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Promoting sustainable human development rights for women in Africa
The current economic reforms and debt relief initiative being promoted and pushed by the IMF and the World Bank on the African countries seek to foster economic growth by the balancing of national budgets and the liberalisation of markets. Using the case studies of Senegal and Sierra Leone, Yassine Fall demonstrates that these policies violate the right of women to sustainable human development by depriving them of proper access to and control over resources and the right to participate in economic policy formulation.
1. Introduction: Why economic rights for women?
IN Sub-Saharan Africa, women's roles have been increasing in scope because of the impact of economic reforms, wars and crises. In addition to being consumers of economic and social goods, women contribute to GDP growth as part of the labour force, as producers and household income generators. Women are also social service providers, playing the role of caretakers and community organisers. The differential effects of debt-related adjustment policies on women and men have been extensively documented by various studies (Elson and Mcgee, 1995).
Gender relations are at the heart of economic restructuring. Macro-economic policy designs are meant to generate outcomes through the manipulation of market mechanisms and cost-benefit impact on different economic agents whether institutional or individual, whether women or men. However, little attention has been paid to gender analysis in the design and implementation of macroeconomic policy choices and outcomes (Elson and Mcgee, 1995; Fall, 1996). Many researchers from the South and the North have been voicing the need to link gender-sensitive economic reforms to women's rights and to sustainable human development, as women and men equally should enjoy universal human rights.
Present macroeconomic reforms have been severely criticised for promoting an export-for-growth approach in which wealth supposedly trickles down to the poor. These reforms do not consider poverty elimination and gender equity to be priority objectives in policy design (Fall, 1996). Market forces such as interest rates, credit conditions, credit demand, money supply, exchange rate, export earnings, etc., are manipulated to meet the requirements of the global economy. The mechanisms put in place to create an enabling environment for the private sector (in particular, foreign investors) often represent a trade-off at the expense of small businesses in the informal economy such as market women, homeworkers, women street vendors or petty traders. These shock absorbers are key economic agents in sustaining the household economy (Stewards, 1992).
Because the overriding concern in current economic reform is balancing budgets and liberalising markets to promote growth, policy-makers are not seriously concerned with the elimination of gender imbalances in access to and control over resources. It is quite obvious that there is a potential conflict between export/growth-oriented objectives and the social and distributional goals. Macroeconomic policy designers do not give poverty and gender factors the consideration they deserve.
In pursuit of correcting the wide gaps between poor and rich, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Declaration on the Right to Development in its Resolution 41/128 of 4 December 1986. This Declaration calls for the right to participation and to people-centred development. On another level, the African Charter on Human and People's Rights states in its article 22 that: 'All peoples shall have the right to their economic, social and cultural development with due regard to their freedom and identity and in the equal enjoyment of the common heritage of mankind.' The Charter also says that 'States shall have the duty, individually or collectively, to ensure the exercise of the right to development.'
This paper examines the issue of economic rights as it relates to human rights violations of African women, and raises questions of participation, access and information, with regard to democratic development. For example, does the concept of 'good governance' enshrined in the current Lome Convention include the right of women to participate in and challenge economic policy-making; to determine the economic model that best suits their needs; to opt for development priorities based on their constraints and to set their own economic agenda?
This paper will try to answer the question: To what extent do policy prescriptions such as budget programming and debt relief initiatives, supported by the Bretton Woods institutions, promote the rights of women to sustainable human development? It includes testimonies from two Senegalese women on their perception of their economic rights in relation to recent economic reforms.
Budgetary reforms are a key instrument of fiscal policy. In order to reduce the budget deficit, the government is required to raise revenues by raising taxes and cutting expenditures. This section will concentrate on budget expenditures using two countries as case studies, Senegal and Sierra Leone. This analysis will show that women's rights to basic social services are undermined when budget allocation priority is given to other sectors.
The composition of public expenditure presented by the Senegalese Government is not consistent with the country's need to build capacity. The social investment requirements that could ensure human capacity- building are far from being met. The sectors of health and education critical for human capital generation and maintenance have been seriously affected and the slogan 'education for all' is not a reality, especially for girls and women.
Among the 60% of the population of children enrolled in elementary schools, 64% are boys. At the level of technical training, girls represent 23.8% of the student population and boys 76.2%. Not only are girls under-represented in technical schools but they are also not encouraged to pursue scientific and technological fields of study. Girls in technical schools are mainly present in the sectors traditionally considered as women's, such as home economics, secretarial, etc. At the university level, figures for 1985 give a percentage of 1% of girls against 4% of boys. A drop in the student population, in particular girls, will reflect the implementation of university reform in the late 1990s. The government's intention of addressing the issue of girls' lower school attendance and high drop-out rates is not consistent with the budgetary allocation for education (Plan d'Action de la Femme Senegalaise: 1997-2001).
The cut in budget expenditures in the education sector is also expressed through the efforts undertaken to decrease or freeze the wage bill of teachers. This is expressed at the elementary - school level by the imposition of the system of 'double flux'. Under this system, teachers have to teach more than 100 pupils, who are divided into two groups that come to school at different times and days of the week. This system has a negative impact not only on the capacity of the teachers to perform because they are overworked and exhausted, but also in the reduction of teaching hours given to the pupils. In the meantime, working parents, in particular single mothers or women heads of household, have difficulties finding alternative activities for their children during the time they are out of school. This situation of idleness contributes to child delinquency, increased rates of drop-out and girls' pregnancy. This 'double flux' system was cancelled in well-to-do communities when parents and teachers denounced it. However, this system continues in poor suburbs and in the rural areas.
To avoid increasing the wage bill of teachers, the Senegalese Government has adopted a new system of hiring individuals with low-level education and giving them a 'quick-fix' teacher training programme. The government has cut the budget allocated for elementary and secondary school teacher-training programmes by decreasing the content and the duration from nine months to three months. Despite poor training and a meagre salary, the teachers are expected to perform the same task as better-qualified and better-trained teachers. In Senegal, the 1997 class of high school teachers is conducting a hunger strike because the government has decided not to hire them after training them and promising to hire them. This is happening at a time when high schools lack one-third of the required teaching force. The government cites budgetary reasons for hiring cheap and unqualified teachers.
The per capita share of the Senegalese budget that is allocated to health and education continues to decrease. This leads to a degradation of human capital formation at the expense of women, girls and the poor. The share of the national resources allocated to health has fallen in real terms during the 1980s and 1990s, as a consequence of stabilisation measures. It amounted to 9% of the national budget in 1968-69, 7.5% in 1975, 6% in 1982, 5.2% in 1991 and to less than 5% in 1994. These statistics are alarming for a country with one of the fastest growing populations in Africa and which spends about 50% of its revenues in foreign debt service payment. These rates are way below the 9% minimum level recommended by the World Health Organisation. From 1979 to 1989, per capita public spending on health services decreased from 653 Franc CFA to 427 Franc CFA, and from 2,268 Franc CFA to 1,841 Franc CFA in education (Plan D'Action de la Femme Senegalaise: 1997 - 2001). Household expenditures on health services are second after food expenditures in family budget allocation. Given the number of women-headed households (Plan d'Action de la Femme), cuts in health services represent a direct tax on the revenues, labour and working hours of women.
Frequency of visits to health centres has also decreased. When poor women know that they have to pay to be seen by a doctor and then receive a prescription they cannot afford, they no longer go to the doctor. This situation represents a serious health hazard particularly in light of the fast population growth and rapid proliferation of HIV in the female population.
There has been an intensification of child labour to supplement the reduced family income when parents lose employment in the name of budget re-equilibrium. More and more little girls are deprived of their fundamental right to education and sent to work for long hours under very stressful conditions as housekeepers. These girls are exposed to all types of abuses, both sexual and physical (Fall, Child Labour in Senegal, 1992).
Sierra Leone
The table above illustrates the trend of the Sierra Leone Government's allocation of revenues and the priority given to each sector. Government expenditures on education, health care and agriculture are respectively devoted 14.3%, 5.5%, and 3.8%. More than 50% of the government expenditures go to the debt service payment. This type of budget allocation is an illustration of the little consideration given to gender and social factors. Sectors perceived as priority to disadvantaged groups, women and children have been the most neglected. The present situation of poverty and social depravation in Sierra Leone is not only a consequence of the civil war but also the result of this no-people approach to macro-economic policy.
The 1995 UNDP Human Development Report, UNICEF and World Health Organisation statistics all confirm 'unacceptably high' maternal and infant mortality rates in Sierra Leone, the decay of infrastructure of support services in education and the deterioration of the quality of education. The rise of the cost of childbirth has contributed to the increased rate of female mortality related to home delivery. In this situation of decreased public spending in education translated with low per capita expenditure, the level of school attendance has decreased and the number of drop-out students has increased. In such conditions, support for the education of girl children seems like a distant dream.
2. Privatisation and support to transnational corporations
Structural adjustment policies call for structural reforms and recommend the implementation of economic liberalisation. Structural reforms emphasize the creation of conditions and an enabling environment that would attract foreign investors into the private sector. The overall aim of attracting private investors is to induce economic growth, boost export and generate foreign currency to sustain the debt service payment. This section will analyse liberalisation using the illustration of the implementation of a transnational corporation in Chad.
The Chad oil project
The World Bank is financially supporting a multi-billion-dollar project in Chad which consists of oil exploitation by a consortium of Exxon, Shell and ELF. The project will undertake the construction of three oil fields in the Doba Basin of southern Chad and the building of a 6,000-mile long pipe that is planned to go from Chad and pass through Cameroon to reach the Atlantic ocean. Additional plans include the construction of a pump and storage stations in Chad and a storage and off-loading station to be built in Cameroon.
This project receives direct support from the World Bank with $120 million from the International Development Association (IDA) and $250 million from the International Finance Corporation (IFC). Importantly, this World Bank financial contribution represents a political warranty for the consortium. By being associated with the World Bank the oil consortium will be protected against any kind of political or financial risk that may be encountered in these countries. The World Bank's financial contribution is also a way of encouraging other big investors to participate in the venture.
Chad is a very poor country with one of the lowest Human Development Indexes of 0.288 and a very low Gender Development Index of 0.270 (UNDP Human Development Report 1997). It has very poor public revenues, with an extremely limited tax income, due to its small economic base.
The World Bank and the Chad Government have shrouded this project in secrecy and very little documentation is available. There is complicity between the World Bank and the Chadian Government to not share any documentation with the public. Journalists are not allowed to film, take photographs of the sites or have access to information. The people are being denied their rights to information. This is in direct opposition to the Bank's recommendation for national consultation. No one is allowed to come close to the oil exploitation site. A Chadian farmer was killed near the construction site, in front of his children, because he was trying to show them an airplane. The political climate is getting worse. This project is planting the seeds of future conflict in the region.
As an officer of the Environmental Defence Fund wrote, this is 'another Ogoniland in the making' (Horta, 1997). This project is described as having detrimental environmental and social consequences for the population. Forests will be destroyed, the water will be polluted and the agro-ecological equilibrium will be disrupted. Many people will be displaced and their land taken away from them. Given the deep gap in gender disparities, women will be last to be served if any reallocation of land to re-settlers takes place. As they constitute the majority of food growers, women can already see the impact this project will have on food security.
Even if the Chad and Cameroon Governments get a percentage of the benefits generated by the oil companies, this extra revenue will be used to pay for a larger amount of the countries' debt service and for the buying of arms. Expenditures for the provision of social services to respond to women's needs are a small percentage of government expenditures and the amount of money that would be allocated to that sector would be marginal. On the other hand, the debt service payment, the buying of arms and the transfer of profits from the oil consortium will represent an important shift of financial resources to Northern countries at the expense of women's rights to economic livelihoods.
The World Bank and women's rights
We must ask ourselves, where is the World Bank's commitment to women? African women cannot follow the assertion that the Bank has changed, when such violation of our rights to information, participation and choice of the type of economic sustainable investment we want is being orchestrated. What right does the World Bank have to organise this new disguised economic colonisation with no respect for people's priorities? To the World Bank Senior Investment Officer, Avi Hoffman, who is reported to have said: 'We have to take risks if we want a positive outcome,' African women would respond: 'You do not speak for us because your positive outcome means the aggravation of our poverty and destruction of our environment and increased corruption of our leaders!'
What about the World Bank's Mr Wolfensohn's promise, made in Beijing to thousands of women to invest in their priority areas? Why do we need to generate growth through Exxon/Shell/ELF's oil exploitation in order to see it trickle-down to alleviate poverty when we know that growth has not created trickle down results anywhere? What would women and the poor gain after being expelled from their communities and losing their forests and land for cultivation, after seeing their biodiversity severely damaged, and their drinking water, most valuable resource for women farmers, polluted? Of course Mr Wolfensohn will come back in 10 years and recognise that mistakes have been made, but after the oil companies have had enough time to extract a lot of profit.
How about Mr Wolfensohn's commitment in Beijing to set poverty alleviation as the top World Bank priority and to ensure that IDA money gets into the hands of women? All the statistics generated by the Bank show that feminisation of poverty has been aggravated. Empowering the transnational corporations against women's rights is no solution. If poverty were a serious concern to the Bank, it would tackle poverty in a direct fashion. By excluding the people from the conception of this project, the World Bank contributes in postponing democratic rights, good governance and encourages corruption. This tends to confirm what many women believe, that the World Bank is only concerned with the promotion of the world market economy.
3. Debt management
This section will examine the indebtedness of African countries and the extent to which women's economic rights have been constrained by the debt process and the new World Bank-IMF Highly Indebted Poor Countries Debt Relief Initiative (HIPC).
The actual macroeconomic reforms implemented in African countries are a result of the debt crisis in which countries have been unable to pay for their debt and also provide the basic social services such as health care, housing education, etc. With the withdrawal of the state's responsibility women's workload increased tremendously.
Origin of the debt cycle
In the 1970s the European and American banks were facing an unprecedented financial crisis because of excessive Eurodollars. The industrialised nations then offered very attractive credit conditions to developing countries, in particular African countries. These poor countries were encouraged to borrow large sums of money with no conditionality or monitoring. Borrowing countries demonstrated very irresponsible spending behaviour with no priority given to the current development needs. Poorly conceived, high-risk and expensive projects were financed in most cases to benefit transnational corporations. High economic and social costs were paid by the local people (Fall, 1996).
When, in the 1980s, their financial situation became stabilised, the Northern countries decided to tighten the lending conditions by multiplying interest rates by four, while paying cheap prices for raw material exports of African countries. African countries were hit hard by the deterioration of terms of trade particularly because the agreements they signed under the Lome Convention encouraged them to continue producing a limited range of raw materials to satisfy the needs of their former colonies instead of diversifying their economies through industrialisation.
The 1980s saw the beginning of hardship periods for the Third World countries. The African-Caribbean-Pacific (ACP) countries had lost $147 billion between 1980 and 1987 because of the fluctuation of the world market value of their raw materials (Lafleur, 1990). The decline in commodity prices led countries to increase their external borrowing to sustain their levels of public expenditure. But borrowing was now under new terms: skyrocketed interest rates, much higher debt service to pay and conditio-nalities to implement heavy economic adjustment under the supervision of the Bretton Woods institutions.
The debt burden
Sub-Saharan Africas (SSA)'s total debt has grown at an amazingly fast pace. From $6 billion in 1970, it climbed to $134 billion in 1988. From an annual average of 27% of the region's export earnings in 1985, the debt service continuously climbed to reach 47% of export revenues in 1988. The number of SSA countries that serviced their debt on a regular basis between 1980 and 1988 did not reach 13. All the others had to reschedule their debt or accumulate more arrears. Twenty-five SSA countries have rescheduled their debt 105 times between 1980 and 1988 (The World Bank, 1989).
SSA's debt increased by 250% between 1980 and 1982. This debt was equal to 111% of SSA's GDP and 345% of its export earnings. The acceptable percentage of debt payment to export earnings is 20% (Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, 1994). In spite of all these sacrifices the World Bank reported in 1993 that many countries were failing to fully service their debt. This situation led to the accumulation of interest arrears that reached $14 billion in 1992, more than three times the level of arrears in 1987 (The World Bank, 1993). Despite the fact that the region was paying an average of $1 billion a month in debt service payment between 1991 and 1993, the amount of foreign debt owed did not change. By 1993, it was still equivalent to its 1991 level. This is how the dangerous game of indebtedness works, given the incapacity of countries to be consistent in fully servicing their debt, leading to accumulation of interest arrears and debt rescheduling programmes.
From the debt service payment of developing countries, the European and American banks collected unprecedented profits. The 100 largest banks in the world made $16 billion in profits in 1982, these profits climbed to $30 billion in 1987. Lending banks created provisions for loss out of these profits, to anticipate and cover for the later impossibility of debtor countries to continue to service their debts. Banks continued, and still continue, to collect interest on the debts they have created provisions for while not paying any tax on these savings. Provisions are tax-free in the industrialised countries because they are considered as real loss by tax collection agencies (Fall, 1994).
The HIPC initiative
HIPC Initiative, adopted in September 1996, was proposed by the World Bank and the IMF to resolve the debt burden problem of a selected number of developing countries. This initiative is presented as the solution for poor countries that are unable to pay back their foreign debt while satisfying the minimum social welfare needs of their populations. It is also a reassuring response to requests from all sources, including debtor governments, international organisations and the NGO community, to find a solution to the debt cycle of poor and highly indebted countries. The framework is also presented as introducing a new mechanism of burden-sharing among creditors.
SSA counts the largest number of countries involved in the HIPC process. The HIPC countries are: Angola, Benin, Bolivia, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo, Cote d'Ivoire, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Guyana, Honduras, Kenya, Lao People's Democratic Republic, Liberia, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritania, Mozambique, Myanmar, Nicaragua, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal and Sierra Leone.
Assessment of HIPC
History seems to be repeating itself. We are faced again with a situation under which the poorest of the developing countries are caught in a vicious cycle by their debt burden and ready to do anything to get adjustment loans. This HIPC initiative has proven to be attractive to governments of poor countries because all they foresee is the opportunity of finishing with their debt burden. For this reason they are ready to make their people undergo any kind of sacrifice.
However, many analysts think that to a large degree this initiative serves the International Financial Institutions (IFIs). It certainly boosts the powers of the World Bank and IMF because:
More than the World Bank, the IMF is made the omnipotent body in the HIPC process. The IMF is the key designer of the conditionalities; its Enhanced Structural Adjustment Facility (ESAF) programme is conditional for HIPC implementation. The Fund will, of course, lead the choice of country programmes and the decisions to suggest that relief aid be made available to any poor country.
The microeconomic implications of the new macro policies coming with the initiative will be worse than the present impacts of adjustment policies in SSA given the situation of persistent poverty. These six years of ESAF implementation will mean a very high social cost, paid by women and the poor.
Budgetary measures will deepen the gaps in the distribution of wealth, gender disparities, geographic disparities and access to social services. The income, price and labour effects derived from the measures to be implemented will seriously hurt the purchasing power of the local population, its capacity for engaging in enterprise development and increase women's labour and time allocation in substituting the role of the state in the provision of social welfare.
Questions on HIPC
Several criticisms have been made with regard to the criteria used to define debt sustainability. How are countries differentiated in specific situations? In what ways and at what level are factors such as gender and overall human development considered when assessing debt sustaina-bility? How can a country be very poor, very indebted and undergo six years of ESAF before being eligible for debt relief? To what extent have the research results that positively correlate ESAF policy instruments with mechanisms that aggravate the poverty of women been taken into consideration? (Fall, 1996)
Why should only the Bank and Fund decide on what indicators to use? Why is the IMF asking industrialised countries to commit their resources to HIPC, while it has not done much so far?
The debt problem is a problem of economic justice because expenditure on debt service endangers women's right to human development. Much more money is used to service the debt than to support social spending at a time when the continent is faced with the challenge to take a strong action in the fight against poverty, illiteracy and HIV.
African women need to get clear answers to these questions. They must be actively involved in the assessment of the HIPC process. The initiative involves a range of economic reforms and raises very critical gender and social policy issues. Sustainable human development should be the ultimate aim of development and an inalienable right of both women and men. The World Bank-IMF criteria must consider the state of human development in the classification of criteria (Addison, 1996).
4. Testimonies
Mrs Bintou Diop, elementary school teacher in Guediawaye, Dakar, reports:
'Even before devaluation took place, the fear of the Senegalese population when hearing this word was immense. When the measure was implemented, the situation it created was beyond the worst expectations of people. We could not imagine the crises and disequilibrium it would create in families. I consider myself a head of household because I am the breadwinner in my family. My husband has been among the group of civil servants sent on early retirement with the budget cuts. He is bringing a marginal income to the family. Our purchasing power, which was already very low, has fallen dangerously with the skyrocketing of prices of basic necessary goods.
The major impact is regular food shortage within our family; we no longer think about a balanced diet. As a schoolteacher, I teach my students about the need to have a nutritionally balanced diet, but I am unable to practise it in my home. Protein consumption, meat and eggs, are a luxury to people who used to have them twice a week. Many people are obliged to buy fat or meat or fish bones or meat fat to boil in order to have a meat flavour in their meal. As a schoolteacher and civil servant I feel that my salary decreased after devaluation.
We teach under very difficult conditions. Our schools lack the basic infrastructure such as running water and toilets for teachers and students. If one needs to use the toilet he or she is obliged to go all the way to his or her house. The basic teaching materials such as chalk, books, desks and tables are not available. At least three pupils share a desk that is made for two. Teachers are obliged to buy chalk with their own meagre salaries.
Our children, who used to perform very well in maths, are now lagging behind because of lack of the supply needed to study maths, in particular geometry. I was told that in America students receive all books free of charge in the public schools. How can the IMF expect Senegal to build the knowledge base of its population when it expects it to undertake cuts in the education sector that the United States does not do? Despite the financial contribution of the Parent's Association, who make up for much of the budget shortfall, and without whose action the situation could be much worse, the situation is still very bad.'
Mrs Awa Seck, Nurse, Yoff, Dakar:
'As a woman civil servant I do not have the same right as a man to claim state medical support for my children. The state is supposed to support medical care charges for up to 80% for civil servants and their dependants. In order to cut on costs for medical assistance and satisfy the IMF, the state discriminates on the basis of sex those who would be eligible to claim medical charges for their children.
'As a woman I can only claim medical charges for my children if their father goes through the bureaucratic procedures of getting the Tribunal issue on my behalf a certificate of "puissance paternelle" (paternal power certificate). Most men refuse to do that because they feel that it takes away "their power" but more importantly their right and opportunity to claim social security assistance for their children.'
5. Prospects
The large majority of African women have a very low income and face difficult humanitarian problems. Transfers from public spending programmes are critical to their survival, even though it may not solve all their problems. African economies' dependence on the Bretton Woods institutions is chronic. The essence of adjustment conditionality denies women the right to participate in economic policy formulation and to identify the economic models that suit them. The international financial institutions are actively contributing in mortgaging women's well-being.
Sustainable development will not be promoted if the country does not develop policy priorities that foster human capacity-building, food security and a strong environmental culture that puts forestation programmes and the fight against drought before short-term objectives of stabilisation. It is essential that women exercise their right to play a central role in evaluating the cost and benefits of policy choices in all sectors of the economy. Women's economic rights must be fostered through engendered human development which means that gender biases are corrected through the process of developing people's capacity to enjoy a decent life and be educated.
It is time to launch an Africa women's movement that goes beyond monitoring the World Bank's commitment to women but engages itself into requesting that women economic rights be protected and promoted. In doing so we need to recall that the Bretton Woods institutions - the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) - founded in 1944, are agencies of the United Nations. For that reason we should make them accountable for women's economic rights, despite the fact that unlike the UN General Assembly they do not function on the principle of 'one country one vote' but on the basis of 'one dollar one vote'. (Third World Resurgence No. 94, June 1998)
[c] The above article appeared in WIDE Bulletin (9February 1998) published by the Network Women in Development Europe and is reproduced with the kind permission of its editors.
Yassine Fall is the Aaword Executive Secretary of the Association of African Women for Research and Development.
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How Liberia Held 'Free' Elections Michael Massing
On December 10, the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Africa anxiously awaited testimony from Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Chester Crocker, the Administration's top policy-maker for that continent. Crocker had been called to testify on recent events in Liberia. America's closest African ally had undergone the most wrenching crisis in its history, including a stolen election, numerous arrests, newspaper closings and an attempted coup that may have taken hundreds, perhaps a thousand, lives. Through it all, the Reagan Administration had kept quiet. Now Crocker was going to break the silence.
To appreciate the significance of his remarks, it is necessary to understand the role of Liberia in U.S. foreign policy. Founded by freed American slaves in 1847, Liberia is host to nearly 5,000 Americans– diplomats, businessmen, missionaries and military advisers. The Voice of America transmitter for all of sub-Saharan Africa is located in Liberia; so is an Omega navigation station, one of five in the world, which is used to monitor shipping in the eastern Atlantic (its 427-meter transmission tower is the tallest structure in Africa.) U.S. intelligence data from West Africa is channeled through the U.S. Embassy in Monrovia. U.S. investment in Liberia approaches half a billion dollars; Firestone operates the world's largest rubber plantation there.
Personifying this special relationship, as it's called, is Liberian head of state Samuel Doe. Doe is one of the most quixotic leaders in Africa. On coming to power in 1980, he was greeted as a liberator. With a handful of junior military officers, Doe overthrew an autocratic regime that, for more than a century, had ruled on behalf of a narrow elite descended from the original American settlers. Within days of the coup, thirteen officials from the former regime were tied to stakes on a Monrovia beach and publicly executed. Doe, a 28-year-old master sergeant and a high-school dropout, promised to hold free and fair elections, institute civilian rule and, for the first time, extend power to the mass of indigenous Liberians.
It did not work out that way. Master Sergeant Doe soon became a five-star general and, after receiving an honorary doctorate from a South Korean university, took to calling himself doctor. The once-humble soldier donned three-piece suits, built himself a plush country retreat and zoomed around Monrovia in a chauffeured Mercedes. The army was treated to improved housing (courtesy of the United States), pay increases and new weapons. When asked last year by a Nigerian journalist what he had done for the masses, Doe could only respond that "we have also done a lot for the people, not just the army, since we came to power; a lot of things which I cannot recall now." Liberia's 2 million people suffer an astounding 80 percent illiteracy rate, and unemployment exceeds 50 percent. Since 1980 the gross national product has shrunk at a rate of almost 5 percent a year. Last summer the government was so broke it fell three months behind in paying public employees.
Liberia's economic collapse is remarkable given the extent of American generosity. From about $20 million in 1980, U.S. assistance rose to more than $80 million last year–the most U.S. aid per capita to any African country. About $12 million of that amount goes to Liberia's military, which faces few external treats and is primarily occupied in keeping order. U.S. military advisers, including Green Berets, have visited Liberia to train Doe's army. Bags of food stamped "United States of America" are visible everywhere in the country, and some 200 members of the Peace Corps work there. As tokens of his appreciation, Doe expelled the Soviet Ambassador and established ties with Israel. The general met with Ronald Reagan in 1982–a visit that went smoothly until the President introduced Doe to the White House press corps as Chairman Moe.
During his meeting with Reagan, Doe reportedly promised to hold free elections. In the summer of 1984, the general announced elections for the following year and, in anticipation, lifted a four-year-old ban on political activity. However, rather than return to the barracks as he had promised, Doe declared his intention to stand as a candidate. To meet the constitutionally required minimum age of 35, he pushed back his birth date two years. Over the subsequent months, Doe demonstrated just what free and fair elections meant to him:
§ He passed Decree 88A, an Orwellian edict that made it a crime to spread "rumors, lies and disinformation" about the government.
§ He jailed Amos Sawyer, leader of the opposition Liberian People's Party and a professor at the University of Liberia. When students demonstrated against the arrest, Doe's troops invaded the campus, shot and killed an undetermined number of students, wounded scores of others, raped women and stripped professors naked. The government refused to investigate the incident.
§ Government troops nailed shut the offices of The Daily Observer, Liberia's leading independent newspaper. The paper's chief offense was playing a story about labor unrest more prominently than one about a speech by Doe to street peddlers. The general also temporarily closed another newspaper and imprisoned three journalists.
§ Two major opposition parties, the Liberian People's Party and the United People's Party (U.P.P.), were banned. The ostensible reason was that they subscribed to "foreign ideologies," i.e., socialism. More to the point, both parties had mass followings. The U.P.P., in fact, was widely considered the most popular party in the country.
§ Dozens of political figures were thrown in jail. Most prominent was Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, a former Liberian Finance Minister. Johnson-Sirleaf had studied at Harvard University, worked for the World Bank, and served as a Citibank vice president in its Nairobi office. Last summer she returned to Liberia to help found the centrist Liberia Action Party (L.A.P.). In a speech to the Union of Liberian Associates in America, in Philadelphia on July 6, Johnson-Sirleaf accused the Doe government of mismanagement and corruption and said it was run by "many idiots." On her return to Liberia at the end of the month, she was arrested and charged with sedition, a crime punishable by death. She and other prisoners were eventually released, but only after sharp international protest.
When the election was finally held, last October 15, the L.A.P. and two other parties were permitted to run against Doe's National Democratic Party. The turnout was heavy, but Election Day was marked by widespread reports of fraud. Teams of observers were barred from many polling places, and a batch of ballots was discovered smoldering in a heap north of the capital. According to virtually all independent observers and foreign correspondents, the election was won by L.A.P. candidate Jackson Doe (no relation to Samuel). However, after the votes were tallied by a government-appointed commission working behind closed doors, General Doe was declared the victor, with 50.9 percent of the vote.
A month later, on November 12, a coup was launched. It was led by Thomas Quiwonkpa, a popular general who had helped Doe engineer the 1980 coup but who later broke with him over his autocratic rule. Quiwonkpa, who had fled Liberia in 1983 and moved to Baltimore, made his way back via neighboring Sierra Leone. With a force of only thirty-five men, he quickly gained control of the nation's main radio station. When it appeared that his coup had succeeded, hundreds of Liberians took to Monrovia's streets to celebrate.
The rejoicing was premature. Troops loyal to Doe managed to beat back Quiwonkpa's meager force. Quiwonkpa himself died. Then Doe's troops went on a rampage. It is unclear exactly how many lost their lives in the resulting bloodbath, but estimates range from 400 to more than 2,000. The government also rounded up individuals it perceived as a threat and accused them of complicity in the coup. Among those imprisoned were Jackson Doe, Johnson-Sirleaf, newspaper publisher Mamolu Sirleaf (a distant relative) and BBC reporter Isaac Bantu. In all, probably more than one hundred people were jailed. While some have been released Doe and Johnson-Sirleaf, among others, remain in prison awaiting trial.
The U.S. Congress reacted sharply to these developments. Last spring, it passed a resolution conditioning the Administration's 1986 aid request for Liberia–$86 million–on the holding of free and fair elections. When Johnson-Sirleaf and other Liberians were imprisoned last summer, many members from both arties signed a letter urging Doe to release them. Even Jesse Helms has received Liberian opposition figures visiting Washington.
It was thus with great anticipation that the Senate Subcommittee on Africa awaited Crocker's testimony on December 10. Members of the panel were astounded by what they heard. Yes, said Crocker, two of the biggest parties had been banned, Decree 88A had forbidden criticism of the government, and the final vote had been counted behind closed doors. Nonetheless, he asserted, the election's "shortcomings" should not obscure its "noteworthy, positive aspects." Among these, he maintained, were the participation of four political parties, the press's ability to report opposition activities and he large, orderly turnout. Therefore, said Crocker, "there is now the beginning, however imperfect, of a democratic experience that Liberia and its friends can use as a benchmark for future elections–one on which they want to build." Overall, he said, "election day was a remarkable achievement…. The Liberian experience was not only important for Liberia but for all of West Africa." As a result, he concluded, the United States would stand by Doe:
To walk away would be irresponsible and clearly viewed as such elsewhere in Africa, where we are seen as having a unique responsibility for assisting Liberia. Abdication of that responsibility could provoke chaos and bloodshed, endangering the lives of nearly 5,000 Americans in the country.
Crocker's remarks were met with disbelief. "It's time that the U.S. stopped playing Uncle Sucker to this dictator," said Democratic Senator John Kerry. "Why should the U.S. contribute $90 million a year to what is clearly an unpopular and unstable regime?" Subcommittee chair Nancy Kassebaum, a Republican, noted Congress's "growing concern" over developments in Liberia, adding that Doe's self-proclaimed victory "almost makes a mockery of the process."
A few days after the hearing, the Senate unanimously passed a resolution condemning the election as fraudulent and mandating the suspension of all military aid until free elections could be held. The House is expected to take up a similar resolution in the coming weeks. The Administration is determined to fight it, however, and the State Department has already enlisted Republican representatives willing to carry its water.
To its credit, the Administration has at times worked behind the scenes to restrain Doe. When the Liberian government imprisoned Johnson-Sirleaf and other political figures, the State Department suspended $25.5 million in aid. Doe squawked and threatened to send his foreign minister to Libya, but after a few weeks he relented and released the detainees. The aid was subsequently provided. After the attempted coup, Administration officials privately pressured Doe to refrain from mistreating political prisoners; U.N. ambassador Vernon Walters personally telephoned Doe to tell him to back off. Clearly, however, such actions have come only in response to pressure from Capitol Hill. The State Department badly wants to keep on good terms with Doe, and to do so it must placate disgruntled members of Congress.
The Administration's Liberia policy helps us see through President Reagan's professed concern for freedom in other African countries, particularly Angola. In Liberia, the State Department cannot argue that the United States is supporting an incumbent for fear of the alternative. Liberia is not about to head into the Soviet camp. Doe's threat last summer to strengthen ties with Libya proved to be a bluff. With U.S. aid making up one-third of the national budget, no Liberian leader could afford to alienate the United States. For many Liberians, American food shipments are the difference between eating and going hungry.
Furthermore, not one of Liberia's opposition parties poses any conceivable threat to the United States. The largest of these parties, the U.P.P., is left of center but moderate in outlook. Its leader Baccus Matthews, studied at City University of New York and founded his party in the United States, where he lived for eleven years. Matthews stays in regular touch with the U.S. embassy in Monrovia.
Finally, the Liberian people would never tolerate a break with Uncle Sam. Liberia's first constitution was written at Harvard Law School. The dollar is legal tender in the country. Monrovia has a Roxy Theater, a Capitol Hill and a grim shantytown called West Point. Most important, Liberians take American ideals seriously. As its name indicates, Liberia was founded on a yearning for liberty. Thus many Liberians are perplexed by the Administration's policy. Visitors to the country hear a constant refrain: If only the Reagan people knew the reality of Liberia, they would back away from Doe.
The Administration, of course, does know. The problem is, it doesn't care.

subset: commoncrawl


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Beyoncé To Alison Krauss: 9 Times Women Made GRAMMY History
To highlight Women's History month this March, we dug into our archives all the way back to the GRAMMY Awards' beginnings in 1958 to acknowledge the women who have made GRAMMY — and music — history. From the first women to ever win a GRAMMY to the top GRAMMY-winning woman, first female GRAMMY performers and the first female GRAMMY host, take a look at nine examples of how women blazed trails through the lens of the GRAMMYs.
Ella Fitzgerald: The first woman to win multiple GRAMMYs
The 1st GRAMMY Awards took place in 1958, and women were among the first crop of recipients. The first female multiple GRAMMY winner was jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald, who took home two statues: Best Vocal Performance, Female and Best Jazz Performance, Individual. The roster of first-time female GRAMMY winners also included Keely Smith, Salli Terry, Barbara Cook, Pert Kelton, Helen Raymond, and Renata Tebaldi.
Who were the first women to win GRAMMYs in the General Field?
The General Field categories — Record, Song and Album Of The Year and Best New Artist — are among some of the most coveted awards in music. Astrud Gilberto became the first woman to win Record Of The Year when she won with Stan Getz for "The Girl From Ipanema" for 1964. The first Song Of The Year female win went to Carole King for "You've Got A Friend" for 1971. The first female Best New Artist was country singer/songwriter Bobbie Gentry. And the first female winner for Album Of The Year went to Judy Garland for 1961 for Judy At Carnegie Hall.
Carole King: The first woman to win multiple General Field GRAMMYs
The first woman to win multiple GRAMMYs in the General Field was King, when she swept Record ("It's Too Late"), Album (Tapestry) and Song Of The Year ("You've Got A Friend") for 1971. The first women to win multiple GRAMMYs in the same General Field categories include Roberta Flack, who took Record Of The Year for 1972 and 1973, for "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" and "Killing Me Softly With His Song," respectively. Lauryn Hill, Norah Jones and Alison Krauss have each won Album Of The Year twice, but only once in each case for their own recordings. Taylor Swift won Album Of The Year twice for 2009 and 2015, the first woman to do so as a solo artist. At the 59th GRAMMYs, Adele became the second solo female artist to win Album Of The Year twice. Additionally, she became the first artist in GRAMMY history to sweep Record, Song and Album Of The Year twice in her career, after doing so for 2011 and again for 2016.
Alison Krauss: The woman with the most GRAMMY wins
With 27 GRAMMYs, Krauss is the top-winning female artist (and tied for second-highest GRAMMY winner of all time with Quincy Jones). Beyoncé also ranks near the top with 22 GRAMMY wins, as does Aretha Franklin with 18 wins. Beyoncé holds the record for female artist with the most GRAMMY nominations with 62.
Who are the top GRAMMY winners of all time?
Ella Fitzgerald, Wanda Jackson: The first women to perform on the GRAMMYs
The first televised GRAMMY event, a taped "NBC Sunday Showcase," in honor of the 2nd GRAMMY Awards, aired Nov. 29, 1959. It was Fitzgerald's performance on this broadcast that earned her the distinction of being the first woman to take the GRAMMY stage. When the GRAMMYs transitioned to a live television broadcast format for the 13th GRAMMY Awards in 1971, the first solo female performer was country singer Wanda Jackson singing "Wonder Could I Live There Anymore."
Bonnie Raitt: The most GRAMMY performances
Singer/songwriter Bonnie Raitt is the woman who has performed the most at the GRAMMYs. From her first solo performance of "Thing Called Love" at the 32nd GRAMMY Awards in 1990 through her latest performance in honor of B.B. King with Chris Stapleton and Gary Clark Jr. at the 58th GRAMMY Awards, Raitt has graced the stage nine times. In a tie for a close second are Franklin and Whitney Houston, who each notched eight career GRAMMY performances.
Watch: All the GRAMMY performers from the 1960s–1970s
Whoopi Goldberg: The first female GRAMMY host
Whoopi Goldberg served as the GRAMMYs' first female host at the 34th GRAMMY Awards in 1992. An EGOT (Emmy, GRAMMY, Oscar, and Tony) winner, the comedian already had an impressive array of credentials when she helmed the GRAMMY stage. Not one to shy away from pushing the envelope, she delivered arguably one of the raunchiest jokes in GRAMMY history when referencing the show's accounting firm: "I must tell you, Deloitte & Touche are two things I do nightly."
And the first female Special Merit Awards recipients were?
The inaugural Recording Academy Special Merit Award was given in 1963 to Bing Crosby, but it wasn't long until women made their mark. Fitzgerald was the first woman to receive the Lifetime Achievement Award in 1967. The first woman to receive a Trustees Award was Christine M. Farnon in 1992, who served as The Recording Academy's National Executive Director for more than 20 years. Liza Minnelli became the first female artist to receive a GRAMMY Legend Award in 1990.
The first recordings by women to be inducted into the GRAMMY Hall Of Fame
Established in 1973 by The Academy's Board of Trustees to honor outstanding recordings that were made before the inception of the GRAMMY Awards, the first female recipients were inducted into the GRAMMY Hall Of Fame in 1976. Billie Holiday's "God Bless The Child" marked the first solo female recording. Gershwin's Porgy & Bess (Opera Version), featuring Camilla Williams, and the original Broadway cast version of "Oklahoma!," featuring Joan Roberts, were inducted into the Hall that same year.
From Abbey Road to "Zip-A-Dee-Doo Dah," view the full list of GRAMMY Hall Of Fame recordings


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Our Membership Year goes from April 1 to March 31, but we welcome new members at any time of the year. If you want to "try us out" first, please contact us and we can arrange for you to attend one of our events at members' rate.
The nominal membership fee allows you to attend any of our events at a member-only price. Additional guests to events are welcome at the non-member rate.
We hold approximately 9 or 10 events a year, most of which are hosted at wineries in the Niagara region."


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By Windy64
Cambridgeshire, United Kingdom
Plant id please.. .. just curiosity really.. a cereal crop of some sort maybe ??
- 26 Aug, 2012
looks like maize/sweetcorn. i sometimes get them from the bird feeder. or rabbit treats.
26 Aug, 2012
Definitely sweetcorn - I have a load of them out in the garden!
26 Aug, 2012
Previous question
« 2 questions - Apple tree. 1. My 15 yr old eating apple tree is full of apples...


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piglet goblet
$ 45.00
Everything tastes better in handmade glass! This little piglet cup will be made to order, dimensions may vary. Please message Meg if you would like a special inscription on the bottom of the cup, or if you would like your pig to have wings!
Your piglet will be shipped in a 5x5x5 inch gift box. (The listed price is for ONE cup.) Orders placed by December 1 will ship on or before December 15.
This item is currently out of stock. I will take up to 3 weeks to ship.


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3 - 5 km truck dispatcher This job posting has been provided directly by the employer through Job Bank's employer job posting system.
- August 06, 2020
- Grey Hawk Transport LTD.
- Location Surrey (BC)
- Salary Salary: $24.00 hourly
- Job number: 1517252
Discover jobs
Job Search
Job Bank is here to assist you through this uncertain time. Visit Job Bank's COVID-19 page to browse jobs in essential services.


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N-R-G Builders®
Building self-confidence through physical play.
Today, many parents and caregivers understand how important physical activity really is. Children spend a lot of time sitting in classrooms or in other sedentary situations, even though physical activity is important for fitness and overall health. Fitness playgrounds are one way many communities and organizations are trying to help children find the fun in physical activity and encourage an active lifestlye.
N-R-G Builders® is a modern play system that makes fitness fun by encouraging stretching, upper body strength, unique movements and competition. The overhead events in combination with the web wall are perfect for ages 5-12. Our N-R-G components offer endless configurations, making this line perfect for phase building or adding on to an existing play structure.
Features and Benefits
- Open unit stimulates the imagination and builds strength and coordination
- 36 components create the modern play system you want.
- Architecturally appealing for a variety of site applications
- Designed with phased products in mind, just choose your link and add on when you are ready
- 14 N-R-G Builders® Independent Events can be stand alone or linked together. See the Independent Events section for more details.
- N-R-G Builders® Direct Connect provides superior strength and durability.
- Zero-platform designs are budget friendly.
- 3.5 (89MM) and 5" (127MM) O.D. galvanized steel post
- Tamper-resistant stainless steel hardware
- Flexible under varying site conditions
- Double-sided components offer twice the fun.
- Strong steel cables are wrapped in durable braided nylon and joined by tough connectors
Key Features
Fitness Play
Overhead events, web walls and activities that encourage stretching, upper body strength and competition make this modern play system a fitness experience that is fun and exciting.
Phase Building
Linkable design is perfect for building in phases. As your budget allows, connect the next phase of your playground or simply add on more events.
Twice the Fun!
Our double-sided components and open design provide easy access from any side to join in the fun.
Want to see our N-R-G Builders® structures?
These playgrounds are designed to put the fun back in physical activity. This playground equipment is durable, colorful and encourages children to get active by having fun. The components of these systems can help kids develop a life-long love of exercise. N-R-G Builders® also offers many components to help you build a playground that offers lots of opportunity for fitness:
- The Bermuda Triangle. This independent event is standalone, making it ideal for small spaces or existing playgrounds. Children can climb or play under the structure, building confidence and physical strength. The bright colors and fun textures let children build sensory skills while the free play opportunities let children play together and build social skills.
- The Double-Web Crawler. This component is also standalone or can be used as part of a larger playground. Children can climb through, over or under the ropes, ensuring they work on multiple muscle areas and physical development in general. There is space around the structure for caregivers and older siblings to help, allowing children to develop social skills and build confidence. The hands-on experience and bright colors promote the development of sensory skills, too.
- The Ricochet Sphere. This bright sphere is fun for children to play around, and since it encourages group activity as well as individual play, it can help build emotional and social skills. Since the sphere allows for free play and challenges kids to come up with their own activities and games, it builds cognitive skills. As children engage with the smooth texture and bright color, they use their sense to explore.
- The Hammock. This hammock is a climber that encourages children to keep moving and swinging while improving balance and coordination. Children of various abilities and mobility levels can use the hammock in different ways. The hands-on play encourages sensory development while the large area means several children can play at once, providing opportunities for social skills to flourish.
- Floating Rope Ladder. This ladder helps children to develop strength, balance, and coordination skills as they cross the uneven ladder. This independent event activity encourages children to develop emotional skills as they decide how to cross and they build confidence as they move across the ladder. Children also have the chance to build social and sensory skills.
If you are interested in these and other components of N-R-G Builders® playgrounds, Little Tikes Commercial can help. For decades, we have been helping communities, organizations, and companies design playgrounds to serve generations of children.
Our innovative and carefully-engineered playgrounds are durable and made of high-quality materials. Crafted to a higher safety standard, we stand by our products with exceptional customer service and warranties. Find a representative today or contact us to start creating a new playground to benefit the children in your community!


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On December 2011, I had the opportunity to visit my sister and family in Tokyo.
It was a very memorable and enjoyable trip ... :)
Tokyo is a city that is very organized, clean and modern in anyway possible, but yet retain existing traditional culture.
Its people are hard workers who are very dis…


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FISIOGRAFT nano-H.A.reinforced is made of a granulate contained in a syringe which makes it possible to be applied directly into the bone defect. The granules are made from a material consisting of nanohydroxyapatite-dextran utilizing as a carrier a polylactic-polyglycolic copolymer. These materials have been utilized for many years in space maintainers used for guided bone tissue regeneration.
FISIOGRAFT nanoH.A. reinforced permits blood originating from bone tissue to penetrate and the nanometric hydroxyapatite becomes the nucleus of ossification for the new bone tissue at the application site.


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The Challenge
Under personal exemption restrictions from US Customs and Border Protection (CBP), passengers at preclearance facilities were limited to $25 total purchases in the post-preclearance area before departing on a flight to the United States.
Our Role
InterVISTAS developed and implemented a strategy, which CBP approved, that increased the total allowable down-stream passenger comfort purchases to $100 per person (of foreign-made goods). It further permitted no dollar limit on US-made goods sold by retail vendors in the post-preclearance area without having to re-inspect or amend Customs declarations for departing passengers.
The work InterVISTAS completed in 2003 permitted airports to realize millions of dollars per year in lease space revenues and merchandise sales in the post-preclearance departure gate area. This has benefited airports significantly to help reduce the cost of overall operations. More importantly, passengers gained a greater flexibility to obtain long sought travel comfort products as a result of a sizable policy change in making retail goods available to them in the departure gate area.


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High-Speed Experimental Fly Vehicles - INTernational
Civil High-speed transportation has always been hampered by the lack of range potential or a too high fuel consumption stemming from a too low cruise efficiency. Over the last few years, however, radical new vehicle concepts have been proposed and conceived with a strong potential to alter this trend. This innovative approach is based upon a well elaborated integration of a highly efficient propulsion unit with a high-lifting vehicle concept.
This would enable long-haul flight from Brussels to Tokyo in less than two hours 15 min up to antipodal flight from Brussels to Sydney in less than three hours. The trajectories shown below consider the alleviation of sonic boom over land.
|Distance Flown [km]
|Great Circle distance [km]
|Total Flight Time
|Fuel consumed [ton]
|Fuel Remaining [ton]
|TO mass [ton]
Consumed KgFuel/
[1] Reduced subsonic cruise distance to 240 km.
[2] No subsonic cruise
[3] Full tank at take-off
This realisation of both high propulsive and aerodynamic efficiency is based upon the minimisation of kinetic jet losses while striving to the best uniformity but minimal induced velocity for lift creation. The dashed green line in image above illustrates the potential of this innovative design methodology. Looking into the performance of classically designed high-speed vehicles, their performances drop nearly linearly with flight Mach number as indicated by the red line on the image below. The green line indicates what has been achieved as a revolutionary, high speed civil air transportation concepts worked-out along this new approach.
Performing a test flight will be the only and ultimate proof to demonstrate the technical feasibility of these new promising high-speed concepts versus their potential in range and cruise. This would result into a major breakthrough in high-speed flight and create a new era of conceptual vehicle designs.
At present, the promised performances can only be demonstrated by numerical simulations or partly experimentally. As high-speed tunnels are intrinsically limited in size or test duration, it is nearly impossible to fit even modest vehicle planform completely into a tunnel. Therefore experiments are limited either to the internal propulsive flowpath with combustion but without the presence of high-lifting surfaces, or to complete small-scaled aero-models but without the presence of a combusting propulsion unit. Though numerical simulations are less restrictive in geometrical size, they struggle however with accumulated uncertainties in their modelling of turbulence, chemistry and combustion making complete Nose-to-Tail predictions doubtful without in-flight validation. As a consequence, the obtained technology developments are now limited to a technology readiness level of TRL 4 (components validated in laboratory).
General Objectives
HEXAFLY aims to create a multi-disciplinary platform where several breakthrough technologies can be mounted on board for testing in free flight at high speed. This approach will create the basis to increase gradually the Technology Readiness Level (TRL). The emerging technologies and breakthrough methodologies strongly depending on envisaged flight tests at high speed can be grouped around the 6 major axes:
- High-Speed Vehicle Conceptsto assess the overall vehicle performance in terms of cruise-efficiency, range potential, aero-propulsive balance, aero-thermal-structural integration, etc...
- High-Speed Aerodynamicsto assess aerodynamic vehicle shapes with high L/D (lift to drag ratio), aerodynamic manoeuvrability, stability, etc…
- High-Speed Propulsion to evaluate the performance of high-speed propulsive devices such as intakes, air-breathing engines (ABE), nozzles (SERN) including phenomena such as high-speed combustion, injection-mixing processes, etc…
- High-Temperature Materials and Structures to flight test under realistic conditions high temperature lightweight materials, active/passive cooling concepts, reusability aspects in terms oxidation, fatigue, etc…
- High-Speed Flight Control requiring real-time testing of GNC (Guidance Navigation Control) in combination with HMS/FDI technologies (Health Monitoring Systems/ Fault Detection and Isolation)
- High-Speed Environmental Impact focusing on reduction techniques for sonic boom and sensitivities of high-altitude emissions of H20, CO2, NOx on the stratosphere.
To mature a first flight testing campaign, a scientific mission profile has been worked out within a precursor Level 0 project called HEXAFLY followed by a proof-of-concept based upon:
- a preliminary design of a high-speed flight test vehicle covering the six major axes
- selection and integration of the ground-tested technologies developed within LAPCAT I & II, ATLLAS I & II and other national programs
- identification of the most promising flight platform(s)
which allowed addressing following items:
- identification of potential technological barriers to be covered in the follow-up project HEXAFLY-INT
- detailing the plan to work the project out in the HEXAFLY-INT project
- the progress and potential of technology development at a higher TRL
The vehicle design, manufacturing, assembly and verification will be the main driver and challenge in HEXAFLY-INTernational in combination with a mission profile. The prime objectives of this free-flying high-speed cruise vehicle shall aim for:
- a conceptual design demonstrating a high aerodynamic efficiency in combination with high internal volume
- a gliding flight at a cruise Mach number of 7 to 8 in a controlled way
- making optimal use of advanced high-temperature materials and/or structures
- an evaluation of the sonic boom
Once conceived, the aerodynamic performance from Mach 8 down to Mach 3 to 5 can be determined as a secondary objective. The overall mission requirements are listed in table below.
The level of complexity and the number of technologies to be potentially integrated largely depends on the affordable size of the flight vehicle. The presently available ground facilities within Europe limit the size to ~1.5m length whereas ~4.5m seems to be an upper limit stemming from presently on-going flight experiments. However, the trade-off study within HEXAFLY took into account the following issues:
- minimum needed internal volume to contain all necessary subsystems for a free-flying vehicle
- a modest financial envelope for hypersonic flight testing
- the know-how and expertise acquired recently through the German SHEFEX-I/II projects and the Italian USV project
- the affordable launchers presently available,
- the existing databases generated within ATLLAS I/II and LAPCAT I/II
- the high altitude expertise and related flight control acquired in flight during the SHEFEX II flight and FAST20XX
- the availability of large test facilities in Russia and Australia for risk-reduction resulted finally into a most promising choice of a ~3m long flight vehicle.
Besides the high-speed flight experiment, an additional flight experiments will be performed to cross-check the viability of the vehicle concept for later deployment as passengers aircraft i.e.:
- low-speed flight experiments in the Marulan test site (Univ. of Sydney) to verify the take-off and landing potential of the waverider based vehicle
A duration of 60 months for this project is set forward such that the international team i.e. Europe, Russia and Australia, can complete the following major steps:
- define the requirements and operational conditions for the scientific mission;
- perform a detailed layout of a flight vehicle able to test technologies along the major axes;
- define the required flying platform with the needed adaptations;
- carrying out extensive on-ground tests and numerical simulations to reduce uncertainties and risks; preferably on full-scale flight representative models;
- manufacturing the experimental flight test vehicle along with the needed adaptations to the launcher;
- assembling, integrating, verifying and testing the experimental payload and the related launcher;
- carry out the flight experiment and collect the data;
- perform a post-flight analysis;
- disseminate the results.
Besides the vehicle and platform definition, the suitability of the launch site and test range was assessed in terms of potential limitations on the mission and scientific objectives, i.e. flight corridors, TTC (telemetry, tracking and command), safety aspects (termination) and recovery. So far, the Andoya Rocket Range in Norway was favoured, though alternatives will be revisited at the start and throughout the project.


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The Desert IndependentTM
Serving Blythe and the Desert Regions of the Southwest Since 2001
2014 Archives
Past Archives: 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020
2015 – Deciding between Good and Best for the Year Ahead - Mollette (Dec 30)
Christmas Eve Stabbing (Dec 29)
Recycle Your Christmas Tree (Dec 26)
Boat Fire Leads to Discovery of Residential Burglary (Dec 24)
Don't Kick Santa Across the Yard, Move On, Give and Celebrate Christmas - Mollette (Dec 24)
Federal Officials, Horse Advocates Disagree Over Wild Status for Heber Herd - Fitch (Dec 16)
Hold up Two Fingers, America falls behind China - Mollette (Dec 15)
Driver Injured in Canal Incident (Dec 10)
Midday Stabbing on Hobsonway (Dec 10)
County Streamlines Approval Process to Make Adding Guest Homes Easier (Dec 08)
Nighttime Sweetness and Hope - Randles (Dec 05)
America's Cops and Eric Garner, Tragic, but Don't Fight the Police - Mollette (Dec 05)
Occupants OK After Pickup Enters Canal Behind PVHS (Dec 01)
Continuing Fraud Schemes & Resources to Combat Them (Nov 30)
Car Stolen in Palm Springs Recovered (Nov 27)
Thanksgiving—Shine Like the Stars - Mollette (Nov 23)
Arrest for Drugs and Stolen Weapon (Nov 19)
Three Dead at Residence on South Sixth Street (Nov 18)
Free Household Hazardous Waste Collection on Saturday, November 22 (Nov 18)
Riverside Sheriff's Observations on the Recent 9th Circuit Court Decision on Concealed Carry Weapons (Nov 14)
Accidental Drowning off Aha Quin Resort (Nov 12)
Protect our Wild Horses & Burros (Nov 11)
Arrest for Sale of Meth, Marijuana and for Child Endangerment (Nov 11)
Monitoring Complete of Two County Travelers from West Africa (Nov 11)
Mitch McConnell, Change and Hurting America - Mollette (Nov 07)
Dewey Decker - Randles (Nov 06)
New Officer for Blythe Police (Nov 06)
Check Your Smoke Alarms (Nov 02)
Halloween Safety Tips (Oct 31)
Search Warrant Results in Substantial Meth Seizure (Oct 30)
America Should Not Go Greek in the Bathroom - Mollette (Oct 30)
Riverside County Health Officials Monitoring 2 People Who Recently Traveled to West Africa (Oct 29)
Probation Check Nets Drugs, Gun & Arrests (Oct 28)
Alarm Catches Thief at Community School (Oct 27)
Ebola Website Established in Riverside County (Oct 21)
Telephone Townhall for Restaurant Owners (Oct 20)
Nevada Ranchers Suffer From Self-Deluded Drought Denial - PEER (Oct 18)
Ebola, Stop the Flights from West Africa - Mollette (Oct 18)
Pedestrian Struck on Freeway (Oct 16)
Shots Fired at Residence (Oct 16)
Religious Entities Must Protect Our Freedom or Lose Our Freedom - Mollette (Oct 10)
Opinion: Newbie NYT Reporter Suffers Chronic Attack of Hoof in Mouth Disease, AGAIN! - Fitch (Oct 10)
Join Citizens on Patrol (Oct 10)
Bus Transportation Available for PVHS Students to Attend College & Career Fair (Oct 09)
Green Dot MoneyPak Scams on the Rise (Oct 08)
First Case of Enterovirus D68 is Confirmed in Riverside County (Oct 08)
Shooting on Agate Road (Oct 08)
Arson / Use of a Destructive Device (Oct 07)
Handgun Stolen & Recovered, Arrest Made (Oct 07)
Crash at Hobsonway and Neighbors (Sept 30)
Prescription Access Now Law (Sept 28)
Harvest Time in America, Pursuing and Reaping Happiness - Mollette (Sept 28)
Community Improvement Fund Board Supports Measures W, X and Y (Sept 24)
Blame it all on Watermelon and Pumpkin Pie - Randles (Sept 22)
A Movie Shoot is saved by Quick County Action (Sept 19)
Overcharged Tax on an Auto Purchase? Get Your Refund (Sept 19)
Wild Horses, Deception and the Despicable Feds - Fitch (Sept 15)
Governor Brown Signs Legislation to Provide Millions of Californians with Paid Sick Leave (Sept 14)
Assisted Suicide in America - Mollette (Sept 10)
Losing the Ebola War - Bamidele (Sept 04)
Car in Canal on Defrain (Sept 02)
Traffic Stop Nets DUI (Sept 02)
Ready Aim Fire - Clemens (Sept 01)
First Confirmed Human Case of West Nile Virus in Riverside County this Year (Aug 31)
Labor Day, Any Day, Count Your Blessings - Mollette (Aug 30)
DUI / Driver's License Checkpoint (Aug 30)
75 Horses Dead in BLM Care - Courtney (Aug 27)
State Confirms Mosquitoes in Riverside County Test Positive for West Nile Virus (Aug 22)
Foley's Horrifying Death – ISIS is a Cancer that Must be Eliminated - Mollette (Aug 22)
Thomas Carroll Missing from RV Park...Returns (Aug 18)
America's Depression, Robin Williams, Millions More - Mollette (Aug 15)
Bullhead City Council Meeting Spectacle - Jones (Aug 14)
10 Year Old Missing in Colorado River Since Sunday Located, Drowned (Aug 12)
News doesn't change much; so what's new? - Mollette (Aug 09)
Person Found Dead in Blythe Inn Parking Lot (Aug 04)
Government Stonewalls while Horses Bake - Winkler (Aug 03)
Domestic Violence/Assault with a BB Gun (July 31)
Missing Person, Found (July 31)
Man Walks Away from Roll-Over (July 30)
Arrest for Marijuana Cultivation & Sale (July 26)
BLM Poised to Eradicate Last Large Wild Horse Herds in Wyoming - Fitch (July 23)
Bob Jensen Arrested Twice for Public Intoxication (July 22)
Illegal Immigration, how many will the boat hold? - Mollette (July 20)
29 Arrested During Narcotics Enforcement Operation (July 20)
Mosquito Fogging July 23 (July 20)
Burglar Hits Two Homes, Gets Nothing (July 15)
Local Competes in US Army Reserve's Best Warrior (July 06)
Healthier America, Saving Our Nation from Collapse - Mollette (July 06)
Do Wild Horses Need Endangered Species Protection? - Graef (July 05)
Possession of a Controlled Substance for Sale (July 05)
County Assessment Roll Has Largest Increase Since 2007 (July 05)
Public Meeting for Blythe Mesa Solar Project (June 26)
Officer Involved Shooting (June 24)
DUI Causes Vehicle to Overturn (June 23)
Burglary Suspects Arrested (June 21)
Iraq Again, Hell Never Ends - Mollette (June 21)
Protection Sought for Wild Horses under Endangered Species Act (June 14)
Blythe Welcomes New Police Officer (June 09)
Stop the Mass School Killings - Mollette (June 07)
Palm & Barnard Shooting (June 03)
3 Structures at Morton Air Academy Burned in Fire (June 03)
Please Don't Park on City Parks (May 29)
Speech is Not so Free in America - Mollette (May 27)
DUI Drivers to be Targeted Saturday (May 24)
Is the US Minimum Wage Maxed Out? - Clemens (May 23)
Body Found in Colorado River (May 23)
Attempted Murder in Ripley (May 23)
Human Remains Found in Desert West of Blythe (May 23)
Obama's BLM Seeks Bids for Additional Wild Horse Concentration Camps (May 16)
Can America Save Everybody? - Mollette (May 09)
Library Alarm Catches Burglar (May 08)
National Bike to School Day (May 07)
Fewer Homeless Veterans Living On the Streets (May 04)
Drugs and Firearm Seizure (May 04)
America Cannot Win with Racist Attitudes - Mollette (May 04)
Palo Verde College Foundation Annual BBQ (May 02)
Two Arizona Men Arrested for Weapons & Drugs after Speeding on I-10 (Apr 25)
Transportation and Possession of Methamphetamine for Sale (Apr 25)
Rustling Critters NOT a New Wrinkle for the BLM - Fitch (Apr 20)
America's Hope - Mollette (Apr 20)
Desert Roadrunner Services Changes (Apr 14)
Burnt Remains Discovered (Apr 13)
Federal Spending: Defense First, Education Way Back - Clemens (Apr 09)
Burglary, Attempted Robbery, and Brandishing an Imitation Weapon (Apr 08)
62 Year Old Woman Robbed & Beaten (Apr 08)
Response to the 50th Anniversary of the War on Poverty - Bialek (Apr 08)
Grand Jury Report – Blythe City Council - Winkler (Apr 07)
Bicyclist Runs Stop & Collides with Car (Apr 07)
What happened to hungry America? - Mollette (Apr 05)
Lake Havasu City/Blythe Boat Chop Shop Arrest (Apr 05)
Blythe Police Join Crackdown on Texting and Handheld Cell Use Behind the Wheel (Apr 05)
Democratic Administration in Washington Has Free Roaming Horses Sold to Canadian Slaughterhouse - Cloud (Apr 01)
Pit Bull Shot Dead During Attack - Winkler (Mar 29)
2014 MADD Awards & Training Conference (Mar 25)
Possession of Stolen Property & a Controlled Substance (Mar 23)
BLM Sets Date for Special Interest Advisory Board Meeting to Plot Demise of Wild Horses And Burros - Fitch (Mar 23)
International Diplomacy Texas Hold 'em - Clemens (Mar 22)
Possession of Stolen Property (Mar 21)
America, Reality of Death, Will we save our country? - Mollette (Mar 21)
Free Composting Workshop Saturday, March 15
PVHS Farm Animals Released in Break-In (Mar 15)
Theft of Vehicle Parts in Ripley (Mar 15)
CRIT Escapee Captured (Mar 11)
Religious Discrimination in America - Mollette (Mar 11)
Possible DUI Turned in by Citizen (Mar 10)
Are Legal Drugs the Cause of California's Real Drug Problem? - Hennigan (Mar 09)
BLM District Manager, Mark Storzer Abusive to Corralled Wyoming Mustangs, Let's Um Freeze in the Bitter Winter Winds (Mar 08)
The Ukraine, really folks? - Clemens (Mar 04)
Possible DUI Driver Hits Parked Car, Backs Up & Hits Another (Mar 02)
Possible Suspicious Death Reported by Family (Feb 26)
Keys Snatched from Larry Green Ford; Next Day Truck is Gone (Feb 25)
Security Camera Stolen from Blythe Drug (Feb 24)
Drought-hit Southwest Farmers Urged to Apply for Water Conservation Funding - Hennigan (Feb 24)
Guns, English, Taxes and Immigration – What about common sense? - Mollette (Feb 23)
The Olympics, Russia and America, People are People - Mollette (Feb 16)
A Biologist's Response to the BLM's Wild Horse "Problem" - Bauer (Feb 16)
Desert Center to Receive Emergency Generator, School Field Trips, Library Improvements and More (Feb 09)
Obama & BLM Seek to "Rid the Range of Our Wild Horses" (Feb 08)
Missing Adult Ricardo Nava-Alamo Located Deceased - Winkler (Feb 05)
Collision at Hobsonway & Neighbors (Feb 05)
Disoriented Elderly Adult in the Desert (Feb 05)
Obama's MyRA – Maybe, but Retirees Beware - Mollette (Feb 04)
Is the Medium Still the Message? - Clemens (Jan 28)
U.S. Congressman Trey Radel, A Brief Pullover on the Highway - Mollette (Jan 28)
2014: No Horse Slaughter in the United States - Fitch (Jan 20)
Attempted False Child Abduction (Jan 18)
Arrest Made in Threats Against Palo Verde Valley Times Staff (Jan 18)
Vehicle Left Running, then Stolen (Jan 18)
Afghanistan, Iraq and the Middle East - Mollette (Jan 18)
Poverty (America's Longest War) - Clemens (Jan 18)
Blythe Bluegrass Festival (Jan 17-19)
DUI Collision on East 14th Ave (Jan 02)
DUI Arrest Starts with Call for Unknown Door Knocker (Jan 02)
Man Beaten in Apartment Office on North Sixth Street (Jan 02)
Two Toyota Crash on 1st Street (Jan 01)
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text:
I think that motherhood and priesthood are parallel; I know that many of you don't. And one argument against my position that I see frequently is that you need the cooperation of the opposite sex (not to mention the blessing of fertility) to be a mother but not to be a priesthood holder. I've never found that argument persuasive, but until now, I haven't been able to articulate why.
Today I observed a teacher of Valiant 11 boys write on the board priesthood functions. And as I looked at his list, I'm thinking: wow, if you weren't a father, you would never (or rarely) do these: baptize a child, give a baby a name and a blessing, bless a family member, etc. And thus the kernel of my idea: priesthood is largely exercised in the context of fatherhood. (Gee, it doesn't sound like an incredibly brilliant insight when I put it that way, does it?) Now, my thesis here is still in the trial balloon stage, so I'll use this post to run it up the flag poll and see if anyone salutes (or just attacks me for mixing metaphors). Let me pre-empt what I imagine will be some of the responses to my idea:
(1) "Yeah, but what about all the ordaining and setting apart that bishops and stake presidents do?" To which I reply: When was the last time you met a bishop or stake president who wasn't a father? While fatherhood may not be a de jure requirement for these roles, it appears to be a de facto one.
(2) "What about home teachers, etc., who give blessings to their home teach-ees? They aren't necessarily fathers." True, but not something that undermines my thesis. I'm not sure if my husband is typical, but over ten years of marriage, I think he's been asked to give maybe 2 or 3 blessings to home teachees, etc. In other words, he's used his priesthood outside of the family context with about the same frequency as one of my married-but-childless friends has, if you will, 'exercised her motherhood' by babysitting my children.
(3) "What about the Aaronic Priesthood passing the sacrament and such?" Ah, you've got me there. Perhaps I should dismiss this as the preparatory priesthood and confine my argument to the Melchizedek priesthood. Or perhaps this is the place to acknowledge my general, ongoing discomfort with the disconnect between the roles YW and YM play in the Church (a discomfort that does not exist for me if we were discussing adult men and women in the Church).
(4) "What about the worthiness issue? You don't have to be worthy to have a baby, but you do to hold the priesthood." Maybe we should start thinking about unworthy mothers as exercising unrighteous dominion. While no one interviews you for worthiness before you become a mother, the fact remains that a man could unworthily exercise the priesthood much as a woman could unworthily mother. In other words, both men and women have the same opportunity to decide to worthily or unworthily exercise their stewardship. And, much as a worthy male brings something to the exercise of priesthood that an unworthy one doesn't, a worthy woman brings something to her mothering that an unworthy one doesn't. Again, there is no de jure worthiness requirement for motherhood, but there certainly is a de facto one if we are thinking of the kind of motherhood that the Church promotes.
To sum: A worthy male Melchizedek priesthood holder has a roughly equivalent opportunity to exercise his priesthood as a worthy female non-mother has to exercise her motherhood; that is, occassionally a little around the edges, but not very much. Motherhood and (Melchizedek) priesthood are equivalent roles in the Church, in that they are primarily exercised within the nuclear family, meaning that a childless male is about as cut off from the blessings and responsibilities of priesthood as a childless woman is from the blessings and responsibilities of motherhood.
What think ye?


text:
It's been a while since I have posted on Simplistic Thoughts. Moving from Japan back to the US, and then moving again to Hawaii meant a lot of changes. We have been here for just over a year and things are going well. Enough about that….onto racing.
For quite a long time now, I have been wanting to get into auto racing. After a bit of searching, I found there is a small racing track and an autocross group. Autocross is a race where a small track  is setup using cones and a solo driver drives the course trying to get the best time possible.
I went out to see the group several months ago. At the time I only had one car and didn't want to risk anything happening to it. With racing in mind, I picked up another car. It's a 2002 Miata LS 6 speed. I have been slowly taking care of everything that needed to be fixed/serviced and tomorrow I have my first day of racing.
As timing would have it, there is a high performance racing class that is taking place this weekend and I signed up. It was quite expensive, but I figure it's a great way to get started.
I am taking along my cameras and will be shooting as much as possible. I'm really not sure how much time I will have to shoot video since I am supposed to be learning.
Below is a picture of me sporting my new helmet. I was going for "The STIG" pose. Anyone who watches Top Gear will know what I am talking about.


text: Jay Posted August 4, 2015 London Bridge is falling down. I wasn't talking about any specifically, just as a whole. I mean do people play many of these games for more than a few hours? Also glad they said 100 titles are available in november for backwards compatibility, h3 was at number 40something and reach was at number five or so, so hopefully we get those right away. Quote Share this post Link to post


text:
Our first-everDenamiCON defied expectations: from the keynote address by a former skeptic of inbound marketing to the plucky panelists, peppered with provocative attendee questions.
The number one lesson from DenamiCON?
How we buy has changed. How we sell needs to change – and inbound marketing is the key.
Keynote speaker,Björn Stansvik, Founder/CEO ofMentorMate,described his journey from inbound skeptic to believer. Beginning with a traditional marketing mindset,Björn found himself being steered by his marketing team into an inbound methodology.
He was pleasantly surprised when a big deal walked in the door having found his mobile learning solution online. With expert input from Björn and the DenamiCON panelists, we've outlined the top four reasons why companies need to move to an inbound marketing approach.
But first, here's a quick highlight reel of the event.
Here are the top 4 takeaways for companies considering inbound marketing:
1. Inbound Reduces Time to Close Deals and Cost of Acquisition
Best-selling sales advocate, Jill Konrath, mentioned that in the new inbound paradigm, sales teams spend less time on outbound tactics and more time with qualified, better-informed leads.
Customers are coming in better informed and at a higher level of sales readiness. That's because your inbound marketing program capitalizes on how today's buyers are searching for solutions. They are finding you. That means:"The question isn't how do I get more customers? The question is how do I get better customers?"
- Your content is informing those future customers 24/7 – not just when your sales team is on the clock. Marketing automation does the heavy lifting of guiding leads through sales readiness stages.
- Sales can now triage leads more intelligently by seeing a buyer's specific journey through marketing campaigns and engagement points.
- Your sales team can personalize follow-ups and close messages, empowering them with specific and useful information.
All of that translates into less money spent on acquiring (and retaining) customers.
2. Inbound Methodology Aligns Sales and Marketing Teams
Inbound has created a flow between sales and marketing where the funnel is less about a hand-off and more about a whole team approach to strategically nurturing leads (and customers). Both teams rely on one another and have more transparency into one another's goals and activities.
Clay Collins, Co-Founder/CEO of Leadpages, urged companies to break down the barrier between the marketing department and the customer – and the sales team needs to help make this happen.
Craig Pladson, Marketing Director of GoKart Labs, agreed."Marketers can make customer stories live in technicolor. But beyond creating sanitized personas, marketing needs to know which information sources customers are reading, and which spreadsheets they live in each day. Sales needs to keep bringing real-life stories to marketing and the rest of the organization."
"Sales people help marketing tell a good story and refine the value proposition. Marketing gets the message out to the right people at the right time. Now, it's less about if sales takes credit or marketing takes credit for a win. The lines are blurring because the teams are better aligned."
3. Inbound Marketing for Efficient Life-Cycle Marketing for Deeper Selling
The sale is never done: contracts come up for renewal; your customers mention new pain points; you're alwaysimproving old products and services or developing new ones.
Authentic Brand founder Jennifer Zick encouraged businesses to re-assess how they view existing customers.
With an inbound marketing platform like Hubspot, you can efficiently nurture your existing customers and keep them informed of new products and services tailored for their needs."Your current customers still have needs, and they already have jumped the relationship hurdle. Tap into them for more sales."
4. Your Authentic Story Drives Inbound Growth
Customers engage with brands differently than they did decades ago. Brands are becoming trusted advisors and influencers – not just providers of goods and services. The explosion of online search means that literally billions of people are looking on the internet for solutions to their unique problems.
And, of course, some of those several-billion seekers are your potential customers.
Companies need to create content that attracts, informs, and – ultimately – converts strangers into customers. AsBjörn Stansvik said:
Björn added that the more exposure your potential customers have to your solution and your company culture, the more receptive they will be to you."The old approach to content was company-centric. The new approach is about being topic-centric, based on your customers' needs."


text:
Saturday, November 27, 2010
"Edit: Maze"
13 comments:
love that muted comic-colorReplyDelete
Genuinely love this -- wish I'd thought of it first!ReplyDelete
Uh, genial!ReplyDelete
That IS gorgeous.ReplyDelete
Thanks all.ReplyDelete
Some notes: The book is still bound, so the pages are cut and seen in order, but the central image of Random Wilder is a cheat -- I pasted that to the inside back cover.
Certainly someone has done this with comics before? I know there are several people doing it with big, thick volumes of text, stuff like dictionaries, etc.
page 27 of the graphic story The Finger Carver weaves 2 images together.ReplyDelete
it's not comics, & much less dense than yours, but similar shaped.
Interesting, thanks.ReplyDelete
For what it's worth, I'm not sure I'd call my piece here comics either -- more of a design.
The real test would be taking a book with a rigid panel layout (Watchmen comes to mind) and cutting the individual panels...
Really nice!ReplyDelete
[quote]Interesting, thanks.[/quote]ReplyDelete
No, thankYOU!
I like it.
nice composition of chips & fragmentsReplyDelete
;)have a smell of mine


text:
Whoa, whoa, whoa — I just realized how long it's been since we've done our once-regular segment, Good News/Bad News. With that said, you can probably assume what's coming next: It's Good News/Bad News time!
The Good News: Windows Phone 7 handsets are getting their first software update today!
The Bad News: It's not the update you're waiting for.
According to Microsoft, this update is more of a primer than anything else. They're patching up a few bugs in the update process itself, as well as putting some polish on some smaller bits that will make the big update that much less complicated to pull off.
Once you've received the alert saying your phone is ready for update, you'll have to plug it into either the Zune software (PC) or Windows Phone 7 Connector (Mac) and let it do its thing.
Once that's done, it'll just be a few more weeks before the long-awaited copy-and-paste update starts hittin' handsets near and far. Unless there's another update before that, which will probably require at least two more pre-update updates.


text:
- Curator's blog
- Amphibian Species of the World on Twitter
- What is the right name?
- Running log of additions and changes, 2020
- Logs of changes and additions, 2014–2019
- How to cite
- How to use
- History of the project
- The big changes in amphibian taxonomy (2006–2013): versions 5.6 and 6.0
- Scientific Nomenclature and Its Discontents
- Structure of the taxonomic records
- Contributors, 1985 edition
- Contributors, online edition
- Versions
- Museum abbreviations
- Links to useful amphibian systematic, conservation, collection management, informational, and/or regional sites
- Links to useful FREE library sites
- Copyright and terms of use
Atelopus elegans (Boulenger, 1882)
Phryniscus elegans Boulenger, 1882, Cat. Batr. Sal. Coll. Brit. Mus., Ed. 2: 155. Holotype: BMNH 220.127.116.11, according to A.G.C. Grandison in Hoogmoed, 1985, In Frost (ed.), Amph. Species World: 29, now renumbered BM 19220.127.116.11, according to museum records. Type locality: "Tanti, 2000 feet [=588 m]", Ecuador.
Atelopus elegans — Boulenger, 1894, Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., Ser. 6, 14: 375.
Atelopus gracilis Barbour, 1905, Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool., 46: 102. Syntypes: MCZ 2423 (14 specimens), by original designation; including ANSP 19427 and 26069 (presumably on exchange from MCZ), according to Malnate, 1971, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philadelphia, 123: 351, and USNM 52401 (formerly MCZ 2423) and 118219 according to Cochran, 1961, Bull. U.S. Natl. Mus., 220: 30; Peters, 1952, Occas. Pap. Mus. Zool. Univ. Michigan, 539: 11, regarded UMMZ 48072 and 50099 as "cotypes"; this was emended by Kluge, 1983, Misc. Publ. Mus. Zool. Univ. Michigan, 166: 23, to include UMMZ 48072, 50099, and 60301 as syntypes. Type locality: "Gorgona Island", Departamento Nariño, Colombia. Synonymy by Parker, 1926, Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., Ser. 9, 17: 553; Rivero, 1963, Caribb. J. Sci., 3: 109.
Atelopus elegans gracilis — Rivero, 1963, Caribb. J. Sci., 3: 109.
Atelopus varius elegans — Cochran and Goin, 1970, Bull. U.S. Natl. Mus., 288: 133-135.
English Names
Elegant Stubfoot Toad (Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 39).
Lowland rainforest of northwestern Ecuador, 300-1140 m elevation; Gorgona I. off southwestern Colombia.
In the Atelopus flavescens group of Lynch, 1993, Alytes, 11: 77-87. See Boulenger, 1882, Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., Ser. 5, 9: 457-467, for an amplified description. See photograph, map, description of geographic range and habitat, and conservation status in Stuart, Hoffmann, Chanson, Cox, Berridge, Ramani, and Young, 2008, Threatened Amph. World: 165. Almendáriz C., Cisneros-Heredia, and Rueda-Almonacid, 2005, in Rueda-Almonacid et al. (eds.), Ranas Arlequines: 72, provided a brief account, photograph, and map. Marcillo-Lara, Coloma, Álvarez-Solas, and Terneus, 2020, Neotropical Biodiversity, 6: 1–13, reported on larval morphology.
External links:
Please note: these links will take you to external websites not affiliated with the American Museum of Natural History. We are not responsible for their content.
- For additional sources of information from other sites search Google
- For images search CalPhoto Images and Google Images
- To search the NIH genetic sequence database, see GenBank
- For additional information see AmphibiaWeb report
- For information on conservation status and distribution see the IUCN Redlist
- For related information on conservation and images as well as observation see iNaturalist; for a quick link to their maps see iNaturalist KML
- For additional information specific to Ecuador see FaunaWebEcuador: Anfibios del Ecuador
- For access to available specimen data for this species, from over 350 scientific collections, go to Vertnet.