Jay Justice
Black Girls Create Creator, Features Black Woman Creator	0
Who are you, Jay Justice?
I am a Jamaican American queer disabled Black woman who is into comic books, sci-fi, and baseball. (Yes, I am familiar with the sportsball, I used to work for the Yankees for three seasons, I’m really really into baseball. I was so salty with Pitch got canceled.) I’ve been getting into doing more editing. I’m really proud to say that I contributed to the editing on a New York Times Bestseller — if you’re familiar with The Adventure Zone, I was brought in for a second to help with some sensitivity reading and some of the editing on that book. I also helped do social media for the McElroys during the publishing process for the book, so it was really exciting. I want to do more of this work for sure. We did this work last year, so it’s been really great seeing the fandom go crazy for the work that we did and it’s awesome.
Credit: Ann Eshilana
What do you create?
I create costumes, I create narratives, I help people to promote their work. Basically I try to create a space within fandom so people who are marginalized can feel more welcome and be more successful. Sometimes it takes just one person to listen to someone go on about the game they’re developing and say “no this game is good, I believe in this game, I think it should be seen by people who can get it further than I can.” I like to reach out to people who think that just because they’re a woman or they’re trans or they’re queer or they’re Black that their work is not as valid as everyone else’s and I’m like, “no it is.” And I may have a smaller platform because I do cosplay and I’ve done promotion and marketing for other companies, but I feel like it doesn’t matter how small you think you are, it’s how big you make other people feel with your presence.
“It doesn’t matter how small you think you are, it’s how big you make other people feel with your presence.”
— Jay Justice
It’ll be my ten year anniversary of cosplaying next year and my first cosplay ever was Storm. I want to do a side by side of before Jay knew anything about makeup because dear God I was a hot mess. Someone tell baby Jay you don’t have to have white eyebrows to be Storm. I would like to do a much better Storm costume with a better wig, makeup, one that wasn’t hand-sewn and safety pinned and hot glued and stapled together, made out of literally coat-hangers and upholstery from a car.
Why do you create?
I create because I feel like sometimes you’re just about to explode with the need to do something with what you have inside of yourself. With me that can be released in comic books, it can be released in costumes, it definitely gets released in a lot of, you know, trash posts on Tumblr but for the most part it’s my way of expressing how much I love the medium of comics. I was kind of scared and lonely as a kid and wanting to do something with myself that wouldn’t get me in trouble and comics were a safe way to create something and enjoy something and to just read. Just building literacy itself is so important. I know a lot of kids who didn’t really like reading, but I would tutor back in the day so I helped them increase their reading comprehension with comic books. Free Comic Book Day is how I lured the little suckers in and the next thing you know they’re spending all their lunch money on Spider-Man. But they’re reading though.
Who is your audience?
What’s interesting is that my so-called built in audience would be people like me who are disabled or Black or female or queer who just want to support someone who is like them and out there doing the thing. That’s me in a nutshell, I am my own audience. Sometimes I reach people who are outside of my so-called demographic, I’ll get people who are white, cis, straight, whatever and they’re just like “I like this, I think this is cool,” and they may want to support just because they enjoy the art, but occasionally they’ll make a point of supporting someone outside of their usual zone. For example. I was hired to speak at MIT about advocacy and modern media to help them with their own queer community and to help them be more seen and heard at MIT because Boston is extremely white and very racist. A lot of the students there were telling me about their experiences and just helping them to understand that I understand how sucky it is to have a project going on and you’re super qualified for this but the person in charge is only going to ever hire or place within their own circle.
People don’t realize that we’re not saying “you yourself are a racist.” You are not defined by this. [But] you’re capable of partaking in this because you have the privilege to not have to worry about someone noticing you for a project because you’re the default. You’re a white person so of course you’re hirable automatically. A lot of the things that I do with my audience is teaching them to unlearn this stuff because not only are you making a better place but it literally enables you to enjoy art on a deeper level because you’re not being hindered by your own privilege. And watching somebody wake up to that fact is just — I’ve seen it so many times. I hope I keep seeing it because people really go, “wow, I was ignoring this because I thought it was a Black thing, I thought it wasn’t for me but my money is good here.” Yes! Your money is very good here, pay a Black person, it’s fine. Your white money is good everywhere, we will happily accept it. Buy Black products!
What or who inspired you to do what you do?
Credit: Jason Colflesh
I mean I don’t know because when I first started cosplaying I wasn’t really thinking of a particular person in mind I was working promo and marketing for Activision at NYCC to promote Ultimate Alliance 2, the video game. I was at the booth doing my thing and looking at all the cosplayers — and I was in regular clothes. I had just been hired for my comic book knowledge and nerdiness and not for any costume because I had never cosplayed before. And I thought it was pretty fun and that I should try it. My main goal was to be a character not a person, so I don’t really have a cosplaying senpai or whatever. It’s really always been about trying to match the costume or the character. Even if I don’t match 100% the way it is in the picture, it’s more about being that character.
[With regard to disability advocacy,] Annie Segarra (@annieelaney). She’s an amazing disability advocate who has done so much work to support the community. She’s the one who started the #AmbulatoryWheelchairUsersExist and I have so many of her t-shirts with her catchy hashtags on them. She’s just so great and so positive and super encouraging. She’s definitely someone I admire in terms of just being a cool person to support in social media and to listen to because her experiences are valid.
We all have a lot of experiences as disabled people trying to move through a world that is extremely inaccessible and dealing with people who look at you and think that you’re entitled. I’ve actually been told that I seem entitled and I was like “I’m literally just trying to make your company comply with the law?” I don’t understand. I’m working a convention at a university and they have blockaded the only wheelchair accessible door. If the building is on fire I wouldn’t be able to escape. I almost missed my Lyft because they couldn’t find me because I couldn’t get out. I had to manually remove a stack of parking cones from this door and then the security guard yelled at me and I’m like sir this is the only way I can escape the building, you need to not have this door blocked. I’m not trying to anything besides hold your company accountable.
I’ve encountered that problem a lot: they’ll block off access for their own convenience. Stop all the elevators so no one can sneak into the con, but then you’re also not allowing disabled vendors, attendees, exhibitors, guests of this hotel who may use a wheelchair to access the entire lower floor of the convention. Every single day, they never fixed this. For a three-day con!
In my opinion, accessibility is independent accessibility where you do not require an adult to allow you access to a part of the library, a part of the school, a part of the hotel, whatever it is. If I have to find someone who has a key to the special elevator lift and you don’t know where the key is, you don’t know how to operate it, that’s not accessible to me. That is, the building’s on fire and I’m going to die because I can’t get out of here because you don’t know how to help me.
That’s why I really admire Annie because a lot of her work talks about that in a way that is easy to understand and, I’m not going to say doesn’t rile up able-bodied people because you know what, you should be riled up, you should feel upset on behalf of the people who have to deal with this crap every day. But then it makes us seem like we’re attacking them. No one’s attacking you for being able to walk without impediment or pain, we’re attacking the system that makes it difficult for us to get access to things that we need, which is again the law, but not always followed.
Why is it important as a Black person to create?
Credit: Patrick Sun
Because you are the inheritance of thousands of years of oppression and misery and pain and it’s up to us to really speak for everyone that wasn’t able to speak before us. We’ve been told that our voices aren’t valid, that we don’t deserve a right to speak, and so I feel like our creativity is something that has been a long time coming and needs to be shared with everyone. It’s not just about us teaching ourselves, it’s about teaching our children and the children of those who inherit the so-called right of oppression. The people who have the privilege to do more and don’t, they need to hear our voices so that they do.
It’s all about maintaining integrity with your work, and someone saying that forced diversity is a lack of integrity is really not paying attention. Because nothing is forced it’s literally representing the exact world that we live in and there’s no white fantasy in New York, it full of people of color, I don’t know where you got this from but this white fantasy never actually happened. I’m really over this white feminist nonsense of everything having to be white. I’m over the idea that I should support a white female character when the Black ones get sidelined all the time. As a Captain Marvel fan, it’s extremely frustrating to know that Monica [Rambeau] is never going to be seen in the eyes of the younger generation as who she is, a former leader of the Avengers, the first female Captain Marvel. She’s basically being marginalized in the narrative of Carol — which I support, I love Kelly Sue DeConnick I think Captain Marvel is a great book. It’s just frustrating as someone who was a really big fan of the Captain Marvel before her to know that this kind of support and love is something Monica is never going to get. And I hope that when Monica appears in the movies that she has her own narrative but it really does feel like she’s going to be some kind of person who really looks up to Carol and this ain’t it.
Why do you think it’s important for disabled people to create?
It is important because we’re seen as disability meaning lack of ability to do anything, when really it means an inability to access things that are made for able-bodied persons. Being disabled doesn’t mean that you can’t create or build or discover or learn or teach. It just means that you require different tools to be able to do those same things. And that you require those things to be accessible so that you can reach your full potential and not be seen as just your limitations but for the whole of who you are. Your limitations and your strengths.
I think it’s important to fight against the narrative of the “good disabled person” to show that everyone has different abilities. It really frustrates me because people assume that if you can do something you’re not disabled and if you can’t do it, you’re not trying hard enough, there is no middle ground. It is one or the other. I think it’s important for folks to read the words we create rather than the things written about us, especially with mental disabilities. There are people with autism writing wonderful works explaining their experiences and people are ignoring them and listening to Autism Speaks and the parents or families of disabled people and not the people living with the trauma of the ableism they’re facing, which can be worse than your actual illness in many cases.
We don’t live in a country with basic income we have to start from nothing and get something out of that. To tell me that my mind is useless because my body doesn’t work is absolutely missing the point, people think you can’t you can’t create because you’re sick, that’s why we have to, to show them that we can. We have value regardless of how our bodies and minds operate.
You mentioned accessibility in getting to cons, are there any other struggles that you face as a disabled creator?
People look at me and see someone who looks healthy, because they don’t know what disability looks like — the answer is it has no look. I’m going to quote Nyle DeMarco who is a deaf model/activist who was told he doesn’t look deaf, which is like what does deaf look like? Disability doesn’t have any particular appearance. People sometimes assume I’m faking or I just have a cane for fun, I deal with stuff like that.
At this job I used to have, I got a new manager, who was told “this is Jay she’s going to be a great employee, all you have to do is carry this one thing for her because she physically can’t do it, but everything else she can do.” They were like “trust me, she’s a great seller, you’re going to love working with her.” He actually didn’t, because he just really hated disabled people. People think that’s not a thing, it is. Because he had to do one single thing to assist me, which my previous bosses were happy to do until they got transferred to other departments. I literally did everything else, like I literally bought attachments to my scooter — that cost me money out of my own pockets — so that I could carry more stuff so he didn’t have to do all those things for me. But this was one thing I couldn’t do. And he told me that I was useless, that I couldn’t help him from that chair that I was in, and that I didn’t deserve to get full wages, that he was going to dock my pay because of my disability. I later left that company because I didn’t feel taken care of well enough there, but I’ve experienced stuff like that in other jobs too.
That’s honestly why I prefer to work for myself or do social media, editing, or stuff online, because I can’t deal with being in that environment. You feel like you’re going to have a panic attack because you’re being told to your face by someone who — I mean he was racist too, he would show me KKK pictures, thinking it was funny, it was real bad. The ableism was what stuck with me the most, being told that I was basically furniture by someone who had the ability to take away my actual income was terrifying. It’s why I fight so hard, I don’t want anyone to have to go through that, it’s really sickening. I know that the law in many states is that they can pay disabled people less than minimum wage because “oh it’s fine, they don’t know any better, they’re just happy to have a job.” And that’s legal!
How do you balance creating with the rest of your life?
Balance? What is that? With me it’s more like how many spoons do I have? If I don’t have enough energy to do a thing that day, it’s not happening. There are days where I’m having a flare up and I can’t move or I can’t stop shaking and I can’t shower or cook or do anything besides, if I’m lucky, open the protein shake by my bed that I hopefully remembered to leave there so I don’t die. So I can’t work on costumes, I can’t take commissions because I don’t know how much mobility I’m going to have, and I don’t want to make anyone miss their deadline. I’ve had to refund orders because I wasn’t able to get it out in a certain amount of time. That’s why I really like to do things that require me just to be able to use a computer, although my disability is one that affects my whole body — it’s one of those systemic ones — so sometimes I lose the ability to use my hands, so I can’t type. And you then have to spend time convincing yourself and others that you’re still worth hiring, despite all of this. Because the days I am on, I am on, I am in it.
It’s all about working when I can and leaning on the people that are there for me emotionally speaking because sometimes it’s hard. Trying to manage your schedule, trying not to make too many things too fast, especially with costumes. I’ve been cosplaying since 2009 and I have like 80-something costumes so it’s one of those “maybe just wear this old one and don’t make a new one because you don’t really have time for this.” And I haven’t even worn all of them yet.
Do you have any advice for young creators or ones just starting out?
Do not measure yourself against your peers or idols. Measure yourself against your own progress. Work on being the best version of yourself that you can be and don’t get caught up in trying to keep up with the Joneses or whatever because that way lies pain and misery, don’t do it. Definitely don’t do anything outside of your own means — stretch a little bit but not too much.
Remember that you started in this for fun and then get good at it and somebody offers you money and then you take the money. That is how it worked for me. That’s probably how it’ll work for you. Maybe with comic book writing and art it’s different, but it’s not though because you did draw it for fun, you didn’t draw it because you were trying to be famous. You drew it because you wanted to create something and you wrote because you were trying to create something. You wrote a fan fiction because by god they should’ve been gay in the story, they’re gay now! That’s why you wrote it and what you write may be good enough to get published but you have to keep writing for yourself before you do anything else. That’s what I’m doing I’m still writing for myself. Eventually my story will be good enough for other people to see it and it’ll get published, I’ve already talked to someone about that so that’s exciting, but it’s really about doing art that you love and then maybe other folks will like it too. But it’s okay if they don’t because you made it for you.
What has been your favorite or most memorable cosplay experience?
Credit: DTJAAAAM
There’s a couple that really stand out. The building process of (Commander) Shepard (from Mass Effect) was absolutely horrible and I never want to do it again because I was someone who primarily sewed costumes and that was the first suit of armor I’d ever made. I cut and burned myself many many times. I famously cut and burned myself at the same time using what basically a pocket lightsaber. Mistakes were made. It was an exacto-knife that heats up to 400 degrees. I was cutting and gluing and heat forming at the same time with three different heat tools with no gloves! Children don’t do it, use protective gloves. And I reached without looking and I picked up the blade by the wrong end. And it removed a fingerprint and a chunk of finger was just gone. And I screamed so loud that my roommate who was on Ambien woke up. And he was like I’m just going to go to the store and get you some burn cream. God bless that man, he saved me, he’s a hero to us all. The best part was that the costume wasn’t done, and the con was in four days, so I finished it with my left hand. And I wore it, and I got to meet half the cast of the game so it was all worth it.
But my favorite experience in a costume: cosplaying Nakia from Black Panther has been the best experience ever, no matter which version I’m in it’s always positive feedback and it’s really great. And I get to cosplay with my friends because of course we’re all the Wakandan high council, we get to cosplay Wakanda together. We always have a great time with it. Just getting to be a positive Black hero that everyone knew was so great.
Do you have any future or current projects you want to plug?
Everyone should buy The Adventure Zone because everyone worked super hard on that book and it’s amazing, if you love D&D, if you love podcasts, if you love really good graphic novels, go get The Adventure Zone.
I’m going to be at NYCC at booth 1483 promoting my company LGBTHQ, I’m one of the codirectors and cofounders, we like to promote queer comic book writers and gaming people all over the industry. If you’re queer we’re here for you, we want you to get your work out there. Buy Kid Riot Comics, they are New Jersey’s premiere queer superhero team, we’ve got some awesome superheroes, we actually did one, their new superhero is from Ghana and they looked for Ghanaian sensitivity readers to make sure she was written accurately, I really support that I love them for that. They have a trans superhero called Riot Diva, I love her design, and they did a lot of work speaking to trans people to make sure that she was written correctly. So I really like Kid Riot comic books, their new book is called Riot Squad because they wanted to do a team book not just one person. They’ll be at NYCC as well.
I will be the Cosplay Guest of Honor at Geek Girl Con in Seattle. I’ll be doing some panels there, one is about Disability and Cosplay in Media. I have a lot of cons coming up. I want to try to plan for the future because I want people to know that even if your disability gets to the point where you literally can’t do anything, don’t think of yourself as bedridden because you can escape, you can do things that bring your reach outside of your general area, and you can still affect people even if you yourself aren’t physically there. But I want to be physically there for as much as I can.
Jay Justice (@ThatJayJustice) is a Jamaican-American cosplayer, editor, and advocate. Her work has been featured by SyFy, BBC America, and Marvel Comics, and she has been the inspiration for new characters in DC Comics and Boom Studios. Since 2009 she has crafted over 70 costumes and created panels at conventions across the country on the topics of comics, gaming, diversity in media and costuming. As an outspoken POC, LGBTQIA+ and disability advocate, Jay is dedicated to creating lasting change within her community & inspiring others to do the same.
Shop: email thatjayjustice @ gmail to order
YouCaring: http://www.youcaring.com/jayjustice-1066395
Paypal: http://www.paypal.me/ThatJayJustice
Kofi: http://ko-fi.com/thatjayjustice
Wishlist: http://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/39CF70CLIQCDD/
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The pivotal role of Azerbaijan oil and Baku
Start » The pivotal role of Azerbaijan oil and Baku
By Jabi Bahramov and Haji Hasanov, published 15 Aug 2011
As early as the 15th century, Baku was an important international trading centre for merchants travelling between the East and Europe. Caravans of camels and merchant ships transported oil, salt, madder and saffron. In the 19th century, the rapid growth of the oil industry caused a total modernization. By the turn of the 20th century, Baku was one of the biggest industrial cities of the world.
The oil wells drilled in 1846 at Bibiheybat in the Baku region were the first mechanically-drilled oil wells in the world and represented an important technical innovation. It is worth pointing out that the USA, the world’s first oil producer, started using this mechanical-drilling method 13 years after Baku. In 1860, the volume of oil produced in Baku was 247,814 puds, in 1862 this figure reached 337,926 puds (approximately 5,500 tons) and it continued to increase. In 1870, Baku oil fields were producing 1,482,100 puds (24,000 tons) a year.
One of the reasons for the rapid development in oil production was the growing demand for paraffin in the Russian Empire. From this period onwards, paraffin was used not only for oil lamps, but also as a fuel for the Russian Empire’s developing industry. This increase in oil production resulted in the emergence of an oil-refining industry.
In 1858, the Transcaspian Company, owned by the Russian capitalists Kokorev and Gubonin, built the first oil refinery at Surakhany in the Baku region. In 1861, N.I. Vitte, a Tbilisi pharmacist, built a paraffin factory on Pirallahi island and, in 1863, Javadaga Malikov built an oil-distillation plant in Baku to produce paraffin. By 1867, there were 15 oil refineries in the Baku region and in 1873 it had increased to 50.
The start of the distribution of oil fields acquired at auction in 1872 changed the oil industry into a capitalist production sector and oil production doubled. In 1876, the volume of oil produced in Baku was 24,000 tons and by 1882 it had multiplied to 816,000 tons. Oil production in Baku was now outstripping the oil industry of the USA, which was the most powerful oil producer at that time. While the productivity of Azerbaijan’s oil industry in the 1870s was 20 times less than that of the USA, in 1894 it equalled US oil production, reaching 5.55 million tons a year.
This increase in oil production was accompanied by the utilization of new drilling techniques. In the 1870s, the oil industry entered a phase of technological innovation and the expansion of production processes. Originally oil was extracted from hand-dug wells using buckets. Bailers substituted these and from 1871 the Baku oil wells were drilled using the borehole method. The introduction of steam engines in 1873 also played an important role in the development of Azerbaijan’s oil industry.
The tremendous upsurge in the oil industry demanded considerable investment. This attracted foreign entrepreneurs that were capable of investing in fields and factories, and especially in storage and the transportation of oil. The imperial government, which favoured foreign entrepreneurs, adopted a resolution on 1 May 1880 admitting foreigners to oil fields within the Baku region. The biggest representative of foreign investment in the Baku oil industry in the second half of the 1870s was the Nobel brothers’ company, Branobel, with 3 million roubles of share capital.
The Swedish capitalist Ludvig Nobel and the St. Petersburg baron and manufacturer P.A. Bilderling, who was also Nobel’s partner in the Izjevsk armaments factory, founded Branobel. In the mid-1880s, the French banking house of the Rothschild’s established another large enterprise in Russia – the “Caspian – Black Sea Industry and Commerce Society”. In the 1890s, British capital, represented by the honorary citizen of St. Petersburg, James Vishau, made inroads into Azerbaijan’s oil industry. In this fashion, most local concerns came under the control of foreign capital, which resulted in the expansion of foreign capital in the oil industry. The second half of the 19th century can therefore be regarded as a new stage in the history of Baku.
The rapid development of capitalism, the increase in demand for oil, the intensive development of oil fields and the construction of new factories and plants, turned Baku into one of the biggest industrial cities in the world. Within a short time, a number of Swedish, British, Belgian, German, Dutch and US companies opened their representative offices in Baku. The Baku industrial region with several “oil villages” emerged. By the turn of the 20th century, Baku was producing 50 per cent of the world’s oil.
Besides the oil industry, other branches of the economy were flourishing. The world’s first oil tanker, oil pipelines, railways, telephone stations, horse-drawn cars and trams were all to be found in Baku. As a result of this economic growth at the end of the 19th century, Baku became the biggest and most important city of the Russian Empire in the Caucasus.
Even before the oil fever Baku was an important trading centre for merchants travelling with their caravans of camels transporting oil, salt, madder and saffron.
The water well in the middle of the desert landscape outside Baku symbolize the days when Absheron still was relatively sparsely populated with a long distances between villages and without fixed routes.
It took less than half a century for a large and modern industrial city to grow up. Railroad tracks and telegraph wires cut through the town and factory smoke lay heavily over it.
The intensive growth of the city, development of oil fields, construction of new plants demanded a quick solution to the transport problems. Some claim that horse-drawn cars and trams were all to be found in Baku.
A general view over Baku. New liberal legislation encouraged the inflow of foreign capital, which resulted in the dramatic expansion of the oil industry. By the turn of the 20th century, Baku was producing 50 per cent of the world’s oil.
Skilled specialists were important to Nobels’ success
Petrochemical production on a grand scale


Japan correct to fear TPP impact on rice production
Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda announced his decision to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership before leaving Tokyo for the APEC 2011 meeting in Honolulu. If Japan goes forward with placing all of its commodities under the TPP, it would mean the end of centuries of rural rice farming and threaten the country’s food security. Of course, Noda is supporting corporate interests which, under the rubric of restoring “prosperity” to Japanese exports, are quite willing to throw tradition and food security aside in the interests of restored profitability.
Rice is one of the few crops in which Japan is self-sufficient, and opponents of the TPP argue it would destroy the country's agricultural sector and reduce food self-sufficiency to 13% from the current 39%.
[Wall Street Journal, New Zealand: Japan Must Include Rice in TPP Talks, 11/14/2011]
Vultures are already salivating at opportunities presented by the likely death of Japan’s rice farming promised by the TPP.
Japan must put its main staple on the table if it wishes to join talks over the Trans-Pacific Partnership free-trade agreement, New Zealand Trade Minister Tim Groser said.
"The negotiation must include rice," he said in an interview Sunday, if the TPP is to set a comprehensive market-opening example for the rest of the region.
Japan must maintain high tariffs to fend off subsidized exports of countries eager to break into a lucrative market. There is no question that without the support of import tariffs, rice farming would rapidly come to an end, first devastating rural economies and then savaging Japan’s ability to feed itself.
Japan’s rice farmers have long developed cooperative methods of producing rice, but the costs of domestic production are still high. Japan has no equivalent to the huge industrial ag tracts of the American midwest. Farmers typically share cultivating equipment, which moves from farm to farm during the harvest season, for example. Still, they could not compete with cheap imports.
They would not be alone. There are plenty of examples of the effects of predatory exports on the core agricultural economy of formerly self-sufficient countries.
We need look no further than Haiti, in our own hemisphere. Most of the loss of life in the Haitian earthquake took place in the shantytowns where displaced rural families fled in search of jobs. What happened to rice cultivation in a country
Nearly two centuries of rice cultivation shows that Haiti was self-sufficient in its rice supply up until 1980. However, following a severe flood in the 1970’s that drastically reduced the island’s yield, U.S. companies began to send shipments of rice to the island, soon using their subsidized crop to undersell local farmers.
The next major development affecting the Haitian rice market took place after February 7, 1986 when President Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier was ousted from power following a coup d’état. Shortly thereafter, General Henri Namphy took over control of the country. Once in power, the U.S. government coaxed his regime to liberalize Haiti’s economy by slashing import tariffs, closing state-owned industries, reducing the budget of the government agricultural agency in the Artibonite Valley (the primary region where rice is grown), and opening all of its ports to commercial activity.
[Worldhunger.org, Has the US rice export policy condemned Haiti to poverty?, 4/23/2010]
That loss of food security can devastate a country. The Haitian example is clear.
In 1994 the Haitian government entered into a new agreement with the IMF that contained a "medium-term structural adjustment strategy" which "included sweeping trade liberalization measures." In 1995 when this agreement went into affect, Haiti's tariffs on rice imports were cut dramatically from 35% to the current level of 3% (the bound tariff on rice imports is 50%). By comparison, the Common External Tariff on rice in the CARICOM (Caribbean Community) zone for rice in 1999 was 25%.
Rice import tariff reductions in Haiti has made it more difficult for local rice producers to compete with imports. An article published in 1999 after evaluating agricultural and food price policy in Haiti concluded that "reducing tariffs on both rice and corn, decreased retail and farm prices and increased consumption and imports." This is also confirmed by the IMF which in a report 2001 states "Trade liberalization has contributed to a large increase in imports of rice. At the same time, domestic production has gone down substantially."
Some argue that the resulting flood of relatively cheap rice imports originating mostly from the United States has had a negative impact on Haiti. The decline in the demand for Haitian rice has been devastating to an already desperate rural population. Rice farmers are some of the most vulnerable members of the population; the alternative employment options for farmers in Haiti are extremely limited.
Furthermore, competition between Haitian and American rice growers is not exactly fair. While US rice production is "subsidized through a variety of mechanisms", the small, struggling domestic rice industry in Haiti receives no support from the government. Rice farmers do not receive export subsidies or other types of domestic support. According to Mark Weisbrot, Co-Director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, "You can't expect a country like Haiti to compete on world markets immediately. If you look at those countries that have succeeded in dramatically increasing their per capita incomes -- countries like Japan, South Koreas, and Taiwan -- you will find hey all did it under some kind of protection."
[american.edu, Trade and the Disappearance of Haitian Rice, 6/2004]
The Haitian example is one of many. US corn exports increased dramatically as a result of NAFTA, which resulted in the flood of workers into the USA seeking what work they can get. Yet Mexico has expressed an interest in joining the TPP pact.
Canada is reported to have shown an interest in the TPP at the APEC talks, after months of dragging its feet. Should Canada join, it would have to give up protection for its dairy and poultry industry. But because Japan may join the TPP, Canada may find other TPP countries may gain access to a lucrative Japanese market and displace Canadian exports. Canada may decide to kiss its chicken farmers goodbye and aim for the promises of a newly opened Japan.
Nowhere in the negotiations in Honolulu has the issue of job loss due to imports come up. Obama touts job gains for American workers but omits the losses caused by floods of cheap imports that destroy American industries. TPP would be NAFTA all over again, and arguably would mean net job losses in this country and in other signatory nations. Just what jobs will Japan offer to out-of-work farm families throughout its large rural population? The numbers touted by Obama and other leaders are always one-sided: exports will be boosted. The problem, of course, is the job devastation resulting from imports.
Permalink posted by Larry @ 11/14/2011 08:05:00 AM
Mexico is another example of "Free Trade" destroying a countries ability to feed itself. Those former Mexican farmers are now roaming the streets of Mexico looking for work.
# posted by Old Diver : November 14, 2011 at 10:13:00 AM HST
I understand they roam Hawaii as well. Immigration attorneys have Spanish on their voicemails/email sigs.


Jasienica Model United Nations JASMUN 2019
Karolina Sasim
Delegate: Karolina Sasim
Committee: Human Rights Council
Topic: Addressing mass surveillance carried out by governments
Country: Republic of India
Honourable chairs, distinguished delegates,
the delegate of Republic of India is honoured to take part in the conference on the subject: „ Addressing mass surveillance carried out by governments” and join Human Rights Council at the debate. In the name of government of India the delegation feels urged to do anything in its power to help finding a solution to this controversial problem. Republic of India has always been concerned about its people’s security but uses multiple measures of surveillance as it becomes more and more necessary with passing years.
Mass surveillance is the distributive close observation of an entire population, or a substantial fraction of the entire population. By its nature it impacts on people’s privacy and violates human rights in its core meaning. The definition of mass surveillance doesn’t only apply to government of a country’s citizen but also to governments of foreign nations. Surveillance is usually carried out by local and federal governments or organisations that come under the government of a country (like the NSA or FBI). Its purpose is to fight terrorism, prevent crime and


The Railroad That Wasn’t in Morris County
By new_view_media on December 10, 2021 No Comment
Often the fugitive slave had the clothes on his back as his only possessions. (New Jersey Historical Commission)
The fear that traveled with the runaways was being captured and returned to the slave auction block. (Library of Congress)
By Henry M. Holden
The Underground Railroad is an epic American story featuring the forces of righteousness against evil, locked in a moral combat. The fight would eventually eliminate one of the greatest expressions of inhumanity: the ownership of one human by another.
In the years up to the start of the American Civil War (1861), New Jersey was a major route for slaves escaping their masters in the South. The legendary Underground Railroad (UGRR), which was neither underground nor a railroad, is preserved today at sites throughout the region including Morris County.
Most Underground Railroad fugitive slaves came from Kentucky, Missouri, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia. Most were males between the ages of 15 and 30, who traveled alone, by foot, horseback, wagon, stagecoach, train, and boat—and at night, often guided by the North Star.
While most people have heard of the Underground Railroad, few people know that it came as far north as Sussex County. Most UGRR books list Jersey City as the railroad terminus.
There were people like Harriet Tubman who was a major figure in the Abolitionist movement. Maryland put a $40,000 bounty for her capture because she encouraged and strongly advocated freedom for the African slaves. She is credited with helping over 300 slaves reach freedom. She was never apprehended.
There was always a bounty on the head of the runaway slave, from $50 to $500, depending on the value of the slave as a chattel, as was the horse.
Until the outbreak of the Civil War, New Jersey continued to bear witness to the presence of runaway slaves. However, with the passage in 1804 of the New Jersey Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery, these fugitives saw New Jersey as part of the “Promised Land,” where they escaped their master’s lash, or worse.
There are several sites in Morris County which are documented by the New Jersey Historical Commission and listed as “Communities with extant Underground Railroad Sites.” Boonton and Boonton Township are two sites that are preserved.
One of the more conspicuous stops on the Underground Railroad was the Boonton home of abolitionist Dr. John Grimes. There, at the corner of Main and Liberty streets, the doctor harbored fugitive slaves, according to Grimes’ 1875 obituary in The Jerseyman. The railroad’s “Boonton Station,” is now home to a commercial business, and never was underground.
Boonton was an epicenter of anti-slavery work. It was considered an important Underground Railroad link in the New Jersey chain that moved some 40,000 slaves north to freedom in Canada.
Grimes lived there while publishing his monthly newspaper, The New Jersey Freeman, an abolitionist newspaper, and he sheltered runaway slaves in his home.
The Grimes Homestead, in Mountain Lakes, is one of the few documented physical remnants of the UGRR, and the Abolition movement of the 19th century in New Jersey.
Near Grimes’ home, in neighboring Boonton Township, is another station, the Powerville Hotel. It was owned by Nathan Hopkins, whose son Charles became involved in the railroad as a teenager.
He chronicled his Underground Railroad experiences in the 1910 publication Boonton: Gem of the Mountain, which identified individuals and communities involved in the Boonton area’s Underground Railroad.
Hopkins indicated there were Underground Stations at Rockaway, Dover, Pequannock, Newfoundland, Stockholm, Canistear and Charlotteburg, areas at the convergence of Morris, Passaic and Sussex counties.
In the Northeastern part of the state, in Morris County, are Dover, Rockaway, Pompton Plaines, which were UGRR communities. However, there was no town called Randolph, until it was split off from Mendham in 1805, and it is there where a UGRR site and a probable extant building remains.
For decades a rumor floated that the (Quaker) Friends Meeting House (circa 1757) in Randolph was an Underground Railroad station. James Brotherton, a member of one of the founding families, speaking of his father Richard in A History of Randolph said, “Richard was a kindly man, often helping those in need. He felt that slavery was a great wrong and his house, along with the Quaker Meeting House became one of the stops on the Underground Railroad…”
The popular story states that fugitive slaves on the way to freedom in Canada, would stop and rest at the Brotherton house. Richard would feed them, clothe them, and give them a little ready cash, according to his son.
To protect these unfortunate persons from search and seizure by authorities, a secret passage from the Brotherton house to the Quaker Friends Meeting House supposedly existed. With the physical altering of the landscape by developers, it may never be known where exactly that secret passage was.
Should the authorities enter the meeting house itself, with or without respect for the sanctuary, fugitive slaves could be concealed in the gallery with the “shutters” closed, or in a space under the seat where the elders sat.
No fugitive slave was ever reportedly recovered, and the number of slaves sheltered at the Friends Meeting house remains unknown.
The story is derived from Richard Brotherton, who is later repeated as a Newark News feature story.
Today, the Brotherton house is gone, replaced by apartment houses. It is reasonable, based on the proximity of the apartment houses to the Friends Meeting House, that was within walking distance of the Brotherton house.
Those slaves who were not rescued by the Underground Railroad would have to wait until the end of the Civil War and the ratification of the 13th Amendment, on December 6, 1865, for their freedom.
The Underground Railroad was for the slaves who had escaped the terror of recapture, an opportunity to befriend people who were sympathetic to their plight, and to live free.
The Railroad That Wasn’t in Morris County added by new_view_media on December 10, 2021


Rhest for the Wicked and other books
Posted byRobert V Aldrich March 24, 2014 Posted inBlog 2014Tags:Elsewhere on the Web, publishing, real world, rhest for the wicked, writing craft
In case you missed the announcement, Rhest For The Wicked is now available for the Kindle and other ebook readers, with the print version to come shortly (possibly this week). But that’s not all! Haven Publishing House, (aka my publisher) has also released The Pack by Dan Coglan and I Think? No, I’m Sure…God Hates Me by Manny Camacho. The Pack is a fantasy story, while God Hates Me is a collection of various tales about conventions and the wacky world surrounding conventions. Please check them both out…as well as Rhest For the Wicked, of course!
Again, these are all ebooks; the print editions will be available soon.
I first published Crossworld in 2001, so it’s a weird experience being a ‘new author’ a second time around. Given the gap since my last novel came out, I feel like I’m almost starting my career over again. I’m not sure that’s a bad thing. In the intervening years since my first book, I’ve learned a lot about the industry. But it was always as an independent author. I failed more than I succeeded and I have the personal and professional scars to show for it. But I also had a lot of fun and got to realize a dream.
Now signed with Haven, an indie company (and an upstart in its own right), it’s been interesting seeing many of the growing pains I went through when I was first published, only now on a company scale. It’s been a hell of a ride just getting to this point. But now that I/we are here, it’s like cresting a mountain. It’s been long, hard, and arduous, but now we get to look out over the possibility that lies ahead.
This is an incredibly exciting time; professional, artistically, and personally. Having the serials back online, being back in print, and now having a publishing house behind me, a new set of challenges and opportunities presents itself. It’s exciting, to say the least.
For those of you who have been here with me through it all, thank you for sticking by me. For those of you who are just now joining the adventure, welcome aboard. We’re just getting started and there’s a LOT of fun stuff on the way.
And some of it will be showing up sooner than you think! 🙂
Tools of the Imagination — The Hobbit
Tools of the Imagination — Steins;Gate


What does it mean when a guy says he wants you?
If a guy recently told you that he wants you, this post will show you likely reasons why and what you can do about them.
So, what does it mean when a guy says he wants you? Likely reasons why a guy will say that he wants you are that he is attracted to you, he wants to be more than just friends or that he is being dominant.
There are a number of possible reasons why a guy will say that he wants you. However, there are some things you can consider to help figure out the main cause.
Below are likely causes and what would make them more likely.
The reason why he said he wants you could be that he is attracted to you.
This would be more likely if he only said it to you, he said it when he was alone with you, he shows different body language around you than he does with other people and if he also says similar things only to you.
If he is attracted to you, it would be likely that he would show signs of being attracted to you, when he is around you, in his body language by doing things such as:
Glancing at you a lot
Having dilated pupils when looking at you (people’s pupils will often become more dilated when looking at someone that they are attracted to)
He wants to be more than just friends
If he has been your friend for a while, the reason that he said he wants you could be that he wants to have more than just a friendship with you.
If he does want to be more than just friends he would likely show signs of being attracted to you and you might not have picked up on them.
If he did say it because he’s attracted to you, it would be especially likely that he would get anxious while you are with other men your age, that he would become defensive while they’re around you both and that he would base his schedule around yours.
He is being dominant
The cause might have been that he was being dominant. This would be more likely if he said it when you were both around other people.
If he was being dominating then he would be likely to show other signs of dominating behavior such as:
Taking up lots of space
Touching other people
Putting his hands or feet on things that aren’t his
Talking over people
Talking loudly with a deeper voice
Telling people to do things
Squinting
Tight lips
Tension in the jaw
When trying to figure out why he said that he wants you and how he feels about you it would help to consider how he reacts to seeing you.
If he, noticeably, changes his body language and behavior then it would make it more likely that he has particularly good feelings for you.
If he reacts to seeing you by doing things such as:
Then it would be more likely that he said that he is attracted to you because he is attracted to you.
Consider when and where he said that he wants you
The timing of when he said that he wants you would be something to consider.
If he said it when you were around other people, it would make it more likely that he was saying it because he was being dominant. He might also have said it because he was trying to make someone else jealous which would be more likely if he said it when there were other girls with you both.
If he said it to you when you were alone with him then it would make it more likely that he was showing attraction to you.
People can show certain body language signs naturally. This is why it would help to compare how he interacts with you with how he interacts with other people.
If he shows the same body language around his other friends as he does with you, it would make it more likely that he said it because he considers you as a friend.
Whereas, if he shows different body language around you then it would make it more likely that he said he wants you because he is attracted to you and he wants to date you.
Look for a number of body language clues
When considering what he could be showing with his body language it would help to consider multiple signs at the same time.
The reason for this is that a single body language sign can have many different meanings. This can cause single body language signs to be less reliable on their own.
Whereas, if someone shows a number of body language signs that all suggest the same thing then it would make it more likely that they are showing them for that reason.
When a guy gets jealous what does it mean?
What does it mean when a guy makes you laugh?


Webinar – Joint ESIL IG on the EU as a Global Actor/ ILAG Workshop
June 3, 2020 HD IG Events
The City Law School, International Law and Affairs Group (ILAG) and the ESIL Interest Group on the EU as a Global Actor will host a webinar on ‘The European Union’s External Action and International Law: A View From the Outside’ on 12 June 2020.
How is the European Union and its external action viewed from the ‘outside’? As the European Union’s external action continues to expand and evolve, this raises ever more questions about how such practice fits within the state-centric system of international law.
Some practices in the EU’s external action have been criticised as examples of ‘European exceptionalism’, in which the EU receives exceptions from its international partners. The use of disconnection clauses in international agreements; the EU’s insistence that the autonomy of the EU legal order be preserved in dispute settlement bodies; the practice of concluding mixed agreements; among others, have raised concerns for the EU’s external partners. In these instances, the EU seeks certain exceptions under international law to take account the EU’s internal law. The EU’s external action has also attracted certain criticism from international lawyers who have pointed to fields of EU action may contravene international law.
While much of this has been considered from the ‘internal’ perspective, especially by EU law experts, there has been less reflection on how the EU and its external action is viewed from the ‘outside’. This event understands ‘outside’ as a broad term to include opinions and approaches from outside the EU geographically, but also in terms of academic discipline. It may also involve critical and non-Western approaches to the understanding the EU’s external action. The event aims to open up the study of the EU’s external action to outside reactions and perspectives.
Participation in this webinar is possible for a limited number of participants. Please register to receive a link (in case you decide not to participate after all, please let us know as soon as possible to allow for your place to be used by someone else).
CALL FOR PAPERS (now closed)
ESIL 2019 Annual Conference Report
New Journal – European Convention on Human Rights Law Review


Xi Jinping targets serious inequality in China’s “Gilded Age”
China Social Update
Register for myFT Daily Digest to learn about Chinese social news for the first time.
The new style of egalitarianism sweeping China will never work Kweichow Moutai, The manufacturer of spirits. The problem is not only that drunk business banquets were officially labeled “disgusting”, or there was a corruption case involving an official bribes 4,000 bottles of wine.
A deeper problem is that the company found itself on the wrong side of China’s latest great social enterprise. It took four years to create one of the most unequal societies on the planet, and Beijing is now attracted by the slogan of “common prosperity”—or, in other words, redistributing the spoils to hundreds of millions of poor people.
Moutai, drunk in a small glass, costs thousands of dollars a bottle, and has always been a spicy symbol of China’s “gilded age”. Toasting helps to consolidate the comfortable symbiotic relationship between elite traders and government officials, creating amazing wealth for a few charming people.
Therefore, the recent sharp reversal of the fate of Kweichow Moutai may herald the scale of the social engineering project in the minds of President Xi Jinping. The market value of the world’s most valued beverage company has shrunk by US$207 billion since its peak in early February-more than the combined market value of Suntory in Japan and Heineken in the Netherlands.
“The way the Chinese Communist Party views its legitimacy has changed drastically,” said Yu Jie, a researcher at the Chatham Institute, a think tank in London. “Xi Jinping is solving the suffering of ordinary people due to uneven income distribution and the inability to equal access to basic social welfare and certain services.”
A committee led by Xi Call for this week. It stated that China will “regulate excessively high incomes and encourage high-income groups and enterprises to give back to society more.” For a long time, the party allowed some people and regions to “get rich first,” but now it puts “common prosperity” first.
Yu said that the key lies in the social contract between the CCP and the Chinese people. “If the party defends the current status quo, which is clearly unfair in the distribution of wealth and opportunities, the trust of ordinary people will collapse.”
But the task before Beijing is huge. Last year, the number of Chinese billionaires reached 1,058, surpassing the 696 in the United States. Hurun Global Rich ListHowever, about 600 million Chinese live on a monthly income of about 1,000 yuan ($154).
Detailed information on how and at what speed China plans to resolve such inequality issues is sketchy or non-existent. But it is clear that some of China’s wealthiest private entrepreneurs are all aiming.Tens of billions of dollars have been wiped out of the tycoon’s wealth, such as Ma YunAlibaba founder Ma Huateng and Tencent founder Ma Huateng, because the new regulations depressed their company’s stock price.
The reaction of some savvy entrepreneurs is to fall behind Beijing’s agenda. Wang Xing, the founder of the food delivery group Meituan, donated US$2.3 billion to a charity fund that supports education and science. Tencent announces the establishment of a $7.7 billion fund Committed to “common prosperity”, it defines it as increasing the income of low-income groups, health care coverage, rural economic development, and education for disadvantaged students. “As a Chinese technology company blessed by China’s reform and opening up, Tencent has been thinking about how to use its technology and digital power to help society develop,” the company said.
Other potential measures to narrow the gap between rich and poor in China may include major changes to the tax law.Loose tax treatment for technology companies may be completely or partially removed, forcing them to be closer to The national corporate tax rate is 25%, The analyst said. Another measure under consideration is the collection of property sales tax.
But no matter what specific measures are taken, the overall policy direction is firm. This is because of the special way the party issues and formulates its rules.
At the 19th CPC National Congress in 2017, Xi Announce the change In the party’s “main contradiction”-the philosophy that guides all its efforts. The previous concept formulated in 1981 emphasized accelerating economic growth. Since 2017, the party has focused on reducing the inequality that threatens its legitimacy and improving the quality of life of the people.
Chinese analysts say it took Xi Jinping four years to fully support the new policy direction, but he now seems determined. At the 20th Party Congress to be held next year, he must show the progress he has made in achieving his newly set goals.
However, Yuen Yuen Ang, an associate professor at the University of Michigan, said that overall, the clearest way to understand what is happening in China is to compare it with the history of the United States in the 19th century.
The Gilded Age lasted approximately from 1870 to 1900. As millions of impoverished immigrants arrived in the United States, wealth was concentrated in the hands of powerful industrialists. This was a period of rapid growth and severe inequality.That period gave way to Progressive age, An era of extensive social and political reforms. “Xi Jinping is trying to summon China’s own progressive era,” Ang said.
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According to a UNICEF report, armed groups most often recruit children in West and Central Africa
Africa – Children in West and Central Africa have become the most recruited by armed organizations, with the largest number of sexual abuse victims in the world, according to a new report released Tuesday by the United Nations Children’s Fund. According to the report, the region has seen an increase in the number of new and protracted conflicts over the last five years, with more than 21,000 children recruited by government forces and armed groups, more than 2,200 victims of sexual violence, and more than 3,500 abducted, making it the world’s second most abducted region.
“We have the largest number of children in our region that have been recruited and used by armed groups.” We have the largest number of youngsters who have been sexually abused or raped. We are the second region in which children have been kidnapped. “ The Associated Press spoke with Marie-Pierre Poirier, UNICEF’s regional director for West and Central Africa. Because these infractions are cumulative, it is quite rare for a child to be subjected to just one of them, she said. Since the United Nations developed a system to monitor and report on grave breaches against minors, such as recruitment, abduction, rape, and attacks on schools and hospitals in 2005, West and Central Africa have committed one out of every four violations worldwide.
According to the United Nations, violence has had devastating humanitarian consequences for children and communities in conflict-affected countries such as the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the Sahel and Lake Chad Basin regions, with the pandemic exacerbating the situation. As a result of conflict and the coronavirus, more than 57 million children require humanitarian aid, a number that has risen since last year. While the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has the highest rate of children recruited and employed by armed groups in the world and where children are in a particularly vulnerable position, UNICEF is concerned about the situation in other countries.
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“The DRC continues to account for 71% of all recruitment and utilization of children in armed conflicts. However, Mali and the Central African Republic have seen the most rapid growth in recent years, “Poirier explained. For nearly a decade or more, some countries have been a source of concern. This year, Cameroon, Burkina Faso, and the Lake Chad Basin were added to the United Nations’ annual report on children and armed conflict. The report emphasizes the issue of armed organizations recruiting or kidnapping girls. According to the survey, they account for 30 to 40 percent of the children in those groups’ care, and they are the ones who have experienced the most rape and sexual assault.
“The majority of the victims of rape and sexual abuse are females,” the UNICEF regional director noted, “but these girls have great hesitancy even after they flee, even when they are reintegrated.” Many people are hesitant to seek help, and many people are hesitant to use services because of the enormous shame connected with what occurred to them. The United Nations is urging parties to the conflict to prevent and end violations against children, to hold perpetrators accountable, and for aid organizations to increase documentation of violations, as well as prevent and respond to them, by providing not only health and education, but also psychological support.
More than $92 million is needed for child protection in emergencies across West and Central Africa, with more than half of that amount still unfunded. Poirier stated, “The situation is basically snowballing in the wrong direction.”


Russell Crowe in “Fathers and Daughters” by Gabriele Muccino 18/10/2013 15:24 (By Etienne Jean de la PERLE)
Russell Crowe in “Fathers and Daughters” by Gabriele Muccino
“Fathers and Daughters”, the drama film to be directed by Gabriele Muccino for Voltage films will have Russell Crowe (The Gladiator, A Beautiful Mind, The Man of Steel) in the main role.
Being one of Hollywood’s most talented actors, Russell Crowe is will be able to play this role with much dexterity. Before he is seen in “Fathers and Daughters”, his fans will be able to see him in Darren Aronofsky’s “Noah”.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
Russell Crowe being selected to be one of the two main characters of this film is no coincidence. The team being built by Voltage for this project is very specific. Muccino, for example, is the director who has delivered such films as “Seven Pounds” and “The Pursuit of Happyness”. It is therefore a given that “Fathers and Daughters” will be a very potent drama film.
When speaking about Russell Crowe’s involvement in “Fathers and Daughters”, Muccino said: “This is a performance-driven movie, and therefore I couldn’t ask for a better actor than Russell to deliver this intensely emotional drama. It’s edgy, heart-wrenching, and uplifting at the same time. To me, it feels like a classic American movie that recalls the great character dramas of the 70s like Kramer vs. Kramer and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.”
The role of the daughter, the secondprotagonist of the movie, has not yet been allocated. However, according to Deadline.com, it will go to a high profile actress. There have not yet been any rumours regarding this role, but it will surely not be long before they start!
Typos: russelcrowe, russell crow, fathers and dorters, faathers and daughters
Russell Crowe official Twitter page
Image credit:©AFP PHOTO / Robyn Beck


Kenya: Leading By Example
Africa In Fact (Johannesburg)
analysis By Mark Kapchanga
Onyango Okoth was diagnosed with COVID-19 on 14 July after he visited a hospital in Kisumu for what he claims was a routine medical check. The father of four, who works as a fisherman in Lake Victoria in the western part of Kenya, says he had experienced shortness of breath and high fever the previous day, prompting him to look for treatment. "After receiving initial medical assistance, I was advised to go back home as the hospital facilities were packed," says Okoth. "The doctors said I was to self-isolate for at least 14 days." But Okoth, 45, did not know where to start; he'd never heard of self-care. "It was a long, tough and draining struggle with my meagre resources, which had to compete for food, medical equipment and sanitary products," he told Africa in Fact. Faced with this financial pressure, he says he opted to look for alternative and affordable solutions, particularly a special bed that he had been advised to obtain. Okoth's story mirrors the daily struggle of many Kenyans in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
While more than 30,000 Kenyans had contracted the disease by the first week of September, and there had been 581 deaths, many people had also lost their livelihoods, which has translated to escalated poverty rates. On 1 September, the Kenya Bureau of Statistics said in its Quarterly Labour Force report that unemployment had increased to 10.4% between April and June 2020 compared to the 5.2% recorded in the first quarter of 2020. But even though the crisis has meant sweeping changes to Kenyan society, daily routines and work life, it has also acted as a powerful driver of creative thought and innovation, especially among young people. "As much as we are working around the clock to ensure Kenyans adhere to the COVID-19 protocols and guidelines to contain its spread, we are also challenging young people to come up with innovations in response to the outbreak to stimulate economic and job growth," says Julius Korir, the Principal Secretary, State Department for Youth.
Among the eight innovators was Gordon Ogutu, 34, from Nairobi's Githurai slums, who turned to YouTube to learn how critical care beds could be made and improvised locally to fit the demands of the market for people like Onyango Okoth. Ogutu says it was his anger that the Kenyan government was spending billions of shillings to import critical care beds that inspired him to come up with a local solution. Using the know-how he gathered from YouTube, he now makes critical care beds from locally assembled materials. Celebrating the creativity of Ogutu's work during the event, WHO regional innovation advisor Moredreck Chibi said they aimed at continuing to integrate African innovators into the regional COVID-19 response strategy. Ogutu's metal critical care beds are designed to provide comfort and safety to both the patient and the caregiver. The design includes a release feature that allows medical teams to flatten the bed at the push of a button or lever and IV poles with hooks to hang fluids and other medication administered via a drip.
Kenyan fashion desiner of "Lookslikeavido" David Avido, 24, creates masks from remnant of cloth he uses, to hand out to people for free so that they can wear it as a preventive measure against the COVID-19 coronavirus, in Kibera, Nairobi, on March 18, 2020. (Photo by Gordwin ODHIAMBO / AFP)
The beds also have removable heads and footboards, which lock safely into place allowing caregivers to tilt the bed and also to adjust the height. "If they (western countries) can do it, then I knew I could also, perhaps even better," says Ogutu, who graduated from the Kenya Polytechnic in industrial chemistry in 2010. "I gained a lot of knowledge from various online platforms; it was not as complex as I had thought initially." He told Africa in Fact that the demand for his beds had grown exponentially, with small hospitals as well individuals among his customers. "Impressed by my workmanship, customers have come from as far as 500 km away to order their beds. As a result, I have expanded my workshop labour pool to six, sometimes as many as 15 depending on the orders to be made." Among his individual customers is Michael Ndwiga, 54, from Embu in central Kenya, who in June had two suspected COVID-19 cases in his family.
He says he purchased the locally made critical care beds from Ogutu after the government announced the plan for patients to be looked after at home due to congestion in hospitals. "Apart from being affordable, they are of good quality, and (quite) similar to those that are imported from abroad," he said. Ogutu hopes to benefit from President Uhuru Kenyatta's call on 15 July, which instructed the government to procure 500 hospital beds from local innovators. "The locally made critical care beds are a vital aid to public hospitals that are reeling under the pressure of COVID-19-related admissions," President Kenyatta said then. The opportunities arising from the pandemic for young innovators have extended beyond critical care beds to locally made surgical masks, which were initially imported, at a relatively higher cost, from the United States, Europe and Asia.
David Avido, 24, a designer and proprietor of the LooksLikeAvido, a Kibrabased fashion firm that focuses on African fabrics, says he took matters into his own hands to produce masks for the people of the Kibra slums after he realised the gravity of the coronavirus. Unlike other businesses driven by return on investment, he told Africa in Fact that he makes and distributes the masks for free. Since March, Avido said, he had distributed more than 20,000 of the items. For his philanthropy, Avido has received a special commendation from President Kenyatta, listed in the 2020 Presidential Citations Order for Outstanding Professionals in Kenya's response to the coronavirus pandemic. Also among the 68 on the list for the Presidential Order of Service - Uzalendo Award was nine-year-old Stephen Wamukota from Mukwa in Bungoma, western Kenya, who came up with a wooden hand-washing machine to help check the spread of coronavirus.
Top Headlines Kenya Coronavirus Innovation
Wamukota, who came up with the idea after learning on television about ways to prevent catching the virus, says the machine allows users to tip a bucket of water using a foot pedal to avoid touching surfaces, thus reducing the chance of infections. In a bid to enhance innovation, Deputy President William Ruto, in a 24 July tweet, said the government would step up the mentoring and resourcing of micro-, small- and medium-sized businesses and startups "with an appreciation that they are the arteries of our development". He noted that, due to the biting effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the economy, the government would support and forge partnerships with creative entrepreneurs and businesses, big and small, to support their sustainable growth. Young people across Africa, he said, were exposed to environments that encouraged innovation.
"No doubt in the near future, given proper attention and the right environment, Africa will be the centre of global innovations and inventions, where even vaccines for stubborn pandemics like COVID-19 can be found," he said.
Read the original article on Africa In Fact.
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Laboratory Techniques, Protocols, Science
Clinical Cytogenetics – Pt.1: A study of chromosomal aberrations
As we know, cytogenetics is the study of chromosomal structure and behavior by using different staining techniques. In the year 1962, Lejeune proved Waardenburg’s hypothesis (the cause of Down syndrome could be a chromosomal aberration) by reporting the first case of syndrome due to chromosomal aberrations. It was a major breakthrough in cytogenetics research.
With the discovery of the chromosome and related syndromes, researchers wanted to dive deep into the structural and behavioral details of chromosomes. The introduction of cytogenetics helped researchers to study the chromosomes by using color technologies. Later, research advancement bifurcated cytogenetics into molecular and clinical cytogenetics. Molecular cytogenetics refers to the study of chromosomes at the molecular level whereas clinical cytogenetics deals with the study of chromosomal aberrations and related disorders.
After the first report of Down’s syndrome, it didn’t take long to detect several other syndromes due to chromosomal aberrations. Clinical cytogenetics became a very crucial field to study these diseases and their treatments. Different techniques were developed to study the chromosomal aberrations such as Karyotyping, fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH), Combined genomic hybridization (CGH), and Multiplex-Fluorescent in situ hybridization(M-FISH).
In this article, we will study variant chromosomal syndromes/diseases (for example, Down’s syndrome and turner’s syndrome) due to different chromosomal aberrations (for example aneuploidy and polyploidy), and represent the different techniques that are used to study these diseases.
Clinical Cytogenetics
Clinical cytogenetics is the branch of cytogenetics that deals with the study of diseases due to chromosomal abnormalities to find the medication of different genetic disorders. It is a major area of concern for researchers, as it is difficult to prevent and find a cure for genetic disorders.
Few categories of chromosomal aberrations are given below:
Autosomal aneuploidy
Structural chromosome rearrangements
Sex chromosomal disorders
Prenatal cytogenetics
Chromosome instability.
Let’s look at the first three categories and their examples one by one, which should give you an overview of how chromosomal aberrations occur and what diseases they cause. The remaining categories are discussed in part-2 of this article.
1. Autosomal aneuploidy
Euploidy is defined as the presence of a complete set of chromosomes in an organism. Any deviation from the normal number of chromosomes in somatic cells (excluding sex chromosomes) leads to a condition called autosomal aneuploidy. Aneuploidy results in an extra (trisomy) or missing chromosome and is a common cause of genetic or birth disorders.
It is estimated that there are 0.2% chances of occurrence of autosomal aneuploidy in newborns. It is also observed that the total estimation of the occurrence of autosomal aneuploidy in different chromosomes ranges between 0.26–0.34%. The most common abnormalities are the result of an extra chromosome in chromosomes 21, 18, and 13. Compared to all the other chromosomes, chromosome 21 was found to have a higher frequency of about 0.29% for the occurrence of aberrations. These studies were done by using cytogenetic techniques like Fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH) and Primed in situ labeling (PRINS).
Mechanism of Aberrations
The major cause of the occurrence of aberrations in the chromosomes is Nondisjunction. It is defined as the failure of the separation of chromosomes/chromatids during Meiosis I/Meiosis II. Nondisjunction is mostly observed to occur during meiosis I. The nondisjunctions can be studied by using techniques such as FISH and M-FISH in cells undergoing division.
Figure: The image shows how nondisjunction in the chromosomes during meiosis I and meiosis II lead to aneuploidy conditions in the cells. Source: http://www.scielo.org.co/pdf/sun/v26n1/v26n1a12.pdf
Trisomy, in autosomal aneuploidy, refers to the presence of three copies of a particular chromosome instead of two copies, as usual.
Example of Autosomal trisomies
Trisomy of chromosome 21 , 95% of the time, causes Down’s syndrome. It was estimated that Down’s syndrome occurs more in males compared to females in the ratio of 1.2:1 (this study was done by using the multicolor FISH technique). It was also estimated that the trisomy 21 in newborns is associated with maternal age. The other abnormalities due to trisomy 21 are Robertsonian translocation and mosaicism. By using the karyotype technique, the trisomy of the chromosome can be observed.
The phenotype of down’s syndrome includes craniofacial appearance, flat nasal bridge, small-mouth, thick lips, and protruding tongue. Hands and legs small, having palmar crease; the child also shows short stature and mental retardation.
Trisomy of chromosome 18 causes Edward’s syndrome; named after the scientist Edward whose team first described this disease. This disease is found in 1 in 6000-8000 births and most likely to occur in females rather than males in the ratio of 1:3-4.
The phenotype of Edward’s syndrome includes craniofacial dysmorphism, cardiac anomaly, mental retardation, small-mouth, and clenched hands. It is estimated that the frequency of survival of the child (with trisomy 18) for up to 1 week ranges between 25-35% and 10% or less only survive for at most one year.
Trisomy of chromosome 13 causes Patau’s syndrome; named after the scientist Patau whose team first described the disease. This occurs in 1 in 12,000 births and chances of occurrence is more in females than males. It is found that the chances of occurrence of this syndrome in the fetus increase with maternal age.
The phenotype of this disease includes microcephaly, defective scalp, hernia, polydactyly, cardiac anomaly, polycystic kidneys, mental retardation, and bicornuate uterus. The chances of survival of the child (with trisomy 18) are 5% (for up to 6 months). In maximum cases, it is observed that the newborn could not survive more than 3-7 days.
2. Structural chromosome rearrangements
Structural chromosome rearrangement is defined as relocation/reordering of a part of a chromosome from its own location to the other part of the same/other chromosomes, or it can also occur due to gain or loss of a part of the chromosome. The structural rearrangements are of different types which include: deletion, insertion, inversion, translocation, isochromosome, and ring chromosome.
Mechanism of rearrangements
Chromosomal rearrangements occur due to the exchange of regions between non-sister chromatids or non-homologous chromosomes.
Figure: The image shows all forms of structural rearrangements of the chromosome. Source: DOI:10.1016/b978-0-323-35775-3.00001-1
Examples of structural chromosome rearrangements
a. Deletions
Deletion is the loss of genetic material of a chromosome of an organism. But, not all losses of the chromosomal region lead to abnormalities, i.e. the loss of region od short arm of the acrocentric region and the loss of gene-poor region do not show any major abnormalities or differences in the phenotype of an organism. High resolution molecular cytogenetic techniques are needed to visualize the deleted region of a chromosome.
Few examples of deletions that result in disease conditions are given below:
Wolf-Hirschhorn syndrome: This condition arises due to a deletion in the short arm of chromosome 4 . The phenotype includes mental retardation, cardiomyopathy, hypotonia, growth delay, flat nose bridge, and seizures.
Cri du chat syndrome: This disease occurs due to the loss of a chromosomal region from the short arm of the 5th chromosome . The phenotype includes infant crying like a cat, mental retardation, growth delay, and hypertelorism.
Williams syndrome: This disease arises due to the loss of region 3 from the long arm of chromosome 7 . The phenotype includes short stature, mental retardation, hypercalcemia, hoarse voice, and stellate pattern in the iris.
b. Duplication
Duplication is the gain of a region of a chromosome (an extra copy of the genomic segment) of an organism. Duplications are of two types: direct and inverted. Direct duplications are a copy of a segment of a chromosome in the same order as it exists in the normal chromosome. Inverted duplications are a copy of a chromosomal segment in the opposite/reverse order. Duplications of a segment are generally less severe than the deletion of a segment of a chromosome.
Some of the diseases that are caused due to duplication of a segment of a chromosome are listed below:
Beckwith-Wiedemann syndrome: This disease occurs due to the duplication of the 15th region of the short arm of chromosome 11 . The phenotype of the disease includes hypoglycemia, ear creases, macrosomia, susceptible to the tumor, and learning difficulties.
Pallister-Killian syndrome: This disease occurs due to the duplication of a region of the short arm of chromosome 12 (mosaic tetrasomy) . The phenotype includes hyper or hypopigmentation, mental retardation, prominent forehead, and protruding lower lip.
Potocki-Lupski syndrome: This disease occurs due to the duplication of the 11th region of the short arm of chromosome 7 . The phenotype of this disease includes hypotonia, cardiac anomalies, mental retardation, abnormal behavior, and dysmorphic features.
c. Inversions
Inversion is a type of structural rearrangement in which a segment of a chromosome breaks at two places and then rejoins in an opposite/reverse order. Inversions are of two types: pericentric and paracentric. Pericentric inversions involve centromere and the inversion in the segment changes the banding pattern of the chromosome and centromeric position (two breaks on the two sides of centromere). Paracentric inversion does not involve centromere and the two breaks occur on the same side of centromere.
The inversions in the chromosomes can be studied by using banding techniques (karyotype or multicolor/karyotyping). The examples of Inversions are: inv(3)(p25q21), inv(5)(p13q13), and inv(2)(p12q13).
Some of the disorders caused due to inversions in the chromosomes are given below:
Hemophilia A: This disease occurs due to the homologous recombination between gene A (located within intron 2) and a segment of other copy of gene A (located 500 Kb telomeric position). This recombination creates a defect in factor VIII gene which is present at the long arm of the X chromosome. This causes Hemophilia A.
Hunter Syndrome (or mucopolysaccharidosis type II): This disease occurs due to the homologous intrachromosomal recombination between two locus of the X chromosome, which are IDS and IDS-2 loci. The recombination causes improper functioning of the enzyme iduronate-2-sulfatase that leads to a lysosomal storage disorder.
d. Translocation
Translocations are the exchange of segments between two non-homologous chromosomes. It is of two types: reciprocal and non-reciprocal translocation. Reciprocal translocation is the exchange of a part of a chromosome with the other non-homologous chromosome. This generates two mutations or translocated chromosomes in one event. The non-reciprocal chromosome is a direct (one way) transfer of a part of the chromosome from one chromosome to the other.
There are two types of segregation involved in the meiosis event of heterozygote (which include translocated chromosome and normal chromosome) and they are adjacent segregation and alternate segregation. The adjacent segregation (segregation of chromosomes by the side/adjacent to the other chromosome) generates inviable products because of the presence of duplicated or deleted regions in the chromosome. The alternate segregation (segregation of chromosomes alternates to each other) generate viable products.
Robertsonian translocation
This is a type of reciprocal translocation that involves two acrocentric chromosomes. In this translocation, breaks occur near the centromere that affects the short arm of both the chromosomes. The transfer of a segment takes place between both the chromosome that generate one very large chromosome and one very short chromosome. This pattern of translocation has been seen between chromosomes 13 and 14, 14 and 21, and 14 and 15.
The abnormalities related to the translocations of chromosomes are given below:
Burkitt’s lymphoma: This disease occurs due to the translocation of a region of chromosome 8 that contains the Myc gene to chromosome 14. The translocation disturbs the normal functioning of the Myc gene to control cell growth and proliferation. The overexpression of the Myc gene occurs that leads to cancer.
Chronic myeloid leukemia: This is a type of cancer that occurs due to the transfer of a segment from chromosome 9 that contains the BCR gene to chromosomes 22. This translocation causes an abnormal fusion between BCR and ABL (located at chromosome 22) and causes cancer.
e. Isochromosome and ring chromosome
Isochromosome is a type of structural rearrangement of chromosomes in which the centromere is divided transversely rather than longitudinally. This way, the two copies of the chromosome arms look like mirror images of each other.
A ring chromosome is formed when two breaks occur in a chromosome, giving rise to two sticky ends that reunite to form a ring.
3. Sex chromosomal disorders
The sex chromosome (X and Y) contains hereditary information and decides the gender of an organism. The abnormalities of the sex chromosomes are less severe than the autosomal aneuploidies but are most common among living beings. It is estimated that the numerical abnormality of the sex chromosome occurs at the frequency of 1 in 500 births.
Few examples of the numerical abnormality of the sex chromosome are explained below, in brief:
Turner syndrome: This disease appears due to one missing X-chromosome . The frequency of occurrence of this disease is 1 in 2500 births. The phenotype of this disease includes congenital heart anomaly, neck webbing, edema in hand and leg, and renal anomaly. An adult having this disease will have short stature, dysmorphic features, and ovarian failure.
Klinefelter syndrome: This was the first identified sex chromosome disorder. This disease results due to the appearance of an extra X chromosome. The frequency of its occurrence is estimated to be 1 in 575-1000 newborn males. The phenotype of this disease includes small testicles and penile, infertility, pear-shaped hips, gynecomastia, and decreased facial and body hair.
There are more numerical disorders of sex chromosome such as XXX, XXXY, and XXYY. All these disorders are studied by the Karyotyping technique, which helps the researcher to have a clear view of the genome of an organism and detect the numerical abnormalities.
Cytogenetic techniques are crucial in helping researchers to have a deep insight into the structure and function of the chromosome. Clinical cytogenetics provides information regarding chromosomal disorders, the cause of the disease, and helps the doctors in genetics counseling. It is also helpful in finding the cure of the disease and to diagnose and monitor the effects of treatments (such as in the case of cancer). There is a huge scope of evolution of this technique and the combination of high throughput technologies can provide precise and high-resolution results in the future.
So far, we looked into the structural and numerical chromosomal disorders and the diseases they cause. In Clinical Cytogenetics – Pt. 2, we discuss prenatal cytogenetics, the cause of spontaneous abortions, and how it helps in detecting diseases in the fetus, as well as in the process of genetic counseling.
Bondeson, M.-L., Dahl, N., Malmgren, H., Kleijer, W. J., Tönnesen, T., Carlberg, B.-M., & Pettersson, U. (1995). Inversion of the IDS gene resulting from recombination with IDS-related sequences in a common cause of the Hunter syndrome. Human Molecular Genetics, 4(4), 615–621. DOI:10.1093/hmg/4.4.615
Gersen Steven L. and Keagle Martha B. (2013). The Principles of Clinical Cytogenetics (3rd ed.), Springer, New York.
Miller, M. A., & Zachary, J. F. (2017). Mechanisms and Morphology of Cellular Injury, Adaptation, and Death1. Pathologic Basis of Veterinary Disease, 2–43.e19. DOI:10.1016/b978-0-323-35775-3.00001-1
Mostapha Ahmad, Silvera-Redondo C., Muna Hamdan Rodríguez (2010). Nondisjunction and chromosomal anomalies. Salud Uninorte, 26 (1): 117-133.
Rosslter, J. P., Young, M., Kimberland, M. L., Hutter, P., Ketterling, R. P., Gitschier, J., and Antonarakis, S. E. (1994). Factor VIII gene inversions causing severe hemophilia A originate almost exclusively in male germ cells. Human Molecular Genetics, 3(7), 1035–1039. DOI:10.1093/hmg/3.7.1035
Anjali Singh is a freelance writer. Following her passion for science and research, she did her Master’s in Plant Biology and Biotechnology from the University of Hyderabad, India. She has a strong research background in Plant Sciences with expertise in Molecular techniques, Tissue culture, and Biochemical Assays. In her free time outside work, she likes to read fictional books, sketch, or write poems. In the future, she aspires to pursue a doctorate in Cancer Biology while continuing her excellence as a scientific writer.
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Biblioctopus was conceived in the mid 1970s by Mark J. Hime, they published their first Catalog (Biblioasis One) on May 1, 1980, exhibited at their first bookfair in 1981, and continue to do both to this day.
The back story is dull but here is a terse recounting. Mark was born in Los Angeles (1944), was always immature compared to his peers, graduated high school in 1961, attended Santa Monica City College and U.C.L.A. and after 2 years of playing hard and studying little drifted into his father’s fine jewelry business (Marvin Hime & Co., Beverly Hills) where he worked (again off and on, and without aims) throughout the 1960s. As the ‘60s disintegrated he circled southern California with his girlfriend of the moment (Melissa Montgomery, 1948–) looking for a place to live where they could try to grow up, away from the turmoil that had fallen upon their generation. By 1972 they had settled in Idyllwild, California, a small forest town of 2,000, surrounded by National and State Park land, half way up Mt. San Jacinto (10,834 feet at the peak). They married in 1973, made babies in 1974 (Jennefer) and 1976 (Adam) and recognized that sleepy Idyllwild would not supply a reasonable source of income, so they would have to find some way to support themselves with money made in the wider world. A simple (purely practical) search began for the most expensive thing per pound that was traditionally sold by catalog, and delivered through the mail. They compromised their criteria by adding to their initial principles, that their product be something they liked and respected, and for which, perhaps, they would be liked and respected, and thus was conceived, Biblioctopus and its 1st editions of the classics of fiction. By 1984 they were book–world famous (something like being the prettiest girl in Antarctica), in 1987 they had a third child (Alexandre), in 1991 they opened a new location (Beverly Hills) so as to be more accessible to collectors, divorced in 2001, and under the leadership of Jennefer and the directorship of Alexandre (carrying the now aging and increasingly quirky Mark), settled in their current location (Century City) in 2012. Mark continues to write the catalogs and shows up at an occasional book fair, but Jen and Alex now pilot Biblioctopus.
So what of the future?
We have got,
Alex and Jen,
And they have not.


Italy’s leather sofa: The embossed Italian leather sofa was the best thing ever?
Italian leather was the most popular furniture in the 1950s and 1960s, and today, the leather sofa is still popular.
As with many things in Italy, the best quality leather has always been the one most affordable.
The problem was that it wasn’t always available in the same condition as the rest of the world’s furniture.
In the mid-1950s, the Italian government was looking to develop the country’s economy and it was looking for a way to reduce its dependence on foreign imports.
The government was in the process of opening up its textile industry to foreign competition, and the new factory in Naples was the first step in that direction.
The Italians had an interest in reducing their dependency on foreign suppliers, and so the factory was equipped with the most modern machinery, which allowed for a higher quality of leather.
The Italian leather furniture was called the Embossed Leather Stools.
They were made from a thick, black leather that had been treated with a special substance to improve its leather quality.
But the Embazoned Leather Chair, which is also known as the Embroidered Leather Chair or the Emboiled Chair, was the one that was widely known to the public, because it was a popular item in the U.S. It was also known in Italy as the Leather Chair.
The Emboidered Leather Stool is the standard furniture in Italy and is made from leather from an animal that’s been dyed white and embosses with a diamond shape, which means it’s an embossing.
This emboss can be found on all of the Italian leather chairs, which have a diamond shaped design on the back, and on some of the leathers used in the Embozed Leather chairs.
It’s also available in different colors and sizes, as well as being available in a wide variety of finishes.
The leather chair has a smooth leather back and is designed to hold up to a 15-inch weight.
You can also find a number of different types of leather, such as the leather in the chair’s handle, which has a very light texture.
The embroidered leather chair can be made from any number of materials, but in the United States, the Embosored Leather Chair is the most common.
The price of an emboored leather chair ranges from $300 to $1,200.
The most expensive leather chair is the Embotic Chair, a chair with a black leather back.
The chair is made of an exotic and unique animal, which was dyed white.
It has a diamond-shaped design on both the back and on the seat.
This leather chair also has a thick leather backing that is covered with embossings.
If you want to buy an Embotic Leather Chair from Amazon, the seller recommends that you purchase an Emboored Leather chair because the chair is available in many different finishes.
If your leather chair doesn’t have an embosored leather back, the embossers can be bought in the stores or at your local hardware store.
The best way to keep up with all the latest news about the leather industry is to subscribe to the Leather Brief Newsletter.
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