Elephant in the living room
Laura F Spira
----------------------------------------------------------------------
The elephant in the living room of course is that all
professional service agencies, have always taken away
general lessons and background knowledge from engagements,
allowing them to enter the business as competitors later.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
What does "elephant in the living room" mean? I have never come across
this expression before.
--
Laura
(emulate St. George for email)
AWILLIS957
>What does "elephant in the living room" mean? I have never come across
>this expression before.
>
>--
>Laura
>(emulate St. George for email)
I haven't heard the expression before either, but it seems reasonably clear,
from the context, what it means. It means that you teach people things that
they will eventually use to become your competitor.
MY guess is that this is based on an African proverb. I know a similar one that
goes like this: If you bring a rotten log into your house you can expect
termites.
Albert Peasemarch.
Laura F Spira
[snippage reinstated to provide context]
From a post in another ng:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
The elephant in the living room of course is that all
professional service agencies, have always taken away
general lessons and background knowledge from engagements,
allowing them to enter the business as competitors later.
>
> >
> >What does "elephant in the living room" mean? I have never come across
> >this expression before.
> >
> >--
> >Laura
> >(emulate St. George for email)
>
> I haven't heard the expression before either, but it seems reasonably clear,
> from the context, what it means. It means that you teach people things that
> they will eventually use to become your competitor.
I understand the quoted paragraph, I don't understand the metaphor. If
you have an elephant in your living room, you may be short of space,
incredibly inconvenienced or demonstrating a misunderstanding of animal
care: I cannot see the relevance to the idea expressed in the quoted
passage.
>
> MY guess is that this is based on an African proverb. I know a similar one that
> goes like this: If you bring a rotten log into your house you can expect
> termites.
And if you bring an elephant into your living room you can expect...?
Frances Kemmish
I haven't heard the expression before, either, but I would guess
that it refers to something that was too obvious to ignore.
Laura F Spira
But, in the quote, the "something" *has* been ignored - or at least not
acknowledged.
Garry J. Vass
news:3CE92C8D...@DRAGONspira.u-net.com...
>
> What does "elephant in the living room" mean? I have never come across
> this expression before.
>
The so-called dictionary word for this sort of thing is called "tacenda".
It is etymologically related to "tacet".
OED...
Things to be passed over in silence; matters not to be mentioned.
1843 Carlyle Past & Pr. ii. x. 125 Willelmus Sacrista, and his bibations
and tacenda are+softly yet irrevocably put an end to. 1870 S. H. Hodgson
Theory of Practice I. ii. 217 A greater number of things are classed among
tacenda.+ The French term pudeur seems exactly to express the feeling which
is called out painfully or wounded by an lifting of the veil of the tacenda.
1883 Blackw. Mag. Feb. 274 Topics+regarded as tacenda by society
Kind regards,
GJV
Donna Richoux
> AWILLIS957 wrote:
>
> [snippage reinstated to provide context]
>
> From a post in another ng:
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> The elephant in the living room of course is that all
> professional service agencies, have always taken away
> general lessons and background knowledge from engagements,
> allowing them to enter the business as competitors later.
>
>
> >
> > >
> > >What does "elephant in the living room" mean? I have never come across
> > >this expression before.
> > >
> > >--
> > >Laura
> > >(emulate St. George for email)
> >
> > I haven't heard the expression before either, but it seems reasonably clear,
> > from the context, what it means. It means that you teach people things that
> > they will eventually use to become your competitor.
>
> I understand the quoted paragraph, I don't understand the metaphor. If
> you have an elephant in your living room, you may be short of space,
> incredibly inconvenienced or demonstrating a misunderstanding of animal
> care: I cannot see the relevance to the idea expressed in the quoted
> passage.
>
Usually I see the phrase explained. Now it appears to be around for just
long enough that it doesn't require explanation. Here some definitions
obtained by Googling on "elephant in the living room":
The elephant in the living room. How do you hide an elephant in
your living room? You can't hide it. So, you pretend it's not
there.
It's sort of like an elephant in the living room; everybody knows
it's there, but nobody talks about it.
The elephant in the living room is a symbol of something no one
seems to notice it, or want to talk about it, and yet they are
always working their way around it.
Pardon me, but do you see the elephant in the living room? It's
standing there in the middle of the carpet, and nobody wants to
talk about it. We all just tiptoe around it, year after year,
pretending it's not there, hoping it will go away.
It seems to be used in all walks of life, but particularly in those
fighting addiction in self-help groups, where catchphrases and buzzwords
spread very quickly. Often Mom or Dad has a drinking problem, but nobody
in the family wants to admit it, so they tiptoe around this
elephant-problem.
It sounds to me like there may have been some old joke or cartoon with
this idea in it, but I don't know if it could be tracked down. Maybe it
was just one writer's or speaker's analogy.
--
Best -- Donna Richoux
Rich Ulrich
- something about, the reality that nobody discusses,
even though it is huge, inconvenient, perhaps obnoxious
and unavoidable (like an elephant in the living room).
Maybe it was the tag to a joke. Maybe it is misquoted, too?
Here's what comes to my mind.
R.A. Lafferty (sci-fi-genre writer who died not long ago)
had one of his paranoid characters refer to an elephant.
Here is how I recall the scene, possibly in "Fourth Mansions".
The cops are grilling an anti-establishment guy, and
musing, "How come you crazy people so often dream
up the same crazy stories?"
"Well, It's as if: one person looks out the window, and says,
gee, there's an elephant walking down the street. Later,
someone else looks out a own window, and -- entirely
independent of the first fellow -- sees the same elephant.
And he happens to mention it. If you'd look, too, you would
see it, too. So, there's nothing crazy about that."
--
Rich Ulrich, wpi...@pitt.edu
http://www.pitt.edu/~wpilib/index.html
Schainbaum, Robert
"Garry J. Vass" wrote:
>
> "Laura F Spira" <la...@DRAGONspira.u-net.com> wrote in message
> news:3CE92C8D...@DRAGONspira.u-net.com...
> >
> > What does "elephant in the living room" mean? I have never come across
> > this expression before.
> >
>
> The so-called dictionary word for this sort of thing is called "tacenda".
> It is etymologically related to "tacet".
No, it's just straight Latin. Like agenda. Not etymologically related,
taken-straight-from.
Ben Zimmer
Donna Richoux wrote:
>
> Laura F Spira <la...@DRAGONspira.u-net.com> wrote:
>
> > AWILLIS957 wrote:
> >
> > [snippage reinstated to provide context]
> >
> > From a post in another ng:
> >
> > ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> > The elephant in the living room of course is that all
> > professional service agencies, have always taken away
> > general lessons and background knowledge from engagements,
> > allowing them to enter the business as competitors later.
> >
> >
> > >
> > > >
> > > >What does "elephant in the living room" mean? I have never come across
> > > >this expression before.
[snip]
> It seems to be used in all walks of life, but particularly in those
> fighting addiction in self-help groups, where catchphrases and buzzwords
> spread very quickly. Often Mom or Dad has a drinking problem, but nobody
> in the family wants to admit it, so they tiptoe around this
> elephant-problem.
>
> It sounds to me like there may have been some old joke or cartoon with
> this idea in it, but I don't know if it could be tracked down. Maybe it
> was just one writer's or speaker's analogy.
It looks like the expression got popularized in self-help circles by a
children's book called "An Elephant in the Living Room," by M.H. Typpo
and J.M. Hastings (Compcare Publications, 1984), which was designed to
help children cope with alcoholic parents. But the expression predates
that book. The Proquest database has the following quote from a 1959 New
York Times article about taxes for Long Island schools: "Financing
schools has become a problem about equal to having an elephant in the
living room. It's so big you just can't ignore it."
Typpo and Hastings' book may have been inspired by (plagiarized from?)
an earlier children's book, "Beasts and Nonsense", by Marie Hall Ets
(Viking Press, 1952), which also features an elephant in a child's
living room.
--Ben
Tony Cooper
message
> ----------------------------------------------------------
------------
> The elephant in the living room of course is that all
> professional service agencies, have always taken away
> general lessons and background knowledge from engagements,
> allowing them to enter the business as competitors later.
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------
------------
>
> What does "elephant in the living room" mean? I have never
come across
> this expression before.
It's not an expression I use, but I've seen it. It simply
means something so obvious that you can't miss it. The rest
of the para is rather difficult to follow. Whenever a
clause is commaed off, you should be able to take the phrase
away and still make sense of the sentence. Not here,
though.
--
Tony Cooper aka: Tony_Co...@Yahoo.com
Provider of Jots & Tittles
Harvey V
wrote:
-snip-
>> What does "elephant in the living room" mean? I have never
> come across
>> this expression before.
>
> It's not an expression I use, but I've seen it. It simply
> means something so obvious that you can't miss it.
I think there's the nuance, as well, that whilst one can't miss it,
everyone pretends not to see it and it remains unmentioned.
--
Cheers,
Harvey
AWILLIS957
>From: tr...@euronet.nl (Donna Richoux)
> The elephant in the living room. How do you hide an elephant in
> your living room? You can't hide it. So, you pretend it's not
> there.
The more I read of this thread, the more I like this image. It strikes me as
very useful. I will not use it in writing, because it is not well known
enough, but I can see myself tossing it into a conversation. I won't be able to
help myself.
There's been a fuss recently about a scientific discovery that all fried or
baked food contains a nasty cancer-causing agent. I can't remember the name of
it, but it begins with "a", like most horrible things. If the finding is
accurate, it is appalling, because most of us have been eating fried and baked
food all our lives. I wonder if that is an example of an elephant in the living
room? Surely we knew itt, really, deep down? The monkeys never cooked or baked
a thing, after all. The revelation makes all those weird, fussy nutritional
theories about oxidization and free free radicals seem slightly beside the
point.
Peasemarch.
Apologies for the larger-than-usual quantity of ignorance I have aired in this
post.
Mike Oliver
> There's been a fuss recently about a scientific discovery that all fried or
> baked food contains a nasty cancer-causing agent. I can't remember the name of
> it, but it begins with "a",
Acrylamide. This *should* be pronounced / ,&k r@l '&m Id /, but my
money on how the public (even doctors) will pronounce it is / @ 'krIl @ ,maId /.
If I remember right, acrylic acid is H2C=CH-COOH so acrylamide should be
H2C=CH-CONH2.
> like most horrible things. If the finding is
> accurate, it is appalling, because most of us have been eating fried and baked
> food all our lives.
I am given to understand that the quantities are so small that you have
a lot more to worry about from the general friedness of fried food than
you do from acrylamide.
Risk needs to be approached as a quantitative thing.
Skitt
I wonder about how many people are done in by the stress of worrying about
the possibility of not being able to avoid cancer.
--
Skitt (in SF Bay Area) http://www.geocities.com/opus731/
I speak English well -- I learn it from a book!
-- Manuel (Fawlty Towers)
AlbertPeasemarch
If the finding is
> > accurate, it is appalling, because most of us have been eating fried and baked
> > food all our lives.
>
> I am given to understand that the quantities are so small that you have
> a lot more to worry about from the general friedness of fried food than
> you do from acrylamide.
>
> Risk needs to be approached as a quantitative thing.
Exactly. I don't suppose the scare stories are accurate at all. But my
point is that if they are, then fried and cooked food could be
considered the elephant in the living room (in the kitchen, anyway).
If it were shown that all baked or fried food is bad for you,
regardless of quantity, then nutritional theory would have to do a
somersault. (OK, we already know fried food is bad for us, but this
theory goes further than "use olive oil".) And we'd all be saying,
"Why didn't we see this before? It's so obvious. Monkeys never fried
or baked a single sausage, so we have been going against nature all
these years. No wonder we all get cancer." Then we'd all live twenty
years longer, our organs would become robust as cricket balls, and our
pension payments would quadruple. I might even stand a chance of
finishing reading "Don Quixote".
Albert Peasemarch.
Steve Hayes
>I wonder about how many people are done in by the stress of worrying about
>the possibility of not being able to avoid cancer.
I should imagine that it's a lot less than the stress of wondering how to get
an elephant out of your living room.
--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7734/steve.htm
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk
Geoff Butler
Footprints in the butter? Or is that the kitchen?
-ler
Ben Zimmer
googling...
elephant in the living room: 3120
elephant in the kitchen: 30
elephant in the room: 2450
elephant in the bedroom: 336
elephant in the parlor: 58
elephant in the house: 49
elephant in the courtroom: 42
elephant in the jury room: 21
elephant in the sitting room: 14
That elephant sure gets around...
--Ben
GrapeApe
>
>elephant in the living room: 3120
>elephant in the kitchen: 30
>
>elephant in the room: 2450
>elephant in the bedroom: 336
>elephant in the parlor: 58
>elephant in the house: 49
>elephant in the courtroom: 42
>elephant in the jury room: 21
>elephant in the sitting room: 14
>
>That elephant sure gets around...
There's one in my pajamas.
Simon R. Hughes
Boasting again.
--
Simon R. Hughes
<!-- signature-challenged -->
Lizedit
> What does "elephant in the living room" mean? I have never come across
> this expression before.
I'm almost positive that this expression originated in a short story
written in the early 20th or late 19th century. For the life of me, I
can't remember the author or the title of the story, but I do remember
reading it in an English class in high school. The entire story was
about how everyone in a house was ignoring an elephant in the living
room. No one knew why it was there or where it had come from, and no
one bothered to ask. Instead of dealing with the "problem," they just
ignored it, and they were forced to squeeze past the elephant to get
into or out of the room. I think the author was trying to make the
point that no matter how hard you try to ignore a large problem, it
isn't going to go away!
The story was very absurd, in a very eery way. If the title or the
name of the author comes to me, I'll let you know!
Liz
Kai Henningsen
From what I remember, frying or baking wasn't the cause, bad stuff in
ingredients was. (And producers being rather clueless about where it had
come from, as nobody had botherd even looking befoire recently.)#
The current hope seems to be to identify where it comes from, then find
something to do about that.
Kai
--
http://www.westfalen.de/private/khms/
"... by God I *KNOW* what this network is for, and you can't have it."
- Russ Allbery (r...@stanford.edu)
AlbertPeasemarch
> an earlier children's book, "Beasts and Nonsense", by Marie Hall Ets
> (Viking Press, 1952), which also features an elephant in a child's
> living room.
>
> --Ben
I found this on a website, where it was being used as a metaphor for
American involvement in the Philippines. (I might say that I don't
endorse the sentiment. Abu Sayyaf are the second most dangerous Muslim
terrorist group in the world after Al Quaida, in my opinion.)
"ONE of my children's favorite storybooks was "But No Elephants!" It
tells the story of an old woman holed up in her tiny house one winter
who's visited by a persistent pet salesman. The roads are getting
buried under deep piles of snow, but he still has a car-full of pets
to sell, the salesman begs the old lady. Reluctantly, she agrees to
take the canary, but warns him: "But no elephants!"
The next day, the salesman shows up again, offering a cat. In quick
succession the old woman ends up taking a dog, a goldfish and a duck,
warning the salesman each time: "But no elephants!"
The winter has deepened and still the salesman has yet to dispose of
the elephant. One night, he deposits the elephant in the old woman's
front yard. When she gets up the next morning, the old woman finds the
big gray creature parked on her front lawn. She plays deaf to the
elephant's entreaties, and tries to ignore his vigorous shivering as
flurries bury him in snow up to his ears.
Feeling sorry for their friend, the other animals plead on the
elephant's behalf, and reluctantly, the old woman allows the behemoth
to poke his head through the front door. But this still isn't enough,
and the next day and the next, the elephant is allowed to thrust first
two legs, then the other two legs into the warm house.
Alas, an elephant in the living room is too much for the little house
to bear. The old woman discovers that by accommodating the elephant
into her home, she and the other animals have lost their only
protection against the winter cold."
Albert Peasemarch.
Pan
(AlbertPeasemarch) wrote:
>I found this on a website, where it was being used as a metaphor for
>American involvement in the Philippines. (I might say that I don't
>endorse the sentiment. Abu Sayyaf are the second most dangerous Muslim
>terrorist group in the world after Al Quaida, in my opinion.)
[snip]
I can't agree. They're basically nothing but a bunch of bandits who
pretend to be fighting for religious reasons. Most Malaysians agree on
this.
Michael
To reply by email, please take out the TRASH (so to speak). Personal messages only, please!
AlbertPeasemarch
> On 25 May 2002 14:53:59 -0700, willis...@yahoo.co.uk
> (AlbertPeasemarch) wrote:
>
> >I found this on a website, where it was being used as a metaphor for
> >American involvement in the Philippines. (I might say that I don't
> >endorse the sentiment. Abu Sayyaf are the second most dangerous Muslim
> >terrorist group in the world after Al Quaida, in my opinion.)
> [snip]
>
> I can't agree. They're basically nothing but a bunch of bandits who
> pretend to be fighting for religious reasons. Most Malaysians agree on
> this.
Why do you think the Americans have gone in there so seriously, if
that is the case?
Why did Ramzi Yousef, convicted ringleader of the 1993 attempt to blow
up the World Trade Centre, plot an attempt to blow up eleven jumbo
jets en route to the U.S. in Manila?
Why did one of the men convicted of the 1998 U.S. embassy bombing in
Kenya, Mohammed Saddiq Odeh, train in the Philippines?
Why did Osama Bin Laden's brother-in-law, Mohammed Jalal Khalifa, help
run the International Islamic Relief Organization at Al Makdum
University, passing on millions of pounds from Al Quaida to Abu
Sayyaf?
Why did the deceased leader of Abu Sayyaf, Abdujarak Abdubakar
Janjalani, fight with the Mujahideen in Afghanistan?
Why did Abu Sayyaf choose Libya as mediator after kidnapping twelve
hostages?
Why is it suicidal for Westerners to travel in the Southern
Philippines without armed guards?
If you don't agree with me about this group, all I can say, very
sadly, is "wait and see".
Albert Peasemarch.
Pan
(AlbertPeasemarch) wrote:
>panNO...@musician.org (Pan) wrote in message news:<3cf01a6c...@news.erols.com>...
>> On 25 May 2002 14:53:59 -0700, willis...@yahoo.co.uk
>> (AlbertPeasemarch) wrote:
>>
>> >I found this on a website, where it was being used as a metaphor for
>> >American involvement in the Philippines. (I might say that I don't
>> >endorse the sentiment. Abu Sayyaf are the second most dangerous Muslim
>> >terrorist group in the world after Al Quaida, in my opinion.)
>> [snip]
>>
>> I can't agree. They're basically nothing but a bunch of bandits who
>> pretend to be fighting for religious reasons. Most Malaysians agree on
>> this.
>
>Why do you think the Americans have gone in there so seriously, if
>that is the case?
I think they may be finding a good excuse to project power, which may
or may not be a good thing.
>Why did Ramzi Yousef, convicted ringleader of the 1993 attempt to blow
>up the World Trade Centre, plot an attempt to blow up eleven jumbo
>jets en route to the U.S. in Manila?
What does that have to do with the Abu Sayyaf bandits in Basilan?
Ramzi Yousef was a relatively major Al Qaeda leader.
>Why did one of the men convicted of the 1998 U.S. embassy bombing in
>Kenya, Mohammed Saddiq Odeh, train in the Philippines?
The Philippines has many islands. Where did he train, and who trained
him?
>Why did Osama Bin Laden's brother-in-law, Mohammed Jalal Khalifa, help
>run the International Islamic Relief Organization at Al Makdum
>University, passing on millions of pounds from Al Quaida to Abu
>Sayyaf?
The best estimates I've seen are that the group was _formerly_
affiliated with Al Qaida.
>Why did the deceased leader of Abu Sayyaf, Abdujarak Abdubakar
>Janjalani, fight with the Mujahideen in Afghanistan?
That proves nothing.
>Why did Abu Sayyaf choose Libya as mediator after kidnapping twelve
>hostages?
That proves nothing. Also, consider that Libya had successfully
mediated between the Philippine government and the MILF. Well, at
least that mediation was successfuly until Nur Misuari decided to
fight again earlier this year or late last year (I forgot when),
whereupon he escaped to Malaysia, was extradited, and is currently in
a Philippine jail.
>Why is it suicidal for Westerners to travel in the Southern
>Philippines without armed guards?
Because of the bandits!
>If you don't agree with me about this group, all I can say, very
>sadly, is "wait and see".
They are in Basilan, and they are very unlikely to do much more than
continue to kidnap people in that general area and make life generally
difficult for people in that area. They are a very nasty bunch of
bandits, but the really dangerous groups in the area are in Indonesia.
That's my opinion based on a good deal of reading and talking with
Malaysians.
AWILLIS957
>>If you don't agree with me about this group, all I can say, very
>>sadly, is "wait and see".
>
>They are in Basilan, and they are very unlikely to do much more than
>continue to kidnap people in that general area and make life generally
>difficult for people in that area. They are a very nasty bunch of
>bandits, but the really dangerous groups in the area are in Indonesia.
>That's my opinion based on a good deal of reading and talking with
>Malaysians.
>
>Michael
Don't you think that talking with Malaysians is a rather poor source for a
realistic assessment? The Southern Philippines Muslims who seek independence
from The Philippines are ethnically linked to the Malaysians.
I too have read a good deal about this subject - and I have a friend from Jolo
- so we will just have to agree to differ.
But Abu Sayyaf have a larger reach than Basilan. I don't know what you mean by
"that area", but Abu Sayyaf have free range over most of the Southern
Philippines, and they move hostages easily from island to island. In the case
of Martin and Gracia Burnham, for example, look how far Palawan is from
Basilan. And the twelve hostages were actually moved from a Malaysian island to
Jolo. Abu Sayyaf are supported by 93% of the population of Jolo, and they are
seen as more than bandits there. And please don't assume that Abu Sayyaf's
activities are restricted to the Southern Philippines, either. Even in the
North they are active, and there are Muslim areas of Manila where they can move
freely. It was from the Muslim enclaves of Manila that Ramzi Yousef planned to
blow up the jumbo jets.
Albert Peasemarch.
Mike Oliver
> Exactly. I don't suppose the scare stories are accurate at all. But my
> point is that if they are, then fried and cooked food could be
> considered the elephant in the living room (in the kitchen, anyway).
> If it were shown that all baked or fried food is bad for you,
> regardless of quantity, then nutritional theory would have to do a
> somersault. (OK, we already know fried food is bad for us, but this
> theory goes further than "use olive oil".) And we'd all be saying,
> "Why didn't we see this before? It's so obvious. Monkeys never fried
> or baked a single sausage, so we have been going against nature all
> these years. No wonder we all get cancer."
I think that's fantasy. We live a lot longer than monkeys, and monkeys
would live a lot longer than they do if we did the sort of "against
nature" things to them, to keep them alive, that we do to ourselves.
It's certainly true that we don't know in advance the ramifications
of all our choices. Who ever did? But we learn, and we adjust,
and the sum of it all is that we live much better through chemistry
than we would without explicitly understanding and manipulating
it.
Pan
>Don't you think that talking with Malaysians is a rather poor source for a
>realistic assessment?
No.
> The Southern Philippines Muslims who seek independence
>from The Philippines are ethnically linked to the Malaysians.
The are Malays. Many Malaysians are not Malays.
>I too have read a good deal about this subject - and I have a friend from Jolo
>- so we will just have to agree to differ.
OK. I would likely give some deference to what someone in Jolo has to
say about this.
>But Abu Sayyaf have a larger reach than Basilan. I don't know what you mean by
>"that area", but Abu Sayyaf have free range over most of the Southern
>Philippines, and they move hostages easily from island to island.
Right.
> In the case
>of Martin and Gracia Burnham, for example, look how far Palawan is from
>Basilan. And the twelve hostages were actually moved from a Malaysian island to
>Jolo.
I know all about that.
> Abu Sayyaf are supported by 93% of the population of Jolo,
How do you know that? Anyway, what does that prove? The Camorra and
Mafia have probably been popular at various times, but that doesn't
make those organizations more than organized crime syndicates.
> and they are
>seen as more than bandits there. And please don't assume that Abu Sayyaf's
>activities are restricted to the Southern Philippines, either. Even in the
>North they are active,
How?
> and there are Muslim areas of Manila where they can move
>freely. It was from the Muslim enclaves of Manila that Ramzi Yousef planned to
>blow up the jumbo jets.
I'm not convinced that there's a relationship between that
kidnap-for-ransom gang and plots to blow up jumbo jets.
The Abu Sayyaf are evil bandits and should be stamped out. At least we
agree on that.
AlbertPeasemarch
> I'm not convinced that there's a relationship between that
> kidnap-for-ransom gang and plots to blow up jumbo jets.
Ramzi Yousef planned to use Abu Sayyaf operatives to do it. Check it
out.
I hope you are right in thinking that Abu Sayyaf will amount to
nothing on the world stage. But I believe that will be because the
Philippines Government and the Americans are taking them seriously. It
my opinion, it would be foolish not to.
Peasemarch.
Pan
(AlbertPeasemarch) wrote:
>panNO...@musician.org (Pan) wrote in message
>
>> I'm not convinced that there's a relationship between that
>> kidnap-for-ransom gang and plots to blow up jumbo jets.
>
>Ramzi Yousef planned to use Abu Sayyaf operatives to do it. Check it
>out.
I have never seen any reference to Abu Sayyaf people doing suicide
bombings of jumbo jets, and that doesn't seem to be their M.O. They
prefer to stay alive and make money off ransoms, "taxes," and assorted
criminal activity. However, it sounds like you could be privy to
information I know nothing about.
>I hope you are right in thinking that Abu Sayyaf will amount to
>nothing on the world stage. But I believe that will be because the
>Philippines Government and the Americans are taking them seriously. It
>my opinion, it would be foolish not to.
It's bad, in any case, to let bandits control parts of a country.
AlbertPeasemarch
> I have never seen any reference to Abu Sayyaf people doing suicide
> bombings of jumbo jets, and that doesn't seem to be their M.O. They
> prefer to stay alive and make money off ransoms, "taxes," and assorted
> criminal activity. However, it sounds like you could be privy to
> information I know nothing about.
Philippine Airline Explosion Kills One
Saturday, December 10, 1994
(Reuters) - An apparent mid-air explosion on a Philippine Airlines
jumbo jet on Sunday killed one person and injured five, forcing the
plane to make an emergency landing in Okinawa. The Boeing 747-200 was
carrying 273 passengers and 20 crew on Flight 434 from Manila to Tokyo
via Cebu when the apparent explosion happened.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Abu Sayyaf Claims PAL Bombing
Saturday, December 10, 1994
(Reuters) - A man claiming to represent a Philippine Moslem rebel
group said it was responsible for the bombing of a Philippine Airlines
(PAL) plane on a flight to Japan on Sunday that killed one person. "We
are Abu Sayyaf Group. We explode one plane from Cebu," the man said in
broken English in a telephone call.
Pan
(AlbertPeasemarch) wrote:
Well, you made your point.
So why haven't they done anything of that nature for 8 years or so?