Not this summer, not the death of the novel again

Don't get me wrong. I think Matthew Baldwin who came up with the Infinite Summer idea to read David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest this summer, along with like-minded people, is a great one.  A multitude of blogs have sprung up, it's a hit on Facebook, Twitter and even around the prehistoric water cooler, talk is of the 1,078 pages by the genius who last year committed suicide. He was working on his second novel and, in a weird way, he reminds me of the character in Camus' La Peste who spends his life trying to write a perfect sentence about a rose and dies without achieving it. Maybe the same demons in Wallace's second novel.

I have Infinite Jest  on my nightstand and had planned to read it this summer, however now I can't, or won't. I feel coerced. (Believe me, I know how childish this is, this outlandish tendency to translate even the slightest suggestion into an order. I must be free!) I'll read it later when it's not so cool to do so, although he will always be cool, as heard below.

However, that's not my point today. I'm weary of the hoopla that's accompanied this summer project, the lament of the death of the novel, Round 283. In a recent piece in the Globe, John Barber (a favorite writer of mine) hauls up the hoary litany of writers and editors who have made just such declarations. He cites V.S. Naipaul (love him too) saying the novel is "over" and edification from Naipaul's editior Diana Athill in her book, Somewhere Towards the End. Barber recounts Athill's premise there are no modern equivalents to Eliot, Tolstoy, Dickens and Proust. She writes: "They are so rare because they are a different kind of person, just as a musical genius is: They have an imaginative energy of a kind so extrordinary that it is hardly too much to describe it as uncanny." Barber notes Athill's view the the contemporary novel is no substitute for those greats of the past, although she makes an  exception for Infinite Jest.

Hooey. How many times have we heard this? I think it was Tom Wolfe who was going on about the death of the novel one summer a few years ago when I happened to be engrossed in American Blood by John Nichols. (Seem to recall Norman Mailer making a similar point.) Does Wolfe read nothing but himself? In my view, American Blood, about war and the awful redemption, is equal to All Quiet on the Western Front or The Thin Red Line. It's the book on the Vietnam War that opens with a pig noshing on the strewn intestines of a dead child on a Vietnamese road and moves to America with the shell of soldier/man seeking to restore his own life through a bond with other human beings. It's all that's possible after the hugeness of horror - redemption through the individual. The Bonfire of the Vanities is a good, speedy read, rollicking entertainment. But it's not the American war novel. (I know, Nichols wrote a lot of other books that come nowhere near the quality of American Blood.) I argue this does not make me, too, a literary snob because Wolfe set the terms of debate.

This idea the greats who died long ago can't be replaced is elitism. For me, Eliot is in a class of her own (and I'm not a Proust afficionado), however while Dickens and Tolstoy (big fan of both) are brilliant chroniclers of their time, I wouldn't say they can't be matched by living writers, or those of the last century. To toss off a fast list: John Steinbeck, Vikram Seth, Edward P. Jones, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Margaret Laurence, Margaret Atwood, Cormac McCarthy . . . I could spend all day on the list. So could readers.

Ignore literary pronouncements and just read. Whatever you like, without feeling it doesn't count if you aren't rereading Anthony Trollope or James Joyce for the upteenth time.

Enjoy.

That's my segue into a two-week break from the Decoder in which I plan to inhale as many books as I possible can. Some may even be classics by a deceased literary genius or two. I'll save Infinite Jest for Christmas.

Back on August 17.

Liberals: Of polls, cash and felines

With poll results failing to give Liberals a boost — as my colleague Tonda MacCharles reports today — the party finally has at least some celebratory news. The Party announces today $3.9 million was raised in the second quarter of the year, four times as much as raised last year. That puts their total at $5.7 million for 2009 to date. The party began the year with an estimated $3-$4 million debt, and it's not clear if it's been wiped off the books.

By the way, none of the parties got particularly good news in the latest poll by Angus Reid Strategies for the Toronto Star.

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Just a thought: Sandra Buckler, who used to head communications in the PMO, returned to public life last week after a hiatus. She's now chief of staff to Public Safety Minister Peter van Loan. However, with Kory Teneycke leaving the PMO, isn't there a perfect spot sitting vacant for Buckler? After all, Teneycke replaced her as director of communications a year ago and she's already close to PM Stephen Harper. The word is the Conservatives already have somebody lined up for the PMO. But I'm just saying . . .

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Tell me I heard wrong. I'm a Law & Order fan and Tuesday night caught an old episode of the SVU series about a mother who'd shaken her child to death. On the stand, the prosecutor asked her if she'd ever spanked Lucy. She replied: "I don't believe in corporate punishment."

Surely not!

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Okay, one more political cat photo. Here's Eric the Burmese kitten who joined Mimi (along with Michael Ignatieff and Zsuzsanna Zsohar) at Stornoway recently. He has gotten over an early infection and is doing fine.

Michael Ignatieff is going to meet Rocco Rossi where?

Here's what happens when you don't keep up with your email: I got one from the Liberals today saying Ignatieff would meet Rossi at 1 p.m. at the Ottawa locks by the Chateau Laurier, photos only.

Whaaa-aaa?

The leader is walking a block to meet his own party director? That's news? 

Turns out it is, well, sorta. Summertime news anyway. I'd missed earlier announcements about master fundraiser  Rossi's "Up the Creek" stunt. To mark what Liberals say (hope?) will be Ignatieff's turn as 23rd PM of Canada, Rossi paddled the 23 locks of the Rideau Canal from Kingston to Ottawa, asking for donations of $23 or in multiples of 23, from groups of 23 . . . you get the picture.

Rossi's arrival was to have been tomorrow, but was advanced by a day so he could attend Jerry Yanover's funeral tomorrow.  Nobody can replace Liberal strategist Yanover for his knowledge of all things parliamentarian and he will be hugely missed. He loved Parliament and, though he worked for Liberal prime ministers, he never seemed particularly partisan. I think it's going to be a long time before I don't just automatically reach for the phone to call him  - as I've always done when I had a question about procedure. Nobody can fill his shoes.

Garbage strike: Extra reasons Toronto got a bad name

 It's a good thing the garbage strike is over apart from the ratification  because our neighbours have had just about enough of our bad manners. Sam Cameron from Caledon sent this photo showing garbage illegally dumped in his neck of the woods by a Toronto company (you know who you are!). Cameron, l, is shown with Emil Kolb, Peel region chair and the owner of the cows. He says this incident was the second in a couple of days. Looks like these cows aren't the only critters raised in a barn. 

 

Nicaragua: Children compelled to bear children

A report released today by Amnesty International calling for an end to a ban on abortions in Nicaragua has shocking statistics about the rising death rate among pregnant women in the Central American country. So far this year, 33 girls and women have died in pregnancy, compared to the same period last year and Amnesty blames changes to the Penal Code that expands restrictions on the medical profession. Under stricter provisions, doctors face prison terms for treating a  pregnant woman with malaria, cancer, HIV/AIDS or a cardiac condition if the treatment is contraindicated in pregnancy. Girls and women have been thrown in jail for having miscarriages. Victims of rape and incest are forced to carry the fetus to term, and physicians who are caught peforming abortions are imprisoned. Only 3 percent of the world's countries have a total ban on abortion, according to the rights organization.

After returning from a fact-finding mission to Nicaragua, Kate Gilmore from Amnesty International termed the situation a "human rights scandal that ridicules medical science," at a press conference in Mexico City.  She said one Nicaraguan doctor told the Amnesty group she dreads cases of anencephalic pregnancy, in which the fetus cannot survive, because the patient must nevertheless continue with the pregnancy.  Gilmore said:

"There’s only one way to describe what we have seen in Nicaragua: sheer horror. . . Children are being compelled to bear children. Pregnant women are being denied essential including life-saving medical care."

Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega refused to support a campaign from rights groups in Nicaragua - including girls and women who spoke up - to get the draconian legislation off the books. During that country's civil war of the 1980s, women filled the ranks of Ortega's Sandanista army, fighting and dying alongside the men. It seems in Nicaragua women's lives matter only on the battlefield. 

How safe is your Canada Pension Plan money? Apparently not very.

How worried should you be? 

 NDP pensions critic Wayne Marston (Hamilton East-Stoney Creek) today released another example of that tired axiom that heavy losses appear to go hand-in-hand with big payoffs to executives.

This time, it's the Public Service Pension Investment Board, the crown corporation that manages public service pension contributions. The news isn't good. Marston wants to know why the Board suffered a loss of $9.3 billion in the fiscal year ending March 31, 2009, and still managed to compensate its top six executives with almost $4 million in bonuses. Marston calls the payoffs, "unfair and unwarranted" and says  they're collecting cash rewards "for dismal performance."

It's the second consecutive year the fund has lost money, and the fifth time in nine years it's underperformed.

"The fund's board of directors even warned management not to pay out the bonuses," says Marston. Where is the Harper government on this?"

In June, Marston demanded in the Commons that $7 million in bonuses  paid to members of the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board be clawed back because that board lost $24 billion last year, wiping out four years of CPP contributions. The board's duties are self-explanatory in its title, and most working Canadians are familiar with the Canada Pension Plan. It's likely you'll find a little CPP box on your paycheck showing your contributions to the government-managed fund for that pay period. (Private corporations vary with different plans that can match or partially match employee contributions.) 

Changes to regulations for CPP investment over the years - notably allowing investment in equity markets - have been widely criticized for allegedly putting pensions at risk. During economic downturns it's easy to see why that might be so. Fund managers are playing with your money, after all, and as we've seen, their bonuses and pension benefits are always nicely covered off.  They come first.

Marston's motion also calls on the government to pass legislation to ensure workers' pension funds come first when creditors line up in bankruptcy cases.

Not surprisingly, he has little support beyond his own party.

Airborne fecal matter in Mexico City, er, ah. . . Tra-awna

Now, one hates to be alarmist but, having read and gasped at the the great investigation into odours wafting from Toronto dump sites by my talented colleague Mary Ormsby, I would be remiss to hoard my own knowledge of what this "stuff" can do to our bodies.

Mary brought along the Toronto Star's delightful wine critic Gord Stimmell, whose excellent nose discerned the merely gag-inducing to brink-of-coma scents at our temporary garbage dumps. The most pungent, he said, was of the fecal variety, ripening under sun, moon, stars and nourished by rain. This scares me because I have a special expertise here, so much learned as a foreign correspondent (and I thought such information would prove useless in life). Mary's article reminded me of my fears and preparations before I was posted to Mexico City for seven years more than a decade ago. I saw a top-notch respiratory specialist in Washington, D.C. before I left because I'd been doing a lot of reading about air quality — or lack thereof — in Mexico City and environs. He assured me my lungs were healthy and that the very young and elderly were most at risk. Still, he warned me that fecal content in the Mexico City air eventually brings misery to everyone. 

How right he was. Occasionally, I'd just be uncharacteristically sick for a few days at a time, the result, according to my doctor, of continuously breathing in shit — despite an array of pricey air filters spaced throughout my home and office. There was nothing to be done in the city at large, except live in medical masks which I, perhaps unwisely, declined. I wrote stories about untreated sewage in the heart of the city, a theme I turned  to again when I went down to cover swine flu last April/May and saw untreated porcine sewage as a potential cause of at least some health problems.

I've done a little research for this story here and, as you see according to UN and other environmental agency reports, there are certainly health hazards with airborne fecal matter (human and animal). But most experts offer comfort to Torontonians: the dangers exist mainly in the so-called developing world, where sewage isn't enclosed in pipes and rotting excrement-filled diapers are exposed to the air. Of course, that's no consolation to the folk who inhabit such regions of the world. Nor is it much comfort to the Torontonians who live cheek-by-jowl with the worst poop sites, as identified by Mary and Gord "The Nose" Stimmell. Do you wish to take the assurances of city officials spraying napalm (I jest) on baby diapers and assuring us we're safe?

You do? Well, a trusting heart surely leads to a longer, less troubled life. For my part, I'm uncomfortable being able to smell fecal matter like that. It can't be good for our health — no matter what they say.

For my part, I stand firm: airborne fecal matter, bad.

And so we go, full-speed ahead towards the ultimate end of summer, apparently well-behind in our diligent H1N1 planning, with Kurt Vonnegut mounds of garbage to bequeath to our children and grandchildren, with the pronouncement, "Someday, my boy, this all will be yours." Yippee.

* * *

I apologize for a recent two-day disappearance without notice. I got caught up in a long-term assignment and had forgotten to advise Decoder readers. Slap my hand, there's no excuse for such lack of manners.

David Miller and lessons from the striking pink collar ghetto

As the Toronto civic workers strike enters its fifth week, here's a letter addressed to Mayor David Miller from a striker who says she works for the social services sector (Local 79). Since this strike began, journalists have been bombarded with information from both sides, but this letter in my inbox caught my attention for its reasoned tone and the point she makes that the City treats "pink collar workers like second-class citizens." She points out her local represents public health nurses, daycare workers and social service caseworkers, saying their work isn't considered as important as male-dominated city employees (police, firefighters) who recently received raises not offered to striking employees. On her picket line, she says she's almost been run over a couple of times by angry Torontonians, even though there's no 15-minute wait or three-bag limit. Moreover, she reveals how grateful she was for the sick-day bank when her child was hospitalized with pneumonia. I don't know if this letter was ever actually sent to the mayor but I think it's worth a read to better understand the perspective of the picket line during a strike that inconveniences everyone and, for some, makes life truly difficult.

What's also interesting about the letter is that, rightly or wrongly, the writer holds Mayor Miller personally responsible for the impasse,  criticizing him for leaking the latest proposal to the public. It might be a warning to the mayor. The next municipal election is only a year and change away. Minds are being made up now and, apart from other simmering dissent, a lot of voters belong to so-called pink collar ghettos.

* * *

Another portent for the mayor? It was interesting to read  Michael Posner's Q&A with John Cleese in which the latter referred to a 1979 garbage strike in Britain. Then prime minister James Callaghan returned from meetings in the Caribbean to be asked about the chaos caused by the strike. "What chaos?" asked Callaghan. Most unwise. He was soon to be voted out of office on a non-confidence vote

Rachel Barkey: Death is not dying

This is a departure for Decoder, a link to a video showing an address in  March by a woman who died last week. Rachel Barkey was dying of cancer when she spoke in March to a women's group at Westside Church in Richmond, B.C. and passed away on July 2, She was 37. It's really a departure because this isn't really an address - it's a sermon and that's makes me nervous. Moreover, it's about Barkey finding her strength through Jesus. Decoder is more a "whatever gets you through the night" kind of blog, not meant to support any religion, and that's putting it mildly.

But a friend of Barkey's who just came back from her funeral told me about the video earlier today and I found it incredibly moving. A mother leaving everything she loves. What struck me when I listened was her courage, her love of her children and husband and her ability to show such strength in the face of death. I honour that. I have seen people of different beliefs - both in my personal and profession life - face death with grace and courage. It is not easy and we none of us know how we'll do. Barkey had her answer.

To me, this seems a fitting offering for a Friday afternoon in summer, on the brink of a week off. If it's not your cup of tea, give it a pass.

* * *

Nash for NDP: Peggy Nash will run for the NDP presidency in August. Very interesting. I thought she might go the Ontario leadership, but she didn't. Is this the first step of a plan to run for the national leadership at some point?

* * *

Boo to meterologists: Can't help it, I'm addicted to CFTO's late night weather report, even though I keep vowing to give it up. How could you not like Dave Devall who retired in April after breaking on-air longevity records? Then, Anwar Knight immediately became my guy.

But.

Why won't they let us enjoy anything. Okay, so this summer's a bit of a bummer, but we've had lots of nice days in Toronto. (Try Montreal!) But they've got all this fancy-dancy equipment that allows them to predict 82 days down the road and they're hell-bent on using it. They can't just tell us it will be warm and sunny  tomorrow, and maybe for a day or two after that, but rather warn us it will all end by next week with whatever blah-blah is blowing in from Wichita.

It's too much information. Plus, half the time they're wrong anyway. 

Let us live in the weather moment. Please. At least on occasion. They're not alone, by the way. They're all the same. Let them give us short-term forecasts and, maybe, towards the end of every week, a broadcast that looks ahead three years if they want, and I won't watch.

Sorry about this. Just blowing off steam. And yes, I know, capturing the weather moment is just going outside, and an easy fix for me is to just stop watching. But that's easier said than done.

Decoder is back Monday, July 20. They've already told me when it will rain next week.

Showdown brewing with Ontario First Nations community over outside adoptions

More on the Nation of Lost Souls: Most Canadians believe the odious practice of sending aboriginal children away from their reserves ended with the closing of the church-run residential schools. Not so. Various children's aid societies continue to pack off aboriginal children for adoption by non-aboriginal families; in fact, so many that by the end of March, 2007, Auditor-General Sheila Fraser said 8,300 children were in care. That's more than 5 percent of all children living on reserves and eight times the rate in the general population.  The problems with loss of identity have been well-documented and in a potentially precedent-setting case, a class action suit by children taken during the so-called "Sixties Scoop" is winding its way through the Ontario court system. (See Nation of Lost Souls link.)

Enough, says Constance Lake First Nations. The northern Ontario community is tired of Ontario Children's Aid workers coming into their community to take their children and have passed a resolution barring all future entries. Says Constance Lake chief Arthur Moore: "If for any reason, a representative (of the children and youth services ministry) enters onto Constance Lake territory, they will be treated as trespassers; and if any children are removed from the community, it will be considered a kidnapping."

This, too, is a precedent-setting move and one Chief Moore hopes other First Nation communities will take to heart. As he sums up:  "We are capable of looking after our own children."

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Trying to understand the federal government's nuclear policy? Yeah, me too. Here's a post from one of my favorite bloggers that nicely captures the surrealism of the whole nuclear mess.

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Civic strike perfect time to adopt a pet!

It's impressive to see Fred from onebarkatatime going to the Hamilton Burlington SPCA to walk three dogs sent over from the Toronto Animal Services south shelter where he volunteers. The Toronto south shelter transferred its animals out before the strike by municipal workers. (Some even went to Toronto vets who donated services.)  Fred also went to see Bach (a dog with special care needs for heartworm) who's being cared for at the city's Animal Services north shelter. (The links to Fred's blog provide images of his time with the dogs.) Fred doesn't consider his responsibility to animals normally cared for at the Toronto south shelther over just because there's a strike. Impressive.

He notes on his blog another 30 dogs have been transferred to Hamilton/Burlington. There are three dogs still available for adoption at the TAS site and 105 cats. (I mean, just look at the Mr. Magoo's feline face.) Hours are limited during the strike, but the public can still go and choose a pet -  and the TAS is offering reduced prices until the end of July.

And don't forget about the Hamilton/Burlington SPCA. Browse the site: those faces are to die for.

Sarah Palin: I'm ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille

Oh, that was Gloria Swanson as Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard. Really though, could one be any more dramatic than Sarah Palin's comment on her future political career: "If I die, I die. So be it."

Nothing more on what she plans to do - all very mysterious.

* * *

Common Frontiers has written Prime Minister Stephen Harper asking why Canada stands virtually alone in refusing to call for the restoration of ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya.

The country's "interim" president, Roberto Micheletti is now being praised for agreeing to a mediator - former Costa Rican president Oscar Arias - to try and find a solution to the sticky situation created when the military ousted Zelaya in a middle-of-the-night coup. That came out of his meeting yesterday with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Perfect. Let's see, Zelaya has until November left on his term. He's now promised not to run again. Mediation isn't an overnight affair. July, August . . .

By the way, several Decoder posts on this subject don't mean I think military coups are just peachy, but rather Zelaya's odds of getting his job back are bleak.

Phew! U.S. and Russia to have only about 1600 nuclear warheads each

The pact to reduce each county's nuclear warheads to between 1500 and 1675 over seven years was just announced during President Barack Obama's visit to Moscow.

That is such a relief. I mean, how much damage can a few thousand nuclear warheads do?

* * *

Robert McNamara's death today brings back a memory of the U.S. defence secretary during the Vietnam War. In 2003, I was back in Washington to cover the lead-up to the Iraq war and the eventual U.S. bombing of that country. I was in a Riggs bank not far from the National Press Building at 14th and F Streets and McNamara was having a loud discussion with a bank employee. Apparently he'd forgotten his PIN number for his card, couldn't get any cash and kept saying, "But I'm Robert McNamara. Don't you know who I am? I'm Robert . . . "

It went on for some time and I don't know what happened because I left. He'd been so powerful - a symbol for the anti-Vietnam War movement - and he was small, withered and no longer seemed to have power over anybody.

sic transit gloria

Decoding Sarah Palin

No success in decoding here. It's as baffling now as it was when Palin first announced she's stepping down as Alaska governor. As a summer challenge, try to decipher her goodbye/hello speech.

The media has offered limited analysis, while comedians across America mourn the thought she's leaving permanently. She can't; think of U.S. politics without Tina Fey's Palin.

Diebel tips for finding loons

It's Friday, it's summertime and the weather looks good. Let's lighten the mood with this late offering. 

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For delicious summer reading (non loon-related): I'm a huge fan of Henning Mankell, the Swedish mystery writer and creator of Insp. Kurt Wallander. I have a lounge chair waiting and a copy of One Step Behind all set to go tomorrow.

* * *

A travel tip for Margaret Wente: You don't have to go as far in  Canada to find loons (the feathered variety) as she imagines. First, I should say I like Peggy Wente and think she's totally charming. I write this only out of a sense of duty to my roots. In her Globe column last weekend, she wrote about becoming a Canadian citizen in 1979 and her ensuing romance with the wilderness. Wilderness to her means the Nahanni, Queen Charlotte Islands and Algonquin Park and she says few Canadians experience that. Fair enough, but she goes further:  "Even though we've put loons and lakes on our money, hardly anyone lives near loons and lakes, or even sees them."

Them's fightin' words, lady, for somebody born and raised around Sudbury. The calls of loons and whippoorwills across northern lakes made up the soundtrack of my youth. I learned how to do most everything at family camps (not those effete southern cottages, mind you) and have friends across the mid-North - Sudbury, Timmins, Kirkland, etc.- who grew up the same way. I've spent extensive time in both the Western and Eastern Arctic and they're amazing places, but my primeval wilderness experience came in my own north.

Oh, re Pierre Trudeau's line: "A Canadian is someone who knows how to have sex in a canoe." Damn, and here I always thought a Canadian was someone who had sex with a Mountie. Too late.

Joking! Just joking.

* * *

The PM is not our President. With a Global link to the Parliament Hill incident causing all the flap about Harper.

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Allan Gotlieb wrote the following in a recent Globe column (it's my Globe week): "If we are to seek to preserve our comparative advantage, we should now be aiming to deepen NAFTA, at least between Canada and the United States. Our aim should be to achieve a single economic space and a common security perimieter. "

I know, why don't we just get rid of the bother of even having a separate country?

* * *

More fluff: I love reader email (ldiebel@thestar.ca) and blog comments for their richness, great ideas and, occasionally, moral support. Sometimes I even get an unintended giggle - none moreso than with the reader who took my heads-up to readers in a recent post on Honduras that upcoming links were in Spanish to mean I expect foreign countries to write their newspapers in English to please me - one blogger.

Yes, yes, that's exactly what I meant, running dog imperialist that I am. In fact, when I'm working in Latin America, I scream, wave my arms about wildly and make faces in order to be understood. That's what you do, right?

* * *

A Confederacy of Dunces online book club: love the idea!

Now it's Panama for ousted Honduran president

OK, so it's not today. The latest on President Manuel Zelaya (capped because he's still recognized by UN, OAS, Canada, U.S., etc.) has him returning Saturday. Or so he says.

But now he's in Panama, a country that often hosts exiled politicians and military honchos. There's a lot of huffing and puffing about the age of coups in the Americas being over. The Organization of American States  warns Zelaya must be returned promptly or Honduras risks its OAS membership. (Oh no, not that!)

Meanwhile, Zelaya is in Panama, the renowned choice for exile of deposed politicians and retiring military honchos. The local Honduran press is full of reports (in Spanish, natch) of demonstrations against the allegedly corrupt "Mel" and provisional president Roberto Michiletti is busy appointing his cabinet. The big coffee unions publicly support the new leader. Zelaya has been told he'll return to an arrest warrant and police have begun scooping up his associates - ie. former telecommunications king, Marcelo Chimirri - on illicit enrichment charges. Allegations of cocaine-trafficking have surfaced in Honduras against Zelaya - and that certainly suggests co-operation between Honduran officials and U.S. drug authorities in Honduras.

All of the above are bad signs for Zelaya's return. The OAS is hardly an organization applauded for real action; besides, membership can easily be restored with a new Honduran president in November.

Earlier this week, I said I hope my cynicism about Zelaya's return is misplaced. If not, I won't keep bringing Decoder back to this sad tale of coups being alive and well.