Egypt's Spring Revolution (2011-2013)

[Pete]

The slang word "boondocks" meaning jungle or out in the country comes from a Philippine Tagalog dialect word for mountain. It apparently entered the American vocabulary when we were civilizing with Krag rifles.

[Dayuhan]

The slang word "boondocks" meaning jungle or out in the country comes from a Philippine Tagalog dialect word for mountain. It apparently entered the American vocabulary when we were civilizing with Krag rifles.

Yes, "boondocks" comes from the Tagalog (it's a language, not a dialect) bundok, meaning mountain or highlands.

A portion and a half of greasy adobo to whoever knows the other Tagalog word adopted into English during the "civilize 'em with a Krag" days... (there's only one other that I know of, and if someone has a third I'm seriously impressed).

[Cole]

Yes, "boondocks" comes from the Tagalog (it's a language, not a dialect) bundok, meaning mountain or highlands.

A portion and a half of greasy adobo to whoever knows the other Tagalog word adopted into English during the "civilize 'em with a Krag" days... (there's only one other that I know of, and if someone has a third I'm seriously impressed).

My bet is bolo. Google was my friend.

Also liked the more modern slang terms CIA (certified Imelda admirer) and "forgets" for old person. I resemble that latter term...but at least at nearly 56 I can still chest press and fly 255 a dozen times and elliptical for half an hour at resistance level 13.

I know, you're not impressed. You just go out and climb a boondocks

My 47 year old bro did that recently climbing Mt Whitney (14.505') with his wife!

[Dayuhan]

Ever hear the old joke about two men coming upon a Grizzly bear and the one says, "Run," and takes off to which the other says "you can't outrun a bear." The first replies, "That maybe true but I only gotta out run you." In this case Iran is the bear. Wouldn't you prefer both the U.S. and Israel to have a better hunting rifle and Israel to be the first target of the bear?

Second analogy: If your ship is sinking in water that will cause hypothermia and death in 10 minutes and a rescue ship (election) is 15 minutes away and you have nothing resembling a life raft now, do you jump now?

And you certainly don't need someone from the rescue ship telling you over the radio to jump now...or your young sailors who have no clue what hypothermia (or running a country) involves.

I don't see a bear on the horizon, and our ship isn't sinking. Mubarak's is, but it doesn't have to be ours, in fact it had better not be ours, because it's already below the surface and I don't see it coming back up. Our wise rats need to hop off his ship and back onto ours, where they belong. The elections may be coming and they may be a rescue, but the choice of waiting or not ain't ours to make. Let the crowd toss Mubarak, let a caretaker handle the intervening time, the rescue arrives anyway. Last thing we want to do is be seen trying to keep him in power.

First necessary realization: Mubarak is done. The US couldn't resurrect him if we tried, and trying would just be hitching ourselves to a fallen star. There's no debate over whether to try to keep Mubarak in power; we cannot reanimate a corpse. The only reasonable debate is over whether and to what extent we can or should try to influence the transition.

Second necessary realization: a post-Mubarak Egypt does not have to be an Islamist nightmare or an Iranian clone. Of course the Israelis, and a few others, will wave that threat at us in an effort to persuade us to try to shape the new Egypt to their liking, but that would be an effort well worth resisting. I think the Islamists will miss Mubarak more than we do, and that we'll discover that the notion of Mubarak as the last bulwark against Egyptian Islamic radicalism is as completely invalid as the notion of Marcos as the last bulwark against Philippine Communism was.

Mubarak is history, and history is a one way street. We need to deal with it and deal with what comes after. It will be complicated, but it always is. He wasn't ever gonna last forever.

And on the aside...

My bet is bolo. Google was my friend.

Never really though "bolo" got adopted into English. The word is "cooties", from the Tagalog "kuto", for head lice.

Also liked the more modern slang terms CIA (certified Imelda admirer) and "forgets" for old person.

Did anyone ever admire Imelda, other than Fabian Ver? A joke from the old days...

The Marcos family were in their jet flying back from the US. They flew over a barangay, and little Irene looked down and saw the poor people, and ran to her father and said" "Tatay, I want to make a thousand Filipinos happy, can I have 100,000 pesos?". So Ferdinand pulled 100,000 out of his pocket, the plane flew over the barangay, they threw the money out and everyone was happy.

Then they flew over a poblacion, and little Imee looked down and saw the poor people, and ran to her father and said" "Tatay, I want to make ten thousand Filipinos happy, can I have a million pesos?". So Ferdinand pulled a million out of his suitcase, the plane flew over the poblacion, they threw the money out and everyone was happy.

Then they came to Manila, and little Bongbong looked down and saw the poor people, and ran to his father and said" "Tatay, I want to make 15 million Filipinos happy, can I have a billion pesos?"

Ferdinand thought about that for a moment and replied...

"Just fetch your mother."


I'm sure there are some great Mubarak jokes flying around Cairo right now; somebody should collect them.

And yeah, I mostly just run around the bundoks. We use what we've got, and I'm in the middle of them...