Ghana is a good kid in a really bad neighborhood. Its West African neighbors, from Liberia to Sierra Leone to the Ivory Coast, have bred so much fighting in the last 10 years that they make Ghana seem like Iowa.

From today's New York Times editorial page, "A Fragile Success in Africa:"
Ghana does not have insurgents running around its hinterlands dressed in wedding gowns and wigs (like Liberia and Sierra Leone) or 8-year-old rebel soldiers toting machine guns (Liberia, Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast).

Somewhere to the east of the African realizations of conversative (gay marriage) and liberal (absence of gun control) fears of what America will become lies Ghana, the country of my ancestors, slowly but steadily becoming more integrated with the developed world, even to the point of regressive Western copyrights.