This tweet is what really grabbed my attention, though:
If the people of #BurkinaFaso can fight against corrupt leaders, Ghana can also do same! SayNoToCorruptLeaders. pic.twitter.com/GeMvnnrr8U
— Mac-Jordan (@MacJordaN) October 30, 2014
Could the Burkina Faso uprising spread to Ghana or other African countries the way that Tunisia's uprising spread to Egypt and then out to most of the Arab world? Should other African Presidents be worried, as Ken Opalo asks in his recent Monkey Cage piece?
Tens of thousands of protesters demanding the ousting of Burkina Faso's veteran President Blaise Compaore faced off with security forces outside the presidential palace after burning parliament and ransacking state television on Thursday.
At least three protesters were shot dead and scores were wounded by security forces, emergency services said, as the vast crowd tried to storm the home of the president's brother and overran other state buildings.
I tend to agree with the title, even if it rubs my theoretical sensibilities the wrong way.
As to the meat of the article, the major thread is the bureaucracy. I don't see any good answers to this. "Better management and oversight" isn't an answer, though it's a significant part of the cure. Nor is "less government", as Glennon states that every branch is reliant on specialists to help with increasingly complex reality.
Several friends have said this is common for them. I had no idea it was this bad.
A review of a number of recent articles, including:
...Overall, the authors find that the bottom 90 percent haven’t seen any increase in wealth since the mid-1980s after adjusting for inflation.
The unemployment rate for Americans ages 20 to 24 was 11.4 percent in September, more than two and a half times the 4.3 percent rate for 35- to 44-year-olds...
Police fired teargas at rock-throwing protesters after tens of thousands marched through Burkina Faso'scapital calling for President Blaise Compaore, already in power for 27 years, to scrap plans to change term limits to stay in power.
An early morning march on Tuesday through the heart of Ouagadougou was peaceful but clashes erupted later as protesters tried to advance towards the National Assembly.
Tuesday marked the start of a civil disobedience campaign by opposition parties after the government asked the National Assembly to order a referendum on changing the constitution to let Compaore seek re-election next year rather than step down.
There has never been a clear, universally accepted definition of "mass shooting."
But...
analysis of the data shows that from 1982 to 2011, mass shootings occurred every 200 days on average. Since late 2011, they found, mass shootings have occurred at triple that rate—every 64 days on average.
The article also briefly gets into the academic debate.
A good list explaining why that's effectively nonsense.