A Happening in Guinea

Yesterday the President of Guinea for about 24 years, a till now little-known man with a name redolent of certain multi-colored flowers and pastel crayons, Lantana Conte, died at 74. Right away the predictable happened. Armed men thought to be soldiers forced the broadcasting of an announcement saying that the government and constitution were hereby suspended, pending further instructions.

Guinea could well be one of the places from which some of my ancestors were transported here not so many hundreds of years ago, but that can never be known for sure.

In any case, this would be a classic ho-hum news story, were it not for the fact that Guinea supplies the world with more bauxite than anyone else.

Where would the world be without aluminum? And in fact where would Africa -- and all the other continents as well but especially Africa -- be without bands of armed men calling themselves "soldiers" and always ready to set and to keep things rolling firmly on the roads to misery and disaster?

It's too bad that humans are thought to have originated in the warmth over on the other, western coast of Africa. The hard times of the snowy climes in Tibet or the Arctic Circle might have produced a better result. But the way things are going still higher up in the Earth's envelope, there might be a chance for that yet, next time.