It’s time for something a little lighter, and nothing cheers me up like a tiny African state whose main export is coups. They’re getting scarce now, these coup factories, and we’ll miss them when they’re gone. Democracy is pretty boring, to tell the truth, compared to a system where you know there’s a new President when the radio station keeps playing the national anthem for 48 hours in a row, and the stray dogs hide under the house-stilts while the junior officers zoom around town in their M-60 mounted jeeps looking for signs of negative, unhelpful attitudes. That’s my idea of an election cycle. For one thing it doesn’t usually take so damn long—no primaries.