Friends of African Village Libraries (I post regularly here)- Photos from Sherigu community library in Ghana
- Photos from Gowrie Kunkua community library during the night session, Ghana
- Sumbrungu Community Library nighttime reading
- Résumé du livre Une grande mère criminelle
- Organisation d’une séance de discussion autour d’un livre à la bibliothèque de Dimikuy
- Librarians of Tuy monthly meeting January 2026, Burkina Faso
- Impressions sur la production de livres CMH au Burkina Faso
- Compte rendu de la première rencontre des gérants de la zone du Tuy
- Science fiction books for libraries in Burkina Faso and Ghana
- Animation d’une séance de lecture à la bibliothèque de Dimikuy
Author Archives: mkevane
I bet the framers of the Federal and Puerto Rico constitutions had clear, original intents on the issue of Cofina vs. general obligation bonds
The dispute between COFINA bondholders and Puerto Rico’s general obligation bondholders took a new turn Wednesday, as the former parties asked the federal judge overseeing the commonwealth’s restructuring to let Puerto Rico’s Supreme Court determine once and for all whether … Continue reading
Posted in Burkina Faso
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Burkina Faso Travel Warning
The Department of State warns U.S. citizens of the risks of travel to Burkina Faso, and recommends they avoid travel to the northern part of the Sahel region, and exercise caution in the rest of Burkina Faso, due to continuing … Continue reading
Posted in Burkina Faso
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Oil discoveries did not change female labor force participation in southwest U.S.
Am teaching the paper by Michael Ross on oil, Islam and women. Here is a nice paper by Stephan Maurer and Andrei Victor Potlogea that addresses the question with far better data and methods. Fueling the Gender Gap? Oil and … Continue reading
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New photos books for Burkina Faso libraries published in fastpencil
I am so proud of our team in Burkina Faso, especially Sanou Dounko, Guy Roland Hema and Alidou Boué, who have been creating photo books for printing and distribution to the Burkina Faso libraries. Interns Beth Borowsky and Maria Haddad … Continue reading
Posted in Burkina Faso, Development thinking, Education effects
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Body language of DCE sacked over galamsey and death Cpt Mahama
The District Chief Executive for Upper Denkyira West District in the Central, Daniel Appianing was sacked last week (by President Nana Akufo-Addo directly, apparently!) for suggesting that Captain Mahama- found murdered in a brutal way was responsible for protecting Chinese … Continue reading
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Michael Nyman – Water Dances – II. Stroking
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Trash talking by COFINA bond coalition, in Puerto Rico debt restructuring
The COFINA Seniors Coalition, which collectively holds approximately 32% of the senior bonds issued by the Puerto Rico Sales Tax Financing Corporation (“COFINA”), provides the below comments concerning the implications of the decision to grant Bank of New York Mellon’s … Continue reading
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A few more sci-fi short stories and novellas – Reed, Egan, Le Guin, Chiang, MacLeod
I checked out Gardner Dozois “The Year’s Best Science Fiction” (16th annual, including stories published in 1998). A smattering of really good reads, but this was one of the first volumes in this series where I was disappointed. Among the … Continue reading
Posted in Book and film reviews
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Nowhere to Run: Nigeria’s Climate and Environmental Crisis
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U.S. judge freezes Puerto Rico debt payments
A federal judge on Tuesday ordered the trustee for Puerto Ricos COFINA bonds not to make a $16 million payment due on June 1, allowing creditors to litigate competing claims to the money that could be central to how the … Continue reading
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Ghana’s ‘galamsey soldiers’ scandal?
The Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, Mr John Peter Amewu, had challenged the leadership of the Ghana Armed Forces (GAF) to come clean on the activities of some soldiers who have been providing security at illegal mining sites. The … Continue reading
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All about the human condition: Recent stories in The New Yorker
Deborah Treisman (the fiction editor at The New Yorker) basically only seems to want to publish stories about the small, emotion-laden, identity crises of people whose choices involve their feelings. Should I feel good about that person, or bad about … Continue reading
Posted in Book and film reviews
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Russ Roberts realizes he didn’t make the cut for “Team Development”
I found this exchange between Lant Pritchett and Russ Roberts priceless. I was on a long run, and nearly keeled over laughing. I checked my jersey, to see what my number was on Team Development. Yup, 4657. But then I … Continue reading
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Reading in PDF files into R to do text analysis
Turns out Clay Ford at the University of Virginia wrote a nice tutorial for this, and a package does the trick very nicely. I tested the “update” at the bottom of the post which shows how to use the pdftools … Continue reading
Posted in R statistics
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For people who teach de Mel, McKenzie and Woodruff (returns to women micro-entrepreneurs =0!)… a possible important new complication
In a 2009 paper, David McKenzie and coauthors Chris Woodruff and Suresh de Mel find that giving cash grants to male entrepreneurs in Sri Lanka has a positive and significant return, while giving the same to women did not. David … Continue reading
Posted in Development thinking, Gender
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Ira Kukin passed away
Ira Kukin was a chemist, and was the benefactor of Henry Rosovsky’s dream, the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies. The couple times I met him as an Academy Scholar, he was engaged and curious. Yeshiva University mourns the … Continue reading
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Recent leisure reading
Windup Girl Tana French
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Apparently U.S. does not want to release H-1B gender breakdown
Computerworld filed a FOIA request for H-1B gender data last year and was told that providing such information would be “unreasonably burdensome.” “In order to determine the gender of H-1B applicants, USCIS staff would have to manually search each applicant’s … Continue reading
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How much was spent on public services for the homeless in Santa Clara County in 2015? $520 million a year
But now, for the first time, a staggering fiscal cost has been calculated: $520 million annually. A new study, described as the most comprehensive look ever at the expense of homelessness on a community, has determined that more than $3 … Continue reading
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Michael Kevane 