longer file names, additional file attributes and special files like sub-directories (now familiar as folders which technically are files which can store other files).

A FAT is almost always stored on the host device itself and is an index in the form of a database which consists of a table with records of information about each file and directory in the file system.  What a FAT does is provide a mapping between the logical file system and the physical location of data on the storage medium so it can be thought of as an address book.  Technically, the FAT keeps track of which clusters (the mechanism by which the data is stored) on the device are linked to each file and directory and this includes unused clusters so a user can determine what free space remains available.  Ultimately, it’s the FAT which maintains a record of the links between the clusters which form a file's data chain and the metadata associated with each file, such as its attributes, creation & modification timestamps, file size etc.  In the same way that when reading a database a user is actually interacting primarily with the index, it’s the FAT which locates the clusters associated with a request to load (or view, delete etc) a file and determine their sequence, enabling efficient read and write operations.  The size, structure and complexity of FATs grew as the capacity of floppy diskettes and then hard disks expanded but the limitations of the approach were well-understood and modern operating systems have increasingly adopted more advanced file systems like NTFS (New Technology File System) or exFAT (Extended File Allocation Table) although FAT remains widely used especially on lower capacity and removable devices (USB drives, memory cards et al), the main attraction being the wide cross-platform compatibility.

A corrupted image (JPEG) of Lindsay Lohan.  Files can be corrupted yet appear as correct entries in the FAT and conversely, a corrupted fat will usually contain may uncorrupted files; the files are content and the FAT an index.

The ominous sounding corrupted FAT is a generalized term which references errors in a FAT’s data structure.  There are DBAs (database administrators) who insist all databases are in a constant state of corruption to some degree and when a FAT becomes corrupted, it means that the data has become inconsistent or damaged and this can be induced by system crashes, improper shutdowns, power failures, malware or physical damage to the media.  The consequences can be minor and quickly rectified with no loss of data or varying degrees of the catastrophic (a highly nuanced word among IT nerds) which may result in the loss of one or more files or folders or be indicative of the unrecoverable failure of the storage media.  Modern OSs include tools which can be used to attempt to fix corrupted FATs and when these prove ineffective, there are more intricate third-party products which can operate at a lower level but where the reported corruption is a symptom of hardware failure, such errors often prove terminal, thus the importance of data (and system) backups.

The grey area between corruption and "just politics"

As an adjective, corrupt is used somewhat casually to refer to individuals or institutions thought to have engaged in practices leading to personal gain of some sort (not necessarily financial) which are either morally dubious or actually unlawful and a corrupt politician is the usual example, a corrupted politician presumably one who was once honest but tempted.  The synonyms of corrupt are notoriously difficult to isolate within set parameters, perhaps because politicians have been so involved in framing the definitions in a way which seems rarely to encompass anything they do, however corrupt it may to many appear.  The word dishonest for example obviously includes those who steal stuff but is also used of those who merely lie and there are circumstances in which both might be unlawful but wouldn’t generally to thought corrupt conduct except by the most morally fastidious.  The way politicians have structured the boundaries of acceptable conduct is that it’s possible to be venal in the sense of selling patronage as long as the consideration doesn’t literally end up as the equivalent of cash in the pocket although such benefits can be gained as long as there’s some degree of abstraction between the steps.

Once were happy: Gladys Berejiklian and Daryl Maguire, smiling.

In Australia, news the New South Wales (NSW) Independent Commission against Corruption (ICAC) had handed down a finding that former premier Gladys Berejiklian (b 1970; NSW Premier (Liberal) 2017-2021) had acted corruptly was of course interesting but mystifying to many was that despite that, the commission made no recommendation that criminal charges be considered.  It transpired that was because the evidence Ms Berejiklian was required to provide to the ICAC wouldn’t be admissible in a court because there, the rules of evidence are different and a defendant can’t be compelled to provide an answer which might be self-incriminating.  In other words a politician can be forced to tell the truth when before the ICAC but not before a court when charged.  That’s an aspect of the common law’s adversarial system which has been much criticized but it’s one of the doctrines which underpins Western law where there is a presumption of innocence and the onus of proof of guilt beyond reasonable doubt lies with the proposition.  Still, what unfolded before the ICAC revealed that Ms Berejiklian seems at the least to have engaged in acts of Billigung (looking the other way to establish a defense of “plausible deniability”).  How corrupt that will be regarded by people will depend on this and that and the reaction of many politicians was to focus on the ICAC’s statement that criminal charges would not be pursed because of a lack of admissible evidence as proof that if there’s no conviction, then there’s no corruption.  Politicians have little interest in the bar being raised.  They were less forgiving of her former boyfriend (with whom she may or not have been in a "relationship" and if one did exist it may or may not have been "serious"), former fellow parliamentarian Daryl Maguire (b 1959, MLA (Liberal) for Wagga Wagga 1999-2018).  Despite legal proceedings against Mr Maguire being afoot, none of his former colleagues seemed reluctant to suggest he was anything but guilty as sin so for those who note such things the comparative is “more corrupt” and the superlative “most corrupt”, both preferable to the clumsy alternatives “corrupter” & “corruptest”.

The release of the ICAC’s findings came a couple of days before the newly created federal equivalent (the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC)) commenced operation.  Although the need for such a body had be discussed for decades, it was during the time the government was headed by Scott Morrison (b 1968; Australian prime-minister 2018-2022) that even many doubters were persuaded one would be a good idea.  Mr Morrison’s background was in marketing, three word slogans and other vulgarities so it surprised few a vulgarian government emerged but what was so shocking was that the pork-barreling and partisan allocation of resources became so blatant with only the most perfunctory attempts to hide the trail.  Such conduct was of course not new but it’s doubtful if before it had been attempted at such scale and within Mr Morrison’s world-view the internal logic was perfect.  His intellectual horizons defined by fundamentalist Christianity and mercantilism, his view appeared to be that only those who voted (or might be induced to vote) for the Liberal & National Parties were those who deserved to be part of the customer loyalty scheme that was government spending.  This tied in nicely with the idea those who accept Jesus Christ as the savior getting to go to Heaven, all others condemned to an eternity in Hell.  Not all simplicities are elegant.

As things stand, such an attitude to public finance (ie treating as much spending as possible as party re-election funds) is not unlawful and to most politicians (at least any with some reasonable prospect of sitting on the treasury benches) should not be thought “corrupt”; it’s just “politics” and in NSW, in 1992 it was confirmed that what is “just politics” has quite a vista.  Then the ICAC handed down findings against then premier Nick Greiner (b 1947; NSW (Liberal) premier 1988-1992) over the matter of him using the offer of a taxpayer funded position to an independent member of parliament as an inducement to resign, the advantage being the seat might be won by the Liberal party in the consequent by-election.  As the ICAC noted, Mr Greiner had not acted unlawfully nor considered himself to be acting corruptly but that had been the result.  Indeed, none doubted it would never have occurred to Mr Greiner that doing something that was “just politics” and had been thus for centuries could be considered corrupt although remarkably, he did subsequently concede he was “technically corrupt” (not an admission which seems to have appealed to Ms Berejiklian).  The ICAC’s finding against Mr Greiner was subsequently overturned by the NSW Court of Appeal.

So the essence of the problem is just what corruption is.  What the public see as corrupt, politicians regard as “just politics” which, in a practical sense, can be reduced to “what you can get away with” and was rationalized by Ms Berejiklian in an answer to a question by the ICAC about pork-barrelling: "Everybody does it".  Of course that's correct and the differences between politicians are of extent and the ability to conceal but her tu quoque (translated literally as "thou also" and latterly as "you also"; translation in the vernacular is something like "you did it too") defense could be cited by all.  The mechanism of a NACC has potential and already both sides of politics are indicating they intend to use it against their political enemies so it should be amusing for those who enjoy politics as theatre although, unfortunately, the politicians who framed the legislation made sure public hearings would be rare.  One might suspect they want it to be successful but not too successful.  Still, the revelations of the last ten years have provided some scope for the NACC to try to make the accepted understanding of corruption something more aligned with the public’s perception.  Anomalies like a minister’s “partner” being a “partner” for purposes of qualifying for free overseas travel (business class air travel, luxury hotels, lavish dinners etc) yet not be defined a “partner” for purposes of disclosing things which might give rise to a possible conflict of interest for the minister is an example of the sort of thing where standardization might improve confidence.  It probably should be conceded that corruption can’t be codified in the way the speed limits for a nation’s highways can but it’s one of those things that one knows when one sees it and if the NACC can nudge the politicians’ behavior a bit in the direction of public expectation, it’ll be a worthy institution.  On a happier note, Mr Greiner went on to enjoy a lucrative corporate career and Ms Berejiklian (currently with telco Optus) is predicted to follow in his tracks although suggestions posted on social media she'd been offered a partnership at PwC (PricewaterhouseCoopers International Limited) on the basis of her experience making her a "perfect fit for the company" are thought mischievous rather than malicious.